Situation Report

Two weeks after a king tide flooded parts of Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, a heavy rain flooded this Miami neighborhood near Coral Way and Southwest 23rd Street on Oct. 6. Jenny Staletovich Miami Herald Staff

Florida has more to lose with sea rise than anywhere else in the U.S., new study says

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Union of Concerned Scientists - Underwater - Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (28 page .PDF document)

miamiherald.com - by Alex Harris - June 18, 2018

Florida stands to lose more homes — and real estate value — to sea level rise damage than any other state in the nation this century, according to a new study.

By 2045, nearly 64,000 homes in Florida face flooding every other day. Half of those are in South Florida.

If you buy a house now, before your new mortgage is paid you might have to regularly do the rolled-up-pants, shoes-in-hand commute that has become an enduring image of sea rise.

Sea level rise contributions from ice melt in different areas, including Greenland (a), West Antarctica (b), East Antarctica (c) and median of global glaciers (d). Values are ratios of regional sea level change to global mean sea level change. Adapted from Kopp et al. 2015.

axios.com - by Andrew Freedman - June 14, 2018

News of Antarctica's accelerating ice melt garnered worldwide headlines yesterday, as scientists revealed that 3 trillion tons of ice has been lost to the sea since 1992 — mostly from the thawing West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Antarctic Peninsula.

Why it matters: The location of the ice melt is important for determining the future of coastal communities, according to climate scientists. And, due to West Antarctica melting, it turns out that the U.S. coastline will be hit extra hard . . .

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

reuters.com - by Andy Sullivan - June 13, 2018

With the 2018 hurricane season already underway, FEMA is scrambling to hire more people who are willing to depart at a moment’s notice for assignments that can last months at a stretch.

Internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show the agency's disaster-response force is understaffed by 26 percent. And as last year revealed, many of those who sign up don't always respond when needed.

The extraordinary string of domestic disasters in 2017 continues to weigh on the U.S. agency. With thousands of workers still out in the field, official figures show that 33 percent of FEMA’s disaster-response workforce is available for deployment, down from 56 percent at this time last year.

Some specialties are stretched especially thin: Only 13 percent of the workers who direct federal aid to pay for rebuilding costs after a disaster hits are currently available.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)