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Hurricane Ian damages in Southeast estimated at $100B to $120B
- RosanaAnaDana 4y agoFlorida is a sunk cost. Its time to turn it into the US's largest nature preserve.
- dougmwne 4y agoPerhaps one of America’s first mega climate migrations. It’s not only sunk cost. Some of us here will live to see it literally sunk.
- verisimi 4y ago
- tick_tock_tick 4y agoThat seems cheap? Like incredible cheap for the size of the storm.
- ericd 4y agoI know COVID stimulus has numbed people to large numbers, but $100B is a huge amount of money. It's two million people working for a year at $50k salary
- Lammy 4y agoCreating some more numbers costs us nothing — that number would be better measured against the accruing negative value of Florida’s (and other coastal states’) economic downtime instead of as a thing with any worth of its own: https://web.archive.org/web/20220104144948/https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20220104144948/https://www.treas... “Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything. This has been the case since 1933. The notes have no value for themselves, but for what they will buy. In another sense, because they are legal tender, Federal Reserve notes are "backed" by all the goods and services in the economy.”
- ericd 4y agoThanks for the lecture on fiat currency, but it’s valuable because will do work for it, and because international oil purchases are denominated in it. Read up on the petrodollar system if you’re interested. And devaluing it is not without cost, inflation causes all sorts of turmoil.
- jliptzin 4y agoThey’re gonna need a lot of cheap labor to rebuild. Maybe they should charter a flight to bring some immigrants from Martha’s Vineyard
- umeshunni 4y agoNot necessary - Florida's got a ton of illegals to do that work.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- giantg2 4y agoCheap labor, cheap construction... similar damages next time a hurricane rolls through With that sort of model they might as well build permanent cement pads sith disposable houses constructed on top
- wellthatsawrap1 4y agoOr not send 80B to Ukraine
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- umeshunni 4y agobut the hurricane impacted something like 40 million people, so in reality, the cost is something like $2500 per person.
- Jtsummers 4y ago"Impacted" has a very wide spread. My sister lost 3 boards from her fence, but they only went about 10' so she really just needs a few nails. Parts and fuel (to get to the hardware store, fuel will probably be the most expensive part of it) will be a couple bucks. Closer to the coast from where she lives, people lost their homes. So $2500/person isn't a terribly useful number when some people will be done after 5 minutes and $5 of repairs, and others need to rebuild or move.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoSurely 40M people did not experience loss. I have family in Tampa that said nothing happened other than wind and rain.
- Jtsummers 4y agohttps://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/dcmi.pdf https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/dcmi.pdf This would put it as either the third or fourth costliest hurricane in the US (first table is inflation adjusted). Not sure that's cheap.
- snarf21 4y agoI 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.
- giantg2 4y agoOr build it better/stronger. Or make it uninsurable (for storm damage) and ineligible for relief funds (after x number of claims in x number of years).
- TylerE 4y agoYes, for sure. SC coast is getting hammered right now. Not as much wind at this point obviously, but timing could not have been worse… peak storm surge right at high tide.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoWhenever I see pictures of the aftermath of such events it seems that the damage is mostly to private houses and boats. Commercial properties, shopping malls, and apartment blocks seem much less affected. If this impression truly reflects what happens then surely what is needed is simply stricter and more appropriate building regulations. So, does my impression accord at all with reality? Are apartment blocks, corporate and government buildings really more robust and better sited or is this just a misleading impression caused by the images that are easily available?
- tcmart14 4y agoI don't know if I could get with a blanket 2 and done rule, but I do think there should be some limited liability for the government for certain things. If you google earth into Tampa and look at a lot of the neighborhoods right on the pay, it is ridiculous. Artificial water ways and such. And of course anytime a hurricane comes through, they will easily be destroyed. Dumb planning, yes, it shouldn't be encouraged to rebuild it. But for things like Ports, we need ports. [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@27.81056621,-82.6048196,1.60318001a,8048.90013417d,35y,0h,0t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/@27.81056621,-82.6048196,1.6031... [2] https://earth.google.com/web/@26.58803101,-81.96774613,5.88877799a,16954.72321356d,35y,0h,0t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/@26.58803101,-81.96774613,5.888...
- fourstar 4y ago
- sattoshi 4y agoWhat would you preferred solution be?
- r2_pilot 4y agoI'll generously assume that you mean 3d printers, to help make housing for the affected people there. Otherwise, I feel like your comment is even less constructive than my interpretation.
- fourstar 4y ago
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoI assumed they were talking about printing money and worsening inflation.
- 0xCMP 4y agoAs someone who lives in Florida I am wondering when this will all come crashing down. According to McKinsey non-hurricane/weather events will skyrocket from ~20-40/year to almost 250/year causing constant water damage. Let alone from hurricanes like Ian or Irma.
- matthewmcg 4y agoNot just hurricanes--look up the looming aquifer depletion for South Florida and its effect on life for folks in Miami and the Keys.
- giantg2 4y agoSounds like the aquifer issue in the gear plains. At least FL has desalination as an option.
- thehappypm 4y agoFlorida gets tons of rain. This should be solvable without desal
- Kon-Peki 4y agoThey need Bermuda-style roofs. The water quality would probably go up, too.
- bin_bash 4y agoVegas is growing just fine while significantly reducing their water usage. They get a lot less rain too. This is a problem for golf courses, lawn care, and agriculture: not humans—at least not anytime in the foreseeable future.
- trynumber9 4y agoHopefully insurance costs will not be extracted throughout the entire country. The insurance rates must reflect the true cost of residing in hurricane alley.
