"Development and Disasters — A Deadly Combination Well Beyond Houston"

"Scientists warn of more and expanding 'bull’s-eyes' as Americans build in parts of the country at ever greater risk because of climate change and severe weather."

"The consequences of Houston’s historic inundation, in deaths and dollars, are nowhere near fully tallied.

Indeed, the economic costs — which will include everything from thousands of ruined and uninsured homes to higher national gasoline prices to lost business activity in the country’s fourth-largest city — will take months to calculate, and years to overcome, said Kevin Simmons, an economist at Austin College focused on storm impacts.

'In the Houston metro area alone, there is more than $325 billion in residential value at risk,' Simmons said in an interview. “Most damage to residential property will be flooding and if people don't have flood insurance they are on their own.” (Most don’t, in part because the floodwaters reached so far beyond established danger zones.)"

Andrew Revkin reports for ProPublica August 30, 2017.

SEE ALSO:

"A Storm Forces Houston, the Limitless City, to Consider Its Limits" (New York Times)

"Houston’s ‘Wild West’ Growth" (Washington Post)