NORTH PORT — Christine Barrett was inside her family’s North Port home during Hurricane Ian when one of her children started yelling that water was coming up from the shower.
|
Bruce Hickey, 70, walks along the waterfront littered with debris, including shrimp boats, in the mobile home park where he and his wife Kathy have a winter home, a trailer originally purchased by Kathy's mother in 1979, on San Carlos Island, Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. |
Heavy rains from
hurricanes can also cause widespread flooding far from the
beach. Ian dumped rain for hours as it lumbered across the
state, sending waterways spilling over their banks and into
homes and businesses far inland from where Ian made
landfall. People were using kayaks to evacuate their flooded
homes, and floodwaters in some areas have still not gone
down a week after landfall.
“This is such a big storm, brought so much water, that
you’re having basically what’s been a 500-year flood event,”
said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But flooding is not covered by a homeowner’s insurance
policy.
It must be purchased separately — usually from the federal
government. Although most people have the option of
purchasing flood insurance, it is required only on
government-backed mortgages that sit in areas that the
Federal Emergency Management Agency deems highest risk. Many
banks require it in high-risk zones, too. But some
homeowners who pay off their mortgage drop their flood
insurance once it’s not required. Or if they purchase a
house or mobile home with cash they may not opt for it at
all. And flooding can and does happen outside those high
risk areas where flood insurance is required.
There have long been concerns that not enough people have
flood insurance especially at a time when climate change is
making strong hurricanes even stronger and making storms in
general wetter, slower and more prone to intensifying
rapidly. According to the Insurance Information Institute,
only about 4% of homeowners nationwide have flood insurance
although 90% of catastrophes in the U.S. involve flooding.
In Florida that number is only about 18%.
“We have experienced catastrophic flood events across the
U.S. this year, including in Kentucky and Missouri, where
virtually no one had flood insurance,” said the Institute’s
Mark Friedlander.
Hurricane Ian caused extensive flooding in areas outside of
the high-risk zones. According to the consulting firm
Milliman, roughly 18.5% of homes in counties that were under
an evacuation order had federally issued flood insurance. In
areas under an evacuation order that were outside of
high-risk zones, 9.4% of homes had a policy.
Last year, FEMA updated its pricing system for flood
insurance to more accurately reflect risk called Risk Rating
2.0. The old system considered a home’s elevation and
whether it was in a high-risk flood zone. Risk Rating 2.0
looks at the risk that an individual property will flood,
considering factors like its distance to water. The new
pricing system raises rates for about three-quarters of
policyholders and offers price decreases for the first time.
FEMA has long said the new ratings would attract new
policyholders. However, a FEMA report to the treasury
secretary and a handful of congressional leaders last year
said far fewer people would buy flood insurance as prices
rise. Since the new rating system has gone into effect in
Florida, the number of polices in the state has dropped by
roughly 50,000 since August 2021.
After a federally declared disaster, homeowners with flood
insurance are likely to receive more money, more quickly, to
recover and rebuild than the uninsured.
After major flooding in Louisiana in 2016, for example, the
average payment to a flood insurance policyholder was
$86,500, according to FEMA. Uninsured homeowners could get
individual assistance payments for needs like temporary
housing and property damage, but they averaged roughly
$9,150.
Congress sometimes provides additional aid after major
disasters although that can take months to years to arrive.
“Unless you have flood insurance, the federal government is
not going to give you enough assistance to rebuild your
home,” said Rob Moore, water and climate team director at
the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In the North Port neighborhood that was cleaning up from
Ian, Ron Audette wasn’t sure whether he would get flood
insurance going forward because of the cost. The retired
U.S. Navy sailor was cleaning up his one-story home on a
corner lot after floodwaters buckled the laminate flooring,
swelled wood furniture and left the leather reclining sofa
where he watched Patriots games a muddy, watery mess.
“I don’t think we could live here if we had to buy flood
insurance,” he said.
But down the street, his neighbor Barrett was definitely
planning to get it.
“Get flood insurance even if it’s not required,” she
advised. “Because we definitely will now.”