Housing, Community – Page 18 – The Tarbabys Blog

Russia’s economy has gone from bad to worse in a matter of months. Here’s where the country is feeling pain the most.

Business Insider

Russia’s economy has gone from bad to worse in a matter of months. Here’s where the country is feeling pain the most.

Zahra Tayeb – July 16, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in a chair in front of a Russian flag. — Russian President Vladimir Putin.Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Russia’s economy is going from bad to worse as Western sanctions hammer the country’s key sectors.
From slumping car sales to a plunging Russia ruble, the problems Russia faces keep on growing.
Here are key signs showing how Moscow’s economy is spiraling.

Russia’s economy just keeps getting worse – and there are plenty of ways to show that.

From plunging car sales to a dramatic collapse in its current-account surplus, there’s no way to hide Moscow’s troubles.

The country’s economic woes have multiplied since its invasion of Ukraine early last year. The conflict has triggered a wave of sanctions from the Western world. Some have even blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for inflicting so much pain on the nation, with Yale researchers saying he’s “cannibalizing” Russia’s economy in his urge to conquer Ukraine.

“The lion’s share of the economy is controlled by the state, the energy and financial sectors, and Putin is taking from the seed capital of those businesses to use as a cookie jar for his war chest,” researchers Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian said.

Russians are buying fewer cars

Russia’s car industry is one part of the economy that’s being squeezed.

Insider’s Phil Rosen reported that car sales in Moscow have tanked by nearly 75% since the Ukraine war broke out. The decline has been fueled by a mix of three factors: soaring prices, decreasing supply, and deteriorating consumer sentiment.

“Russians are just buying less cars, period,” Tian said. “That speaks to the weakness of the consumer in Russia. This is as close to a proxy to deteriorating consumer sentiment as there is, and the story it tells is profoundly distressing. Russians just aren’t spending money.”

At the same time, the number of Russians buying foreign-branded cars – typically viewed as luxury purchases – has neared a standstill. Instead, consumers are buying locally sourced cars, many of which are riddled with mechanical issues.

Plunging exports

Another sign that Russia’s economy is flailing is the dramatic collapse in its current-account balance.

Moscow’s central bank posted a 93% year-on-year drop in its current-account surplus for the April-June quarter. it fell from a record $76.7 billion to $5.4 billion.

The rough financials show how badly Western sanctions are biting the country, particularly its key energy sector where its oil-and-gas exports have taken a huge hit after price caps and bans were imposed.

Energy export revenue

Moscow garners a big chunk of its revenue from sales of oil and gas products, but Western penalties have eroded that income stream.

In June, Russia’s Finance Ministry said that revenue from oil-and-gas taxes fell 36% compared to a year ago to about 571 billion rubles, and that profits from crude and petroleum products tumbled 31% to 426 billion rubles.

Ruble in freefall

Adding to Russia’s troubles is a tumbling ruble. The country’s currency slumped to a 15-month low of 94.48 against the dollar earlier in July, triggered by capital flight, shrinking tax revenues, and declining central-bank reserves.

“The ruble doesn’t have anywhere to go but down,” Konstantin Sonin, a University of Chicago economist, said in a tweet.

Concerns about the currency’s volatility have prompted a wave of domestic withdrawals from the country’s central bank, amounting to over $1 billion. The bank run was mainly fueled by the recent Wagner revolt.

Russia’s weakening currency has forced the country to take desperate measures. Recently, Russia’s foreign minister urged Southeast Asian countries to dump the dollar and use local currencies to conduct trade.

Americans haven’t felt this good about the economy in almost two years

Yahoo! Finance

Americans haven’t felt this good about the economy in almost two years

Josh Schafer, Reporter – July 14, 2023

A commonly followed measure of consumer confidence in the US economy just increased to the highest level since September 2021.

The first July reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index showed a reading of 72.6 on Friday. The print came in significantly higher than the 65.5 economists had expected and reflected a 13% increase from the month prior. That marks the fastest pace since December 2005, when the economy was recovering from Hurricane Katrina.

“The sharp rise in sentiment was largely attributable to the continued slowdown in inflation along with stability in labor markets,” Surveys of Consumers director Joanne Hsu said in the release.

Consumers have had plenty to be bullish about recently, including a month of largely strong economic data, upbeat reports to kick off second quarter earnings, and waning fears of a second Federal Reserve rate hike in the back half of the year propelling the 2023 stock market rally higher.

A 19% surge in long-term business conditions and a 16% increase in short-run business conditions were the primary drivers behind Friday’s surprise print, according to the University of Michigan. The report did, however, include a slight uptick in consumers’ inflation expectations.

The expectations for inflation over the next year are now at 3.4%, up from 3.3% in June but down from the highs of 5.4% in April 2022. Analysts had anticipated one-year inflation expectations to tick down to 3.1%

“Easing concerns about a recession, which had been garnering a ton of headlines in the media for most of the year, may have helped push sentiment and expectation higher,” Oxford Economics chief US economist Ryan Sweet wrote on Friday.

Consumers have had plenty to be bullish about recently, including strong June jobs numbers and data showing that inflation eased during the month. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

The Friday release follows a week of upbeat economic data. On Wednesday, the Consumer Price Index for June came in cooler than projected, rising at its slowest pace since March 2021. On Thursday, the Producer Price Index painted a similar picture. The labor market, meanwhile, continued to show resilience with weekly jobless claims of 237,000 coming in lower than expectations for 250,000 claims and below the week prior’s 249,000 claims.

Last week’s June jobs report showed the labor market is cooling with nonfarm payroll additions coming in short of expectations for the first time in 15 months. But economists were quick to note that the economy still added 209,000 jobs, the unemployment ticked lower to 3.6%, and average hourly earnings grew 4.4% from the year prior.

