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Helene, Milton losses expected to surpass “truly historic” $50 billion each
Monstrous hurricanes Helene and Milton caused so much complex havoc that damages are still being added up, but government and private experts say they will likely join the infamous ranks of Katrina, Sandy and Harvey as super costly $50-billion-plus killers.
Making that even more painful is that most of the damage – 95% or more in Helene’s case – was not insured, putting victims in a deeper financial hole.
Storm deaths have been dropping over time, although Helene was an exception. But even adjusted for inflation, damages from intense storms are skyrocketing because people are building in harm’s way, rebuilding costs are rising faster than inflation and human-caused climate change are making storms stronger and wetter, experts in different fields said.
“Today’s storms, today’s events are simply vastly different from yesterday’s events. One of the things that we’re seeing is the energy content that these systems can retain is significantly greater than it used to be,” said John Dickson, president of Aon Edge Insurance Agency, which specializes in flood coverage. “The weather seems to be, in many cases, moving faster than we as a society are able to keep pace with it.”
In the last 45 years, and adjusted for inflation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has counted 396 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage. Sixty-three of those were hurricanes or tropical storms.
The $50 billion mark for direct losses is a threshold that differentiates “truly historic events,” said Adam Smith, the economist and meteorologist who runs the list out of NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information in Helene-hit Asheville, North Carolina.
Only eight hurricanes reached that threshold. Smith said he thought Milton and Helene have “a very good shot” of joining that list.
The first $50 billion hurricane was Andrew in 1992. The U.S. went 13 more years before Katrina topped the damages chart, then seven years until the third costly whopper, Sandy. Helene and Milton would make seven in the last seven years.
Calculating damages is far from an exact science. The more complex and nastier storms are – like Milton and Helene – the longer it takes, Smith said. Damage is spread over different places and often a much larger area, with wind damage in some places and flood damage elsewhere. Helene, in particular, caused widespread flooding and in places not used to it. Estimates for those storms from private firms in recent days vary and are incomplete.
There’s three categories of damage: insured damage, uninsured damage and total economic cost. Many risk and insurance firms only estimate insured losses.
Homeowner insurance usually covers wind damage, but not flood. Special insurance has to be bought for that. Flood insurance coverage rates vary by region and storms differ on whether they cause more wind or water damage. Helene was mostly water damage, which is less likely to be covered, while Milton had a good chunk of wind damage.
Of the top 10 costliest hurricanes as compiled by insurance giant Swiss Re – not including Helene or Milton yet – insured damage is about 44% of total costs.
But with Helene, Aon’s Dickson estimated that only 5% of victims had insurance coverage for the type of damage they got. He estimated $10 billion in insured damage so doing the math would put total damage in the $100 billion to $200 billion range, which he called a bit high but in the ballpark. Insured losses for Milton are in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, he said.
With Helene, Swiss Re said less than 2% of Georgia households have federal flood insurance, with North Carolina and South Carolina at 3% and 9%. In North Carolina’s Buncombe County, where more than 57 people died from Helene’s flooding, less than 1% of the homes are covered by federal flood insurance, the agency said.
Risk modeling by Moody’s, the financial services conglomerate, put a combined two-storm total damage estimate of $20 billion to $34 billion.
Karen Clark and Company, a disaster modeling firm that uses computer simulations superimposed on storm and insurance data, wouldn’t give total damage estimates for the storms. But the company figured insured losses alone were $36 billion for Milton and $6.4 billion for Helene.
“The economic losses are going up because we’re putting more infrastructure and housing in harm’s way,” said University of South Carolina’s Susan Cutter, co-director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute, who added that climate change also plays a role. “Human losses and deaths are going down because people are being a little bit more vigilant about paying attention to preparedness and getting out of harm’s way.”
Much of the damage is because of flooding. Studies show that hurricanes are getting wetter because of the buildup of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Basic physics dictates that clouds hold 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit, and that falls as rain.
“There is scientific agreement that floods and flooding from these hurricanes is becoming more frequent and more severe. So it is likely that we’re going to be seeing a higher frequency of storms like Helene in the future,” said Karen Clark, who founded her namesake firm. “It’s not really an insurance issue because it’s not privately insured. This is really a societal issue and political question. How do we want to deal with this?”
