“Several factors converged to make 2024 so fertile for tropical storms. Hurricanes feed on warm water, and the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico provided ample nourishment as they reached record-high temperatures. Wind shear — where air currents change speed and direction with altitude — tends to rip apart tropical storms before they can form hurricanes, but there was little of that this year due in part to the ripple effects of the shift to La Niña in the Pacific Ocean.”
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“The world has already heated up by about 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. There’s some evidence of this warming playing out in various hurricane traits, but there are also places where it’s absent.”
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“scientists need more observations and more time to confirm whether climate change is having any influence on the number of hurricanes.”
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“the IPCC report does show hurricanes changing in ways beyond their overall numbers. One is that hurricanes in recent decades have likely been shifting toward the poles, farther away from their normal habitat in the tropics. That makes sense knowing that hurricanes need warm water, around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so hotter oceans mean these storms can have a greater range.
Another changing trait is that hurricanes appear to be moving slower. That means the storms that make landfall spend more time parked over a given region, forcing the area to endure more wind and rainfall. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 was an exemplar of this as it sauntered along the Texas coast at 5 miles per hour and drenched Houston.
Rapid intensification is a climate change hallmark as well. This is where a tropical storm gains 35 miles per hour or more in windspeed in 24 hours. Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane with winds up to 180 miles per hour in just one day. The IPCC found that the global frequency of rapid intensification in tropical cyclones has likely increased over the past 40 years to an extent that can’t be explained by natural variability alone.
One of the strongest signals of climate change in hurricanes is rain. The average and maximum rainfall rates from hurricanes are increasing, largely a function of rising water and air temperatures. More recently, some researchers have begun to connect the increase in rainfall from individual hurricanes to climate change. The World Weather Attribution research group analyzed the rain from Hurricane Helene. They found the precipitation from the storm was 10 percent heavier due to climate change and that such extreme rain is now 40 to 70 percent more likely because of warming. Looking at Hurricane Milton, the researchers reported that heavy one-day rain events like those spawned from the storm are at least 20 to 30 percent more probable.”
“This record ocean heat is a clear reason why Hurricane Helene — which has been traveling through the Gulf on its way to Florida — has intensified so quickly. Put simply, hotter water evaporates more readily, and rising columns of warm, moist air from that evaporation are ultimately what drive hurricanes and their rapid intensification.”
“People choose to remain in flood-prone areas for many reasons, including proximity to family, work, and school. Uprooting oneself and one’s family can be a painful thing to do, and choosing to take on risk to stay where you’ve established your home is understandable. But choosing to stay in these areas genuinely does involve considerable risk. According to FEMA, the average flood insurance claim in 2018 was $40,000, and that risk should be borne by the risk-taker.
The Biden-Harris administration approved an additional $715 million for FEMA’s Flood Mitigation Assistance Program (FMAP) in advance of Hurricane Helene on September 23. FMAP, which falls under NFIP, makes up 15.5 percent of FEMA’s budget and provides homeowners with subsidized flood insurance.
FEMA itself recognizes the folly of providing homeowners insurance at below-market rates. Established by the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 (BW-12) was passed to reduce debt incurred by the NFIP from Hurricanes Rita, Wilma, and Katrina in 2005.
BW-12 removed discounts for some NFIP policyholders so that their insurance rates would “more accurately reflec[t] their expected flood losses,” according to FEMA’s 2018 affordability framework. These reforms were as actuarially sound as they were unpopular and were overturned two years later.
The Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 (HFIAA) restored pre-BW-12 rates, repealed certain rate increases, and capped annual premium increases at 18 and 25 percent for primary homes and secondary residences, respectively. Congress instituted these effective price ceilings to encourage participation, but FEMA’s affordability framework recognizes the market price of insurance as “one of the best signals of risk that a consumer receives.”
The 2018 framework candidly admits that flood insurance affordability programs create perverse incentives, including “encouraging lower-income households eligible for assistance to purchase properties in very risky areas.” And that’s just what the NFIP has done: approximately 13 million homeowners live in Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs), where there is at least a 1 percent annual risk of flooding.
NFIP deems 12 percent of these homeowners to have Principal, Insurance, Taxes, Insurance (PITI) to household income ratios in excess of the maximum affordable standard. Even with mandatory enrollment in SFHAs, which reduces insurance rates by forcibly expanding the base of the insurance program, the average policyholder cost for a single-family home is $1,098—more than twice the cost of policies outside the SFHAs.
Without NFIP-subsidized insurance, rates would increase, becoming unaffordable for some homeowners. Unaffordability is a feature of insurance markets, not a bug. High insurance rates discourage risky behavior that is likely to be even more painful than having to pull up roots.”
“The nation’s loan program for disaster survivors has fully exhausted its funding, the Biden administration announced Tuesday. And lawmakers, the only ones who can greenlight more funding, are slated to be out until after Election Day.
Without congressional action, the Small Business Administration can’t make new loan offers to people trying to rebuild businesses and homes hit by disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly said he does not intend to call lawmakers back to town before the scheduled Nov. 12 return, however, saying over the weekend that it would be “premature” to gavel back in to approve emergency disaster aid before states have calculated their recovery needs from the two hurricanes.”
