In early October, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton hit the Gulf Coast after their initial, destructive rampages around the Yucatan Peninsula. Hurricane Milton has become the fastest hurricane to intensify from a Tropical Depression to a Category 5 Hurricane, dramatically worsening in just over 48 hours. The two-storm damage has amounted to an estimated 20-34 billion dollars, just below the cost of tolls left by Hurricanes Harvey and Katrina.
Despite their differing paths and landfall regions, Hurricanes Katrina, Milton, and Helene share one similarity: a rapid intensification from the Gulf of Mexico to the U.S. coast, costing U.S. economies and residents billions of dollars.
As climates continue to warm, holding onto more moisture, tropical storms and hurricanes become increasingly prevalent. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), damages from weather and climate disasters have cost the United States a total of approximately 2.6 trillion dollars from 1980 to 2023. Death tolls and damages continue to burden vulnerable coastal communities across the United States’ southeastern coast.
The state of Florida and bordering states are notorious for experiences with hurricanes due to its geographical location, in proximity to the equatorial Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico’s warming temperatures.
With consistent hurricane encounters, residents have forcefully adapted to recurring hurricane seasons. Infrastructure stability measures have popularized among Florida residents to secure homes and property from storm damages. Immersions of impact windows to residential homes have protected many from potential destructive impacts left by hurricanes.
In the midst of Hurricane Milton’s developments, one Florida resident, Jammie Rose, highlights her household circumstances without hurricane proof windows, hoping her windows don’t break. According to Rose, Florida had “just started mandating them in like 2004, so older houses don’t have them.” Hurricane-proofing has gained relevance only during recent years, still leaving older houses susceptible to hurricane displacements. But what is the cost of integrating hurricane-resistant technologies and adapting lifestyles to hurricane occurrences?
Costs for household adaptations extend beyond renovating traditional, two-paned glass windows to impact windows. Homeowners in Florida are threatened by a more costly issue, nurtured by increasing hurricane frequencies: skyrocketing house insurance costs. Because Florida’s prevalent floods and hurricanes have resulted in detrimental losses to insurance companies, homeowner’s insurance has steadily grown more expensive. Bankrate reports that the average homeowner’s insurance premium in Florida is approximately $3,000 more expensive than the national average. Florida’s living costs, including insurance costs, are projected to continue climbing under increasing disaster vulnerabilities.
For many Florida residents, adaptation and resilience comes helplessly after hurricane impacts. Rachel Muse-Connealy, a homeowner in St. Petersburg, has evacuated twice under developments of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Under disastrous circumstances and worries for her family’s safety, “for the first time, we have talked about where we could go next,” Muse-Connealy tells CNN. The dangers of storms in Florida’s regions, which jeopardize family safeties, have prompted families to abandon their Florida homes and communities, relocating to safer locations without hurricanes. For many, costs of damages seemingly outweigh the benefits of living in Florida’s hurricane-prone regions.
But, for many Southern residents, relocation and adaptation simply isn’t as viable. Climate change issues rather surface climate change’s underlying intersections with social justice, with necessary considerations for racial and socioeconomic disparities.
Simultaneous with the Southeastern United States’ vulnerability to climate change, the region also houses some of America’s most ethnically-diverse communities and over half of America’s African-American population. Concentrated weather events among regions dominated by ethnic minorities poses greater risks of experiencing displacement from natural disasters.
Historical implications have already placed low income and colored communities at a disadvantage, at the forefront of natural disaster and climate change impacts. Historical redlining practices continue to impact current communities, confining minority populations to underfunded neighborhoods lacking proper infrastructure to combat natural disasters’ deleterious effects.
Under the presence of disasters, access to preparation, evacuation, and recovery are key factors to consider, especially for communities facing direct displacement from disastrous weather events. According to the World Population Review, Southeastern states accommodate high rural populations, especially Mississippi and Alabama. These rural communities in particular face challenges recovering from natural disasters due to physical isolation, higher poverty rates, and limited access to healthcare and financial resources.
Climate change poses threats to America’s Southeastern communities, revealing underlying social justice issues hidden beneath broader climate discussions. These circumstances ultimately beg the question: How will we further intertwine social justice considerations into our climate mitigation initiatives?
