As climate change continues to create more severe weather patterns globally, Delaware Sea Grant, DNREC, DEMA, and others are emphasizing flood insurance as a necessity for many.
A flood insurance forum in Lewes last week followed a temporary closure of Route 1 due to a dune breach and tidal flooding onto the highway.
Delaware Sea Grant Coastal Hazards specialist Danielle Swallow says coastal flooding is Delaware’s top environmental hazard, and adds experts estimate there has been about 16 inches of sea level rise in the last 100 years, and predicts another 18 inches in just the next 30 years.
“47 percent of Delaware residents say they’ve already observed local impacts, and this was back in 2019," Swallow says. "The state is going to be another survey this year to really assess climate perceptions again. And it will be interesting to see because I can see more impacts.”
One of the biggest contributors to worsening weather conditions is climate change, Swallow says. The state is projecting that precipitation overall may not increase in the next several years, but there will be more days of significant rainfall all at once. Climate experts in Delaware are also projecting warmer high and low temperatures year-round and more days that reach 90 degrees or more.
And Swallow says research suggests higher temperatures lead to more severe hurricanes.
“And here in Delaware, our waterways and our beaches, these are natural attractions and folks are building homes left and right, right up to the water's edge," Swallow says. "Well, that has benefits, and it also just carries more risks. We can mitigate some of those risks in how we design and construct those homes.”
Swallow says this includes building at higher elevations and increasing buffer zones between a home's back porch and the water's edge.
Swallow also that the state’s stormwater regulations do not require that climate change be factored in, adding it is incumbent on residents to demand higher standards.
But Personal Risk Practice Leader at USI Insurance Kevin Thomas says filling in coastal areas to develop has consequences too.
“There is so much change in climate, there is a change in our topography – the way people are building in certain areas – we have developers buying cheap land in flood-prone areas and then trucking tons of fill in, and that’s changing the topography, the soil composition, it’s changing a lot," Thomas says. "There’s this thing called adverse impact, where they go ‘Hey look, we trucked in this fill, we’re all good, we’re elevated.’ But the problem is two neighborhoods down, now they’re getting all that runoff, they’re getting all that stormwater, all that drainage, it’s all going into their community.”
Thomas told attendees the average payout in Delaware from the National Flood Insurance Program in 2019 was $18,000 with insurance, but the actual average loss around the country is $95,000, citing outdated flood maps and worsening weather conditions.
“40 percent of flood losses come from properties deemed to be outside of a high risk area," Thomas says.
Thomas says about 51 percent of the population has double the flood risk than they think due to the outdated mapping.
