Nature Quest: Rebuild Or Relocate Post-Disaster?

Summary

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Short Wave – “Nature Quest: Rebuild Or Relocate Post-Disaster?”

Date: October 28, 2025
Hosts: Emily Kwong & Hannah Chin

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Emily Kwong and producer Hannah Chin explore the concept of "managed retreat"—the planned and coordinated relocation of communities away from areas that are increasingly uninhabitable due to natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. Prompted by a listener question from Christchurch, New Zealand, the hosts investigate case studies from New Zealand, Alaska, Illinois, and New York. The episode tackles the tough question: Is managed retreat a reasonable and effective disaster response strategy, and what challenges do communities face when deciding whether to rebuild or relocate?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Question: Christchurch’s “Red Zones”

• Timestamps: 00:25–01:33
  • Background: After earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, much of the land was declared unfit for housing. The government offered buyouts, and over 95% of affected residents accepted. The formerly populated “red zones” now host community gardens and walking paths.
  • Prompt: Listener Molly Magid asks, “Is managed retreat a reasonable strategy for dealing with climate change disasters elsewhere?”

2. What Is Managed Retreat?

• Timestamps: 01:41–02:57
  • Definition: “Managed retreat is the purposeful and coordinated movement of people and assets out of harm’s way. And it’s a part of the larger disaster risk reduction toolbox." — Emily Kwong [01:41]
  • Necessity: If preventative steps aren’t taken, disasters can devastate entire communities, as in recent Alaskan flooding following Typhoon Ha Long.
  • Human Impact: Displacement is not theoretical—over 2,000 Alaskans lost homes recently.

3. Approaches to Managed Retreat

• Timestamps: 05:32–07:11
  • Spectrum of Strategies:
    • Top-Down: Government-initiated and enforced, e.g. New Zealand’s red zones.
    • Community-Led: Driven by local residents, who organize and seek support, e.g. Valmier, Illinois.
  • Quote: “People in the local community, they are the experts of the lived experiences. They're the ones dealing firsthand with these climate stressors.” — Elena Sutley, University of Kansas [06:17]

4. Case Study: Valmier, Illinois (1993)

• Timestamps: 07:14–08:26
  • Background: After the 1993 Midwest floods destroyed most of the town, residents collectively decided to relocate. With FEMA and state support, 300+ homes and 25 businesses moved to higher ground in under four years.
  • Precedent: Set the standard for U.S. buyout programs.

5. The U.S. Buyout Landscape

• Timestamps: 08:26–09:57

  • Data: Over 40,000 U.S. households have sold their homes to the government through buyout programs (Miyuki Hino, UNC Chapel Hill).

  • Process:

    • Owners are paid the "pre-flood" value
    • Homes are demolished, land is restored to open space, and restricted from future build

  • Unintended Outcomes: Not all neighbors move; some rebuild; some properties are redeveloped, leading to “patchwork” communities.

  • Notable Quote:

    • “This is not managed retreat. This is chaotic.” — Hurricane Sandy survivor to Miyuki Hino [09:57]
    • Highlights the lack of coordination—some houses demolished, others renovated, leading to fractured neighborhoods.

6. Infrastructure & Equity Challenges

• Timestamps: 10:35–11:23

  • Consequence: Where some leave and others stay, maintaining roads, utilities, and services for shrinking, dispersed populations becomes logistically and financially challenging.

  • Notable Quote:

    • “So can you maintain a road if now there's actually only one household that lives on it, and there used to be 20?... Or how do you maintain water and wastewater and trash pickup when now your community is split across multiple different geographies?” — Miyuki Hino [10:55]

7. Alaska: Community Survival Hinges on Funding

• Timestamps: 11:41–13:44

  • Spotlight: Nunnapitchuk, Alaska—though the community has land to relocate to, lacks the estimated $277 million needed for the move.

  • Key Factors: Ownership of the new site, community consensus, and the challenge of securing government resources.

  • Contrast: Other villages like Quigillingoc lack both funding and suitable land, leading to even greater vulnerability.

  • Notable Quote:

    • “We are very fortunate to have no red tape towards the site we had wanted to relocate to.” — Morris Alexie, Nunnapitchuk resident [13:06]

8. The Role of Government Partnership

• Timestamps: 11:23–14:39

  • Insight: Successful managed retreat depends on genuine partnership and open exchange between governments and local communities.

  • Federal-State Dynamics: Uncertainty as disaster recovery funding potentially shifts from federal to state responsibility—posing new challenges for localities with limited resources.

