Flood-Soaked Homeowners Face a Costly Choice: Raise or Raze

27.12.2024 - 10:19 / nytimes.com

Shortly after moving into their home in St. Petersburg, Fla., Meghan Martin and her husband noticed a drawback to their new neighborhood. The quiet streets of Shore Acres, a leafy community bisected by canals, occasionally flooded. On some days it was easiest for Dr. Martin, a pediatric E.R. doctor, to reach the hospital by paddle board — a feat she once demonstrated in a widely viewed TikTok.

The Martins settled into their one-story “fixer-upper,” painting the exterior cornflower blue and revamping the 1950s kitchen with new appliances and a herringbone backsplash behind the countertop. But they stopped short of a more radical renovation: the house lift. A handful of water-wary neighbors had pushed their living quarters eight to 10 feet in the air, adding space for a garage or storage underneath. The couple balked when they learned the cost could exceed the value of their home, which they bought in 2016 for $265,000. Besides, to their knowledge, the house had never severely flooded.

Two floods — and two rounds of ripping out drywall and throwing away sodden carpets and toys — later, the Martins reconsidered. This year, they put down a deposit on the cheapest option for raising their home — $375,000.

Buildings have long been lifted out of nature’s path, especially in the historic quarters of flood-prone cities like New Orleans or Charleston, S.C.A century goes by and a beach erodes or a river bend changes course; then the floodwaters arrive. But as climate change intensifies rainfall and strengthens tropical storms, a newer generation of homes is facing the threat of repeat flood disasters. Whether in Florida, New Jersey or Texas, homeowners are deciding whether to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to build up.

In St. Petersburg, a city accustomed to narrow misses from major storms, house lifts were until recently an oddity. Comparisons to shoe boxes remain common, and the revised proportions would not probably fly in an architect’s atelier. But now they’re the norm.