The report shows that Long Island residents face significant financial risk as a result of flooding

More than 530,000 Long Islanders live in properties at serious risk of flooding, according to new estimates released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

That’s more than 1 in 6 Long Islanders.

The report shows that the threat posed by flooding is no longer unique to coastal communities in and around New York City. The report shows that inland areas around the tri-state area are at risk of flooding due to heavy rainfall, flash floods and river overflows.

“Yes, the risk of coastal flooding is high, perhaps even higher than we expected, but it was really an inland risk,” that was striking, said Jacob Scott, co-author of the report for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Long Island experienced this type of event in August, when 6 to 10 inches of rain fell rapidly on communities in Suffolk County, including Miller Place and Stony Brook, flooding homes and causing damage estimated in the tens of millions.

Long Islanders need to start thinking differently about flood risk, which no longer just affects coastal areas of the South Shore, said Richard Murdocco, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University who teaches courses on environmental policy and planning.

Murdocco said he recently purchased flood insurance for his Smithtown home for $670 a year, even though he doesn’t need insurance and doesn’t live near a river or bay.

“I did it because the topography poses a risk and we just can’t handle 14 inches of rain,” Murdocco said. “There is currently a risk inland and this is not due to storm surge, which continues to be a risk and concern, or erosion. Now add to this flooding caused by extreme rainfall.”

Parts of Long Island were among the areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with the most households at severe risk of flooding. Long Beach ranked 7th, Freeport 16th and Oceanside 18th. Brooklyn, the state’s most populous county, had the highest number of at-risk households.

The report assessed properties using climate risk data from CoreLogic, a real estate data and analytics company. According to the report, these data included the average annual property loss, i.e. the damage that a property may suffer in a given year as a result of flooding, as part of the property’s insured value.

Properties with average annual losses above the 75th percentile of the country – in other words, the 25% riskiest properties in the U.S. – were considered to be at significant flood risk. There were over 1 million such properties in the tri-state area, home to approximately 4 million people who met these criteria.

The financial risk of flooding can be particularly harmful to people on low and moderate incomes. The analysis found that an estimated 1.5 million low- and moderate-income people live in high-risk properties, including about 174,000 on Long Island. Long Beach ranked seventh among low- and moderate-income households living in distressed properties, while Freeport ranked 20th in the tri-state area.

“Long Island is a place of great wealth, but also pockets of poverty,” said Claire Kramer Mills, co-author of the report. “That’s something that needs to be emphasized – the amount of risk for low- and moderate-income residents.”

Flood insurance costs are also rising. Changes to the National Flood Insurance Program that went into effect in 2022, called Risk Rating 2.0, have led to an escalation in premiums for properties located in higher-risk areas, as Newsday reported earlier this year. In the coming years, the average flood insurance premium on Long Island will nearly double, to about $2,500 a year compared to prices under the old system.

One reason flood insurance costs will continue to rise is that only people in federally designated flood zones are required to purchase insurance, said Aaron Stein, owner of the Norton and Siegel insurance brokerage in Babylon. This has created a misconception that only these people need insurance to protect themselves from the costs of flood damage, he said.

The looming threat of flooding is also creating greater affordability issues on Long Island because first-time homebuyers must factor in the cost of flood insurance if they want to buy a home that requires it, Stein said.

Ultimately, he suspects, some homebuyers will avoid homes burdened with expensive flood insurance bills in the same way they might consider the cost of property taxes.

“At some point, it will start to affect property values, just like taxes,” Stein said.