Environment – Page 51 – The Tarbabys Blog

Tanker fire causes part of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia to collapse; complete rebuild expected to take ‘months’: Updates

USA Today

Tanker fire causes part of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia to collapse; complete rebuild expected to take ‘months’: Updates

Francisco Guzman, Grace Hauck and Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY –

June 11, 2023

A tanker truck fire shut down I-95 in both directions after an elevated portion of the heavily traveled interstate collapsed in Philadelphia on Sunday morning, state officials said, raising concerns about possible travel headaches throughout the Northeast.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said the fire closed all lanes between Exit 25 and Exit 32, which includes Allegheny Avenue, Castor Avenue, Academy Road, and Linden Avenue.

Philadelphia Fire Department Captain Derek Bowmer said emergency crews responded shortly before 6:30 a.m. local time after receiving a report of a vehicle being on fire on the interstate. Authorities later identified the vehicle as a gasoline tanker truck that may have been carrying hundreds of gallons of gasoline.

The fire took about an hour to get under control. City and state officials are “responding to address impacts to residents in the area and travelers affected by the road closure,” the state fire department said in a statement to USA TODAY.

In a Sunday night update, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at least one vehicle was still trapped under the collapsed roadway but there were no immediate reports of injuries. “We’re still working to identify any individual or individuals who may have been caught in the fire and the collapse,” he said.

Interstate 95 is the main north-south highway on the East Coast and stretches from Florida through Maine to Canada.

“Travelers should expect delays and plan alternative travel routes, especially while planning for their weekday commute,” the City of Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management said.

Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg said he was monitoring the fire and collapse and was in touch with the governor and Federal Highway Administration to offer “help with recovery and reconstruction.” And the National Transportation Safety Board said it was working with the Pennsylvania State Police to conduct a safety investigation.

President Joe Biden was also briefed on the collapse and officials offered assistance to local and state authorities, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

How did the section of I-95 in Philadelphia collapse?

Transportation Department spokesperson Brad Rudolph said some kind of crash occurred on a ramp under northbound I-95 causing the northbound section above the fire to quickly collapse.

Bowmer said runoff from the fire or compromised gas lines caused explosions underground. Because of heat from the fire, Bowmer said the northbound lanes were gone and the southbound lanes were “compromised.”

“Today’s going to be a long day. And obviously, with 95 northbound gone and southbound questionable, it’s going to be even longer than that,” said Dominick Mireles, director of the Philadelphia OEM.

According to Rudolph, the collapsed section of I-95 was part of a $212 million reconstruction project that was completed four years ago. The highway segment is closed indefinitely but Rudolph said officials would consider “a fill-in situation or a temporary structure.”

Witness describes a ‘pretty remarkable’ collapse

Mark Fusetti was driving south toward the city’s airport when he saw black smoke rising above the highway. The retired Philadelphia police sergeant said the road beneath the fire began to “dip,” creating a depression. Traffic soon came to a halt before the northbound lanes of the highway gave way.

“It was crazy timing,” Fusetti said. “For it to buckle and collapse that quickly, it’s pretty remarkable.”

Detour routes recommended

For people traveling on I-95 southbound, officials recommended using Route 63 West (Woodhaven Road), U.S. 1 South, 76 East to 676 East. For people traveling I-95 northbound, officials recommended I-676 West, I-76 West, U.S. 1 North to Route 63 East (Woodhaven Road).

Philadelphia residents should use regional public transits services, such as rapid transit, commuter rail or light rail, the city’s Office of Emergency Management said.

Fire contents did not appear to spread into environment

Concerns about the environmental effects of runoff into the nearby Delaware River were raised after a sheen was seen in the river near the collapse site. The Coast Guard contained the material by deploying a boom.

While the tanker truck had a capacity of 8,500 gallons, Ensign Joshua Ledoux said contents from the fire did not appear to be spreading into the environment and “it seems like things are under control.”

The Philadelphia Water Department said the incident had no impact on drinking water quality but will continue to monitor and work with other agencies in their emergency response.

Mireles said heavy construction equipment would be needed to remove the thousands of tons of debris at the site of the fire.

AERIAL VIEW OF DAMAGE: Gov. Shapiro speaks about Route 95 collapse in northeast Philadelphia

Delays in local waste collection expected

Residents in some areas should expect delays in trash and recycling collections, the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management said.

“The Streets Department is assessing which areas will be impacted as sanitation trucks will have to be diverted to alternative travel routes,” the office said.

Heat from fire can quickly weaken bridge structures, expert says

Tanker truck fires carry a large amount of hydrocarbon fuel and can generate a “fast, intense release of heat,” said Dr. Thomas Gernay, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Johns Hopkins University who studies ways to protect structures from fires.

“These fires can exceed temperatures of 1500 F in just a few minutes,” Gernay said in an email to USA TODAY.

Heat from a fire underneath a bridge, which is generally not designed for fire exposure, can quickly weaken structural members, according to Gernay. The materials, such as steel and concrete, of structural members lose load-carry capacity as temperatures increase.

Gernay also said structural members will expand when heated and contract when cooled down, further damaging the structure.

“The parts of the structure that did not collapse can be permanently damaged by the material degradation and the movements induced by the heat exposure,” Gernay said in an email.

Incident resembles other bridge fire failures

While bridge fire failures are rare, according to Gernay, past incidents have been similar and involved a portion of a busy highway collapsing.

In 2007, the MacArthur Maze connecting ramp in Oakland, California, collapsed after a tank truck carrying 8,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline overturned. And more recently in 2017, an elevated portion of Interstate 85 collapsed in a fire and shut down the heavily traveled route.

Gernay said in both cases, contractors had to work ahead of schedule due to the “economic impact of traffic interruption.” The timeline of reconstruction of the two cases occurred over several weeks.

Shapiro said Sunday night he planned to issue a disaster declaration Monday to speed up federal funds. He said he had spoken with Buttigieg and was assured that there would be “absolutely no delay” in getting federal funds to safely reconstruct what he called a “critical roadway.”

But Shapiro also said the complete rebuild of I-95 would take “some number of months.”

Contributing: Associated Press

Top Chinese scientist concedes that coronavirus may have leaked from Wuhan lab

Yahoo! News

Top Chinese scientist concedes that coronavirus may have leaked from Wuhan lab

George Gao told the BBC that the possibility of a lab accident should not be discounted.

Alexander Nazaryan, Senior W. H. Correspondent – June 1, 2023

Eight workers in protective suits disinfect the pavement in front of a school. — Workers disinfect a school following a COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China, in August 2021. (China Daily via Reuters)

The debate over the origins of the coronavirus has largely been conducted in the West, despite the fact that the pathogen originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Chinese authorities have officially maintained a vague stance, meant largely to deflect criticism. Meanwhile, scientists who may hold clues to how the pandemic began — likely sometime in late 2019 — appear to have been silenced.

That changed ever so slightly this week, when George Gao, the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, offered his thoughts on the contentious question to a BBC podcast.

What did Gao say?

The Wuhan Institute of Virology, a large brick building. — The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in May 2020. (Stringer/Reuters)

“Don’t rule out anything.”

It may not seem like much, but Gao was clearly acknowledging that the coronavirus could have emerged as a result of a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The remarks came in a new BBC podcast, “Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin.”

Initially, most scientists thought the virus originated at a wildlife market in Wuhan. But gradually, opinion has shifted toward the likelihood of human error.

China has strenuously denied that such a “leak” took place, and Gao did not present any evidence to counter those denials. But he also did not make such a denial himself when presented with the chance to do so.

