You could drive to Atlanta and stay with my brother. But that probably only works if my brother knows you.
That seems workable. Now what about internationally?
My father-in-law keeps getting bullshit political stuff emailed to him from a friend who moved to The Villages. Maybe if they didn't have electricity in The Villages until after the election?
Flood insurance is going to yield rich veins of political corruption.
Should we be relocating people?
Long history of this working out well as progressive policy.
I haven't been to Florida as an adult, but I remember St. Augustine. Just build everything from coquina and it will survive storms or cannon.
That was one of our go-to field trips growing up. What I remember is the funnel-shaped windows for the cannons to shoot out of, the funnel part being the thickness of the walls, which was probably 1-2 feet thick. The tour guide said that (at least some?) of them were built backwards, with the large part of the funnel pointing to the enemy, thus assisting their cannonballs in finding their way in (like Skeeball), as opposed to giving a tiny aperature with wide range of aiming.
My friend's SIL is a disney trip planner. Apparently: "some of her clients were fleeing Orlando, some were staying put, some were canceling the trip, and some were trying to change their flights to arrive before the storm so they can be first at the parks afterwards."
I think not subsidizing flood insurance is the way to go. People should be faced with the full cost of the risk as an incentive not to build there.
10: what do we do about people currently who do not have flood insurance but can't afford to move?
My brother and his kids are in Cocoa Beach, the youngest nephew is going to university in Tampa but went back home for the hurricane but really I wish they'd all fly up to NY and stay with my parents for the next few days.
Gradually taper off insurance subsidies to give them a chance to sell up and move. If they're renters, then there's nothing keeping them there anyway.
And/or say that flood insurance stays subsidised for current owner-occupiers, but will be unsubsidised for new owners and non-occupying owners.
"But that means their houses will lose value because no one will want to buy them if they can't get subsidised flood insurance" - it should not be an objective of government policy that no one's house should ever lose value!
How do they sell if flood insurance won't be available for the buyer? Do you subsidize the actual moving process?
I agree with 17 in theory but in practice I don't see how anyone moves unless they're wealthy enough to take the financial hit.
People can go without flood insurance until such time as there is a flood, at which point they would have to move anyway. The key is not to pay them to rebuild the house in the same place.
He's an owner, Cocoa Beach is a barrier island just south of Cape Canaveral. I told him when he bought there that he'd be asking for trouble but don't you know that global warming is a liberal myth/scientist conspiracy?
99% Invisible recently did a special series on climate change ("Not Built For This") that was really interesting. Probably the most relevant bit was that refugees from the Paradise fire caused a housing shortage in the next town over; the vibe went from "Give me your tired, your poor..." to "They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats..." in the space of about a year (and these were fellow Americans from about 20 miles away).
He also just put close to 200k into it putting in a pool and solar panels.
20: so do we help them move? do we subsidize it? to where? Will Von Wafer call it a Trail of Tears?
How do they sell if flood insurance won't be available for the buyer?
I guess they sell to someone who is ready to self-insure, or who is ready to pay the market price for flood insurance.
22: I don't mind tired or poor, but you have to keep an eye out for graduate students. They might also be tired and poor, but there's plenty of people who are tired and poor without it being their fault.
I think the best form of subsidy would be to subsidize affordable housing that people can move to, but that should be an across the board thing, not specifically for people moving from a flood zone.
Should we be relocating people?
Long history of this working out well as progressive policy.
There really is. Pretty much everyone on this site is the result of relocation working out well as progressive policy (specifically, progressive policies in a country making people elsewhere think it would be a good place to relocate to).
I wouldn't call "exporting food from an area with a famine" a progressive policy.
My wand-waving solution to lost equity, which I may have mentioned before: if someone covenants their danger-zone property to be open space going forward, they get transferable zoning credits to build 10 units in any safe zone they go. They can build with it themselves, or more likely sell to a developer, possibly with one new home as payment.
Of course if we're in wand-waving territory I'd also eliminate all controls on residential density in safe zones, which would make those credits worthless, but the former could happen much sooner than the latter.
Nobody worries about lost equity when houses become worthless because the local job market shit the bed.
