Measuring Hurricane Helene’s devastating economic impact

Hurricane Helene devastated a huge swath of the Southeast just over a week ago, leaving hundreds of people dead and causing billions of dollars in damage.

The storm made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane, but much of the destruction came from severe flooding in western North Carolina. Helene has claimed the lives of more than 200 people, with hundreds still missing, according to NBC News. And as of Friday morning, economic loss estimates varied in the range of tens of billions to the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Moody’s Analytics estimated the recovery costs from Helene “upwards of $34 billion,” according to CNBC. Similarly, Steve Bowen, chief science officer of reinsurance broker Gallagher Re, told Axios he estimates the economic losses at “about $35 billion.”

Catastrophe modeling firm Karen Clark & Co. (KCC) estimated the privately insured loss “will be close to $6.4 billion from wind, storm surge, and inland flooding across nine states.” The estimate accounts for losses to residential and commercial properties and vehicles, as well as business interruption, but excludes losses covered by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Helene was different from typical Category 4 storms in that “most of the damage occurred far from the landfall point,” KCC noted in its estimate report. Tampa saw more storm surge damage than the Big Bend area where the storm made landfall, Georgia saw more wind damage than Florida, and “the most significant inland flood damage [occurred] in North Carolina,” according to KCC.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called Helene an “unprecedented, devastating storm,” and said it would cost billions of dollars to repair damaged transportation and water infrastructure, NBC News reported. At least 98 people were dead in North Carolina alone, with the toll expected to increase, according to Cooper.