Big blows of 2017 among 5 costliest hurricanes
This is a top 10 list no one wants to be on.
The three big hurricanes of 2017 — Harvey, Irma and Maria — are three of the five costliest hurricanes in U.S. history, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced this week.
The storms brought widespread death and destruction to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Though 2005’s Katrina remains the costliest hurricane on record at $160 billion, last year’s Hurricane Harvey ranks second, racking up damage costs of
$125 billion.
Hurricane Maria ranks third at
$90 billion, and Irma ranks fifth at
$50 billion. Responsible for damage of
$70 billion, 2012’s Sandy was pushed down to fourth place. Sandy was popularly labeled a “superstorm” as it neared landfall despite being a hurricane for nearly its entire life cycle. (On this list, the damage costs of Katrina and Sandy are adjusted for inflation.)
NOAA said the dollar amounts are “the estimated total costs of these events — that is, the costs in terms of dollars that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates.”
In all, 2017’s hurricanes caused more than one quarter trillion dollars in insured and uninsured losses, the National Hurricane Center reported.
That makes 2017 the costliest hurricane season in U.S. history, even topping 2005, which included Rita and Wilma in addition to Katrina.
September was the true behemoth, the single most powerful month ever recorded in the Atlantic in terms of hurricane intensity.
In a statistic known as “Accumulated Cyclone Energy,” Hurricanes Irma, Katia, Jose, Lee and Maria that month generated the largest amount of energy for any month on record, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach.
Irma and Maria soared to Category 5, the top of the scale in hurricane intensity. Irma’s landfall on Barbuda and Ma- ria’s landfall on Dominica make 2017 only the second season on record to feature two hurricanes that hit at Category 5 strength.
Other records from the season included 60.58 inches of rain that fell near Nederland, Texas, during Harvey. This broke the record for the most rainfall recorded in the Lower 48 states from a single storm, WeatherBug reported.
Maria was the worst natural disaster in Puerto Rico’s history.