The Risks of Hazard

Way back at the beginning, we blogged about the different kinds of flood. Maybe we should have included winter flooding from ice floes. Granted, it is a variety of fluvial (or riverine) flooding, but there are some unique characteristics to this type of flooding.

The Risks of Hazard is cruising into the holiday season like all blogs, by piggy-backing on old work. And there is no better way to recycle blogs than to do Top 3 lists! Without any ado at all, here are the top 3 blogs from the last three months.

Last week, we wrote about that NYT article that was the buzz of the flood community. As might have been expected, it created a little buzz. Below the line, an interesting conversation took place about flooding depths, BFEs, and how they relate to each other. There are a few thoughts in that commentary that are worth a deeper look this week. But first, a quick thank you to Christopher and Scott for their comments!

The New York Times continued the national coverage of flood insurance (see the WSJ last week) on the weekend with a long-form piece on The Woodlands. Their writers (John Schwartz, James Glanz, and Andrew Lehren) went deep on a family who bought their home in The Woodlands in 2011, with the reassurance from the builder that the house was definitely out of the “flood zone”.

Here we are at the end of November, with the HIM storms in the relatively distant past. By now, it should be clear if cat/flood rates would be hardening or not. Especially, one would think, with reinsurance renewals bearing down.