At scale, that data paints a picture of a tight labor market where Americans have jobs while prices for goods continue to decrease.

Another insurer is leaving Florida. How much is DeSantis to blame?

Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Another insurer is leaving Florida. How much is DeSantis to blame?

Jay Cridlin, Tampa Bay Times – July 13, 2023

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed more than 300 bills into law this year.

They include measures that touched on a broad swath of issues, including abortion, immigration, transgender care, space exploration, the death penalty, college diversity programs, phosphogypsum in road construction, alimony, a law enforcement registry for people with disabilities, drag shows, affordable housing and election reforms.

What wasn’t signed into law was a measure that might have prevented Farmers Insurance from announcing this week it was dropping tens of thousands of home, auto and umbrella policies in the state, following the lead earlier this year of insurers like United Property & Casualty.

In his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, DeSantis is promoting his record as governor, particularly how he’s led a reshaping of Florida’s education, diversity and investment policies.

But despite DeSantis signing multiple legislative packages since May 2022 designed to curtail skyrocketing rates, the state’s property insurance problem is still far from solved. More than a half-dozen insurers have withdrawn from Florida or faced insolvency in the past 18 months, all as record Atlantic Ocean temperatures have spurred hurricane forecasters to boost predictions for an above-average season this year.

DeSantis spokesperson Jeremy Redfern pointed to new laws targeting frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies and billions in funding to help insurers obtain backup reinsurance as evidence of the governor’s attention to the problem. The state is already seeing some progress in the form of new insurers entering the market, Redfern said.

“Even the most aggressive reforms will take time to affect the insurance industry,” Redfern said in an email. “The 2021, 2022, and 2023 legislative efforts will be effective.”

During a Wednesday radio appearance on the Howie Carr Show, DeSantis touted those legislative efforts, saying that, “because we did those reforms, it now is more economical for companies to come in. I think they’re going to wait through this hurricane season, and then I think they’re going to be willing to deploy more capital to Florida.”

”Knock on wood, we won’t have a big storm this summer,” DeSantis said. “Then I think you are going to start to see companies see an advantage.”

But Farmers’ abrupt exit Tuesday has opened DeSantis up to a fresh round of criticism that he and the Republican-led Legislature haven’t done enough to calm Florida’s insurance market.

“Knock on wood??? That’s not how this works,” Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said on Twitter. “Floridians need action on property insurance — not this.”

“It’s the No. 1 issue I hear about when I go talk to my constituents,” said Rep. Dan Daley, D-Coral Springs. “They’re not talking about drag shows. They don’t give a s—t about any of that. They care about being able to pay their property insurance bill and not being dropped by their insurer, and what we’ve done in this state is not really address that.”

Incremental change and patience

Property insurance reform was an issue in Florida long before DeSantis took office in 2019.

His first major action on the matter came that spring in the form of a bill limiting “assignment of benefits” claims, when contractors, not homeowners, seek reimbursement from insurers. DeSantis called it “meaningful” reform that “will protect Florida consumers from predatory insurance practices.” It was widely seen as a long-sought win for the insurance industry.

That more substantial changes weren’t an immediate priority reflects as much on the Legislature as it does on DeSantis, said former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes.

“This isn’t the battle he was taking on back then,” Brandes said. “He would tell you his statement was, ‘I will sign whatever the Legislature puts in front of me on property insurance.’ He said that comment multiple times. The Legislature chose not to send him anything.”

In May 2022, DeSantis convened a special legislative session designed to “stabilize the insurance market,” with an emphasis on targeting the “thousands of frivolous lawsuits” filed against insurance companies. The package that emerged included $2 billion in tax money to subsidize insurers’ reinsurance costs and $150 million to help hurricane-proof homes and tightened restrictions on suing insurers. DeSantis called it “the most significant reforms to Florida’s homeowners insurance market in a generation.”

After Hurricane Ian struck Southwest Florida, DeSantis called another session designed to “implement necessary reforms to the property insurance market.” In December, he signed a bill creating a $1 billion reinsurance fund and further tightening restrictions on lawsuits. Again, he called the reform “meaningful.”

“The issues in Florida’s property insurance market did not occur overnight, and they will not be solved overnight,” he said in a statement after signing. “The historic reforms signed today create an environment which realigns Florida to best practices across the nation, adding much-needed stability to Florida’s market, promoting competition, and increasing consumer choice.”

Then, during this year’s regular session, he signed a bill dubbed the Insurer Accountability Act, designed to impose transparency requirements on insurers and stiffen penalties on those that exhibited bad behavior. The law, he said, would “reinforce our commitment to Florida policyholders” and “protect consumers from predatory insurer practices.”

With each bill, supporters said it would take time to have a real impact.

“I do think that they were bold moves that will show positive changes for the homeowners’ industry over the coming years, but it is going to take two, three, four years for those changes to bear any fruit,” said Trevor Burgess, CEO of St. Petersburg flood insurer Neptune Flood. “And that’s because, for the past 10 years, there’s just been so much damage done. You’ve had all of these insurance companies fail. Those that haven’t failed have struggled, and so it’s been very difficult for anyone to make any money or build up any reserves.”

Brandes said that Farmers won’t be the last insurer to withdraw, and that he thinks rates will go up another 10% to 15% next year before stabilizing in 2025. But if DeSantis and the Legislature had done nothing, he said, “you wouldn’t have a market in Florida. You would have had 10 companies leaving instead of just one.”

Democrats say the changes under DeSantis represent positive steps; the bipartisan Insurer Accountability Act passed unanimously. But they’ve been too narrowly focused on tort reform, said House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa. In a statement explaining why it was leaving, Farmers didn’t even mention lawsuits.