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“President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday that Johnson “has promised that this and other disaster programs will be replenished when Congress returns.” He urged Americans to continue to apply for the loans.
Without a refill, the agency must halt all new loan offers but can still do some prep work like initial processing of loan applications.
FEMA, on the other hand, is still expected to have enough funding to last until after Election Day, even though the agency has blown through nearly half of the $20 billion Congress approved for the disaster relief fund in late September.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell warned last week that she might have to pivot to covering only “immediate needs” with money in the disaster relief fund earlier than anticipated.
Criswell has predicted that she would need to switch to that cash-conservation mode in December or January, pausing all long-term disaster recovery efforts like rebuilding on Maui after last year’s wildfires. But last week the administrator warned that she’s “going to have to assess that every day to see if I can wait that long.”
The more than $20 billion Congress cleared before they left in September does not fulfill any of the emergency disaster aid requests the White House has sent over the last year. In June, the White House requested $4 billion in extra disaster funding to respond to tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes, as well as the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
That unfulfilled request builds on the White House’s year-old plea for Congress to provide $23.5 billion in extra disaster aid.”
“FEMA does have a program — Serious Needs Assistance — that gives recipients $750 each if they qualify, but it’s one of many aid offerings that disaster victims can receive.
The barrier to qualify is low, most people affected by the storm are likely eligible, and recipients are not limited to this $750 in support.
Serious Needs Assistance is supposed to provide rapid relief to people who need cash to cover immediate needs like water, food, and first aid. That relief is intended to temporarily help while people wait to hear about approval for other aid programs that could provide more robust funds for larger issues like home repairs.”
“Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he had a call with Elon Musk, despite their differences — because sometimes, it’s just better to get on the horn with someone and clear things up.
On Friday, Buttigieg refuted a series of claims made by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. Musk had in an X post accused the government of closing the airspace in Asheville, North Carolina, to block recovery efforts.
Musk also blamed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government’s disaster relief group, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Buttigieg responded to Musk, writing: “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.”
The two men then had a chat via phone call, Buttigieg confirmed in an interview with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki released on Sunday.
“He called,” Buttigieg told Psaki. “We had a conversation.”
Buttigieg told MSNBC that some of the confusion on X stemmed from Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs), a move by the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure safety for aircraft conducting Hurricane Helene rescue and recovery activities.
Buttigieg said, however, he and Musk managed to get to the bottom of what was happening, and sort out problems for pilots helping to get Starlink equipment to disaster-hit areas.
“We were able to take care of it,” Buttigieg said. “And, I think, to me it’s an example of how often the best thing to do is just to pick up the phone.”
Later on Friday, Musk had a more positive tone while replying to a post from Buttigieg on X about the government delivering additional emergency relief to South Carolina.
Musk said, “Thanks for expediting approval for support flights. Just wanted to note that Sec Buttigieg is on the ball.”
Buttigieg replied, writing: “Glad we could address — thanks for engaging.”
Musk and Buttigieg have had public disagreements over everything from tax credits for electric vehicles to the safety of driverless cars.”
“This year’s El Niño, coupled with ongoing climate change, has amplified many of the drivers of hurricanes, and their destructive elements.”
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“El Niño, the warm phase of the Pacific Ocean’s temperature cycle, has been especially strong this year, driving global air and ocean temperatures to levels never before recorded. Hurricanes require sea surface temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or more to form, so hotter weather tends to favor more hurricanes. In the Atlantic Ocean, El Niño also tends to create wind shear — wind coming from different directions or at different speeds — which usually suppresses hurricane formation, but the water temperatures have been so hot that hurricane activity in the Atlantic has still been above average.
In the Pacific, El Niño is much more favorable to tropical storms (in the eastern Pacific, major tropical storms are called hurricanes, while in the west, they’re known as typhoons). This year, the west coast of North America has already seen several hurricanes. Hurricane Hilary struck California in August, and the winds from Hurricane Dora fanned the flames of wildfires in Hawaii.”
“Ron DeSantis had just been sworn in as a member of the House in 2013 when he voted against sending $9.7 billion in disaster relief to New York and New Jersey, two states still reeling from the damage of Hurricane Sandy.
“I sympathize with the victims,” the Florida Republican said at the time, but objected to what he called Congress’ “put it on the credit card mentality” when it came to government spending.
Now, a day after Hurricane Idalia pummeled Florida less than a year since Hurricane Ian’s destruction, DeSantis is not objecting to federal borrowing when it’ll help his disaster-stricken state. As Florida’s governor — and a 2024 White House contender — he is in regular contact with President Joe Biden as the state seeks dollars from Washington to rebuild from the storm wreckage, assist rescue efforts and aid displaced residents.”
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” DeSantis’ vote a decade ago was based on his opposition to the Sandy package’s “additional pork spending,” a spokesperson for his presidential campaign said”
“If wealthy homeowners want to live in places likely to experience severe weather events, they’re free to do so, but it shouldn’t be the federal government’s responsibility to help protect them against the consequences.”