"Fla. Keys To Fight Rising Sea. 'The Water Is Getting Deeper'"

"Two years before Hurricane Irma made the Florida Keys a national symbol of climate risk, some residents of the nation's sun-drenched archipelago were already doing routine chores wearing hip-high waders.

A trip to the mailbox in the Twin Lakes section of Key Largo, for example, or a drive to the Winn-Dixie grocery store from the Sands neighborhood of Big Pine Key, required navigating seawater coursing down residential streets. Lawn care was less about watering plants than dewatering ditches and removing debris delivered by the last high tide.

Now Monroe County, which extends from Biscayne Bay south of Miami to Key West and encompasses much of the Everglades, is taking its first steps to counter sea-level rise by creating a multi-year program to elevate its lowest-lying and most vulnerable roads."

Daniel Cusick reports for ClimateWire February 27, 2018.