LOS ANGELES — Your flood insurance policy doesn’t sit in a drawer anymore. It watches you. It watches your house watch the water watch your bank account and, when the rain comes, it reaches out for its own subscription renewal.
Last Tuesday, I received a notification: Policy Auto-Renewal Required. Monthly Premium: $47.89. Cancel? You’ve already signed. The contract says you own the flood risk, we own the subscription.
It’s 2026. We’ve reached the point where climate disasters are no longer “events” — they’re features. And every feature requires a subscription.
NEW YORK — Mayor Xavier Santos of Miami-Dade County submitted his city’s $2.3 billion sea wall project to the Federal Climate Adaptation Bureau last week, only to receive notice that the project now requires a 47-page Environmental Impact Statement on Whether the Sea Wall Can Save the City From a Flood That Has Already Drowned Three Neighboring Towns.
“We are in a state of profound bureaucratic limbo,” Santos told reporters from a temporary office located in a flood elevation zone that will no longer be classified as habitable until 2027. “We need to determine if our infrastructure is sufficient to handle the 14.3-foot surge predicted by the National Oceanographic Administration before we can even begin construction. In the meantime, we are issuing permits to sell the property to wealthy climate refugees who have been pre-approved for tax-deductible evacuation status.”