Flooding Hospital Buildings During the Florida Fawcett Hospital in Tampa, Fla., following a Category 4 Hurricane with a Strong Wind

The healthcare facilities could be impacted by other types of rising water, like flooded hospital buildings. Roads that lead to hospitals could flood, too, blocking the way in or out. In most places, the roads at risk of flooding are around hospitals that also could flood during storms. In New York and Jersey City, for example, between 10 and 30 percent of roads could flood.

Ian sent water to the HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital this week. The pounding rain from above caused the flooding of the lower levels just as winds ripped the roof off of the building. Doctors in the hospital were expecting issues, internal medicine specialist Birgit Bodine told The Associated Press.

Ian was a strong Category 4 storm when it hit the west coast of the Florida peninsula. There were at least 120 people who died in the storm in Florida. Thousands of runners were without power or water.

Why is America so far from the hurricanes? Evidence from First Street of Hurricanes and Impact of Hurricane-prone Landfall in the U.S

But that science is largely missing from public weather forecasts that millions of people in the U.S. rely on. As severe weather gets more common, scientists and forecasters are contending with a sneakily difficult question: How do we work together to explain the role of climate change?

It is more likely that hurricanes can form farther north than it is in Miami where they are more common, according to a report by First Street.

More than a few of the storms were at Category 5 and more than a few at Category 4 as they made US landfall. Knutson says that what we are seeing is an example of that. This means that hurricane-prone regions in the US could see more storms with winds exceeding 130 mph, powerful enough to rip the roof off a building, uproot trees, and cut off power.

I am talking about the brick and mortar costs, not the cost of human suffering. That is almost incomprehensible. For now, it’s also impossible to know. Much of the area is not accessible.

Roads and bridges have been laid to waste. Our article states that homes and businesses on the barrier islands are in a state of disrepair.

What’s going on in the Atlantic, and what are we waiting for? Recent climatological trends and insights from the late 1990s and early 2000s

What’s going on? The effects of human influence on the climate were the subjects of recent storms. Here is my attempt to answer those questions, as briefly as possible while still doing justice to the uncertainties, as well as some insights from the latest, still rapidly evolving science.

“I urge everyone to remain vigilant as we enter the peak months of hurricane season,” said Gina Raimondo, Secretary of the Commerce Department, which includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The forecast has not changed despite the fact scientists were still expecting at least 14 storms, and people in areas prone to hurricanes should be prepared.

The dread was justified. By the end of September, two deadly storms had hit the U.S. and killed more than 150 people: Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, and Hurricane Ian in Florida.

Hurricanes in Florida have gotten costlier in recent years. Climate change can cause hurricanes to intensify, which in turn causes more rain and flooding.

On the other hand, the critical phrase in the above paragraph is “over most of the planet.” The North Atlantic, the basin that matters most by far to the United States in terms of hurricane risk, is the exception. The 1970s and the 1980s were quiet periods in the North Atlantic, but since the mid- ’90s the period has been more active.

Once these aerosols were cleaned up by legislation in the US in the 1950s to 1970s and then in Europe, the Atlantic was able to warm up again rapidly, now also charged by greenhouse gas increases.

And new science darkens the prognosis for the Atlantic further. The last three years of La Niña conditions, when the eastern equatorial Pacific is cooler than average, are just part of a persistent trend in that direction over the last 50 years. Our climate models have failed to predict this, instead predicting that global warming should cause a trend toward more El Niño-like conditions.

Managing Florida’s Precarious Insurance Market with Hurricanes and Litigation: What Happens When a Florida Homeowner is Out of Town?

“You’re going to price the middle class out of residential homeownership. “That’s just not sustainable, the price of home insurance has gone up more than 60% in the last two years.” said Brandes. “It is the Achilles heel of our real estate market across the state.”

As Florida looks to recover from the tens of billions of dollars in damage caused by the Category 4 storm, some worry that Ian may be the final straw for other private insurers, driving up costs and putting Florida’s precarious insurance market closer to catastrophe.

Six insurance carriers have declared insolvency this year alone. Others have dropped customers or stopped writing new policies. The number of insureds on the Citizens Property Insurance has gone up as a result.

The Florida senator, whose district covers part of Pinellas County, which did not experience the worst of Ian, said that the truth is that you cannot expect lower insurance rates if you are prone to hurricanes and litigious.

The lawsuits often originate like this: A contractor contacts a homeowner about potential damage, perhaps to their roof. An assignment of benefits agreement allows the contractor to handle the insurance claim if the homeowner is out of town. Sometimes, even without the knowledge of the insurer, a contractor can file a suit against them for denying a claim or dispute the amount.

