I thought it would be tha banks that killed Florida

[malada]

Not long ago I read an article about the possibility of banks in Florida refusing to issue new house loans. Usually, these loans are for 15, 20 or 30 years. With hurricanes and rising seas housing in Florida is becoming too expensive to build, rebuild and rebuild.

But no... it's the insurance companies.

From what I've read recently, more insurance companies are pulling out of Florida. Yes, they're also pulling out of California too - both being hit by natural disasters: drought and wild fires in California and sea level rise and bad weather in Florida. There's no profit in those states.

But Florida is worse.

California can change some things by *not building in burnable forests* or at least building better. Florida? They *could* change some things by making housing more resilient to bad weather (nah, costs too much) but condos by the shore? Nope. They're going down, down, down...

With sea level rise *fresh* water will become unavailable soon. Sea water is already seeping into the ground water. It's just a matter of time.

-m

Then there's invasive species of giant snakes and Republicans.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Salt ground water also rots concrete & rebar foundations/pilings which are sunk into the sand down tot he limestone bedrock, which is also dissolving.

Buildings are already collapsing, 80% (IIRC) of the beachfront properties in Miami country (and that's a lot of very expensive real estate) are showing signs of structural failure similar to that condo that collapsed last year.

Problem is, there's no way of fixing it, other than tear it down and start over, and even that isn't a certainty since the bedrock itself is eroding.

The insurance companies know all this, they're the ones that commissioned the study, and a lot of buildings that stem from the 80's and 90's property boom are coming up on renewing their building insurance, which the insurance companies are contemplating refusing to carry.

[acelightning73]

When I was a kid, I was watching the news on TV and they showed live footage of a huge luxury hotel in Miami being obliterated by a hurricane. Before the storm, it was a beautiful building, rectangular footprint with the longer side facing out to sea. It was built with a tiny little strip of beach between the foundation and the waterline. As I watched the news, I said, Why did they build it that way - the flat side to catch the wind and too close to the ocean. Well, the flat side gives every room an ocean view. And the hotel can claim to be close to the beach. But it's just a bunch of wreckage washing out to sea. It was egregiously obvious even to a seven-year-old that it was badly designed.