DAILY TRIFECTA: Hurricane Helene's Predictable Outcome
You won't find any denial in the insurance industry
THE SET-UP: “That’s a big one. And the devastation wrought by this storm is incredible. It’s so extensive, nobody thought this would be happening, especially now it’s so late in the season for the hurricanes.” - Fmr. President Donald J. Trump, opining about Hurricane Helene at a press conference in Valdosta, Georgia.
TITLE: Hurricane Helene bears out predictions of growing storm threat
https://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/hurricane-helene-bears-out-predictions-of-growing-storm-threat
EXCERPTS: The hurricane watchers who have been predicting more frequent and more powerful storms aren’t exactly celebrating in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastating destruction and death in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. But their prognostications certainly seem to be coming to fruition.
Unusually warm Gulf waters that fuel tropical storms brought record levels of wind and rainfall to the areas over the last weekend in September. Helene was the first known Category 4 storm to hit Florida’s Big Bend region since records began in 1851, bringing up to 30 inches of rain in some areas, with winds up to 140 miles an hour.
Helene is the eighth named tropical storm of the 2024 season, which began in June, and those predictors say there’s a lot more to come.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast predicted an above-normal hurricane season this year with a range of 17-25 total named storms. Of those, 8 to 13 are forecast to become hurricanes, including 4 to 7 major hurricanes (category 3,4, or 5).
AccuWeather meteorologists are forecasting 20-25 named storms across the Atlantic basin, including 8-12 hurricanes, four to seven major hurricanes and four to six direct US impacts.
“Unfortunately, it looks like predictions of stronger than normal storms are coming true, and this coincides with significant population growth in areas at high risk of hurricanes and other major weather events,” said Ethan Aumann, senior director or environmental Issues and resiliency at The American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
“Climate change is impacting hurricanes through warmer ocean temperatures that causes rapid hurricane intensification, warmer air temperatures that can lead to heavier precipitation, and greater storm surge from rising sea levels,” Aumann said. “These factors, when combined with increasing exposures from demographic shifts in coastal states, make hurricanes more destructive and costly.”
Helene is more than likely to cause insurers to re-evaluate coverage conditions, costs, and availability, experts said, if they haven’t already.
TITLE: How the North Carolina Legislature Left Homes Vulnerable to Helene
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/climate/north-carolina-homes-helene-building-codes.html
EXCERPTS: Every three years, the International Code Council, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., issues new model building codes developed by engineers, architects, home builders and local officials.
Most states adopt a version of those model codes, which reflect the latest advances in safety and design. But in 2013, the North Carolina legislature decided that the state would update its codes every six years, instead of every three.
The change proved important. In 2015, the International Code Council added a requirement that new homes in flood zones be built at least one foot above the projected height of a major flood.
North Carolina did not adopt that version of the building code until 2019. And even then, the state stripped out the new flood-prevention standard. Rather than make elevation mandatory in flood zones around North Carolina, the state decided that the requirement should only apply if local officials chose to adopt it.
The decision most likely left more homes exposed to flooding, according to Chad Berginnis, executive director of the national Association of State Floodplain Managers.
In 2014, lawmakers passed laws to weaken protection for wetlands, which can help reduce flood damage by absorbing excess rainfall, according to Brooks Rainey Pearson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Three years later, the legislature made it easier for developers to pave green spaces, increasing the risk of flooding caused by heavy rains, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Mr. Millis, of the home builders association, said that “storm water is heavily regulated in North Carolina.”
Last year, efforts by Republican lawmakers to ease the state’s building codes erupted into open confrontation with Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
The legislature passed a law that blocked the state from adopting new building codes until 2031. The law also included smaller changes, such as preventing local building inspectors from ensuring that home builders correctly install protective sheathing on homes exposed to winds of 140 miles per hour or less.
Governor Cooper vetoed the bill, saying it would “wipe out years of work to make homes safer.” But Republicans overrode his veto.
The new law has made it harder for North Carolina to qualify for Federal Emergency Management Agency grants to fund climate-resilient construction projects, which prioritize states with up-to-date building codes. The governor’s office has estimated that North Carolina has lost $70 million in grants because of the 2023 law.
