Is it always smart to rebuild storm areas?

[flowerseverywhere]

In the news you see people and even the president vowing "we will rebuild and be stronger than ever."

Whether or not you you believe in Global Warming, it seems like that might not always be the best case. Many areas of the Keys have no electricity, water or sewer a week later, and in future hurricanes, no matter how strong they build the houses they will likely suffer much devastation after a hurricane. Houston has revealed many problems with building houses on prior drainage basins. Here in Florida, they are warning some rivers continue to rise a week after Irma passed and those on the banks are being evacuated as our normal PM thundershowers routine continues to dump rain. The outer banks of the Carolinas, Malibu Coast, areas hit by Hurricane Sandy. So many places that are subject to severe flooding, beach erosion and structure destruction perhaps it is time to rethink the structure of our vulnerable cities.

Sea ear levels are higher than what they were. Miami always has raised some streets.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise

if Irma had a direct hit there as predicted can you even imagine? St Augustine, which largely has been out of,the news has had problems from Irma as well as Jacksonville and other cities including Charlestown
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/irma-makes-landfall-in-florida-as-category-4-hurricane.html

what is the solution? People live here, work here and uprooting is very difficult. St Augustine is the nations oldest city and families have lived there for generations.

[bae]

St. Augustine. Our oldest city. That's so cute...

[flowerseverywhere]

St. Augustine. Our oldest city. That's so cute...

smithsonian is wrong? Not sure what you mean

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/us-oldest-city-st-augustine-florida-180956434/

[bae]

Ever been to Acoma? I've spent months up at Sky City....

[iris lilies]

I love St. Augustine. And it is the oldest city by the Culture that matters, dominant Europeans. So there.

And now I will pick apart another item in OP's post (poor OP!) and it is that most climatologists have not made correlation between hurricanes and global warming. This is surprising to me, but something I learned from the editorial below from the ultra liberal St. Louis Post Dispatch editorial board in which they skewer Rish Limbaugh. This fact is not their main point, but it was containted in the editorial.

http://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-irma-karma-hits-home-after-limbaugh-mocks-hurricane-reports/article_fa9026b3-4596-5f6a-921f-a9e604c3c54b.html


which says



"...In fact, most serious climate scientists acknowledge little linkage between climate change and hurricanes in the past century. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (https://goo.gl/dkzN78), in dry, technical language and numbers — science — concludes that correlation with today’s weather is difficult. NOAA scientists do say that global warming will contribute to greater weather extremes and that future hurricanes are likely “to be more intense globally and have higher rainfall rates than present-day hurricanes.”

I repeat, i was very surprised to learn this, assuming the Post Dispatch is correct.

Of course, that doesnt negate rising sea levels as a problem, as OP points out.

But no, it isn't "smart" to rebuild storm areas, always and everywhere.

[ToomuchStuff]

Ever been to Acoma? I've spent months up at Sky City....

Archaeology Bae?
Ever been to a settlement that shows how many times man has lived on the edge of water and as water levels rise (as they have over time), evidence of man living there gets covered up?

Of course build stronger can be done:
http://domeofahome.com/dome-information/hurricane/ (rethink the structure)
And in places like New Orleans, they changed the height homes had to be built at. (but so many people expected FEMA to be the checkbook)
They don't have to build up the roads, they only do so because of how car crazy we are.
In parts of Florida, I expect paddle boats are common, while in other parts of the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice

As to infrastructure, man has been living on the water for centuries and existing on this planet through disasters. At what point do you say you can't fix what others think (personal responsibility) and realize this culling of a population wouldn't be a drop of much in world population?

[goldensmom]

what is the solution? People live here, work here and uprooting is very difficult.


My husband and I were having the same conversation. Many, many people that I know do not have the resources or wherewithal to move. Money, job, leaving family and social networks, the will to move, leaving generational communities, etc. I used us as an example. We could afford to move but could my husband find another job at 57 years of age, not easy. We do not want to establish ourselves in a new community. Our families are here. Facts and common sense may say move but many other factors come into play and say stay and put up with whatever comes our way. Many things outweigh the smart solution.

[Williamsmith]

Each individual must make their own decision regarding the future of their lives. We are not talking making it a mission of the federal government to force the abandonment of entire cities and their infrastructure here. Are we?

We have an arm of the government responsible for enabling the recovery of a region impacted by a catastrophic incident. Everyone knows FEMA and from what I read here and other places some people think FEMA is just a check issuer.

FEMA has five stated missions.

