At a Glance

The mayor of Tangier Island, Virginia, says President Donald Trump called him on Monday.Trump reassured the mayor, saying the island will be around for hundreds of years to come.Scientists predict the island could become uninhabitable within 50 years due to rising seas.

President Donald Trump offered words of encouragement Monday to the mayor of Virginia's sinking Tangier Island, saying residents do not need to worry about rising seas.

After he appeared on totalk about his home and the risk his community faces in light of climate-induced sea rise,Tangier Island Mayor James "Ooker" Eskridge told the Daily Times that the island "has been here for hundreds of years, and will be here for hundreds more."

"It was unreal," Eskridge told the newspaper."He called around 2 o'clock this afternoon."

(MORE:)

A staunch supporter of Trump, Eskridge said the president told him he saw the CNN report,during which the mayor said he loved Trump like a memberof his own familyand felt compelled to "talk to that guy."

Tangier Island, with a population of about 700, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It isuniquebecause residents continueto have the linguistic traces of the Elizabethan English that came with its 17th-century settlers, according to the Associated Press.

Despite Trump's reassurances, the because of erosion and rising sea levels, scientists say.

A 2015 report published in Scientific Reportssaid.The island is only three miles long and a mile wide, and because of its low-lying position, it is particularly vulnerable to climate change and subsidence — the gradual sinking of the Chesapeake Bay.

Satellite images of Tangier Island, captured in 1972 and 2015.

(NASA)

"I think it'll be less than 50 years," Carol Pruitt-Moore, a seventh-generation resident, told the AP in December 2015. "We are one storm away from being washed away or being forced to evacuate."

David Schulte, an author of the 2015 report, said at the time a "perfect storm" is swamping the island with a sea level increase that is almost double the global average rise of 3.5 millimeters per year.

"The islands are shrinking and unless corrective action is taken they will be lost. The whole island won't be underwater but it will turn into marshland," Schulte . "Tangier is only 1.2 meters (4 feet) above sea level now so a moderately severe sea level rise will put them in extreme jeopardy of storms and flooding."

MORE ON WEATHER.COM:Islands We're Losing to Sea Level Rise