Whether they’re inventive or just plain stubborn, humans long gone to extreme ends to keep their homes free of water. Now, it’s an increasingly urgent task as climate change raises the world’s sea level more than 7 inches as a global average since 1880 and increases the severity of storms that bring devastating floods.
Homes that have been physically raised to avoid surging waters dot the coastal United States. Also called permanent static elevation, this tactic — lifting a house with heavy-duty equipment and placing it on a taller base — is a simple but labor-intensive one. According to a 2020 NOAA report, U.S. high-tide flooding is expected to triple in 2030 and reach a national median of seven to 15 days per year. It’s perhaps no surprise that raising houses is gaining traction in the country’s flood-prone regions.
Roy Wright, president and CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, is no stranger to floods. He spent over a decade at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and previously led their flood analytics program. He explains three crucial strategies to protect buildings: “You can elevate and go up; you can move out of the way, or you can divert the water,” he says. “There's a lot of variation inside that, but … that's all you can do.”