Lab leak proponent and former National Security Council official Jamie Metzl told Yahoo News that he could not recall another Chinese scientist making a similar concession.

“At least on the surface, he has been pretty honest and straightforward from the beginning,” Metzl said of Gao. “My personal sense is that he is trying to maintain scientific credibility while not overly upsetting the Chinese government.”

In fact, Gao may have even been encouraged by Beijing, speculates Richard Ebright, a Rutgers molecular biologist and an outspoken lab leak proponent. “Gao’s statement may have been authorized by China’s government and thus may augur a change in China’s government’s stance on the subject,” Ebright told Yahoo News.

An investigation by China?

The Huanan Seafood Market is seen from above. — Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market, where the first cluster of COVID cases emerged, in 2021. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Gao also told the BBC that the Chinese government investigated the Wuhan laboratory, though he gave no details about the investigation.

“The government organized something,” Gao said. “That lab was double-checked by the experts in the field.”

He did not say which agency employed those experts, or what they found, other than that they discovered no “wrongdoing.”

But the revelation that an investigation had been conducted suggests that Chinese authorities took the possibility of a lab leak more seriously than they had previously indicated.

Read more from our partners: Chinese virologist accuses Beijing of hiding details on coronavirus

A persistent controversy

Members of the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of COVID pose for pictures. — Peter Ben Embarek, Peter Daszak and Marion Koopmans, members of the WHO team tasked with investigating the origins of COVID, at a hotel in Wuhan in 2021. (Aly Song/Reuters)

Chinese officials and state media have gone so far as to spread conspiracy theories that the coronavirus originated at Fort Detrick, a bioweapons facility in Maryland.

There is no evidence for that outlandish accusation, but it is telling all the same. In some ways, Beijing has treated the coronavirus with some of the same propaganda and obfuscation that the Soviet Union deployed after the Chernobyl partial meltdown in 1986.

In early 2021, China allowed investigators with the World Health Organization to conduct a carefully managed visit to Wuhan. In a subsequent report, the WHO endorsed the view that the virus originated at the Huanan Seafood Market, where it jumped from an “intermediate” animal species to humans.

China has denied the market origin hypothesis as strenuously as the possibility of a lab leak, doing all it can to stymie investigations.

Here comes the raccoon dog

A raccoon dog stands in its enclosure at the Shanghai Zoo. — A raccoon dog in its enclosure at the Shanghai Zoo on May 12. (Staff/Reuters)

In March, a group of researchers made a controversial, highly contested claim. Analyzing genetic data from swabs taken at the Huanan Seafood Market, which had been inadvertently uploaded to an international server, they claimed that the virus had originated in a cage containing raccoon dogs.

Critics quickly noted that the mixture of raccoon dog DNA and viral matter did not necessarily mean that the animals had transmitted the coronavirus to humans. The virus could have been deposited in the raccoon dog cage by a sneezing human already sickened with COVID-19 — or by some other inadvertent means.

And, it turned out, the amount of viral DNA in the raccoon dog sample was minuscule to begin with.

Among the critics of the raccoon dog argument was Gao, who like Chinese political leaders maintained that the virus had been brought to the Huanan market by humans, not animals, in what appeared to be an effort to discount both origin hypotheses without offering a credible alternative.

Gao disparaged the raccoon dog findings as “nothing new.”

Read more from our partners: Expert says origins of pandemic could be known in few years

Preparing for future pandemics

A research team investigating emerging zoonotic diseases lays down some tarps at a bat breeding shed. — A research team investigating emerging zoonotic diseases prepares to collect samples from a bat breeding shed at Accra Zoo in Accra, Ghana, in 2022. (Francis Kokoroko/Reuters)

The attention devoted to Gao’s comments seems to reflect an enduring fascination with the pandemic’s origins, even as coronavirus concerns recede for most people in the United States and elsewhere.

Some have argued that both the wildlife trade and laboratory safety need reform, in China and elsewhere, regardless of how the virus originated.

“As Professor Gao said, science deals in probabilities and not in certainties. In reality, it may never be possible to know with confidence how the covid-19 virus entered the human population,” said James Wood, head of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge. “What is important is that lessons are learned and that live wildlife trade, a well recognised route for zoonotic virus transmission, is reduced or banned and that laboratory safety is properly regulated.”

Read more from our partners: The Chinese wild-animal industry and wet markets must go

Climate Shocks Are Making Parts of America Uninsurable. It Just Got Worse.

The New York Times

Climate Shocks Are Making Parts of America Uninsurable. It Just Got Worse.

Christopher Flavelle – May 31, 2023

A firefighter tried to save a home in Meyers, Calif. (NYT)

The climate crisis is becoming a financial crisis.

This month, the largest homeowner insurance company in California, State Farm, announced that it would stop selling coverage to homeowners. That’s not just in wildfire zones, but everywhere in the state.

Insurance companies, tired of losing money, are raising rates, restricting coverage or pulling out of some areas altogether — making it more expensive for people to live in their homes.

“Risk has a price,” said Roy Wright, the former official in charge of insurance at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now head of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a research group. “We’re just now seeing it.”

In parts of eastern Kentucky ravaged by storms last summer, the price of flood insurance is set to quadruple. In Louisiana, the top insurance official says the market is in crisis, and is offering millions of dollars in subsidies to try to draw insurers to the state.

And in much of Florida, homeowners are increasingly struggling to buy storm coverage. Most big insurers have pulled out of the state already, sending homeowners to smaller private companies that are straining to stay in business — a possible glimpse into California’s future if more big insurers leave.

Growing ‘catastrophe exposure’

State Farm, which insures more homeowners in California than any other company, said it would stop accepting applications for most types of new insurance policies in the state because of “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.”

The company said that while it recognized the work of California officials to reduce losses from wildfires, it had to stop writing new policies “to improve the company’s financial strength.” A State Farm spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Insurance rates in California jumped after wildfires became more devastating than anyone had anticipated. A series of fires that broke out in 2017, many ignited by sparks from failing utility equipment, exploded in size with the effects of climate change. Some homeowners lost their insurance entirely because insurers refused to cover homes in vulnerable areas.

Michael Soller, a spokesperson for the California Department of Insurance, said the agency was working to address the underlying factors that have caused disruption in the insurance industry across the country and around the world, including the biggest one: climate change.

He highlighted the department’s Safer From Wildfires initiative, a fire resilience program, and noted that state lawmakers are also working to control development in the areas at highest risk of burning.

But Tom Corringham, a research economist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego who has studied the costs of natural disasters, said that allowing people to live in homes that are becoming uninsurable, or prohibitively expensive to insure, was unsustainable.

He said that policymakers must seriously consider buying properties that are at greatest risk, or otherwise moving residents out of the most dangerous communities.

“If we let the market sort it out, we have insurers refusing to write new policies in certain areas,” Corringham said. “We’re not sure how that’s in anyone’s best interest other than insurers.”

A broken model

California’s woes resemble a slow-motion version of what Florida experienced after Hurricane Andrew devastated Miami in 1992. The losses bankrupted some insurers and caused most national carriers to pull out of the state.

In response, Florida established a complicated system: a market based on small insurance companies, backed up by Citizens Property Insurance Corp., a state-mandated company that would provide windstorm coverage for homeowners who couldn’t find private insurance.

For a while, it mostly worked. Then came Hurricane Irma.

The 2017 hurricane, which made landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 4 storm before moving up the coast, didn’t cause a particularly great amount of damage. But it was the first in a series of storms, culminating in Hurricane Ian last October, that broke the model insurers had relied on: One bad year of claims, followed by a few quiet years to build back their reserves.

