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By Yashasvini Razdan, 5:50 PM ET
Economic damages caused by Hurricane Ida are yet to be assessed but Accuweather’s predictions upgraded the total to $95 billion from the initial forecast of $70-$80 billion.
AccuWeather founder and CEO Joel Myers told CNBC, “It is rare for a hurricane from the Gulf of Mexico to produce this much damage this far north.”
Ida made landfall in Louisiana on August 29, with sustained winds of 150 mph near Port Fourchon, damaging towns and some oil production facilities. It traveled northeastwards to New York causing related flooding.
Accuweather calculated the damages by incorporating the losses to houses and cars, the impact of people unable to get to work, travel disruption, halt to tourism, and the cost of clean-up crews.
AccuWeather’s number is higher than estimates from other agencies since it includes both insured and uninsured losses from a wide range of activities.
The agency predicts said that Ida would be the seventh most costly hurricane to hit the U.S. since 2000. CNBC reported that Katrina tops the list at $320 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, followed by Maria and Sandy at $215 billion and $210 billion, respectively.
Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in a report that climate change would cause hurricanes to move more slowly over the land, and the resulting rain will cause more damage than the wind associated with hurricane devastation.