What flooded here in Brunswick during our no name storm in September, most likely had similair outcome during Hurricane Florence six years ago, almost to the date. In many cases for this storm damage was even worse due to the rapid accumulation of rains, over 30 inches here in Southport in less than 24 hours.
Since July 2024 in North Carolina, for existing home sales, the mandatory Residental Property Disclosure (completed by sellers when listing) now requires answers on any history of flooding, under section F.
https://www.ncrec.gov/Forms/Consumer/rec422.pdf
This did not exist before in our state. Sellers unless directly asked, did not have to share any degree of past history. Ideally your local agent would be aware or researched the property’s positioning and potential for water issues, and able to educate you to the best of their ability. Again, why you ALWAYS use a local buyer’s agent, we know the problem areas. Sadly, in many cases buyers were never warned and declined opportunity to purchase flood insurance as a wise safety precaution.
For new construction this disclosure is NOT required. Therefore Buyer Beware! These new developments are often placed in areas where land was cheap because it was a swamp, nature’s important drainage system. Clear cutting, raising the land with fill, and inadquate drainage systems/ponds based on outdated data are all within the local zoning laws allowed. An upsetting but true situation with very little to no roadblocks in place until our government changes and makes wetlands a priority. These builds are also famous for changing the landscapes for adjoining neighborhoods that never had water issues beforehand.
My advice beside just being aware is, get Flood Insurance. Stop with the nonsence ‘it is not in a flood zone’ Do the storms stop and read the maps before the destruction is unleashed? Yes, the builders do read those maps and already capitalize in advertising not in a flood zone (based on outdated data, only info they have to legally follow). See below NPR article on this 60 year weather old data that shapes our current flood maps. And always use a local agent with history of that area you are buying. Sure, Trust but always Verify. Why risk your home and investment for future, because guess what? Once purchasing a home in North Carolina with known water issues you are now legally required to disclose when Selling!.
Copied from https://www.npr.org/2024/10/01/nx-s1-5133530/hurricane-helene-rain-flooding-climate-change. See for full article.
The catastrophic damage is a sign of what climate scientists have been warning about: as the Earth heats up, rainfall is becoming increasingly extreme and deadly. And torrential rain can occur anywhere, including far from coastlines.
The heaviest storms in the southeastern U.S. today are already dropping 37% more rain since 1958, according to a recent study. As the climate keeps changing, that could increase by 20% or more.
“We’ve had these shocking amounts of rain,” says Bill Hunt, a professor at NC State University who works on stormwater infrastructure. “It’s hard to imagine where you’re safe.”
The infrastructure in most cities, including roads, bridges and buildings, isn’t set up to handle increasingly intense storms. That’s because engineers design it using old rainfall records, sometimes decades old. That means even recently built infrastructure is only adequate for last century’s storms.
“The situation is just getting worse,” says Chad Berginnis, executive director of Association of State Floodplain Managers. “Every decade, the average annual flood losses in the U.S. is roughly doubling. It’s unsustainable.”
Still, cities could soon have new tools to make themselves safer. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is currently updating the rainfall records for the whole country, including projecting how much worse storms could be. North Carolina, like some other states, is also working on in-depth flood planning to help communities prepare for the risks ahead.
Hurricane Helene is not a one-off
As Hurricane Helene approached the U.S. coast, forecasters sent out alerts that it had reached a Category 4 storm. That’s the rating system for a hurricane’s severity, which is based entirely on wind speed.
But that masks the hidden danger hurricanes bring: rainfall. In 2018, Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina as only a Category 1, but the slow-moving storm dropped up to 30 inches of rain, causing severe flooding. Just in mid-September this year, a storm dropped 20 inches of rain on Wilmington, N.C., causing flooding there.
In Asheville, the steep mountain terrain funneled the runoff into the river valley, where much of the city is built. Most cities are also largely paved over, preventing the rainfall from soaking into the ground. As a result, flooding can happen far from any water body.
“It’s not isolated to Hurricane Helene and it’s not isolated to North Carolina,” Hunt says. “It’s no longer tha
All of the infrastructure in a city is designed to handle water. Bridges and highways are constructed to withstand large floods. Roadways and sidewalks funnel water into storm drains, which prevent rainfall from pooling in the streets and flooding buildings.
When all of that is built, engineers need to know how much rainfall the infrastructure should be able to handle. For that, they turn to historical rainfall records that are maintained by NOAA, known as Atlas 14.
But those rainfall records are only sporadically updated, which means they don’t reflect the increasing severity of storms. Some cities use records that are more than 60 years old. That means billions of dollars of infrastructure spending is going toward projects that may not be able to handle climate change.
“We’re flying blind right now,” Berginnis says. “We don’t know what the appropriate standard is because we have outdated data that we’re making those assumptions on.”
After a new federal law was passed in 2022, NOAA began updating rainfall records nationwide. Atlas 15, as it’s known, will also take climate change into account, helping city engineers design infrastructure that will be adequate in the decades ahead. The records are expected to be released in 2026 for the Lower 48 states, with the rest of the country in 2027.
Mary's Gone Coastal 