Rescue boats work along Tidwell at the east Sam Houston Tollway helping to evacuate people Monday after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
An apartment complex in Houston surrounded by water after Hurricane Harvey.
Hurricane Harvey turned streets into rivers in this Houston neighborhood near Interstate 10.
Gray Gant, 51, who grew up in Port Aransas, Texas, sits on the pile of rubble that was the house he lived in when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017.
Every spring, Texans along the Gulf Coast ask themselves: Will this summer bring the hurricane of my nightmares?
Will a Category 5 storm bear down on my home and business, rip the roof off them and flood the rooms with toxic muck? How long will I go without electricity? Will I need to flee my hometown?
After the hottest year on record, my colleague Justin Ballard and other meteorologists are warning that this could be a big hurricane year. The irony that the world’s oil and gas capital lives in fear of hurricanes supercharged by climate change is not lost on many.
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What happens on the coast, though, doesn’t stay on the coast.
A hurricane that surges up the Houston Ship Channel can follow Interstate 45 up to Dallas, spawning tornadoes and flooding along the way. Storms that hit the Port of Corpus Christi frequently bring extreme weather to San Antonio or Austin.
Coastal destruction unleashes economic tsunamis. When coastal refineries and petrochemical facilities close, fuel and chemical prices spike worldwide. Shuttered oil and gas export facilities strand supplies in Midland and Oklahoma.
Hurricane Harvey, which in 2017 brought high winds to Port Aransas and flooding to Houston, caused $125 billion in economic damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported. While rebuilding generates economic activity, the capital losses remain.
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Congress appropriated $130 billion in financial aid to counties affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck Florida the same year. Taxpayers across the country paid for the recovery, along with everyone who pays insurance premiums.
Today, 129 million Americans live in coastal shoreline counties, and about 100 million live in areas at risk of severe storms, NOAA reported. About 40% of them are at elevated risk of death or displacement because of poverty or age.
If you pay for property insurance, you are already paying for the next storm through higher premiums. Texas home insurance rates rose 16% from May 2021 to May 2022 and 27% from May 2022 to May 2023, according to Policygenius, an insurance data and broker service.
“Texas’ immense size and geographical location means it experiences just about every weather event under the sun, and they’re only getting more frequent and severe,” a white papers by the company said.
Insurers have stopped or slowed issuing new policies in California, Florida and Louisiana because of higher climate risks and inability to charge actuarially sound premiums. Political pressure has kept the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the state-backed insurer of last resort along the coast, from charging appropriate premiums, putting all Texans on the hook if a major storm strikes.
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Nationally, the number of billion-dollar disasters has skyrocketed despite insurance industry and government efforts to reduce risk. In 1983, there were seven events that caused more than $1 billion in damage; in 2002, there were 96; in 2022, the number rose to 244, according to Pew Research.
The No. 1 cause for the rise in disasters? Climate change, Pew researchers warned.
“Regardless of where you live, chances are you’ve experienced or witnessed at least one dramatic effect of climate change,” Pew reported. “In the past, disaster planning was often based solely on historic weather patterns and impacts, but as the jump in billion-dollar disasters indicates, that backward-facing approach is an inadequate way to prepare for the future.”
Last year’s Hurricane Otis proved we cannot predict future storms based on past experiences. The storm’s passage over dangerously warm water and much higher air temperatures took it from a Category 1 to a 5 in only 15 hours just before it hit Acapulco, an explosive intensification never observed before.
Not only will Texas experience another storm as powerful and destructive as Harvey, but we will also likely see something far worse as water temperatures rise in the Gulf of Mexico and higher air temperatures hold greater and greater amounts of water vapor.
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Some scientists are suggesting we create a Category 6 for the coming superstorms.
Texas leaders, meanwhile, refuse to discuss climate change or tackle its primary cause, the burning of fossil fuels. The Texas Railroad Commission is suing the federal government to stop regulations that would reduce emissions of methane, a hazardous greenhouse gas, and the Legislature is punishing companies for focusing investments on clean energy.
Recently, the chief executives of the world’s largest oil companies insisted that meeting the world’s clean energy goals would cost too much. But they don’t say that we are already paying a much higher price, just one not reflected in the price of oil.
Award-winning opinion writer Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about money, politics and life in Texas. Sign up for his “Tomlinson’s Take” newsletter at houstonhchronicle.com/tomlinsonnewsletter or expressnews.com/tomlinsonnewsletter.
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