The cost to repair or rebuild the millions of US houses that are at high risk of hurricane or storm surge damage would be in the tens of trillions of dollars, according to new risk modelling data from CoreLogic.
According to CoreLogic’s “2022 Hurricane Report,” almost 7.8 million homes with a combined reconstruction cost value (RCV) of more than $2.3 trillion are susceptible to hurricane-related damages. The aggregate RCV of about 33 million properties, valued at about $10.5 trillion, puts them at risk of hurricane-force wind damage.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released data that indicated that the 2022 hurricane season would be above average, with as many as 21 named storms.
The top 15 US cities most vulnerable to hurricane and storm surge damage were also examined in the report. The New York City metro area has the highest risk of any American city, with almost 900,000 single-family homes (SFR) and multifamily homes (MFR) at danger of storm surge damage totaling nearly $433 billion and over four million SFR and MFR at risk of wind damage totaling over $2.2 trillion.
The Miami metro area follows the NYC metro area, with more than two million SFR and MFR properties with more than $521 billion in RCV at danger of wind damage and almost 770,000 SFR and MFR residences with almost $193 billion in RCV at risk of storm surge dWith over three million, almost 911,000, and more than 600,000 houses at risk, respectively, Florida, Louisiana, and New York have the most SFR and MFR residences at risk of storm damage among US states, according to CoreLogic. With more than 8.8 million homes at risk, Texas is the state with the highest hurricane wind risk.
According to Dr. Daniel Betten, chief meteorologist at CoreLogic, “this hurricane season might be unusually catastrophic for the US Gulf Coast due to warmer-than-normal Atlantic Ocean temperatures, a continuing La Nia, and a stronger than typical loop current in the Gulf of Mexico.” The sixth La Nina event in the past seven years, despite the fact that they generally happen once every three years, will likely occur this fall .
