Pleeeeeeeeeze... Democrats had control of the entire state from 1887 - 2010. Take this Mis-Dis information and cram it back between your two brain cells...
The problem is that thousand year floods are happening like every 10 years these days. I lived through a thousand year flood in eastern NC in 1999 after Hurricane Floyd. Think about the northeast after Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy?
We need to change the rules on flood zones, because not one of the affected counties in western NC were in flood zones, so they aren't required to have flood insurance.
And I read that New Jersey has measured 15-18 inches of sea level rise since the early 1900s (and is accelerating) when I was on vacation there last week!
Even if they DID have flood insurance, the insurance companies will try to weasel out of paying.
Australia had a big scandal about "flood" insurance a while back.
Many insurance contracts had such a narrow definition of "flood", that it excluded most events you'd think of as a flood. Parliament wrote a bunch of new laws specifically to slap insurance companies upside the head.
Prior to Zyx and I's arrival at the Outer Banks for our honeymoon, a house went into the sea, two more that I know of since then. They let them build on the ocean side of the dunes! What the hell. I grieve for Carolina.
That's what happens when you build on dunes, period. Barrier islands are always in flux.
There are a few areas north of Carolla (beach travel only, where the ponies are) that have a lot of beach erosion. There are houses there that slowly sink into the sea over a period of years, and people who have sunk their savings into a house that gets lost to the sea a few years later.
They relocated the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse inland because of shoreline erosion too.
In 2005-06 I built my own house in Nevada, the hot barren southern part of Nevada. As an owner/builder, the county wanted to make sure I did things right, so inspections were done with maybe a bit more scrutiny than with a known contractor. I was OK with that because I didn't want my house to collapse on me. Anyway, I had to excavate 3 1/2 feet of expansive soil out and replace it with engineered fill, compacted to a minimum of 95%. On top of that I had to add three feet of compacted soil, which was 2 1/2 feet above the historic flood level in the valley, though my land wasn't particularly susceptible to flooding. Fair enough, didn't want it to float away, either. Then I had to use hurricane straps to mechanically fasten the framing to the concrete slab and the roof to the walls. In the desert, a place hurricanes are not known to occur. This added maybe $150 to the cost of building my house. I think they could probably factor that amount into the selling price without hurting their bottom line.
I built it when I still had a job, and I paid for it check to check. This was in the aftermath of Katrina, so building materials were at a premium. It cost a fortune, then when I moved back to California I lost my ass selling it. It was paid off, and this one will probably never be all mine. Worth it to be back home, though.
"the damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina may have been made worse by Republican state legislators who for decades have refused to adopt robust building codes"
Building codes have always been screwed up to some degree or other. I spent my entire working life in marketing of construction products, and codes are often contradictory -- even within the same code. An example: in 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was ratified but it was not close to being ready for its roll-out.
* The BOMA (Building Owners and Manager Association) put out a statement that its members should try to follow the ADA as best they could, but large swaths of it were going to have to be hashed out in courts.
* The ADA required that phone booths (remember them?) needed to be accessible for those in wheelchairs, which was interpreted as open with partial sound deadening "walls" that allowed a wheelchair to fit underneath these walls. Problem was that this design meant that blind people using a cane were likely to walk into these walls since their canes would go under the partitioning.
* Residential builders also had rules they had to follow, i.e. door widths were set at 36 inches so wheelchairs could fit through -- even on the second floor where no handicap accessibility was incorporated into the design.
-----
"After all, you can’t require every single vacation home to be built like Fort Knox, so any increased safety regulation is burdensome and will kill prosperity."
Yep, in real life there are no shades of grey; it's an "all or nothing" world. Safety=additional costs, which detract from the bottom line, so no safety for you.
-----
"the “director of regulatory affairs” — aka, top lobbyist guy — for the North Carolina Home Builders Association, Chris Millis, said that the industry doesn’t “pit affordability against regulations necessary for the protection of public safety.”
Indeed they don't. They pit affordability and safety against profits; guess which wins out.
-----
"Republicans used their gerrymandered supermajority to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of legislation that weakened building codes."
Again, safety=additional costs, which detract from the bottom line. Lower profits will lower the amount of funds available to buy the legislators; and legislators have their own personal bottom line to address. Many won't jeopardize their financial security and future for the sake of some randos who voted them in in the first place.
