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Out of Bounds

Cost of Climate Change

Now fire seasons across the West are starting earlier and lasting longer than ever before

By Rob Breeding

After a spell renting, I’m about to become a homeowner again. That’s mostly a good thing. It’s the American Dream, after all.

Still, it does come with its share of challenges. Home prices are up, as are interest rates, though that’s easing a bit. I planned for this. The surprise came when it was time to get homeowner’s insurance. I didn’t expect it to be so pricey.

Many factors are driving up the cost of homeowners insurance. Setting aside insurance company greed, one of the most significant is the increase in claims because of weather-induced calamities.

For example, Hurricane Helene, which has devastated communities in North Carolina and Georgia.

Helene hit the south differently than what we’ve come to expect from hurricanes, when storm surge and winds usually do the worst damage along the coast. Many of Helene’s 250-plus fatalities were well inland in western North Carolina, where heavy rain continued after the storm weakened and tracked north. That rain caused catastrophic flooding in the mountain valleys of the Southern Appalachians. 

Right on Helene’s heels came Milton, the fifth hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. this season. This is only the second time five hurricanes made landfall in one season this century and only the 13th time since 1851 that four or more hurricanes have done so, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division.

Floridians are fortunate Milton veered from the path of a direct hit on Gulf-facing Tampa Bay, which might have trapped devastating storm surge, leaving the water with nowhere to go but the city of Tampa.

I suppose we can call that fortunate, though it may not seem so for the families of the 17 killed due to Milton or the millions who lost power, many of whom are still waiting to flip on the lights.

The death toll would certainly have been higher if Milton hadn’t veered south. 

Climate-change-driven extreme weather and disasters of this type were rare a few decades ago but now are the new normal. 

Where I sit out on the Great Plains, in the first week of October, we haven’t had anything close to a frost yet. That’s more an inconvenience than a disaster. Making it into October without a frost isn’t that unusual, but it looks like we’ll make it to opening day of pheasant season, still waiting for a freeze — the opener here isn’t until the last week of October.

The trees here are turning regardless, so the breeze at least sounds like fall with the wind tinged by the clatter of dried leaves.

Fire seasons in much of the West have grown well beyond what used to be normal. There are 29 active fires listed on the Montana Department of Natural Resources website this week, though none of them compare to the 79,000-acre Elk Fire laying waste to the Big Horn Mountains west of Sheridan, Wyoming. That fire is barely 15% contained. 

Winter can’t come soon enough to the Big Horns, sadly.

I remember when it seemed every year, the first snow of the season would dust the mountains of the Northern Rockies by early September. And while any lingering fires might not have been extinguished right away, Labor Day weekend was generally a “dodged-the-bullet” holiday for firefighters. The season, for the most part, was over.

Now fire seasons across the West are starting earlier and lasting longer than ever before. And with more homes crowding the wildland-urban interface, fighting them is getting more expensive and dangerous.

The cost of all this destruction adds up. My new place may be on a quiet street in the middle of town, but the insurance company I’ve used for years is national and no doubt bracing for a surge of extreme-weather-related claims. 

I won’t be surprised when my insurance goes up again next year to pay for fixing what Helene and Milton wrought.