CoreLogic: 6.9M Homes at Risk for Hurricane Storm Surge Damage in 2017
Nearly 6.9 million homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are at potential risk of damage from hurricane storm surge inundation with a total reconstruction cost value (RCV) of more than $1.5 trillion (Table 1), according to the 2017 Storm Surge Report released by CoreLogic.
The CoreLogic analysis examines risk from hurricane-driven storm surge for homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines across 19 states and the District of Columbia, as well as for 86 metro areas. Homes are categorized among five risk levels: Low (homes affected only by a Category 5 storm), Moderate (homes affected by Category 4 and 5 storms), High (homes affected by Category 3, 4 and 5 storms), Very High (homes affected by Category 2, 3, 4 and 5 storms) and Extreme (homes affected by Category 1-5 storms).
“Despite the fact that this year’s hurricane season is predicted to have fewer storms than last year, it doesn’t mitigate the risk of storm surge damage,” said Dr. Tom Jeffery, senior hazard scientist at CoreLogic. “As we’ve seen with past storms, even one single hurricane at a lower-level category can cause significant damage if it makes landfall in a highly populated area.”
At the regional level, the Atlantic Coast has 3.9 million homes at risk of storm surge with an RCV of $970 billion, and the Gulf Coast has just under 3 million homes at risk with $593 billion in potential exposure to total destruction damage (Table 2).
At the local level, 15 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) account for 67.3 percent of the 6.9 million total at-risk homes and 68.6 percent of the total $1.56 trillion RCV (Table 5). This disproportionate distribution of homes suggests that the location of hurricanes that make landfall is often a more important factor than the number of storms that may occur during the year. The Miami CBSA, which includes Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, has the most homes at risk totaling almost 785,000 with an RCV of $143 billion. By comparison, the New York City CBSA has slightly fewer homes at risk at 723,000, but a significantly higher total RCV totaling $264 billion due to the greater home values and high construction costs in this area.