Can the Florida coast remain habitable?

[Boomer]

Assuming that the hurricane season Florida is experiencing this year is typical of the climate extremes of global warming, how much longer can anyone afford to live along the Florida coastline?

Insurance losses are going to be tremendous, and it won't take more than another season like this one before it will become difficult, if not impossible, to insure houses on the coastline. And why mobile home construction is even legal in coastal areas beats the heck out of me. Not only are mobile homes prone to destruction, they also generate air-borne debris that creates even further destruction on more stable buildings.

Re-building communities every thirty or forty years is evidently considered feasible in that area, but rebuilding every five years is going to be economically ruinous.

Given the Bush family record for corruption and cooperation with big bidness, I don't expect that Jeb will encourage the logical responses: strict building codes that mandate costly hurricane-resistant building construction and restrictions on overdevelopment in low-lying coastal land.

[Lancer]

1. Well reasoned

argument..

All I have to go by is aerial shots taken on nice days and reports of folks who've long lived in FL to know it's built up way too damn fast on the coast, and no one except the poor lives in the interior.

Fifty plus years since the last 1-2 punch of hurricanes made everyone complacent.

If Ivan does what it looks like it might, there may not be any Florida coastline left where it is right now to even worry about.

[Warpy]

6. Right, and putting highrises on the shoreline is just plain silly.

All those massive condos seem to have taken heavy glass damage, and once the glass blows out, the interior is pretty well trashed by water damage.

Jebbiepoo will undoubtedly be lavish in his rescue of the fancy condos and stingy with everybody else.

[ramapo]

2. People are complacent

The question doesn't pertain to just Florida, it is a consideration for the entire east coast.

There has been a tremendous amount of building on the barrier islands while there have been few serious storms over the past 40-50 years.

New Jersey is extremely vulnerable to a serious coastal storm. Our barrier islands are just a few blocks wide in places.

It's all about money. Common sense tells you not to build next to the ocean but people are paying tremendous premiums for these houses. Crazy.

[Soopercali]

4. And it's all protected by federal flood insurance.

If you tried to buy private insurance for these homes, the premiums would be outrageous. We the people subsidize them - so the doctors, lawyers and accountants can rebuild at our expense.

I remember some years ago they tried to change the flood insurance gudelines so that any property destroyed more than 50 percent in the coastal area would not be allowed to be rebuilt.

Well! The beachfront millionairs screamed and the politicians backed off. And so it goes...

[kestrel91316]

5. That's called welfare for the rich Republicans...................

the poor dears................

[alarimer]

13. We bail them out

Courtesy of the Federal flood insurance program. Here in Corpus we have a very nice barrier island that is fairly undeveloped but unfortunately the city in its infinite wisdom has decided to encourage building on Padre Island in the name of tourism. They are so eager to make Corpus a "vacation destination" (as if anyone would come here on purpose) that they are even dredging a channel through the island for a boat pass (never mind that there is already one at Aransas Pass and that most passes close if they are not continully dredged).

[Southsideirish]

3. Just my .02 but the concept of zoning need to be introduced to the

south in a huge way.

[amazona]

7. sure it will be habitable

People live in Bangla Desh for crying out loud, they will continue to live in Florida.

Insurance is already becoming a problem for Gulf Coast states, California, and Texas. Wildfires are what is killing the insurability of many areas of California, but we don't talk of California suddenly becoming uninhabitable. People get used to anything.

As far as mobile homes, the more difficult it is to get insurance, the more you're going to see people living in cheap mobile homes and other cheap construction that they can afford to replace every 5-10 years. Check out the housing on Grand Isle, Louisiana some time. Houses have numbers on their names...some are up to number 4 or 5! If you can't afford to insure, you have to go cheap so that you can replace as needed.

[Boomer]

11. Ya gotta point

So the coastline could become a high-risk, low-income housing area, right? Only the poor, or the filthy rich, would gravitate to areas that may be scored clean every few years.

I guess surviving storms is more feasible than continuing to live out West once the water is gone. But that's a topic for another thread....

[Mr.Green93]

8. Depopulate

by not allowing destroyed structures to be rebuilt.

[ramapo]

9. That's not very American

...or so the argument goes. It's our land and we should be able to do anything we want with it. And when the place gets washed away we want the government, that entity that so many love to hate, to make it all nice again.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zynx]

12. Depends on what you mean

If global warming = warmer ocean = more hurricans = Florida getting hit twice a year (I personally think that this makes sense at least as far as the "more hurricanes" point), then Florida's economy and society as we know it is going to undergo a major change.

You simply will not have people wanting to live in areas where their life gets smashed every few years if they are lucky, and every year if they are unlucky. This will cause Florida's economy to collapse due to a hard deflate of an existing real estate bubble, insurence to become entirely unaffordable, and a general demographic shift. This is going to be already starting. Just think of trying to convince your significant other to retire to Florida after this. Businesses will also suffer, due to the fact that almost no one runs a profit margin sufficient enough to cushion the impact of repeat butt-kickings like this.

Rich people will be able to afford to live along Florida's coastline, but it's hard to see why they would want to.

[phantom power]

14. improved building codes may help, although I'm not sure how to

defend against the flooding. And very close to the shore, erosion is going to be a huge factor. No building code is going to work when the ground itself disappears.

For sure, it's going to become more expensive to live in Florida. Due to increased insurance premiums, if nothing else.