The Weekly: Unaffordable Housing—A Hidden Driver of Wildfire Risk?
The housing affordability crisis and the wildfire crisis aren't distinct challenges. They're a self-reinforcing cycle that requires investing in resilience to break.
Beyond Disasters: Home Catalogs as a National Housing Solution
The same principles that accelerate disaster recovery can address housing supply constraints, urban disinvestment, and affordability challenges in any market.
How Los Angeles Is Reinventing Post-Disaster Rebuilding With Pre-Approved Home Catalogs
Los Angeles is pioneering a new disaster recovery model that combines cross-sector collaboration, AI-powered coordination technology, and pre-approved wildfire-resilient home catalogs.
The Evolution of Home Rebuilding Catalogs: Lessons from Katrina, Santa Rosa, and Lahaina
The lack of standard home rebuilding playbooks, combined with the uneven delivery of federal disaster recovery funding, has led to fragmented rebuilding efforts over the past few decades. However, disaster recovery has evolved to more systematic approaches using pre-approved home plan catalogs.
What 2025’s Costliest Disasters Mean for U.S. Real Estate, Insurance, and Public Infrastructure
Twenty-three billion-dollar weather and climate disasters struck the United States in 2025, revealing important takeaways for decision-makers in the real estate, public infrastructure, and insurance sectors.
Latest
The Weekly: Unaffordable Housing—A Hidden Driver of Wildfire Risk?
The housing affordability crisis and the wildfire crisis aren't distinct challenges. They're a self-reinforcing cycle that requires investing in resilience to break.
The Weekly: The Epicenter’s Three-Part Series on How Home Catalogs Can Drive Resilience
The Epicenter’s three-part home catalogs series from Alexis M. Pelosi and Robin Keegan describes how we arrived at the current moment and explores what it means for the future of housing after disasters and in communities facing disinvestment, outdated zoning, or housing supply constraints.
The Weekly: Winter Storm Fern Exposed Vulnerabilities in U.S. Water Infrastructure
The absence of references to climate change in utilities' bond disclosures suggests we have not systematically assessed how climate hazards could disrupt operations or revenues and, just as concerning, that they aren’t incorporating climate risk into capital planning and investment decisions.
The Weekly: Winter Storm Fern Was Another Test Case for Grid Resilience
Winter Storm Fern swept across a huge swath of the United States in January 2026, revealing both vulnerabilities and progress on the climate resilience and adaptation front.
The Weekly: Takeaways from 2025’s Climate Disasters
Twenty-three billion-dollar disasters, $115 billion in damage, and not one hurricane: 2025 was a masterclass in how climate risk in the U.S. has changed.
The Weekly: The Risky Rise of State-Backed Reinsurance
Property insurance markets across the U.S. are under strain as premiums rise and insurers pull back from high-risk regions. In response, a growing number of states are leaning on public and quasi-public reinsurance backstops.
The Weekly: The Data Story Behind America’s Billion-Dollar Climate Disasters
Climate resilience is most visible in physical defenses and materials, but it relies on information infrastructure.
The Weekly: Why Construction Sites Need Resilience Planning
Most conversations about climate resilience in commercial real estate development happen when designing new structures to withstand future storms or when repairing or retrofitting existing ones after disaster strikes. Far less attention is paid to the in-between stage: the active construction site.
Hazard briefings
Preparing for Multiple Disasters
Unexpected disasters are causing damage in unlikely places, forcing decision-makers in the public and private sectors to prepare for the most common disasters in their region as well as the rare, once-in-a-hundred-year ones. But strategies exist to help decision-makers prepare for the unexpected.
Earthquakes: Cost Drivers and Opportunities to Fortify Assets
Across the U.S., the average annual total costs of earthquakes is $14.7 billion, with the average earthquake costing between $1.5 to $3 billion. Adopting the latest seismic resilience codes can make buildings more earthquake-resistant and financial instruments can help communities rebuild quickly.
Winter Storms: The Cost Drivers and Associated Opportunities For Investors
There are no silver bullet solutions for the private sector to adopt to dramatically reduce the costs of winter storms. The biggest lever to bring costs down exists in modernizing and winterizing the grid—an endeavor that will require substantial technological, mechanical, and financial investments.
Severe Storms: Opportunities To Reduce the Costs
In just a few hours, a severe storm can cause billions worth of damage. Three levers offer opportunities to enhance resiliency and reduce the costs of severe storms: 1) Invest in more resilient roofing; 2) Adopt more resilient construction practices; 3) Invest in new innovations and technologies.
Public finance
The Weekly: Winter Storm Fern Exposed Vulnerabilities in U.S. Water Infrastructure
The absence of references to climate change in utilities' bond disclosures suggests we have not systematically assessed how climate hazards could disrupt operations or revenues and, just as concerning, that they aren’t incorporating climate risk into capital planning and investment decisions.
The Weekly: The Risky Rise of State-Backed Reinsurance
Property insurance markets across the U.S. are under strain as premiums rise and insurers pull back from high-risk regions. In response, a growing number of states are leaning on public and quasi-public reinsurance backstops.
The Weekly: When Rainy Day Funds Run Dry
Two trends are colliding in state finance offices: Emergency, or “rainy day,” funds are shrinking at the exact moment climate-related revenue losses are mounting.
