EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Music
Sound walking around neighborhood
Sam Baker: Oh my gosh, there are like 10 peacocks on the road!
Martina: Everywhere, yes. And the residents are very protective of them, even though they're super invasive. We got used to it, so now we see them, it's just like seeing chickens. But I realize that it's a sight.
Sam: This is Martina Spolini. She runs an organization called Rebuilding Together Miami-Dade, and she's showing me around the neighborhood of Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida – we're just a few blocks from the coast, south of downtown.
Martina: So this neighborhood is called West Coconut Grove, Little Bahamas, and it's the oldest neighborhood in the city of Miami. It was built by Bahamian immigrants in the late 1800s, and we have a lot of families that have been here in this community, in this neighborhood since then.
Sam: This neighborhood has a unique charm, and it's more than just the peacocks. There are cute old homes here in fun colors like pink and turquoise and the people who live here know each other. Martina says hello to many people we pass by.
Martina: Hi! How are you?
Sam: She brings me to one house with an open front porch and a mint green facade.
Sound of a doorbell ringing
Linda Williams: Hi!
Martina: Linda!
Linda: Oh, how you doin? Let me put on a– You can step in. I'll be right there…
Sam: This, is Linda –
Linda: Linda Williams, a native born and reared here in Coconut Grove, 71 years old. My mom bought this property in '64, 1964.
Sam: As a resident of Miami, Linda has experienced her fair share of hurricanes. But one in particular changed her life.
Linda: In 2017, we had a hurricane called Irma. We did leave and the church where I used to work, they allowed us to go there overnight. I didn't have to leave my cat. But yeah, we were here when the storm hit. And we were able, because they had impact windows and stuff, we could even look out and not be afraid. And I sat up through the night and listened to the wind howling and blowing…
Sam: Linda was helping her neighbors before and right after the hurricane.
Linda: As a CERT member – Community Emergency Response Team – We check on our neighbors, is everything okay? before – Do you need any help? And after the storm, I did the same thing, while my husband, my son, and neighbors were chopping down limbs and moving debris. Had no idea that we had a horrific issue. FEMA came in and found a crack right around the ceiling and said to us, you know, 'I don't know where you're going, but you can't stay here. This is an unsafe structure.' And they plastered that big red and white sign and we had to relocate.
Music
Sam: I don't know if you heard, but climate change is expensive…
[clip montage]
Charli Shield: And that's true, climate change is expensive…like $38 trillion dollars in-damages-per-year-expensive.
Sam: But the thing is, NOT addressing climate change, is going to be a whole lot more expensive:
Syd: These storms are getting more unpredictable, and they're certainly getting more violent.
Charli: In this series from Living Planet, we're digging into the real costs of climate change…
Sam: …how we can endeavor/try to reduce those costs...
Charli: …and just how much there is to save. I'm Charli Shield.
Sam: And I'm Sam Baker. This is the first episode in our 5-part series on the Costs of Climate Change and today we're asking, 'How much does a storm cost?'
Charli: As we'll hear, it's a lot more than one simple dollar amount.
music fades out
Charli: So, Sam, you might remember that, as luck would have it, I just lived through a tropical cyclone that tore through Southeast Queensland, where I was visiting my family earlier this year. Thankfully, it didn't end up being as wild as it could have been, but it was still wildly expensive — I read that it's going to cost about 1.2 billion US dollars in damages.
Sam: Ooof.
Charli: That seems like a huge amount! Are storms getting more expensive or is it just that there are more of them nowadays?
Sam: Well, they definitely are getting more dangerous, and because of that, they're getting more expensive – and that's the case for all extreme weather events, but tropical cyclones like hurricanes are one of the most destructive types of disaster. They account for over 1/3 of economic costs from severe weather. That's according to analysis by reinsurance broker, Gallagher Re.
Charli: Woah, but why are they costing more?
Sam: For a lot of reasons – home prices have gone up in recent years, inflation is making rebuilding cost more, but one major reason is simply that climate change is making extreme weather events more destructive. As the world warms, heat waves are becoming stronger and happening more often, leading to drought and wildfires that are burning larger and larger areas. And a warmer atmosphere also holds more water, which leads to flash floods and hurricanes becoming more intense, with more extreme rainfall. Also, as sea levels rise, hurricanes also see higher storm surges where more water is pushed onto the land.