  • Societal “Resilience”:

    • Quote:
      • “The way that we should be thinking about resilience is not so much in the hazards that you’re going to face, but much more in the social system and the community and the government effectiveness of what happens to people on the ground.” — Miyuki Hino [14:39]

9. Final Takeaways

• Timestamps: 15:06–15:17
  • Bottom Line: Managed retreat can be a solution, but its success is less about geography and more about community strength and support systems.
  • Quote:
    • “It totally can be, but it's not because of where you live. It's because of who you live among and what systems are in place to protect you in the event of a disaster.” — Emily Kwong [15:06]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On collective loss:

  • “Kipnock is our hometown and we've been living there all our life. Everything is lost now. All the memories and all the horrors are gone.”
    — Morris Alexie [02:28]

• On community resilience:

  • “As much as the community wants this, they're missing that financial support from the federal government, which all of those other places that we talked about earlier… had in one way or another.”
    — Hannah Chin [13:44]

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Useful Timestamps

• Christchurch, NZ managed retreat origins: 00:25–01:33
• Recent Alaska displacement: 01:41–02:42
• Types of managed retreat: 05:32–07:11
• Valmier, Illinois case study: 07:14–08:26
• Hurricane Sandy buyouts: 09:00–09:57
• Nunnapitchuk, Alaska relocation challenge: 11:41–13:44
• Definition of climate resilience: 14:39

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Episode Tone & Style

Friendly, inquisitive, and empathetic, Emily and Hannah deftly mix serious reporting with occasional humor and heartfelt moments from affected community members. The hosts give space to expert voices and first-hand accounts while guiding the listener through complex policy and practical considerations surrounding post-disaster recovery.

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Summary

This episode of Short Wave delves into the growing, often complicated phenomenon of managed retreat—what it means for communities tasked with rebuilding or relocating after disasters. With illustrated examples from both the U.S. and abroad, the hosts conclude that while managed retreat is both viable and sometimes necessary, its success is not determined by location alone, but by the strength of community bonds, open government partnership, and access to resources. The episode leaves listeners with a powerful reframing: real resilience lies in a community’s capacity to respond and support each other in the face of climate-driven adversity.

Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Emily Kwong]

You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, Short Wavers.

[Hannah Chin]

Emily Kwong here with producer Hannah Chin.

[Emily Kwong]

And for this month's Nature Quest, we're we are digging into a question from Mali Magid in Ototai or Christchurch, New Zealand. This community has a pretty unique history. So the Otakro Avon river corridor is what I think the official name is. It is also called the Red zone, or at least that was the name that a lot of people adopted after the earthquakes.

[Hannah Chin]

So Molly's talking about the series of earthquakes that hit Christchurch over a decade ago. They left a lot of the land near where she lives. And to prevent death and destruction from any future earthquakes in that area, the New Zealand government offered to buy people out of their homes and designated certain areas as residential red zones.

[Emily Kwong]

Interesting. And did people take the government up on this, on moving out?

[Hannah Chin]

Yeah. So about 16,000 people in Christchurch, over 95% accepted the government's offer. And Molly told us now those red zones are home to things like community gardens and walking paths.

[Emily Kwong]

There should be plots of land where houses are, but there's nothing there.

[Hannah Chin]

She wanted to know more about this process, managed retreat, and whether it's a reasonable strategy for dealing with climate change disaster in other parts of the world.

[Emily Kwong]

What is managed retreat and how are communities experiencing it? Great question, Molly. Okay, so managed retreat is the purposeful and coordinated movement of people and assets out of harm's way. And it's a part of the larger disaster risk reduction toolbox. There's lots of things we can do to protect communities, but if we do nothing, a flood or an earthquake or a fire can devastate or displace an entire group of people. And that is exactly what is happening in the state where I used to live and report Alaska. Earlier this month, the remnants of Typhoon Ha Long slammed into the coast, flooding villages and ripping houses off their foundations. Evacuee Luke Amick Jr. Mourned the loss of his village as he spoke to Alaska public media reporter Eric Stone. Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you.

[Morris Alexie]

Coming on board, Kipnock is our hometown and we've been living there all our life. Everything is lost now. All are all the memories and all the horrors are gone.

[Emily Kwong]

Kipnuk and Quingyllingoc were the hardest hit villages, but there's destruction across the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta, the YK Delta. This is a coastal region that has sustained indigenous people for millennia. And now as many as 2,000 Alaskans from that area are displaced.

[Hannah Chin]

Yeah, that's so many. I mean, I know that Alaska's governor called for a federal disaster declaration to unlock federal aid to rebuild these communities. President Trump announced on Truth Social that he approved $25 million for the state.

