CBS News
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.”
CHICAGO (CBS) — Two sisters have grateful hearts after they both received heart transplants at the same age—seven years apart.
Younger sister Meredith Everhart and older sister Abbey Cannon are now bonded by a genetic condition and a second chance at life.
“What’s ironic is that when she needed a heart transplant, was exactly the same age I needed a heart transplant,” said Cannon. “Seven years apart in age, seven years apart within 30 days of transplant, and our birthdays are within 30 days.”
The sisters share a special bond of getting a second chance at life, which they both received at the age of 38 years old.
Both sisters suffer from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy—otherwise known as HCM.
The genetic condition is a form of heart disease that causes the heart muscle to thicken.
In 2012, Cannon had chest pain. She was misdiagnosed in Nashville, Tennessee, and got a second opinion at Northwestern Medicine in 2016.
“Within six months, I was inpatient on an aortic balloon pump waiting for a heart,” Cannon said. “I ended up getting my heart 32 days later, So my date is February 27, 2017.”
Just months after Cannon’s transplant, Everhart was diagnosed with HCM too. She tried medication and participated in clinical trials, but her condition kept getting worse.”
“For me, it was, she’s right—I was in denial for a long time,” said Everhart, “and I didn’t want to be sick. I was in my 20s. I was in my early 30’s. I was like, this is not happening. I saw how bad she suffered.”
In May 2022, Everhart got COVID-19, and it sent her into heart failure.
She was added to the transplant list one year later.
“I got the call on January 29 of this year, 2024, and it’s been a journey,” Everhart said. “It’s been fantastic though. Northwestern has been great.”
Cannon said she can’t stress enough how important it is to become an organ donor.
“Had we not had someone that gave that most selfless gift, neither of us would be here,” she said.
CBS News
Congo says mystery disease behind dozens of deaths of women and children finally identified as severe malaria
Johannesburg — For weeks it was dubbed simply “Disease X.” But the mysterious flu-like disease that has killed more than 143 people — mainly women and young children — in the Democratic Republic of Congo has finally been identified.
“The mystery has finally been solved,” Congo’s health ministry declared in a statement on Tuesday. “It’s a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory illness.”
The health agency said malnutrition in the hardest-hit region had weakened the local population’s immunity, leaving them more vulnerable to the disease. People who contracted the malaria infection have exhibited symptoms including headache, fever, cough and body ache.
The Congo’s health minister had told journalists the country was on “maximum alert” over the spread of the previously unidentified disease, and health officials told CBS News in early December that the remoteness of the epicenter of the outbreak and lack of a diagnosis made it difficult to launch a concerted response.
Samy Ntumba Shambuyi/AP
At least 592 cases were reported after the alert was first raised by Congo’s health ministry on Oct. 29. The ministry said the disease had a fatality rate of 6.25%. More than half of the deaths recorded were children younger than five who were severely malnourished when they contracted the disease, according to the World Health Organization.
At a press briefing on Dec. 10, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 10 out of 12 samples from patients suffering from the mysterious disease had tested positive for malaria, but he said they were still testing at the time for other diseases.
The Congolese government had sent a rapid intervention team to the Kwango province, 435 miles southeast of capital city Kinshasa, consisting of epidemiologists and other medical experts. Their objective was to identify the disease and mount a suitable response. Government officials had earlier warned locals to avoid touching people infected with the illness or the bodies of those who had died.
Congo has suffered from many disease outbreaks in recent years, including typhoid, malaria and anemia. The country has also grappled with an mpox outbreak, with more than 47,000 suspected cases and over 1,000 suspected deaths from the disease, according to the WHO.
Anti-malaria medicine provided by the WHO was being distributed at local health centers in Congo, and WHO officials said more medical supplies were due to arrive in the country Wednesday.
It’s the rainy season in Congo, which often sees a rise in malaria cases, and will certainly complicate treating those most at risk.
CBS News
Russia says suspect detained in killing of Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of Russian chemical weapons unit
Moscow — Russia’s security service said Wednesday that it had detained a suspect in the killing of a senior general in a Moscow bomb blast. The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen whom the agency said had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Ukrainian security sources told CBS News on Monday that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was behind the explosion that killed Lt. General Igor Kirillov. The claim couldn’t be independently verified, but Russian officials quickly vowed to take revenge against Ukraine’s leaders.
Russia’s Federal Security Service didn’t name the suspect, but it said he was born in 1995. According to an FSB statement, the suspect said he was recruited by Ukrainian special services.
AFPTV / AFP via Getty Images
“Kirillov was a war criminal and an absolutely legitimate target, since he gave orders to use prohibited chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military,” an informed source in the SBU asserted to CBS News. “Such an inglorious end awaits everyone who kills Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable.”
Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in the attack.
The FSB said the suspect had been promised a reward of $100,000 and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov. It said that, acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect traveled to Moscow, where he picked up a homemade explosive device. He then placed the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance of the residential building where Kirillov lived.
The suspect then rented a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that livestreamed video from the scene to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. When Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb.
According to the FSB’s statement, the suspect faces “a sentence of up to life imprisonment.”
Kirillov, 54, was the chief of the Russian military’s radiological, biological and chemical protection forces. Either Kirillov himself or his military unit were sanctioned by several countries, including the U.S., Britain and Canada, for the alleged use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s SBU had opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.
Maxim Shemetov/REUTERS
Ukraine’s SBU has said it recorded more than 4,800 occasions when Russia used chemical weapons on the battlefield since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. In May, the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against Kirillov’s unit, saying the U.S. had recorded the use of chloropicrin, a poison gas first deployed in World War I, against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat, and Kirillov was allegedly behind the spread of that propaganda.
Kirillov, who had been in his post since April 2017, was accused by the U.S. government of helping to spread disinformation about biological weapons and research.
In March 2023, about a year into Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. State Department said Kirillov had “significantly increased his media engagement” to issue repeated, baseless claims that the U.S. government had been involved in creating both the mpox virus and COVID-19, and that the U.S. “is developing biological weapons able to selectively target ethnic groups.”
“The U.S. Government is concerned that this false narrative may be a prelude for a false-flag operation, where Russia itself uses biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and then attempts to blame it on Ukraine and/or the United States,” the State Department said at the time.
Sefa Karacan / Anadolu via Getty Images
The bomb used in Tuesday’s attack was triggered remotely, according to Russian news reports. Images from the scene showed shattered windows and scorched brickwork.
Russia’s top state investigative agency said it’s looking into Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.
2 sisters, 7 years apart in age, also receive heart transplants 7 years apart in Chicago
Congo says mystery disease behind dozens of deaths of women and children finally identified as severe malaria
Russia says suspect detained in killing of Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of Russian chemical weapons unit
2 sisters, 7 years apart in age, also receive heart transplants 7 years apart in Chicago
Congo says mystery disease behind dozens of deaths of women and children finally identified as severe malaria