Hacker News Reader

Comment by jccooper | Hacker News Reader

Industrial buildings are typically built at dock height. Even if they don't do any grading, that would put the building well above any plausible flooding in that area.

View on HN

My point is that we really don't know what "plausible" is anymore with these storms. That much is clear in the data. It seems silly to be so close to a flood zone with your very expensive DUV/EUV machines. There are probably other places they could have placed this facility.

They are not fabbing the chips there, just assembling the machines.

The price of the carried inventory is still significant; the scale they mention reaching towards is thousands per day. That's not including the backlog of components they would have onsite to ensure production uptime.

Absolutely, but they are not losing a billion+ in EUV machines with year+ lead times in a flood. It'll hurt for sure though and doesn't appear to be the smartest overall move.

I don't think we can both consider FEMA's 1% flood risks and also assume no longer know what plausible is with these storms.

I think it's safe to assume given recent storms that the 1% floodplains are _underestimating_ the risk

It sounds like you know what is plausible then though. Its plausible that 1% is and underestimate and implausible that its an overestimate.

It also turns out that for insurance purposes you are allowed to use infill to get the corner of a property that's below the high water mark above it. At least in some states.

Some of the calculus is not about if it will flood it's about if you'll lose your investment if it floods. If an underwriter is willing to cover it, you might go for it anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com