Wunderground - Damage From Maria Now Estimated At $102 Billion - Only Katrina Worse

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Above: Wind turbines in Naguabo, Puerto Rico, had their blades sheared off by the ferocious winds of Hurricane Maria’s northern eyewall on September 20, 2017. Image credit: NWS San Juan.

Two months after Category 4 Hurricane Maria pounded Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the Thanksgiving holiday on the islands will be a difficult one. Approximately half of Puerto Rico’s 1.5 million customers still do not have power, 10% do not have water service, and a third of the island’s cell phone towers are not working. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 73% of the 103,000 residents still had no power two weeks ago. Last week, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello asked the federal government for $94.4 billion in disaster recovery aid; $5 billion in aid has been approved for Puerto Rico thus far by Congress. In mid-November, U.S. Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp asked Congress for $7.5 billion in Hurricane Maria disaster assistance; Congress has thus far only approved $0.5 billion in loans to the Virgin Islands. The combined $102 billion in damage aid requests for Maria from the two governors would put Maria in second place behind Hurricane Katrina of 2005 ($161 billion in damage) on the list of costliest weather disasters in world recorded history. An early estimate of insured damages from Maria from insurance broker AIR Worldwide was $40 - $85 billion; since total damage is typically about double insured damage, Maria's pricetag may end up being well in excess of $100 billion.


Figure 1. Damage estimates of all U.S. weather-related disasters that have cost at least $30 billion since 1980. Statistics from 1980 – 2016 are taken from NOAA/NCEI; damage estimates from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma (2017) are from insurance broker Aon Benfield; damage estimates for Hurricane Maria (2017) are from the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands governments. These figures are for the U.S. only; Hurricane Irma did an additional $15 billion in damage to the non-U.S. Caribbean islands, and Hurricane Maria did additional heavy damage in excess of $1 billion to Dominica and other Caribbean islands. Note that there are a wide range of preliminary damage estimates for Hurricane Harvey, from $58 - $198 billion, and it is possible that the final damages from that storm will top Maria's. The top five events listed here are also the five most expensive weather-related disasters in world history; according to EM-DAT, the most expensive non-U.S. weather-related disaster in world history was the 1998 flood in China, which cost $46 billion.

An official death toll of 55, but indirect deaths may be closer to 500

The official death toll from Maria is 26 direct deaths (due to drowning or wind-related effects) and 29 indirect deaths in Puerto Rico; 2 direct deaths and 1 indirect death occurred in the U.S. Virgin Islands. However, the indirect deaths are likely greatly underestimated. A CNN analysis based on data from 112 funeral homes in Puerto Rico identified 499 storm-related deaths in the month following the hurricane. The article argued that this is likely an underestimate, since there are always a significant number of bodies that do not get processed through funeral homes. A more accurate way to estimate the storm’s indirect deaths might be to look at the total number of deaths this year compared to last year, and 472 more people died in September 2017 than September 2016, according to Puerto Rico's Demographic Registry.

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Maria’s rains: 2nd highest on record for a Puerto Rico tropical cyclone

The National Weather Service in San Juan issued their preliminary Hurricane Maria report last week. The report documented that Hurricane Maria’s torrential rains triggered massive flash flooding and landslides, with over 80% of the island receiving at least ten inches of rain in 48 hours. Maria’s peak rainfall of 37.90” was measured at Caguas at an elevation of 1475 meters, in a mountainous area about 15 miles inland from where the eye made landfall. According to NOAA, the only wetter storm to affect Puerto Rico since 1956 was Tropical Depression Fifteen of 1970, which dumped 41.68” at Jayuya.

As we reported the day of the storm, much higher rainfall amounts than the 37.90” in Caguas were measured in a mountainous area that received the fierce winds of Maria’s northern eyewall, including two stations that measured over 30” of rain in a single hour. These rainfall measurements were rejected as being invalid by the NWS in San Juan in their post-storm report. The rain gauges in question were elevated on poles (see photo here), and it is likely that the intense vibration of these poles during the eyewall winds caused the tipping-bucket mechanism in the rain gauges to register large numbers of false clicks that were erroneously assumed to be due to the weight of the falling rain.

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https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/hurricane-maria-damages-102-billion-surpassed-only-katrina