We meet at Devin Waterfront's house in Fort Myers on a Wednesday afternoon in July 2035, and the first thing you notice is the stilts. The entire house perches eight feet up on engineered concrete pillars, like it's trying to keep the building at arm's length from the earth itself. The second thing you notice is the sound: a low, steady hum from the propane generator in the side yard, keeping the AC running during the 2-to-6 p.m. rolling blackout that's become routine during Florida summers.
Devin, 42, moved here from Manhattan in March 2021 with their spouse and six-month-old daughter, chasing space and sunshine and a mortgage payment that felt like a miracle compared to Brooklyn rents. They bought at $485,000—"the absolute peak of the market, naturally"—and recently had the house appraised at $340,000. That number assumes you can find insurance, which you cannot. Not in any conventional sense.
Their kids—now 9 and 7—are at what Devin calls "climate camp," a summer program that teaches hurricane preparedness alongside swimming lessons. In the kitchen, a laminated NOAA flood map sits next to the kids' artwork, marked up with highlighter in three colors representing different storm surge scenarios.
You moved here right in the middle of the COVID housing boom. Walk me through that decision.
Devin: laughs Oh god. Okay, so. March 2021, we're in a 900-square-foot apartment in Brooklyn with a baby who's learning to crawl, my spouse is doing Zoom calls from the bedroom closet, I'm working from the kitchen table, and we're paying $3,400 a month to feel like we're living in a very expensive cage.
Then my company goes permanently remote, and suddenly we're looking at Zillow at midnight like everyone else in America. Fort Myers comes up. Beautiful houses with pools and palm trees for half what we'd pay in the suburbs of New Jersey.
I'm a financial analyst—or I was, I do something weirder now—so I ran the numbers. Mortgage, property tax, insurance. Insurance was $2,100 a year. That's what I remember. Two thousand one hundred dollars. For a whole house.
In 2024, before we elevated, it hit $18,000. Now we're in the state's last-resort plan at $31,000 annually, and that covers maybe 60% of replacement cost.
But in 2021? Climate change was this abstract thing. I knew about it, obviously. I'd read the articles. But there's knowing and there's knowing. We thought: hurricanes happen, sure, but people have lived here forever. We'll get a generator, we'll be fine. The house was three miles from the coast. Felt safe enough. And the schools were good, and there was a yard, and we could breathe.
When did it stop feeling like the right decision?
Devin: long pause
Hurricane Idalia in August 2023 didn't hit us directly, but it was the first time I really understood storm surge. Water came up into the neighborhood. Not into our house, but close. Close enough that I spent three hours at 2 a.m. moving everything we owned onto tables and counters while my spouse was trying to keep the kids calm.
And then in 2024, when State Farm and Farmers both pulled out of Florida entirely1, and our insurance renewal came back at 340% of the previous year... that's when the math stopped mathing.
But here's the thing. gestures around We'd already sunk so much into this place. Not just money, though that too. Our daughter started kindergarten here. We had friends. My spouse's parents had moved down to be near the grandkids. You don't just unwind a life because the insurance market collapsed.
So you decided to fortify instead of leave. Tell me about elevating the house.
Devin: The elevation cost $180,000.
pauses
I can hear how that sounds. We borrowed against my spouse's parents' place to do it, and we'll probably be paying it off until we're 60. But the calculation was: if we sell, we take a $150,000 loss minimum, probably more like $200,000 once you factor in realtor fees and the fact that buyers are scarce. Plus, where do we go? Raleigh? Austin? Everywhere has something now. At least here we know what we're dealing with.
The elevation process took four months. They literally jack up your entire house, pour new foundation pillars, and set it back down. The kids thought it was hilarious at first. "Our house is flying!" Then they realized they couldn't play in the yard for months because it was a construction site. My daughter drew pictures of our house with legs. We still have them on the fridge.
The weird part is, now that it's done, I feel... I don't know if "safer" is the right word. More like we've named the thing we're afraid of and taken a specific action against it. The house can handle six feet of storm surge now. Will that be enough in 2045? shrugs No idea. But it's enough for now.
