Tag Archives: hurricane

What if all the homeowners in a town or sizable neighborhood wanted to sell at once?

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The second part of this headline is thought provoking: “In a Florida Town Ravaged by Storms, Homeowners All Want to Sell.” More from the story:

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com

Hoping it was a fluke, Driscoll tore out the affected drywall and started fresh. After all, the four-bedroom home built in 1960 had no flood history. 

But then it happened again, and again. Like many others in the community, he put his home up for sale in the spring of this year. After seeing little interest, he cut the asking price…

Ballooning home insurance costs and the perennial threat of violent storms are starting to undermine housing markets throughout much of the state. But in few places has the turnaround been more dramatic than in low-lying communities up and down the coast of Florida that frequently flood. 

The Tampa Bay housing market had been softening even before Helene struck. While prices have been flat, the area experienced a 58% increase in supply in August compared with a year ago, and a 10% decrease in demand, according to Parcl Labs, a real-estate data and analytics firm. 

About half the homes listed for sale in Tampa experienced price reductions as of Sept. 9, the third highest share of all U.S. major metropolitan areas.   

It sounds like there has been an increase in people wanting to sell in this area. It is not quite “all” have their homes on the market. Perhaps “all” might want to sell?

Either way, the idea of a large number of homeowners moving away at once is likely rare in recent years. There are ghost towns across the American landscape, whether in mining communities or suburbs. In these cases, everyone left and decades later there are some remnants or possibly nothing left if other land development has taken place.

If residents all left these Tampa neighborhoods, what would happen to the land? It could remain unpopulated if it was determined that these are areas that frequently experience flooding. The land could become wetlands or a buffer zone for nearby land. Or it could be turned over to other developed uses that might be less affected by flooding, whether that might be a park or industrial space.

Successful: reversing highway lanes to evacuate people ahead of a hurricane

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As Hurricane Matthew approached, officials used all the lanes of highways:

Across swaths of Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina, half the highway lanes have reversed. Traffic engineers call this “contraflow,” the volte-face of normal traffic. Now, on both sides of these roads, vehicles only run one way—away from Hurricane Matthew…

To select the exit routes months or even years before hurricane season, transportation planners turn to flood maps and atmospheric modeling. They predict hazards: wind, storm surge, freshwater flooding. They rely on traffic counts and experience to predict if and when residents will decide to finally leave their homes, and how…

The planners build computer simulations of their predictions, and tinker with the variables—down to specific intersections’ traffic signals—to speed up the process. With a few days notice, some regions choose to evacuate in waves, asking those living at low elevations to depart hours or even days before inland residents.

Rural regions often direct their residents toward one major highway, physically blocking off smaller roads. This undoubtedly results in jams, but some officials would rather have their populations—with their attendant gas, medical, and food needs—bunched together than spread throughout the hinterlands. Metropolitan areas are more likely to shut down an entire stretch of interstate, forcing cars onto side roads until they converge on bumper-to-bumper congestion miles from a flood zone.

It makes sense to use all available lanes going away from the hurricane, especially toward the end when few people would want to go the other direction. I would still be intrigued to see how many police such an effort requires and how drivers navigate on and off ramps going the opposite direction than normal. Even with all the lanes open one way, I imagine the traffic is not moving too fast.

If I remember correctly, reversing the lanes of highways was also on the table during the Cold War to quickly evacuate a major city. You can read a current-day guide to preparing for a nuclear blast here – there is no mention of highways. However, it does suggest more scenarios when people might be asked to evacuate:

Evacuations are more common than many people realize. Fires and floods cause evacuations most frequently across the U.S. and almost every year, people along coastlines evacuate as hurricanes approach. In addition, hundreds of times a year, transportation and industrial accidents release harmful substances, forcing many people to leave their homes.

While people may not think about evacuations much, I don’t think the highway lane reversals are common at all.