Prevention (terrorism), protection (terrorism and natural disasters), mitigation (lessening the impact of catastrophic incidents), response (meeting basic human needs and minimize loss of life and property damage) and recovery ( economic, health, cultural and infrastructure).

What it says is all communities are part of what makes us U.S. Along with the charitable activities of private citizens and non profits.....rebuilding every community becomes a mission for all of us and strengthens our bond.

I can see applying good common sense to zoning and future building as natural response to mitigate future exposure. But I sense the flavor of....you put yourself in that position ....don't look for me to help. I think that wrongly disregards the history of this nation, why certain urban populations were built near ports and river transportation.

The same arguement could be made regarding terrorism and the existence of densely populated cities. We would certainly be less exposed to acts like the World Trade Center if we spread the population out and avoided skyscrapers and urban development....anywhere.

So for me...an attack on any of us ....is an attack on all. To the extent that in catastrophic incidents reflection on mitigation is reasonable....I will agree. When we start talking about whose fault it is before even the recovery process has barely begun.....I think that's not consistent with the people we are.

[SteveinMN]

We could afford to move but could my husband find another job at 57 years of age, not easy. We do not want to establish ourselves in a new community. Our families are here.
But does that require (re)building in place? Granted, hurricanes cause more widespread damage than tornadoes or floods. But most Americans are not threatened by hurricanes; they deal with tornadoes or floods and wildfires. Even moving to the other side of town/an urban area can reduce the threat of devastation in many kinds of natural disasters. For people who cannot/don't want to consider relocating, that's not that far away from jobs, family and friends, etc.

But I'm fine with people who get flooded out every year and who choose to rebuild in place -- so long as they're not doing it on my dime. There are numbers of properties in Minnesota and the border states perilously close to rivers which flood during every spring thaw; insurers finally are getting smart and refusing to insure them, which means lenders won't issue mortgages on them either. I understand not wanting to leave where one has roots and I understand the economic issues it presents to sell property that is worth less without an occupyable structure on it. But at some point nature and economics have to -- umm, trump -- where we live.

IMHO the crowd that insists drug tests for welfare recipients is a good thing would do well to apply similar standards to other forms of public subsidy, like why all of us pay to protect homes along coastlines/riverbanks which routinely flood or which are perched in the middle of forests or in areas prone to sinkholes, earthquakes, etc. It's all welfare; the only difference is which socioeconomic class the recipient is in.

[ApatheticNoMore]

But does that require (re)building in place? Granted, hurricanes cause more widespread damage than tornadoes or floods. But most Americans are not threatened by hurricanes; they deal with tornadoes or floods and wildfires. Even moving to the other side of town/an urban area can reduce the threat of devastation in many kinds of natural disasters. For people who cannot/don't want to consider relocating, that's not that far away from jobs, family and friends, etc.

+1 is rebuilding in a flood plain really necessary? Rebuilding right up against the forest if there have been fires? I don't think so.

[flowerseverywhere]

I love St. Augustine. And it is the oldest city by the Culture that matters, dominant Europeans. So there.

And now I will pick apart another item in OP's post (poor OP!) and it is that most climatologists have not made correlation between hurricanes and global warming. This is surprising to me, but something I learned from the editorial below from the ultra liberal St. Louis Post Dispatch editorial board in which they skewer Rish Limbaugh. This fact is not their main point, but it was containted in the editorial.

http://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-irma-karma-hits-home-after-limbaugh-mocks-hurricane-reports/article_fa9026b3-4596-5f6a-921f-a9e604c3c54b.html


which says



"...In fact, most serious climate scientists acknowledge little linkage between climate change and hurricanes in the past century. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (https://goo.gl/dkzN78), in dry, technical language and numbers — science — concludes that correlation with today’s weather is difficult. NOAA scientists do say that global warming will contribute to greater weather extremes and that future hurricanes are likely “to be more intense globally and have higher rainfall rates than present-day hurricanes.”

I repeat, i was very surprised to learn this, assuming the Post Dispatch is correct.

Of course, that doesnt negate rising sea levels as a problem, as OP points out.

But no, it isn't "smart" to rebuild storm areas, always and everywhere.

i don't mind if you disagree. There may not be a correlation between global warming and hurricanes, who really knows, but sea levels have risen and it does make for more flooding.

[Cypress]

But I'm fine with people who get flooded out every year and who choose to rebuild in place -- so long as they're not doing it on my dime. There are numbers of properties in Minnesota and the border states perilously close to rivers which flood during every spring thaw; insurers finally are getting smart and refusing to insure them, which means lenders won't issue mortgages on them either. I understand not wanting to leave where one has roots and I understand the economic issues it presents to sell property that is worth less without an occupyable structure on it. But at some point nature and economics have to -- umm, trump -- where we live.

