Yes. We already do that.
I’ve been curious about this myself, but haven’t heard any news to this effect. Can you provide any examples of this happening in the past (preferably within the last 50 years)?
I remember a story from 2024 where some tiny town (forget the name, East coast somewhere) had built a bunch of residential houses in a landslide area and the residents were frustrated that the government wasn’t bailing them out. Had some wacky pictures. Maybe it was this one in California? I think it was a different one.
It was 100 years ago, but Bayocean, Oregon a town with 2,000 residents slowly fell into the Pacific Ocean after they tried to mess with the coastline. The last remaining building fell into the ocean in 1971. No attempt to bail out the homeowners at any point.
Disaster strikes, and the homeowners are extremely lucky if we bail them out. Usually we don’t.
Those are some interesting reads, and really appreciate the response + resources.
I do feel the attempt to buyout the residents in the CA example is a good move, but it does basically amount to abandoning the town (as the OP seems to think will be the norm. Glad the state is attempting to do something to help, even if it feels like a half measure.
It feels like FEMA (as imperfect as they are) would have been a program that would’ve helped if a landslide wiped out a town though? Either that or the builders of the township would’ve had to sign away a bunch of their rights to that as part of building into the area (kinda feels like the case for Bayocean?) if it was known to be disaster prone.
Idk, how does the community feel about building in disaster prone areas? Like, if you want to build a house in a flood zone, I think you should be allowed to do it, but also, you’re on your own when a flood comes, ya know?
It’s mostly going to be more than 50 years ago, but we did it a lot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_the_United_States
I don’t want to discount the people who lost land and homes due to the creation of dams and reservoirs (My great grandpa purportedly lost his home due to some of this), but that feels really different than losing a coastal town due to rising sea levels.
Obviously from an American perspective, FEMA is very imperfect, but that we have structures and systems like FEMA makes it feel like people in coastal towns that get “washed away” will have some form of safety net to fall back on.
Am I missing something in that assessment?
According to Ben Shapiro, people will just sell their homes and move inland. 🤦 Never let Ben forget this fact.
I feel really stupid in that I read that and thought, “I mean, that makes sense…ohhh wait no it doesn’t.”
Yes.
Those towns can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Not your mama.
Hey remember hurricane Katrina?
Remember how people said that they should have fixed the wall cause they were warned?
I got a feeling that cons are just gonna tell Floridans that they should have moved beforehand.
No, they are gonna take proper care of them like in Flint, MI.