Tampa was one of the most popular relocation destinations in the country. However, repeated flood damage in the last five years has prompted a wave of selling as
homeowners want to get out.
In the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, which includes St. Petersburg, a real-estate boom nearly doubled median home values from 2018 to June of this year, according to Redfin data. Young people flocked to the region, looking for a coastal lifestyle at a relatively affordable price.
The Tampa Bay metro area was the fifth most popular relocation destination in the country, according to an analysis by Redfin last year. The population has soared to more than three million.
Hurricane Helene deposited more than 6 feet of storm surge in the Shore Acres neighborhood of St. Petersburg, Fla. (Photo: Mike Carlson/AP)
But as Shore Acres’s young residents sorted through the storm’s wreckage, only one thing was on their minds: selling.
Ballooning home insurance costs and the perennial threat of violent storms are starting to undermine housing markets throughout much of the state. But in few places has the turnaround been more dramatic than in low-lying communities up and down the coast of Florida that frequently flood.
The Tampa Bay housing market had been softening even before Helene struck. While prices have been flat, the area experienced a 58% increase in supply in August compared with a year ago, and a 10% decrease in demand, according to Parcl Labs, a real-estate data and analytics firm.
About half the homes listed for sale in Tampa experienced price reductions as of Sept. 9, the third highest share of all U.S. major metropolitan areas.
...The area’s affordability, once a large part of its appeal, is also waning as insurance premiums soar. Jacob McFadden was paying $880 a year to insure his home when he bought it in 2020. That amount has since almost quadrupled, to $3,300.
Premiums will likely increase again now. Property damage from last week’s Category 4 storm could be as high as $26 billion, according to estimates from Moody’s Analytics.
Texas is the top destination for departing Californians, with 13.71% of California moving interest toward the Lone Star State.
Florida is #2 destination for Californians with 7.49% of interest. This confirms other reports that Californians are flocking to The Sunshine State.
Generally speaking, California homeowners who move to Florida have cashed out with substantial equity and should be able to invest in flood protection measures, such as raising their homes on columns, piles, and piers. They can also afford to pay for the higher insurance premiums. However, the exodus of lower-income, typically working-class homeowners from Tampa is a troubling sign that Florida may be peaking,
The view of the Hayward-San Mateo Bridge from the Foster City levee.
I went for a walk along the new $90 million Foster City levee. The path is wider and better engineered than the narrow strip it replaced. There are separate marked lanes for pedestrians and bikers, reducing the chances of injury.
The big change was the height of the levee. It was built to protect Foster City from floods, which means that one can no longer see the Bay from ground level. Walking along the top is nice enough, but one can no longer go up to the Bay and touch the water. No big deal you say? It's the difference between a cliff and a beach. Both have good views of the ocean, but the latter is more popular.
Below is how the Bay and the San Mateo Bridge appeared along the old path in 2018. I used to sit on a bench a few feet from the water and ruminate on various and sundry. Then there was a little sand, now there are only rocks.
Traffic from the Bay Area to Sacramento has gotten worse. Thousands of households (and their cars) have relocated to the Central Valley from LA and SF because of cheaper housing, newer schools, and the friendlier regulatory environment.
Meanwhile, we who remain in the Bay Area like to go on holiday to Lake Tahoe, Reno, and points beyond, which means taking I-80.
We do our best to avoid peak congestion hours, but lately it's been impossible to circumvent the traffic. Last summer it was stop-and-go in 107°F heat throughout the 100 miles to Sacramento.
After years of deliberation Caltrans has finally approved the addition of lanes to I-80 along the "Yolo Corridor," the worst bottleneck. Of course, the coastal environmentalists who don't have to endure the traffic regularly like the hoi polloi, object: [bold added]
Environmentalists balked, viewing the Yolo 80 Corridor Improvements project as a retreat from California’s ambitious climate goals. Many predicted that by adding two lanes to the interstate, Caltrans would lure commuters out of Capitol Corridor trains and into cars. But the California Transportation Commission voted unanimously last week to secure $105 million in state funds for the first phase of the project, all but ensuring construction will break ground.
It’s a shining moment for Yolo county and the city of Sacramento, a seat of governance in a rural valley, where road projects don’t usually draw massive infrastructure grants. At the same time, the Yolo 80 Corridor has become a flash point for two competing visions of transportation in California — one focused on managing congestion, the other aiming to wean people off cars.