-----
"Vance’s weird wrong claim that undocumented migrants are driving up home prices, a fact known to everyone who’s lost a bidding war on a four-bedroom, two-bath Colonial to poor Venezuelan asylum-seekers"
I lost two bidding wars for similar housing, the first to a family from Burundi and a second one to an extended family from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I just found out that workers who can’t get to their jobs at my company’s North Carolina distribution center will be paid for the days they miss and we’re shipping them several pallets of bottled water as drinking water is in short supply. Seems like the least we could do.
Libertarians always argue that you don;t need laws because "enlightened self-interest" would cause companies to do the right thing because doing otherwise would ruin their business. I've yet to see any sign that enlightened self-interest has stop any companies for scamming their customers.
Which might be true but for rampant lying that goes completely unchecked until maybe, just maybe, several years after some catastrophic event caused by said lies.
Real estate developers are among the biggest donors in local politics. They usually get their way, especially with regards to zoning changes. Of course, Republicans are already on their side.
the same reasoning that allows a chemical factory in Texas to be built in a small town and run without meaningful oversight, because an occasional explosion is just the cost of doing bidness, unlike the cost of following regulations for health and safety that stifle entrepreneurship. Sources? Just Google "explosion in Texas" for an overview of how a "bidness-friendly" state can trade off the lives of taxpayers for the profits of unregulated industry, one side effect being the election and re-election of reactionary fucknuckles like the Guv. and the State A.G.
When I went backpacking in the Smokies I flew into Atlanta and drove to NC. I'll just note that in rural Georgia I ate a delicious omelette in a restaurant where I saw duct tape holding an electrical outlet in place.
Who could have known that letting companies do whatever the hell they want in pursuit of more profits would be bad for the consumer. I guess Mister Invisible Hand would say these (maybe dead) people will just choose to buy a different house next time.
Pleeeeeeeeeze... Democrats had control of the entire state from 1887 - 2010. Take this Mis-Dis information and cram it back between your two brain cells...
It's not just Americans who are into this. In France, regulations were eased regarding building in flood zones. And the a flood happened...
https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/flood-homes-will-be-abandoned/602963
Ta, Dok. Her name is Pricey? PRICEY?! I just can't.
The problem is that thousand year floods are happening like every 10 years these days. I lived through a thousand year flood in eastern NC in 1999 after Hurricane Floyd. Think about the northeast after Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy?
We need to change the rules on flood zones, because not one of the affected counties in western NC were in flood zones, so they aren't required to have flood insurance.
And I read that New Jersey has measured 15-18 inches of sea level rise since the early 1900s (and is accelerating) when I was on vacation there last week!
Even if they DID have flood insurance, the insurance companies will try to weasel out of paying.
Australia had a big scandal about "flood" insurance a while back.
Many insurance contracts had such a narrow definition of "flood", that it excluded most events you'd think of as a flood. Parliament wrote a bunch of new laws specifically to slap insurance companies upside the head.
The aftermath's gonna be awful.
Prior to Zyx and I's arrival at the Outer Banks for our honeymoon, a house went into the sea, two more that I know of since then. They let them build on the ocean side of the dunes! What the hell. I grieve for Carolina.
That's what happens when you build on dunes, period. Barrier islands are always in flux.
There are a few areas north of Carolla (beach travel only, where the ponies are) that have a lot of beach erosion. There are houses there that slowly sink into the sea over a period of years, and people who have sunk their savings into a house that gets lost to the sea a few years later.
They relocated the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse inland because of shoreline erosion too.
Yep, building anywhere there is a huge risk but on the wrong side of the dunes is madness.
Pricey Harrison cannot possibly be the actual name of an actual lawmaker. It's like if we had an assemblywoman in WI named Nosey Parker.
In 2005-06 I built my own house in Nevada, the hot barren southern part of Nevada. As an owner/builder, the county wanted to make sure I did things right, so inspections were done with maybe a bit more scrutiny than with a known contractor. I was OK with that because I didn't want my house to collapse on me. Anyway, I had to excavate 3 1/2 feet of expansive soil out and replace it with engineered fill, compacted to a minimum of 95%. On top of that I had to add three feet of compacted soil, which was 2 1/2 feet above the historic flood level in the valley, though my land wasn't particularly susceptible to flooding. Fair enough, didn't want it to float away, either. Then I had to use hurricane straps to mechanically fasten the framing to the concrete slab and the roof to the walls. In the desert, a place hurricanes are not known to occur. This added maybe $150 to the cost of building my house. I think they could probably factor that amount into the selling price without hurting their bottom line.
