The Greenline Housing Foundation is helping Altadena residents recover, rebuild, and remain in the neighborhood following January's devastating fire. This profile of Greenline’s work examines how rebuilding with resiliency can drive a recovery that preserves wealth and gets residents back home.
Historically, strong federal environmental regulations drove government action to manage water resources -- that’s changing as more communities experience flooding and see the benefits of nature-based solutions to mitigate those impacts.
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We're wrapping up one of the hottest summers on record and racing toward a very cold winter season. Against this backdrop, The Epicenter is taking a moment to revisit our Hazard Briefings, a series that explores opportunities for infrastructural resiliency to the most common disaster types.
Why are billion-dollar disasters suddenly everywhere? Are the most expensive disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, becoming more frequent? Or are the most frequent disasters, like a 30-minute hail storm, becoming more expensive?
The story is complex and nuanced: there are a small handful of factors that have conspired to create a perfect storm of expensive, frequent disasters, and four key categories of cost drivers have emerged:
1. Higher frequency and greater severity are increasing the cost of disasters
The U.S.’s Fifth National Climate Assessment, released in 2023, found that climate change increases the frequency of weather extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters. Extreme weather begets extreme weather, as Mathew Sanders of Pew Research explained, “Extreme heat can exacerbate drought conditions, increasing wildfire risk. Wildfires leave behind barren landscapes, where vegetation would otherwise reduce runoff, increasing flood risk and leaving hillsides vulnerable to mudslides.”
2. Greater asset exposure drives costs up
There are more assets at risk today than there were in the 1980s. NOAA credits both the increase in population and the increase in asset prices as key drivers of rising costs. Population growth, population migration, and unsustainable and discriminatory land use and development have pushed communities into harm's way. Today, 39% of all the houses in the U.S. are in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The fastest growing states in the U.S.—Texas and Florida—are also the states with some of the greatest climate risk and highest frequency of disasters.
3. More vulnerable assets translates into more expensive disasters
Greater vulnerability of an asset, as measured by the extent of damage caused by a given hazard, also drives up insured and uninsured costs. Without up-to-date building codes and new disaster resilient construction materials and technologies, assets remain vulnerable to greater damage. Meanwhile, as insurance premiums spike, more homeowners are going without insurance (more than 1 in 10 U.S. homes is uninsured), further exacerbating the vulnerability of what is often a homeowner's most valuable asset: their home.
4. Premiums to rebuild drive up reconstruction costs
In the wake of a disaster, there is a rebuilding premium as a surge in demand outpaces supply, leading to soaring costs. According to a 2023 report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, every year across the U.S., $20 billion is spent to repair homes following both minor storms and major disasters. This is a $3 billion annual increase from 2021 (just two years prior to the report), and nearly double the $12 billion spent annually between 2000 and 2010.
While these drivers increase overall disaster expenses, resiliency levers exist to reduce costs and build more resilient infrastructure.
From Disaster to Blueprint: How Greenline's Model Could Transform Post-Fire Recovery | By The Epicenter Editors | The Greenline Housing Foundation is helping Altadena residents recover, rebuild, and remain in the neighborhood following January's devastating fire. This profile of Greenline’s work examines how rebuilding with resiliency can drive a recovery that preserves wealth and gets residents back home.
Investing to Minimize Flooding and Protect Critical Water Resources: A Case Study from Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District | By Contributing Writer, Erin Delawalla | Historically, strong federal environmental regulations drove government action to manage water resources. That’s changing as more communities experience flooding and see the benefits of nature-based solutions to mitigate those impacts. This piece is part of our ongoing series on how different levels of government are addressing flood risks.
Standards, not pricing: How insurers can bend the market toward safety as climate hazards intensify | By Contributing Writer, Francis Bouchard | Insurers play a key role in sending risk signals, sometimes in a form other than price. These risk experts need to lead by reframing the “insurance crisis” as the “insurability crisis,” and leveraging a time-tested safety standard approach to align a complex ecosystem of competing interests.
FORTIFIED roofs and homes are saving Alabama homeowners and insurers thousands | By The Epicenter Editors | Homeowners who built their homes to IBHS certified FORTIFIED standards saved thousands after Hurricane Sally hit in 2020. The FORTIFIED building standard is saving homes from Category 3 storm damage, and also saving homeowners and insurance companies costs on annual insurance premiums and claims.
Insurability: Is the Future Insurable? | Probable Futures & Insurance for Good| This piece explores how more people and businesses are struggling to afford and secure insurance amidst accelerating climate disasters. It unpacks the technical, economic, and political limits of insurance in a changing climate and what ideas might counteract this compression. (Read more about insurability on The Epicenter here)
Public Infrastructure: Judge halts FEMA move to redirect disaster preparedness funding | Bond Buyer | This piece explores a federal judge’s decision to block FEMA from redirecting funds away from the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. It highlights how the preliminary injunction keeps disaster preparedness funding intact for now, supporting resilient infrastructure. (Read more about resilient public infrastructure and government solutions on The Epicenter here)
Real Estate: Up from the Ashes: Los Angeles homeowners, Builders Alliance begin to rebuild | Urban Land Institute | This piece explores how LA homeowners and builders are beginning to rebuild six months after the devastating LA wildfires. It highlights a newly formed Builders Alliance and how homeowners are using FEMA support, streamlined permitting, and pre-approved floor plans to accelerate reconstruction. (Read more about resilient real estate on The Epicenter here)
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The Epicenter helps decision makers understand climate risks and discover viable resilience solutions. The Epicenter is an affiliated publication of The Resiliency Company, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and empowering humanity to adapt to the accelerating challenges of the next 100+ years.
