American Home Construction Booms In Flood Zones

You might'a thunk they'd know better. Wrong.

For eight states, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, Mississippi and South Carolina, the percentage increase in homes built in the flood zone exceeded the rate of increase in the rest of the state. 

There are many reasons construction persists despite the danger. In some cases it’s urban sprawl, in others it’s a desire among government officials for property-tax revenues. But whatever the reason, this kind of building activity will “come back and bite,” said Benjamin Strauss, president and chief scientist of Climate Central, which produces and publishes research on the effects of global warming.

The researchers’ objective was to examine “the riskiest of the risky places” — those that “actually would predictably flood multiple times in the course of one mortgage,” Mr. Strauss said. “Even in a time of growing climate change awareness, lots of towns are building fastest in the riskiest places.”

...Building in the very areas that will predictably flood creates two problems, according to Larry Larson, senior policy adviser with the Association of State Floodplain Managers. The first is financial: As flooding eventually exceeds what the houses were built to withstand, homeowners will face rising insurance costs.  

“Their flood-insurance premiums are going to skyrocket,” Mr. Larson said. “It’s not going to be pretty.” 

The second problem is safety, both for residents and emergency workers. “If that water rises, they’re going to have to send rescuers in there to get them out,” Mr. Larson said.

Government interests clash.

In Connecticut, where the number of homes built in high-risk areas increased at more than three times the rate elsewhere in the state, out-of-state buyers are buying older homes then tearing them down and building new structures in their place, according to Diane Ifkovic, the state’s coordinator for the National Flood Insurance Program. 

When the state has instead tried to acquire some of those flood-prone homes itself, with the purpose of reverting the land to open space, local officials have resisted, she added, fearful of losing the property tax revenue. “We tried this after Sandy,” Ms. Ifkovic said. “There is a lack of political will.”