The size of the claim is not taken into account by attorneys’ fees. Excess litigation cost Floridians $1.6 billion in 2019. There have been more lawsuits in the past two years.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/06/1127083845/hurricane-ian-florida-property-insurance

State backed, Citizens’ insurance during hurricane and flood events. I. Florida’s case against hurricane-ian-florida insurance

Population growth is one of the factors. Florida is growing at a rate that is unparalleled in the eastern U.S. And its fastest-growing metro areas include Orlando, Tampa and Cape Coral-Fort Myers – all areas affected by Ian.

Smaller companies cannot build the kind of capital reserves that larger companies can. They rely on their own insurance to pay for claims during expensive events.

Statebacked, Citizens is limited in its ability to increase rates and is often cheaper than competitors. Private insurers say that makes it difficult to compete, especially in storm-prone ZIP codes where only a handful of insurers offer policies.

It is too early to know exactly how much the claims will cost. A firm estimated the wind and storm surge losses to be between $28 and $47 billion. Another estimate of the total loss to private insurers put the total as high as approximately $63 billion.

Miller said it is possible that the state could see a million total claims across all insurance types. (Most Florida homes affected by Ian did not have flood insurance, and there are likely to be legal disputes over whether damage was caused by wind or flood.)

The state legislature held a special session in May in which legislators passed a bill addressing some of the issues with roofs and attorneys’ fees. The bill didn’t do enough to provide relief to homeowners, it was complained of by some Democrats.

According to Brandes, another session could be called before January, because the May session cured the flu when the market for property insurance had stage-4 cancer.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/06/1127083845/hurricane-ian-florida-property-insurance

Invest 98L in Florida, a Tropical Storm Storm, and Hurricane Ian’s DeSantis: A Key Player to Conserve the Market for the Future

He said it was the perfect time to make tough decisions. “You’re going to have to do some things that historically have just not been on the table, but have to be on the table in order to save this market going forward.”

Florida officials are warning residents, including those recently hit by the destructive Hurricane Ian, that a tropical system could bring heavy rain and damaging winds this week.

Subtropical Storm Nicole is expected to strengthen slowly as it approaches the Florida Peninsula, bringing heavy rain that could lead to dangerous storm surges and high winds beginning Wednesday, according to Jamie Rhome, the acting director of the National Hurricane Center.

Already, the US territories of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands are under a flash flood watch through Monday afternoon, and tropical storm watches are in effect for northwest Bahamas.

Robert Shackelford said it will likely hit Florida and the Southeast US early this week.

“If a storm impacts Florida, I encourage everyone to be prepared and make a plan,” DeSantis said in a news release. “We will continue to monitor the path and trajectory of Invest 98L and we remain in constant contact with all state and local government partners.”

On Tuesday, Election Day, it is expected to be windy and gusty in the Florida Peninsula. Central and eastern cities are expected to see rain throughout the day, with some areas potentially seeing more rain than others.

Forecasting, Monitoring, and Defending Hurricanes After Hurricane Ian’s Devastating Devastation: A Statewide Strategy for Coordinated Emergency Management in Florida

In the meantime, DeSantis said as the state continues recovering from Ian’s disastrous destruction, officials are also coordinating with local emergency management authorities across the state’s 67 counties.

The goal is to “identify potential resource gaps and to implement plans that will allow the state to respond quickly and efficiently ahead of the potential strengthening” of the storm system, said the release.

The storm system could become a tropical depression within the next two days, although the exact forecast is still unclear.

Additionally, more than 5 million people are under storm surge warnings from North Palm Beach northward to Altamaha Sound, including the mouth of the St. Johns River to Georgetown, Shackelford added.

It is projected to be a strong tropical storm or Category 1 Hurricane by the time it arrives in Florida on Wednesday evening, R home said.

The warning is due to the fact that a watch is in effect along the east coast of Florida, from the Volusia/Brevard county line to Hallandale Beach.

“Residents and visitors should monitor the forecast and make sure their storm kit is up-to-date,” Levine Cava said in a social media post. “We’re taking all needed precautions to prepare for potential flooding and power outages.”

The day before the storm made landfall in Florida, the acting director of the hurricane center, Jamie Rhome, appeared on CNN and was asked how climate change might be affecting the storm’s intensification. He said, “We can discuss climate change at a later time.” I want to focus on the here and now.”

That was on full display this year. Global warming has caused sea levels in Florida where Hurricane Ian made landfall to rise by about 1 foot. The extra water made the flooding worse.

