NY Fed warns of big flood risk for properties in its district

By Michael S. Derby

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Homes in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas face some of the most severe risk of flooding in the U.S., a report released on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said.

One in 10 properties in the region “are at serious risk of flooding,” the report said, with these properties in the top 25% of the riskiest nationwide, even when more traditional areas of risk like the southeast of the United States are included.

And it’s not a problem of being too close to the sea.

“Flood risk is not just found in coastal communities or in New York City,” the report said. “Inland communities like Buffalo, Syracuse, and Newark face substantial risk from heavy rainfall, flash flooding, and overflowing rivers,” the study said, adding “this risk has grown in recent years and is projected to continue increasing.”

The New York Fed said the report was developed as part of its Community Development efforts, which focus on health, household financial well-being and climate risk.

In the report, the bank said that one million flooding-vulnerable properties are home to 1.6 million households and four million people. Just over 400,000 of those properties are in low- to middle-income areas.

The worst risk in the area considered by the study includes New York’s Long Beach and New Jersey’s Keansburg, where 90% of properties are vulnerable to flooding.

The report noted that the risk flooding presents varies throughout the three-state area, which means there’s no one single solution to offset the risk. “All of these types of flooding require some degree of unique and targeted responses, in addition to general measures that are common to all types of flood mitigation,” New York Fed researchers wrote.

Anxiety over flooding risks driven by climate change have been rising amid mounting disasters around the world. Among the latest trouble is devastating flooding in North Carolina that’s already been linked to numerous deaths and widespread property destruction.