...Collective misery about traffic, particularly among Californians who can’t afford to live near their jobs, often dwarfs concerns about carbon emissions, [UC-Davis Prof. Susan] Handy said. Politicians and agencies have to respond and show they’re taking action.
As a result, major highway infrastructure projects are proceeding throughout California. Caltrans is doubling the width of Highway 37 in the North Bay from two to four lanes for seven miles. In Los Angeles, a plan to add lanes to Interstate 710 is inching forward.
Sustainable transportation advocates argue that increasing the capacity for traffic only encourages people to drive, perpetuating the problem that engineers hope to solve. They cite the “bold climate agenda” that Gov. Gavin Newsom invoked in a 2019 executive order, which made reduction of fuel emissions a top priority for transportation spending.
Despite the highest gas taxes in the nation, California supposedly doesn't have the funds to pay for the additional lanes and will make them toll roads. Little matter, the wonder is that the project has been approved at all.
It's too much to hope that climate alarmism has peaked, but for now it looks like the government is paying attention to the immediate needs of its Central Valley citizens rather than the worries of the coastal elites that their grandchildren will get their toes wet in a hundred years.
We've been posting about the Foster City levee project since 2016. Now that it's complete, the Chronicle says that our sea wall is the template for the Bay Area for the rest of the century:
the $90 million, 6.2-mile project is worth a visit for anyone wondering what the future might hold — in this case, a glum wall with great public access....
There’s a bleak simplicity to the levee, and its intent is clear — protection from whatever the bay and natural forces might dish out in decades to come.
Not so fast: horizontal levees can also protect Bay communities from floods, have more pleasing esthetics than our sea wall, and reduce algae blooms that are toxic to fish. They're also cheaper to construct.
Instead of a vertical wall to protect against storm surges, Horizontal levees couple traditional levees with a gentle, vegetated slope leading down towards the Bay in order to protect communities from sea-level rise while also removing nutrients from the water. The slope can be built with local materials like dredged sediment overlain by native plants. A buried layer of gravel and sand within the horizontal levee conveys treated wastewater underneath the soil while wetland plants can extend their roots into the permeable layer to get water.
Basically, horizontal levees are constructed marshlands that are built with a gradient and have native plants that filter wastewater. They have their own environmental concerns because of dredging and construction right on the shoreline, but given that the models say that rising seas are inevitable, horizontal levees are a viable, some would argue preferable solution to the Foster City levee.
The levee (under construction in 2021) obscures the Bay from the ground level.
The view of the Bay is nice from the top (Chron)
The $90 million Foster City levee is complete. The Chronicle encourages Bay Area residents to see it, because something like our levee is in their future:
Welcome to Foster City’s new improved levee, fortified by plates of corrugated steel and roughly 6 feet taller than the prior edition. It’s also a rock-solid reminder that as the Bay Area prepares for the likelihood of sea level rise along its shorelines in coming decades, the result often won’t be pretty.
That’s why the $90 million, 6.2-mile project is worth a visit for anyone wondering what the future might hold — in this case, a glum wall with great public access. The original premise of Foster City, proximity to the water, has disappeared from sight where it should pull you close...
There’s a bleak simplicity to the levee, and its intent is clear — protection from whatever the bay and natural forces might dish out in decades to come. As an element in the landscape, though, the impression it leaves is multilayered.
Down on Beach Park Boulevard, what you see is what you get, a long ridge hiding any sense that water lies beyond.
The experience on top? Totally different.
The views of the bridge and bay are alluring, even if the tall thick concrete thwarts any visceral connection to the shoreline.
You can't walk from the path to the water any more
We've written before about the levee project to protect Foster City against "100-year floods." To recap, FEMA designated Foster City as a flood zone in 2014, meaning most homeowners would have to buy flood insurance costing $2,000-$3,000 per year or spend $279 per year to pay for the levee.
We won't know whether the levee was necessary until long after we're gone, but I can't complain. $90 million is a bargain compared to what San Francisco may have to spend.
The chances of any El Niño forming are now 82% by July and 94% by November, according to the NOAA report.
More significant for California, there’s a 46% chance of a strong El Niño by November, increasing to 54% by January, NOAA researchers concluded Thursday...
