California Flood Risk Exceeds Fire Concerns, According to Study

Within the next 25 years, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco will be more at risk from flooding than wildfires, a new study has found.

“The fires in Los Angeles this January followed two years of wet winters which encouraged the vegetation growth that became wildfire fuel,” says the study from CoreLogic.

“Now, the metro’s burned areas lack the vegetation that can absorb water, making them more vulnerable to flood.”

The study estimates that in Los Angeles, 762,000 homes will be affected. The estimate is 231,000 homes in San Diego and 65,000 homes in San Francisco.

In 2050, Los Angeles will have a “high” flood risk score of 58, soaring from the current “very low” level of only 9. In contrast, the risk of wildfire rises only to 51 from the current level of 46.

San Diego and San Francisco, both currently at low levels of flood risk, will see a similar upward risk trajectory and much higher flood risk scores.

“As it currently stands, wildfire risk is more than four times higher than flood risk in the three largest California metro areas,” says Realtor.com® senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones. “However, the risk of property damage or loss from flooding is expected to climb significantly over the next few decades. By 2050, flood risk is expected to exceed fire risk in these areas, as flood risk is worsened by the destruction from wildfires.”

“This cycle is one that repeats itself across California, but each area of the state faces a different level of risk,” says the report. “And that risk is not trivial.”

Parts of the Golden State have also been earmarked as “climate abandonment” zones in projections from analytics firm First Street. Areas in these zones are expected to experience rising home insurance premiums and declining populations. They will also see an average property value decline of 6.2% through 2055.

California’s Fresno County is expected to take the biggest hit, with projected home value losses of 10.4% over the next 30 years, according to the report. First Street projects Fresno County’s population will decline 46% over that period, while insurance premiums rise 56%.

The report’s author was himself a Palisades fire victim

One of the authors of the report, Chief Scientist Howard Botts, was himself a victim of the fires in Pacific Palisades.

“I had to evacuate with no notice and with not much more than the clothes I was wearing,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “Miraculously, we had no fire damage to our house while nearby properties were completely destroyed.”

“As you go up the hill from where I live, into the main part of the Palisades, it looks like the pictures you see of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped. Literally everything is gone, except for some fireplaces and metal staircases,” he adds in Business Insider.

He says it was his knowledge of climate risk that allowed him to build a home that would withstand the fires.

He adds that residents in the wealthy area heavily downplayed the risks, even building on the hillsides, which are coated with chaparral, a fire-fuel shrub.

“Realistically, floods can happen anywhere it rains,” Botts tells Realtor.com. “It’s something everyone needs to be aware of and take into consideration when selecting their insurance options. In areas that have recently experienced major fires—like the Pacific Palisades, where I live—all perils need to be considered when rebuilding, not just the one recently experienced.”

But now his home, along with thousands of others in the Los Angeles area, will be more prone to flooding over the next quarter-century than fires—though that, too, remains at high risk.

Even so, as a fourth-generation Californian, Botts says he does not plan to move from the area.

Flooding is the highest natural disaster risk in the U.S.

Wildfires might be getting all the attention these days, but it is flooding that most U.S. properties are at risk of, say experts.

“Flooding is the largest natural hazard risk in the United States as 90% of natural disasters in the United States involve flooding,” says a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report released in January. “Flooding events are frequent and can affect large geographic regions on a given occurrence, inflicting large amounts of economic damage and loss of life and property.”

Flooding has cost taxpayers $800 billion since 2000, representing two-thirds of natural disaster risk damages.

“Flooding is currently the costliest natural disaster in the United States,” concludes the report.

By 2050, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office expects changes in climate conditions to increase flood damage by one-quarter to one-third (in inflation-adjusted dollars).

A big part of the reason that this figure is so high is because flooding happens in so many large swaths of the country.

There are the typical areas where you would expect floods, such as on the Eastern coastal border, which includes highly flood-prone states such as Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, and coastal regions of Texas.

But there are other parts of the country such as the Appalachian region, which covers areas such as Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, and all of West Virginia, that also have a high-risk flood factor, according to First Street.

Unfortunately, many of these areas are not in Special Flood Hazard Areas, which are covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, which is managed by FEMA.

There is also increasing flood risk in more northern coastal states such as North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware.

And coastline areas even farther north aren’t immune. Many are already suffering the negative effects of unprecedented coastal erosion, with oceanfront homes from Cape Cod to Nantucket perilously close to becoming shark bait.

According to FEMA, any area with a 1% chance or higher of experiencing a flood each year is considered at high risk.

While that doesn’t sound like much, in reality, those areas have at least a 1-in-4 chance of flooding during a 30-year mortgage.

You can map your flood risk here. You can also assess it with the Realtor.com app.

The difficulty of predicting your flood risk

Flooding is a moving target, and therefore very difficult to predict, often leaving homeowners uninsured or underinsured.

“Flood risk is changing across geographies—properties that are not at risk today may become at-risk of flooding in the future,” says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report.

Additionally, risky areas can go years with no flooding, lending a false sense of security to homeowners, businesses, and developers, who continue to build in high-risk areas, contributing to the problem.

Climate-resilient areas

There are some climate-resilient areas. However, it is only 5% of the census tract, or 4,107 neighborhoods, according to a report by First Street.

These areas tend to be clustered in the central part of the country. The top five metros in the report are Denver County, CO; Arapahoe County, CO; Dane County, WI; Douglas County, NE; and Johnson County, KS.

Properties in these climate-resilient counties are expected to appreciate in value from 9.5% to 13.5%.