In recent sessions, Democrats have proposed changes including a publicly elected insurance commissioner and blocking certain insurers from claiming insolvency. None gained traction.

“They don’t really know what to do,” Driskell said of Republican legislative leadership. “They keep trying to scramble and put together these piecemeal solutions that haven’t really stabilized the market or brought rates down. To me, it’s not so much a commitment of, ‘Oh, yes, we’re on top of this, there’s more to do, stay tuned.’ It’s more, ‘Eh, let’s try this. Oh, that didn’t work. Let’s see what we can try next.’”

That’s not all on DeSantis, she said; the House speaker and Senate president also have “so much power and authority in terms of shaping the policy agenda of this state.” But she also doesn’t see DeSantis pushing a more cohesive plan before a Legislature that rarely pushes back.

“I don’t even know what his plans and desires are with respect to property insurance, because he doesn’t articulate them,” she said. “He can articulate a blueprint for how to destroy DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in higher education. I have yet to see any blueprint for property insurance.”

“Distracted” by 2024

Since the Insurer Accountability Act was introduced in the Senate on March 31, DeSantis has spent at least 40 days out of state. He’s taken multiple campaign trips to the early-primary hotbeds of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina; and he spent five days on an international trade trip to South Korea, Japan, Israel and the United Kingdom.

DeSantis hasn’t faced many questions about homeowners insurance on the presidential campaign trail. The most it became an issue was weeks before he officially entered the race, when former President Donald Trump took to social media, calling Florida’s latest insurance bill “the biggest insurance BAILOUT to Globalist Insurance Companies, in HISTORY.”

“He’s also crushed homeowners whose houses were destroyed in the Hurricane,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “They’re getting pennies on the dollar. His Insurance Commissioner does NOTHING, while Florida’s lives are ruined. This is the worst Insurance Scam in the entire COUNTRY!”

In stump speeches, DeSantis speaks about his legal battles with The Walt Disney Co., about his trips to the southern border with Mexico and about his campaign against corporate environmental, social and governance programs. He says little to nothing about Florida’s latest property insurance laws.

“He’s so ambitious and he’s so focused on that big goal that he’s let a lot of the everyday stuff go,” Driskell said. “You can’t just have a diet of red meat. You need some vegetables as well.”

One thing DeSantis does talk about is people moving to “the free state of Florida,” building and buying homes to escape “states governed by leftist politicians.”

“All I have to look at to see whether Chicago’s doing well, I just look at real estate values in Naples,” he said recently in New Hampshire. “When those are going up, I know Chicago’s done something stupid again, and people are fleeing.”

With pricier homes come pricier rates, though, which is keeping some residents from continuing to afford living here, said state Rep. Hillary Cassel, D-Dania Beach.

“If you can’t guarantee what your cost of insurance is going to be to insure that home, you can’t now become a homeowner,” Cassel said. “If your cost is going to increase 30% year after year after year, you can’t buy a house.”

In 2022, DeSantis called two special sessions on property insurance. Now that he’s running a national campaign, Driskell said he might be too “distracted” to do it again — although another catastrophic storm this season could change that.

Absent the right political motivation — whether it comes from a hurricane or from pressure on the campaign trail — Cassel isn’t sure lawmakers will swing back into action.

“Not with this leadership,” Cassel said. “Nope.”

Harvard study: Why a record number of Americans are struggling to pay rent

Yahoo! Finance

Harvard study: Why a record number of Americans are struggling to pay rent

Rebecca Chen – Reporter – July 11, 2023

A record number of American renters are spending at least one-third of their income on rents, according to The State of the Nation’s Housing 2023, published by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

A total of 21.6 million households now spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on rent. Some households are even paying even up to 50% of earnings on apartments, per Harvard’s research. Housing experts often suggest tenants spend less than 30% of their income on rent.

“Housing costs remain well above pre-pandemic levels thanks to the substantial increases over the last few years,” Daniel McCue, senior research associate at the Joint Center, said in the 2023 report.

Why? In large part due to the growth of so-called “luxury” buildings that have replaced less expensive options. In the last two decades, the share of construction for high-priced apartments — known as Class A — grew faster than more affordable ones. In fact, over half (51%) of 2022 rental construction projects were luxury apartments, according to Moody’s Analytics data. Also, only 34% of the market consisted of high-cost rental units back in 2000; that number was 51% in Q1 2023, per Moody’s.

“The challenge is that the new supply… tends to be at the very top of the price spectrum,” said Carl Whitaker, director of research and analysis at RealPage.

Luxury home expansion has also been a growing trend in the last two decades. Only 34% of the market was high-cost homes back in 2000, but that number grew yearly to 51% as of Q1 2023. — Apartments are seen undergoing construction on February 28, 2023 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

“If rent grows faster than your income every year, and your health care expenses grow faster than your income every year…that squeeze just makes it very difficult in normal life,” Katherine McKay, associate director at the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, told Yahoo Finance.

Lack of choices

Historically low rental vacancies in recent years also reflect the lack of affordable options for households. Although the vacancy rate climbed to 6.4% at the beginning of 2023 — a welcome increase from the four-decade low of 5.2% in late 2021 — it is still far from a healthy rate of around 7% to 8%.

“What is often looked for is a level of vacancy that supports a renter’s ability to move and to have at least some pricing power,” Lu Chen, Moody’s Analytics senior economist, wrote in an email. “In theory, this would allow rent increases to remain marginally above the general rate of price increases in the economy.”

But “we expect the national average vacancy to linger around 5% until 2025,” Chen said. That number could be more bleak for lower-income households — the rate for lower-cost housing remains at a depressed level of 4.7%.