What's it like raising kids here? How do you talk to them about all this?
Devin: sighs
That's the question that keeps me up at night. My nine-year-old, she's smart. Too smart. Last month she asked me, "Dad, why did you move us to a place that's going to be underwater?"
And I... what do you say to that? I tried explaining about timing, about what we knew versus what we know now, about how adults make decisions with incomplete information. She just looked at me and said, "That sounds like you made a mistake."
Kids are brutal. Brutal and correct.
But also—and this is important—they're resilient in ways I didn't expect. They don't remember life before this. To them, this is just normal. You have hurricane supplies. You know which roads flood. You go to climate camp in the summer where they teach you to read weather radar and practice evacuation drills. It's like how I grew up doing earthquake drills in California. Part of the landscape of childhood.
What kills me is the things they won't have. My daughter will never know what it's like to just assume your house will be there. To not think about insurance. To not have "flood anxiety" as a casual vocabulary term. She's nine and she knows what FEMA flood zones are.
That's not childhood. But it's her childhood.
You mentioned you do "something weirder" than financial analysis now. What does that mean?
Devin: laughs
Yeah, so. When the insurance market imploded, I started getting calls from neighbors asking me to explain their policies because I'm "good with numbers." Then a friend who's a real estate agent asked if I could consult on a deal that was falling through because the buyer couldn't get insurance2. Then another agent. Then a mortgage broker.
Now I run what's basically a climate risk consulting service for residential real estate. I help people understand what they're actually buying. Not just the house, but the risk profile. I pull flood maps, I analyze historical storm data, I translate insurance policies, I model out the 10-year cost of ownership including elevation, generators, hurricane shutters.
I tell people things their real estate agents won't: "This house is beautiful, and in 15 years it'll be uninsurable and unsellable."
It's depressing as hell, but it pays better than my old job, and there's no shortage of demand. Everyone who's trying to buy or sell property in Florida right now needs someone to explain the new math.
Do you ever tell people not to buy here?
Devin: All the time. But they usually don't listen.
Same reason I didn't listen in 2021. They want to believe it'll be fine. Or they're betting they can flip it before the risk catches up. Or they're retirees who figure they'll be dead before the real problems hit, which is dark, but I get it.
The people I respect most are the ones who go in eyes-wide-open. They say, "I want ten years here, I understand what I'm risking, I'm not treating this as a long-term investment." Those people usually make it work. It's the ones who are still pretending this is 2019 who get destroyed.
What do you wish you'd known in 2021?
Devin: long pause
That insurance markets can collapse faster than housing markets. That "three miles from the coast" doesn't mean anything when storm surge is involved. That elevation costs as much as a luxury car. That my kids would have climate anxiety before they hit double digits.
But also... I don't know if knowing those things would have changed our decision. We needed out of that apartment. We needed space and light and a yard. Maybe we would have picked North Carolina or Tennessee instead, but those places have their own problems now. Wildfires, heat, water stress.
looks out the window
There's no safe choice anymore. There are only different versions of risk. We chose this version. Some days I think we're idiots. Other days I think we're exactly as screwed as we would have been anywhere else, just in a more humid way.
Are you staying?
Devin: gestures at the elevated house, the generator, the hurricane shutters stacked in the garage
Yeah. We're staying. At least until the kids graduate high school. Maybe longer. We've put too much into this place. Money, yes, but also just... life. Our kids' friends are here. My spouse's parents are here. We know our neighbors, we know which streets flood first, we know where to evacuate to.
Is it rational? Probably not. But rationality isn't the only thing that matters.
We're making it work. The house is elevated. We've got solar panels and battery backup. We're teaching our kids to swim really, really well.
laughs
You adapt or you leave, and we've chosen adaptation. Ask me in ten years if it was the right call. But for now, we're here. The generator's running, the AC is on, and the kids will be home from climate camp in an hour wanting snacks and stories about the hurricane that wasn't as bad as everyone thought it would be.
pauses
That's Florida in 2035. You take your wins where you can find them.