Hurricane Helene expected to be one of the nation's costliest natural disasters

AccuWeather

AccuWeather experts are projecting the total damage and economic losses from Helene to reach more than $145 billion, which is more than double the costs of Hurricane Florence.

Transcript

00:00We want to talk about the big picture. Let's zoom out a little bit and there's nobody better to help

00:03us do that than AccuWeather chief meteorologist John Porter. He is in close contact with the

00:08AccuWeather data analytics team and there's a lot to unpack here, John.

00:12Sure is, and Jeff, this astounding impact here is exactly why AccuWeather was sounding the alarm

00:20ahead of all other sources with the language that we use, the urgency about the catastrophic

00:26damage. Our experts are preliminarily estimating a total damage and economic loss of $145 to $160

00:35billion. This will end up being one of the nation's most costly and damaging natural disasters.

00:42And when we put this into context, some of these numbers just become so big,

00:46they just, it's hard to visualize or compare without maybe a little bit of graphical help

00:53here. So how does this stack up recently among other major hurricane threats that we faced in

00:58the past five, six, seven years, and also just this year? Well, that's a great point. And here

01:02at AccuWeather, we always want to put the weather into context for you and take a look at this.

01:07Helene does not have good company here on this list. Look at Hurricane Ian from 2022,

01:15$180 to $210 billion, and Florence, $50 to $60 billion. So a much greater impact than Florence,

01:23also across North Carolina. So this was a very damaging storm, and we've been adding up the

01:29numbers here. This is not a good list to have in terms of the growing impacts financially

01:36as it relates to this hurricane season. It's been a big one, and we still have more time to go.

01:40Absolutely, and you can even see the unnamed tropical rainstorm from just two weeks ago. It

01:46was two weeks ago today, I think, John, two Mondays ago that we were watching that with

01:50just ferocious rainfall in parts of southern North Carolina, but this far outpaced that

01:55with so many different impacts. And we want to look ahead here because we still have plenty of

01:59time with the hurricane season, maybe the bottom of the sixth inning, if it's for that baseball

02:02analogy. And where are we looking for the next concern beyond the noise out in the middle of

02:10the Atlantic, a few named storms out there, where are we concerned about greater impacts for us?

02:14Well, we're scanning for trouble in some of the same places that Helene came from, that is the

02:18northwest Caribbean Sea. You notice there's a cluster of showers and thunderstorms moving

02:24through the Caribbean Sea right now. That's going to move to the west, and over time, we expect

02:29that either in the northwest Caribbean Sea or the southern Gulf of Mexico, another tropical

02:34depression can form that can intensify into a tropical storm, perhaps even a hurricane,

02:39be in the Gulf of Mexico and perhaps head toward the United States. So I wish we had better news.

02:44We need everybody along the Gulf of Mexico coastline to be aware and frequently checking

02:49in with us here at AccuWeather. And regardless of exactly the moment when some of these things

02:53get named or become depressions, there's kind of a big picture theme that we can count on for

02:58mid to late week here before we really get into more of those coastal direct impact conversations.

03:04Correct. And that's going to be plenty of tropical moisture being drawn to the north

03:08with downpours along the Gulf Coast, especially from Louisiana over toward Florida. That's not

03:14good news because some of the same areas that were heavily impacted by Helene across the Big

03:19Bend region up into north Florida, even parts of southern Georgia can have renewed heavy rainfall

03:26in some of those areas, which can be a challenge to hamper some of the recovery efforts.

03:30Specifically in that area with the storm surge, it seems that the early part of this week will

03:34probably be the period of time when outdoor work can be done with the fewest interruptions.

03:41Things are going to ramp back up and the showers and storms will return.

03:43AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter. Thanks again, John.

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