Vacancy rate climbed to 6.4% at the beginning of 2023 - a welcomed increase from the four-decade low of 5.2% in late 2021 — Buddy, can you spare a studio? A ‘no vacancy’ sign for rentals is displayed outside an apartment building on September 22, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Getty Images)

“What [also] has happened in many places is that renters who might buy homes can’t buy homes, so they stay in their class A buildings, and then renters who want to live in Class A buildings can’t find spots, so they move a tier down,” McKay said. “It trickles down every income group having a greater competition for fewer new units that meet their needs.”

Apartments equipped with the latest and best amenities like heated pools and gyms are known as Class A buildings. Class A buildings then retire to become class B in 10-15 years, which then devolve into class C in another 5-10 years. Rents drop as buildings downgrade from A to B to C. But in the last decade, not enough buildings were built, which means not enough apartments progressed to the lower tiers.

The fancy boom

As Class A buildings saturate the rental market, the share for older and less expensive apartments, categorized as Class B and C, has shrunk dramatically. In the last two decades, those types of units fell to 49% in Q1 2023 from 66% in 2001, according to Moody’s.

The apartments equipped with the latest and best amenities that get premium rents are known as Class A buildings. — Live it up: Apartments equipped with the latest and best amenities that get premium rents are known as Class A buildings. (Getty Images)

But that might not change anytime soon because, many times, fancy apartments are the only profitable option for developers. The majority of construction costs go into purchasing land, building materials, and building permits. Adding nice finishes doesn’t drive costs at a high level but could demand more rent revenue.

“The thorny part is that for the middle-income renters,” McKay said. “The best option for them is class B where it is not super expensive but also not where then the quality might be a problem, the sweet spot. But there just isn’t enough, because we didn’t build enough for such a long time.”

The future? Not too cheery.

“Number of households continued to grow at around 1% annually,” Moody’s Chen said. “The rapid household formation requires inventory growth to keep up the pace. Further, while the population is aging, there is a large swath of Gen Z (the oldest are 24) and 25- to 40-year-old millennials that are ready to enter the rental market.”

Rebecca Chen is a reporter for Yahoo Finance and previously worked as an investment tax certified public accountant (CPA).

‘It’s brutal’: As premiums continue to soar, another home insurer is leaving Florida

Miami Herald

‘It’s brutal’: As premiums continue to soar, another home insurer is leaving Florida

Alex Harris, Lawrence Mower – July 11, 2023

Another insurer is leaving Florida, where homeowners are paying more than ever for insurance, despite the state’s attempt to shore up the wobbling market.

Tuesday, Farmers Insurance informed the state it was dropping home, auto and umbrella policies across Florida, potentially affecting tens of thousands of people. It’s the fourth company to leave the Florida market in the last year — most citing rising risks from hurricanes. Farmers, a large company with a national presence, also has reduced new business in California, citing extreme weather and wild fire threats.

“This business decision was necessary to effectively manage risk exposure,” the company wrote in a statement.

Farmers said the decision to withdraw affects about 30% of its overall policies around the state, but not ones issued through its subsidiary companies. Those — including auto insurer Bristol West and home insurer Foremost — are unaffected.

The company declined to speak on the record about how many people would lose coverage. Figures from Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation show that Farmers has about 93,000 current home and auto policies, but an industry source suggests that number is currently closer to 100,000.

The day before Farmers made the decision public, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis tweeted that his office has “zero communication” with the company and vowed to “explore every avenue possible for holding them accountable” for leaving Florida.

Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation said in a statement that the office was reviewing Farmers’ notice, which was sent to the office on Monday and marked a “trade secret,” limiting what regulators could say about it.

Under state law, insurers are required to give 120 days’ notice to customers before their policies are dropped. Customers who receive a notice are encouraged to contact their agent immediately to find alternative coverage, the office said in a statement.

Later Tuesday, the office also formally chastised Farmers for not giving the office a heads-up before deciding to pull out of the state. In a letter, Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworksy also noted that Farmers made the decision to leave Florida “independently” of the state’s insurance reforms.

“We are disappointed by the hastiness in this decision and troubled by how this decision may have cascading impacts to policyholders,” Yaworsky wrote. “Farmers has noted this decision only impacts about 26.6% percent of their Florida policyholders, but any impact which impacts policyholders should not be taken lightly.”

Leaving despite reforms

Tuesday’s announcement follows a mid-June decision from Farmers to stop writing new policies in Florida due to the skyrocketing costs of hurricane recovery and rebuilding.

“With catastrophe costs at historically high levels and reconstruction costs continuing to climb, we implemented a pause on writing new homeowners policies to more effectively manage our risk exposure,” Farmers said in a statement.

Notably, Farmers did not mention lawsuits, which has been the main culprit Florida insurers point to when asked why costs are rising so fast. However, financial autopsies of failed insurers in Florida regularly point to excessive payouts, high salaries and fees to affiliated companies as the main problem that leads to bankruptcy.

Florida program has $10,000 for you if you’re hardening your home against hurricanes

The decision by Farmers follows years of turmoil in the state’s property insurance market, triggered by a series of hurricanes starting in 2017. Floridians pay the highest property insurance premiums in the nation, and 13 companies have gone insolvent in recent years. Many others have stopped writing new policies or pulled out of Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers have responded by making it harder to sue insurance companies and assigning $3 billion to help them withstand storm seasons. A report by the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation released last week indicated that the industry broke even during the first quarter of 2023, after years of heavy losses.

But the legislation has failed to reduce premiums for homeowners. Premiums continue to go up, according to the office’s report. Between November and March, rates increased 5% in Miami-Dade County, to an average of $5,665.

But the rate increases were higher in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, rising 9.5% and 9.25%, respectively. Homeowners in Hillsborough County are paying an average of $2,752 and $3,210 in Pinellas County.