Since Irma, almost every year has been bad.

Private insurers began to struggle to pay their claims; some went out of business. Those that survived increased their rates significantly.

More people have left the private market for Citizens, which recently became the state’s largest insurance provider, according to Michael Peltier, a spokesperson. But Citizens won’t cover homes with a replacement cost of more than $700,000, or $1 million in Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys.

That leaves those homeowners with no choice but private coverage — and in parts of the state, that coverage is getting harder to find, Peltier said.

‘Just not enough wealth’

Florida, despite its challenges, has an important advantage: A steady of influx of residents who remain, for now, willing and able to pay the rising cost of living there. In Louisiana, the rising cost of insurance has become, for some communities, a threat to their existence.

Like Florida after Andrew, Louisiana’s insurance market started to buckle after insurers began leaving following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Then, starting with Hurricane Laura in 2020, a series of storms pummeled the state. Nine insurance companies failed; people began rushing into the state’s own version of Florida’s Citizens plan.

The state’s insurance market “is in crisis,” Louisiana’s insurance commissioner, James J. Donelon, said in an interview.

In December, Louisiana had to increase premiums for coverage provided by its Citizens plan by 63%, to an average of $4,700 a year. In March, it borrowed $500 million from the bond market to pay the claims of homeowners who had been abandoned when their private insurers failed, Donelon said. The state recently agreed to new subsidies for private insurers, essentially paying them to do business in the state.

Donelon said he hoped that the subsidies would stabilize the market. But Jesse Keenan, a professor at Tulane University in New Orleans and an expert in climate adaptation and finance, said the state’s insurance market would be hard to turn around. The high cost of insurance has begun to affect home prices, he said.

In the past, it would have been possible for some communities — those where homes are passed down from generation to generation, with no mortgages required and no banks demanding insurance — to go without insurance altogether. But as climate change makes storms more intense, that’s no longer an option.

“There’s just not enough wealth in those low-income communities to continue to rebuild, storm after storm,” Keenan said.

A shift to risk-based pricing

Even as homeowners in coastal states face rising costs for wind coverage, they’re being squeezed from yet another direction: Flood insurance.

In 1968, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program, which offered taxpayer-backed coverage to homeowners. As with wildfires in California and hurricanes in Florida, the flood program arose from what economists call a market failure: Private insurers wouldn’t provide coverage for flooding, leaving homeowners with no options.

The program achieved its main goal, of making flood insurance widely available at a price that homeowners could afford. But as storms became more severe, the program faced growing losses.

In 2021, FEMA, which runs the program, began setting rates equal to the actual flood risk facing homeowners — an effort to better communicate the true danger facing different properties, and also to stanch the losses for the government.

Those increases, which are being phased in over years, in some cases amount to enormous jumps in price. The current cost of flood insurance for single-family homes nationwide is $888 a year, according to FEMA. Under the new, risk-based pricing, that average cost would be $1,808.

And by the time current policyholders actually have to pay premiums that reflect that full risk, the impacts of climate change could make them much higher.

“Properties located in high-risk areas should plan and expect to pay for that risk,” David Maurstad, head of the flood insurance program, said in a statement.

The best way for policymakers to help keep insurance affordable is to reduce the risk people face, said Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. For example, officials could impose tougher building standards in vulnerable areas.

Government-mandated programs, like the flood insurance plan, or Citizens in Florida and Louisiana, were meant to be a backstop to the private market. But as climate shocks get worse, she said, “we’re now at the point where that’s starting to crack.”

Struggles continue for thousands in Florida 8 months after Hurricane Ian as new storm season looms

Associated Press

Struggles continue for thousands in Florida 8 months after Hurricane Ian as new storm season looms

Curt Anderson – May 28, 2023

A skeleton in sunglasses sits beside a sign reading "Just waiting for the insurance check," outside the closed Kona Kai Motel on Sanibel Island, Fla., Thursday, May 11, 2023. In Sanibel, the lingering damage is not quite as widespread as in Fort Myers Beach, but many businesses remain shuttered as they are repaired and storm debris is everywhere. Seven local retail stores have moved into a shopping center in mainland Fort Myers, hoping to continue to operate while awaiting insurance payouts, construction permits, or both before returning to the island. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) — A skeleton in sunglasses sits beside a sign reading “Just waiting for the insurance check,” outside the closed Kona Kai Motel on Sanibel Island, Fla., Thursday, May 11, 2023. In Sanibel, the lingering damage is not quite as widespread as in Fort Myers Beach, but many businesses remain shuttered as they are repaired and storm debris is everywhere. Seven local retail stores have moved into a shopping center in mainland Fort Myers, hoping to continue to operate while awaiting insurance payouts, construction permits, or both before returning to the island. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In this drone photo, restaurants operate from food trucks with outdoor seating in the Times Square area, where many businesses were completely destroyed during Hurricane Ian, in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Wednesday, May 10, 2023. With this year's Atlantic hurricane season officially beginning June 1, recovery is far from complete in hard-hit Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Pine Island. Blank concrete slabs reveal where buildings, many of them once charming, decades-old structures that gave the towns their relaxed beach vibe, were washed away or torn down. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) — In this drone photo, restaurants operate from food trucks with outdoor seating in the Times Square area, where many businesses were completely destroyed during Hurricane Ian, in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Wednesday, May 10, 2023. With this year’s Atlantic hurricane season officially beginning June 1, recovery is far from complete in hard-hit Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Pine Island. Blank concrete slabs reveal where buildings, many of them once charming, decades-old structures that gave the towns their relaxed beach vibe, were washed away or torn down. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Omar Del Rio, a civil engineer currently subcontracted to FEMA, and his wife Maria wheel shopping carts full of groceries and supplies to their car as they leave the free food pantry operating underneath the heavily damaged Beach Baptist Church in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Thursday, May 11, 2023. Before Hurricane Ian devastated Fort Myers Beach in 2022, the Del Rios rented an apartment on the island, living near the rented homes of their adult son and daughter, who each lived with their spouse and three children. All three homes were lost in the storm, and the six adults and six children were forced to spend months living together in one camper. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In this photo taken with a drone, the remains of homes demolished after sustaining heavy damage in Hurricane Ian are seen in Tropicana Sands mobile home park, bottom, in Fort Myers, Fla., Wednesday, May 10, 2023. More than seven months after the storm, crews continue removing debris after demolishing all but a handful of the hundreds of manufactured homes in the community marketed to active adults ages 55 and up. The state estimated the total insured loss from Ian in Florida was almost $14 billion, with more than 143,000 claims still open without payment or claims paid but not fully settled as of March 9. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Jacquelyn and Timothy Velazquez sit inside the gutted shell of their 910 square foot two-bedroom home, which was damaged when Hurricane Ian's storm surge rose to within inches of the ceiling, in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Wednesday, May 24, 2023. The couple has laid down new flooring, but is still battling with their insurance company to have the damage to the leaking roof covered, while waiting on permits for the renovation work. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) — Jacquelyn and Timothy Velazquez sit inside the gutted shell of their 910 square foot two-bedroom home, which was damaged when Hurricane Ian’s storm surge rose to within inches of the ceiling, in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Wednesday, May 24, 2023. The couple has laid down new flooring, but is still battling with their insurance company to have the damage to the leaking roof covered, while waiting on permits for the renovation work. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Eight months ago, chef Michael Cellura had a restaurant job and had just moved into a fancy new camper home on Fort Myers Beach. Now, after Hurricane Ian swept all that away, he lives in his older Infiniti sedan with a 15-year-old long-haired chihuahua named Ginger.

