When a tsunami strikes a developed shoreline, the damage can be severe and instantaneous. When the sea level rises, the damage will also be severe but will occur slowly, over a period of years and decades. There are some other obvious differences. Sea level rise is not caused by earthquakes or volcanos and will not readily subside but will continue for decades and centuries, perhaps millennia. And unlike the relatively regionalized impact of tsunamis, sea level rise will impact all the world's ocean shorelines. To emphasize the threat to our coast, we we've chosen to describe sea level rise as a slow-motion tsunami. -Prologue

"Sea level rise is the defining issue of the century," declared a May 2018 editorial from Florida's Sun Sentinel newspaper. Ostensibly, the paper's editorial board was sounding the warning about the threat to South Florida, byt this declaration applies to nearly all coastal communities in the United States. - Flee the Sea: Climate Refugees, Section 1