‘Premiums are through the roof’

Floridians top the nation in insurance costs, said Mark Friedlander, corporate communications director for the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute.

Friedlander said the average premium in Florida is 42% higher than last year’s and miles ahead of the average premium nationwide — $1,700.

“It’s brutal, said Vince Perri, head of Key Biscayne-based public adjuster firm Elite Resolutions. “The premiums are through the roof. It’s always been high here but it’s worse now.”

Perri, who’s been in the business for more than a decade, said he sees the back-to-back storms in recent years as a major factor in rising prices. Hurricane Ian last year was Florida’s most expensive storm, causing more than $109 billion in damages across the state.

If Florida can scrape by a few more years without a hurricane landfall, Perri said, he believes insurance costs will start to go down again.

“It’s going to take a couple of years for the market to level out again,” he said. “I think insurance premiums are going to be high for awhile.”

Relentless rain causes floods in Northeast, prompts rescues and swamps Vermont’s capital

Associated Press

Relentless rain causes floods in Northeast, prompts rescues and swamps Vermont’s capital

Lisa Rathke and John Minchillo – July 10, 2023

A damaged car lays on a collapsed roadway along Route 32 in the Hudson Valley near Cornwall, N.Y., Monday, July 10, 2023. Heavy rain has washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day. (AP Photo/Paul Kazdan)

Residents, journalists, and emergency service workers walk around a flooded Main Street, Monday, July 10, 2023, in Highland Falls, N.Y. Heavy rain has washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day. One person in New York's Hudson Valley has drowned as she was trying to leave her home. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) — Residents, journalists, and emergency service workers walk around a flooded Main Street, Monday, July 10, 2023, in Highland Falls, N.Y. Heavy rain has washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day. One person in New York’s Hudson Valley has drowned as she was trying to leave her home. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Mud, rocks and debris from Sunday's flash flood cover a road on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Monday, July 10, 2023 in West Point, N.Y. Heavy rain has washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day, Monday. (Courtesy of the USMA via AP) — Mud, rocks and debris from Sunday’s flash flood cover a road on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Monday, July 10, 2023 in West Point, N.Y. Heavy rain has washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day, Monday. (Courtesy of the USMA via AP)

Erosion damage is seen after heavy rains washed down Bear Mountain near the Popolopen Bridge along U.S. Route 9W in Highland Falls, N.Y., rendering the bridge unsafe and impassable for vehicles, on Monday, July 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

ANDOVER, Vt. (AP) — Rescue teams raced into Vermont on Monday after heavy rain drenched parts of the Northeast, washing out roads, forcing evacuations and halting some airline travel. One person was killed in New York’s Hudson Valley as she tried to escape her flooded home.

Mike Cannon of Vermont Urban Search and Rescue said crews from North Carolina, Michigan and Connecticut were among those helping to get to towns that have been unreachable since torrents of rain belted the state. The towns of Londonderry and Weston were inaccessible, Cannon said, and rescuers were heading there to do welfare checks. Water levels at several dams were being closely monitored.

The U.S Army Corps of Engineers said late Monday they expected two dams to release water overnight, causing “severe flooding” downstream likely to affect multiple towns.

Flooding hit Vermont’s state capital, with Montpelier Town Manager Bill Fraser estimating Monday night that knee-high waters had reached much of downtown and were expected to rise a couple more feet during the night. Montpelier had largely been spared during Tropical Storm Irene, which struck the region in 2011.

“For us, this is far worse than Irene. We got water but it went up and down. There were some basements flooded but it didn’t last long,” Fraser said, comparing this flooding to the Montpelier Ice Jams in 1992. “We are completely inundated. The water is way, way higher than it ever got during Irene.”

During Irene, Vermont got 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain in 24 hours. Irene killed six in the state, washed homes off their foundations and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles (805 kilometers) of highway.

There have been no reports of injuries or deaths related to the latest flooding in Vermont, according to state emergency officials. Roads were closed across the state, including many along the spine of the Green Mountains.

Some people canoed their way to the Cavendish Baptist Church in Vermont, which had turned into a shelter. About 30 people waited it out, some of them making cookies for firefighters who were working to evacuate and rescue others.

“People are doing OK. It’s just stressful,” shelter volunteer Amanda Gross said.

Vermont Rep. Kelly Pajala said she and about half dozen others had to evacuate early Monday from a four-unit apartment building on the West River in Londonderry.

“The river was at our doorstep,” said Pajala. “We threw some dry clothes and our cats into the car and drove to higher ground.”

The slow-moving storm reached New England in the morning after hitting parts of New York and Connecticut on Sunday. Additional downpours in the region raised the potential for flash flooding; rainfall in certain parts of Vermont had exceeded 7 inches ( 18 centimeters), the National Weather Service in Burlington said.

One of the worst-hit places was New York’s Hudson Valley, where a woman identified by police as Pamela Nugent, 43, died as she tried to escape her flooded home in the hamlet of Fort Montgomery.

The force of the flash flooding dislodged boulders, which rammed into the woman’s house and damaged part of its wall, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told The Associated Press. Two other people escaped.

“She was trying to get through (the flooding) with her dog,” Neuhaus said, “and she was overwhelmed by tidal wave-type waves.”

Officials say the storm has already wrought tens of millions of dollars in damage. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Monday the storm sent “cars swirling in our streets” and dumped a “historic” amount of rain.

“Nine inches of rain in this community,” Hochul said during a briefing on a muddy street in Highland Falls. “They’re calling this a ‘1,000 year event.’”