But, Spinrad says, the research “isn’t robust enough yet” for weather forecasters to say exactly how much worse a given weather disaster will be, in real-time. Nor should that necessarily be the primary goal. Instead, he says his agency is focused on giving people information about what to expect in the future. As heat waves get more intense, the NOAA plans to use extreme- event attribution science to better warn people.

When a disaster is unfolding, the official weather forecasts from the federal government don’t include information about what climate change is making the disaster more severe or more likely, even if the connection is well established by previous studies. Most people rely on official government information for their forecasts when they are on their phones or in broadcasts.

But including climate context in real-time weather warnings is easier said than done, says Sarah Kapnick, the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Kapnick has a background as a research scientist, and has worked on extreme-event attribution studies.

NOAA is currently reviewing how it communicates with the public about climate change, she says, in part because of a flood of interest from the public and from local officials who are grappling with more severe weather.

RickSpinrad, administrator of the National Hurricane Center, said climate change is causing hurricanes and tropical storms.

Climate change may have played a part in Ian’s drop in rain, according to an analysis by Wehner and others in the days after the storm hit.

What Will You Do After a Hurricane? An Empirical Viewpoint of Hurricane Hazards in the United States and the Impact on the National Hurricane Center

There is more support for electric vehicles, policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as well as an interest in doing things like flood-proofing your home.

It’s not certain how long those attitudes will last after a disaster. It is an active area of research. “There appears to be this window of time within which you might want to help people better understand what those risks are, and make links to climate change,” Wong-Parodi explains.

Wong-Parodi thinks that is important because it has implications for how we may communicate to the public about the events.

In early September, a lot of people who live in hurricane-prone parts of the United States started noticing that it had been an eerily quiet summer. On average, there are 14 storms each year in the Atlantic between June 1 and December 1.

Jamie Rhome was the acting director of the National Hurricane Center when it was quietest in the Atlantic hurricane season. “I felt like people were letting their guard down.”

First Street Sees Hurricanes Become More Devastating and More Dangerous: What Do We Expect to Learn from Next-Generation Hurricanes?

Storm surge is the wall of ocean water that storms push onto land like a high tide. The more powerful the storm, the more water it pushes inland. “A rising sea level makes the storm surge worse,” says Rhome.

The First Street analysis, which covers the next 30 years – or the typical life of a home mortgage – shows Florida and the Gulf Coast will continue to have the largest magnitude of financial loss from hurricane damage. Most of the regions that have been safer from most devastating storms will see an increase in damage in the future.

For instance, First Street found the top 20 US cities with the highest likelihood of being hit with a major hurricane in 2023 are all in Florida. Over the next 30 years, though, New York City would see the largest percentage increase in average annual loss due to strong hurricanes, followed by Newport News, Virginia, and other coastal communities in the Mid-Atlantic. The report also highlights Southeast cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, as notable future hot spots.

This data for individual homeowners is part of the design of First Street. But Eby and Emanuel said they hope it is also used by the government and financial and insurance companies to either make communities more resilient or move them to areas that are safer.

It’s almost certain it’s a major Hurricane when it makes its way into the ocean. Even after the initial landfall of a storms, it can persist over land and dump a lot of rain and bring high winds to areas that aren’t prepared.

Charleston was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016; though the storm was just a category 1, its storm surge was significant for the South Carolina coast, pushing water levels 3 to 5 feet above normal. But it hasn’t had a truly devastating storm since Hurricane Hugo slammed into the city in 1989 as a category 4 with 140-mph winds and became the costliest disaster on record at the time.

Hurricane models from prominent meteorologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Kerry Emanuel, which First Street used in its report, also show current and future hurricanes having a “tendency to form a little bit north in the Atlantic,” Emanuel told CNN.

Emanuel and Eby said that the problem is that stronger storms could slam into areas that aren’t yet ready for hurricanes.

Emanuel said that the increase in wind speeds for Florida won’t be as big as in the mid-Atlantic states and New England. “In Miami, 100 mph wind is serious but not devastating because they’re used to it.”

The models that are used to assess risk from hurricanes are not up to date and lack historical data according to Emanuel.

“This is a big deal for the insurance companies, and they’ve woken up recently to this,” Emanuel said. “The estimates of risk they use to price properties and premiums are 50 years out of date, and the climate has changed enough to make their data useless.”

“We’re really hopeful that our data can do that, to have the risk illuminated for them to make the right decisions,” Eby said. “Now they’re armed with that data, they can make those smart decisions. That is the hope.