Like hundreds of others, Cellura was left homeless after the Category 5 hurricane blasted the barrier island last September with ferocious winds and storm surge as high as 15 feet (4 meters). Like many, he’s struggled to navigate insurance payouts, understand federal and state assistance bureaucracy and simply find a place to shower.

“There’s a lot of us like me that are displaced. Nowhere to go,” Cellura, 58, said during a recent interview next to his car, sitting in a commercial parking lot along with other storm survivors housed in recreational vehicles, a converted school bus, even a shipping container. “There’s a lot of homeless out here, a lot of people living in tents, a lot of people struggling.”

Recovery is far from complete in hard-hit Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Pine Island, with this year’s Atlantic hurricane season officially beginning June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting a roughly average tropical storm season forecast of 12 to 17 named storms, five to nine becoming hurricanes and one to four powering into major hurricanes with winds greater than 110 mph (177 kph).

Another weather pattern that can suppress Atlantic storms is the El Nino warming expected this year in the Pacific Ocean, experts say. Yet the increasingly warmer water in the Atlantic basin fueled by climate change could offset the El Nino effect, scientists say.

In southwest Florida, piles of debris are everywhere. Demolition and construction work is ongoing across the region. Trucks filled with sand rumble to renourish the eroded beaches. Blank concrete slabs reveal where buildings, many of them once charming, decades-old structures that gave the towns their relaxed beach vibe, were washed away or torn down.

Some people, like Fort Myers Beach resident Jacquelyn Velazquez, are living in campers or tents on their property while they await sluggish insurance checks or building permits to restore their lives.

“It’s, you know, it’s in the snap of the finger. Your life is never going to be the same,” she said next to her camper, provided under a state program. “It’s not the things that you lose. It’s just trying to get back to some normalcy.”

Ian claimed more than 156 lives in the U.S., the vast majority in Florida, according to a comprehensive NOAA report on the hurricane. In hard-hit Lee County — location of Fort Myers Beach and the other seaside towns — 36 people died from drowning in storm surge and more than 52,000 structures suffered damage, including more than 19,000 destroyed or severely damaged, a NOAA report found.

Even with state and federal help, the scale of the disaster has overwhelmed these small towns that were not prepared to deal with so many problems at once, said Chris Holley, former interim Fort Myers Beach town manager.

“Probably the biggest challenge is the craziness of the debris removal process. We’ll be at it for another six months,” Holley said. “Permitting is a huge, huge problem for a small town. The staff just couldn’t handle it.”

Then there’s battles with insurance companies and navigating how to obtain state and federal aid, which is running into the billions of dollars. Robert Burton and his partner Cindy Lewis, both 71 and from Ohio, whose mobile home was totaled by storm surge, spent months living with friends and family until finally a small apartment was provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They can stay there until March 2024 while they look for a new home.

Their mobile home park next to the causeway to Sanibel is a ghost town, filled with flooded-out homes soon to be demolished, many of them with ruined furniture inside, clothes still in closets, art still on the walls. Most homes had at least three feet of water inside.

“No one has a home. That park will not be reopened as a residential community,” Lewis said. “So everybody lost.”

The state Office of Insurance Regulation estimated the total insured loss from Ian in Florida was almost $14 billion, with more than 143,000 claims still open without payment or claims paid but not fully settled as of March 9.

With so many people in limbo, places like the heavily damaged Beach Baptist Church in Fort Myers Beach provide a lifeline, with a food pantry, a hot lunch stand, showers and even laundry facilities for anyone to use. Pastor Shawn Critser said about 1,200 families per month are being served at the church through donated goods.

“We’re not emergency feeding now. We’re in disaster recovery mode,” Critser said. “We want to see this continue. We want to have a constant presence.”

In nearby Sanibel, the lingering damage is not quite as widespread although many businesses remain shuttered as they are repaired and storm debris is everywhere. Seven local retail stores have moved into a shopping center in mainland Fort Myers, hoping to continue to operate while awaiting insurance payouts, construction permits, or both before returning to the island.

They call themselves the “Sanibel Seven,” said Rebecca Binkowski, owner of MacIntosh Books and Paper that has been a Sanibel fixture since 1960. She said her store had no flood insurance and lost about $100,000 worth of books and furnishings in the storm.

“The fact of the matter is, we can get our businesses back up and running but without hotels to put people in, without our community moving back, it’s going to be hard to do business,” she said. “You hope this is still a strong community.”

Yet, the sense among many survivors is one of hope for the future, even if it looks very different.

Cellura, the chef living in his car, has a new job at another location of the Nauti Parrot restaurant on the mainland. Insurance only paid off the outstanding loan amount on his destroyed camper and he didn’t qualify for FEMA aid, leaving him with virtually nothing to start over and apartment rents rising fast.

But, after 22 years on the island, he’s not giving up.

“I believe that things will work out. I’m strong. I’m a survivor,” he said. “Every day I wake up, it’s another day to just continue on and try to make things better.”

AP visual journalist Laura Bargfeld and photographer Rebecca Blackwell contributed to this story.

State Farm will no longer accept applications for homeowners insurance in California, citing wildfire risk

ABC News

State Farm will no longer accept applications for homeowners insurance in California, citing wildfire risk

Julia Jacobo – May 28, 2023

One of the largest insurance agencies in the country will no longer accept applications for home and business insurance in California due to wildfire risks and the cost of rebuilding.

State Farm has ceased new applications, including all business and personal lines property and casualty insurance, starting Saturday, the company announced in a press release.

PHOTO: The headquarters for State Farm Insurance is shown in Bloomington, Illinois. (Google Maps Street View)

Existing customers will not be affected, and the company will continue to offer auto insurance in the state, according to the release.

The insurance agency cited “historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market” for its decision.

MORE: Mosquito Fire in Northern California has destroyed dozens of homes

State Farm said while it takes its responsibility to manage risk “seriously” and will continue to work with state policymakers and the California Department of Insurance to help build market capacity in California, the decision was necessary to ensure the company remains in good financial standing.

“It’s necessary to take these actions now to improve the company’s financial strength,” the statement read. “We will continue to evaluate our approach based on changing market conditions. State Farm® independent contractor agents licensed and authorized in California will continue to serve existing customers for these products and new customers for products not impacted by this decision.”

PHOTO: In this Sept. 7, 2022, file photo, a property destroyed by Mosquito Fire is shown in the Michigan Bluff neighborhood of Foresthill, in Placer County, Calif. (Fred Greaves/Reuters, FILE)

A decadeslong megadrought and climate change have been exacerbating wildfire risk in California in recent years. Severe drought during the winter is leading to matchbox conditions in the dry season, allowing intense wildfires to ignite with the slightest spark.

The warm, dry climate that serves as fuel for wildfires is typical for much of the West, but hotter overall temperatures on Earth are increasing wildfire risk in the region.

MORE: Out-of-control wildfire destroys town of Greenville, California, as dry, gusty conditions encourage rapid spread

Last year, the Mosquito Fire destroyed dozens of homes in El Dorado and Placer counties. In 2021, the Dixie Fire destroyed more than 100 homes in the town of Greenville.

The Creek Fire in 2020 became the largest single fire in California history, damaging or destroying nearly 1,000 structures and burning through about 380,000 acres.

PHOTO: In this Sept. 24, 2021, file photo a burned residence is shown in Greenville, Calif. The Dixie fire has burned almost 1 million acres and remains at 94% containment after burning through 5 counties and more than 1,000 homes. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

Rebuilding from wildfire destruction is expensive, expensive, experts have found.

