Climate Change Means Californians Need Flood Insurance Now, Too
When Tropical Storm Hilary slammed into the normally dry state, it showed nowhere is immune to flooding as global warming fuels extreme weather.
A washed-out road as Tropical Storm Hilary hits Palm Springs, California, on Aug. 20.
Photographer: David Swanson/AFP/Getty ImagesCalifornians know wildfires and earthquakes; hurricanes, not so much. So when Tropical Storm Hilary inundated Southern California in normally bone-dry August, it showed just how exposed homeowners are to a growing financial risk from unpredictable climate-driven flooding.
Standard homeowners insurance policies don’t cover flooding and fewer than 2% of California households have flood insurance, even as intensifying winter storms overflow rivers and levees, batter the coast and drench the desert. As Hilary, the first tropical storm to strike the Golden State in 84 years, passed over Palm Springs on Aug. 20, it dumped nearly a year’s worth of rain in a day on the desert community east of Los Angeles, causing widespread flooding in the surrounding Coachella Valley.