As of Monday evening, several washed-out streets in Highland Falls remained impassable, leaving some residents stuck in their homes but otherwise OK, Police Chief Frank Basile said in a telephone interview.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said there were reports of flooding in central and western Massachusetts and that state emergency management officials were in touch with local authorities.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point was pounded with more than 8 inches (20.32 centimeters) of rain that sent debris sliding onto some roads and washed others out. Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilland said recently arrived new cadets and others at the historic academy on the Hudson River were safe, but that assessing the damage will take time.

Atmospheric scientists say destructive flooding events across the globe have this in common: Storms are forming in a warmer atmosphere, making extreme rainfall a reality right now. The additional warming that scientists predict is coming will only make it worse.

The storm also interrupted air and rail travel. There were hundreds of flight cancellations at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports and more than 200 canceled at Boston’s Logan Airport in the last 24 hours, according to the Flightaware website. Amtrak temporarily suspended service between Albany and New York.

Swift water rescue teams in Vermont have done more than 50 rescues, mainly in the southern and central areas of the state, Vermont Emergency Management said Monday night.

Among the buildings flooded Monday was the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vermont, which had been performing “Buddy — The Buddy Holly Story” to sold-out audiences.

The Weston Theater Company’s executive artistic director Susanna Gellert said the call was made at around 4 a.m. to evacuate 11 people associated with the production to higher ground and another 15 in nearby Ludlow. The three-floor playhouse, which had been damaged during Irene, was also flooded, with the dressing room and props room under water.

“As a theater, we were just starting to get back from the COVID shutdown,” Gellert said. “To have this happen right now is painfully heartbreaking.”

Cara Philbin, 37, of Ludlow, Vermont, was awakened by a neighbor early Monday and told to clear out of her second-floor apartment because the parking lot was already flooded.

“He told me me, ‘You need to get out of here … your car is going to float away, and I suggest you do not stay,’” said Philbin. The neighbor took her car keys and moved her car to a higher spot, while she called her parents and then drove to their home to ride out the storm, she said.

Ross Andrews and his wife were driving back home to Calais, Vermont, on Monday when he saw trucks parked at a 230-year-old dam with crews trying to keep it from failing. There were trees down everywhere.

“The interstate was closed right at our exit. Our road was closed right at our driveway. We managed to thread our way back just in the nick of time,” he said.

Minchillo reported from Highland Falls, New York. Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Michael Hill in Albany, New York; and Mark Pratt and Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed.

Toxic algae that can cause lung infections and neurological disorders is taking over a giant lake in Florida, and ecologists say the bloom will only grow

Business Insider

Toxic algae that can cause lung infections and neurological disorders is taking over a giant lake in Florida, and ecologists say the bloom will only grow

Katie Hawkinson – July 9, 2023

Boats sit at a dock while algae blooms turn the water green around them in Lake Okeechobee. — More than half of Lake Okeechobee is covered in algae blooms.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Florida’s Lake Okeechobee is already half full with toxic algae, and the bloom will only grow.
Fumes from the algae can cause several health complications, like lung infections.
Climate warming and pollutant run-off from nearby crops help it thrive, experts say.

The largest freshwater lake in Florida, which is a draw for fishing and boating in the summer months, likely won’t see many faces this year.

That’s because Lake Okeechobee is already half-full with a bright green, toxic algae that researchers say will only grow as algae season continues on through the summer. The algae can cause several health complications, including lung infections, organ damage, and neurological disorders, The New York Times reports.

Experts told the Times the severity of this year’s bloom is, in large part, due to the warming climate that has resulted in increased rainfall and rising levels of carbon dioxide, which the algae feeds on. The algae also thrives among the fertilizer and manure that runs into the lake from nearby crops.

This is not a new problem for Florida. In 2018, former Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency across seven counties in an effort to combat the same toxic algae in Lake Okeechobee that was also inundating a nearby river.

Finding a solution to this toxic bloom has been a challenge.

Florida plans to build a reservoir to stop the algae from flowing out of the lake and into other bodies of water — though the Times reports that the reservoir would fill to capacity after depleting Okeechobee by only six inches.

Environmentalists are also calling on the state of Florida to implement rules limiting the run-off of pollutants from nearby crops that feed the algae, the Times reports.

This policy would take decades to make a large impact, thanks to the phosphorous-rich sediment already present in the lake.

Las Vegas Valley is making major changes to its landscape to keep up with its fast-growing population

TCD

Las Vegas Valley is making major changes to its landscape to keep up with its fast-growing population — here’s what’s happening

Mary Swansburg – July 9, 2023

The Las Vegas Valley is working with its citizens to help them ditch their grassy yards and embrace Nevada’s natural landscape instead.

The news was shared in an article by ProPublica that was reposted on Reddit.

Las Vegas Valley landscape — Photo Credit: u/WhoIsJolyonWest / Reddit

The effort will conserve water and allow the population in Vegas to continue growing.

Community members have already done their part to conserve water indoors, and Nevada treats and recycles all indoor water. Outdoor water, however, cannot be recycled in the same way because it evaporates or settles into the ground.

Because of this, the state is turning toward grass reduction because growing grass in the desert climate requires a significant amount of water.

A similar plan has been utilized before and helped the conservation effort, but it encountered some pushback from homeowner associations (HOAs.) Also, some citizens want to preserve the aesthetic of green lawns, so the state is making an effort to find a compromise.

The state is targeting “nonfunctional” grass first, like grass that lines roadways and lakes, with the goal to get rid of all of it by 2027. Citizens upset about grass removal can submit an exemption request — many of which are approved — making the pushback from HOAs minimal.

In addition, some companies like Par 3 Landscape and Maintenance are offering ideas for alternative plantlife that is native to the area, such as evergreens and desert-friendly shrubs.

Families that choose to embrace the natural landscape will lower their water bills while leaving resources for the addition of new residents and businesses. On top of that, they’ll be helping to fight rising global temperatures.

