Hurricane Florence Surge Could Hit 759,000 Homes

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 6:08PM EST · Published Sep 11, 6:25AM EDT

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Hurricane Florence Surge Could Hit 759,000 Homes — © Dave Gatley / Wikimedia Commons

According to new research, Hurricane Florence could cause a storm surge that would damage 758,657 homes. Rebuilding these homes and local businesses may reach $170 billion in reconstruction cost values across the Carolinas and Virginia, according to CoreLogic.

Because of the force of a Category 4 hurricane, the losses from Florence could be more than Katrina’s $108 billion, although most of these estimates are not based exactly on CoreLogic’s methods. However, the difference is stark because a Category 4 hurricane can pack sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. And the surge could do more harm than winds and rain.

According to Weather.com:

According to research by Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, record storm-surge heights of 15 to 20 feet are possible just to the east of the landfall point if Florence strikes the coast of North or South Carolina as a Category 3 or stronger hurricane.

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Most of the damage would be in the large coastal cities of North and South Carolina. CoreLogic forecasts Virginia Beach-Norfolk area damage could reach 346,000 homes and total $80 million. Damage in Charlotte could be $34 billion and 133,000 homes.

Methodology:

CoreLogic offers high-resolution location information solutions with a view of hazard and vulnerability consistent with the latest science for more realistic risk differentiation. The high-resolution storm surge modeling using 10m digital elevation model (DEM) and parcel-based geocoding precision from PxPoint™ facilitates this realistic view of risk. Single-family residential structures less than four stories, including mobile homes, duplexes, manufactured homes and cabins (among other non-traditional home types) are included in this analysis. This is not an indication that there will be no damage to other types of structures, as there may be associated wind or debris damage and are not tabulated in this release.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.