AccuWeather estimates Hurricane Debby to have caused $28 billion dollars in damage and economic loss. Jon Porter says severe flooding and loss of business in tourist areas were contributing factors.
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00:00Debbie May landfalls a hurricane and then as the National Hurricane Center weakened this to a post a post tropical storm
00:07We said well no no no we're going to continue to carry this name fall
00:11We're going to call it a tropical rainstorm here, and we've been doing this for well over a decade
00:16Let's go over why we do this yes, that's right. Good morning, Bernie
00:20We do that because the storm though it is lost wind intensity
00:24Still was a significant threat for producing life-threatening flooding
00:28And that's exactly as Accuweather forecast look at what happened across parts of the Northeast and northern
00:34Pennsylvania Southern New York up to upstate New York where there was significant damage
00:39We don't want it
00:40We did not want people to let their guard down and that's why we use the name
00:43Tropical rainstorm as you mentioned other sources are calling it
00:46We're calling it the post tropical storm or remnants of you never hear Accuweather refer to storms in that way because it was a
00:54Tropical rainstorm, let's go over some of the impacts John that we did see as Debbie made landfall
01:00And then two landfalls and then pushed up into the Mid-Atlantic in Northeast
01:05Well, we have estimated breaking news from Friday the Accuweather experts
01:10Estimated a preliminary damage and economic loss of 28 billion dollars from the storm that should have been no surprise though because Accuweather had been
01:18Consistently talking about this storm being a three on Accuweather's real impact scale for hurricanes
01:24Compared to not even a one on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale
01:28Which is used by the National Hurricane Center and most other meteorologists and the reason it was a three on Accuweather's real impact scale for hurricanes
01:36We consistently message was because of the flooding now flooding damage is particularly expensive when water gets into
01:43Homes and businesses. It's not only about the initial cleanup
01:47Property can be lost but then mold and mildew can become a big issue
01:51So water damage is particularly costly and often can be underinsured
01:56We say that because most homeowners policies homeowners insurance policies do not cover for water
02:02People who need protection from water related damages
02:05They often need to enroll in a separate national flood insurance program
02:09And while that may be more popular near the coast inland areas
02:13Tend to have less coverage under that special program and even for people that do have insurance
02:18The damage can be more than what the insurance payout would be
02:22So that's why the main issue here was the major flooding
02:25Across several states Bernie and then one another little sneaky what I would call
02:31impact from a financial standpoint a lot of the areas impacted were
02:36Occurred right at the coast places like Myrtle Beach all the way up toward the Jersey Shore
02:42Where you know, there was a probably a loss of revenue John and that was factored into that amount, correct?
02:48Sure was that when that was another key part of our estimate here was that it would happen at the worst timing
02:54across the eastern seaboard
02:56Many small businesses depend on this time of the year to make their profit margin for the entire year
03:01And the problem was tourists left or just didn't come and that's going to have a lagged
03:06Effect here over the next couple of weeks as well
03:09So it was very poor timing and that was another factor here at AccuWeather when we're producing these
03:14Estimates their total damage and economic loss. So we're looking at not only insured and uninsured damage
03:20But we're also looking at business continuity challenges supply chain issues health costs and in this case tourism as well
03:27Which was a major factor