Then, this summer, the Republican legislature again passed a series of reforms weakening the state’s approach to building standards. The law gave the legislature, rather than the governor, the authority to appoint or approve members of the state’s powerful building code council. It removed the requirement that the council include licensed architects. And it included other changes, such as preventing the state from requiring that electric water heaters be located off the ground to protect from flooding.
Governor Cooper again vetoed the legislation, saying it “limits the knowledge and practical experience of the body tasked with ensuring all buildings are safely designed.” Republicans again used their supermajority to override his veto.
The [North Carolina Home Builders Association] has contributed $4.3 million to North Carolina politicians over the past three decades, with Republicans receiving nearly twice as much as Democrats, according to data from Open Secrets, which tracks political spending.
TITLE: Florida communities hit three times by hurricanes grapple with how and whether to rebuild
https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-climate-change-florida-big-bend-182d68761b3d2328e56e3fb8d9cdb802
EXCERPTS: It was just a month ago that Brooke Hiers left the state-issued emergency trailer where her family had lived since Hurricane Idalia slammed into her Gulf Coast fishing village of Horseshoe Beach in August 2023.
Hiers and her husband Clint were still finishing the electrical work in the home they painstakingly rebuilt themselves, wiping out Clint’s savings to do so. They never will finish that wiring job.
Hurricane Helene blew their newly renovated home off its four foot-high pilings, sending it floating into the neighbor’s yard next door.
“You always think, ‘Oh, there’s no way it can happen again’,” Hiers said. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever experienced this in the history of hurricanes.”
For the third time in 13 months, this windswept stretch of Florida’s Big Bend took a direct hit from a hurricane — a one-two-three punch to a 50-mile (80-kilometer) sliver of the state’s more than 8,400 miles (13,500 kilometers) of coastline, first by Idalia, then Category 1 Hurricane Debby in August 2024 and now Helene.
Hiers, who sits on Horseshoe Beach’s town council, said words like “unbelievable” are beginning to lose their meaning.
The Hiers, like many others here, can’t afford homeowner’s insurance on their flood-prone houses, even if it was available. Residents who have watched their life savings get washed away multiple times are left with few choices — leave the communities where their families have lived for generations, pay tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild their houses on stilts as building codes require, or move into a recreational vehicle they can drive out of harm’s way.
That’s if they can afford any of those things. The storm left many residents bunking with family or friends, sleeping in their cars, or sheltering in what’s left of their collapsing homes.
Janalea England wasn’t waiting for outside organizations to get aid to her friends and neighbors, turning her commercial fish market in the river town of Steinhatchee into a pop-up donation distribution center, just like she did after Hurricane Idalia. A row of folding tables was stacked with water, canned food, diapers, soap, clothes and shoes, a steady stream of residents coming and going.
“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now. Not in my community,” England said. “They have nowhere to go.”
Hud Lilliott was a mill worker for 28 years, before losing his job and now his canal-front home in Dekle Beach, just down the street from the house where he grew up.
Lilliott and his wife Laurie hope to rebuild their house there, but they don’t know how they’ll pay for it. And they’re worried the school in Steinhatchee where Laurie teaches first grade could become another casualty of the storm, as the county watches its tax base float away.
“We’ve worked our whole lives and we’re so close to where they say the ‘golden years’,” Laurie said. “It’s like you can see the light and it all goes dark.”
Dave Beamer rebuilt his home in Steinhatchee after it was “totaled” by Hurricane Idalia, only to see it washed into the marsh a year later.
“I don’t think I can do that again,” Beamer said. “Everybody’s changing their mind about how we’re going to live here.”
Beamer plans to stay in this river town, but put his home on wheels — buying a camper and building a pole barn to park it under.
In Horseshoe Beach, Hiers is waiting for a makeshift town hall to be delivered in the coming days, a double-wide trailer where they’ll offer what services they can for as long as they can. She and her husband are staying with their daughter, a 45-minute drive away.
“You feel like this could be the end of things as you knew it. Of your town. Of your community,” Hiers said. “We just don’t even know how to recover at this point.”
Hiers said she and her husband will probably buy an RV and park it where their home once stood. But they won’t be moving back to Horseshoe Beach for good until this year’s storms are done.
They can’t bear to do this again.