HURRICANE STUDY PAINTS SCARY PICTURE
Severe storm in Hampton Roads would cost almost $50 billion, according to researchers
Poised to escape the wrath of Hurricane Florence with one foot already in his car, George McLeod was relieved when the storm last year took a turn to the south and spared Hampton Roads.
But it got him thinking: What if ?
Florence, a Category 4 storm at its height, eventually hit the southeastern North Carolina coast as a Category 2 cyclone on Sept. 15 — killing 54 people and causing an estimated $24.23 billion in damages. The biggest problem was storm surge and days of torrential rain that produced severe flooding. Homes and businesses were destroyed and countless livestock died.
McLeod almost immediately started producing computer models of what such a storm would look like for Hampton Roads — both short and long term.
A senior fellow for the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency, he teamed up with Old Dominion University economics professor Robert McNab on the project. The findings were presented to Gov. Ralph Northam in time for the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season on June 1.
“First we looked at the physical damage,” McNab said. “Then we looked at the economic damage out to a year. We
wanted to do this in preparation of the hurricane season to give everybody an idea of how impactful a storm like Florence would be.”
It’s a pretty scary picture. Wind and water damage would add up to about $20 billion. The potential loss of 175,000 jobs and a decline in business activity would add on another $23 billion. There would be millions of pounds of debris.
The models incorporated numbers from previous storms that have hit the region, along with those from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
“A lot of people aren’t thinking about the permanent loss of business,” McLeod said. “You look at Katrina. Thousands of people left and never came back. Businesses left and didn’t come back.
“Those kinds of losses for an area can be crippling.”
If there were high levels of damage to infrastructure and military facilities, the outcome could be even worse.
McLeod and McNab both said the current results of their modeling are just the start.
“Numbers like those aren’t that real to most people,” McLeod said. “So we’re going to ‘ultra-localize’ the modeling to show people the impact down to the neighborhood level.”
Both said the increasing intensity of major storms will force them to continue their modeling. Numbers will get bigger, they said.
They’re hoping people start paying attention to the potential loss of life and property.
“Let’s face it,” McNab said. “We all know the big one is out there.
“So do we prepare like we should?”
Added McLeod: “This area has been lucky, real lucky like we were with Florence. But we can’t keep dodging the bullet.”