Princeton reported that 800 million gallons of gasoline, which releases planet-warming gases, are used by lawn equipment each year, and an additional 17 million gallons are spilled in the process.

Plus, the Natural Resource Defense Council reported that lawns are responsible for consuming almost three trillion gallons of water each year. And when grass is grown outside of its natural habitat, it doesn’t benefit the local wildlife either.

One Redditor echoed this in the comments. “Lawns do NOT belong in the southwest,” they wrote.

Luckily, the Las Vegas Valley is setting a great example for communities looking to conserve water.

“If everyone else takes on similar initiatives, we’ll be able to sustain our community and communities across the Colorado River Basin for future generations,” said Howard Watts, Nevada state representative.

‘Woke’ isn’t going to die in DeSantis’ Florida. It’s just taking its dollars elsewhere

Miami Herald – Opinion

‘Woke’ isn’t going to die in DeSantis’ Florida. It’s just taking its dollars elsewhere | Opinion

The Miami Herald Editorial Board – July 7, 2023

Think of a dystopian, polarized country, where Americans are not only divided based on political beliefs but also on where they live and shop, what beer they drink, what doctors they visit, whether they are vaccinated, where they go on vacation and attend professional conferences.

This is what politicians who want to inject extremism (from the right or the left) into governing seem to want to accomplish: to reshape their communities so that only like-minded people feel comfortable co-existing.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has made no secret that his approach to governing is “You’re either with me or get the heck out.” He has signed laws and used state power against: teachers; transgender people; African Americans; women’s bodies; teachers and unions; university professors and academic freedom; universities that want to diversify their student body; immigrants; LGBTQ people and drag queens.

Most recently, DeSantis defended a bizarre and homophobic video his campaign shared on Twitter, calling it “fair game” to attack Donald Trump for past statements in support of LGBTQ rights. Not surprising coming from the governor of the state “where woke goes to die.”

The governor probably doesn’t lose sleep over the few conferences that Florida has lost recently as professional organizations take their dollars and thousands of attendees to states with less extreme policies. That blue parts of the state, Broward and Orange counties, lost the opportunity to host those events fit right into the governor’s strategy. DeSantis’ motto is to “own the libs.”

Two organizations canceled events that were planned in the Orlando area in coming years. AnitaB.org, a group of women and nonbinary tech workers, canceled a 2027 event that normally draws about 16,000 visitors. The group told the Orlando Sentinel it will no longer hold events in the state after this year’s conference at the Orange County Convention Center. The reasons are Florida’s abortion ban, its easing of gun regulations and the state’s efforts “to erase the identities and dignities of people from historically marginalized and excluded groups, including Black, Brown, LGBTQIA+, and Indigenous people.”

Broward County has lost more than half-dozen conferences, thanks to Florida’s political climate, organizers told the county’s tourism agency Visit Lauderdale, as the Sun Sentinel reported Friday. Among them is the 2024 National Family and Community Engagement and Community Schools Conference, which would have needed more than 2,000 hotel rooms. The organization “decided to pull out of Florida due to concerns about what the Governor is doing in the education/schools and that he will likely run in 2024. They do not want to lose attendees due to this,” according to a list of cancellations Visit Lauderdale put together.

The governor’s office told the Sun Sentinel the cancellations are “nothing more than a media-driven stunt.” His administration recently released numbers that show the number of tourists visiting the state is up compared to last year. Florida also welcomed nearly 320,000 new residents from other states between 2021 and 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. DeSantis claims credit for those new residents but Florida benefits from a series of factors, such as the longstanding lack of state income taxes and the rise of remote work during the pandemic

Have DeSantis’ policies caused widespread financial ruin in Florida? No, though the hotels and conference centers that lost business might see it differently.

The bigger question is who DeSantis thinks Florida is for. Nonbinary tech workers are not his intended demographic. Neither are college professors, who have warned that the state’s crackdown on what they can teach regarding race is causing a brain drain. Nor are the undocumented workers who are leaving the state after DeSantis signed into law one of the most draconian immigration laws in the country (it requires, among other things, that immigrants disclose their citizenship status at hospitals).

Are these people leaving in big enough numbers to make a difference? We bet that’s the governor’s goal.

The Florida Blueprint he’s trying to sell to presidential primary voters doesn’t concern itself with having a diverse workforce, attracting the best and brightest or ensuring that Florida’s agriculture has enough people to work its fields. Its myopic focus is fighting the outsider — and there are more and more of those — and rewarding those who fall in line.

1 million Florida buildings will be overrun by sea-level rise by 2100, study shows

USA Today

1 million Florida buildings will be overrun by sea-level rise by 2100, study shows

Jim Waymer, USA TODAY NETWORK – July 5, 2023

Storms that ride in on seas rising due to global warming will displace millions of Floridians in low-lying areas by century’s end, according to a new analysis by a flood-risk research group.

Well before then, a higher ocean will force many to elevate their homes, similar to stilted homes on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, or else endure deadly surging floodwaters and sky-high insurance costs.

The lure of living beachside has long been Florida’s biggest draw. But with sea levels expected to rise one foot by 2030 and another three feet by the end of the century, many dream homes could become nightmares.

“If nobody acts, if nothing changes, by the end of the century there are approximately 1 million buildings that will be inundated in Florida,” said Adrian Santiago Tate, CEO/cofounder of HighTide Intelligence, a flood-risk data company that spun out of a research group at Stanford University. About 90% of those buildings are single-family homes. “We wanted to make this abstract idea of flooding mean something to people.”

Don’t believe it? Search your address on HighTide Intelligence’s platform Arkly.com and see for yourself. The site’s a work in progress, so not every home is there but if your home is, and at low elevation, it likely will pop up as at “high-risk” of flooding and property damages.

