6 ms·

As Florida Storms Worsen, Some in Tampa Bay Wonder: Is Living There Worth It?

35 points by howard941 2y ago

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
[flagged]
- euroderf 2y ago
  Under the infallible leadership of Chairman DeSantis, it is the best of all possible worlds.
michaelteter 2y ago
And still building houses out of toothpicks.
- pixl97 2y ago
  And what is that going to do about flooding and storm surge?
- dcchambers 2y ago
  I don't understand this sentiment. Modern construction with lumber is great. It's cheap, relatively easy to fix/replace as needed, and a renewable resource.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    It's part of the general sentiment that you see ancient buildings built out of stone in Europe so Americans building houses out of wood (of which there are plenty of examples that are hundreds of years old) are stupid.
    - Insanity 2y ago
      Those USA ones would be a 2-3 centuries old at most, no? When living in EU, there was a church about 5 minutes waking distance that was ~900 years old lol
      - ghaff 2y ago
        My house is over 200 years old which isn't really rare for the area of the country where I live. Yes, it's had a sequence of renovation/expansion work over the years--the last of which this summer actually involved chimney brickwork. Why should I care if it lasts 900 years or not?
        Insanity 2y ago
        Not saying you should - just replying to the “plenty of old buildings in the US” statement. As it goes - 100 miles is a long distance in Europe, while 100 years is a long time ago in America. From my lens, a building that is 200 years old is not really all that old.
        ghaff 2y ago
        And Japan even has a much more normalized practice of knocking down a house and building a new one if you buy it. Europe is probably the outlier of routinely preserving residences through centuries--and I suspect it's not really that universal even there. I've extensively modified and upgraded my house since I've bought it. Even so, I'm sure there are aspects (e.g. one small bathroom) that would give many buyers pause.
        Insanity 2y ago
        It depends - parts of Europe allow you to knock down and change the part of the house that is not visible from the street. So the facade (“Frontend”) from the street is maintained, but the “backend” is renewed.
    - Tade0 2y ago
      I think this is reinforced by the stereotype of walls being generally punchable in the US(provided they are not load-bearing). I have drywall in my apartment, but I would hurt myself trying to punch any of my walls.
      - dcchambers 2y ago
        This is more a drywall/sheetrock vs plaster thing. Plaster walls are much harder than drywall, but are more expensive to install with little practical benefit.
    - michaelteter 2y ago
      It's part of the general sentiment of "look at these tornado aftermath photos". Wooden homes do not survive as well in high wind situations, and hurricanes are high wind situations.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        And you often have flooding situations as well, if you look at photos of Asheville. Granite walls don't necessarily help you much in those situations, nor if the roof is blown off or a tree crashes on it. And much of the US doesn't routinely have really high wind situations. Had a windstorm in my area last fall. A big mature spruce tree came down and managed to avoid hitting my house or neighbor's utility wires but house was fine. Wood construction is not uniquely susceptible to wind events relative to other things that tend to happen in severe storms. And, if you have a direct tornado hit, I'm not sure it really matters what your residential property is made of.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    Toothpick houses aren't like other lumber constructions, you can build sturdy with wood. Trees are extremely sturdy, thin branches are not.
  - ydnaclementine 2y ago
    Is rebuilding houses every 30-50 years eco friendly?
    - dcchambers 2y ago
      There is no need to rebuild lumber framed houses every 30-50 years. What gives you that idea? My house is 30 years old and in great shape. There are 100+ year old wood framed houses all over the US. Water is the primary enemy of wood, keep the water out and wood frames houses will last generations. Modern pressure treated lumber lasts even longer.
      - michaelteter 2y ago
        > There are 100+ year old wood framed houses all over the US. Not in the parts of the US which are prone to tornados and hurricanes. And as we know, the areas prone to wind-related extreme weather are growing. Oh, I forgot to mention fire. Many parts of the US are becoming more susceptible to fires. Concrete is not a great eco choice, but it is a far better choice for homes that need to withstand increasingly harsh environments.
  - michaelteter 2y ago
    American houses not made of concrete usually do not withstand high winds well. An increasingly large part of the US is subject to storms that include very high winds. When a tornado or hurricane hits a wooden house directly, the results are not usually good for the structure or the occupants. Concrete homes tend to survive much better.
- Insanity 2y ago
  Yeah, US housing does feel reminiscent of the “three little pigs” story. Except that the wolf is now an actual hurricane. Does also explain why housing is relatively cheap - just not very durable.
- matwood 2y ago
