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Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

They are underinsured but it’s because we are building homes in places they don’t belong, that historically have been wiped out by natural disaster such as wildfire. Climate crisis or not, you don’t have to do a lot of digging to read the stories of entire Gold-rush era towns being wiped off the map by fires.

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NYC flooded massively during Hurricane Sandy. Most of the gulf coast experiences the same annually. Now more of the eastern US will suffer the same fate as climate change accelerates.

The rural western US has always been affected by wildfire, but rarely by the type of hyper-fires we've seen in the past decade, again due to accelerating climate change.

Where do homes "belong"? Chicago?

Edit – here's a NOAA map of $1B climate-related disasters in 2023: https://coast.noaa.gov/data/nationalfacts/img/fast-fact-weat...

Build higher foundations, use better materials. There, problem solved.

Oh totally agree - we live in wildfire country and are in the process of replacing our entire house, effectively, with concrete, metal and other fireproof materials. We have to stop using wood in these places.

Happy to live in Arizona for the lack of natural disasters, it's just a bit hotter.

Isn't your entire state running out of water?

Only from farming things that honestly shouldn't be grown here. There's actually plenty for people to use / drink, which is a LOT lower than farming uses.

From the Arizona Department of Water:

Irrigated agriculture is the largest user of water in Arizona, consuming about 74 percent of the available water supply. In the past, this percentage was as high as 90 percent; reductions have been the result of both urbanization of agricultural lands and heavy investment by the irrigated agriculture industry in conservation measures both on-farm and in delivery systems.

https://www.azwater.gov/conservation/agriculture

Insurers would be well aware of historic risks

I’ll temper that by saying, without quoting anything, that the insurance industry has long been aware of the climate crisis and it’s implications. Over the decades, i’ve read much on how it’s dealing with serious customers.

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