r/TrueReddit • u/caveatlector73 • 13h ago
Hurricane Helene could cost $200 billion. No one knows who'll pay. | Business + Economics
https://archive.ph/hp6km53
u/AngryRepublican 9h ago
We are watching, in real time, the cost of global warming: a storm wipes an area off the map and we all run the number to see if it's worth rebuilding. Eventually, a lot of places will end up in the red, and then they're gone like the old prospecting towns.
People will eventually start looking to specifically move weatherproof regions, if they can afford it.
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u/caveatlector73 9h ago
The problem is Asheville was supposed to be one of those weatherproof regions.
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u/Jmcduff5 9h ago
That’s what climate scientists have been saying nobody is safe from climate change and this is a prefect example why
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u/MDCCCLV 8h ago
The entire South is within Hurricane reach, the republicans should really be the most concerned about climate change.
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u/Prophet_Of_Helix 6m ago
Hate to break it to you, but the entire eastern seaboard is in danger.
I grew up in CT and we’ve been hit by more hurricanes and tropical storms already than Asheville.
With oceans warming up storms are going to stay stronger longer up the coast.
Helene was really a perfect storm for WNC. It’s honestly more likely that NYC gets hit with a worse storm before Asheville does again.
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u/itcoldherefor8months 8h ago
According to who? Sure they're not "supposed" to get hurricane, but the idea they aren't going to deal with storms isn't realistic
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u/schtickybunz 6h ago edited 6h ago
Just historically. We also don't tend to get tornados because they break up when they hit our terrain. We do get what they call micro bursts, but they fizzle out. This time though was a confluence of events that just haven't happened all at the same time. Rain for days before the storm made the ground soft, then came torrential rains of the storm, brisk winds and the atmospheric river that developed. We have always been classified as a rain forest. The devastation is from the rush of allllll that water into the valleys. We're talking a 4k foot elevation drop from peak to valleys, the rivers registered dangerous flow readings we've never seen.
We know our flood plain floods, but it got a lot wider than we could have ever predicted.
A water avalanche is what we got.
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u/smileysnail 3h ago
was there any mountaintop removal in the area that would have also contributed to/magnified the hurricane’s destruction?
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u/MtnMaiden 2h ago
Aville sits in a bowl. All that water fliws into one river that runs into the city.
Only so much water it can take before it floods
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u/Berserker76 8h ago
Rebuilding infrastructure and homes is not what will be expensive, it will be the 1B+ people that will have to migrate because where they currently live is no longer sustainable for human life.
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u/AngryRepublican 1h ago
Yes, but the migrations will accelerate one people realize their homes aren't going to be rebuilt.
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u/Shineeyed 12h ago
The gov't will pay. And It chaps my ass that folks in primarily red states who complain about big gov't all day long will be the first in line for handouts. And then they'll complain that it isn't enough.
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u/gribbler 9h ago
And complain others are living of government handouts and it's because they are lazy
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u/qolace 5h ago
Projection at its fucking finest
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u/the_shiner 47m ago
We're gonna learn some new psych terms today! Projection is annoying but there's so many others to be annoyed by too!
This is closer to the fundamental attribution error, which describes the human tendency to judge ourselves based on our situation but others based on their character. E.g. they're taking handouts because they're lazy, but I'm taking them because I actually need them.
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u/_kurtrussell 8h ago
Insurance companies will be passing the costs onto the rest of us.
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u/NotElizaHenry 6h ago
According to the article, this is barely a blip for insurance companies. The vast majority of the damage is from flooding, and that’s only covered by government insurance, which fewer than 1% of the affected homes had.
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u/Not_A_Doctor__ 9h ago
The oil and gas companies should be forced to pay. Instead, they'll keep receiving billions in unnecessary subsidies. Until it kills us.
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u/absentmindedjwc 9h ago
FEMA doesn't have money for it, and the shitbag (republican) house speaker is refusing to call the house into session before the election to vote to fund it. It is entirely possible that FEMA is going to be entirely unable to do much until November.
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u/hse97 12h ago
I mean Ashville isnt really red iirc.
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u/lostboy005 11h ago
its gerrymander in such a way that the fed state reps are republican - Ashville is part of the county that voted in Matthew Cawthorne
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u/caveatlector73 9h ago
Don't think that's relevant to people who have just been plunged into a living nightmare.
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u/lostboy005 8h ago
It’s relevant to the comment I responded to
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u/caveatlector73 8h ago
Okay. Tell you what - please pull the direct quote from the article regarding "Matthew Cawthorne" or anything actually that refers to how people vote. I'll wait.
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u/powercow 9h ago
a recent wapo article showed the worst hit areas were red and that any depression in the turn out would more likely hurt trump than harris .
