Startling map reveals where Americans are most at risk from deadly weather

The US Southeast is reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Helene, which toppled trees, flooded homes and killed more than 215 people after plowing into Florida late last week.

Families across Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida are mourning lost loved ones, inspecting ravaged properties and starting to rebuild their shattered lives.

But for those affected — and for ever more people across the rest of the country — Helene raises troubling questions about the future of their homes, communities, and livelihoods.

Millions of people have already been forced to relocate due to worsening storms, wildfires, heat, and floods, and tens of millions more are set to join the great climate migration in the coming decades.

The question on the lips of many Americans is: 'Is my family in danger?'

To help answer this, The Mail worked with SafeHome.org, a research group, to rank and then map out the lower 48 US states that were at the greatest risk from weather disasters.

Across the US, the average risk from climate change impacts was scored at 229 on the index — but for some states, that number is much higher, says the group's researcher Rob Gabriele.

'There are a handful of unlucky states that by virtue of their geographic placement will be especially threatened by climate change,' says Gabriele.

Topping the index was Florida, with a risk factor of 308.

This may come as no surprise to residents of its Big Bend region, where Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on September 26, levelling homes with its 140-mile-an-hour winds.

South Carolina (with a risk factor of 282), Louisiana (281), North Carolina (276), and Mississippi (270) rounded out the five most threatened states.

The pattern is clear: nine of the 10 states that are likely to bear the brunt of climate change are across the American South.

Those with long coastlines are at the greatest peril, as melting ice caps and rising sea levels raise the danger of flooding.

The index also offers a lodestar for where climate migrants should head.

The safest destination is landlocked Vermont, with a risk score of just 30.

The Green Mountain State is threatened by extreme temperatures in the summer, researchers said, but is likely to be spared from drought, wildfires, or floods.

New Hampshire (63), Massachusetts (99), Minnesota (104), and Colorado (106), rounded at the five least-threatened states in the nation.

The second clear pattern is that many of the safest states are in America's Northeast, which is set to endure less severe effects of climate change than elsewhere.

To create the index, researchers used data from Climate Central, a New Jersey-based institute, on the numbers of people who are at risk of extreme weather events.

There was not enough information available to rank Alaska and Hawaii for the study.

The research may offer a roadmap for those left homeless and destitute or simply scared by Helene, which ranks among the deadliest storms in US history.

Among them are the residents of Tampa Bay, which lies some 200 miles south of where Helene made landfall, but is a much more heavily populated area.

There, the storm pushed Gulf of Mexico seawater over sea defenses and into neighborhoods and homes, in some places rising to seven feet above ground level.

At least 11 people were left dead in Tampa Bay, more than 1,000 were rescued and tens of thousands saw their homes deluged.

For Kento Kawakami, a resident of low-lying Davis Island, near downtown Tampa, Helene brought home a problem that's been getting worse for years.

Helene followed a similar path to Hurricane Idalia last August and Hurricane Debby last month, which also put wide swathes of the area underwater.

'I feel like it's just gotten worse every year,' Kawakami told The New York Times.

'At some point, you can't ignore that anymore.'

Others have already bitten the bullet and moved out of harm's way.

Alex Hannaford and his family in 2020 left Texas, which ranks as the seventh-most threatened US state, with a risk factor of 264.

The 50-year-old says they were escaping the increasingly frequent 100°F scorcher days, among other reasons.

'Austin's getting hotter and drier, and the water is not a finite resource,' he told The Mail.

The rivers and watering holes he once enjoyed with his family are drying up, he says, as a growing population and climate change drained groundwater supplies.

They moved some 2,000 miles to upstate New York, where Hannaford says they enjoy having 'seasons again' and have escaped the extreme heat.

He goes so far as to call his family 'climate refugees.'

Those living in the path of hurricanes and wildfires have encountered a problem beyond the powers of Mother Nature: a lack of insurance.

A report last month from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that residents of high-risk areas were struggling to insure their properties against natural disasters, which was either becoming more expensive or was no longer available.

But Americans do not appear to heed these danger signs — as much domestic migration is into the states most threatened by climate change.

New York, California, and other relatively expensive states have in recent years lost people to such southern states as Florida and Texas.

Florida, which is frequently battered by hurricanes, gained millions of new residents between 2000 and 2023.

Meanwhile, Texas boomtowns like Houston, Austin, and Dallas-Fort Worth, have mushroomed in recent years despite each being at risk of many climate dangers.

The devastation from Helene has doubtless revived fears of climate chaos, but, for now, it seems that some Americans will continue to move into the eye of the storm.