As the ferry approaches Tangier, Captain Steven Thomas tells a well-rehearsed history of the island, where crabbing has shaped the culture.
He points out a handful of tiny buildings on stilts in the water.
"Those are all crab shanties," he says over the boat's loudspeaker. "That's where they shed the softshell crabs during the summer months."
Tangier Island — off the mainland coast of Virginia — is one of the last inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay. Before colonial settlers arrived in the 1700s, Indigenous people likely traveled to the island in the summer to take advantage of the abundant fish and crabs, according to the National Park Service. Many descendants of the original settlers — with surnames like Crockett, Parks and Thomas — have remained to this day. The isolation has allowed the development of a unique accent, one that some residents describe as a mix between "Southern" and "Elizabethan" English.
Since 1850, the island has lost two-thirds of its landmass to erosion and sea level rise. On average, the island sits just three feet above sea level. Meanwhile, water levels in the Bay are rising by at least a quarter of an inch each year.
The island could be almost entirely underwater in the next 50 years, according to experts like Dave Schulte, a climate change researcher and ecological restoration specialist who studied Tangier extensively. Schulte co-wrote defining reports on the island in 2015 and 2021 and formerly worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"Our predictions indicated that the island will need to be abandoned in roughly 25-30 years," Schulte told NPR.
Climate change is worsening the erosion of the island, contributing to both higher sea levels and more damaging storms.
"Erosion has always been an issue for all Chesapeake Bay islands, but sea level rise is accelerating the rate at which it's occurring. Then, you've got storms, which have always been an issue," Schulte said. "But again, due to climate change, they are becoming more frequent and intense, causing more damage."
On top of all this, the entire Chesapeake Bay region is "subsiding tectonically," according to Schulte.
In other words, it's sinking.
A way of life threatened
Many here still make a living on the water the way their ancestors did hundreds of years ago – by crabbing and fishing.
But Tangier's numbers are plummeting. The most recent census estimate puts the population at 240, a 30% decrease from 2022.
Rob Baechtel met NPR at the Tangier Island dock for a tour in his utility task vehicle. Because the island is so small, most residents get around on golfcarts, UTV's, bikes and mopeds, rather than cars.
Baechtel moved to Tangier with his wife 12 years ago. A former D.C. police officer, he is now one of the island's only EMT's. He also served as the previous fire chief.
The island, which has two churches, is dotted with crosses and Trump campaign signs.
Baechtel points to a strip of sand in the distance.
"That's our beach. It's a mile-and-a-half long and no one's ever on it. The locals don't go there," Baechtel says. "They're born on the water. They work on the water. They die on the water. They don't play here."
Across from a baseball field, students emerge from a long, white building.
"That's our school down there on the right," Baechtel says.
Tangier Combined School had 38 students in the 2024-2025 school year, with just one graduating senior, Lukas Thomas.
Thomas told NPR that he plans to keep living on Tangier, which makes him a bit of an anomaly among young people here.
"There's a lot of people who disappear from the island after they graduate, and I understand that," says Thomas, whose job on a tugboat may keep him away from the island for weeks at a time.
"We don't have a lot of young kids here anymore," Baechtel says. "Our median age is over 60. So it's problematic to get somebody to work on your house because everybody is in their 60s or older. That's an issue here on the island."
Efforts to save Tangier from the water
Schulte's alarming predictions caught global attention, leading to greater visibility for the small island, from both journalists and politicians.
President Trump even called Tangier Mayor James Eskridge after seeing a story about the island on CNN. Trump told Eskridge then not to worry about rising sea levels, that the island would be there for hundreds more years. In 2024, Trump got 88% of the vote on the island.
Still, though Tangier is less than 100 miles from Washington, D.C., Schulte said: "They haven't gotten any real help. You know, and it just amazes me that even after all this attention and the dire situation that they're in, they're just not getting the help that they need."
Any help the island has gotten has been slow, Schulte said.
A seawall was constructed on the island's west side in 1990. And a stone jetty, or breakwater, to protect the harbor was installed in 2020. But Schulte said both projects took decades to complete.
"They can't keep asking for help and wait 50 years for someone to save the island," Schulte said. "It doesn't have that much time."
In a statement, the White House said the Department of the Interior takes a "proactive approach to support Tangier" through the U.S. Geological Survey's monitoring of rising sea levels to inform management of the coast, and conservation efforts by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to sustain crabbing.
Schulte estimated that it would cost $250 to 350 million to fully protect and restore the island. That would include applying protective stone along vulnerable shorelines, retrofitting plumbing and electrical throughout the town and raising the system of one-lane roads for transportation.
"It's a lot of money for us, but to the government it's just pocket change," says Eskridge. "You want to talk about saving Tangier, I'm not just talking about a small piece of land. I'm talking about a culture, a way of life."
Like many on this island, Eskridge goes by a nickname: "Ooker."
"I used to have a pet rooster when I was maybe four years old or so. And people said I used to try to crow like the rooster did, and that's sort of how it came out. I'm not going to demonstrate it," Eskridge says.
Eskridge works as both mayor of the small town and as a crabber. He considers himself an ambassador for the island.
"People say, why don't you just move somewhere else? But it's home," Eskridge says. "We've been here for hundreds of years and we'd like to remain. And it's very doable."
Doable, Eskridge says, but still too big to tackle on their own.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia has helped secure funding for the island: $800,000 in 2024 and $10 million this year.
"So, $10 million may not do the whole job, but I think it's a huge message that the federal government is paying attention," Kaine says.
He hopes the money will be used to advance some of the resilience strategies like the construction of seawalls and the use of dredged material.
That approach is currently being used on nearby Poplar Island, Md. — an island which was also once on the verge of disappearing. An Army Corps of Engineers project to restore the uninhabited island and protect its vulnerable wildlife is underway and expected to be completed around 2040. The estimated cost of the project is $1.4 billion.
Hilary Harp Falk, president of the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is working with the town of Tangier to develop an adaptation plan, which could include a living shoreline of marsh grasses and oysters. A living shoreline would help to protect against erosion, while also offering benefits to the environment.
"We can look at strategies like the use of dredging materials or beneficial reuse of those materials on the island in order to protect it from those impacts of climate change," Harp Falk says.
Along with the marshes and ecosystems in Tangier, Harp Falk says that homes and a way of life are being lost.
"I think it's so important that we are in solidarity with coastal communities that are facing the worst impacts of climate change," she says. "We can learn from these places and build ideas and strategies for the future."
Editor's note: Dave Schulte, the climate change researcher featured prominently in this piece, died last month.
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