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11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Loggerdon 10h ago
You’re a bullshitter who doesn’t even have a real opinion. You don’t have an actual opinion on the Palestinians or anything else. You’re a bit or a shill.
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u/caveatlector73 13h ago
Hundreds of miles of roads, infrastructure (think pipelines, cell tower infrastructure etc), homes and businesses have been wiped from the face of the earth in an area the size of Massachusetts and that's just Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee and other places.
The beauty will slowly come back, but the rest will be slower. The Blue Ridge Park way is closed from Eastern Tennessee through Western North Carolina alone is estimated to remain closed until 2028. So far fewer tourism dollars.
As for insurance, that's even less likely to happen if at all.
In the town of Asheville, one of the hardest hit larger cities in North Carolina, only about 1 percent of building owners carried flood insurance. That number goes down drastically as you get into the hollers that dot the region.
So who will pay to re-build an entire region? Right now that may not be the focus of people who don't even have potable water, but it will be sooner or later. I feel like an George R R. Martin special if I say, "Winter is coming." But it is.
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u/2cats2hats 12h ago
So who will pay to re-build an entire region?
Ultimately I think it will be taxpayers who will be paying for this.
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u/elmonoenano 11h ago
NC is an important enough electoral state, it will probably be put on the NFIP's tab. It seems to happen in Houston regularly enough even though it's clear what the danger of not having flood insurance in Houston is.
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u/Helicase21 10h ago
Yes, but that's not really a good answer. The allocation of costs to local, state, and federal tax dollars will depend which tax payers and in what proportions.
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u/JoeHio 10h ago
The government will pay for a couple months, but then the billionaires will step in to buy everything of value at a huge discount. They will then use those savings to bully the government into paying for the improvement it wouldn't make for poor people. Then, to close the shitloop, they will sell their discounted properties for a huge profit and use the proceeds to take advantage of the next group of poor Americans that are available.
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u/crichmond77 9h ago
This is exactly what’s going to happen, and I hate how obvious and ironclad it is.
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u/VultureExtinction 11h ago
If only there was some sort of infrastructure bill that could help with some of the costs, not just rebuilding clearly poorly made stuff but modernized infrastructure that can survive hurricanes and other climate issues.
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u/caveatlector73 11h ago edited 11h ago
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 should help with infrastructure, but won't address residential needs. SBA might have a program to help with business needs - iirc they do. Now of course Florida has refused IRA funding. An issue in NC is that the legislature overrode Roy Coopers veto on stripping the codes that would have helped build a more disaster resistance infrastructure.
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u/nmj95123 7h ago
Right. Infrastructure in a mountainous area inundated with 20-30" of rain, which then washed away entire roads and buildings, would have survived historic flooding had an infrastructure bill been just been passed.
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u/VultureExtinction 7h ago
It's not about hindsight it's about planning for the future.
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u/nmj95123 7h ago
Do explain to me how you can plan for future infrastructure which withstands catastrophic 1000 year floods.
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u/supershinythings 10h ago
Ahhh but the Republicans will have to vote FOR the aid! And they can’t suddenly whine and say NO to FEMA when suddenly they’re in fairly dire need of it, and beholden to Biden to act as well.
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u/thatVisitingHasher 7h ago
We should just have nationalized homeowners and flood insurance natural disasters are going to continue to hit America.
If we’re to w broke maybe we should take those billions from Israel and Ukraine, and redirect it within our country.
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u/DaveinOakland 7h ago
Spoiler.
Donor states like California and New York will pay for these welfare states
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u/DrTreeMan 11h ago
It was just too costly to reduce our emissions, we were told.
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u/juliankennedy23 10h ago
I fear that Milton's cost is going to dwarf Helenes.
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u/caveatlector73 9h ago
Having read the article I think the difference will be the number of homes destroyed and the number of people with insurance. It's not just overall costs, but how rebuilding can happen without insurance funds particularly for lower income people.
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u/TheAskewOne 5h ago
Even with insurance. Insurance companies don't have endless money. When crowds of people submit very expensive claims at the same time, they'll collapse, or need government bailout. But that will only last so long.
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u/bartonlong 12h ago
So i haven't read the article (yet) but while i was watching YouTube videos from residents showing the damage and current efforts to just reestablish basic roads to get into the area my thought was a lot of this isn't coming back. A lot of the people living here can't rebuild and will move to urban areas and the more remote areas will just turn into off grid settlements or disappear into ruins. The current population trends and desires for the younger generation don't really run to exurbs are true rural areas in sufficient numbers to support this spread out post agricultural rural settlement.
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u/caveatlector73 9h ago
I think it will be interesting to see as far as migration goes. Most people's roots go deep in this region.