Charli: Ok, ok so basically climate change equals more expensive, unwelcome extreme weather. What is the price tag? How much are we talking?
Sam: Well, in the U.S. extreme events like hurricanes cost us about $150 billion dollars every year. To show you how those costs have been rising and extreme weather becoming more frequent, let me give you a little comparison. So, 40 years ago – in the 1980's…
Charli: Ok, so when we were just starting to learn about climate change…
Sam: Yep…back then, the US would have a disaster that cost one billion dollars about every four months.
Charli: Ok, so three major disasters every year?
Sam: Yeah. But today – and this is all adjusted for inflation – today, the US has a disaster racking up one billion dollars every 3 weeks.
Charli: Woah… ok, so if I whip out my calculator… that's like 17 or 18 disasters a year that cost a billion bucks each?
Sam: Yeah, a big jump in just four decades.
Charli: Ok, but zooming out from the US, what about globally?
Sam: So globally, the International Chamber of Commerce estimates that extreme weather events have cost the global economy more than $2 trillion dollars over the past decade. That's about what the 2008 financial crisis cost the world.
Charli: $2 trillion dollars… ok, we're in Monopoly money land. Who is paying for it? Is this predominantly coming from people's insurance companies?
Sam: Well, not always. So, in Linda's case, she didn't actually have insurance at the time. It's super expensive in Florida and the city and state where she lives don't require it. So, after hurricane Irma damaged Linda's home and she got the news from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (or FEMA) that her roof had a giant crack in it, she wasn't sure what she'd do.
Linda: Instantly, I thought we'd have to sell and move away because rental properties here in Miami, Coconut Grove, everywhere is tremendous. I had no idea where we'd go.
Sam: But just as she was packing up her stuff and getting ready to leave, she had a lucky encounter.
Linda: A classmate of mine, a friend that I grew up with – Mr. Rashid, who I was working with at the time – "What's going on, Linda?" I said, "We've got to go. Simple as that. I'm saying adios." And he made one turn and called City Hall. And the one question he asked, "Do you all still have that home replacement program?"
Sam: The person on the other end of the line directed them to a page on the City of Miami's website.
Linda: And there it was, home replacement. You know, everybody talks about repair, but this was massive. Structural damage is a rebuild.
Sam: The program has helped around 30 homeowners like Linda, whose homes and income level qualify. So what they do, is first demolish the home that has major structural defects and has been deemed past the point of rehabilitation. Then they reconstruct a new 3-bedroom, 2-bath house in its place. In Linda's case, it took them five and half years to build. COVID hit in the middle of that. But she says the wait was worth it.
Linda: We stuck and stayed like glue, honey, because the prize was greater. The patience was more important to have.
Sam: Linda finally received the keys in 2023. It's a lovely house with a mint green facade, an open front porch, and a quiet backyard.
Sounds of walking around the house
Linda shows me around her new home which has tile floors, energy-efficient appliances, and air conditioning – a absolute must in South Florida where temperatures go over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (or 38 degrees Celsius) for several days of the year, often with 100% humidity.
Linda: ...it's comfortable. This is the laundry. Washer and dryer and you can tell I have to tippy toe to get down in there, honey. They call it a smart washer and smart dryer. Uh, what else?
Sam: Do you feel ready if another hurricane hits Miami?
Linda: Oh yeah, honey. I think it's sturdy. If you look out there, you see a little fence. It's kind of low. That fence was five feet. The house was raised. We feel safe and secure and comfortable.
Sam: Linda says having her home rebuilt has been a blessing – but even with the assistance from the city, it still cost her. During the five years her family waited for their home to be rebuilt, they spent $50,000 in rent – 50 grand they hadn't budgeted for. And it cost the city too, of course. The project costs the city up to $300,000 per home that needs rebuilding.10 But one major expense that did become more affordable for Linda? Her homeowner's insurance.