The reconstruction costs from the 2022 Coastal Fire in Southern California were estimated to be $530 million, and only 20 homes were destroyed, according to a report by property solutions firm CoreLogic.

MORE: Creek Fire becomes largest single blaze in California history

In addition, the nationwide impact of California’s 2018 wildfire season — which included the Camp Fire, the most destructive in California history — totaled $148.5 billion in economic damage, according to a study by the University College London.

PHOTO: In this Sept. 8, 2020, file photo, a home is engulfed in flames during the 'Creek Fire' in the Tollhouse area of unincorporated Fresno County, Calif. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images, FILE) — PHOTO: In this Sept. 8, 2020, file photo, a home is engulfed in flames during the ‘Creek Fire’ in the Tollhouse area of unincorporated Fresno County, Calif. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

The state’s FAIR Plan provides basic fire insurance coverage for high-risk properties when traditional insurance companies will not, but that plan is the last resort, Janet Ruiz, director of strategic communication for the Insurance Information Institute, told ABC San Francisco station KGO.

“It’s a basic policy, only covers fire – you have to get a wraparound policy too to cover theft and liability,” she said.

Trump Rolled Back Decades Of Clean Water Protections. The Supreme Court Just Went Even Further.

HuffPost

Trump Rolled Back Decades Of Clean Water Protections. The Supreme Court Just Went Even Further.

Alexander C. Kaufman, Chris D’Angelo – May 26, 2023

More than three decades ago, a Michigan man named John Rapanos tried to fill in three wetlands on his property to make way for a shopping center. State regulators warned him that doing so was illegal without federal Clean Water Act permits. Rapanos argued that you couldn’t navigate a boat from his wetlands to a federal waterway, so the Environmental Protection Agency had no jurisdiction on his land. When Rapanos ignored the EPA’s cease-and-desist letters, the government successfully brought a civil lawsuit against him, which he then vowed to “fight to the death.”

Instead, he made it all the way to the nation’s highest court. In a split decision in 2006, the Supreme Court overturned the judgment against Rapanos, but did not reach a majority ruling on whether wetlands that flowed into federally regulated “waters of the United States” qualified for the same protections.

In 2016, President Barack Obama sought to answer that question with a new EPA rule extending the Clean Water Act of 1972 to include millions of acres of marshes, bogs and lagoons whose water — and any pollution added to it — channel into already federally regulated waterways.

Republicans chided the move as a federal land grab, while environmentalists cheered what they saw as a reasonable interpretation of the decadesold law through the lens of the latest science shows about hydrology and the increasing threat of extreme droughts and toxic algae blooms.

In 2020, President Donald Trump rolled back much of the rule’s protections, slashing the total protected area of wetlands roughly in half. In 2022, President Joe Biden moved to restore the Obama-era rule.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court’s new right-wing supermajority revisited the 2006 decision to strike down federal protections for virtually all the wetlands Trump deregulated — and then some, eliminating even the few safeguards the Republican administration tried to preserve.

An environmental advocate holds up a sign during a rally outside the Supreme Court in October. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Protect our Waters)

The 5-4 decision — written by Justice Samuel Alito, and joined by Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — revoked the Clean Water Act’s authority over at least 59 million acres of wetlands across the U.S., according to an estimate by the environmental group Earthjustice.

“You’re going to see the Clean Water Act significantly scaled back in terms of coverage,” said Duke McCall, a partner who specializes in federal water rules at the law firm Morgan Lewis. “The impacted waters are going to be significantly narrowed.”

The Obama administration included any wetlands linked to existing federal waterways via underground aquifers or streams. The Trump EPA narrowed the scope to only include wetlands with visible surface connections to rivers, lakes and other long-standing “waters of the United States.” But the Republican administration made an exception for wetlands cut off from federal waterways via a berm, bridge or other artificial barrier.

The court granted no such leeway, instead dismantling nearly half a century of established federal jurisdiction over wetlands — a fact that conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted in his dissenting opinion.

At the very least, the ruling takes the U.S. back to the mid-1970s, to the early days of the Clean Water Act, said Emily Hammond, an energy and environmental law professor at George Washington University. But Hammond stressed it could be worse than that, noting that the majority’s opinion repeatedly cites the Supreme Court’s 1870 decision in The Daniel Ball case, which found that waterways are “navigable” only if they are “navigable in fact” and used for interstate or foreign commerce.

“It’s always been understood, I think, by courts and by Congress and by agencies that when Congress used the term ‘waters of the United States’ it meant to go further than that ‘navigable in fact’ standard that Daniel Ball stood for,” Hammond said. “To see the majority now citing that old decision suggests their eye is to shrink the scope of the Clean Water Act down back to where it would have been before we had a Clean Water Act.”

“In some ways, this takes us back that far,” Hammond said, referring to the 1870 case.

Kavanaugh wrote that while the last eight previous administrations dating back to 1977 “maintained dramatically different views of how to regulate the environment, including under the Clean Water Act,” all of them “recognized as a matter of law that the Clean Water Act’s coverage of adjacent wetlands means more than adjoining wetlands and also includes wetlands separated from covered waters by man-made dikes or barriers, natural river berms, beach dunes, or the like.”

Thursday’s ruling, he argued, will have “negative consequences for waters” across the country.

“By narrowing the Act’s coverage of wetlands to only adjoining wetlands, the Court’s new test will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Michael and Chantell Sackett of Priest Lake, Idaho, pose for a photo in front of the Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 14, 2011. The Supreme Court on Thursday, May 25, 2023, made it harder for the federal government to police water pollution in a decision that strips protections from wetlands that are isolated from larger bodies of water. The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle.

The ruling is part of what liberal Justice Elena Kagan views as a clear trend by the court to curb the federal government’s legal authority to regulate pollution in an era of dramatic ecological upheaval — when other countries are taking drastic steps to preserve some semblance of nature’s current biodiversity and order. Last year, the Supreme Court drastically limited EPA’s authority to curb power plant emissions under the Clean Air Act.

“The vice in both instances is the same: the Court’s appointment of itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy,” Kagan wrote. “So I’ll conclude, sadly, by repeating what I wrote last year, with the replacement of only a single word. ‘[T]he Court substitutes its own ideas about policymaking for Congress’s. The Court will not allow the Clean [Water] Act to work as Congress instructed. The Court, rather than Congress, will decide how much regulation is too much.’”

Last year, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of hearing a case on a defunct power plant regulation — the high court typically rejects suits with no active legal bearing — in what was widely seen as an attempt to preemptively stop the Biden administration from reviving a controversial Obama-era rule. The court’s six conservative justices, including Kavanaugh, ruled in favor of permanently sealing off the legal avenue the Obama administration took to justify parts of its Clean Power Plan regulation.

The conservative justices’ apparent partisan agenda is hardly the only perceived conflict of interest sowing mistrust in the nation’s highest court. The Trump-appointed Barrett, whose father spent much of his career working for Royal Dutch Shell, declined to recuse herself from key cases involving the oil giant, even as Justice Samuel Alito stepped aside over his disclosed investments in oil and companies.

The investigative news outlet ProPublica published a series of exposés over the past month revealing that Thomas, who was appointed by President George H. W. Bush, failed to disclose private jet trips and land deals he received from billionaire real-estate developer Harlan Crow. The National Multifamily Housing Council, which has close ties to Crow — the CEO of Crow Holdings Inc. is also the chair of that group, and three of Crow’s companies are dues-paying members — filed an amicus brief on an earlier iteration of this case, as HuffPost’s Paul Blumenthal reported.

