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THE PEOPLE FLEEING CLIMATE DISASTERS ARE GOING TO TRANSFORM THE
AMERICAN SOUTH  
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Abrahm Lustgarten
October 2, 2024
New York Times
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_ Researchers now estimate tens of millions of Americans may
ultimately move away from extreme heat and drought, storms and
wildfires. The Southern United States stands to be especially
transformed. _

, Zack Wittman for The New York Times

 

_This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom
that investigates abuses of power._

When Hurricane Helene, the 420-mile-wide, slow-spinning conveyor belt
of wind and water drowned part of Florida’s coastline and then
barged its path northward through North Carolina last week, it
destroyed more than homes and bridges. It shook people’s faith in
the safety of living in the South, where the tolls of extreme heat,
storms and sea level rise are quickly adding up.

Helene was just the latest in a new generation of storms that are
intensifying faster, and dumping more rainfall, as the climate warms.
It is also precisely the kind of event that is expected to drive more
Americans to relocate as climate change gets worse and the costs of
disaster recovery increase.

Researchers now estimate
[[link removed]] tens of millions
of Americans
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ultimately move away from extreme heat and drought, storms and
wildfires. While many Americans are still moving into areas
considered high risk
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lured by air-conditioning and sunny weather, the economic and physical
vulnerabilities they face are becoming more apparent.

 

One study by the First Street Foundation, a research firm that studies
climate threats to housing, found
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roughly 3.2 million Americans have already migrated, many over short
distances, out of flood zones, such as low-lying parts of Staten
Island, Miami and Galveston, Texas. Over the next 30 years, 7.5
million more are projected to leave those perennially flooded zones,
according to the study.

All of this suggests a possible boom for inland and Northern cities.
But it also will leave behind large swaths of coastal and other
vulnerable land where older adults and the poor are very likely to
disproportionately remain.

The Southern United States stands to be especially transformed
[[link removed]]. Extreme heat,
storms and coastal flooding will weigh heavily on the bottom third of
this country, making the environment less comfortable and life within
it more expensive and less prosperous.

The young, mobile and middle class will be more likely to leave to
chase opportunity and physical and economic safety. That means
government — from local to federal — must now recognize its
responsibility to support the communities in climate migration’s
wake. Even as an aging population left behind will require greater
services, medical attention and physical accommodation, the residents
that remain will reside in states that may also face diminished
representation in Congress, because their communities are shrinking.
Local governments could be left to fend alone, but with an evaporating
tax base to work with.

In December, the First Street Foundation created one of the first
clear pictures of how this demographic change is unfolding
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It looked at flood risk and migration patterns down to the census
tract, across the country, and identified hundreds of thousands of
so-called abandonment zones where the out-migration of residents in
response to rising risk had already passed a tipping point, and people
were making small, local moves to higher ground.

 

The research contains plenty of nuance ⎯ cities like Miami may
continue to grow overall even as their low-lying sections hollow out.
And the abandonment areas it identified were scattered widely,
including across large parts of the inland Northeast and the upper
Midwest. But many of them also fall in some of the very places most
susceptible to storm surges from weather events like Helene: Parts of
low-lying coastal Florida and Texas are already seeing population
declines, for instance.

In all, the First Street report identified 818,000 U.S. census blocks
as having passed tipping points for abandonment ⎯ areas with a
combined population of more than 16 million people. A related
peer-reviewed component of the organization’s research forecasts
that soon [[link removed]], whole counties
across Florida and Central Texas could begin to see their total
populations decline, suggesting a sharp reversal of the persistent
growth that Florida has maintained as climate pressures rise, by the
middle of this century.

Such projections could turn out to be wrong ⎯ the more
geographically specific such modeling gets, the greater its margin of
error. But the mere fact that climate research firms are now
identifying American communities that people might have to retreat
from is significant. Retreat has not until recently been a part of
this country’s climate change vernacular.

Other research is putting a finer point on which Americans will be
most affected. Early this year Mathew Hauer, a demographer at Florida
State University who has estimated that 13 million Americans will be
displaced by rising sea levels, was among the authors of a study that
broke out what this climate-driven migration could mean for the
demographics of the United States, examining what it might look like
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Mr. Hauer and his fellow researchers found that as some people migrate
away from vulnerable regions, the population that remains grows
significantly older. In coastal Florida and along other parts of the
Gulf Coast, for example, the median age could increase by 10 years
this century — far faster than it would without climate migration.

 

This aging means that older adults — particularly women, who tend to
live longer — are very likely to face the greatest physical danger.
In fact, there is notable overlap between the places that Mr.
Hauer’s research suggests will age and the places that the First
Street Foundation has identified as the zones people are abandoning.

The exodus of the young means these towns could enter a population
death spiral. Older residents are also more likely to be retired,
which means they will contribute less to their local tax base, which
will erode funding for schools and infrastructure, and leave less
money available to meet the costs of environmental change even as
those costs rise. All of that is very likely to perpetuate further
out-migration.

The older these communities get, the more new challenges emerge. In
many coastal areas, for example, one solution under consideration for
rising seas is to raise the height of coastal homes. But, as Mr. Hauer
told me, “adding steps might not be the best adaptation in places
with an elderly population.” In other places older residents will be
less able and independent, relying ever more on emergency services.
This week many of Helene’s victims have simply been cut off,
revealing the dangerous gaps left by broken infrastructure, and a
mistaken belief that many people can take care of themselves.

In the future authorities will have to adapt the ways they keep their
services online, and the vehicles and boats they use, in order to keep
flooded and dangerous places connected. Such implications are
worrisome. But so is the larger warning inherent in Mr. Hauer’s
findings: Many of the effects of climate change on American life will
be subtle and unexpected. The future demographics of this country
might look entirely unfamiliar. It’s past time to give real thought
to who might get left behind.

_MR. LUSTGARTEN is an environmental reporter for ProPublica and the
author of “On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of
America.”_

_Subscribe to the NEW YORK TIMES [[link removed]]_

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* Climate disaster
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