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Remember the Miami Beach condo building which collapsed on itself last year? It was the top story for two weeks and I didn’t see a single news article or TV segment about the relation to climate change…despite the sea level rising every year in that part of the city. There’s not enough foresight for people to think of water shortages and natural disasters when considering a place to live, at least not more than “muh SAD” or driving in snow three months out of the year.
I've seen several stories linking Florida condo tower risks to rising sea levels. My question is whether property owners and prospective owners read the available stories. Also, do real estate agents disclose the situation, and, if not, are they liable for their failure to disclose?
Perhaps the most thorough and devastating article was published by the New York Times on 1/28/22, headlined: "The Towers and the Ticking Clock."
An excerpt:
<< Pull up a map of the Florida coast, drop your finger onto the surface and you’ll almost certainly land on a town or city with its own disaster in the making. According to one recent study, 918,000 of Florida’s condo units are, like the ones in Champlain Towers South, more than 30 years old; many towers were thrown up during the boom years, when oversight was lax, developers were incentivized to prize speed over attention to detail and every permit was a rubber stamp away. Even in the most rigorously built structures, secured to the face of the earth by heavy pylons driven through yards of shifting sand, the coastal environment has inevitably taken its toll. Facades are pitted by the salt and sea air. Balconies are crumbling. Pool decks are spidered with cracks. And water — and rising sea levels — are a fact of life. Water on the roads, water slopping up and out of the drains, water in subterranean garages and the very foundations of condo towers packed with hundreds of residents who are frequently blind to the dangers that lie underfoot or, more tragic still, unable to fund the repairs that could save their lives.
And time is running out. “It is a ticking-clock scenario,” Eric Glazer, a veteran condo-law specialist told me. “A bomb got set off, back in the day, and it’s about to go off.” >>
Here's another discussion, not behind a paywall or requiring free registration:
<<In the FIU study, Randall Parkinson, a professor of hydrogeology, compared the elevation of the garage floor with sea levels from monitoring stations in Miami Beach. He found water levels were higher than the garage floor about 244 times a year between 1994 and 2006. From 2007 to 2020, that number nearly tripled to 636 times a year....
But as sea levels creep up and flooding becomes more common, Lehman said she worries it could be doing more harm to buildings than researchers or builders even know. “What assumptions were made in the design and what’s the condition of the building now?” she said. “We need to be able to consider all these possible scenarios and likely with older structures they weren’t considered.”
<<The Florida Legislature’s failure to pass a bill mandating regular condominium inspections leaves in place a lax regimen experts say is full of glaring loopholes that endanger residents of aging buildings.
The bill would have required periodic, routine inspections of most condo buildings — something that doesn’t exist under current law. The main disagreement was over a mandate that condos set aside money to cover future repairs.
The bill was prompted by the catastrophic collapse last June of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, where unit owners bickered for years over paying for needed structural repairs, delaying the work. The building partially collapsed as work was finally underway.>>
The above article says that banks, federal mortgage agencies, and insurance companies will act to compel inspections and repairs even if the Florida legislature fails to act. Many condo owners could face shocking contingent liabilities.
When housing prices begin to fall, beaches shrink significantly, heat and humidity become unbearable, and insurance costs rise to intolerable levels, etc. persons will move. Read the "Grapes of Wrath" some time, or watch one of the movie versions of the novel.
Personally, I got tired of dealing with toxic wildfire smoke and the risk of blazing infernos in the four separate places where I lived in the West. It defeats the purpose of trying to live a healthy, outdoor lifestyle when you can’t even breathe outside for weeks at a time.
As far as “en masse” migration, it won’t happen until the inevitable major catastrophes start piling up to the degree that living in a particular place becomes untenable. People tend to be reactive creatures.
BTW, the wildfires have started already this season. Boulder area being scorched for the second time in 3 months, and Texas seeing several fires.
Personally, I got tired of dealing with toxic wildfire smoke and the risk of blazing infernos in the four separate places where I lived in the West. It defeats the purpose of trying to live a healthy, outdoor lifestyle when you can’t even breathe outside for weeks at a time.
As far as “en masse” migration, it won’t happen until the inevitable major catastrophes start piling up to the degree that living in a particular place becomes untenable. People tend to be reactive creatures.
BTW, the wildfires have started already this season. Boulder area being scorched for the second time in 3 months, and Texas seeing several fires.
Unfortunately, it looks like another bad fire season in store for the drought-stricken West.
From the linked Slate article:
<<Others are having the same realization. “Across the United States,” writes Abrahm Lustgarten in the New York Times, “some 162 million people—nearly one in two—will most likely experience a decline in the quality of their environment, namely more heat and less water.” For that reason, Lustgarten believes that “a great domestic relocation might be in the offing.” A study published in 2018 by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, suggests that nearly 10 percent of Americans in the South will migrate north and west in the next 45 years due to climate change impacts. What strikes me about these reports is the use of the future tense. Many of us are already experiencing precipitously declining environmental quality and have been for years. Some of us are already on the move because of it. Take it from me—I’m a climate change migrant. In the wake of the Ferguson Fire, I didn’t just muse about moving due to climate change. I started planning my escape. And then I packed my bags and left.>>
In a thread in a different social media website, many persons today were discussing moving back to Cleveland, often from California. Reasons included a heightened cost of living, but also "aridification" as a result of climate change.
