Baltimore’s Venerable Buildings Imperiled by Increasing Seas

By Lauren Loricchio, Capital News Service

From fragile wooden houses in Fells Point, along the city’s oldest blocks, to Fort McHenry, which inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Baltimore’s waterfront historic places are at risk of being lost forever as sea levels rise and storm surges grow more powerful.

For a city founded because of the water—the Port of Baltimore was officially designated at Locust Point in 1706—much of its history rings the harbor. And though the state is cataloging Maryland’s treasures, neither the state nor City Hall has a plan to protect them.

Scientists say the bay rose 1 foot over the last century and is expected to rise another 2 to 5 feet in the decades ahead. In 2003, Tropical Storm Isabel swamped homes and businesses up and down the bay, including the cobblestone streets of Fells Point and houses that date to the 1700s.

The Maryland Historical Trust is taking inventory of historic sites around the state to see what is in danger. Yet the city doesn’t have a plan yet for protecting its history from storm damage.

“We haven’t done anything to address the next time a storm comes,” Eddie Leon, city planner for the Baltimore City Commission for Historical & Architectural Preservation, said. “We don’t have the manpower.”

Half of the nation’s communities are in coastal areas vulnerable to rising sea level and storms—and many of these areas contain historic buildings, monuments, and archaeological sites, said Rhonda Sincavage, associate director of government relations and policy at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“We know that a lot of municipalities are looking at this, but they’re not incorporating historic preservation into their plan,” she said.

In Baltimore, historic areas near the water are the most vulnerable.  Preservationists are particularly concerned about Fells Point, declared a national historic district in 1969.

“Some of the oldest houses in Baltimore are in the potential path of sea-level rise and storm surges,” said Johns Hopkins, executive director of Baltimore Heritage.

He is referring to the wooden houses that belonged to privateers in the War of 1812.  Today only eight remain in Fells Point, a maritime neighborhood established by William Fell, an English shipbuilder, in 1730.

“The collection of buildings is extraordinary,” Hopkins said.

The homes, shops, and restaurants that face the Fells Point waterfront are routinely flooded.

“The last couple of hurricanes that came through really hurt.  I don’t know how many times the area can withstand that,” Hopkins said.  “And if it gets worse, who knows what will happen.”

From Fells Point, visitors can look across the water toward Fort McHenry, where a fort has stood to protect the city and harbor since 1776.

“We did have 5 to 7 feet of flooding from Isabel,” Sierra Daniels, a park ranger, said of the 2003 tropical storm.

At the Fells Point Visitors Center, on Thames Street, across from the harbor, Ellen Von Karajan has developed her own preservation and evacuation plan for the next time floods threaten.

Von Karajan, director of the Fells Point Preservation Society, says she will pack up all the center’s artifacts, including ships’ logs from the 18th Century, and move them out of the building. Her organization relies on volunteers, so she doesn’t know how much help she’ll have.

She also is creating digital copies of historic documents located in the center, she said.

“If I’ve got it in two locations, at least there’s a possibility that it will survive,” Von Karajan said.

“I can only be here to try to do the work that we do for now and I try to protect it for the future,” Von Karajan said. “But I have to face the fact that I’m just one soul against something enormous called storm surges and tidal waves.”