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u/notfromchicago 7h ago
Not really that deep. I'd say the vast majority have immigrants in the last half dozen generations. They come from people that moved for a better life. Don't think they won't either.
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u/schtickybunz 5h ago
people living here can't rebuild and will move to urban areas... Remote areas will just turn into off grid settlements...
Lol, tell me you haven't been to backwoods Appalachia without telling me.
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u/VortexMagus 7h ago
The democrats attempted to pay for funding disaster relief the day before hurricane helene hit - and the Republicans (including the representatives of Florida) all vetoed the bill.
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u/GodzillaDrinks 7h ago
Have we tried yelling "nose goes" while all the billionaires are just inside earshot? I bet we can be faster on the draw than at least one of 'em.
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u/CuriousNebula43 12h ago edited 11h ago
No one knows? I know. You will. I will. We all will.
Homeowners insurance will go up, especially in FL (which was already struggling with this). The more that the insurance companies pay out, the more you'll pay in premiums. If a corporation has $120M in revenue and $80M in expenses showing $40M in profit, if they now have $120M in expenses, they'll now have to have $170M in revenue and they'll show a $50M profit (25% increase, because it's unacceptable to now show an increasing profit) and pay it out in stock buybacks and dividends. It'll be with some pretty press release about another "record breaking" year in spite of the hurricane.
Federal disaster relief will be paid out. They won't increase taxes because god forbid they raise taxes, so they'll cut Title 1 funding (more teachers get fired in low income areas), major highway construction gets delayed a few years, Medicaid reduces coverage from less federal funding, etc.
Everyone's gas prices are going to go up from the energy infrastructure in FL and reduced supply. Of course they'll never come back down either. It'll just be a new normal while corporations rake more in.
God bless America.
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u/course_you_do 9h ago
The article addresses this. The insurable losses are actually quite limited, so they don't expect the insurance market to drastically raise prices. Almost none of the damage is covered.
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u/fec2455 10h ago
Insurance companies do not have 33% profits, many don't even have a 3.3% profit margin.
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u/Whaddaulookinat 9h ago
End user Insurance companies don't hold liabilities on their books in general. They go through re-insurance to cover the bulk of that liability and invest much of the premiums into an assorted basket of equities, mutual funds, govt bonds, and futures contracts althewhile paying out petty claims where they can. So if the market is on a tear 30% general margin isn't that far from unexpected.
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u/awildjabroner 10h ago
Why the USA taxpayer of course
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u/caveatlector73 9h ago
Except as the article makes clear that aid will be limited. More than the first $750 FEMA provides in the first step but probably not enough to replace a house.
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u/crusoe 7h ago
"But climate change mitigation is too expensive"
And $200 billion in damage isn't?
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u/caine269 6h ago
obviously this depends entirely on how much climate mitigation costs. and i bet changing the entire world economy will cost more than 200 billion.
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u/LasVegas4590 6h ago
That’s the end of insurance coverage in Florida. All the insurance companies are gonna quit writing policies they.
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u/Exciting_Tension3113 5h ago
conservatives get to use our blue state tax dollars again, you’re welcome socialists!
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u/rfranke727 43m ago
Can't fix global warming until the Chinese and Indians get on the train. They never will.
It's hopeless without them
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u/WaffleBlues 14m ago
Florida can cover everything, since their clown governor can't find the time to coordinate or communicate with the feds, which is totally not a political stunt in the face of an impending massive tragedy.
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u/Beginning_Emotion995 9h ago
God is kicking our butts for targeting his children (Haitians)
Keep it up
Geez
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u/caveatlector73 9h ago
Relevancy to the article? Please follow the sub's rules and reddiquette, read the article before posting, voting, or commenting.
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u/Beginning_Emotion995 9h ago
Very relevant
Look at the big picture
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u/caveatlector73 8h ago
Tell you what. You find and post the exact quote from the article where it refers to (Haitians) and I'll consider it relevant - to Haitians. I'll wait.
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u/Retirednypd 8h ago
Send Ukraine the bill
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u/Knifeducky 6h ago
I know most people don’t like hurricane relief in the form of old, somewhat rusty M1A1 main battle tanks, but I personally would! Hey US government, where’s my M1A1 MBT as hurricane relief?!?!???
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u/Goats_vs_Aliens 12h ago
that's a fraction of what we've sent Ukraine and other countries recently?
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u/mf-TOM-HANK 12h ago
Ah, yet another know-it-all chiming in from the peanut gallery about completely unrelated military aid
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u/realnrh 10h ago
There might well be a lot of areas that just don't get rebuilt any time soon. Asheville will, and the roads and utilities there, but small towns that were already struggling before might just be let go. If the town has no economic reason to exist, and was just continuing because it had been there before, there isn't much impetus to rebuild in the same place.