Hurricane Florence's toll on US homes and businesses

By Michelle Krupa, CNN

(CNN) – The property damage done by Hurricane Florence 's epic flooding and pounding is becoming clear – and fixing what broke will not be cheap.

North Carolina took the brunt of the storm's fury and was most likely to have a show of analysis. Lawmakers There Are Set to Meet Starting Tuesday for a special session to debate how to undertake and pay for recovery.

Across the hardest hit – North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia – the cost to rebuild is staggering. Here's a look at the devastation's price tag:

$ 45 billion

Tea top-end estimate of property damage Moody's Analytics. Moody's Analytics.

"Many of the areas that experience flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew are enduring similar tribulations to this fall, but the footprint appears to be significantly larger following Florence, stretching about 200 miles west from the North Carolina coast and spanning 150 miles from north to south. , extending into South Carolina, "Ryan Ryan and Adam Kamins wrote reviews, comparing Florence with the 2016 storm.

$ 28.5 billion

That's the maximum estimate of all flood losses across the area, including storm surge, rain and rising rivers, CoreLogic shows.

Again, North Carolina is thought to be most affected, with $ 22 billion in losses, followed by South Carolina with $ 5.5 billion and about $ 1 billion in Virginia.

The total is about half the $ 66 billion, most recently in 2005 to Hurricane Katrina's flooding across five states, most of it in New Orleans.

$ 18.5 billion

As in Katrina, most homes and businesses have been devastated by Florence's floodwaters. These homes account for more than two-thirds of the total estimated uninsured flood loss, CoreLogic's estimate shows.

In North Carolina alone, floods could cost as much as $ 14.5 billion, while the figure could reach $ 3.5 billion in South Carolina and $ 500 million in Virginia.

That compares with some $ 40 trillion in last year when Hurricane Harvey slammed the Texas Gulf Coast, then drenched the Houston area for days.

Most private insurance policies do not protect against damage caused by storm surge, rain or overflowing rivers. For that, the National Flood Insurance Program, known as NFIP and FEMA, provides coverage; in fact, it is required for federally backed mortgages in areas judged to be at risk of flooding.

But many homes do not want to be flooded.

"The flood zone delineations are just wrong," Chuck Watson, an analyst with the Enki Research disaster research group, told CNN as Florence churned toward shore. "But communities do not like expanding flood zone, because it makes development more expensive and difficult. So the flood zones really do not reflect the risk. "

"Losses (in Florence) will be exacerbated by a lack of flood insurance," the Moody's analysts wrote, blaming "outdated flood maps that have allowed many homeowners to remain uninsured despite the risk."

Property owners also sometimes have their flood insurance because they do not have a mortgage or their lender does not check.

$ 5 billion

That's the end of what the NFIP is supposed to pay for federally insured losses to residential and commercial property, according to CoreLogic. In all, about 445,000 properties across the three states are covered by the government-backed policies.

That kind of payout could have cost another $ 8.7 billion in claims for Harvey Hurricanes, Irma and Maria, the third highest total in its history.

Those payments would have been pushed into the past by the borrowing limits, but the Congress would be able to pay $ 16 billion for the program.

The problem still exists, and it boils down to this: NFIP premiums. Goal Congress is loath to raise rates and live in flood zones. So, the price of precariously low.

$ 1.5 trillion

Though Florence was known primarily as a rain event, losses from wind damage $ 1 billion, CoreLogic found, noting that such damage is covered by standard homeowners' insurance policies.

The-CNN-Wire
™ 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

This content has been republished with permission from CNN.