Hurricane Harvey Early Predictive Analysis with Wind and Storm Surge Data

Front and center in the news right now is Hurricane Harvey and resulting devastation, which will most likely remain in the news for awhile.

Prior to Hurricane Harvey, GISCafe Voice spoke with Tom Jeffrey, CEO of CoreLogic, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider that has conducted an analysis for the flooding and storm surge as a result of Hurricane Harvey.

Many news reports have pointed out that there were an enormous number of people in flood zones who did not have flood insurance. CoreLogic’s analysis shows that 52 percent of residential and commercial properties in the Houston metro are at “high” or “moderate” risk of flooding, yet are not in a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA) as identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Properties that are within SFHA zones required flood insurance if the property has a federal insured mortgage, if categorized as Extreme or Very High risk.

This table shows the levels of flood risk, tracked by CoreLogic’s data for properties in seven metro areas that were likely to get severe rain and flooding from Hurricane Harvey.

Table 1: Total Properties at Risk by Flood Risk Level

CoreLogic used their North Atlantic Hurricane Model to create wind and storm surge damage footprints for Hurricane Harvey using the track forecast data from the August 25, 10:00 a.m. CT advisory issued by the National Hurricane Center. The model tracks the multiple facets of hurricanes such as ocean flooding, wind and storm surge. The North Atlantic Hurricane Model analyzes the insured loss data to determine the expected loss range from the Hurricane Harvey event footprint in the model. Certified by the Florida Commission Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology (FCHLPM) since the inception of the process in 1997, the model provides a granular, up-to-date detailed risk assessment for the combined perils of hurricane winds and coastal storm surge flooding.

We can compare what Hurricane Harvey’s insured property loss estimates are with previous storms. In this model, it is projected that Harvey will result in $1-2 billion insured property damage while Celia was a stronger storm (category 4) and wreaked $3 billion worth of damage. Hurricane Ike made landfall near Houston and resulted in $11 billion worth of damage.

Hurricane Harvey was estimated to cause $1 billion and $2 billion from wind and storm surge damage. Left out of this equation are insured losses caused by additional flooding, contents and business interruption, as the flooding and rainfall is expected to last several days or weeks.  95 percent of the insurance claims are expected to be related to wind and less than 5 percent related to storm surge. At the time of the report, low exposure to Houston and other large metro areas was expected. However, while Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi, it went on to wreak great devastation in the city of Houston. In Houston alone, about 100,000 homes are damaged, according to Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert.

Of course these estimates are subject to change and interpretation as more data is revealed.

According to an analysis in the Washington Post, Hurricane Harvey could be the most expensive hurricane of all time, with an estimated $80 billion in damages so far.  These losses are not confined to insured property losses, as an estimated 80 percent of residents lack flood insurance where Harvey hit the hardest. Traditional insurance doesn’t cover flooding, so taxpayers will foot the bill for most of the rebuilding.

Flood insurance is required in places where FEMA designates a flood plain and high risk. Where American homeowners can get flood insurance is from the government-run National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). According to CoreLogic, NFIP will cover $9 billion. Private insurers, who cover flooding damage to businesses, will pay about $2 billion, according to AIR Worldwide, another catastrophe risk analysis firm.

Sadly, the projected $80 billion structural damages resulting from Harvey will far exceed the ability of the combined insurance coverage, which will cover less than 15 percent of that figure.

Tags: ArcGIS, climate change, cloud, CoreLogic, crowdsourcing, data, ESRI, FEMA, Hurricane Harvey, imagery, Infrastructure, intelligence, location, mapping, maps, NASA, satellite imagery

Categories: analytics, asset management, Big Data, climate change, cloud, CoreLogic, data, disaster relief, emergency response, FEMA, field GIS, geospatial, GIS, Google, government, insurance, location based services, location intelligence, mapping, NASA, NOAA, public safety, remote sensing, resilient cities, satellite imagery, storm surge

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2017 at 5:35 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.