How Much Does a Hurricane Cost?

By By Grace Muller, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

July 05, 2011, 4:16:35 AM EDT

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$1.8 billion (2011 adjusted) is the median amount of damage caused by an Atlantic hurricane that hits land in the United States.

The median cost is the most accurate measure of the middle of the data because Hurricane Katrina's immense damage, at $145 billion (2011 adjusted), inflates the average cost of a hurricane to close to $9 billion.

Take a look at the numbers: estimated damage in billions from hurricanes that directly hit the United States from 1980 to 2010. You can read the data and comment on Scribd.

Cost estimates from a hurricane don't include damage the system causes once it moves inland. For example, Hurricane Ike hit land in Texas but Ike's high winds knocked down power lines across North America.

The hurricane costs don't include costs from tropical storms. Slower-moving storms hover over an area, dumping more rain than a hurricane with high winds that quickly passes through.

The National Weather service says that more than half of U.S. tropical cyclone deaths from 1970 to 1999 were caused by inland flooding.

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