{"id":850311,"date":"2026-09-16T23:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T23:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850311\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T23:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T23:20:10","slug":"youd-expect-homeowners-to-save-their-stuff-federal-policy-pays-them-to-leave-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850311\/","title":{"rendered":"You&#8217;d expect homeowners to save their stuff. Federal policy pays them to leave it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dramatic videos show waterfront houses collapsing into the water. It&#8217;s happening across the United States, from California to Michigan to Maine.<\/p>\n<p>\nOne hotspot is Dare County, N.C., where more than 30 homes have collapsed since 2020, including one as recently as this summer. About 100 additional houses there are threatened by erosion exacerbated by sea level rise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/npr.org\/2026\/09\/16\/nx-s1-5844642\/fema-homes-collapse-ocean-climate-north-carolina-maine\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Yet there is no plan to remove most of the threatened houses<\/a> \u2014 or to empty them of personal belongings before they fall \u2014 because of perverse incentives created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).<\/p>\n<p>\nNPR dug into the upside-down world of FEMA flood insurance in coastal areas, and found <a href=\"https:\/\/npr.org\/2026\/09\/16\/nx-s1-5844642\/fema-homes-collapse-ocean-climate-north-carolina-maine\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">many homeowners have no financial choice but to let their homes collapse<\/a>. That&#8217;s leading to massive amounts of debris and pollution, which closes beaches, threatens wildlife and necessitates costly taxpayer-funded cleanup efforts.<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd the problem is only getting worse. As climate-driven sea level rise accelerates erosion around the country, there is growing alarm among waterfront homeowners, local officials and even members of Congress. Everyone agrees the status quo is unsustainable. But can they agree on a long-term solution?\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2026 NPR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dramatic videos show waterfront houses collapsing into the water. It&#8217;s happening across the United States, from California to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-850311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}