There was a This Old House series focused on New Jersey and rebuilding after Super Storm Sandy. I watched it carefully and thought I learned a lot about the storm and how it affected residents. One homeowner got selected to demonstrate what happens when a resident does decide to stay and rebuild. This was somewhere in coastal NJ and the house went up, up about one story above the ground. Sort of on stilts. It was well designed and other residents had done similar builds or rebuilds in the same area. The program was fascinating, but I wondered about their choice. I believe the program staff did discuss moving out but I forget why they stayed in the same place. Unless costs were not a factor, I would have cashed out and moved inland 10 miles. This Old House used to include dollars and cents in the programming. They stopped giving real numbers a few years ago. It would have been interesting to hear about all the costs, paperwork and red tape they went through to claim the loss and rebuild.

[Williamsmith]

Many of you know I have a son in Houston, he’s a newlywed and six weeks before Harvey hit he bought a beautiful home in which his wife and himself planned to launch their lives together and perhaps a family. The house was located to his knowledge in a 500 year flood plain. But during Harvey it took on 15 inches of water. The estimate from several contractors after my son and friends did all the demolition and mold remediation themselves was about 20-25% of the mortgage on the house. Both cars in the garage were destroyed. Auto insurance paid $18,000. They found two serviceable vehicles as replacements but the inventory was sketchy.

The home owners insurance paid 0 dollars. They have received about $10,000 in family and private donations and FEMA just awarded them enough to cover 1/5 of the cost of remodeling. There is going to be enough of a shortfall that they will have to exhaust emergency savings. And they still are living outside the home.

Seems like this should be enough punishment for them to reconsider living in Houston but good jobs are hard to find and both of them have that. So I can’t sit in judgement on their predicament. Not as a father anyway.

[Tenngal]

In the news you see people and even the president vowing "we will rebuild and be stronger than ever."

Whether or not you you believe in Global Warming, it seems like that might not always be the best case. Many areas of the Keys have no electricity, water or sewer a week later, and in future hurricanes, no matter how strong they build the houses they will likely suffer much devastation after a hurricane. Houston has revealed many problems with building houses on prior drainage basins. Here in Florida, they are warning some rivers continue to rise a week after Irma passed and those on the banks are being evacuated as our normal PM thundershowers routine continues to dump rain. The outer banks of the Carolinas, Malibu Coast, areas hit by Hurricane Sandy. So many places that are subject to severe flooding, beach erosion and structure destruction perhaps it is time to rethink the structure of our vulnerable cities.

Sea ear levels are higher than what they were. Miami always has raised some streets.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise

if Irma had a direct hit there as predicted can you even imagine? St Augustine, which largely has been out of,the news has had problems from Irma as well as Jacksonville and other cities including Charlestown
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/irma-makes-landfall-in-florida-as-category-4-hurricane.html

what is the solution? People live here, work here and uprooting is very difficult. St Augustine is the nations oldest city and families have lived there for generations.

I would be questioning this also........and for sure if I had built in a flood zone.

[Cypress]

Many of you know I have a son in Houston, he’s a newlywed and six weeks before Harvey hit he bought a beautiful home in which his wife and himself planned to launch their lives together and perhaps a family. The house was located to his knowledge in a 500 year flood plain. But during Harvey it took on 15 inches of water. The estimate from several contractors after my son and friends did all the demolition and mold remediation themselves was about 20-25% of the mortgage on the house. Both cars in the garage were destroyed. Auto insurance paid $18,000. They found two serviceable vehicles as replacements but the inventory was sketchy.

The home owners insurance paid 0 dollars. They have received about $10,000 in family and private donations and FEMA just awarded them enough to cover 1/5 of the cost of remodeling. There is going to be enough of a shortfall that they will have to exhaust emergency savings. And they still are living outside the home.

Seems like this should be enough punishment for them to reconsider living in Houston but good jobs are hard to find and both of them have that. So I can’t sit in judgement on their predicament. Not as a father anyway.

Okay, thanks for putting the dollars down. I wondered how on earth you take care of the home after a flood. I thought the house was ruined. The insurance paid nothing! We had a tornado pass through my area five years ago, I don't remember how claims were settled, I remember an insurance agent went to the town and set up a trailer to help folks file claims. Most people don't buy flood insurance if they''re not in a flood area. I got a letter from my home owners insurance company a few years ago that said I was NOT in a flood plain. I can actually see a large river outside my kitchen window. It's undeveloped and lots of room for water to go if we got a huge storm. But, once in a while, I wonder if it might flood up to my back door.