Since 1951, there have been 26 El Niño events. Of those, 11 have been weak, 7 moderate, 5 strong and 3 very strong. Overall, rainfall in Southern California averaged 126% of normal. In the Bay Area it was 109% of normal.
But two of the three very strong El Niños, during the winters of 1982-83 and 1997-98, were associated with seasons that were among the wettest in recorded California history, with massive Sierra Nevada snow packs and major flooding.
A pandemic-era public health policy known as Title 42, used to turn away asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border, is coming to an end just before 9 p.m. tonight, prompting concerns about unprecedented migration flows.
Meanwhile, hundreds of migrants have been waiting outside between border walls in San Ysidro for days, sometimes with nothing more to eat all day than a single granola bar handed out by Border Patrol officers.
Federal, state and local officials have had more than two years to prepare for this moment. But officials running migrant shelters on both sides of the border say they have very little information about how to handle the anticipated increase in asylum seekers trying to cross from Mexico into California and other states.
The border between the U.S. and Mexico was relatively calm Friday, offering few signs of the chaos that had been feared following a rush by worried migrants to enter the U.S. before the end of pandemic-related immigration restrictions...
“We did not see any substantial increase in immigration this morning,” said Blas Nunez-Neto of the Department of Homeland Security. He said the agency did not have specific numbers because it was early in the day.
By the way, I hope this guy makes it:
“I hope it’s a little better and that the appointments are streamlined a little more,” said Yeremy Depablos, 21, a Venezuelan traveling with seven cousins who has been waiting in the city for a month.
Fearing deportation, Depablos did not want to cross illegally. “We have to do it the legal way.”
Tax Day, April 15th, the day when most individuals file their taxes, was once immutable. Everyone did get a one- or two-day break when April 15 fell on a weekend and the tax deadline date was postponed to the following business day, usually Monday but sometimes Tuesday like this year, i.e. today.
As the IRS always says, an extension of time to file one's tax return is not an extension of time to pay the liability, so one has to do most of the work anyway by April 15th and cut a check, if necessary, with the extension form.
People who live in San Mateo County are "fortunate": we don't have to pay the liability or file the 2022 tax returns, both Federal and State, until Monday, October 16th, because we live in a county that suffered flood damage. We also don't have to make the 2023 Estimated Tax Payments due in April, June, or September until October 16th. With much higher interest rates than 2022, the Estimated Tax delay could be a significant benefit because taxpayers can hold onto their money longer.
With two years of COVID and one year of floods, I'm getting accustomed to postponement of the tax deadline. But like my fellow citizens who got used to receiving government benefits and not paying rent, mortgages, or student loans during the pandemic, I can't get too comfortable.
Used to help kids express their feelings about disasters in Asia, this worksheet can be adapted for use by adult Californians.
Saturday's post concerned the series of natural disasters that struck California in the 1860's. But we shouldn't overlook reporter Carl Nolte's remark on how we use the language to make today's problems seem historically important: [bold added]
Everything is dramatic. Even the weather comes with a Hollywood touch: Forecasters now use words like atmospheric rivers, bomb cyclones and king tides, all recently coined terms to describe conditions that have happened for thousands of years. You know how it is. A new story every night.
Meanwhile, just before our own big sets of rain and wind, an immense snowstorm swept the East. Mountains of snow and ice — 52 inches of snow in Buffalo. Thirty-seven people died in Erie County. Now that is real weather.
Despite its problems in the 19th century California overcame them and grew. It was the land of opportunity, and the population swelled to 40 million. Now people are leaving, and that's before any truly horrible calamity.
When the 100-year floods and the 9.0 earthquakes eventually come, will we have the strength of character to recover? That's unclear, but I'm sure we'll invent words that will perfectly describe how terrible we're feeling.
We've posted before on the Great Flood of 1862, when 300 miles of the Central Valley, including Sacramento, were submerged. Chronicle reporter Carl Nolte writes how the Great Flood was only one of several natural disasters that struck California in the 1860's:
[Cabrillo College professor Sandy] Lydon likes to talk about the great winter of 1861-62, the mother of all natural catastrophes in California. “It rained for 43 straight days,” he said. “Imagine a storm like the one we had just now every day for six weeks without letup, without a single sunny day.”
It had snowed heavily that November and early December, an early winter. But in mid-December, heavy, warm rains came in and melted the snowpack, flooding the entire Central Valley from around Redding to Bakersfield — 300 miles of water, 30 feet deep in some places. Perhaps 4,000 people were killed, and the damage was estimated at $3 billion in today’s money.