One poster suggested reading the novel, "Parable of the Sower." Published in 1993, it seems scarily to foreshadow reality in some respects, especially given the current economic carnage being inflicted on less wealthy Americans by rapidly rising housing, food, and transportation costs. Haven't personally read this novel, or even heard of it before today.
<<
Beginning in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Parable of the Sower takes the form of a journal kept by Lauren Oya Olamina, an African American teenager....
Lauren grows up in the remnants of a gated community in Robledo, California, twenty miles from Los Angeles, where she and her neighbors struggle but are separate from the abject poverty of the world outside. Outside of the community are numerous homeless and mutilated individuals who resent the community members for their relative affluence. Public services such as police or firefighters are untrustworthy, exploiting their positions for profit and making little effort to help....
The newly elected radical, authoritarian President Donner loosens labor protections, creating a rise in company towns owned by foreign businesses.>>
I wonder how many Americans are aware of sad history of company towns in America, albeit controlled by American industrialists, where sometimes workers were trapped in economic slavery.
Many persons migrated to Greater Cleveland in the 20th century to escape life in company towns. Will history repeat itself, as the U.S. inevitably reindustrializes if it wants to maintain any autonomy and security.
BTW, given current U.S. laws and comparative labor rates, I doubt if foreign corporations are much interested in establishing U.S. industrial towns.
In a thread in a different social media website, many persons today were discussing moving back to Cleveland, often from California. Reasons included a heightened cost of living, but also "aridification" as a result of climate.
So “back to Cleveland”, meaning folks returning from CA to their home towns in CLE area? Or people moving to CLE in general?
Last week I attended a small music jam session. While chatting, we were amused to find out all 4 of us had just moved to OH in the past 1-2 years from the west coast.
We had all lived in Northern CA at the same time. As far as I know, I was the only one originally from NE OH. The others were new to the area.
BTW, the National Weather Service just issued the earliest ever “red flag warning” for fire risk in the Sacramento Valley.
<<A red flag warning is being issued for parts of the Sacramento Valley this weekend due to the potential fire danger from gusty north winds. The warning will be in effect from 5 a.m. on Saturday morning through 5 p.m. on Sunday evening when winds will combine with “very low humidity and a mosaic of dry fuels,” National Weather Service Sacramento said. The spring warning is the earliest red flag warning that NWS Sacramento has issued.>>
No surprise, as CA just had its driest winter months in 100 years.
<<Driest winter months in 100 years mark third year of drought
January, February, and March had the least rain and snow on record for any of these months in California.
These warm, dry months overshadowed gains in precipitation at the end of 2021. Snow melted faster than expected, reducing snowpack to just 38% of average by April 1.
This is the state’s second extreme drought in 10 years, a symptom of a warming climate.>>
So “back to Cleveland”, meaning folks returning from CA to their home towns in CLE area? Or people moving to CLE in general?
Last week I attended a small music jam session. While chatting, we were amused to find out all 4 of us had just moved to OH in the past 1-2 years from the west coast.
We had all lived in Northern CA at the same time. As far as I know, I was the only one originally from NE OH. The others were new to the area.
BTW, the National Weather Service just issued the earliest ever “red flag warning” for fire risk in the Sacramento Valley.
<<A red flag warning is being issued for parts of the Sacramento Valley this weekend due to the potential fire danger from gusty north winds. The warning will be in effect from 5 a.m. on Saturday morning through 5 p.m. on Sunday evening when winds will combine with “very low humidity and a mosaic of dry fuels,” National Weather Service Sacramento said. The spring warning is the earliest red flag warning that NWS Sacramento has issued.>>
No surprise, as CA just had its driest winter months in 100 years.
<<Driest winter months in 100 years mark third year of drought
January, February, and March had the least rain and snow on record for any of these months in California.
These warm, dry months overshadowed gains in precipitation at the end of 2021. Snow melted faster than expected, reducing snowpack to just 38% of average by April 1.
This is the state’s second extreme drought in 10 years, a symptom of a warming climate.>>
The thread was exclusively about Cleveland natives returning home. As the thread progressed, more posters commented about their reasons for leaving Columbus and Florida and happily returning to Greater Cleveland.
Latest national article on Climate Change migration
Although the Great Lakes region isn't featured as a destination in this article, it details the pressures mounting to drive Americans from climate-challenged regions.
<<“How will people deal with extreme heat? Will they have access to potable water?” asked Jesse Keenan, an associate professor of real estate in Tulane University's School of Architecture in New Orleans. “Temperate northern states will get the most inbound migration.”