  Modern housing can survive very high winds, nothing can survive the flooding though. Look up the regulation changes post Andrew if you’re curious about modern housing in hurricane areas.
- oooyay 2y ago
  I've read this style of comment a lot lately. I'm an amateur wood worker, carpenter, and occasional framer; to call a wood structure toothpicks is a bit misleading. Houses are primarily composed of "sticks" aka 2x4s that are themselves composed in a series of frames. The frames put together are part of supporting the load of the forces put on top of the house, while beams distribute that load evenly. Places where there's peak load they'll reinforce with metal bracing. The last structural components of a house are sheething and siding, which are equally important. The concept isn't dissimilar to timberframing which uses all the same mechanisms but leverages wood joinery instead of metal brackets and would still use stick framing and sheething. Timber frames have stood for hundreds of years. Frankly, just because your house is built from solid structure masonry doesn't mean that it will withstand hurricane level forces or dense flying objects at tens or hundreds of mph.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    Only house standing in Hiroshima was made out of stone. Stone is far superior as a material to withstand extreme winds, no hurricane comes close to a nuclear bomb. So there is really no reason to argue wood can be as strong, it can't, you can of course make a stone building that is as brittle as wood though. https://www.expedia.com/Atomic-Bomb-Dome-Hiroshima-City-Centre.d6102476.Vacation-Attraction https://www.expedia.com/Atomic-Bomb-Dome-Hiroshima-City-Cent...
    - oooyay 2y ago
      That building is made of steel with a stone and mortar facade. Facade is not structural. You can tell what side of the building absorbed the blast because that side is missing and likely melted. Structural stone is carved out of large slabs. It's much more expensive pound for pound and non-renewable, but will be equal to large timbers for structural purposes. https://www.archidust.com/blog/2023/11/20/stone-or-timber-dense-or-perforated-various-types-of-building-materials-and-their-applications/ https://www.archidust.com/blog/2023/11/20/stone-or-timber-de...
- kcplate 2y ago
  No. This is not true at all. For the last 30+ years (basically post-Andrew) new building codes are pretty strict regarding structural ability to weather our storms. I feel safe in my home (built 2017) up to a Cat 4. Cat 4 is the magic number where I am going to worry a little beyond the loss of some lanai screening and roof shingles. More from flying debris. Generally when you see major home destruction post hurricane those homes were built prior to the ‘90s or washed out by surge. Those of us in Florida know…it’s not so much the wind we worry about, it’s the water from the surge. Helene’s damage in the Tampa Bay Area was mainly storm surge…the wind, which did occasionally gust beyond 65mph, wasn’t as much of an issue.
- xnx 2y ago
  Building codes in some areas of Florida require windload resistance to 180 mph. Better to specify requirements than dictate specific implementation.
betaby 2y ago
It amazing that governments gives new building permits in such areas. Applies both is USA and Canada. Some areas near Montreal are know to be in the flood zone for centuries, yet I see new constructions popping here and there. Not a lot, but not zero. And then we, as all taxpayers, foot the bill.
- pixl97 2y ago
  Permits = tax dollars for the city directly. Most cities can only survive by further expanding their tax base and new growth put under long term bonds are one of the easier ways to do that.
bbqfog 2y ago
No word on home insurance rates? It's already completely insane in the SE (and other regions of the country) and can only get worse. I don't see how it's possibly sustainable or what will be done. With the current state of insurance, it's "normal" for your mortgage payment to jump every year or two to compensate for insurance increases in your escrow account.
- torlok 2y ago
  In Florida insurance companies outright refuse to cover some places.
  - bonestamp2 2y ago
    This is also true in Alabama, California, Louisiana, and Texas. In all of these states, the government has been forced to pick up the slack and offer insurance where none of the private insurance companies will.
- howard941 2y ago
  40% year over year premium raises aren't sustainable. Are they justified? I don't think so because the legislature essentially eliminated protections against bad faith claim denials under the guise of deregulation and "tort reform" while inviting in fly-by-night insurers.
  - vkou 2y ago
    That's because the legitimate insurers ran the numbers, and concluded that they can't provide insurance at a price anyone can afford. So they left the state. You get what you vote for, and Florida has been consistently voting for denial and corruption and mismanagement. Instead of doing it's job, and doing anything to mitigate these disasters, or making hard decisions about where people should not be building, the government's too busy attacking homosexuals and the 'woke'. Its what the voters want, it's what the voters get. The 'price of living in paradise'.
    - 2y ago
irrational 2y ago
I'm fine with them living there as long as the rest of us don't have to pay anything to bail them out when the inevitable hurricane or tornado comes through. These aren't like earthquakes and volcanoes that are relatively rare. They literally have a hurricane season. Imagine if we had a volcano season.
- bbqfog 2y ago