The next season was entirely different: a huge drought. Practically no rain at all. The drought was so severe that thousands of cattle died of starvation or thirst. At that time, Southern California was largely pastoral, a practice left from Spanish and Mexican times. That drought ended those days forever and led to a Southern California search for a reliable water supply and the subsequent growth of Los Angeles.
The drought led to wildfires that blackened the sky in the summer and fall of 1865. There were major earthquakes in 1865 and in October 1868. The 1868 quake, on the Hayward Fault, did considerable damage in San Francisco. Mark Twain, then a San Francisco newspaper reporter, covered it.
Later that year there was an outbreak of smallpox in Northern California. So in six years California had a flood, a drought, wildfires, two earthquakes and a plague.
The Californians of the day didn't blame SUV's, fallen power lines, or laboratory leaks for these calamities. Instead they went about their business supplying gold and materials to the Union war effort and completing the Transcontinental Railroad.
Today we have vastly more wealth, technology, and know-how to address our problems, yet do much more complaining and vilifying of our fellows. We are truly an undeserving lot.
The rain fell steadily all day, but we were lucky. The places we frequent aren't flooded, but many nearby areas were.
The City of San Mateo announced that free sandbags were available:
SAN MATEO PD: Update - Sandbag materials are at the Corp Yard located at 1949 Pacific Blvd. City of San Mateo residents only.
A few hours later the offer was withdrawn due to flooding at the pickup site:
SAN MATEO PD: DO NOT DRIVE TO THE CORP YARD FOR SANDBAGS. THERE IS FLOODING AND THE AREA IS NOT SAFE FOR DRIVING.
We confess that we had a quiet chuckle.
Tonight we're staying home and will lift a glass to the passage of the old year. We still share the optimism that our own lives and the general condition of mankind will get better.
Five years ago we wrote about how a wet winter (yes, they do exist) gave rise to fears of disastrous floods in Northern California.
There is historical precedent: in the Great Flood of 1862 Sacramento and much of the Central Valley was submerged. No one's predicted when such a flood will recur but we remarked half jokingly,
It's no longer a joke. Scientists are warning that climate change will make Great Floods more likely and more severe. [bold added]
Storms seem hard to fathom now, with California in its third year of drought. But climate change is making both drought and rainstorms more prolonged and intense, climatologists believe.
The dense 13-page treatise [“Climate change is increasing the risk of a California megaflood”] uses the Great Flood of 1862 as its model. An overwhelming series of storms turned the entire Central Valley into an inland sea and washed out what is now Los Angeles and the cities of Orange County. That flood caused an estimated 4,000 deaths as the equivalent of 10 feet of rain fell over a span of 43 days, according to references.
The study says that climate change is dramatically increasing the risk of megastorms like the one that spawned the 1862 flood, so that an event that would have occurred only once every two centuries is becoming one that might occur around three times each century. Just as worrisome, the consequences could be worse now due to the combined conditions of human-induced global warming, sprawling development and wildfires.
Recent analysis has suggested that “such an event would likely produce widespread, catastrophic flooding and subsequently lead to the displacement of millions of people, the long-term closure of critical transportation corridors and ultimately to nearly $1 trillion in overall economic losses,” the study states.
Global warming, aka "climate change," is responsible for mega-droughts and mega-floods.
Speaking of sandy beaches [yesterday's post below], scientists say an unexpected consequence of climate change has been the widening of California beaches along the Central Coast: [bold added]
One expanse of sandy shore pushed out 140 feet over the past few years, according to research published Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The beach widening is the result of back-to-back punches of extreme wildfire and rain, the study suggests, which caused hillsides to slip and sediment to carry to the coast.
After the 2016 Soberanes Fire and the wet winter that followed, 60,000 dump trucks worth of sand poured out of the mouth of the Big Sur River and collected on the shore, the paper reports...
The growth of the beaches runs counter to the typical climate narrative of shorelines being submerged with water from rising seas. The contrasting phenomenon complicates the task of knowing what the future holds with climate change but understanding it is necessary to seeing the full picture.
Kudos to the USGS for reporting that runs counter to the dominant narrative.
If you are going to claim that global warming results in drought which leads to wildfires, then perhaps you should have foreseen the beach-expanding effect of floods that, like snow, have not totally disappeared. These are not unknown phenomena.