- jliptzin 4y agoI would hope insurers are smarter than that
- digitalsushi 4y agoCan anyone even get (good) insurance in Florida at this point? I believe many large insurance providers have backed out of Florida over the past few years by making their rates so astronomical that there's only one obvious goal.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoKin Insurance covers my Florida property at ~$400k of replacement coverage with reasonable deductibles for $1800/year. I am not on the water, the property is significantly above sea level with a new roof, and I have done every mitigation recommended by the insurer (wall to roof strapping, water barrier between shingles and decking, shutter supports, etc).
- Kon-Peki 4y agoThat sounds affordable as long as you have a decent job. As a point of comparison, however, up here in northern Illinois, you can get 2-3x the replacement coverage from a name-brand national insurance company for that price. And we do have tornado risk. Which is to say that your insurance is expensive, but I wouldn't call it a barrier to living there. Much like property taxes - if you saw my bill, you'd probably fall out of your chair. Turns out the total cost is high everywhere. ;)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 4y ago
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoSituations like this should remind people secession is a bad idea.
- dougmwne 4y agoFlorida will be involuntarily seceding back into the ocean. It’s just a question of the time.
- Lammy 4y agoYeah, crippling their port cities is our job https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/images/union-blockade.pdf https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/images/unio...
- Entinel 4y agoAs someone who has lived in the pacific north my entire life I have no experience with things like this. Does the southeast build their structures differently knowing they are going to get hammered by hurricanes? Japan builds knowing they need to be resistant against earthquakes for example.
- gen220 4y agoIt depends on local jurisdiction. In Cape Cod (Massachusetts), for example, any permitted renovations to old structures or construction of new structures requires significant structural updates to comply with a thorough building code meant to help their structures remain inhabitable through and recoverable from storm surge. Locals complain about it because it's expensive, and because the resulting coastal house on concrete stilts isn't aesthetically pleasing. But it's the only rational thing to do in 2022 if you want sustainable coastal development. In Florida, where things are more "laissez faire", things may be bit different.
- jdhn 4y agoFlorida has strict building codes for places that are within the wind zone (so basically the bottom half of the peninsula). Miami Dade has even stricter rules. However, this only applies to newer houses. Ft Meyers (the worst hit area0 had lots of houses that were built pre-Andrew, which was the event that drove the increase in building codes.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoAnd lots of prefab homes.
- jeffbee 4y agoThe building code does not seem to have prevented anyone from building on fill less than 1m above MSSL.
- coryfklein 4y agoI'd also love to hear from an expert, but my understanding is that building codes make some accomodations for a general expectation of flooding (like no basements allowed), but the region has a huge safety net in FEMA and other disaster relief funds, and so for any given house it makes more financial sense to build more cheaply and then use relief funds to rebuild when the disaster actually comes. This likely is making for a good deal of misaligned incentives, where public disaster relief expenses could be much less if building codes were raised in these areas, but such change is likely to be slow in coming and we should expect the status quo to continue for some time.
- EricDeb 4y agoI bet the venn diagram of floridians who want bailout money but object to student debt relief is quite close to a circle.
- FireBeyond 4y agoFlorida voted against federal aid for the California bushfires.
- peterangular 4y agoNot only that - the conservatives turned the bushfires into political theater, only stoking the polarization that's ripping this country apart.
- lovich 4y agoAlso the Venn diagram of Floridians who supported the No vote on aid after Sandy for NY and wanting federal aid now
- 1over137 4y agoAs this shows, not acting against climate has costs too, which the people that argue against carbon pricing never seem to remember...
- sattoshi 4y agoDoesnt matter without participation from China and India
- orky56 4y agoThis seems like an opportunity for more high rise mixed use buildings that do not have essential functions on the bottom floors. The older SFH's were probably most effected and newer SFH's despite stricter building codes are not resistant to this extreme weather patterns long term. The government needs to incentivize development that benefits economies of scale and disincentivize "disposable"/"perishable" development.
- systemvoltage 4y agoApalled at the comments here, can we please just have some empathy for a second and put politics aside?
- mrguyorama 4y agoIf 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.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoPeople aren't overflowing vessels of infinite empathy and sympathy. They can't be faulted for running dry once in a while.
- tpmoney 4y agoSeems like then the old adage of not saying anything at all if you have nothing nice to say might apply?
- systemvoltage 4y agoThat seems like a low cop-out and an excuse to be an asshole.
- lovich 4y agoPersonally speaking being from a state that they recently tried to attack using migrants as human pawns, I don’t see a reason to have sympathy for the state. Individuals who didn’t support those attacks and want to work together, sure. The state as an aggregate entity? Absolutely not.
- user982 4y ago"I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid. At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible," DeSantis said in a statement. https://www.tampabay.com/content/new-reps-ron-desantis-ted-yoho-vote-against-hurricane-sandy-aid/2104196/ https://www.tampabay.com/content/new-reps-ron-desantis-ted-y...
- bearjaws 4y agoITT: People who don't understand economic loss vs damage. Economic loss means anything not transacting is counted. Disney, Universal, Sea World closed for a few days? "economic loss" Joes house on the beach: "damage" I don't have access to the article, but I imagine half of this amount is just the first category, since Florida is a tourism state. That being said the government should stop covering beach front property, either get private insurance at a fair price or don't build at all.
- singularity2001 4y agohalf is still the same order of magnitude
- strangattractor 4y agoHomes can be built to withstand the Hurricanes. They are just a lot more expensive than your average "manufactured" home.