U.S. Firms To Move Away HQs From Areas Prone To Flooding, Wildfires

Companies large and small, some with longtime roots in their neighborhoods, are on the hunt for new real estate that is less prone to weather and climate extremes, Axios' Andrew Freedman reported.

Photo Insert: The Hewlett Packard Campus in Houston, Texas

Driving the news: Within the past three years, tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a major hospital in South Carolina, and the nation's eighth-largest airline (by passengers carried) have all decided to move their infrastructure to higher ground.

Last month, Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s 332-bed facility on the Charleston peninsula announced a $500 million plan to move inland, after repeated bouts of flooding during coastal storms and so-called "sunny day flooding."

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is working to complete its new global headquarters in Spring, Texas, after experiencing extensive flooding at its former Houston-area campus in 2016 and again in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey.

In Florida, the discount airline Spirit announced it would add a second operations center in Orlando to supplement its current headquarters in Miramar, Florida, a region that was battered by high winds during Hurricane Irma in 2020.

The devastating tornadoes across six states last weekend could push even more companies to move, Freedman warned.

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