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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

#161

Post by mrguyorama »

adventured wrote: post #97
ebiester wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That goes for severe blizzards for NYC as well, because I say so. Public funds must no longer be allocated to clearing snow from roads every year just because selfish people decide to live in NYC.

"Public funds" AREN'T used to clear the snow. People in NYC pay to clear the snow. The problem in this instance is that the federal government backstops a "flood insurance" program that is intrinsically not insurance, because the only people who buy into it are the ones that get flooded every year. Everyone in the risk pool is tied together. That's why there is no private flood insurance for the area, because it's literally impossible.

All this money is a straight up handout to allow some specific people to keep getting a high value lifestyle on someone else's dime.

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

#162

Post by rory »

peterangular wrote: post #147
rory wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flying legal immigrants to other states Can we please not do this flamewar thing? Asylum seekers are technically neither legal nor illegal immigrants yet, but everyone knows this will cause an argument that's completely unrelated to the article.

I think it's a valid conversation to have in parallel when the people/politicians in these places are pulling expensive political stunts that do nothing but stoke the ever-increasing polarization of our nation... only to turn around and shamelessly ask for aide in such a situation. Sorry, but it's a bad look.

> expensive political stunts

Yeah wouldn't mind losing this $120B if they had saved that $600k, amirite?

FEMA subsidizes all kinds of wealthy people, Florida MAGAs and NYC Davosers alike.

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

#163

Post by mrguyorama »

sokoloff wrote: post #47
lotsofpulp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a chance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Progr... >As of August 2017, the program insured about 5 million homes (down from about 5.5 million homes in April 2010), the majority of which are in Texas and Florida.[3][4] The cost of the insurance program was fully covered by its premiums until the end of 2004, but it has had to steadily borrow funds since, primarily due to Hurricane Katrina an…

Is the conclusion that housing should not be built where Sandy’s damages occurred? That seems... unreasonable .

A significant portion of Texas and Florida need to realize that these damaging events aren't going to stop happening, and they need to either build stronger, or leave if that's not possible.

If I built a house that could not manage a foot of snow on it's roof in Maine without collapsing, and every year it collapsed got a big check from the feds to rebuild the exact same structure in the exact same place, surely someone would be willing to tell me I'm being stupid?

It's literally Einstein's definition of "insanity"

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

#164

Post by Lammy »

gamegoblin wrote: post #65
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?

To be honest, that sounds amazing . Having those coasts be parks with hundreds of miles of low-impact infrastructure like hiking/biking/walking paths, maybe simple low-key restaurants that aren't a big deal to rebuild every decade, etc. Put all the heavier infrastructure like housing developments a few miles inland. Then everyone can enjoy these idyllic beach lands a little farther from all the buzz of cities. Everyo…

The coasts wouldn’t be returned to nature. They’d become enclaves of families rich enough to build and rebuild their beach houses without the help of insurance payouts.

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

#165

Post by rootusrootus »

vkou wrote: post #103
cpurdy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So all this coastline should be dunes and park spaces?" Yes. That makes sense to me. What's the downside?

If you want to live in a deindustrialized society, there is no downside. If you like things like international shipping, gasoline, diesel, and having food on your table, there are a few downsides.

How many of the critical workers who maintain port facilities live in beachfront houses? Approximately none. We can quit subsidizing wealthy beachfront home owners and limit new housing to places that are more defensible.

Returning all of the current privately owned beachfront to natural habitat would be absolutely glorious. We can make exceptions for public facilities serving the greater good, like ports.

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

#168

Post by peterangular »

FireBeyond wrote: post #151
EricDeb wrote: post #41

I bet the venn diagram of floridians who want bailout money but object to student debt relief is quite close to a circle.

Florida voted against federal aid for the California bushfires.

Not only that - the conservatives turned the bushfires into political theater, only stoking the polarization that's ripping this country apart.

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

#169

Post by mrguyorama »

systemvoltage wrote: post #88

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

If you build on the florida coast, surely you should expect a Cat 4 hurricane every couple of years right? Like, why is that an incredible ask? I have empathy for the loss of life, I always do, but I do NOT have empathy for the same people coming hat in hand to the federal treasury asking for more public funds for the same thing that happens every few years and for the same thing they have openly fought.

Build better, plan better, or leave.

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

#170

Post by sokoloff »

mrguyorama wrote: post #163
sokoloff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the conclusion that housing should not be built where Sandy’s damages occurred? That seems... unreasonable .

A significant portion of Texas and Florida need to realize that these damaging events aren't going to stop happening, and they need to either build stronger, or leave if that's not possible. If I built a house that could not manage a foot of snow on it's roof in Maine without collapsing, and every year it collapsed got a big check from the feds to rebuild the exact same structure in the exact same place, surely someo…

NB: Sandy did not affect Texas and had very minimal effects on Florida.

Texas and Florida might need changes, but losses from Sandy aren’t the reason.

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