Linda: You know what, honey? The first year was $1,700. And I must have asked the agent five times, 'is that monthly?' She said, 'no, annually.' This year on the renewal, it went down to 15! Talk about blessings. Honey, I'm a believer and I say, hallelujah. Y'all don't know the happy dance I do. Y'all think I'm just cutting up or dancing to some music. No, I'm doing my happy dance, ok? Because God has been good. $1,500! I called the agent and I said, 'I'm not complaining at all. Did a mistake happen? Because I don't want somebody to come back, pow, oh, we made a mistake.' 'No, no, no, Ms. Linda.' But the rate came down! Couldn't believe it.
Sam: In states like Florida, insurance rates are a big deal. With hurricanes becoming more destructive due to climate change, those rates have been skyrocketing in recent years. Between 2017 and 2022 for example, Florida homeowners' premiums increased by 45%!
[news clip montage]
Sam: There are varying reports about the average cost of home insurance in Florida, which range from $2,400 to nearly $11,000 a year. A report out this month by the Consumer Federation of America says that a homeowner in Florida with a mid-range credit score and a $350,000 home insurance policy, can expect to pay $9,462 per year for insurance.
Insurance is an important part of the puzzle when it comes to how we pay for climate disasters. Insurance can clearly get expensive as well, and it doesn't always cover everything. So, to better understand what's going on in the insurance world, I called up an expert –
Amy Bach: Unfortunately, when you look at the stats on how many of the recent hurricane claims have been closed without payment by private insurers, it's like 50%. So you're looking at a lot of people not getting money from their insurance companies to pay for hurricane repairs.
Sam: This is Amy Bach. She runs the nonprofit United Policyholders, which advocates for consumers when it comes to insurance. She explains that a few things are driving up insurance rates right now, and leading people being dropped by their insurers altogether. Insurtech is one factor – things like aerial images, artificial intelligence, and better data analytics, which are giving companies a more specific picture of each home's risks. On top of this, inflation has driven up home values – so there's more to insure. But the factor that's noticeably changed whether or not insurers will cover your home? Climate change.
Amy: I often say that the insurance sector, the property casualty insurance sector, was one of the first economic powerhouses to really recognize climate change and actually start adapting their business operations in anticipation of the changes that climate change is going to bring about that would impact their bottom line and their business operations.
Sam: Of course, it's not just hurricanes that are affected by climate change. People living in wildfire-exposed landscapes are also dealing with insurance headaches, as we've seen with the recent fires in Los Angeles. To get a better picture of how these worsening climate disasters are shifting insurance options for homeowners, Amy's organization, United Policyholders, has been surveying people in wildfire-prone states like Colorado and California about their home insurance:
Amy: We're asking people, 'Did you get dropped? What happened to your premium?' And we're seeing some normal 'my-premium-went-from-3000-to-4000'. But then we're seeing some just jaw-dropping, like my premium went to 18,000. Now those are typically going to be people with you know, a cabin, a wood-shingled cabin in the middle of trees, right? So those are where you're going to see those really jaw-dropping numbers. And that's kind of a whole other question of like, well, now that you know that where you live is so risky, would you insure you?
Sam: The answer from more and more insurance companies is 'no'. So, what happens when homeowners' policies aren't renewed?
Amy: For the average consumer, it's scary. People are intimidated by the topic of insurance, feel like they don't really understand it. You know, it was more of a, it was a buyer's market for many, many years and now, the script is flipped in some parts of the country, particularly people who are either in a coastal area or they're in a very, very rural forested area or a big open space land where there's a lot of dry vegetation. So, people in those areas, when they're getting non-renewed, more and more, they don't have that handful of choices. They really are very often between a rock and a hard place.
Sam: When people have run out of options for insurance, they often are forced to turn to what are called insurers of last resort. States like California and Florida have set up government-supported insurance plans to catch the homeowners that no insurance companies will insure anymore. And these plans are called insurers of last resort, with good reason.
Amy: They have different formulas, but they are generally fairly limited coverage at generally a fairly high price because it's a high-risk pool.
Sam: So why are insurance companies leaving states? Why don't they just raise their prices?
Amy: Well, for one thing, they get a lot of grief in the press, bad press when they do, so there's the reputational risk. I've even heard insurance executives say this: 'We're not gonna be able to price our way out of this.'
