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Flooding and damaging winds caused the most damage for homeowners in 2016, according to CoreLogic’s Natural Hazard Risk and Analysis, which highlights homeowners’ potential financial catastrophes due to hazard events. Most of the elevated activity was due to slightly higher activity in hurricanes last year, with 15 named storms and seven hurricanes.
Read more: Ground Forces: Land, Flooding, and Fracking
In 2016, flooding caused $17 billion in total losses, six times greater than overall flood damage experienced in 2015, according to the report. Five flood-related events last year exceeded $1 billion in losses alone. Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 caused an estimated of $4 billion to $6 billion in insured losses — $3-5.5 billion caused by wind and $500,000-$1 million caused by the storm surge.
The elevated damage from wind was also largely due to hurricanes last year. Hurricane Matthew sparked winds of 80 miles per hour or greater in land areas. The highest wind speed of the year was clocked in at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 101 miles per hour during Hurricane Matthew.
However, the nation’s windiest city for 2016 was Nashville, Tenn. It had 21 wind-related events last year and recorded a maximum wind speed of 72 miles per hour, according to CoreLogic’s report.
Here are some additional findings from CoreLogic’s hazard report from 2016:
- Wildfires: The number of wildfires (62,864) in 2016 and the total number of acres burned (5,415,121 acres) was below the annual average. The Galtinburg fires in Tennessee burned an estimated 16,000 acres and was the most destructive in terms of acres burned for the year.
- Hail: Hail activity was near average last year, with 7.8 percent of the continental U.S. impacted by severe hail (which is defined as 1-inch or greater). Texas had the most hail and wind events, with more than $5.5 billion in estimated losses (the highest for the state since 2008).
- Tornadoes: The number of tornadoes recorded was 1,059 last year, an average year for tornadoes. February 2016 saw the most tornado activity at 102 confirmed cases.
- Earthquakes: There were 943 identified earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater nationwide. More than 60 percent of these earthquakes occurred in Oklahoma.
- Winter storms: December 2015 through February 2016 was the warmest winter in 121 years. Still, 2016 saw nine winter storms. The most significant one was in January 2016 and affected more than 100 million people from the South through the Northeast.
Source: “Flooding and Damaging Wind Were the Most Destructive Natural Hazards in 2016,” CoreLogic Insights (Jan. 31, 2017)
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