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Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#171

Post by XorNot »

dogruck wrote: post #150
tuna-piano wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reinsurance folks seem to say that there is absolutely no evidence that there has been an uptick in these big disastrous storms. People are constantly thinking of global warming, so when they see a storm, they say "Aha! Global Warming!". Of course there have always been hurricanes, and human perception/remembering is not a replacement for statistics and math. From Warren Buffet (One of the largest insurers of…

Markets also did not collapse when Donny won. But, hey, what do markets know?

They also didn't collapse till 2008. Then they did.

Markets are stupid.

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#172

Post by ianai »

malteof wrote: post #170
Mz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that isn't why. I worked in insurance. Not homeowners insurance, but I had a certificate and processed claims. The reason is that most human settlements occur in flood plains because we cannot live without water. We drink it. We bath in it. We irrigate crops with it. Flood plains have fertile soil. We use rivers and oceans for essential cargo transit. Insurance is about risk management. It is a form of betting. A…

Hey, I work in insurance too - as a non-life actuary for the last almost 8-9 years. Your description is not at all how insurance works, and insurance is not a form of betting or gambling but really distinctly different. What it's really about is just risk pooling; my share of the risk pool is smaller than if I would keep the risk to myself. Insurance companies don't mind insuring risks that they know will happen at s…

You're both right. Cost pooling and betting are two ways of thinking of the same thing. If anything, betting is closer to marginal thinking than cost pooling, but the two are not exclusive viewpoints.

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#173

Post by ianai »

mirimir wrote: post #114

> Climatologists say the mechanism by which this is happening is fairly straightforward. “Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air,” according to the 2014 Climate Assessment produced by the U.S. government. “Global analyses show that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has in fact increased due to human-caused warming. This extra moisture is available to storm systems, resulting in heavier rain…

I wonder if there are maps of predictions of that.

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#174

Post by koolba »

misja111 wrote: post #166
Retric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem. Private insurance does not offer flood insurance because A) it tends to all be due at the same time requiring a very large fund. B) It also promotes people living in flood prone areas. C) It's very hard to asses risks. Combined and you end up with bankrupt insurance companies. The industry also feels B makes selling flood insurance a bad idea. That said, there are Private policies you can buy…

I don't think point B is valid. Following your reasoning, the industry would also think that health insurances are a bad idea because they would promote an unhealthy livestyle.

That's one of the arguments for high deductibles. The reverse promotes frivolous trips to the doctor.

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#175

Post by koolba »

emeraldd wrote: post #148
HillaryBriss wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it tends to all be due at the same time requiring a very large fund. i don't quite see that. if the flood insurer covered a broad variety of geographically dispersed areas across North America, or even just the US, would that be true?

The company would have to be huge to pull it off. One event like what happened in Houston could easily wipe out a big chunk of any fund they could amass. That kind of diversity could also be a problem if there are shared waterways, think back to the Mississippi/Missouri flood from 1993. I'm seeing 15 billion as the damages there, which is a large percentage of the "cash" pile Apple is claimed to have. https://en.m.wi…

What does this have to do with Apple? Is that just a reference to them hoarding large amounts of cash or are they in the reinsurance business?

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#176

Post by walshemj »

ncallaway wrote: post #24
walshemj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its the gamblers fallacy black 17 has not come up for ages so its more likely to come up - looks like the journalist does not understand probability

Except there's a very good ability to know precisely the odds of what the ball landing on black 17 are. It's a very complicated question to determine what a 1/500 odds of flooding are. So, it's very possible that this isn't the gambler's fallacy, but rather the model itself is inaccurate.

or the massive building growth without building the required infrastructure

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#177

Post by walshemj »

walshemj wrote: post #20
bkohlmann wrote: post #2

While the article obliquely makes reference to this, I wonder if this is somewhat similar to the "birthday" problem in statistics. Any given person has ~1 in 365 chance of being born on a particular day. Yet, if you have 30 people in a room, there is a greater than 50 percent chance that at least one PAIR has the same birthday. Given the hundreds of cities (thousands?) in the US that may be affected by a flood, it's…

its the gamblers fallacy black 17 has not come up for ages so its more likely to come up - looks like the journalist does not understand probability

really voted down for pointing out probability 101 I would have expected better mathematical knowledge on HN

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#178

Post by Applejinx »

xexers wrote: post #81

Anyone notice the comments for this article on WP? There appears to be a poster called "The burning bush" who is commenting with lengthy comments about every 6 minutes. All of the the comments from that user are sceptical of man made climate change. Washington post does not appear to let you sort by anything other than "newest"... which means that this commenter's posts are always the top comment. That's concerning!

That's normal. You'll find the same thing going on in the HN comments for '24/192K audio is silly': there's a class of people who fight for their arguments not with science or discussion, but through brigading and suppressing other people's arguments to get 'em out of sight. It's very much the case with climate change denialists, and it's also in play with '16 bit audio is enough for every possible person!' audio pundits: they will brigade to suppress opposing arguments to make it seem like their views are unopposed.

Pretty sure the WP comments from the climate skeptics are more organized. There's a lot more money in climate denialism, from traditional energy companies with enormous resources and a clear agenda to continue their present mode of operations. I've never understood why the 16-bit audio guys are so similarly quixotic.

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#179

Post by mannykannot »

cat199 wrote: post #102
x0x0 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, crucially, your mortgage may require you to buy insurance in flood plains. And it can be quite expensive. see also https://qz.com/1063985/hurricane-harvey-why-85-of-homeowners... There's gonna be lots of screaming when homeowners in Houston realize how much flood insurance is going to cost them in the future. We all got a preview of this in coastal Florida.

Pretty much everyone knows it's a good idea to get flood insurance in Houston.. We still get lots of localized downpours, floodplane or no, which can easily overwhelm local drainage, etc. Whether they actually do it or not is another idea

I am aware that flood insurance itself is subject to government influence - e.g. the National Flood Insurance Program, and possibly state regulation (even in Texas) - but I don't know the details. Does it result in premiums being affected by official flood-zone designations?

As you appear to be in or near Houston, I hope things are OK with you and your family.

Re: Houston is experiencing its third ‘500-year’ flood in 3 years

#180

Post by Retric »

misja111 wrote: post #166
Retric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem. Private insurance does not offer flood insurance because A) it tends to all be due at the same time requiring a very large fund. B) It also promotes people living in flood prone areas. C) It's very hard to asses risks. Combined and you end up with bankrupt insurance companies. The industry also feels B makes selling flood insurance a bad idea. That said, there are Private policies you can buy…

I don't think point B is valid. Following your reasoning, the industry would also think that health insurances are a bad idea because they would promote an unhealthy livestyle.

Being sick is it's own deterrent. However, people like living near water and it's often cheaper in the short term.
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