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Alabama: Most tornado-prone state in 2011
From
1/28/2012
article by Elizabeth Prann @
FoxNews.com
Governor Robert Bentley is working to rebuild parts of his state
after it was slammed with raging tornadoes multiple times over
the past year. In fact, 177 tornadoes hit Alabama in 2011 making
it the state with the highest number of twisters, according to
the National Weather Service. Although tornado season hasn’t quite started yet for
most of the country, Alabama is already ranked in the top spot
for 2012, with 22 tornado strikes since New Year’s Day.
Coping with severe weather has been a top issue for officials in
Alabama. Governor Bentley formed the Tornado Recovery Action
Council after tornadoes killed 248 people on April 27, 2011
across the state. Ironically, the recommendations from the
council were delivered to the Governor last Monday -- the same
day multiple tornadoes ripped through the state, killing two
people. In a 117-page report delivered to the governor, the
council came up with 20 recommendations: tougher building codes,
more tornado shelters and sales tax holidays for storm
preparedness and emergency supplies.
Read complete article @ FoxNews.com
Read more about tornado damage
here
Posted 1/28/2012
Insurers could pay more than $1 billion to cover tornado damages
Jeff Amy, Press-Register Apr 29, 2011 8:45 AM -
Show original item
Damage from Alabama's tornado outbreak Wednesday will clearly
run into the hundreds of millions of dollars and could cross the
$1 billion mark, insurance industry experts say. Business claims
resulting from extended power outages could add to the tab. And
reinsurance losses could drive up the cost of hurricane coverage
for coastal residents.
Posted 4/29/2011
Tornadoes Blast Property Insurers
By LESLIE SCISM And VALERIE BAUERLEIN of Wall Street Journal
A string of violent tornadoes that coursed through the South has put U.S. home insurers on track to suffer their most expensive year ever for thunderstorm damage, industry experts say.
The years 2008 through 2010 were already the industry's costliest for thunderstorm damage—which includes hail, tornadoes and other severe storms— with a total tab of $30 billion, said Robert Hartwig, president of trade group Insurance Information Institute.
The current year, however, is shaping up to be even more expensive than any of those three, according to Peter Lore, associate vice president for property technical claims with insurance giant Nationwide Insurance. As of April 18, 617 tornadoes had been recorded, compared with 419 and 203 by April 30 of 2009 and 2010, respectively, according to the insurance institute, citing data from the National Weather Service. An assessment of damage in dollar terms won't be produced until industry-wide data are collected at mid-year, Mr. Hartwig said.
Read complete story at online.wsj.com
Posted 4/23/2011
Are the coastal counties really more expensive to repair than the rest of the state?
Between 1933 and 1978 -- 45 years -- Alabama did not
have a single direct hit from a hurricane.
During that time, 2,250 tornadoes hit around
the state, including the famed April 1974
Super Tornado Outbreak that left nearly 80
people dead in upstate Alabama.
Read more interesting facts here
Posted 3/11/2011
U.S. Gulf Coast Faces $350 Billion
in Climate Damage by 2030, Study Shows
By Kim Chipman - Oct 20, 2010 2:48 PM ET
The U.S. Gulf Coast may face $350 billion in economic damage by 2030 as extreme weather fueled by climate change wreaks havoc on the region, according to a study released today byEntergy Corp.
The estimate assumes severe weather similar to Hurricane Katrina -- a storm that crippled the region in 2005 -- will occur every generation rather than once a century, according to the study by Swiss Re, a Zurich-based reinsurer, and McKinsey
& Co., a New York-based research firm. New Orleans-based Entergy, the second-largest U.S. producer of electricity from nuclear reactors behind Exelon Corp., commissioned the report.
The study recommends spending $50 billion for projects such as overhauling building codes and reinforcing beaches and wetlands to curb losses. The region, which suffers an average annual loss of $14 billion, may lose as much as $23 billion a year from “extreme” climate change, the report said.
“With the multiplier effect, the amount of economic loss to the Gulf Coast could rise to $700 billion, the gross domestic product for the entire region for one year,” Entergy Chief Executive Officer J. Wayne Leonard said today in a statement. The study is a “call to arms for policy makers,” he said.
Katrina, the third-deadliest U.S. hurricane, wiped out 80 square miles of marsh within hours when it struck five years ago, four times the average amount lost by all of Louisiana in a year. Scientists say climate change caused by burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal will lead to more frequent and severe storms, droughts and heat waves.
Further, the BP Plc oil spill in April in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst in the U.S., hurt the region’s economy and threatened already fragile ecosystems.
Levees, Canals.
The Gulf Coast copes with erosion tied to decades of building canals, levees and dams to control flooding, ease navigation and aid oil-and-gas exploration. Such projects choke off the flow of Mississippi River sediment that sustains wetlands, which harbor plants and wildlife and function as natural sponges to protect coastlines.
Taking steps to protect the coastline may let Gulf Coast communities avoid about $135 billion in losses a year, according to the report.
The region has more than $2 trillion in assets, including 50,000 oil and
gas structures such as pipelines and wells. That total is expected to
increase to more than $3 trillion by 2030, according to the report,
which was commissioned by Entergy with America’s Wetland Foundation, a
New Orleans-based advocacy group focused on conserving coastal
Louisiana.
Posted 10/26/2010
RAND CORPORATION INSURANCE REPORT
Residential Insurance on the U.S. Gulf Coast
in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
A Framework for Evaluating
Potential Reforms
Click
to read preliminary report from
GULF STATES POLICY INSTITUTE
A Study by the Institute for Civil Justice
This product is part of
the RAND Corporation restricted draft series. Restricted drafts
present preliminary research or prepublication versions of research
documents that need to be distributed outside of RAND to the client, a
formal reviewer, or potential journal or book publishers. Restricted
drafts have not been formally reviewed, edited, or cleared for public
release.
