As construction continues in such low-lying areas like the Seaport and East Boston, planners and private sector insurance experts are warning developers and insurers to go beyond currently required building standards and consider what climate change will mean for potential flood hazards in future years.
"It's critical," said Martin Pillsbury, director of environmental planning for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC). "I know there are costs involved and builders and developers always want to avoid costs, but if you ignore hazards, you're just potentially opening yourself up to loss down the road.”
"It drives me crazy when new developments say they're two feet above base flood elevation, but they're 10 feet below storm surge. Surge is a major risk in Boston," said Joe Rossi, president and CEO of Joe Flood Insurance and the founder of the Massachusetts Coastal Coalition "The Seaport probably should've been designed in a totally different way, that is only going to become more evident as we go down the road with more storms and environmental changes.”
A UMass Boston report projects a median sea level rise of 3.4 feet for Boston Harbor by 2100 if carbon emissions remain high and more flooding in general, if emissions continue to increase. Currently, "nuisance" flooding, when the local coastal flood threshold of 7 feet above sea level is exceeded for an hour or more, happens about 15 days a year, but by 2050 Boston Harbor could see it 180 days a year. And severe flooding that currently has a 1 percent chance of occurring every year, the 1 in 100-year flood, would likely become annual by 2100, the report said.
“If the UMass projection is true and sea level rises by 3.4 feet, all of our buildings would still be well above the highest tide ever recorded in Boston Harbor plus the projected sea level rise,” noted Yanni Tsipis of WS Development, a major Seaport developer.
“Storm surge has been a risk in Boston Harbor and all of our coastal communities since before colonial times and it remains one. But our buildings in the Seaport are the best-positioned buildings in Boston to handle storm surge events. Because we have been designing and building with a deep respect for science, both our structures and our public spaces take this science into account.” If homes and businesses have government backed mortgages and are in high-risk flood areas, they're required to have flood insurance. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) looks at types of buildings and potential flood, mitigation systems when determining rates, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maintains regularly updated flood maps that show areas at high risk for flooding.
But those aren't designed to be exact predictions for floods, Pillsbury said. MAPC recently released a report looking at stormwater flooding in Massachusetts during a major series of storms in 2010 and the resulting insurance claims. More than 90 percent of those came from areas outside areas that had been designated as flood plains, Pillsbury said.
"If I'm an insurer I want an example., I want to start with FEMA flood-plain maps, but I don't know what the full ranges of risk are. FEMA maps are based on historic trends with a lot of historical analysis, that's why we talk about a one percent storm. Based on any one year there's a one percent probability that we'll get a storm of that magnitude," Pillsbury said of the study. "When you project forward based on how climate change is happening, you're changing that pattern. There's not an easy way to extrapolate that."
And certainly storm surge along the coast in the Seaport and East Boston can be similarly very damaging, Pillsbury noted.
"The trend is upward for more frequent storms and more intense ones. There is surge more frequently. Maybe the typical surge on the coast was six feet and now it will go to 8 or 10 feet," Pillsbury said. "And the baseline sea level is going up, the storm surge is just putting extra water on top of water. What is the additional storm amount and what is the higher base? Neither of those two can be exactly predictive.”
The NFIP cautions buyers that choosing a higher deductible for flood insurance will lower the premiums, but also will reduce claim payments. Rossi said developers have to follow building codes for projects on the coast, but the standards could be raised.
"There's a push there. There could be and maybe should be even higher standards in building codes to enforce," Rossi said. "When those contractors are looking to build in the Seaport and other places, they need to take those other factors into account, whether they are or aren't taken into account in their insurance. The feedback is always that '’we can't put the base of a building 20 feet in the air'’ but there are things that can be done.” Annual insurance costs can be in the six figures for projects, Rossi said, but the long-term costs of not going for strong coverage could be greater. Pillsbury agreed.
"The risk is always hardest to manage when the risk is not completely known. Now I can build a building higher and next year there will be a big storm and I'll be really happy that I made the extra effort and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, or the storm might not happen for 30 years," he said.
