Moving Days: A Look Back

A year ago, it would have been the day before the moving van arrived.  Ten years ago, in 2013, we would have been moving across town, from the shabby neighborhood to the historic district.  This morning, I am grateful for all the moves, and beyond grateful that we're not doing a move this summer.

And that's not quite true.  I started the summer back in May by packing up my seminary apartment, which was about 1/4 of our possessions.  

I've spent this summer tracking weather events, primarily extreme heat (not affecting me) and wildfire smoke (not affecting me as badly as some parts of the country).  I have thought about organized retreats/exits from parts of the country that will soon be unlivable.  I have thought about how expensive it is to move.

I have been waking up in the middle of the night, worrying about the home repairs and remodels we need to do to this house, and then that morphs into contemplation of all the ways we could never get our previous house to where we wanted it to be.  That quickly spirals into feeling like a failure for not being able to adapt a historic house to its updated flood zone status.  In the light of day, I am much more gentle with myself.

Even when we moved in 2013, I had worries about moving closer to the coast.  I thought that we had more time before sea level rise started in earnest.  Everybody thought we had more time.

I became alarmed when we had fairly minor storms which had long recovery times.  I worried about a direct hit from a hurricane--even a level two or three seemed like it might not be a good idea in our historic home.  And when I thought about the fact that our floorboards were only 2 feet above sea level, I became worried about the acceleration of sea level rise and what it would mean in our lifetimes.

I am amazed that people are still moving to Florida and Phoenix and all the other warm places.  Perhaps they can afford the astonishingly high insurance, at least until the insurers declare areas uninsurable.  Maybe they can buy their homes outright, which means they can decide not to buy the astronomically high insurance.

Given the home upgrades that we've done in the past year, we just increased our level of home owner's insurance, and we're still paying less in a year than we did in our old house--so much less.  At points, in South Florida, when we had homeowner's insurance, hurricane insurance, and flood insurance, we paid over $13,000.00 a year--thirteen thousand a year.  I see some articles about the cost of insurance in Florida, and they always interview someone who is astonished to find their rates rise to $6,000.00 a year.  It's likely someone inland.  On the coast, insurance is much higher, and that's with the federal government subsidizing the flood insurance.

Living in South Florida is not sustainable for most of us with middle class jobs or working class jobs.  And frankly, it's not going to be sustainable for much longer for anyone.  Even the wealthy rely on infrastructure like water, sewer, roads, bridges, and tarmacs, infrastructure that will be impacted by heat and the sea level bubbling up from underneath at inopportune times.

I am glad that we saw an opportunity to manage our retreat from the coast.  I worry about those left behind.