Posted 10/21/2010
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Atlantic hurricane season comes to an end without a storm hitting the Gulf region
Read
November 30, 2011,
original article by The Associated Press
Say goodbye to the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, which was a study in contradictions: It spared the usual Southern targets while Irene paralyzed the Eastern seaboard and devastated parts of the Northeast with deadly flooding.
The season ends today as the sixth straight year without U.S. landfall of a major hurricane, yet
Irene was not considered a major hurricane because it did not have winds exceeding 111 mph, or Category 3, when it made landfall in North Carolina on Aug. 27.
"You would think the impacts would be somewhat light, but the damages caused by Irene will be up there in one of the top 30 or so storms," National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read said.
The season produced the third-highest number of tropical storms on record, with 19, but only a slightly higher-than-average number of hurricanes, with six.
Read said low pressure systems on the East coast and high pressure systems over the central U.S. created favorable steering currents that kept the storms mostly churning far out to sea.
Storms won't move into high pressure, clearing the way for an easy storm season for the U.S. Gulf Coast. An exception was Tropical Storm Lee, which formed off the Louisiana coast and drenched much of the eastern U.S.
"It was another very odd year," said Dr. Jeff Masters, Weather Underground's director of meteorology.
The rare combination of near-record ocean temperatures but unusually dry, stable air over the Atlantic was partially responsible for the unusually high count of named storms, Masters said.
Hurricane Ophelia was the strongest storm of the season, at one point strengthening to a Category 4 with 140 mph winds when it was just northeast of Bermuda. Ophelia hit southeastern Newfoundland, Canada, as a tropical storm, but caused little damage.
The last major hurricane to hit the U.S. was Wilma, which cut an unusually large swath of damage across Florida in 2005.
Irene caught many New England residents by surprise in late August, following a rare path as it brushed up the Eastern seaboard from North Carolina, across the Mid-Atlantic and near New York City, where meteorologists said they couldn't ever recall a direct hurricane hit.
Broadway shows were cancelled as New York officials ordered 370,000 people to leave their homes in low-lying areas and immobilized the nation's biggest subway system. Yet, the city sustained only high winds and heavy rains as a weakened Tropical Storm Irene churned up the coast.
Tropical Storm Irene was by far the most destructive event to hit Vermont in almost a century. Flooding from the storm, which dumped up to 11 inches of rain in some areas, killed six people, damaged or destroyed hundreds of miles of roads, scores of bridges, hundreds of homes and left hundreds of people homeless.
About a dozen communities were cut off by the storm for days, many without electricity or phone service and they had to be supplied by National Guard helicopters.
Three months after the storm, most of the roads and bridges have received at least temporary repairs, though two bridges remain closed. The final repair estimate for the roads could reach $250 million, which doesn't count damage to private property.
The state of Vermont's office complex in Waterbury was inundated, forcing the relocation of the offices of many of the people who worked there as well as the permanent closing of the State Hospital, forcing mental health officials to farm out patients needing the most intensive care.
More than 7,000 people asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance.
"(The severe flooding) was beyond what most people expected up there so we still have work to do on how to convey how serious the inland flooding events are from these tropical storms," Read said.
Posted 11/30/2011 (Hat tip to Stan Virden)
Busy Atlantic hurricane season had little impact on
U.S.: NOAA
by Mark A. Hofmann (Business Insurance)
The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends
Tuesday, was one of the busiest on record but had little impact on the
United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
reported Monday.
Nineteen named storms formed in the Atlantic basin during this year’s
hurricane season, which tied with 1887 and 1995 for third-highest on
record. Of those, 12 became hurricanes—tied with 1969 for second-highest
on record. Five of those reached major hurricane status of Category 3 or
higher.
An average Atlantic season produces 11 named storms, six hurricanes
and two major hurricanes, according to NOAA.
“Large-scale climate features strongly influenced this year’s
hurricane activity, as they often do,” said NOAA in a statement
announcing this year’s hurricane activity. “This year, record warm
Atlantic waters, combined with the favorable winds coming off Africa and
weak wind shear aided by La Niña energized developing storms. The 2010
season continues the string of active hurricane seasons that began in
1995.”
As
NOAA forecasters predicted, the Atlantic hurricane season was one of
the most active on record, though fortunately most storms avoided the
U.S,” said Jack Hayes, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, in
the statement. “For that reason, you could say the season was a gentle
giant.”
But hurricanes ravaged other parts of the Atlantic basin, including
Haiti, Mexico and Central America.
NOAA noted that in contrast to the active Atlantic hurricane season,
the eastern North Pacific season had the fewest storms on record since
the satellite era began.
“Though La Niña helped to enhance the Atlantic hurricane season, it
also suppressed storms from forming and strengthening in the eastern
North Pacific,” said NOAA. Seven named storms formed in the area this
year, three of which grew into hurricanes, and two of those became major
hurricanes. NOAA said this was the fewest named storms and fewest
hurricanes in the area since the mid-1960s.
An average eastern North Pacific season produces 15 named storms,
nine hurricanes and four major hurricanes, according to NOAA.
Read original
Business Insurance article
Posted 11/30/2010
Insurance companies have no doubts about global
warming
Insurance companies are taking into account the
potential for rising water levels and more aggressive hurricanes when
considering rates. Marketplace's Scott Tong reports
Read full transcript and view slideshow
here
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