Rebuilding after Hurricane Ida will be costly. Experts blame the pandemic and climate change.
As far as costly disasters go, Hurricane Ida was no Katrina, but the damage inflicted by its rapid escalation and unpredictable path is troubling to observers who say the event reflects a newly ascendent type of storm that is both less predictable and more expensive.
“The big driver of wind loss, aside from wind itself, is damage from trees,” said Tom Sabbatelli-Goodyer, director of event response at catastrophe-modeling firm RMS. “When it comes to hurricanes or tropical cyclones in the north Atlantic, we see a number of developments of relevance,” Rauch said. “The share of the strongest storms — Category 4 and 5 — has increased relative to the overall number of hurricanes, so we see more stronger storms,” he said. “We also observe, in the North Atlantic in the last 20 to 30 years, an increase in the overall frequency.”
Demand surge, which can drive up prices for building materials and labor, happens after many disasters, as local hardware stores are cleared out of inventory, for example. This can elevate prices temporarily, but disaster insurance professionals say these blips are both local and temporary in nature.
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