  For second homes, mansions on the beach... totally. There are a lot of impoverished people in the area that won't be able to move though. I have no idea what will happen, but short of some sort of assisted mass-relocation, it doesn't look good.
  - threatofrain 2y ago
    IMO it is wrong to sell this land to people. It is debt-laden land that will crush most people. It's like I sold you cheap land and you later find out you're going to get cancer there and insurance won't cover you. How is this any different from selling people exploitive loans to desperate people?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > a lot of impoverished people in the area that won't be able to move Instead of providing assistance to rebuild, if the property is in a fucked place, provide money to move.
- willidiots 2y ago
  How about the rest of the eastern US? Billion dollar climate disasters are hitting everything, not just coastal cities in Florida and WUI towns in California. There was just massive flooding in Tennessee due to Hurricane Helene - are they at fault for living in "hurricane country"? Climate related disasters are intensifying everywhere. What's now "inevitable" may have been unthinkable when some of these folks moved there.
keiferski 2y ago
[flagged]
- Tade0 2y ago
  We had a test of this when a tornado hit Czechia some time ago. I think only the smaller commie blocks remained structurally sound.
  - bonestamp2 2y ago
    For those of us who are unfamiliar with the building materials and styles of the area, what was different about those blocks that made them more structurally sound?
    - Tade0 2y ago
      They're built out of large slabs of concrete with steel beams in between and have flat roofs - that's about it. Terrible to live in, but neither a car at speed nor a falling tree can punch a hole in them. Also they weren't built as close to each other as modern buildings are, so debris from one mostly don't reach the other.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
      The square-cubed law. They're all reinforced concrete, but for the same wall thickness a smaller building will be stronger.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Flooding is often the bigger problem.
- zrail 2y ago
  You are grossly underestimating the force of sustained 250kmh winds (cat 4 hurricane), let alone the 400kph winds present in an F4 tornado. Even if your 900 year old building's walls could withstand that it would likely have no roof and be unlivable for an extended period of time. Modern residential buildings in Florida etc are built to withstand these kinds of forces with hurricane glass and beefed up structures.
Molitor5901 2y ago
Anecdotal personal aside: My wife and I considered moving to Tampa some years ago but what scared us away were sinkholes. Hurricanes, etc. were a concern, but when combined with the threat of sinkholes and other natural disasters, it made the home owners insurance more than what we wanted to pay, and so the decision not to move to Tampa became easier.
rr808 2y ago
Its crazy to see the NY times talking about how people are thinking of leaving Florida. In reality people still are leaving NY state - we're down a million people since Covid started, Florida is up 1 million in the same time.
- 0xdde 2y ago
  The article is specifically about Tampa Bay, not Florida-wide. But why is it crazy if both things are true and there are very different reasons behind the two phenomena? A quick Google search will show you that the NYT has written about the NY exodus, as well.
DelaneyM 2y ago
I live in the Caribbean, and we get a lot of hurricanes. A few every year. We build for extreme weather. Our building codes (and common sense) protect us. My house has 10" of concrete on all our exterior walls and 1" concrete shingles on the roof, with no electrical system below waist height. We have 1/4" galvanized sheets of metal in the shed that we can bolt over all our windows when a cat-4 blows through. Don't get me wrong - a cat 2+ is still a giant pain in the ass to live through, but it's not a long-term problem. Also, most people don't bother with home insurance (unless they have a mortgage) covering storm damage. You build your house in anticipation of repairing it and thus build better. A lot of our current situation is only possible because we had an island-wide reset in 2004 (https://youtu.be/NzzeDGICjbA https://youtu.be/NzzeDGICjbA), that may be what it takes for Florida.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > We build for extreme weather Huh, apparently “wind is responsible for greater property loss than water” [1]. [1] https://hazards.colorado.edu/research/working-papers/94 https://hazards.colorado.edu/research/working-papers/94
  - DelaneyM 2y ago
    It does depend on the housing in question too. As the study concludes, wind will absolutely tear apart a cheap house, or a structure not built to be resilient to wind. And most aren’t. _But_ once you’re ready for wind , as we are, you live in fear of the storm surge accompanying a major hurricane. Especially since it lasts 4-6 hours and can overlap with high tide, that’s a 15-20’ sea level rise of churning water. No house can be practically hardened against that, and when wind is gusting at 100+mph it’s not safe to run or move. When we anticipate a major storm surge + storm, we plan for an island-wide evacuation of 50,000+ people to seven small shelters.
- xnx 2y ago
  Is the Caribbean as low-lying the Florida coast. There's not much you can do if you have a foot of water surrounding your house.

