You'd expect homeowners to save their stuff. Federal policy pays them to leave it

Dramatic videos show waterfront houses collapsing into the water. It's happening across the United States, from California to Michigan to Maine.

One hotspot is Dare County, N.C., where more than 30 homes have collapsed since 2020, including one as recently as this summer. About 100 additional houses there are threatened by erosion exacerbated by sea level rise.

Yet there is no plan to remove most of the threatened houses — or to empty them of personal belongings before they fall — because of perverse incentives created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).