I am very sorry to hear about their struggles. Keep us informed. I cannot do much but listen and understand what it takes to get a home back together. Does the mold ever leave the house? I mean, it's a humid climate down there and mold has a way of living on in small dark spaces.

[Tybee]

I know mold was a major problem after Katrina, with very similar climate. They followed up a couple of years later and found mold in something like 73% of the houses that had been refurbished after Katrina.

[SteveinMN]

One homeowner got selected to demonstrate what happens when a resident does decide to stay and rebuild. This was somewhere in coastal NJ and the house went up, up about one story above the ground. Sort of on stilts. It was well designed and other residents had done similar builds or rebuilds in the same area.
I wonder how that build-up was viewed by the local zoning authorities. I could see neighbors (especially the ones living behind this homeowner) getting their clothing into a bundle if their view was obliterated by what effectively was a story built onto that house. The fact that other local rebuilders did it helps. Just observing that zoning sometimes is used as a weapon and not as a public safeguard.


This Old House used to include dollars and cents in the programming. They stopped giving real numbers a few years ago. It would have been interesting to hear about all the costs, paperwork and red tape they went through to claim the loss and rebuild.
I'm not sure numbers they provided ever were all that "real". I suspect there was a lot of material and labor donated in exchange for the visibility of being on TOH. There's also the question of just how much it really would cost to find, say, a master woodworker who happened to be available for your project at just the time you needed him/her. I always found TOH an interesting show to watch and I learned a lot from it but I treated it as "house pr0n". ;)

[SteveinMN]

Seems like this should be enough punishment for them to reconsider living in Houston but good jobs are hard to find and both of them have that. So I can’t sit in judgement on their predicament. Not as a father anyway.
One would think buying a house in a 500-year flood plain was a relatively safe bet. However, as weather gets more extreme, I suspect many "500-year" flood plains will be reclassified to "100-year" or even shorter durations. Not sure if it will be the insurance companies pushing this as a way to avoid more losses or if local governments will have the backbone to rezone property out of insurability/mortgaging (taking tax-paying property off the rolls). It's hard to say what's "safe" anymore.

My sympathis to your DS/DSiL -- they got dealt a bad hand. I hope they can play it well; it certainly seems they've got family and friends behind them.

[ToomuchStuff]

I received this story in my email today (I subscribe so I know when local ones are going to be showing, soon):
http://www.monolithic.org/news-feed/monolithic-dome-survives-hurricane-irma

This shows we can do SOME things, but there is also this:
http://www.monolithic.org/news-feed/serenity-energy-savings
Which shows the lower costs, but that won't help if the infrastructure goes out as in Puerto Rico.
In the end, it is all about mitigated risk and your comfort level

[dmc]

I'm defiantly in a hurricane zone. New houses and all homes built after 2003 had to be built to a tougher standard. I know the insurance rates are lower for newer homes. Thus any homes destroyed now would have to meet the new standards if rebuilt.

The home built on stilts probably was required to do so to meet a current elevation requirement. Also FEMA will not keep insuring the same home if it has to many claims, they keep track. And they will only insure to $250,000.

[jp1]

People who live in flood zones should be mandated to buy NFIP flood insurance or be inelligible for any bailouts afterwards. Homes that have had multiple payments for flooding well beyond the hope of ever being an actuarially viable location should not be rebuilt. The person being interviewed in this episode of Planet Money has had 3 large checks from the NFIP program. Records show that before he purchased the house there were 2 more large payouts. He bought the house knowing, or at least could/should have known, that it routinely goes underwater because he loves the neighborhood. Grew up there, blah blah blah. He actually pays for flood insurance ($4,800/year) but lots of people don't. His premiums would be sufficient if he lived in a 100 year flood zone. Clearly he doesn't. He lives in more like a 1 year flood zone.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/29/554603161/episode-797-flood-money

And honestly, terrorist destruction of property isn't the same thing. Since 2002 everyone who buys property insurance has had a small chunk of their premiums going towards TRIA, the terrorism risk insurance act. If another 9/11 event happens and it gets declared an act of terror the money that we've all been paying will get used for rebuilding, not government handouts.

[awakenedsoul]

I don't think it's always smart to rebuild storm areas. I bought my cottage in 1998, and never had any flooding problems, even though it's in a flood zone. It was only after years of drought that it started happening. The soil wasn't absorbing the water after we finally got some rain. They have built a few new neighborhoods of large homes across the highway since that time. I have to put down straw in the front yard, in front of the house, and on the porch. It soaks up the water like a sponge. If I don't, the water comes in through the front door.