Keenan, who studies the intersection of climate change adaptation and the built environment, estimated that 50 million Americans could eventually move within the country to regions such as New England or the Upper Midwest in search of a haven from severe climate impacts. He predicted that migration driven by increasingly uninhabitable coastal areas is likely to happen sooner rather than later, citing the latest federal estimate that US coastal sea levels will rise by as much as a foot by 2050. >>
As is discussed repeatedly in this thread, currently a major driver of migration are wildfires and drought plaguing regions of the U.S. West.
When will accelerating sea level rise, let alone "abrupt" sea level rise, impact much larger U.S. population centers?
<<Parvin, 64, said he and Vail, 63, were Cloverdale’s “first climate refugees,” all of whom were able to sell their homes for high prices, typically to wealthy San Franciscans who wanted weekend homes in the mountains despite the fire risk. “It’s part of the insanity of California—while Rome burns, they’re partying,” he said.
Proof that others aren’t as concerned about climate impacts as the Parvins can be seen in the large in-migration of people during the pandemic to places like Montana, which faces its own wildfire and water threats; Texas, where temperatures are steadily rising and are expected to soar this century; and Florida, where rising seas are projected to flood many coastal areas by 2100.
In Asheville, the Parvins are a continent away from the state where they lived for 37 years, but they enjoy living in a place where “it rains in the summer,” Roy said. “It just seemed like we turned down the dial on worry.”>>
I laughed silently as I read this. Several decades ago, as a kid long before rapid climate change was even a thought to all but a very small number of Americans, I spent a summer week in the Blue Ridge mountains outside of Asheville. It was the hottest, most miserable week of my life as the camp had no air conditioning and the combination of heat and humidity was stifling. That one week shaped my dislike of heat and humidity long before I was a physically more vulnerable elder. Admittedly, summer heat and humidity was an issue even in Ohio before many homes were air-conditioned, but it was nothing as bad as what I experienced in the Blue Ridge mountains that week.
I hope developers don't talk Great Lakes states and cities into promoting themselves as climate change refuges. We don't need the population growth ever IMO, and certainly not before we've prepared for it by protecting natural areas and especially farmland in what will inevitably become a food-challenged world. Yet, as I read this article, the thought crossed my mind, "Why Buffalo, when there is Cleveland?"
I laughed silently as I read this. Several decades ago, as a kid long before rapid climate change was even a thought to all but a very small number of Americans, I spent a summer week in the Blue Ridge mountains outside of Asheville. It was the hottest, most miserable week of my life as the camp had no air conditioning and the combination of heat and humidity was stifling. That one week shaped my dislike of heat and humidity long before I was a physically more vulnerable elder. Admittedly, summer heat and humidity was an issue even in Ohio before many homes were air-conditioned, but it was nothing as bad as what I experienced in the Blue Ridge mountains that week.
BTW, I wonder how many persons who relocate to North Carolina check out the spiders and snakes.
It was in North Carolina that I learned to stomp on trails to let the rattlesnakes know that someone was coming so they would stop sunning themselves on the trails, move and not be suddenly, and dangerously, surprised by a hiker.
We have venomous spiders and snakes in Ohio, but their ranges and quantities are more limited, but this will change as winters increasingly are diminished. However, I've heard of brown recluse spider bites in basements and landscaping in northeast Ohio; one reason I try to wear leather gloves when working around landscaping.
I remember wading a stream (up to my waist) once in central Ohio when a copperhead swam closely by me; my scariest experience with a wild animal. And my grandmother, who was handy with a hatchet (for decapitating chickens), once found a rattlesnake in her chicken coop in central Ohio, grabbed the snake by the neck and took it out to her chopping stump where she dispatched it with her hatchet.
BTW, I wonder how many persons who relocate to North Carolina check out the spiders and snakes.
Yeah, we don’t deal much with venomous snakes here in NE OH. Much of the rest of the country does. Undoubtedly the Parvins from Cloverdale, CA (in that article) are familiar with their ubiquitous Western Rattler, and wouldn’t be deterred by Asheville’s species.
You may find this article interesting, if not reassuring.
<<you are 6 times more likely to die from a lightning strike or a dog attack, 8 times more likely to die from a TV set or other large furniture falling on you, 14 times more likely to die falling out of a tree, and 95 times more likely to die falling off a ladder>>
Of course, permanent injury, especially to tissues in the fingers, is not a welcome thought. But many (if not most) of those injuries are blatant user error.
I’ve had lots of encounters with rattlesnakes on hiking trails, river beds, golf courses, etc. So far, they’ve warned me (rattled) 100% of the time. It makes it easy to give them a wide berth. (I did once abandon a new Titleist ProV1 that was hooked into brush about 2 feet from a coiled western rattler. Small price.)
Even in NE OH, I take basic rattlesnake precautions while hiking, which likely are not necessary. But I want to keep the behavior/habits well-conditioned in my DNA. (I still do hiking trips in rattler country elsewhere…)
Separately, I admit I am spooked when hiking in grizzly bear country. So much so that I don’t do it any more.
Last edited by SlideRules99; 04-13-2022 at 06:55 AM..
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"Parable of the Sower"