Clark and several of the experts said it’s time for society to think about where it builds, where it lives and if it should just leave dangerous areas and not rebuild, a concept called “managed retreat.”
“At what point do you as an individual continue to build, rebuild, rebuild and rebuild versus saying ‘OK, I’ve had enough’,” Cutter said.
And when it comes to flood insurance, many homeowners in risky areas find it’s too expensive, so they don’t buy it, Clark said. But when a storm hits them, she said “all of us as taxpayers, we’re going to pay it because we know there are going to be federal dollars coming into those areas to help people rebuild. So all taxpayers, we’re actually paying for people to live in risky areas.”
Michigan City, Indiana — An Indiana man convicted of killing four people including his brother and his sister’s fiancé decades ago was put to death Wednesday, without any independent witness, marking the state’s first execution in 15 years.
Joseph Corcoran, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. CST at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, the Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement. CBS Indianapolis affiliate WTTV reports that officials said the execution process started just after midnight.
Indiana Department of Corrections via AP
Corcoran was scheduled to be executed with the powerful sedative pentobarbital, but the state agency’s statement did not mention that drug. Corcoran’s execution was the 24th in the U.S. this year.
According to WTTV, the statement said Corcoran told officials his last words were, “Not really. Let’s get this over with.”
He was convicted in the July 1997 shootings of his brother, 30-year-old James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé, 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner, and two other men, Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30.
According to court records, before Corcoran fatally shot the four victims he was under stress because the forthcoming marriage of his sister to Turner would necessitate moving out of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, home he shared with his brother and sister.
While jailed for those killings, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in northern Indiana’s Steuben County. He was charged in their killings but acquitted.
Last summer, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced plans to resume state executions following a yearslong hiatus marked by a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.
The state provided limited details about the execution process, and no media witnesses were permitted under state law.
Indiana and Wyoming are the only two states that do not allow members of the media to witness state executions, according to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Corcoran’s attorneys had fought his death penalty sentence for years, arguing he was severely mentally ill, which affected his ability to understand and make decisions. This month, his attorneys asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution but the request was denied.
Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016. But his attorneys asked the U.S. District Court of Northern Indiana last week to stop his execution and hold a hearing to decide if it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran has a serious mental illness. The court declined to intervene Friday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did the same Tuesday.
Corcoran’s attorneys then asked the U.S. Supreme Court issue an emergency order halting his execution, but the high court denied their request for a stay late Tuesday, ending Corcoran’s options with the courts.
His sole remaining hope then became Holcomb, who could have commuted Corcoran’s death sentence. But that commutation never came and the execution proceeded as scheduled.
WTTV says Holcomb issued a statement saying Corcoran’s case “has been reviewed repeatedly over the last 25 years – including 7 times by the Indiana Supreme Court and 3 times by the U.S. Supreme Court, the most recent of which was tonight. His sentence has never been overturned and was carried out as ordered by the court.”
Indiana’s last state execution was in 2009 when Matthew Wrinkles was put to death for killing his wife, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.
Since then, 13 executions were carried out in Indiana, but those were initiated and performed by federal officials in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.
State officials have said they couldn’t continue executions because a combination of drugs used in lethal injections had become unavailable.
For years, there has been a shortage across the country because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell their products for that purpose. That’s pushed states, including Indiana, to turn to compounding pharmacies, which manufacture drugs specifically for a client. Some use more accessible drugs such as the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam, both of which, critics say, can cause intense pain.
Religious groups, disability rights advocates and others have opposed his execution. About a dozen people, some holding candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to pray outside the prison, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential area about 60 miles east of Chicago.
“We can build a society without giving governmental authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” said Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.
Other death penalty opponents also demonstrated outside the prison Tuesday night, some holding signs that read “Execution Is Not The Solution” and “Remember The Victims But Not With More Killing.”
“There is no need and no benefit from this execution. It’s all show,” said Abraham Borowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, his organization that protests every execution in the U.S.
Prison officials said in a brief statement Tuesday evening that Corcoran “requested Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”
Corcoran said farewell late Tuesday to relatives, including his wife, Tahina Corcoran, who told reporters outside the prison that they discussed their faith and their memories, including attending high school together. She reiterated her request for Indiana’s governor to commute her husband’s death sentence.
