![]() The lack of clarity on what assistance will be available from insurance or disaster relief prevents many families from receiving the aid they need. “Private markets pulled back from flood decades ago,” explained Carolyn Kousky, the associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund.īut as prices surge, hundreds of thousands of people have dropped their flood insurance, growing the burden on federal disaster assistance and straining its already stretched budgets. Most of these are purchased through a government-backed program called National Flood Insurance Program, or NFIP. Yet most homeowner policies do not cover flood damage, requiring families to acquire an entirely different, second insurance plan. As storms arrive more frequently, flood insurance and disaster relief programs themselves are now failing. The repercussions are rippling: Damage from natural hazards like flooding is a major contributor to national wealth gaps, amplifying existing disparities.Īcross the country, flooding is a growing risk - both in how high waters surge, and as a new hazard in areas previously unlikely to be inundated. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images.Īs SBP expanded its recovery work to communities hit by natural disasters in New York and Texas, employees like May saw family after family wrestle with complications with FEMA payouts and denied insurance claims. “That man suffered for a decade for something we might have solved in one year.” Lee’s experience sticks with May because “it reminds me of the importance not just of rebuilding a home, but of understanding why it doesn’t get rebuilt.” Residents in LaPlace, Louisiana ride in the back of a high-water rescue truck as rain from Hurricane Ida floods their neighborhood in August 2021. It only took SBP two phone calls to find the money to rebuild Lee’s house. By the time May met him, Lee had been displaced from the home he built over 10 years. He volunteered for combat duty in World War II, signing up “to serve his country at a time when his country would not stand up for him,” May said. Edward Lee was the first member of his family who was not born enslaved. “She dragged him in the door, because he couldn’t humble himself to do it,” May said. A full decade after the storm, May recalls a man in his 90s and his elderly daughter walking into SBP’s office. May and SBP case managers watched this dilemma unfold for many years in Louisiana, as they helped New Orleans slowly rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. When these areas are submerged, a more and more common occurrence, families who are least able to recover are hit the hardest. ![]() Exurbs expanded as they quieted.Īmidst these tides of progress, low-income communities have been relegated to the watery South’s “ bad land - that constantly floods, that doesn’t have drainage,” said Reese May, chief strategy and innovation officer at SBP, a grassroots national recovery and resilience organization headquartered in Louisiana. Suburbs grew around ports as waterways bustled. The bayous and brackish tributaries that drift into the Mississippi flowed with communication and commerce, while cities like Memphis and Nashville sprang up in the mouths of rivers. įor millennia, the South has been shaped by its water. It is published in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. This story is the second in a four-part Grist series examining how climate change is destabilizing the global insurance market. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. This story was originally published by Grist. ![]()
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