More South Florida homes at risk of storm surge than anywhere else: report

A 2012 photo of the Brickell skyline taken from the Rickenbacker Causeway (Credit: Daniel Christensen)
A 2012 photo of the Brickell skyline taken from the Rickenbacker Causeway (Credit: Daniel Christensen)

South Florida is no stranger to the destructive powers of hurricanes and storm surge, but a new report shows the region has more homes at risk than any other metropolitan area in the nation.

The report, authored by real estate research firm CoreLogic, shows that 780,482 homes in South Florida are located in storm surge risk zones.

All those properties add up to a reconstruction cost of $144 billion, which is the price associated with completely rebuilding every home at risk, according to the report.

Though a large swath of South Florida’s homes are at potential risk of damage from storm surge, only 75,903 are in “extreme” risk zones, where even a category 1 hurricane has the potential to cause damage.

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A heat map attached to the report shows coastal areas, as expected, have the highest risk, as does southern Miami-Dade County.

South Florida isn’t the worst region in every category of the report, however. New York City — despite having about 60,000 fewer homes at risk — has a much higher reconstruction cost of $260 billion. — Sean Stewart-Muniz 

Check out the report’s full flooding heat map below

South Florida surge risk