What is annoying is the absolute certainty that warmists place in the output of their imperfect models, and the imperiousness with which they order a remaking of society based on these models' results.
A steady rain fell as I picked up my home-delivered news- paper(!) in the driveway. Wrapped in green plastic, the newspaper was dry. Glad I tipped the delivery person.
A flash flood warning was issued for portions of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties Monday that was expected to last until at least 11:45 a.m.
....Pilarcitos Creek in San Mateo County was reported at 10.16 ft, above the 9.1 ft minor flood stage, according to the weather agency.
Another safe prediction: we will be asked to conserve water this summer because, whether or not we have a wet winter, droughts are here to stay due to climate change.
My Christian faith pales before the fervor of the apostles of global warming climate change.
Foster City levee construction (SF Chronicle image)
Whether or not we agreed with the premise that global warming will endanger coastal cities, we didn't really have a choice in voting for a $90 million levee to be built.
In 2014 FEMA warned that Foster City would be in a flood zone if it didn't build a new levee that would protect it from a 100-year flood. Prior to this Foster City was classified as not being in a flood zone.
Property owners faced a decision in 2017: vote for the levee and pay an additional $279 per year in property tax, or pay flood insurance premiums of at least $2,000 per year.
(Those who didn't have a mortgage would not have been forced to purchase coverage, but these owners were relatively few.)
Your humble blogger resented the obvious nudge--let's call it a shove--but voted for Measure P anyway.
The steel is thick enough to resist not only earthquakes and strong storms — and the pressure of the 100,000 cubic yards of new soil that will be packed in behind the interlocked plates — but to support an addition when and if there’s a need to go higher.
It's been decided, so we may as well look on the bright side: property values may be boosted because buyers will believe that living in Foster City is marginally safer than elsewhere along the Bay; also, construction projects like these never get cheaper; and if sea levels do rise (I give it no more than a 10% chance in my lifetime) then it will have been worth the expense.
One of the overarching themes of history is how humankind battled and overcame the vicissitudes of nature. But some phenomena, like hurricanes, seemed too daunting to be resisted...until now.
The plan calls for 43 miles of new dunes and beaches and man-made fortifications designed to weather storm surges of up to 21 feet, including a gate system across the main entrance to Galveston Bay.
A complex gate system stretching between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island would reduce storm surge while maintaining about 90% of current water flows when gates are open.
Three newly constructed man-made islands would anchor and house two pairs of large fan-shaped sector gates.
Comments:
The engineering mentality that built much of America--its cities, superhighways, hydroelectric dams, railroads, and the space program--is still alive.
Much of this spirit and skill used to be in California and has moved to Texas.
The above is the type of real infrastructure spending that your humble blogger can support. Note: this is mostly not "infrastructure":
Mr. Biden’s proposal includes $621 billion to modernize transportation infrastructure, $400 billion to help care for the aging and those with disabilities, $300 billion to boost the manufacturing industry, $213 billion on retrofitting and building affordable housing and $100 billion to expand broadband access, among other investments.
While the technology may never exist to stop a hurricane, earthquake, or volcano, the worst damage from these natural phenomena is being reduced through projects like these.
Former Vice President Al Gore's 2006 best seller, An Inconvenient Truth, popularized the notion that human activities were at least partly responsible for "natural" disasters: [bold added]
Hurricanes, floods, drought, tornadoes, wildfires, and other natural disasters have caused these [insurance] losses. Many can be linked to factors that are worsened by global warming. These natural disasters can be economically--as well as personally--devastating. Hurricane Katrina alone caused an estimated $60 billion in insured losses.
A new moral philosophy can therefore be divined: 1) Most natural disasters can be attributed scientifically to human activities (see table below). Disasters are not "natural" but manmade. 2) Disasters can be prevented, or at least mitigated, by changing human behavior.
3) Certain human behaviors lead to natural disasters that lead to death and destruction.
4) Therefore those behaviors should be stopped, and people who resist change are evil.
Below are disasters and their causes, as gleaned from media reports.
Disaster
Cause
Hurricanes/typhoons
Man-made climate change
Earthquakes
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
Drought
Man-made climate change
Wildfires
Man-made climate change
Floods
Man-made climate change (see a pattern?)