Sam: But they also come up against regulation in some states like California (until recently at least), which prevents them from raising premiums high enough to cover their costs or using accurate models. In fact, as recently as 2023, about a quarter of all properties in the US had insurance premiums that didn't accurately reflect climate risks to the house. That's according to the First Street Foundation, a non-profit research group.
Amy: Insurers said, if we can't use these forward-looking models, we're mired in the past and the problem with that is the past is not as good a predictor of the future as it used to be.
Charli: Ok, so this is what homeowners are facing after a hurricane or a storm or a wildfire, but are there things that they can do to reduce the risk to their homes in the first place?
Sam: Oh, absolutely. Remember Martina who we met at the beginning of the show? She was showing us around Coconut Grove in Miami –
Martina: So last year we served 62 families, the year prior 80. So it depends year from year, depending on funding, depending on the extent of the repairs per home…
Sam: The organization she runs – Rebuilding Together Miami-Dade – they help local homeowners update their homes to make them safer.
Martina: So, a lot, most of our clients, again, are older people, all of them low income. A lot of them live in very old homes. And so, they're, the vast majority of them are uninsured. So, they don't have insurance for different reasons, but for most of them, it's because the roofs are too old or they have pre-existing damage that they cannot afford to repair and so insurance will not cover them. And then it becomes just a pattern where they cannot afford the repairs themselves and then a hurricane comes and that has devastating effects on the finances of the family.
Sounds of construction – drill, hammer, etc.
Music
Sam: One of the most important upgrades Rebuilding Together Miami-Dade does to these homes is installing impact windows and doors. While an up-to-date roof is important, it's almost no good, if you don't have strong enough windows. Basically, if your windows break during a hurricane, it turns the inside of your home into a sort of vacuum that can just lift the roof right off. Doors are important too, to help stop rising water from leaking in.
Sound of rain
Sam: Since it was founded following the devastating Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Rebuilding Together Miami Dade has been able to rehab over 1400 homes. So how much does the organization spend on average to update a home?
Martina: On average, we spend $35,000 per home. But the big difference that we have seen in homes where we did resiliency work and mitigation work is that homes that were uninsured were now able to get insurance because they had a new roof or a roof that was replaced. So, homes that have been dropped by insurance because the roof was leaking or too old were now able to get back and get insurance coverage, which is super important.
Sam: But in terms of doing this sort of work overall in Miami, how much need is there?
Martina: The need is huge. We're just scratching the surface. We can do 60-80 homes per year with the current funding and we have a 250-people wait list with people calling constantly. And so, I think a lot of elected officials are not prioritizing resiliency enough until something major happens. And so, we see a lot of resistance when we meet with potential funders in supporting programs like ours because these are expensive and so, a lot of elected officials, they don't see the bigger picture. This is a yearly occurrence, and hurricanes are becoming stronger and more devastating every single year. But the best we can do is to continue to educate people and to show the impact that this type of work has on families and the financial impact of it, the savings that you can see.
Sam: Speaking of savings, how much do these sorts of home repairs and modifications end up saving homeowners, insurance companies, and taxpayers?
Martina: It's estimated that for every single dollar that we invest in mitigation repairs, we save six post-disaster. So, the average cost of a roof in Miami-Dade County we have seen last year was $23,000. And for impact windows and doors, depending on how many windows and doors, the average cost per home that we have seen has been $20,000. So it's a lot of money. These are high-cost repairs, but in the long term, it saves a lot more money.
Music
Sam: Considering Florida has incurred over $346 billion in hurricane damage in the last 5 years, there's certainly a lot of savings to be worked towards.
TRAILER BREAK
Charli: What I know of Florida — and, major disclaimer, I've never been — is this: the weather is great and it's a great place to retire. Two things that this episode seems to be casting doubt on… So are we at a point now where people are scared enough to be leaving Florida because of these risks and the super expensive insurance?
Sam: Actually no… Since 2021, Florida has led the nation in population growth.
Charli: Woah.
Sam: While many people moving to Florida came from other countries, about 2/3 came from other parts of the US. And when climate-vulnerable places like Florida see an increase in population, that also means more people to insure, and in the case of a hurricane, more damages to pay for.
