Trying to Get Mom and Dad to Move Out of Florida

Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

When Hurricane Ian sliced through Naples, Florida, in September 2022, it tore up golf courses, flung residents’ cars miles away, and sent a 70-year-old retired oncologist named Mark on a yearslong quest to put the condominium building where he lives and serves as president of the housing board back together. The first floor of the structure was completely washed out and the surrounding landscape shredded to ribbons. As of a few weeks ago, the condo pool was back in action. Then came hurricanes Helene and Milton, sending Mark and his wife “back to square one” according to their son, Nick, who lives in Brooklyn. Hurricane Helene killed at least 200 people. About 100 remain missing. Experts have signaled that Helene and Milton each caused about $50 billion worth of damage. “Despite all of this,” Nick says of the fallout, “they are dug into the sunk cost that they have invested thus far.”

For decades, Florida has been the chosen destination for New Yorkers of a certain age and disposition to spend their sundown years. For every retired Floridian moving to New York, three retired New Yorkers replace them in the Sunshine State. In some ways, the infrastructure is built for it: Vast retirement communities, yearlong warmth, and endless beaches are all a quick flight from JFK or La Guardia. But with climate change leading to an increase in the length and intensity of hurricane season, the allure is fading — at least for the children of some of these transplants, who have added their parents’ current or future residence in the state to a long list of intergenerational worries, like a Marlboro Reds habit or refusing to go to the doctor.

Ariana Lopez’s parents, Upper West Side lifers who are planning a move to Delray Beach, just north of Boca Raton, are “not stressed about it at all,” she says. Despite challenging her parents with plausible what-ifs — about their safety, about the potential risks to their future home — they’re unmoved. The plan remains Florida, come hell or high water. “They don’t actually think it’s an issue that could affect them,” she says. But why not? Where Lopez sees a worsening series of climate catastrophes and the long tail of that wreckage, her parents see speculation and pessimism. “I haven’t had luck dissuading them,” she adds.

Tracy Deshmuk, who lives on the Upper West Side and has parents who retired to Sarasota, has a few theories about why retired residents who have newly moved into storm paths aren’t going anywhere. “You’re not there for a long time, you’re there for a good time,” she says. “If anyone’s willing to take the risk to live in these houses that are more dangerous, it’s going to be older people who are really just trying to live their life.”

Deshmuk’s parents, who she says are meticulous planners, chose Sarasota based on its rating among Florida flood zones. They live in Flood Zone D, the second-lowest ranking on an A-to-E scale where A is the most likely to face evacuation calls during a storm. Even so, the town was knocked around a fair bit by Milton. “People do have a weird gambler’s mind-set where they’re like, Well, if this happened now, then it’s not gonna happen again for a while — which is not true,” she says. “It’s just totally random.”

But is it really an easy life in a place so vulnerable to our changing climate? While Floridians were recovering from the damage Hurricane Ian left in 2022, an electricity company called Payless Power polled hundreds of transplants to the state. The survey showed that 38 percent of respondents regretted moving there, and only one-third felt safe in the aftermath of the storm.

A University of California, Berkeley, study published earlier this month in Nature found that, when considering indirect causes of mortality like catastrophic financial loss and lowered access to health care, hurricanes and tropical storms can account for about 300 times more deaths than government mortality counts. In fact, the study found, a full 13 percent of deaths in Florida may be linked to those extreme weather events. Beyond the immediate effect hurricanes can have, they create vast insurance headaches, lower quality of life as recovery occurs, and leave a profound sense of uncertainty for the six-month stints when they occur.

Which may give at least some of these couples something to think about. Nick, whose father helped orchestrate condominium recovery efforts in Naples, thinks the one-two punch of Helene and Milton has his parents second-guessing — especially with the complex once again buried under a foot of sand.

“I think he’s thinking, Oh, God, we got to do all this stuff again,” Nick says. “Realizing how many things have to go right for it not to be an issue — especially when people’s political ideology is based on the ineffectiveness of government — can be a daunting process.”