The Environmental Digest is a short daily newsletter that delivers the hottest climate change news directly to your inbox.
Environment and Insurance
Climate Change Poses Financial Risk to Homeowners
Among all the things a new homeowner has to keep track of, flood insurance is not the first checkpoint in their mind. But it should.
As Hurricane Idalia hit northwest Florida and tropical storm Hilary unleashed its fury on Southern California, a normally dry state, a large flood insurance gap was exposed.
There are various reasons why people are underinsured. Many can’t afford flood insurance. Others may not be aware that their homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover flooding. Still others may feel that if they’re not required to buy flood insurance, they don’t need to, per Bloomberg.
How to know if you need flood coverage?
When you buy a house, the lender will check maps published by the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) to see whether the property sits in a flood zone designated as high risk by the government.
If so, the lender may require you to obtain coverage through FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program or from a private insurer. If you have a federally insured loan and live in a hazard zone, flood insurance is mandatory. Your home may also be located in a zone FEMA identifies as at lower risk from flooding.
(You can check if your home is in a government-designated flood zone by entering your address on FEMA’s website.)
Renters can also obtain flood insurance to cover the loss of personal possessions. “FEMA recommends that everyone purchase flood insurance regardless of their flood zone,” the agency states.
On top of that, the accelerating pace of climate change has surpassed the FEMA predictions.
That’s particularly true in California, which has swung between extremes of drought and deluge over the past decade. A tropical storm hitting California in the dead of a hot and dry summer probably was not on FEMA’s flood-probability bingo card, but it happened.
Additionally, fewer than 2% of Californian homes have flood insurance and Hilary, the first tropical storm in more than 84 years, has taken everyone by complete surprise.
(A detailed guide on homeowner’s/renter’s flood insurance from the Environmental Digest is in the works too)
Environment and Weather
How to Track a Hurricane
Hurricane Lee has grown back into a Category 3 storm with 120-mile-per-hour winds about 650 miles (1,046 kilometers) south-southeast of Bermuda. It is forecast to get a little stronger and it has grown in size. The official forecast brings it to a point in the Atlantic southeast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts by next Saturday.
A jog of 50 to 100 miles west in its track would likely bring a landfall — or at least severe wind, rain and flooding — to New England, including Boston. Regardless of its track, Lee will bring dangerous rip currents throughout the week to the entire East Coast from Maine to Florida.
Eastern Nova Scotia was heavily damaged by Hurricane Fiona a year ago.
“It remains too soon to know what level of impacts, if any, Lee might have along the US East Coat and Atlantic Canada late this week,” the National Hurricane Center said Monday.
How to Track a Hurricane
Some handy advice from the NYT that could apply to you.
Don’t focus too much on the center of the storm:
If you think you’re safe right outside of the main path or cone of the hurricane, think twice. The cone actually represents a range of possible positions and paths for the storm’s center.
The National Hurricane Center says cones will contain the path of the storm center only 60-70% of the time. Hurricanes are also hundreds of miles wide, and the cone shows only the possible path of the storm’s center. Heavy rain, storm surges, flooding, wind and other hazards may affect areas outside the cone. (Check out this article for interactive guide)
If it is raining and windy, prepare:
Tropical storm-force winds typically arrive as conditions begin to deteriorate, so their estimated arrival time is a good deadline for completing storm preparations and evacuating if asked to do so.
Beware the front right quadrant of the storm:
Hurricanes move counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, that’s the area that will receive more wind, water and storm surges.
Follow the storm like an expert:
You can always be prepared by looking at forecast models like the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System.
Last year, it was the first model to accurately predict that Hurricane Ian would rapidly intensify as the storm moved off the coast of Cuba.
Environment and Justice
Lauren Peltier Tackled Private Energy Companies Scamming Low-Income Communities in Baltimore
Laurel Peltier calls herself an energy justice advocate in a state where deregulated energy retailers, also known as “third-party suppliers,” have cost mostly low-income consumers more than $1 billion in utility overpayments since 2014, by one estimate.
Where it all started?
In 1999, Maryland fully deregulated its energy market after enacting the Electric Customer Choice and Competition Act, also known as “retail choice.” It allows the retailers, or third-party suppliers, to purchase energy from the wholesale market and sell it to businesses and residents at a different rate for profit, on the theory that such competition will drive down rates.
Instead, energy advocates like Peltier and some state legislators have long maintained that an unsupervised deregulated energy market opened the door to deceitful bait-and-switch practices by retail suppliers who preyed on low-income people.
Often, they would hook customers on low introductory rates, then increase them, sometimes massively, if a payment was missed. Through another common practice called “slamming,” sales representatives often use customers’ utility account numbers to take over their accounts without their consent.
For Peltier, volunteering at Cares, a nonprofit helping low-income families meet their food and housing needs, like finding the means to pay off their outstanding bills and avoid getting their power cut off has been her routine for the past seven years.
High energy burdens for low-income families are not just a matter of scant earnings, a 2021 report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a Washington D.C.-based think tank found.
Minority groups are commonly clustered in multi-generational households, the report said, consuming greater energy because of leaky insulation, cheap construction or old appliances. Such homes can use 50 percent more energy per square foot than more energy efficient but costlier ones.
More than 120 companies are now operating across Maryland, selling gas, electricity or both to commercial and residential customers. But a number of studies and state lawmakers have questioned if competition among energy suppliers has lowered energy bills for average households—the rationale behind deregulation.
Competition among retail energy providers often succeeded in driving down prices for savvy commercial and industrial customers, who could understand the fine print and stay current on their accounts.
About Lauren Peltier
Originally from Newport, California, Peltier graduated from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business with a degree in business administration and worked as consumer brand manager for multinational companies, including Pepsi, for 12 years.
Then she met her husband, and they decided to move to Baltimore in 1995, having fallen in love with the city during visits to her college roommate’s home there.
It was August 2016, she vividly remembered, when her church switched to a third-party energy supplier.
“I thought, third-party supply was great. I read the contracts. I knew the pricing. I love this stuff. And I invited parishioners to an educational talk about it, so they took what we do at church home.”
Next thing she knew, some 50 parishioners showed up for her talk and brought their utility bills, just as she’d asked. She realized many of them had already agreed to switch their accounts to retail companies on the promise of lower rates—but were, in fact, paying more. It was a friend at the church who explained how the bait-and-switch worked.
Now, she spends 30 hours a week working on energy justice, and as the head of a coalition of advocates working to reduce electric rates.
This story was featured in Harm City: Third in a series about environmental justice and climate adaptation in Baltimore’s neighborhoods from Inside Climate News. Check them out here.