Charli: But the answer seems simple, if you don't want to battle hurricanes or an insurance claim or rising insurance premiums, you just shouldn't move there.
Sam: Yeah, a lot of people come to this conclusion. I asked Amy from United Policyholders for her take on it, and here's what she had to say –
Amy: I know there's been a lot of environmentalists saying, well, people shouldn't be living there. And it's like, well, okay, but they do. So, let's not try to upend people's entire lives just because, you know, the insurance math isn't working the way it used to. I make a really big distinction between people coming to the risk, knowing what it is, and going there anyway. I feel like then you should pay the full price for what that risk really is versus people who were there before it became this risky. And that's where I feel like we have to show some genuine empathy and understand that a lot of these people who are living in these rural areas or in even some of the coastal areas, they're there because that where they could afford to live and that's where they work. It's not like everybody who lives in a coastal area is wealthy. They're not.
Charli: Uhuh, good point. But I do have a question, where exactly do we draw this line in the sand — pre and post risk?
Sam: Right, it gets complicated. Obviously in the case of someone like Linda Williams – you know, she grew up there in Miami and has been there her whole life, that's pretty clear. But what do you say to someone who moved there 15 years ago? Or 10? Amy told me that some states are starting to require the disclosure of information about climate risks when someone buys a new house. Florida for example, just passed a law last year that requires sellers to disclose a property’s flood risk to potential buyers. But besides this, Amy says existing homeowners and communities need to invest in risk reduction, like some of the measures we just heard about. And for anyone building new homes or rebuilding after a hurricane, she says that that has to be done in a more thoughtful way.
Amy: if you're going to bend to developers and let them continue to build in harm's way, you better hold them to resilient construction standards and do not look the other way on enforcing your building codes.
Sam: Florida has put in place some strict building codes over the years. But sometimes codes aren't followed. For example, one town – Fort Myers Beach, on the West side of the state – lost its 25% discount on flood insurance after FEMA found that their rebuilding efforts weren't up to standards. And they've been threatened with losing all federal flood insurance if they make further mistakes in the rebuilding process after last year’s Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Charli: I know that finding a new home and community and starting over is really difficult, and Amy made some good points earlier about affordability as well, but I have to say it does still surprise me that people here are rebuilding not just once, but twice, over and over again with extreme weather on the rise, like, is this just their life now?
Sam: Well, a lot of people here will tell you 'It's just the price you pay to live in Paradise'. It's a common kind of phrase you hear. And Florida is still a place that a lot of people put their hopes and dreams and savings towards moving to. I spoke to one retired couple who learned just how expensive Paradise can be.
Music
Dave Blancett: I'm Dave Blancett.
Maria Blancett: Maria Blancett.
Dave: And we've lived down here permanently since 2019, but for eight years, I believe, before that we were snowbirding down here, they call it. Every January and February we rented a house down in Cape Coral.
Maria: Escape the winter.
Sam: After coming to Florida every winter for years, Dave and Maria finally decided to move there full-time 6 years ago, to Cape Coral, which is on the other side of the state from Miami but still on the coast. They had been through a few hurricanes before in other places they'd lived like Virginia and Texas.
Dave: Maria and I have been in three major hurricanes. Hurricane Isabel in Virginia, which was a category five. Hurricane Ike in Texas, five years later. And then Ian. They were 'I' storms, they all started with I, Isabel, Ike, and Ian…
Sam: So, a quick note on how hurricanes get their names – there are six lists of alphabetically ordered names for Atlantic hurricanes. Basically, the first storm or hurricane of the season will get a name that starts with the letter A, the next will start with the letter B, and so on.
Dave: Actually, when Ian was coming across towards us, it was supposed to be named the H storm. And we said, 'well, we don't have anything to worry about'. And then the other hurricane jumped in front of it. By the time they knew that the hurricane was shifting course and going to hit Cape Coral, it was really too late to evacuate from where we were.
Sam: So, hunkered in at the home they'd only bought three years prior, Maria and Dave just had to wait for the hurricane to pass.