29: also I think you misread my comment: "progressive policies in a country making people ELSEWHERE think it would be a good place to relocate TO"
32: There's a process like that for a protected area on Long Island, the Pine Barrens. Back in the 90s the state decided they had to stop development in the Pine Barrens to protect the underlying aquifer, and landowners in the area were given credits as you describe to compensate them for their inability to develop the land they owned within the Core Preservation Area. It leads to a lot of litigation, but overall seems to work okay.
I suppose Gainesville still counts as a safe area, both for the current hurricane and in general. But I'm really glad my uncle left. He's too old for even normal hurricane stuff.
Ok, this:
I think the best form of subsidy would be to subsidize affordable housing that people can move to, but that should be an across the board thing, not specifically for people moving from a flood zone.
plus this:
Nobody worries about lost equity when houses become worthless because the local job market shit the bed.
are helping clarify how best to think about the relocation part of it for me.
I suppose Gainesville still counts as a safe area, both for the current hurricane and in general.
yay!
39: It certainly helped your 'nym to relocate.
Nobody worries about lost equity when houses become worthless because the local job market shit the bed.
Yeah, but it's different if the government is literally saying "You need to get out of this defined area."
Right, but what if the government is just not subsidizing flood insurance?
The only problem is that you can't really give up the coasts, or 200-300 miles inland (apparently needed). We have ports and millions of people there. They can't all move to West Virginia, and the robots can't do all the shipping yet. I don't care much about lost equity, but "no one live in risky areas unless you're okay with no help rebuilding" leaves us, like, the Rust Belt.
(She says, on an earthquake fault next to a wildfire prone mountain. There's only been two fire within a quarter mile in the past decade.)
Going to high ground isn't protection against all flooding either. But there are bigger and smaller risk levels.
I think what's boggling my mind is that 22 feet above sea level is considered high ground in Tampa. Oceans need to be further away than that, but I didn't design the topology.
Going back to Milton of the moment, now adding to the hurricane is a tornado warning. "Several tornadoes are likely today and tonight across parts of central and southern Florida," says NOAA. Including Tampa, but also Miami which is out of the prime hurricane impact zone!
One tornado has already been identified around Punta Gorda.
Tornadoes are more localized. Insurance companies should be able to bear that.
44: Yup, that's right. We make all sorts of infrastructure decisions to enable people to live in locations that would otherwise not be sustainable. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent a lot of money making New Orleans fit for human habitation (but not enough money before Katrina).
Federally backed flood insurance is just another government program aimed at making life in the US somewhat better. That's why there's so much opposition in right-wing circles. Project 2025 would end it altogether.
The program was always a bit fraught and somewhat abused -- like many useful programs. And climate change will probably require that it be re-evaluated. But it is not, on principle, a bad idea.
I think Anheuser Busch should provide free beverages to anyone forced to move from low-lying areas. The company could call it "Trail of Beers."
Joining the threads a bit, spending real money on flood protection makes sense, but I can't imagine we can do it for a whole coastline. Part of the response has to result in our population mostly living more sustainably in denser urban areas and protecting those.
My gut reaction is to agreed with Spike and Ajay. I'm not sure I'd call it progressive policy in/for the affected areas, but I'd support it anyway. A progressive policy at the national level may include a laissez-faire policy when it comes to building houses and amusement parks in flood zones. Not subsidizing flood insurance for stuff like that would save money that could be spent on levees around residential areas.
My one concern is that the phrase "flood zone" is too vague. Some places will literally be below sea level in my lifetime, but not all that much, and some places that aren't flood zones now will be soon, but my understanding is that the biggest change is simply current flood zones getting it worse. There already are a lot of flood zones. Fuck beachfront property that's already at sea level, it's a luxury good, but we can't abandon everywhere that gets a flood once every 20 years, even if under climate change it'll get the floods once every 10 years. New building standards, to include more stilts and other water resistant features? Federal support for a buildings likely to be needed as shelters?
