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.
Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
81–90 of 237 posts
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#82I 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.
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#83I 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?
But from some of the pictures I've seen, you do have some neighborhoods where one side is slightly higher than the other side and thus survived much better. Maybe some of those houses shouldn't have been built, and berms strategically placed and other things. One house not being built may under some circumstances prevent multiple other houses from being destroyed down the road. This seems like a low hanging fruit kind of thing if the priorities are there, before getting into beefing up infrastructure and more expensive options.
The amount of damage from hurricanes is trending higher and higher as time goes on, so something has to give and currently it seems federal flood insurance is doing all the giving.
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public funds should not pay to rebuild the same property more than 1-2 times within N years. You either: a) Build the property to withstand all but 1-2 statistically expected hurricanes within that N year period. This is possible, it's just costly. b) You don't get public funds c) You get private insurance d) You don't build
No problem, so long as you pay for your own college, health insurance, and unemployment.
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#85Earlier 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…
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#86I 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 must say that is a terrible idea. Should parts of CA or other earthquake prone areas be labelled uninhabitable? What about areas where forest fires are routine? Flood prone areas? Tornado prone areas? High UV? Poor air quality? It makes no sense whatsoever to dictate that people cannot live on the coasts due to natural disasters which happen everywhere, all the time. Frankly, being told where to live is more garish…
Major earthquakes happen an order of magnitude less frequently than major storms - but there's merit to reconsidering how much infrastructure we build right next to fault lines. So, possibly?
> What about areas where forest fires are routine?
Without appropriate fire breaks or building construction, possibly - if your house and property isn't constructed to survive a wildfire, then it's _going_ to burn. We can either adapt now or pay much higher costs later.
> Flood prone areas?
Oh jeez, yes, the fact that we build in flood plains is absolutely bonkers.
> Tornado prone areas?
Maybe, but it's a much lower risk than hurricanes. We really need to account for risks during building construction; our current approaches aren't working that well.
> High UV?
High UV is a bummer, not an repeated existential risk to all inhabitants.
> Poor air quality?
Poor air quality is also a bummer but is something we have more control over. Similar to high UV, poor air quality doesn't represent a regular, frequent, unavoidable, catastrophic risk to all of the inhabitants and all property in the vicinity.
> It makes no sense whatsoever to dictate that people cannot live on the coasts due to natural disasters which happen everywhere, all the time.
It makes even less sense to build in areas that are all but guaranteed to be destroyed several times per century. If you can build infrastructure that'll actually last or are willing to accept all liability when the inevitable occurs then by all means, build your house on stilts and cover the cost of reconstruction. But beyond freedom of choice, I don't understand why we think it's okay to assume obvious risk and expect society to provide compensation for a risk that's been known for decades if not centuries.
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one is being told where to live. But there is no reason to subsidize property prices in areas by providing federal taxpayer subsidized insurance. Providing taxpayer subsidized insurance allows people to buy properties with a larger mortgage (for which banks require flood insurance), which allows property prices to rise higher than they would have without taxpayer subsidized insurance.
"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." My response was to this comment at the top, where it was, explicitly and objectively, supporting a policy that dictates where people should live.
It's clearly not explicit or objective. "If you choose to live here you will not receive aid when your house is knocked down in a hurricane" is so clearly not the same as "You can not legally live here".
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#88Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#89Earlier 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?
If the irresponsible people who insist on living in hurricane prone areas pay for their own repairs, then I have no problem with them living there. If they ask for me to pay for it, then that gives me moral buy in into whether they should be allowed to live there.
Re: Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
No problem, so long as you pay for your own college, health insurance, and unemployment.
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.
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.