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Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

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Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#121

Post by nostromo »

snarf21 wrote: post #4

I can only assume it will go higher. We need to push FEMA to have a 2 and done rule. After that the property must be returned back to dunes/parks/public spaces.

Or hardened against that type of damage.

After floods or wildfires or tornadoes or earthquakes, you'll see some buildings are a pile of rubble and others just need brushed off.

These locales should be making these requirements a part of their building codes. But I suspect they are addicted to FEMA money and actually prefer having local stimulus in their economies every few years.

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#122

Post by bcrosby95 »

bradgessler wrote: post #118
cpurdy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, 1000x this. It is frustrating to be sending piles of money to these states every year, which they then waste on political stunts like flying legal immigrants to other states, instead of taking care of their citizens, or maybe investing in climate hardening. And then they're completely unprepared for cold weather, hot weather, wet weather, dry weather, ... and say things like "Nobody knew ___ could be so complica…

The reason people live in coastal regions is because there are outsized economic benefits to the hinterlands that may outweigh the damage these storms inflict. The interface between land and sea is crucially important for the survival of civilization at our scale. Under "2 and done", do you restore critical port infrastructure to dunes if they get destroyed by a hurricane twice? Port infrastructure can't exist on its…

These regions can do what California did. Insurance companies left the market in response to the Northridge earthquake, so the state provides a very high deductible earthquake insurance.

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#123

Post by pkaye »

ebiester wrote: post #80
snarf21 wrote: post #4

I can only assume it will go higher. We need to push FEMA to have a 2 and done rule. After that the property must be returned back to dunes/parks/public spaces.

Same for San Francisco. Two earthquakes and it must be returned back to the swamp. New York got hit bad with Sandy. Thirty years or so and we might level it too. It turns out that with climate change, nothing is going to be safe. And with the pacific shelf, we will always have that as an issue too.

But there is no subsidy for earthquakes insurance like the national flood insurance program. Perhaps we should get rid of the national flood insurance program?

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#124

Post by [deleted] »

SoftTalker wrote: post #17
snarf21 wrote: post #4

I can only assume it will go higher. We need to push FEMA to have a 2 and done rule. After that the property must be returned back to dunes/parks/public spaces.

Hurricanes are a fact of life in the gulf and southeastern atlantic coasts. There is no area that has not have been hit twice already in the past century. So all this coastline should be dunes and park spaces?

[deleted]

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#125

Post by time_to_smile »

ClassicOrgin wrote: post #95
snarf21 wrote: post #4

I can only assume it will go higher. We need to push FEMA to have a 2 and done rule. After that the property must be returned back to dunes/parks/public spaces.

I was looking to move to Fort Myers or Fort Myers Shores with my girlfriend (she’s originally from there), and we looked at five different houses. Based on damage maps/satellite photos/Facebook posts all five of those houses were flooded. But, the problem is only two of them were in any sort of flood zones. The only reason we didn’t buy is because it looked like the market was tanking. I think there is a lot of blami…

> I think there is a lot of blaming going on here against homeowners who really didn’t know better.

Anyone who is keeping up on climate change research and anyone with any sense knows it's just not wise to invest in property on the Florida coast unless you do so knowing that at anytime your home could be washed away.

You have to be willfully ignorant to think it's a good idea to move to those areas.

I can see why you would want to move closer to family, but did you really not believe that the Fort Myers area could be destroyed at anytime from a major hurricane? Do you really think that sea level rise (which is more about its impact on storm surges) coupled with increasingly more powerful hurricanes is not a problem in the near term? Are you unaware that GHGs in the atmosphere are accelerating, there is no evidence that warming will stop soon, and plenty to suggest that things will increasingly get worse in the near term?

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#126

Post by [deleted] »

adventured wrote: post #90
adrienthebo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having people educated, healthy, and protected from the damages of homelessness all have positive externalities. Paying people to return to areas that are regularly ravaged by massive storms only benefits them until the next storm and doesn't represent a long term good, especially in the face of climate change.

Shall we apply this moral rule globally then? Say goodbye to Pakistan. I'd love to see the HN crowd that is championing the premise stand up and proclaim all the areas of the globe that people should no longer be allowed to live, huge swaths of which will be in hyper impoverished areas of India, China, Pakistan. They won't dare.

[deleted]

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#127

Post by SantalBlush »

LadyCailin wrote: post #29
SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurricanes are a fact of life in the gulf and southeastern atlantic coasts. There is no area that has not have been hit twice already in the past century. So all this coastline should be dunes and park spaces?

Or privately funded to keep rebuilding, yeah. Why should the rest of us have to keep paying for you to rebuild your house because you picked a stupid location and/or didn’t build strong enough in the first place?

Right, this is a textbook case of moral hazard.

When a person engages in some risky activity but offloads some of the risk onto others, they'll continue doing that activity more than they otherwise would.

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#128

Post by user982 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #88

Apalled at the comments here, can we please just have some empathy for a second and put politics aside?

"I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid. At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible," DeSantis said in a statement.

https://www.tampabay.com/content/new-reps-ron-desantis-ted-y...

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#129

Post by mcculley »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #51
iskander wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miami has the sturdiest residential construction materials of any city I have lived in. Cinderblock is extremely common. It still doesn't save your home if you build at 5ft above sea level and a hurricane brings 15ft of storm surge.

All new construction in Sanibel, FL (which got hit hard by Ian) is required to have one floor of "sacrificial space" above which finished living structure can be built. In most homes this is a garage or above-ground storage room with no drywall, and all electrical connections at least several feet off the floor. This doesn't make storm surge cost-free and we have yet to see whether it was enough for Ian, but I doubt…

I run a tugboat company. We are moving a barge and equipment to Sanibel Island right now. We expect months of work removing debris to the mainland and moving construction equipment to the island. The system is working as designed.

Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B

#130

Post by thebradbain »

bradgessler wrote: post #118
cpurdy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, 1000x this. It is frustrating to be sending piles of money to these states every year, which they then waste on political stunts like flying legal immigrants to other states, instead of taking care of their citizens, or maybe investing in climate hardening. And then they're completely unprepared for cold weather, hot weather, wet weather, dry weather, ... and say things like "Nobody knew ___ could be so complica…

The reason people live in coastal regions is because there are outsized economic benefits to the hinterlands that may outweigh the damage these storms inflict. The interface between land and sea is crucially important for the survival of civilization at our scale. Under "2 and done", do you restore critical port infrastructure to dunes if they get destroyed by a hurricane twice? Port infrastructure can't exist on its…

Yet fire and earthquake damage are not generally covered by FEMA in California in most cases (I would expect the Big One, when it happens, to be, but based on the big stink that Trump raised to the applause of certain states, like Florida, about cutting back wildfire prevention/disaster funds to CA in 2019, who knows) and economically that state is much more important than Florida.

And thus California has very-high deductible insurance coverage in areas that are especially susceptible to such disasters, because it IS an inevitable risk that such an event will happen. Florida should do the same, as their "catastrophic disaster" is annual.

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