Boston:
Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimates that industry insured losses to onshore property resulting from Hurricane Sally’s winds, storm surge, and inland flood will range from USD 1 billion to USD 3 billion, with wind representing the majority of the losses. AIR Worldwide is a Verisk business.
According to AIR, although wind speeds diminished rapidly after landfall, Sally buffeted cities and towns for hours as it moved north-northeast across Alabama at speeds as slow as 2 mph. Coastal areas between Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, lingered in the northern eyewall for hours. Tropical storm–force winds continued through the afternoon of the 16th across southern Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle.
Along its track, Sally caused mostly minor roof damage, broken windows, downed trees, toppled church steeples and appurtenant structures such as gas station canopies, and some isolated major structural failures, and damaged infrastructure in Alabama and Florida. At its height, power outage extended to nearly half a million customers—most of them in Alabama and Florida.
Included in AIR’s estimates are losses to onshore residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles for their building, contents, and time element coverage.