CEDAR KEY, Fla. – The innkeeper wonders whether it’s worth rebuilding this town dotted across a small archipelago – again . The clam farmer worries about impacts to its namesake bivalves and visitors alike. And the business leader contemplates what Mother Nature will throw at them next as the climate changes. “Natural disasters are natural disasters,” said innkeeeper Ian Maki , who has lived through five hurricanes since moving in 2018 to the island community southwest of Gainesville. “But these don’t feel natural anymore.” Tens of thousands of residents of Florida’s Big Bend region are confronting the same fears in the wake of Hurricane Helene. And those feelings are i ncreasingly shared by coastal residents from Alaska to California and Maine, as stronger, more frequent storms and rising ocean levels upend their lives and livelihoods. Many insurers already have curtailed coverage or withdrawn entirely from some areas, indicating their long-term perspective risk. Officials have not yet released official damage estimates from Helene, but financial services company CoreLogic initially estimated commercial and residential damage in just Florida and Georgia to be at least $3 billion and as much as $5 billion. That number is expected to rise substantially due to extensive flood damage across Tennessee and South and North Carolina. A 2022 USA TODAY investigation warned the United States is facing a climate catastrophe as natural disasters accelerate: Since 1980, the U.S. has typically suffered eight disasters a year with more than $1 billion in economic damage costs. But over the past five years, the nation has seen an average of 18 billion-dollar disasters annually, according to federal data. Scientists who study the Earth’s climate and weather say storms like Helene are more likely to occur in the future. Unlike more traditional hurricanes that gather strength over a relatively long […]