Maria: It's pretty nerve-wracking to see that it's heading your way. And you sit there thinking, I know we bought a really good house, but will it blow away? Once it got there for us, those winds lasted the entire day. It was very loud. I have videos of it in our backyard and the whistling is so loud…
Sound of hurricane winds whistling
Maria: My brother and I were looking out the back window when we heard a loud bang and it was our pool cage.
Sound of loud banging
Sam: For those who don't know (like me before making this episode), a pool cage is basically a giant screened-in structure over an outdoor pool and it helps keep insects and other critters out. Ok, back to Maria–
Maria: Our pool cage lifted out of the ground and went up to our roof. It was a very loud bang and that was pretty scary. And as it beat the tiles on our roof, we worried that the roof would come in, but it didn't. We were very lucky. We did not get water inside. But then once the storm died down, the storm surge came up. And we lived very close to the Gulf in Cape Coral. We looked out our front window to the lake across the street from our house. And the lake and the road were one. And the road was a raging river. It was like the ocean. There were white caps going down the street. There were fish in the road. It was pretty scary, but it never came up to our house, it came within 10 feet of our front door. And that's when we realized maybe this isn't our forever home.
Sam: Hurricane Ian was the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida since 1935. It killed over 150 people, and left a wake of destruction in this part of the state. That destruction made Ian the third most expensive hurricane in US history. So, after the hurricane finally died down, the Blancetts found out their home had about $130,000 in damage. Luckily, their insurance from the state-backed insurer-of-last-resort did cover the damage – aside from their $15,000 deductible. But even still, once everything was repaired, they wanted to sell and get out.
Dave: Everybody kept saying that Ian was a one-in-a-lifetime event. But I realized that if another Ian hit close to the neighborhood we were in–
Maria: It will.
Dave: It will, it's a matter of when. But when it does, the property values would just drop.
Maria: We didn't really want to move out of Florida. So, we decided we're gonna stay in Florida, just not sure where. What's safe? We want to live somewhat close to the Gulf, but not close enough to be impacted.
Dave: We decided we were going to move 30 miles inland and 30 feet up.
Sam: Maria and Dave had heard about a newly built community that met those requirements and maybe even a few more: Babcock Ranch.
Syd Kitson: I remember thinking to myself, wow, all this work we have done, all the engineers, all the architects, all the people who have invested so much time, all the money we invested, all the infrastructure, all the planning, everything that we had worked for all these years to be resilient. And here we were being tested. And I had absolutely no idea if it actually was going to work.
Sam: This is Syd Kitson, founder of Babcock Ranch. He was there when Hurricane Ian made landfall.
Syd: The eye of the storm came right over the top of Babcock Ranch, and we were on the, of course, the eastern side, the dirty side of the storm. And it was going three miles an hour. It sat on top of us for eight hours. Sustained winds of over 100 miles an hour, gusts of 150 miles an hour. It literally is like a freight train is running through your house.
Sam: Communities and homes all around Babcock Ranch were destroyed and badly damaged. But Babcock Ranch never even lost power.
Syd: The next morning as soon as the sun came up, I jumped in my car and just started driving. Met as many people as I could and it was really interesting because people were out in groups, neighborhoods, just sort of wandering around looking and stunned that there was almost no damage whatsoever because all around us was massive destruction, loss of life, it was just devastating what was around us and yet here we were back to normal within a matter of hours. All those years of planning, all the work, all the engineering, all the people involved, it was just very gratifying to see that work. And hopefully, then others would follow.
Sam: So, what did Babcock Ranch do differently? To see that work in action, I get a tour from Lisa Hall, spokesperson for Babcock Ranch and one of the early residents of this community.
Sound golf cart
Lisa Hall: So this is an example of some of the stormwater management. This over here would be considered a rain garden…
Sam: Babcock Ranch's first homeowners moved in 2018, and today, over 4,500 homes have been sold. The goal is to one day have 55-60,000 residents here. As we drive along in her golf cart, Lisa points out some of the features of this development – like the fact that the roads have no curbs.
Lisa: …and you'll see how there's no curb on that side. So, it's built so that that water can just flow, sheet flow across here, go into there, gets cleaned by the plants that have been planted there.