35 points by howard941 2y ago

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

[flagged]

euroderf 2y ago
Under the infallible leadership of Chairman DeSantis, it is the best of all possible worlds.

michaelteter 2y ago

And still building houses out of toothpicks.

pixl97 2y ago
And what is that going to do about flooding and storm surge?
dcchambers 2y ago
I don't understand this sentiment. Modern construction with lumber is great. It's cheap, relatively easy to fix/replace as needed, and a renewable resource.
- ghaff 2y ago
  It's part of the general sentiment that you see ancient buildings built out of stone in Europe so Americans building houses out of wood (of which there are plenty of examples that are hundreds of years old) are stupid.
  - Insanity 2y ago
    Those USA ones would be a 2-3 centuries old at most, no? When living in EU, there was a church about 5 minutes waking distance that was ~900 years old lol
    - ghaff 2y ago
      My house is over 200 years old which isn't really rare for the area of the country where I live. Yes, it's had a sequence of renovation/expansion work over the years--the last of which this summer actually involved chimney brickwork. Why should I care if it lasts 900 years or not?
      - Insanity 2y ago
        Not saying you should - just replying to the “plenty of old buildings in the US” statement. As it goes - 100 miles is a long distance in Europe, while 100 years is a long time ago in America. From my lens, a building that is 200 years old is not really all that old.
        ghaff 2y ago
        And Japan even has a much more normalized practice of knocking down a house and building a new one if you buy it. Europe is probably the outlier of routinely preserving residences through centuries--and I suspect it's not really that universal even there. I've extensively modified and upgraded my house since I've bought it. Even so, I'm sure there are aspects (e.g. one small bathroom) that would give many buyers pause.
        Insanity 2y ago
        It depends - parts of Europe allow you to knock down and change the part of the house that is not visible from the street. So the facade (“Frontend”) from the street is maintained, but the “backend” is renewed.
  - Tade0 2y ago
    I think this is reinforced by the stereotype of walls being generally punchable in the US(provided they are not load-bearing). I have drywall in my apartment, but I would hurt myself trying to punch any of my walls.
    - dcchambers 2y ago
      This is more a drywall/sheetrock vs plaster thing. Plaster walls are much harder than drywall, but are more expensive to install with little practical benefit.
  - michaelteter 2y ago
    It's part of the general sentiment of "look at these tornado aftermath photos". Wooden homes do not survive as well in high wind situations, and hurricanes are high wind situations.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      And you often have flooding situations as well, if you look at photos of Asheville. Granite walls don't necessarily help you much in those situations, nor if the roof is blown off or a tree crashes on it. And much of the US doesn't routinely have really high wind situations. Had a windstorm in my area last fall. A big mature spruce tree came down and managed to avoid hitting my house or neighbor's utility wires but house was fine. Wood construction is not uniquely susceptible to wind events relative to other things that tend to happen in severe storms. And, if you have a direct tornado hit, I'm not sure it really matters what your residential property is made of.
- Jensson 2y ago
  Toothpick houses aren't like other lumber constructions, you can build sturdy with wood. Trees are extremely sturdy, thin branches are not.
- ydnaclementine 2y ago
  Is rebuilding houses every 30-50 years eco friendly?
  - dcchambers 2y ago
    There is no need to rebuild lumber framed houses every 30-50 years. What gives you that idea? My house is 30 years old and in great shape. There are 100+ year old wood framed houses all over the US. Water is the primary enemy of wood, keep the water out and wood frames houses will last generations. Modern pressure treated lumber lasts even longer.