[Emily Kwong]

Yes, this aid did come through. It will be critical for Alaska's recovery. The thing is, Alaska knew something like this could happen in the YK Delta. That region is especially vulnerable to climate change. In fact, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has estimated that over 140 communities, many in the YK Delta, are facing some form of erosion, permafrost or flooding. And the question for many of them, long before this typhoon has been is it better to just move out of harm's way?

[Hannah Chin]

So today on the show Manage Retreat in a Warming World, we're looking at case studies from New Zealand, New York, Illinois and Alaska of people on the move as the ground shifts beneath their feet.

[Emily Kwong]

I'm Emily Kwong.

[Hannah Chin]

And I'm Hannah Chinny. You're listening to Short Wave, the Science podcast from NPR.

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[Hannah Chin]

All right, Em. We're back with Nature Quest, which is our monthly series inspired by listener questions about their changing environment. And this month's question is about Manage retreat, the process of leaving. I guess I'm wondering where in the world are people generally retreating from? And then how do they make that decision?

[Emily Kwong]

Yes. So one, this has been happening for decades. This is nothing new. It's just getting more common under climate change. Two, it seems to be happening most within communities near water, so places that are flood prone. And three, the question of how retreat happens tends to fall somewhere along two ends of a spectrum.

[Hannah Chin]

Okay, tell me more about that spectrum. What are those two ends?

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah, and this is not scientific. This is just how I'm organizing these case studies. Totally on the one end you have kind of top down. So these are places where the government initiated and oversaw the retreat. And it's saying this needs to happen, this has to happen. Check these boxes, you'll get the money and then go figure it out. This is Alaina Sutley, a professor in structural engineering at the University of Kansas. And based on what she told me, I realized the other end to the spectrum is a community led approach, or at least community initiated, where a town or a neighborhood calls for its own relocation and seeks out financial aid and political support to make it happen.

[Hannah Chin]

Huh. Okay, so which approach is more effective?

[Emily Kwong]

It really depends on where you live. But overall, I would say it is really important to have community buy in even better community participation. As Elena put it, people in the local community, they are the experts of the lived experiences. They're the ones dealing firsthand with these climate stressors. Elena is a lead co investigator on a four year study looking at manageretreat all over the world. And she told me again and again, the best outcomes tend to happen when there is a process that involves the people.

[Hannah Chin]

All right, has that happened before? Do we have any examples?

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah, it's happened in the U.S. let's talk about what some people cite as the first real case of managed retreat in the US and that is in 1993. I know, we were like children.

[Hannah Chin]

Well, I wasn't even born fair, I'll tell you that.

[Emily Kwong]

Back then, the Mississippi river topped its levee system. This is known as the Great Midwest flood of 1993. And it engulfed the village of Valmier, Illinois. The flood water lingered for months. It damaged like 90% of the buildings. And in response to this disaster, the town went through a process that they led themselves to relocate together.

[Hannah Chin]

Okay, so they had general consensus, they decided to move.

[Emily Kwong]

Yes.

[Hannah Chin]

How did it go?

[Emily Kwong]

They took a vote. There were many meetings and they brought in the federal government to help. So fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state of Illinois actually bought over 300 flood damaged homes and 25 businesses. And after a lot of work, the town was rebuilt two miles away on higher ground. And that is where it stands now. They did this all in Less than four years.

[Hannah Chin]

Wild. Okay, so it seems like this was pretty successful.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah.

[Hannah Chin]

How common is this kind of thing?

[Emily Kwong]

You know, I will say this. Valmar did set a precedent for buyout programs. I mean, these programs are now the most common form of managed retreat in the U.S. miyuki Hino has crunched the numbers on this. She's an environmental social scientist at the University of North Carolina at chapel hill.

[Miyuki Hino]

Over 40,000 households around the US have made this choice to sell their house to the government. Generally speaking, they get paid the pre flood value of their home and then the government tears it down, restores it to open space, and it's deed restricted, meaning you can't ever build on that again.

[Emily Kwong]

It's happened in almost every state in the U.S. even in states where at first the government resisted buying the land. After a disaster that happened in New York after Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012.

[Miyuki Hino]

The city remains paralyzed. Many businesses are closed, power is still out for tens of thousands, and the city's subway system is shut down.

[Emily Kwong]

The floodwater caused extensive damage. People were worried about their safety. So on Staten island on Long island, residents in several neighborhoods wanted a buyout. And they were told, no, the government is not going to buy your land. So the community escalated the issue. They reached out to their state senators, they put pressure on the state government to offer a buyout. And it worked. And New York started a buyback program for survivors of Hurricane Sandy. So Elena considers this a grassroots success, but there are some downsides. Miyuki, the researcher at unc, told me about this conversation she had with a Hurricane Sandy survivor who did sell his home to the government.

