Helene’s powerful lesson on the importance of flood insurance

Even for Americans with memories of deadly East Coast storms like Katrina in 2005 or Maria in 2017, there continues to be something jarring about witnessing the terrible destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene with its record-breaking size and storm surge. This wasn’t about the Bahamas and Gulf states like Katrina, or U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands like Maria. Helene’s footprint extended more than 500 miles from Florida’s Big Bend to the western mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. How often does a landlocked city like Asheville experience extreme flooding? Locals recall the “Great Flood of 1916,” when dozens of people were killed, the mountainous terrain making the community more vulnerable to flash flooding. More recent tropical storms have demonstrated that, too. But the intensity of Helene was something off the charts — more than 15 inches of rain fell in the Asheville area beginning late last month, with as much as two feet falling elsewhere in the state.

There are a number of lessons to be learned from this horrific tragedy, beginning with how storms like Helene are bound to intensity as man-made climate change raises global temperatures and, with them, the amount of moisture that can be carried in the air. Experts say western North Carolina was hit hard because the storm’s warm, saturated air mixed with the cooler air of the Appalachian Mountains, unleashing waves of rain. This is no longer a theoretical vulnerability; it is clearly a part of living in the 21st century. Weather is becoming more intense. And local communities that may have thought themselves relatively safe from such disasters must be better prepared for them — and that’s true whether or not the United States and the rest of the world do a better job of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that boost global warming in the long-term.

But there is also a more immediate, more personalized lesson to be learned from this particular catastrophe. And that is the importance of flood insurance. Alas, too many Americans, particularly those who have never applied for a federally backed mortgage for a home in a flood-prone area are not familiar with the National Flood Insurance Program, but the federal program may be the most important protection available against such natural disasters. Most property insurance policies don’t cover flooding. But since 1968, the NFIP run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has issued about 5 million policies protecting a total of $1.28 trillion in assets. Whether living in an area with a relatively low risk of flooding, moderate or high, homeowners (or business owners) can purchase coverage for as little as $119 per year (although about $1,000 annually is closer to the average).

That’s not cheap, of course, but consider the alternative if a disaster strikes. Not only could you lose your home and all its possessions but you may not even be eligible for traditional disaster assistance. Only if the president declares a state and county a major disaster area would you be eligible for FEMA grants (albeit lesser amounts than what is available through the NFIP). There are also small business loans, local aid (from government or nonprofits) and some homeowner policies that will at least cover housing expenses during an evacuation. Car insurance coverage will pay for damage to a vehicle, but these can fall well short of total losses.

And how many American homeowners have chosen to participate in the flood insurance program? That would be just 4%. That’s right, just one out of 25. That’s why anyone living in an area susceptible to flooding — and in Maryland that can extend from the mountains in the west to Ocean City to the low-lying tidal waterfront of the Eastern Shore — should talk to an insurance agent about acquiring coverage. One convenient local resource is the website of the Maryland Insurance Administration, which provides details about how to go about buying a policy and the types available. But what you shouldn’t do is rely on history. As Helene has demonstrated, far more parts of the country should be seen as flood-prone than would have been seen a generation ago, or perhaps even a decade ago.

Still, some question whether flood insurance policies, particularly the privately backed variety, are sufficiently capitalized to cover sudden enormous losses like the untold billions of dollars due Helene’s victims. Even federal funding isn’t guaranteed. President Joe Biden late last month signed a bill temporarily extending the program’s statutory authority through Dec. 20. FEMA is pushing for reforms to make the program simpler to use and better funded. We hope post-election that such an increasingly vital program will receive the support from Congress that it richly deserves.

Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.