Republican lawmakers celebrated Thursday’s decision as a win for family farmers crushed under the boot of regulators seeking to make living off the land ever harder and more complicated.

“In a huge win for farmers, ranchers, small business owners, and families — the Supreme Court has ditched the Obama/Biden WOTUS rule overreach once and for all,” Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) wrote in a statement.

But while “farmers and small business owners have been held up” as the most sympathetic victims of purported government overreach, McCall said “developers are a huge affected group who have been strong opponents” of expanded wetland protections.

Another way that Thursday’s ruling turns the clock back to before the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 is by effectively restoring a variable patchwork of state water rules, Hammond said.

“The Clean Water Act was designed of course to create some floor among the states so that we wouldn’t have the race to the bottom, polluters moving to states where they could pollute more because the policies were more lenient,” they said. “This decision so dramatically undermines the Clean Water Act that we do in a sense go back to the times of significant disparities among the states in terms of protections for our waters.”

“These kinds of decisions are starting to add up,” Hammond added. “There’s no doubt there will be cumulative impacts and we’ll see shifts as a result.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story suggested the facts of the Rapanos case occurred in the 2000s. They occurred in the 1980s.

The Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act

NPR

The Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act

Nina Totenberg, Heard on All Things Considered – May 25, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on May 16.Alex Brandon/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court Court on Thursday significantly curtailed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the nation’s wetlands and waterways. It was the court’s second decision in a year limiting the ability of the agency to enact anti-pollution regulations and combat climate change.

The challenge to the regulations was brought by Michael and Chantell Sackett, who bought property to build their dream house about 500 feet away from Idaho’s Scenic Priest Lake, a 19-mile stretch of clear water that is fed by mountain streams and bordered by state and national parkland. Three days after the Sacketts started excavating their property, the EPA stopped work on the project because the couple had failed to get a permit for disturbing the wetlands on their land.

Now a conservative Supreme Court majority has used the Sacketts’ case to roll back longstanding rules adopted to carry out the 51-year-old Clean Water Act.

While the nine justices agreed that the Sacketts should prevail, they divided 5-to-4 as to how far to go in limiting the EPA’s authority.Sponsor Message

Narrowing the scope of the law

Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the navigable waters of the United States regulated by the EPA under the statute do not include many previously regulated wetlands. Rather, he said, the CWA extends to only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and those wetlands with a “continuous surface connection to those bodies.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by the court’s three liberal members, disputed Alito’s reading of the statute, noting that since 1977 when the CWA was amended to include adjacent wetlands, eight consecutive presidential administrations, Republican and Democratic, have interpreted the law to cover wetlands that the court has now excluded. Kavanaugh said that by narrowing the act to cover only adjoining wetlands, the court’s new test will have quote “significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”

In addition to joining Kavanaugh’s opinion, the court’s liberals signed on to a separate opinion by Justice Elena Kagan. Pointing to the air and water pollution cases, she accused the majority of appointing itself instead of Congress as the national policymaker on the environment.

Reaction to the opinion

President Biden, in a statement, called the decision “disappointing.”

It “upends the legal framework that has protected America’s waters for decades,” he said. “It also defies the science that confirms the critical role of wetlands in safeguarding our nation’s streams, rivers, and lakes from chemicals and pollutants that harm the health and wellbeing of children, families, and communities.”Sponsor Message

Two former EPA chiefs saw Thursday’s decision as a major setback for the nation’s environment, and its future in combating the effects of climate change. William K. Reilly, who served as EPA administrator in the George H.W. Bush administration, said that while he understands the economic objections of farmers and builders to many wetland regulations, the Supreme Court’s decision is “too broad” and will only limit further the already disappearing wetlands that protect many parts of the country from flooding and drought.

Carol Browner, who served as EPA administrator in the Obama administration, echoed those sentiments, calling the decision “a major blow to the landmark Clean Water Act and the federal government’s ability to protect our people from pollution and its negative health side effects.”

The decision also dismayed environmental groups.

“I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say it’s catastrophic for the Clean Water act,” said Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation. Wetlands play an “enormous role in protecting the nation’s water,” he said. “They’re really the kidneys of water systems and they’re also the sponges. They absorb a lot of water on the landscape. So they’re very important water features and they’re very important to the quality of the water that we drink, swim, fish, boat and recreate in.”

As in last year’s case limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate air pollution from power plants, the decision was a major victory for the groups that supported the Sacketts — mining, oil, utilities and, in today’s case, agricultural and real estate interests as well.

Ron DeSantis is learning that not every state wants to be Florida

NBC News

Ron DeSantis is learning that not every state wants to be Florida

Henry J. Gomez – May 22, 2023

Charlie Neibergall

Wherever Gov. Ron DeSantis goes, he brings greetings from “the free state of Florida.” He heralds his “Florida Blueprint.” And he brags about how many people originally from whichever state he happens to be visiting love taking advantage of Florida’s warm weather and low taxes.

But a funny thing has happened as DeSantis travels the country with a “Make America Florida” message that underpins the Republican’s soon-to-launch presidential campaign.

DeSantis has found that not everyone wants to be Florida. And he has encountered spirited pushback from competitive fellow governors and GOP officials who believe that their states have done just as much, if not more, to advance a conservative agenda.

“It’s a lot of fun competing with my colleagues and Republican governors across the country,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has hosted DeSantis in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, said in an interview with NBC News. “But make no mistake, we are competitors.”

Reynolds introduced and interviewed DeSantis at two events in March, making sure to hold up her own record alongside his and frame them as equally accomplished governors. DeSantis, though, emphasized that he enjoys a “special perch” or “unique catbird’s seat” to view how other governors are doing, “because when people visit or move here, they tell me what’s going on in their states.”

After bestowing this authority onto himself, he took some shots at Democratic-led Illinois and proclaimed that Reynolds indeed presides over “one of the best-run states.”

It’s a tricky task — one that has caught attention of DeSantis’ home state reporters at Florida Politics — that in the wrong hands can come off as a magnanimous pander or a condescending pat on the back. And there have been signs in recent weeks that DeSantis recognizes he needs to shift how he talks about Florida, making it seem less aspirational and exceptional and more like an example of Republican leadership that has thrived elsewhere.

Reynolds, who stressed that her rivalry with DeSantis is friendly, brushed aside a question about whether his comments might offend Iowans and then quickly pivoted to her own accomplishments.

“Offend Iowans? Oh no, because I took care of that,” Reynolds said. “Because starting this year, we no longer tax retirement income. I made a deal with Gov. DeSantis. I said, ‘Hey, I’ll let our retirees go down to Florida — maybe a couple of months in January and February when the temperature’s not as good here in Iowa. … He’s gracious when he talks about it.”

DeSantis’ Florida boosterism has also prompted some ribbing in New Hampshire. At a GOP dinner there last month, DeSantis spoke admiringly about that state’s “Live Free or Die” motto before launching into his self-congratulatory story. Before DeSantis left the stage, New Hampshire GOP Chairman Chris Ager playfully jabbed at the governor.

“Instead of people moving to Florida,” Ager said, “maybe you can move up here.”

DeSantis’ spokesperson did not return a request for comment for this piece.

As boastful as DeSantis can be, he also searches for common cause with his audiences. During two stops in Ohio last month he played up his mother’s roots in the Youngstown area and his wife’s childhood in Troy, near Dayton. During that trip, he told a GOP crowd over breakfast in Akron that some parts of Florida are like “Ohio South,” given the number of retirees there.