It's complicated. On the one hand, fuck Florida. On the other hand, a lot of people live in Florida who don't deserve that, and it's hard to relocate a port, like 44 says. On the third hand, like 46 says, Florida is very low, and not only that, a lot of the high points are in the panhandle. So maybe just fuck Miami specifically?
I've been out West too long. My flattest local ride has 700 feet of elevation change. That's like two Floridas.
It's just such a hard problem. The market can probably provide luxury stilts for luxury beach houses, but I'm not certain it can do so for teachers and small businesses, etc.. One of the concerns after Katrina was that leaving it to the market would essentially gift the place to developers wealthy enough to deal with the risk. I'm sure there are hurricane actuaries that can figure this out but it doesn't seem like there's an easy fix.
Back when I cared about policy or the future, I thought about managed retreat for a while, partially based on Alex Steffan's work. You can make good predictions with a Punnett's square.
What will actually happen in a region:
Poor, climate brittle: unofficial abandonment, no effective re-building
Poor, climate robust: will become a destination
Rich, climate brittle: will demand hardening/adaptation but only the early regions will get it before the money runs out
Rich, climate robust: will become a destination, may succeed in excluding refugees
What should happen in a region:
Poor, climate brittle: intentional abandonment, intentional transition to wilding or buffering.
Poor, climate robust: start building for the refugees now
Rich, climate brittle: intentional choices about what to keep and what to transition
Rich, climate robust: start building for the refugees now
There are three choices for a region that'll get hit frequently by climate damage. Abandonment, expensive rebuilding and hardening to withstand the next shock, or cheap rebuilding aware that it'll burn/flood every several years. We only explicitly discuss the second of those options, preferring to let the first option happen without admitting it. I don't think we spend enough time thinking about the third option, considering where to set the safety/affordable threshold.
The two largest insurers in California have been trying to leave the market and will not issue any new home policies. It is becoming a real problem for homebuying. The state is trying to force them to stay and stay at prices below the actual cost of risk. There's a lot of demonizing the insurance companies and not a lot of talk about reflecting the true cost of the risk.
"The only problem is that you can't really give up the coasts, or 200-300 miles inland (apparently needed"
Is it really the case, though, that no one would live within 300 miles of the US coast without federally subsidised flood insurance??
Gainesville is safe from this storm, and safer than most of Florida from storm danger more generally, but we still live in Florida and it's not going to be nice to have all kinds of state governance eaten by storm recovery happening elsewhere in the state. My sister and her kids are up from St Pete and staying in our spare room, so we're all going crazy but at least it nicely illustrates our collective vulnerability.
The hidden downside of climate change.
I'm currently in a building three feet above sea level (don't worry, I'm on the fifth floor!) Without even looking it up I can name four other large buildings under construction in the area. They all have mitigation requirements for temporary storm flooding (most have their utilities etc on the 8th floor, there are temporary fast-assemble sea barriers of a few feet in place) but no one seems to worry about the long term permanent sea level issues. One thought is they keep building large commercial or fancy residential projects so that at some point they can say "sure it's $10B to build a Dutch-style sea gate across the harbor, but it would protect $50B of real estate value!"
55: of course people would! But it doesn't appear that the hurricane gives a damn, so we still need to rebuild the areas that are low risk (Asheville) and get walloped anyway. The idea behind the flood insurance reduction is to make it unattractive to live in high risk places, to mitigate the expected expenses due to damages. I'm suggesting that with more areas becoming at risk of damage, the libertarian suggestion isn't going to be as effective at reducing costs.
53: Mind if I tabulate those & share on social media? As "from someone smarter than me".
Marcel! I had almost forgotten you!
Thank you, M. Proust, for emphasizing the wishful nature of a proposal I described as "wand-waving".
64 is very pretty. I hope it doesn't mean anything bad.
53: go ahead. Alex Steffan gave me the notion of climate brittleness and abandonment. Crossing 'wealth' by 'brittle or robust' was my addition.
Hardening, rebuilding, ocean walls...
We have *at a very goddamn generous estimate* 5 tons per capita per year of CO2 or we make everything even worse even faster, right? Total? Which of these fit into that at all, never mind distributive calculations?
