Americans often pull up roots in search of better jobs and cheaper housing. But in recent years these measures have drawn more people to regions at greater risk of natural disasters, which have become more destructive due to climate change.
Hurricane Milton, a powerful one Category 4 storm on Tuesday afternoon, is on track to hit the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, area late Wednesday or very early Thursday morning. Yet the metropolitan region has grown by 39% since 2000, increasing its population by another 1 million residents over that period.
Last month’s Hurricane Helene devastated parts of western North Carolinaincluding the city of Asheville, whose population has increased 13% since 2000, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The region has attracted new residents in recent decades by appealing to retirees, remote workers and other professionals pursuing Asheville’s highly regarded quality of life.
Tampa and Asheville’s population growth is part of a trend noted by economists, demographers and scientists: Regions facing increased risks from climate change are attracting more residents. The combination of growing populations and increasing natural disasters in turn creates the risk of even greater losses of life and property.
High-risk countries are outgrowing low-risk areas
According to research by economists Agustin Indaco, Francesc Ortega and Xinle Pang, the population of high-risk provinces has grown three percentage points faster than that of low-risk provinces over the past thirty years.
“Our results show that the US population is generally not withdrawing from risk areas,” they noted in a 2023 article published in Econofact. “In fact, there is increasing agglomeration in areas of high climate risk.”
The economists added: “These results imply that, even in the optimistic (and unlikely) case that climate risk would remain constant, natural hazards with record-breaking damage will continue to occur for the foreseeable future.”
Pandemic trends
To be fair, it’s not just communities in Florida and the Southwest that are experiencing the combination of population growth and more damaging climate disasters. Regions in western states from Washington to Arizona, which are at higher risk of more frequent heat waves and wildfires, have also seen recent population growth, according to research from the University of Vermont and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Climate disasters have also brought suffering to regions not considered high risk, such as Vermont, which was hit by deadly floods in 2023 and 2024, with the latest storm emerging from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.
Whatever the case, Americans are increasingly moving to disaster-prone areas, a problem that accelerated during the pandemic as some people sought to take advantage of remote work and change their place of residence in search of more affordable housing or a new lifestyle.
According to Freddie Mac, the migration of Americans to at-risk areas from regions with lower climate risk more than doubled during the first two years of the pandemic. More people moved to places at higher risk of wildfires, droughts and hurricanes, although there was one exception: Areas of California prone to earthquakes actually saw an outflow of residents, Freddie Mac researchers found.
But that may be due to residents leaving the state because of high housing costs, rather than fear of earthquakes, the researchers noted. Some of those people who left California may have simply moved to regions exposed to other climate-related risks, she added.
“[T]There is little evidence that natural hazards are, on average, a strong driver of emigration,” the researchers noted. “Instead, it is the affordability of the area, as suggested by out-migration from places like California and New York, that is driving migration. people away, unless there is a major natural disaster that provides information about the risks of the area in which they reside.”
Tipping point?
The question is whether natural disasters and climate change can create a tipping point at which residents begin to move away from risk areas.
There is already evidence that some Americans have become climate migrants: First Street Foundation, a nonprofit that studies climate change, found in a 2023 report that 3.2 million Americans have moved due to the increasing risk of flooding where they live. Some of these regions, which First Street calls “climate abandonment areas,” even exist in some of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, including coastal Florida and the Gulf Coast of Texas.
Some homes in disaster-prone areas are already facing higher insurance costs — if homeowners can get a policy at all. Florida homeowners have already shouldered a burden 45% increase in insurance rates from 2017 to 2022, according to a recent report from the Florida Policy Project.
The average annual premium for a Florida homeowner is $5,500 – about 140% higher than the average U.S. homeowner’s cost of $2,285, according to Bankrate.
And the growing risk of wildfires has hit parts of California effectively uninsurableaccording to a 2023 First Street analysis.
For some Tampa residents, Hurricane Milton will be the second storm to damage the region in weeks. Many are now evacuating, leading to clogged roads and empty gas stations. Whether that will deter other people from moving to Florida remains to be seen, but in the short term, residents told CBS Miami the impact could be severe.
“For most of us, this is all we have: most of everyone’s financial well-being is locked up in their homes,” Florida resident Jeff Garvey told CBS Miami.
