Nearly all homes in counties hardest hit by Helene lack national flood insurance

In Buncombe County, N.C., where an entire town disappeared beneath floodwaters, less than 1 percent of households had flood insurance. In Unicoi County, Tenn., where dozens of residents were stranded atop a hospital roof as waters rose, it was under 2 percent.

On average, just a tiny fraction of households in the inland counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene had flood insurance, according to a Washington Post analysis of recent data from the National Flood Insurance Program. Across seven affected states, only 0.8 percent of homes in inland counties affected by the hurricane had flood insurance. By contrast, 21 percent of homes in coastal counties in those areas had coverage.

The Post estimated the share of homes with flood insurance by using policy counts as of Oct. 1 provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and housing unit counts from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Experts say that lack of insurance will prove deeply damaging for those households in the years to come. Available disaster assistance funds are largely intended to provide for temporary shelter, food and water - not to rebuild homes. And thanks to a combination of outdated policies and high prices, most people don’t know they should enroll in flood insurance - or can’t afford it.

Without insurance, people struck by floods have to rely on a network of complicated federal programs or aid from nonprofits to rebuild their lives. The Individual Assistance Program, run by FEMA, can help provide urgent resources, but is capped at around $42,500 for housing and $42,500 for other costs. Most recipients get far less. As of Thursday morning, FEMA listed 108 counties in five states where people are eligible for this aid.

“It’s something people don’t want to think about,” said Craig Landry, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Georgia, of the risk of catastrophic flooding. “People have an optimistic perception of disaster assistance,” he added. “And in reality, it’s not that generous.”

The Post’s analysis shows that many of the counties affected by Helene’s flooding have seen declining flood insurance rates in the past decade. In some cases, around half of flood insurance policies have been dropped.

Stephanie Buchanan, a resident of Bakersville, N.C., didn’t know she didn’t have flood insurance until her belongings had been swept away in rising creek waters. Buchanan and her husband fled out the back door and watched the water rise two feet up into her home, ruining furniture and dragging her possessions into the garage.

She called her homeowners’ insurance, only to learn that her policy didn’t cover floods. In Mitchell County, home to Bakersville, FEMA reported just 31 flood insurance policies for more than 8,600 housing units.

“Nobody said anything about it,” Buchanan said in a phone interview. The 47-year-old has lived in the Bakersville area her entire life and can’t remember any similar disasters. “I’ve never faced anything like this,” she said. “Is someone going to help us? Are we going to be able to have a home?”

The lion’s share of flood insurance in the United States comes through FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. For homes that are in the 100-year-flood-plain, or that have a 1 percent or greater chance of flooding every year, this insurance is legally required to obtain a mortgage, and can pay out up to $250,000 for structures and $100,000 for contents.

But experts say that the flood maps used by the national program are outdated, leaving many areas that should have flood insurance without it.

“They don’t include flooding from small waterways, things like creeks, tributaries, streams,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research at the First Street Foundation, which models climate risks. “And they don’t include heavy precipitation as a source for flooding.”

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That means events like the surge of Hurricane Helene flooding that struck inland areas last week are almost entirely ignored - leaving residents to choose for themselves whether they want to buy private flood insurance or not.

Jess Dixon, 29, a mural artist in Sugar Grove, N.C., said in a phone interview Wednesday that she didn’t get flood insurance when she bought the single story brick home two years ago because the area hadn’t flooded in recent years.

“There is a river across street from me, but it had never risen anywhere close to this before,” she said. “Whenever I bought the house it was not considered a flood plain. It’s just so wildly expensive here that it just seems unnecessary. Not many people can afford it in this area - it’s kind of a low-income area.”

Stormwater rose a foot in 10 minutes, ultimately reaching four feet into Dixon’s attic crawl space. “I haven’t had time to call my insurance,” she said as she and her boyfriend gutted the house.

“I’m trying to figure out if FEMA will cover anything. My major focus has been trying to salvage as much as I could from the house,” she said.

Dixon has been staying with friends in nearby Blowing Rock, “hopping around” to make room for others displaced by the storm. “We have a tent set up in my backyard if worse comes to worse. We did just get power back today, but I’m scared to turn it on,” she said. “The mountains are just not built for flooding.”

Jeff Jackson, the interim senior executive of the National Flood Insurance Program, said in a statement, “Flood risk is under appreciated across the nation - even in flood prone areas. That’s a challenge we continue to face and will continue to work on as we remain committed to closing the flood insurance gap across the nation.”

“Right now, it’s important that survivors of Helene file their flood and or homeowners’ insurance claims immediately,” Jackson added. “I urge those who are uninsured to register for FEMA disaster assistance now.”

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People may still end up rebuilding in flood-prone areas, Landry said, because the real estate market has a short memory. While housing prices often drop following major flood events - as buyers account for the cost of flood insurance - research shows that effect disappears after five or six years.

The assistance program from FEMA for individuals is “intentionally not designed to make people financially whole after a disaster,” said Carolyn Kousky, an expert in flood insurance and associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group.

Most people tend to get only a few thousand dollars from individual assistance, she added.

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Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, says that survivors must navigate a web of complicated red tape to even get that amount of funding. Some disaster victims will submit five or six appeals after being denied the first time. “People will describe it as the second disaster, just because of how difficult it is to navigate,” she said.

While additional congressional funding can help close the gap, that funding can take years to be deployed. In the meantime, residents will be forced to wait in whatever temporary housing they can find.

Many experts say that the country needs to impose much more sweeping requirements for flood insurance. “Congress needs to require everybody to have flood insurance, much like we require everybody to have car insurance,” Montano said. “And in my opinion, they need to raise the amount of money FEMA is able to give people for individual assistance.”

For now though, as many areas of the country are pummeled by severe weather events, researchers say the insurance system is lagging behind. “I don’t think we’re appreciating how much flood risk is changing over time and how quickly,” Kousky said. “And we’re certainly not talking to people about it.”

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Hennessy-Fiske reported from Houston. Brianna Sacks and Emily Wax contributed to this report.