While climate change doesn't just bring higher temperatures, it also brings more rain.
Now a 2023 report from First Street Foundation found that increased air temperature from climate change caused the atmosphere to hold more water vapor.
Now this amounts to about 7% more water for every 1 °C increase, leading to heavier rainfall events.
It also found that rainfall events previously expected once every 100 years are now.
Occurring far more frequently, sometimes as often as every 5 to 10 years.
Well, joining me to weigh in is Jeff Gitterman, CEO of Gitterman Asset Management.
Jeff, great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you.
Well, we are coming off another week of major events when it comes to precipitation.
So break down this report for us.
I mean, you spoke to the big issue.
The big issue is that warmer air holds more.
Moisture also warmer ocean currents generate bigger storms because the air is able to pick up more moisture, especially the warmer air is warmer ocean is going deeper and deeper than ever before.
So these storms are turning pretty quickly.
Melissa turned into one of the biggest storms we've ever seen in the Atlantic almost overnight.
But what we're really concerned about is when we look in the US, most people aren't.
Protected from rainfall flooding, and when you look at people that have homeowners insurance and renters' insurance, that does not cover flooding.
People who thought that they weren't in flood zones think that they're safe, and now they're finding that because of sewage infrastructure, a lot of places are flooding that historically never flooded before or flooded once every 500 years to the degree that it's currently flooded.
Yeah, and you mentioned infrastructure, and I think that is a key part of this equation here because whenever we have a major rainfall event in New York City, for example, we see on social media all the flooding that takes place in subways as well as some houses and last week we saw that incident in basements as well.
So what are your concerns here and what's going on with FEMA?
So there's multiple issues.
FEMA we're waiting to see.
Trump had said he would pull a lot of FEMA support post the 2025 hurricane season.
So we'll see in November, maybe later this month, if there's any more movement there.
What's going on in rainfall flooding is really a twofold story because we're Don't have the sewage infrastructure to handle the increased flood.
So while these floods, even if they were occurring every 20 years, if that moisture is too much in New York City, the sewage system can handle about 1.5 inches of rainfall an hour.
We are now seeing multiple times over the past year 2.5 inches an hour of rainfall.
That's when you see those drains start popping up.
That's when you see subway flooding.
We saw.
But unfortunately 2 people lost their lives in New York last week because of basement flooding, so we need to dramatically, as we talk about a lot on this show, focus our investment around adaptation and resilience because we need to rebuild those pipes that handle that sewage infrastructure.
We can't just keep having the situation happen over and over again in places like New York and Houston.
There's places in Quebec where we're.
Seeing flooding.
I mean, we're seeing it all over the globe, but it's a manageable problem.
Water problems can be managed.
It just takes investment money to fix the problem, and we're ignoring the problem at the peril of losing lives, which is terrible.
Yeah, absolutely, Jeff, and building on what you just said, when it comes to flood zones, what do your viewers need to keep in mind when it comes to these zones?
Flood zones are very old and they typically don't include rainfall, flooding in the current estimate.
So First Street came out with a study that said they think that about 173 million homes in the US are actually in flood zones but not listed in flood zones.
So people aren't buying additional flood insurance.
Sometimes they can't get additional flood insurance.
We have this huge problem right now where if you need.
Insurance and it's clear that you need it.
You're having a really hard time getting it.
If it's rainfall related, you don't think you need it and you need it, you can't get it.
And not only that, but a lot of things like sewage overflow which causes flooding, aren't covered in some typical flood insurance.
So you really need an expert broker.
You want to go to a place like First Street or even Zillow and other places right now are showing flood risk both from rainfall flood risk.
And from fluvial or river overflow or ocean overflow flood risk, you really want to look at your home, look at the parameters and the risk that they're subject to, and then you really want to speak to an expert insurance broker who can walk you through all the policies if those policies are available right now.
And finally, before I let you go, we have about 60 seconds here.
So what do we need to keep in mind as we head into your end and also beyond when it does come to infrastructure?
You really want to look at places like Florida which are doing buildings right now that are hurricane proof, floodproof, are zero energy resilient.
A lot of builders are starting to do these zero energy hurricane proof communities.
If you're thinking about owning in flood risk areas, you want to make sure.
That your property can actually handle the flooding.
It's raised high enough that basements are on stone slabs.
They're not basements that are sitting as flood capture storage.
So you really want to be thoughtful about where you're owning and where your insurance coverage is coming from.
OK, Jeff.
Well, thank you so much for weighing in this morning and thank you as always for sharing your perspective.
Thank you.