Derrick Lockhart, owner of Airboat Rides at Midway on the St. Johns River just over the Brevard County line, says the flooding that followed Hurricane Ian last fall was the worst he had ever seen in the area.n(Credit: TIM SHORTT/ FLORIDA TODAY, TIM SHORTT/ FLORIDA TODAY)

Floridians already are feeling the pain. After last year’s hurricane season, Florida homeowners watched their premiums double or triple or got letters cancelling their policies. More than a dozen insurance companies either went belly up or just bailed on Florida altogether.

Satellite Beach and other coastal cities for years have been warning residents in the most vulnerable spots to start planning countermeasures now. To bring concrete data to those warnings, Satellite Beach hired HighTide Intelligence to do a $295,000, three-year study to assess flood risk from rising seas. The analysis was paid for in part by a $275,000 grant the city received from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to study ways to make the city more resilient to flooding and sea-level rise. The city chipped in $20,000.

Sparked in part by the Satellite Beach project, HighTide decided to make its statewide dataset of building-level flood risk available to the public in a new user-friendly website, Arkly.com.

Insurers and risk managers use the term “hundred-year storms” when assessing flooding risk. Such storms have about a 1% chance of striking in any given year based on historical data.

But don’t think such storms only roll around every 100 years. With global warming, such storms are striking with increasing frequency.

Statewide, HighTide found that within Florida’s 35 coastal counties, a once-in-a-century storm would:

Flood at least 1.28 million buildings, with potential for $261 billion in losses (2020 dollars).
By 2030, as the sea levels rise, it’s 1.3 million buildings and $270 billion.
By 2050, it’s 1.6 million buildings and $321 billion in losses.
Then by 2100, it’s 2.4 million buildings and whopping $624.5 billion in losses.

“Satellite Beach gets some credit for this,” Santiago Tate, CEO/cofounder of HighTide Intelligence, said of the city’s proactive stance on planning for sea-level rise. “They really wanted us to focus on the element of communicating risk.”

And for thousands in this small city of just 11,200 residents, that risk is mounting. Unless the city prepares, rising seas and powerful storms will put 2,200 households in Satellite Beach — half the city’s total — at risk and could inflict $142 million in flood damages to buildings by 2050, according to HighTide’s study.

During the run-up to Hurricane Ian in October 2022, many teenagers decided to have some fun in the flooding. Rising sea levels are expected to make flooding a more common problem in Florida even in the absence of hurricanes.n(Credit: MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY)

Local governments can get insurance discounts for residents from Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) by conducting floodplain management activities that qualify for points in what’s called the Community Rating System (CRS). Part of Satellite Beach’s effort is to improve the city’s rating.

Most of the vulnerable homes and infrastructure are on the city’s west side, along the low-lying banks of the Indian River Lagoon.

Don’t care about climate change?: Insurance rates might force you to.

How fast is sea level rising?

Lee Corbridge describes how this flooding near his family's home on Lantern Drive, north of Titusville, in late September, early October 2022 was the worst he has ever seen. Rising sea levels are expected to make flooding a more common problem in Florida even in the absence of hurricanes. — Lee Corbridge describes how this flooding near his family’s home on Lantern Drive, north of Titusville, in late September, early October 2022 was the worst he has ever seen. Rising sea levels are expected to make flooding a more common problem in Florida even in the absence of hurricanes.

On average, sea levels rose about 6 to 8 inches worldwide over the past century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the rate of rise has more than doubled since 2006.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida found sea level rise is accelerating in other parts of Florida such as Key West and Fernandina Beach. A study in Nature this past April on sea level rise along the Southeastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico coasts echoed those findings.

Sea levels along the southeastern and Gulf Coasts already are rising faster than climate models predicted, the UCF researchers note, causing coastal erosion, high-tide flooding, saltwater contamination of freshwater aquifers and higher storm surges in Florida.

Hurricanes exacerbate the problem. Even a Category 1 storm could inundate more than 40% of Satellite Beach, according to a 2010 study for the city by Florida International University, and as sea level rises, it’s only going to get worse.

Governments usually opt for large-scale infrastructure projects to prevent flooding, such as levees, the Satellite Beach report notes. Those aren’t always best, though, because costs exceed benefits and can take decades for Congress to appropriate funds.

Meanwhile, property owners are left susceptible to storm flooding.

A truck makes its way down Milford Point Drive on Merritt Island after heavy rains pounded Brevard County in September 2022, flooding streets and yards. Rising sea levels are expected to make flooding a more common problem in Florida even in the absence of hurricanes.

HighTide’s study builds on two previous flood studies of Satellite Beach, including the one by Florida International University. At the time, the researchers in that study anticipated the tipping point toward “catastrophic inundation” — a 2-foot sea-level rise — in just 40 years for Satellite Beach. Now that’s less than 30 years away.

Rotting seaweed, dead fish, no sand: Climate change threatens to ruin US beaches

“I don’t really know how you get ahead on this,” said Randy Parkinson, the coastal geologist at Florida International University who coauthored the 2010 study.https://flo.uri.sh/story/1950403/embed

Complacency about flood risk jumped out at him during a recent drive down State Road A1A in south Brevard and into Indian River County, where the barrier island thins to just a few hundred feet wide.

“I couldn’t believe the number of new single-family homes still going in,” Parkinson said. “The real wakeup call is sadly when we get a Cat. 4 or Cat. 5 and it’s moving slow.”

Time will tell how many structures Satellite Beach and other Florida coastal cities will have to move to higher ground or elevate.

“It really depends on the timescale,” Santiago Tate said. “There’s only so much you can do to hold back Mother Nature.”

Contact Environment reporter Jim Waymer at jwaymer@floridatoday.com.