Really bad flooding
Bad levees and dams
If the new science is true, Kilauea's eruption may be the last true natural disaster.
There's no fracking within thousands of miles of Hawaii, so human activity didn't cause the Big Island's eruption or earthquakes. Greenhouse gases are a by-product, not a cause of the disaster.
People are not in immediate danger from the lava flow, but it has emitted tons of toxic gases that threaten the medium- and long-term health of thousands. For once there are no human villains, and we can get on with helping the victims.
The lava moves slowly but inexorably, destroying everything in its path.
Foster City begins the hard sell on a new bond issue.
Would we rather pay $279/year (bond payments on a new levee) or $2,000/year (flood insurance)? Duh, I don't even need the calculator for that one.
They've already appealed to FEMA about the City's flood-zone classification, to no avail.
But there are other considerations. Those of us who are risk-seeking and would not be required to purchase flood insurance by our lender (if any) might well vote against the bond issue.
I'll need to run my own numbers when the time comes....and decide how much I trust the assumptions. I hate being so obviously nudged, at least be more subtle about it.
An unexpectedly wet winter has not only alleviated the drought, it has revived interest in---and fears of--- disastrous floods: [bold added]
the USGS lays out a case for a hypothetical "megastorm," one that could cause up to $725 billion in damage and impact a quarter of California's homes.
The ARkStorm [Atmospheric River 1000] would bring with it catastrophic rains, hurricane-force winds and hundreds of landslides. Central Valley flooding alone is projected to span 300 miles.
If that sounds far-fetched, there's historic precedent: Geological evidence indicates that California endures massive flooding caused by atmospheric rivers every 100-200 years. And settlers who moved to California after the Gold Rush soon found what the native population had known for centuries: Northern California is prime flooding territory.
The most prominent example is the Great Flood of 1862, a natural disaster that still ranks as the largest flood in the history of the American West. Between Dec. 1861 and Jan. 1862, the West Coast received a near-constant deluge of rain. Sacramento received a stunning 23 inches in that period, turning the city into a watery ghost town.
Information like this puts the kibosh on dreams to purchase a get-away-from-earthquakes home in Sacramento. An underwater haven will do us no good. Something a bit higher might still be suitable, though driving there would be a problem.
The real takeaway is that scientists have a sense of humor. ARkstorm? Indeed.
At the church entrance: the rain fell steadily
on Sunday morning but did not keep the faithful away.
I knew storms of the century, and 2017 New Year's squall, you're no storm of the century (with apologies to Lloyd Bentsen).
On Sunday morning the wind and rain were not strong enough to dampen worshippers. As ushers, Elliot and I had expected very light duty, but attendance was nearly normal.
The Peninsula by and large escaped the floods and road closures that pummeled other areas:
In the Bay Area, northern regions took the brunt of the storm, with the Napa River reaching flood stage at St. Helena and Napa and water spilling into frontage areas alongside the Petaluma River in downtown Petaluma. In Sonoma County, authorities were urging people in low-lying areas along the Russian River to evacuate ahead of flooding predicted for Monday.
The good news is that snowpack levels across the State are at normal levels or higher.
Dare we hope that the drought has ended? It's an auspicious beginning to the year.
Foster City must raise the levees by 5.5 feet, plus an additional margin for sea-level rise, at an estimated cost of $75 million. The project would be completed by 2020. If it doesn't do this, most property owners will have to buy flood insurance.
Last October FEMA helpfully advised "Californians to buy flood insurance, even if they live in areas of low to moderate risk" because of "drenching El Niño rains."
Comments:
1) El Niño has helped alleviate the drought, but a respected meteorologist said the forecasted heavy rains were overhyped.
2) Vast sums have been and will be spent because people believe in the forecasts of computer models (climate change, El Niño, floods). Why should we believe FEMA's new, supposedly improved, flood models when it's been so wrong about El Niño? FEMA is also wrong about projected sea-level rise because its models could not possibly have included last week's development [bold added]:
the increasingly hot and parched Earth is absorbing some of that water inland, slowing sea level rise, NASA experts said Thursday [Feb. 11].
3) When the science is not settled, hold off on the mandates, put the information out there, and let people decide for themselves. (By the way, we have weighed the premium cost against the economic benefits, in addition to the probabilities, and bought earthquake insurance for the past 20 years, though there are no requirements to do so. It's a private decision, as we hope flood insurance will be.)
