South Carolina’s coastal agency has fined a Charleston County couple $289,000 for what officials say is the illegal construction of a seawall and other work on the beach at the Isle of Palms, where storms and rising ocean levels are threatening homes.

But the fine, one of the largest levied by South Carolina’s coastal department in its nearly 50-year history, isn’t sitting well with Rom and Renee Reddy, who bought their house on the island 10 years ago.

Rom Reddy says the state is targeting them, likening its efforts to those of the gestapo, the brutal Nazi police force of the 1940s. He says the coastal department has failed to maintain the beach and the agency has tried to keep him from conducting work to shield his property from the ocean.