By Sid Perkins
Swooping gulls, salty breezes, and waves gently kissing the shore—a week at the beach can generate lifelong memories.
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Especially if your beach house topples into the ocean. A study released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last week suggests that in the next 60 years, up to a quarter of the beach houses in the United States will be nothing but a memory. The inexorable forces of storm, surf, and slowly rising sea levels will claim about 1,500 structures a year, the researchers predict. Including the land under these structures, coastal erosion will cause annual property losses of about $530 million, according to the report.