[Miyuki Hino]

And he said, this is not managed retreat. This is chaotic because he had sold his home, it was getting torn down and restored to open space. His neighbor had just rebuilt normally, and then two doors down, they had sold to a real estate developer who was flipping it and building a much larger house than had been there before. And so he's looking around and going, well, we have some percentage of this neighborhood that's never going to be built on again. But in other places, we're adding people, we're adding assets, we're adding risk.

[Emily Kwong]

And this is one of the big problems with managed retreat in general. Unless there's some kind of red zoning like happened in New Zealand, or a kind of widespread community cooperation like happened in Valmier, Illinois, managed retreat can take on this kind of hodgepodge pattern where some homeowners sell and others stay and some build back even more.

[Miyuki Hino]

So can you maintain a road if now there's actually only one household that lives on it, and there used to be 20. Right. Or how do you maintain water and wastewater and trash pickup when now your community is split across multiple different geographies than it wasn't before?

[Hannah Chin]

Right. Wow. I didn't even think about that. I mean, I'm gonna be honest, Emily. I kind of feel like these examples are leaving me with way more questions than answers.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah, I mean, the one thing I kept coming back to doing this reporting is the notion of partnership, of government, community partnership. When there is open conversation between the people in harm's way and, and the people who can pay to get them out, manage, retreat, can work. And that brings me back to where the story started. Alaska.

[Morris Alexie]

I have lived all my 57 years here in the community of Nunnapetchuk.

[Emily Kwong]

Morris Alexie has spent his entire life watching the land give way, the permafrost. So the frozen bedrock is thawing. It's softening. In his community, there's boardwalks that cover the village. It's so people can move around without sinking into the land. And watching all of this over the years as neighbors lost their homes, Morris has started to say the word relocate more loudly. He is a community engagement specialist with the Wood well Climate Research center and is part of a village wide effort to move Nunnapetchuk to higher ground 50ft above sea level.

[Morris Alexie]

The possible new site we have chosen is only 3,4 miles straight south of where we at now. We would not be moving somewhere far from what we've grown up eating and living off of.

[Hannah Chin]

Right. So far away enough that they'd be safe, but close enough that they could still practice subsistence, basically maintain their way of life.

[Emily Kwong]

Yeah. And even better, this land is land the village already owns. Quigillingoc. That's one of the villages that was heavily damaged by the typhoon last month. They were also trying to relocate, but they didn't have an obvious place to move and the storm got there first.

[Morris Alexie]

They themselves did not have any land that was high enough for them in their area. So we are very fortunate to have no red tape towards the site we had wanted to relocate to.

[Hannah Chin]

Okay, so Nanapochak seems like kind of the perfect example. They have it all. They have the new site, they have community buy in. How come they haven't moved already?

[Emily Kwong]

They don't have the money. An estimate from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium says It will take $277 million to relocate Nunappachuk. But not a single federal north state agency has truly stepped forward to help pay.

[Hannah Chin]

Oh, okay, so as much as the community wants this, they're missing that financial support from the federal government, which all of those other places that we talked about earlier, New York, Illinois, et cetera.

[Emily Kwong]

All of them had in one way or another. Eventually, yes, the economics have to work. But President Trump's vision is to transfer disaster recovery entirely to the states. And all of this, it just poses a huge challenge to state and local governments, Right?

[Hannah Chin]

Plus, like, can states honestly pay for all that disaster recovery themselves?

[Emily Kwong]

It really is going to depend on the state. Miyuki Hino hopes that states will take up leadership, strengthen infrastructure, deploy early warning systems, build community networks so people can check in on one another and share resources. But again, it depends really on where you live. And Miyuki told me this has given her a new definition about what it means to live in a climate haven.

[Miyuki Hino]

I feel even more strongly now that the way that we should be thinking about resilience is not so much in the hazards that you're going to face, but much more in the social system and the community and the government effectiveness of what happens to people on the ground.

[Hannah Chin]

Okay, so I guess this brings us back to the question that Molly asked, right? Is manage, retreat a reasonable strategy?

[Emily Kwong]

It totally can be, but it's not because of where you live. It's because of who you live among and what systems are in place to protect you in the event of a disaster.

[Hannah Chin]

Emily Kwong, thanks so much for bringing us this reporting.

[Emily Kwong]

Thank you, Hannah. This episode was produced by Hannah Chin and edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts.

[Hannah Chin]

Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our senior vice president of podcasting. I'm Hannah Chin.

[Emily Kwong]

And I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Short Wave.

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