    - michaelteter 2y ago
      > There are 100+ year old wood framed houses all over the US. Not in the parts of the US which are prone to tornados and hurricanes. And as we know, the areas prone to wind-related extreme weather are growing. Oh, I forgot to mention fire. Many parts of the US are becoming more susceptible to fires. Concrete is not a great eco choice, but it is a far better choice for homes that need to withstand increasingly harsh environments.
- michaelteter 2y ago
  American houses not made of concrete usually do not withstand high winds well. An increasingly large part of the US is subject to storms that include very high winds. When a tornado or hurricane hits a wooden house directly, the results are not usually good for the structure or the occupants. Concrete homes tend to survive much better.
Insanity 2y ago
Yeah, US housing does feel reminiscent of the “three little pigs” story. Except that the wolf is now an actual hurricane. Does also explain why housing is relatively cheap - just not very durable.
matwood 2y ago
Modern housing can survive very high winds, nothing can survive the flooding though. Look up the regulation changes post Andrew if you’re curious about modern housing in hurricane areas.
oooyay 2y ago
I've read this style of comment a lot lately. I'm an amateur wood worker, carpenter, and occasional framer; to call a wood structure toothpicks is a bit misleading. Houses are primarily composed of "sticks" aka 2x4s that are themselves composed in a series of frames. The frames put together are part of supporting the load of the forces put on top of the house, while beams distribute that load evenly. Places where there's peak load they'll reinforce with metal bracing. The last structural components of a house are sheething and siding, which are equally important. The concept isn't dissimilar to timberframing which uses all the same mechanisms but leverages wood joinery instead of metal brackets and would still use stick framing and sheething. Timber frames have stood for hundreds of years. Frankly, just because your house is built from solid structure masonry doesn't mean that it will withstand hurricane level forces or dense flying objects at tens or hundreds of mph.
- Jensson 2y ago
  Only house standing in Hiroshima was made out of stone. Stone is far superior as a material to withstand extreme winds, no hurricane comes close to a nuclear bomb. So there is really no reason to argue wood can be as strong, it can't, you can of course make a stone building that is as brittle as wood though. https://www.expedia.com/Atomic-Bomb-Dome-Hiroshima-City-Centre.d6102476.Vacation-Attraction https://www.expedia.com/Atomic-Bomb-Dome-Hiroshima-City-Cent...
  - oooyay 2y ago
    That building is made of steel with a stone and mortar facade. Facade is not structural. You can tell what side of the building absorbed the blast because that side is missing and likely melted. Structural stone is carved out of large slabs. It's much more expensive pound for pound and non-renewable, but will be equal to large timbers for structural purposes. https://www.archidust.com/blog/2023/11/20/stone-or-timber-dense-or-perforated-various-types-of-building-materials-and-their-applications/ https://www.archidust.com/blog/2023/11/20/stone-or-timber-de...
kcplate 2y ago
No. This is not true at all. For the last 30+ years (basically post-Andrew) new building codes are pretty strict regarding structural ability to weather our storms. I feel safe in my home (built 2017) up to a Cat 4. Cat 4 is the magic number where I am going to worry a little beyond the loss of some lanai screening and roof shingles. More from flying debris. Generally when you see major home destruction post hurricane those homes were built prior to the ‘90s or washed out by surge. Those of us in Florida know…it’s not so much the wind we worry about, it’s the water from the surge. Helene’s damage in the Tampa Bay Area was mainly storm surge…the wind, which did occasionally gust beyond 65mph, wasn’t as much of an issue.
xnx 2y ago
Building codes in some areas of Florida require windload resistance to 180 mph. Better to specify requirements than dictate specific implementation.