Tahina Corcoran said her husband is “very mentally ill” and she didn’t think he fully grasped what was happening to him.
“He is in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she said.
BALTIMORE — One person was killed and nine others injured in a shooting and fiery crash in the Baltimore suburb of Towson Tuesday night, authorities said.
Law enforcement responded at around 7:15 p.m. in the 8500 block of Loch Raven Boulevard, Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said in a news briefing.
“It appears to be a mass shooting incident,” McCullough told reporters. “We have multiple persons who were shot. Right now, we are determining the circumstances and the conditions in this case.”
The first arriving officer found a vehicle on its side in flames near a funeral home, McCullough said, and then several gunshot victims were found in the area.
“There appears to be some type of incident that led to the vehicle crashing and catching on fire,” McCollough said. “Investigators are looking into the circumstances leading up to that.”
The name of the person killed and the manner of death was not released, nor were the conditions of the nine people injured. McCollough did not specify how many of the nine people injured were gunshot victims.
At this time, investigators believe this was an isolated and targeted incident, with no further threat to the community, he added. It’s unclear if any suspects have been arrested. There was no word on a possible motive.
“We will leave no stone unturned and we will dedicate every resource to this,” McCullough said. “We don’t generally see incidents like this in our community in Baltimore County. I assure you as your police chief that we will put all resources toward trying to clear this case.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was at the scene assisting police, as was the Baltimore County Fire Department.
“This is an incident that is shocking, particularly for those of us in Baltimore County,” said Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski. “These types of incidents are unheard of here, so it really shocks the conscience. However, we want our residents to know that we are, as always, fully committed to ensuring that both our fire and police departments have the full support and all the resources they need from the Baltimore County government to ensure that they bring this investigation to a conclusion.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Baltimore County Police at 410-887-4636.
President-elect Donald Trump announced he will nominate Herschel Walker, the former football player whose 2022 Senate run was plagued by controversy, to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas.
“Herschel has spent decades serving as an Ambassador to our Nation’s youth, our men and women in the Military, and athletes at home and abroad,” Trump said on social media Tuesday night.
Walker would need to be confirmed by the Senate to assume the role. The Senate has not confirmed a U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas in over a decade. Former President Barack Obama had nominated Cassandra Butts for the role in 2014, but the Senate never even brought her nomination up for a vote, according to The Associated Press. She died in 2016.
Trump in his first term nominated Doug Manchester in 2017 for the ambassador role, but his nomination stalled for over two years. CBS News in 2019 also uncovered evidence of a possible pay-to-play scheme for the role. He eventually withdrew and Trump went on to nominate William Douglass in 2020. Douglass’ nomination was withdrawn by President Biden when he took office, and Mr. Biden in turn nominated Calvin Smyre, who has not been confirmed by the Senate.
Absent an official ambassador to the Bahamas, Kimberly Furnish currently serves in the role of Chargé d’Affaires.
Walker rose to national prominence as a star running back for the Georgia Bulldogs, winning the Heisman trophy in 1982. He spent his first few years of professional ball in the United States Football League before it folded, and then moved on to the NFL.
Walker reentered the national spotlight when, at Trump’s urging, he challenged Georgia’s Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock for his seat in 2022. The race featured several controversies, including two women claiming that Walker — who was running as an anti-abortion candidate — had paid for them to get abortions.
Walker denied both allegations.
In one instance, Walker admitted to writing a check for a woman who said he paid for her to get an abortion in 2009, but he said he hadn’t known what the money was for.
Another woman claimed Walker paid her to get an abortion while the two carried out a six-year relationship while he was married to another woman and playing in the NFL. During a news conference back in 2022, she said she couldn’t go through with the procedure when she went to get it herself, so Walker took her to a clinic in the Dallas area the next day and waited for her while she got the abortion.
“This was a lie a week ago and it is a lie today,” Walker said at the time following an interview the woman gave a week after the initial news conference.
Warnock would go on to win the election in a runoff after neither candidate received more than 50% of the vote on election day.
Aaron Navarro and
contributed to this report.