There's a lot more development happening in this area, and so I will probably need to build some sort of a wall. I feel for the people in those areas that had the hurricanes and flooding. There are so many variables.

[Williamsmith]

People who live in flood zones should be mandated to buy NFIP flood insurance or be inelligible for any bailouts afterwards. Homes that have had multiple payments for flooding well beyond the hope of ever being an actuarially viable location should not be rebuilt. The person being interviewed in this episode of Planet Money has had 3 large checks from the NFIP program. Records show that before he purchased the house there were 2 more large payouts. He bought the house knowing, or at least could/should have known, that it routinely goes underwater because he loves the neighborhood. Grew up there, blah blah blah. He actually pays for flood insurance ($4,800/year) but lots of people don't. His premiums would be sufficient if he lived in a 100 year flood zone. Clearly he doesn't. He lives in more like a 1 year flood zone.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/29/554603161/episode-797-flood-money

And honestly, terrorist destruction of property isn't the same thing. Since 2002 everyone who buys property insurance has had a small chunk of their premiums going towards TRIA, the terrorism risk insurance act. If another 9/11 event happens and it gets declared an act of terror the money that we've all been paying will get used for rebuilding, not government handouts.

Should the people in California who have been wiped out by the fires.....receive FEMA subsidy? And should they rebuild? After all, it’s being connected to climate change!

[jp1]

Should the people in California who have been wiped out by the fires.....receive FEMA subsidy? And should they rebuild? After all, it’s being connected to climate change!

While FEMA will undoubtedly have some role in dealing with the aftermath of the fires most of the heavy lifting of the rebuilding cost will be born by the property insurance that the owners of the buildings carry. California is a Standard Fire Policy state so insurers can't exclude things like wildfires. And at least at this point property insurance is still readily available thanks to CA's FAIR plan that requires all property insurers in the state to contribute to a pool for high risk properties.

[jp1]

To answer your other question I would probably be ok with a mandate that any buildings in fire prone exurban areas be rebuilt with brick or other non-combustible exteriors and either terra cotta shingles, metal roof or other equally nonflammable materials. Whether that mandate should come from the insurance companies the same way they inspect to be sure that vegetation isn't right up against the house before writing a policy or whether it should be mandated by building code is debatable. As for the suburban subdivisions and suburban style shopping areas like the KMart and McDonalds that burnt down despite being surrounded by acres of asphalt parking lots I'd want to see a cost benefit analysis before insisting on more expensive building methods.

I realize that every region has their specific risks. That doesn't mean that we should abandon everywhere, but it does mean that we should be smart about how we rebuild, and we need to find ways to limit future losses when we decide to rebuild. Spending millions on repeated claims to repair a $500,000 house that has flooded multiple times in just a few years is simply not logical and shouldn't be a bill footed by the taxpayers.

Personally I think a better idea than the NFIP would be state laws requiring a "Standard Flood Policy" similar in concept to the Standard Fire Policy that is law in 36 states, (which mandates that property policies offer at least a certain minimum of coverage.) Couple that with something like CA's FAIR plan (except for flood instead of fire as in California) requiring every property insurer in the state to contribute proportionally to a pool that covers flood losses at locations that can only get insured through a flood pool, and mandates for elevated rebuilding and you'd have a sustainable system instead of repeated government bailouts. One of the benefits of CA's FAIR plan over something comparable to NFIP is that if wildfire claims get big enough everyone will see their property insurance bills rise and pressure will come to bear to get people to stop making irresponsible rebuilding decisions. The same would happen in flood prone areas.

[Williamsmith]

I just read an article about a lawsuit filed against a public utility for failure to maintain lines and poles properly which contributed to many fires erupting and taking houses. I’m not sure insurance actuaries can feed all the variable into an algorithm and come up with a business model that profits but also reduces risk for consumers.

[jp1]

Actually, trees bumping power lines is apparently a fairly common cause of wildfires. It's one of the suspected causes of the current rash of fires we recently had. And a reasonable guess too since 70 mph wind gusts like we had that sunday night will surely push trees further than the normally go. If that turns out to be the case this time then PG&E's liability insurance will end up paying for a lot of the rebuilding. I have no idea how good the actuary's estimates are since they only work with past data, and if the climate is truly changing past performance may not be a good predictor of future performance. If they don't already, perhaps the actuaries need to review PG&E's annual tree trimming budget when they estimate the likelihood of wildfires...