betaby 2y ago

It amazing that governments gives new building permits in such areas. Applies both is USA and Canada. Some areas near Montreal are know to be in the flood zone for centuries, yet I see new constructions popping here and there. Not a lot, but not zero. And then we, as all taxpayers, foot the bill.

pixl97 2y ago
Permits = tax dollars for the city directly. Most cities can only survive by further expanding their tax base and new growth put under long term bonds are one of the easier ways to do that.

bbqfog 2y ago

No word on home insurance rates? It's already completely insane in the SE (and other regions of the country) and can only get worse. I don't see how it's possibly sustainable or what will be done. With the current state of insurance, it's "normal" for your mortgage payment to jump every year or two to compensate for insurance increases in your escrow account.

torlok 2y ago
In Florida insurance companies outright refuse to cover some places.
- bonestamp2 2y ago
  This is also true in Alabama, California, Louisiana, and Texas. In all of these states, the government has been forced to pick up the slack and offer insurance where none of the private insurance companies will.
howard941 2y ago
40% year over year premium raises aren't sustainable. Are they justified? I don't think so because the legislature essentially eliminated protections against bad faith claim denials under the guise of deregulation and "tort reform" while inviting in fly-by-night insurers.
- vkou 2y ago
  That's because the legitimate insurers ran the numbers, and concluded that they can't provide insurance at a price anyone can afford. So they left the state. You get what you vote for, and Florida has been consistently voting for denial and corruption and mismanagement. Instead of doing it's job, and doing anything to mitigate these disasters, or making hard decisions about where people should not be building, the government's too busy attacking homosexuals and the 'woke'. Its what the voters want, it's what the voters get. The 'price of living in paradise'.
  - 2y ago

irrational 2y ago

I'm fine with them living there as long as the rest of us don't have to pay anything to bail them out when the inevitable hurricane or tornado comes through. These aren't like earthquakes and volcanoes that are relatively rare. They literally have a hurricane season. Imagine if we had a volcano season.

bbqfog 2y ago
For second homes, mansions on the beach... totally. There are a lot of impoverished people in the area that won't be able to move though. I have no idea what will happen, but short of some sort of assisted mass-relocation, it doesn't look good.
- threatofrain 2y ago
  IMO it is wrong to sell this land to people. It is debt-laden land that will crush most people. It's like I sold you cheap land and you later find out you're going to get cancer there and insurance won't cover you. How is this any different from selling people exploitive loans to desperate people?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > a lot of impoverished people in the area that won't be able to move Instead of providing assistance to rebuild, if the property is in a fucked place, provide money to move.
willidiots 2y ago
How about the rest of the eastern US? Billion dollar climate disasters are hitting everything, not just coastal cities in Florida and WUI towns in California. There was just massive flooding in Tennessee due to Hurricane Helene - are they at fault for living in "hurricane country"? Climate related disasters are intensifying everywhere. What's now "inevitable" may have been unthinkable when some of these folks moved there.