It appears that some shear has affected the eye and somewhat weakened Milton. Still has a lot of energy and will cause some significant storm surges.
MOTHERFUCKER! YOU GET HERE!
We have *at a very goddamn generous estimate* 5 tons per capita per year of CO2 or we make everything even worse even faster, right? Total? Which of these fit into that at all, never mind distributive calculations?
In practice we know we're going to blow through the "carbon budget", the question is if we can level out at some point. I'm not sure how we get to a leveling without actually building for people to live. Unless everyone in a climate brittle zone is going to die or live under canvas forever.
I would like to see anyone flooded out that has to move get access to first time homebuyer credits, like the $25K that Kamala wants to give people for down payments. They are definitely taking an equity hit, and people are going to need financial assistance to get themselves rehoused.
That $25K might even need to be rental vouchers. I'd be interested to know what similar programs already exist.
69 highlights a very important part of the conversation. At some point on the expected-severity scale "ensure people don't lose equity in their houses, and please avoid gifting too much to property developers" gives way to "ensure the survival of human civilisation in North America".
I cannot follow what 59 is saying at all.
"The idea behind [subsidised flood risk insurance for high-risk areas] is to make it less attractive to live in high-risk places"? What?
||
Taipan guy seems to have been discharged from the hospital and is now posting up a storm on YouTube. His kidneys, he says, were not destroyed and returned to self-repairing after enough dialysis. There was one video someone else commented over where he said no more venomous snakes for him. However I couldn't find that particular video (deleted?) and did find one of him with a baby snake, still hashtagged #venomoussnakes, apparently was not at his house when all this happened, so was not euthanized. He did buy a turtle, so hopefully laying off that. Of course there's other videos about "another side to the story" that I have no patience to watch.
|>
I hope they made him pay for the antivenom.
Does one actually need a licence or something to keep venomous snakes? It seems like that would be a good idea.
Of course there's other videos about "another side to the story" that I have no patience to watch.
Yeah, I bit his stupid irritating misogynist white ass. And I'd do it again too.
Keep hissing!
76: I think there are basically two issues here - is it possible you'll ever get a lot of rain, and are you subject to storm surges. Scary scenarios are about the second, boring risk management about the first.
In practice we know we're going to blow through the "carbon budget", the question is if we can level out at some point.
This only makes sense to me if we think overshoot doesn't get worse faster the farther we overshoot.
When we thought we were inside our budget, trading 80% to rich people to get 10% for poor people got poor people housed. If we're already over (yes?) and the further we go over the faster we lose capacity (less obvious, but not unlikely, yes?) then we're allotting 110% of this years' budget to rich people, but the result is that next years' budget is 80% of what it would have been and the 10% for the most marginal people is that much harder to win.
I don't know how to square this doughnut.
I read an article a couple of years ago about some advocates of managed retreat trying to work through a local government process in southern California. The article included a detail that at one point one or both of them got beaten up on the way back from a meeting.* It was left unsaid whether the beating had anything to do with arguments over managed retreat but the context suggested the reporter wouldn't have included the detail unless there was some question about that. Anyway, the story at that point was that managed retreat - some process for not building new and slowly removing existing buildings from near an eroding shoreline - seemed plausible at first but hit so much opposition it was basically dead.
*I think, could have been beaten up at a different time but it happened while they were involved in the long-running planning process.
Anybody see the aurora? I have not, although some other folks around here managed to see it through breaks in the clouds.
I don't work for you. I retreat when I damn well want.
84: my NJ brother posted some good photos. Very magenta!
84: No and quite frustrated by it. Am up here in northern Vermont* but totally socked on. B-I-L in Hudson valley has nice pics as do son and D-I-L in Freeport ME. But here.. nada. If misogynistic fuckholes are going to screw over my country can I not at least see some nice lights in the sky.
*I think they are visible back in Pittsburgh.
I'm not going outside to check. I'm warm and sleepy.
We haven't turned on the heat for the season yet.
My kid came home from late practice and said, "Why is the sky red?" so it was easy to notice without even trying.
94: Word, but I'm not sure I could take it all winter.
I guess the free market does get poor people to leave and wealthy people to stay.