As Sea Levels Rise, 1.9 Million U.S. Homes Could Be Underwater By 2100

by Brady Dennis (The Washington Post) The real estate data firm Zillow recently published a research analysis that estimated rising sea levels could leave nearly 2 million U.S. homes inundated by 2100, a fate that would displace millions of people and result in property losses in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

More than 100,000 of those homes would be in Maryland and Virginia, according to the analysis. Another 140,000 would be submerged in the Carolinas. And Florida would face the gravest scenario of any state, with one in eight properties in danger of being underwater.

Yet there’s near-unanimous agreement among scientists that the seas will rise. Insurance companies are anticipating it. Some cities are already planning for it.

The company used maps released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to determine what coastal areas would be inundated. The firm then used its nationwide database to determine which properties were most at risk of being flooded — at least on the ground level — by the next century.

The results are grim. With six feet of sea level rise, nearly 2 percent of all U.S. housing stock could vanish, accounting for roughly $882 billion worth of homes.

“Based on our calculations, it may turn out that actual water poses almost as much of a problem for the housing market in the future as negative equity has in the past,” wrote Krishna Rao, Zillow’s director of economic product and research. READ MORE and MORE / MORE (New York Times)