Dangerous flooding has damaged neighborhoods in almost every state in 2025, leaving homes a muddy mess. … We study flood resilience and have been mapping the results of government buyout programs across the U.S. that purchase damaged homes after disasters to turn them into open space. Our new national maps of who relocates and where they go after a flood shows that most Americans who move from buyout areas stay local. However, we also found that the majority of them give up their home to someone else, either selling it or leaving a rental home, rather than taking a government buyout offer. That transfers the risk to a new resident, leaving the community still facing future costly risks.