Where climate change poses the most and least risk to American homeowners

[aggiesal]

Source: Washington Post (No Paywall)

Climate change may be coming for your house. Look up your level of risk.


Story by Michael J. Coren, with Naema Ahmed and Kevin Crowe
October 15, 2024 at 2:00 a.m.

CAPE CORAL, Fla. — In 2017, Angela and Donald Brudos moved to a modest, ranch-style house where the Caloosahatchee River empties into the vast calm of the Gulf of Mexico. Despite Florida’s reputation for extreme weather, it held out the promise of an affordable paradise where they could retire.

“We felt safe,” said Angela, “because neighbors told us it had never flooded.”

But even as the Brudoses’ home remained perfectly dry, climate change was beginning to reshape the housing market here — and in vulnerable places throughout America. By the time they settled in their new home, research suggests, flood risks were already making people less willing to pay top dollar for houses in waterfront neighborhoods such as theirs, eroding prices even as values marched upward in lower-risk neighborhoods.

As buyers and sellers wake up to risks on a hotter planet, Cape Coral might be a preview of what millions of homeowners throughout the country could face: a slow and almost imperceptible re-pricing of many people’s biggest asset.

. . .

Read more: https://wapo.st/48aMcdW

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Go into the article and enter your county to see how exposed you are.

Link has no Paywall.

[Solly Mack]

1. High climate risk here. Primarily for hurricanes.

Everything else, medium to low. Those damn hurricanes though, will only get worse and worse.

[aggiesal]

2. Nothing High or Very High, here in San Diego County ...

Overall we had Low risk
In the categories we had:
Low: Inland Flooding, Drought & Wildfire
Very Low: Coastal Flooding & Hurricane.

[Solly Mack]

5. A fire watch alert goes into effect tomorrow for my parish. Though the risk is low, wildfires are not unheard of here.

YAY, me!

We get what people here call "puddling". Enough flooding to be an irritation but the waterfowl love it.

[sdfernando]

9. Another San Diegan here!

[waterwatcher123]

3. This climate risk modeling scenario is not very helpful.

There are no climate havens anywhere in the world. Some places might be more exposed and at risk for hurricanes and sea level rise. But, climate change is such a complex problem that it impacts the entire planet. For instance, an unstable jet stream or the loss of the trade winds can have catastrophic effects on any place in the world. It can mean the difference between drought and deluge, agricultural losses, fires and long periods of smoke-filled un-breathable air. We need to lose the term climate refuge just like the term climate mitigation was used previously (again, to justify the status quo). We cannot move away from this problem and go on with life. No one would have imagined that a single storm event would dump 22 inches of rain on western North Carolina. The re-occurrence interval used by hydrologists and climate scientists uses past data to explain the likelihood of a future event. This concept is no longer tenable when statistically extreme events are of becoming the norm.

We need the equivalent of a Manhattan style project to focus on a myriad of actions to address climate change. Climate change has always been a challenge to address because it is supposedly something that can be put off. Well, the future is here and even the best efforts to date are woefully inadequate in the face of this planetary crisis.

[Cirsium]

4. It is a global phenomenon

It is a global phenomenon. Everyone will be and is being affected.

From white flight to suburban sprawl, the urge to run away from problems., encouraged by those who profit from exploiting people's fears, is a big contributor to the problems we are now facing as a global community.

"Reshape the housing market." The article is not really about the climate crisis, it is about the real estate and development industries.

[Grokenstein]

6. My county is still pretty chill most of the time, so my personal concern

is getting priced out of the market when everyone else starts moving here.

[chowder66]

7. I find it odd that they don't include tornadoes.

[LeftInTX]

8. It gave Bexar County medium risk for hurricanes, but we've only gotten tropical storms here.

Maybe 100 years ago a cat 1 landed here. Our tropical storms are not "high risk" type of events. Yes, there are spin off tornados and high winds, but for the most part, if you stay home and secure stuff in your yard, you are fine.

It gave us high for heat - yes
Gave us only medium for drought - no - we are high.
(Both are high-very high risks here)

Hurricanes are a low risk-very low risk here. We are prone flash floods, but once again, if you don't build in a flood zone and don't drive into the water, you should be OK. It's hilly here, so flash floods drain fairly quickly.

[aggiesal]

14. But with Climate Change, could that change the risk from low to High or Very High? ...

I ask because Milton started from a different location than normal and hit a spot that never had a direct hit, yet this time it did.

[sakabatou]

10. Risk in my area is fire

[Martin68]

11. The title is misleading. It is entirely focused on the State of Florida, and mentions nowhere else.

The title should read "Where climate change poses the most and least risk to homeowners IN FLORIDA." Notice I left out the word "American," because it is both misleading and irrelevant.

[FakeNoose]

12. Type in the name of your County - anywhere in the USA

You get results of the name you typed in. Example:



I actually disagree with this report because in Allegheny County Pennsylvania there's very little risk of homes getting flooded. Very few people build homes (not even summer cabins) on our rivers, and nobody lives downtown at the Point. If you live on Neville Island, yeah you might get flooded once every 5 years or so.

But this article does list results of every County in the US where statistics are available. The text is written for residents of Florida because that fits the recent stories about the hurricanes and flooding.

[aggiesal]

15. You have to enter the County you live in to get anything other than Florida n/t

[LauraInLA]

13. First Street does what I'd consider better risk assessment, and you can see changes over time.

I know the Washington Post did articles using their tools for fire risk and I think flood, as well.

[LibinMo]

16. Thanks for the link

My WA Post subscription expired 2 days ago. If I renew it will be after the election. We are in a drought here in my corner of Missouri.