You built your own house! That's awesome.
I built it when I still had a job, and I paid for it check to check. This was in the aftermath of Katrina, so building materials were at a premium. It cost a fortune, then when I moved back to California I lost my ass selling it. It was paid off, and this one will probably never be all mine. Worth it to be back home, though.
"the damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina may have been made worse by Republican state legislators who for decades have refused to adopt robust building codes"
Building codes have always been screwed up to some degree or other. I spent my entire working life in marketing of construction products, and codes are often contradictory -- even within the same code. An example: in 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was ratified but it was not close to being ready for its roll-out.
* The BOMA (Building Owners and Manager Association) put out a statement that its members should try to follow the ADA as best they could, but large swaths of it were going to have to be hashed out in courts.
* The ADA required that phone booths (remember them?) needed to be accessible for those in wheelchairs, which was interpreted as open with partial sound deadening "walls" that allowed a wheelchair to fit underneath these walls. Problem was that this design meant that blind people using a cane were likely to walk into these walls since their canes would go under the partitioning.
* Residential builders also had rules they had to follow, i.e. door widths were set at 36 inches so wheelchairs could fit through -- even on the second floor where no handicap accessibility was incorporated into the design.
-----
"After all, you can’t require every single vacation home to be built like Fort Knox, so any increased safety regulation is burdensome and will kill prosperity."
Yep, in real life there are no shades of grey; it's an "all or nothing" world. Safety=additional costs, which detract from the bottom line, so no safety for you.
-----
"the “director of regulatory affairs” — aka, top lobbyist guy — for the North Carolina Home Builders Association, Chris Millis, said that the industry doesn’t “pit affordability against regulations necessary for the protection of public safety.”
Indeed they don't. They pit affordability and safety against profits; guess which wins out.
-----
"Republicans used their gerrymandered supermajority to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of legislation that weakened building codes."
Again, safety=additional costs, which detract from the bottom line. Lower profits will lower the amount of funds available to buy the legislators; and legislators have their own personal bottom line to address. Many won't jeopardize their financial security and future for the sake of some randos who voted them in in the first place.
-----
"Vance’s weird wrong claim that undocumented migrants are driving up home prices, a fact known to everyone who’s lost a bidding war on a four-bedroom, two-bath Colonial to poor Venezuelan asylum-seekers"
I lost two bidding wars for similar housing, the first to a family from Burundi and a second one to an extended family from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
fnord
"I prefer houses that 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 get destroyed during hurricane-engendered flooding."
I just found out that workers who can’t get to their jobs at my company’s North Carolina distribution center will be paid for the days they miss and we’re shipping them several pallets of bottled water as drinking water is in short supply. Seems like the least we could do.
Libertarians always argue that you don;t need laws because "enlightened self-interest" would cause companies to do the right thing because doing otherwise would ruin their business. I've yet to see any sign that enlightened self-interest has stop any companies for scamming their customers.
Which might be true but for rampant lying that goes completely unchecked until maybe, just maybe, several years after some catastrophic event caused by said lies.
Real estate developers are among the biggest donors in local politics. They usually get their way, especially with regards to zoning changes. Of course, Republicans are already on their side.
the same reasoning that allows a chemical factory in Texas to be built in a small town and run without meaningful oversight, because an occasional explosion is just the cost of doing bidness, unlike the cost of following regulations for health and safety that stifle entrepreneurship. Sources? Just Google "explosion in Texas" for an overview of how a "bidness-friendly" state can trade off the lives of taxpayers for the profits of unregulated industry, one side effect being the election and re-election of reactionary fucknuckles like the Guv. and the State A.G.
The Five Stages of Awful Republican Behavior:
1. Complain that government is 'onerous.'
2. Eviscerate government as the unnecessary (1) above.
3. Hold hand(s) out for 'socialism' when the proverbial lightening strikes in the form of natural disasters.
4. Claim that their representative(s) voted for said 'socialism' while also claiming it isn't actually that.
5. Wash, rinse, repeat.
When I went backpacking in the Smokies I flew into Atlanta and drove to NC. I'll just note that in rural Georgia I ate a delicious omelette in a restaurant where I saw duct tape holding an electrical outlet in place.
I did not see this construction standard in NC.
Who could have known that letting companies do whatever the hell they want in pursuit of more profits would be bad for the consumer. I guess Mister Invisible Hand would say these (maybe dead) people will just choose to buy a different house next time.