This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1381482
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1381482
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I’ve read real estate trade mags wherein firms advise against cultivating developments within a couple miles of the current Florida shorelines. It’s likely the same for all shorelines in the nation save those with water lapping up against high cliffs or with land at high elevations before some sort of drop off to the ocean. Anyone living within a few hundred yards of any ocean or sea probably has max another generation of time before their home and land is uninhabitable.
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I remember reading reports after Harvey devastated Texas and Louisiana coasts that a number of the water-wrecked buildings were relatively new and built on land that had already been designated as “do not build” areas after precursors to Harvey, but the communities kept on issuing building permits and people kept on building.
Stupidity knows no bounds. Until there are real consequences of (e.g., “you build there, no FEMA funds when things go wrong” as well as large financial penalties against the communities allowing construction in those locations) idiots will continue to erect buildings.
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It’s one thing for multi-millionaires to lose their million dollar coastal homes. It’s another for the low income folks in New Orleans, Houston, etc., who have already been pushed into low lying areas, and have no other opportunities or resources to move to higher ground.
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It’s a start, but it’s not like there is unoccupied land to fall back on around the coasts.
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Just consider for a moment all of the money and effort expended by the liberal elite to push the Covid and Climate Change hoaxes on the American public. Soros and his stooges in Hollywood have spent billions hiring Antifa and BLM crisis actors to fill up hospitals and portable morgues. They’ve built thousands of sets around the country to look like flooded towns. Just imagine if you gave all that money to a real businessman - Mike Lindell comes to mind - to create real jobs for real people like you and me.
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Is there a place I can send my bank account details? As a patriot, I could certainly use that grant money.
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How do these folks get their homes insured? I assume Federal flood insurance has to be the answer, because it’s hard to imagine private insurers being willing to take on the risk of a property that is subject to chronic flooding. But I never see any discussion of its role in situations like this.
If a homeowner is subject to periodic flood damage and can’t get insurance, then the value of his property will drop to near zero, because who’s going to buy such a property? And after a while, most owners will abandon a worthless property that can’t be maintained due to floods, and there’s your solution.
But I never see the insurance aspect discussed. Something must be propping up the value of coastal properties like this, and if it isn’t Federal flood insurance, what is it?
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NYT had an article on just this topic Saturday; an excerpt:
After massive claims from Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Michael in 2018, insurance companies have been losing money for years, and those losses were growing. Many insurers started dropping customers in high-risk areas, and refusing to take on new ones. In some parts of [Florida], it has become all but impossible for homeowners to buy private insurance. 
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Also, “And it is not just private insurers: In April, the federal government outlined changes to the heavily indebted National Flood Insurance Program that will eventually cause some people’s premiums to rise fivefold or more.”
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Western WA coastal tribes are aware of sealevel risks and taking various steps to move up
Quileute Tribe land swap
Congress OKs Quileute Tribe’s Move To Higher Ground https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=146839401
Quinault Nation steps to relocate
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IT’s good to remember that 100% of New Orleans is below sea level. What has made the flooding worse is the way shipping channels have been created in the Mississippi delta, which have the unfortunate side effect of channeling the rain/hurricanes/tidal flooding right into the city. And the flood walls keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of NOLA are inadequate to the task they have to perform.
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The localities and states boost their property tax revenues when they permit construction in low-lying, but it is the rest of us who subsidize the cost when floods occur. Policies need to change so localities have to bear the long-term costs associated with the zoning/planning decisions.
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It seems like developers exist to capture state governments in certain states to make sure that risks remain socialized
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@realMikeLindell, if you are listening, America needs house-floats.
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Almost ALL estimates of sea level rise have been wrong in that they’ve been too conservative. The IPCC typically publishes their most conservative estimates due to the fact that everything has to be approved by a committee.
We should be looking at worst-case scenarios in order to make plans for the future, otherwise we’ll continually be unprepared for what’s likely to happen.
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Not mentioned in this article is the damage already causing the “socialized” cost of damage to our largest Naval base in Norfolk VA. It will only get worse. Naval base infrastructure is vulnerable everywhere on the planet.
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This was the path of hurricane Harvey. You can clearly see that it’s erratic. I believe this is due in part to a stalled jetstream and steering currents. As the poles heat up the jetstream becomes wobbly and stagnate. There was nothing to push the storm on through so it stalled and dumped 50" of rain.
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On the other hand, North Carolina prohibited consideration of climate change and rising water levels, and mandated that high water levels be set according to historical levels, to support coastal development. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/us/north-carolina-coast-hurricane.html
“And yet, it moves.”
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This is where government of developers by developers for developers is going to run into some reality issues in the not too distant future. Are they going to also require insurance companies to underwrite at 1930s flood levels too?
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