“And it’s all good, because I’ll tell you, when it came time to get that big victory margin, there were a lot of transplanted people from Ohio who had my back,” DeSantis said, referring to his 19-point re-election margin last year. “So, God bless them for doing that.”

During a speech in South Carolina, DeSantis mentioned how his in-laws now live in the state and how he’s noticed more traffic on the roads there when he and his wife visit.

“Similar to what we’ve seen in Florida over the years with people coming down here,” he said.

But he was unable to resist an attempt at one-upmanship: “Famously — and, as long as I’m around, permanently — we have no state income tax. You guys should try that sometime.”

In Georgia, a compliment quickly gave way to grievance.

“One thing we’re no longer No. 1 in is college football,” DeSantis told an audience during a visit to a gun store in March. “So I just have a little bit of a plea … just stop taking so many of our high school football recruits. Can you give us a little bit of a chance?”

Ager, the New Hampshire GOP chair, said in an interview that he sees nothing wrong with friendly competition — and he wasted little time asserting his own state’s superiority.

“We are clearly No. 1. Gov. DeSantis calls it the free state of Florida. But the Cato Institute … in their whole scoring criteria, New Hampshire came in first last year,” Ager said, referring to a libertarian think tank’s ranking of New Hampshire as the freest state, based on personal and economic freedoms. “So we have some objective criteria from a third party.”

DeSantis himself seems to have softened his pitch a tad. While addressing the Utah GOP’s organizing convention in late April, he called the state, led by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, “one of the best governed, best performing states.” DeSantis then went on to bestow perhaps the biggest compliment he could, even if it kind of came at the expense of a third state.

“I was recently visiting with some folks in Iowa, and people said, ‘Iowa, they’re really the Florida of the Midwest with all the conservative stuff they’re doing,’” DeSantis said. “Well, let me just tell you, maybe this is a little secret, but it might just be that Florida’s the Utah of the Southeast.”

By the time he returned to Iowa this month, DeSantis sounded ready to reconsider.

“I was here in March, and someone kind of took note and they’re like, ‘Man … Iowa’s like the Florida of the Midwest.’ … But I just want to let you know, after watching all the good stuff you’ve done in Iowa, it may be that Florida is the Iowa of the Southeast. So we’ll see.”

For the competitive Reynolds, there’s no question.

“Absolutely,” said Iowa’s governor, who has not endorsed a candidate for president. “Florida is the Iowa of the Southeast, and we’re doing everything we can to continue that narrative.”

Florida flood insurance costs are about to explode. ZIP codes closest to the coast will pay the most

South Florida Sun Sentinel

Florida flood insurance costs are about to explode. ZIP codes closest to the coast will pay the most

Ron Hurtibise, South Florida Sun Sentinel – May 22, 2023

Events of the past year have convinced more Florida homeowners of the need to carry flood insurance.

Flooding caused by hurricanes Ian and Nicole caught hundreds, if not thousands, of homeowners across the state by surprise, and without flood insurance.

Similarly, many homeowners affected by last month’s historic rainfall in eastern Broward County had no flood insurance and learned tragically that damage caused by water rising from the ground was not covered by their normal homeowner insurance.

It’s not just flood victims who are experiencing hard lessons about flood insurance.

Just as homeowners are realizing the increased risks of going without flood coverage, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has released data showing that coverage costs are exploding for properties in coastal areas most vulnerable to flooding.

The cost hikes stem from mandates by Congress to require rates charged by the National Flood Insurance Program, which is run by FEMA, to reflect the cost of flood risk to individual covered properties, and to pay down the program’s deficit, which was $20.5 million as of last November, according to FEMA.

The result is a new risk pricing model called Risk Rating 2.0, which took effect on Oct. 1, 2021, for new NFIP policies and on April 1, 2022, for renewing policies. Rather than set rates solely based on a property’s elevation within a zone on a Flood Insurance Rate Map, the new approach considers more risk variables such as flood frequency, types of flooding, and distance to a water source, along with individual property characteristics like elevation and the cost to rebuild, FEMA’s website states.

Improved modeling, however, is of little comfort to homeowners who will have to pay more for flood insurance at the same time costs of regular multiperil property insurance are skyrocketing.

Recently, FEMA released a spreadsheet that compared average premiums currently and how high they’ll climb under the new pricing model.

For example, homeowners in Boca Raton’s 33432 ZIP code can look forward to a whopping 229% flood insurance premium increase, from an average $950 per policy to $3,128.

In Broward County, the 33305 ZIP code that includes Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods near the Middle River will pay 209% more, from $1,099 to $3,400.

In the 33315 zip code, which includes Fort Lauderdale’s Edgewood neighborhood that was among the hardest-hit by last month’s flooding, average rates will increase by 64% — from $863 currently to $1,420.

These numbers are averages. Within each ZIP code are less expensive homes with cheaper coverage costs and pricier homes that will cost even more to insure.

Unsurprisingly, homes nearest the coast, particularly in low-lying areas, cost far more to insure than homes on higher ground in western suburban cities.

For example, homeowners in Coral Springs’ 33071 ZIP code are looking at a total premium increase of just 17.6% — from $669 to $787.

FEMA says the new pricing model will also drive down the cost of flood insurance for customers with low-risk characteristics. Yet, none of South Florida’s ZIP codes will see average rates decrease, FEMA’s data shows.

Not everyone facing rate increases will have to pay the higher premiums immediately. While homeowners who previously did not carry NFIP flood insurance will have to pay the new higher prices if they want a new policy, price hikes for existing policyholders are capped at 18% a year for homesteaded properties and 25% annually for second homes or investment properties, until they reach the new rates.

If the total increase is 18% or less, affected homeowners will pay it just once — presumably until FEMA raises rates again, whenever that happens.

Few homes have flood insurance, even in Florida

Although Florida has the largest number of NFIP flood insurance policies of any U.S. state — 597,967 of 2.2 million in the U.S., FEMA data shows, the percentage of covered homes remains low.

Florida has 3.8 million detached single-family homes, according to 2020 census figures. The number of FEMA flood insurance policies are just 15.7% of that total. In South Florida’s tricounty region, the percentage is 20.8%.

The actual percentages of homes with flood insurance are likely to be a little different. The above estimates don’t take into account private flood insurance policies, which are increasing but still a fraction of the number of federally-backed policies. And the estimates exclude attached single-family homes, such as townhomes. The percentage also does not include condominiums, which are typically covered by blanket commercial policies.

Experts advise every Florida homeowner to buy flood insurance because flooding can happen throughout the state, as during last fall’s hurricanes.

But many buy flood insurance only when required, such as home loan borrowers with federally backed mortgages who live in high-risk flood zones.

Flood insurance required for some with Citizens insurance

This year, a new set of homeowners are required to buy flood insurance. Customers of state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. who live in high-risk flood zones are required to also carry flood insurance.

That mandate, enacted by the state Legislature and governor last year, took effect on April 1 for new Citizens policyholders and on July 1 for renewing policyholders.

Under the new law, all Citizens policyholders will have to buy flood insurance by 2027.

According to Citizens data, 228,203 of the company’s 1.2 million customers are now required to buy flood insurance. Of them, 105,763 are in Broward, Palm Beach or Miami-Dade counties.

When enacted last year, the law also required condo owners covered by Citizens to buy flood insurance. They were exempted, however, by a new law that was passed during the just-completed spring Legislative session and now awaits the governor’s signature. The change followed complaints that flood insurance is unnecessary for residents on upper floors of multistory buildings and for those covered by commercial policies that cover all units.

