3 weeks ago
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Analysis from ICEYE, the provider of satellite data and services to inform decision-making and analysis, has shown that almost 185,000 buildings in Florida were impacted by hurricane Milton’s flooding.
Previously, ICEYE had warned that the satellite data it had secured during and after hurricane Milton suggested the storm may have affected more buildings in Florida than was seen with the previous hurricane Helene.
With hurricane Helene, ICEYE’s analysis had shown that over 100,000 buildings were impacted by flooding across the storm’s footprint, with more than 10,000 of those being inundated to flood depths of greater than 5 feet.
Helene’s footprint was far wider than Milton, with Milton being a solely Florida event, in the main.
On hurricane Milton, ICEYE explained, “ICEYE has been monitoring the storm and its impacts since its formation, acquiring over 100 hashtag#SAR satellite images of the impacted areas through thick storm clouds and even at night. We delivered the first flood extent and depth analysis within 24 hours of the landfall. Since then, we produced 10 more analysis releases.
“Based on our final analysis, we identified more than 180,000 buildings impacted by the flooding in Florida.”
The final figure in the analysis (based on data collected up to October 21st) is 184,998 buildings impacted by hurricane Milton’s flooding, with 67,283 affected by between 2 and 3 feet of water, 9,805 seeing between 5 and 8 feet of flood waters, and 3,376 affected by 8 foot of water or more.
The buildings impacted by the highest flood water depths will most probably be coastal properties affected by storm surge, we expect.
Some 74,039 buildings were impacted in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, 17,832 in Naples, and 31,372 in Cape Coral.
As we reported earlier this week, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) had received around 54,000 policyholder claims related to hurricane Helene by the end of last week.
Remember, ICEYE counted fewer buildings as being impacted by Helene, than Milton and in Helene’s case the worst flooding was in regions where NFIP take up rates are very low.
With hurricane Milton, the almost 185,000 buildings affected by flood are all in Florida, where NFIP policy uptake is much higher, as too is private flood insurance coverage.
As a result, it will be interesting to see how the number of buildings affected translates into claims for the NFIP and how high the Program’s losses rise as a result, which could potentially have ramifications for its reinsurance and catastrophe bonds if the claims were particularly high.
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English (US) ·