keiferski 2y ago

[flagged]

Tade0 2y ago
We had a test of this when a tornado hit Czechia some time ago. I think only the smaller commie blocks remained structurally sound.
- bonestamp2 2y ago
  For those of us who are unfamiliar with the building materials and styles of the area, what was different about those blocks that made them more structurally sound?
  - Tade0 2y ago
    They're built out of large slabs of concrete with steel beams in between and have flat roofs - that's about it. Terrible to live in, but neither a car at speed nor a falling tree can punch a hole in them. Also they weren't built as close to each other as modern buildings are, so debris from one mostly don't reach the other.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
    The square-cubed law. They're all reinforced concrete, but for the same wall thickness a smaller building will be stronger.
ghaff 2y ago
Flooding is often the bigger problem.
zrail 2y ago
You are grossly underestimating the force of sustained 250kmh winds (cat 4 hurricane), let alone the 400kph winds present in an F4 tornado. Even if your 900 year old building's walls could withstand that it would likely have no roof and be unlivable for an extended period of time. Modern residential buildings in Florida etc are built to withstand these kinds of forces with hurricane glass and beefed up structures.

Molitor5901 2y ago

Anecdotal personal aside: My wife and I considered moving to Tampa some years ago but what scared us away were sinkholes. Hurricanes, etc. were a concern, but when combined with the threat of sinkholes and other natural disasters, it made the home owners insurance more than what we wanted to pay, and so the decision not to move to Tampa became easier.

rr808 2y ago

Its crazy to see the NY times talking about how people are thinking of leaving Florida. In reality people still are leaving NY state - we're down a million people since Covid started, Florida is up 1 million in the same time.

0xdde 2y ago
The article is specifically about Tampa Bay, not Florida-wide. But why is it crazy if both things are true and there are very different reasons behind the two phenomena? A quick Google search will show you that the NYT has written about the NY exodus, as well.

DelaneyM 2y ago

I live in the Caribbean, and we get a lot of hurricanes. A few every year. We build for extreme weather. Our building codes (and common sense) protect us. My house has 10" of concrete on all our exterior walls and 1" concrete shingles on the roof, with no electrical system below waist height. We have 1/4" galvanized sheets of metal in the shed that we can bolt over all our windows when a cat-4 blows through. Don't get me wrong - a cat 2+ is still a giant pain in the ass to live through, but it's not a long-term problem. Also, most people don't bother with home insurance (unless they have a mortgage) covering storm damage. You build your house in anticipation of repairing it and thus build better. A lot of our current situation is only possible because we had an island-wide reset in 2004 (https://youtu.be/NzzeDGICjbA https://youtu.be/NzzeDGICjbA), that may be what it takes for Florida.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> We build for extreme weather Huh, apparently “wind is responsible for greater property loss than water” [1]. [1] https://hazards.colorado.edu/research/working-papers/94 https://hazards.colorado.edu/research/working-papers/94
- DelaneyM 2y ago
  It does depend on the housing in question too. As the study concludes, wind will absolutely tear apart a cheap house, or a structure not built to be resilient to wind. And most aren’t. _But_ once you’re ready for wind , as we are, you live in fear of the storm surge accompanying a major hurricane. Especially since it lasts 4-6 hours and can overlap with high tide, that’s a 15-20’ sea level rise of churning water. No house can be practically hardened against that, and when wind is gusting at 100+mph it’s not safe to run or move. When we anticipate a major storm surge + storm, we plan for an island-wide evacuation of 50,000+ people to seven small shelters.
xnx 2y ago
Is the Caribbean as low-lying the Florida coast. There's not much you can do if you have a foot of water surrounding your house.