Sam: The native plants we see everywhere around Babcock Ranch serve a specific purpose - soaking up the excess water and slowing down the wind from hurricanes and tropical storms. Babcock Ranch might not be on the coast, but it's still got hurricane winds and rain to contend with.
Lisa: I mean, obviously, storm surge isn't our problem out here, but we still have wind, and then, you know, the next biggest threat would be flooding… because it can really, really come down in those storms.
Sam: Next to one of the old rock mining pits that's been converted into a beautiful lake, Lisa explains what they can do in case of a hurricane.
Lisa: Well, first of all, before the storm comes, we would have the alerts from the National Weather Service that interacts with the system. So, if there's concern that we're going to go over capacity on the lakes, they have the capability to pump water out of the lake system into the wetlands that have been preserved because those wetlands have a ton of capacity for additional water. So, you just bring down the lakes before the deluge comes along and you're able to handle it.
Sam: It's not just the stormwater management system that makes Babcock Ranch hurricane resistant. The community has also buried its power lines and built a huge shelter that can handle a Category 5 hurricane. This also happens to double as the high school's field house. But I wonder – if you're going to build something new – even something as hurricane-aware as Babcock Ranch, wouldn't you be asking yourself if people should live here at all? I put this question to Syd Kitson.
Syd: It's just not going to happen. People are attracted to water, so if you're going to do it, my thought is do it the right way. Make sure you build resiliently. Yes, it's going to cost a little bit more money upfront, but long term it saves an enormous amount of grief, of certainly, ultimately dollars if you do it right from the beginning.
Sam: By investing in all these features, do you have any sense of how much has been saved in terms of potential storm damages?
Syd: Oh, it's certainly tens of millions of dollars. I mean, the investment we made upfront was millions of dollars. But the return on that investment is many times over since, again, we've had at least three, probably four hurricanes, if you include Irma, and minimal damage in every single one of them. If we hadn't done or built it the way that we have, it would have been very, very costly. And so, the return on that investment has been incredible.
Sam: Speaking of costs, Lisa tells me the starting price for a home here is in the low 300,000's. And they've got rentals too. So, what can other communities learn from Babcock Ranch?
Syd: I think the huge advantage we have, we have a blank sheet of paper, so it's a lot less expensive for us to do it right from the beginning. But the advice I would give to, and yes, I've talked to towns and municipalities all over the country, actually. You know, you've got to start somewhere. For example, if you want to harden your infrastructure, call your utility, meet with them, partner with them, plant that seed, get going. I know that that sounds almost trivial, but you'd be surprised. If you get going now and you start now and you're thinking long-term rather than short-term, 10, 20 years from now, your kids or your great-grandkids are going to look back and go, 'wow, thank you for starting this process for making it safer for us in our future'. But you just have to start somewhere.
Music
Charli: So, Sam, what are the most important figures that stuck out to you in reporting this episode?
Sam: Alright, so there are two. The first one from the very beginning of the episode is how much money we'll be losing every year due to climate-fuelled disasters: so that's $38 trillion a year by 2050. That may sound like a ways off, but remember that's in just 25 years.
Charli: Yeah, that's huge. And what was the second figure?
Sam: So the second number was quite a bit smaller than that one. And it came from Martina, who told me that for every dollar invested in prevention, we could save 6 dollars in post-hurricane damage. So, basically, of course money spent now making homes and cities more resilient is money saved in the future.
Charli: Pairing back on some of that $38 trillion.
Sam: Exactly.
Charli: And of course, cleaning up the mess from climate disasters and preparing for the next one, that's one thing, but how do we slow down the accelerating intensity and frequency of extreme weather in the first place? We'll get to that next week, on Living Planet.
Sam: This episode was reported and produced by me, Sam Baker along with Charli Shield. It was edited by Kathleen Schuster, mixed by Neil King and final studio magic was by Gerd Georgii. We'd love to hear your questions related to the cost of climate change and we might even incorporate them in upcoming episodes in this series. So, get in touch with us at livingplanet [at] dw [dot] come and tell us what climate costs you're thinking about.
And if you're curious what your area's climate risk will be in the coming decades, you can actually check it out at this website I found while doing research for this episode. It's called: climatecheck.com