In the next 30 years, 64,000 homes in Florida will experience flooding every other day, says study

Talk of rising sea levels in Florida is nothing new, but a recent report shows that Floridian homeowners, specifically those in South Florida, should be worried.

The study, conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, states that within the next 30 years, nearly 64,000 homes in Florida will experience flooding every other day, 12,000 of them being in Miami.

That makes Florida the most at-risk state in the country when it comes to rising coastlines.

The report was based on real estate information taken from Zillow in addition to a flood model created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It predicts around 6 and a half feet of sea rise by 2100.

“With this high sea level rise scenario, we found that within the next 15 years roughly 147,000 existing homes and 7,000 commercial properties—currently worth $63 billion—are at risk of being inundated an average of 26 times per year, or more,” says the study. “About 280,000 people are estimated to live in these homes today; in this time frame many will need to either adapt to regular floods or relocate.”

Sea rise is expected to greatly affect the local housing market, raising the prices of houses at higher elevation as Floridians attempt to escape the risks of flooding by buying property further from the coastline. The homes at risk will, in turn, lose a lot of value.

The authors of the research say that this could potentially lead to the most extreme housing crisis the country has ever seen. According to the research, Miami, Fort Myers, West Palm Beach, and the Keys will be among the cities most affected by the rising sea levels.

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This article appears in Jun 13-19, 2018.