Although the mandate remains in place legally, Citizens has stopped sending notices to condo owners telling them they must buy flood insurance at renewal time, Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier said. Once it is signed, condo owners who bought coverage will be able to drop it.

If they bought FEMA coverage, they can request refunds if their policies have not yet taken effect, the NFIP’s website states.

Because the flood insurance requirement for renewing Citizens customers won’t take effect until July 1, Ryan Papy, president of Palmetto Bay-based Keyes Insurance, says it’s still a bit early to gauge the impact.

“There hasn’t been that much sticker shock,” Papy said in an email. “Many (premiums) in Miami-Dade County have gone down.”

But he added, “We do see issues when some clients are purchasing new property.” The difference between a new owner’s premiums and the capped rates paid by the previous owner can sometimes “be extreme,” he said.

Save money on the private market?

Florida homeowners hit hardest by rising NFIP rate hikes might ask their agents to see if they can save money by checking out the private flood insurance market.

Neptune Flood, the nation’s largest private flood insurer with more than 150,000 clients, can save policyholders up to 25% off the cost of comparable NFIP coverage, Neptune spokeswoman Loren Pomerantz said by email.

Private flood insurance satisfies requirements of both federal mortgage guarantors and Citizens, according to Pomerantz and Peltier.

Pomerantz said Neptune’s sales in Florida have increased in recent months. Sales climbed 20% in areas hard hit by Hurricane Ian prior to the new Citizens mandate taking effect. In high-risk flood zones, sales have increased 25% since April 1 compared to the same period last year, she said.

Private flood insurance also offers coverage that far exceeds the NFIP’s $250,000 cap for structural damage and $100,000 limit for personal property damage. “We can cover homes for up to $4 million in building coverage and $500,000 of personal property,” she said. “Additional coverage options not available through the NFIP include pool repair and refill, replacement cost on contents, temporary living expenses and more. This allows a homeowner to adequately cover their property and protect their families in the event of a flood-related loss.”

A ‘Canadian Armageddon’ Sets Parts of Western Canada on Fire

The New York Times

A ‘Canadian Armageddon’ Sets Parts of Western Canada on Fire

Dan Bilefsky – May 20, 2023

Flames from a prescribed burn, started by wildland firefighters in an attempt to halt the spread of larger wildfires, in Shining Bank, Alberta, Canada on May 19, 2023. (Jen Osborne/The New York Times)

EDMONTON, Alberta — As acrid smoke filled the air, turning the sky around her sleepy hometown, Fox Creek, Alberta, a garish blood orange, Nicole Clarke said she felt a sense of terror.

With no time to collect family photographs, she grabbed her two young children, hopped into her pickup truck, and sped away, praying she wouldn’t drive into the blaze’s menacing path.

“This feels like a Canadian Armageddon, like a bad horror film,” said Clarke, a 37-year-old hair stylist, standing outside her truck, a large hamper of dirty laundry piled in the back.

In a country revered for placid landscapes and predictability, weeks of out-of-control wildfires raging across western Canada have ushered in a potent sense of fear, threatening a region that is the epicenter of the country’s oil and gas sector.

Climate research suggests that heat and drought associated with global warming are major reasons for the increase in bigger and stronger fires.

Amid frequent fire updates dominating national television news broadcasts, the blazes have also helped unite a vast and sometimes polarized nation, with volunteers, firefighters and army reservists from other provinces rushing in to lend a hand.

Roughly 29,000 people in Alberta have been forced from their homes by the recent bout of wildfires, though that number has been cut in half in recent days as fires subsided.

Clarke said her family had been staying in cheap motels since they were ordered about a week ago to evacuate. But she and her boyfriend were unemployed and money was quickly running out.

“I don’t know if I’ll have a home to return to,” she added Thursday, sobbing.

The fires have produced such thick smoke that during recess, children in some towns have remained in their classrooms rather than risk smoke inhalation outside. Dozens of residents left in such a frantic panic that they left pets behind.

On Highway 43, a long stretch of Alberta highway peppered by small, evacuated towns, the thick layer of smoke blanketing the road on Thursday conjured the feeling of a dystopia.

With helicopters hovering and dropping water, police cars with flashing lights blocked parts of the highway as fires approached the road. Residents trying to return to homes they hoped were still intact commiserated as they were forced to turn back.

Fires have broken out throughout western Canada, including British Columbia, but hardest hit has been neighboring Alberta, a proud oil and gas producing province sometimes referred to as “the Texas of the North,” which has declared a state of emergency. More than 94 active wildfires were burning as of Friday afternoon.

British Columbia was the site in 2021 of one of Canada’s worst wildfires in recent decades, when fires decimated the tiny community of Lytton after temperatures there reached a record 49.6 degrees Celsius, or 121.3 Fahrenheit.

Not since the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic buffeted the region has the area been so overcome by apprehension, accompanied by the all-too familiar need to wear masks outside. Only this time, residents say, a silent killer has been replaced by something more visceral and visible.

So far, no deaths have been reported. But in Alberta, Frankie Payou, a firefighter and 33-year-old father of three from the East Prairie Métis Settlement in Northern Alberta, was in a coma with severe injuries after being hit in the head by a burned tree. His home was also destroyed by a fire.

The bulk of the fires are in the far north of the province, home to many Indigenous communities, dealing a heavy blow to people who depend on the land and natural resources.

At a sprawling evacuation center in Edmonton, Ken Zenner, 61, a father of eight, two of whom are members of the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, said he and his family had been evacuated from the town of Valleyview. He worried how they would get by.

Families that have been displaced for a cumulative seven days are eligible for government-provided financial support, according to provincial regulations. But Zenner said he didn’t qualify because he had only been evacuated for six days.

“Indigenous communities have been underfunded for years and now we are seeing the consequences,” he said.

The rest of the country is mobilizing to help. Some 2,500 firefighters are battling the fires, among them 1,000 from other provinces. Joining them are wilderness firefighters from the United States.

The fires have even affected Alberta’s largest city, Calgary, where residents this week said they sat down for breakfast only to see and smell pungent smoke entering from cracks under their front doors.

Environment and Climate Change Canada said the air quality index for the city Wednesday afternoon was at 10+, or “very high risk.” Canadian health authorities have warned the smoke could cause symptoms ranging from sore and watery eyes to coughing, dizziness, chest pains and heart palpitations.

In Alberta, the blazes have brought back bad memories of 2016 when a raging wildfire destroyed 2,400 buildings in Fort McMurray, Alberta, the heart of Canada’s oil sands region with the third-largest reserves of oil in the world.

Alberta is Canada’s main energy-producing province and the United States’ largest source of imported oil and the fires have compelled some companies to curb production.

As flames bore down on wells and pipelines, major drillers such as Chevron and Paramount Resources together shut down the equivalent of at least 240,000 barrels of oil a day, according to energy consulting firm Rystad Energy.

For now, the disruptions affect only a small proportion of the country’s total oil and gas output. Still, they underscore how the production of oil and gas, the main driver of climate change, is also vulnerable to increasingly dire consequences of a warming planet.

Some say the fire may help galvanize Canadians about the perils of climate change. “The smoke from forest fires has an in-your-face impact affecting millions of Canadians that makes it harder to ignore,” the CBC, the national broadcaster, observed this week.

The human toll of the fires will reverberate for weeks to come. Christine Pettie, a business manager for a logging cooperative in Edson, a rural town about two hours west of Edmonton, said residents were still shellshocked after being evacuated.

She and her husband left in such a rush that he forgot his insulin medicine. They were fortunate that their home remained standing.

Still, Pettie said, the experience “definitely shook me to my core.”