The death toll continues to rise in the wake of Hurricane Helene, as officials announced Thursday that more than 200 people have lost their lives throughout the Southeast as a result of the storm. Estimates of economic losses are climbing, too, as the staggering level of destruction becomes clearer each day, ranging from flooded homes on the west coast of Florida to buildings swept away by swollen rivers in the mountains of North Carolina.
Early estimates of the cost of the storm were in the $30 billion range, with Moody’s Analytics saying late last week that the storm could cause $34 billion in damages. As the scale of the damage became clearer, those estimates have risen sharply, with AccuWeather citing a range of $145 billion to $160 billion earlier this week. On Thursday, AccuWeather raised that number again, and now pegs its estimate of “total damage and economic loss” to between $225 billion and $250 billion.
Not all analysts measure the cost of storms the same way, and AccuWeather’s estimate is higher in part because it includes a wider range of items, including “the horrific loss of life, the immediate and long-term costs of healthcare for storm survivors and injured first responders, extended power outages, major infrastructure reconstruction projects for utilities, highways, bridges and railroad tracks, major business and travel disruptions, as well as long-term losses to tourism, technology, renewable energy and other industries across the southern Appalachians and southeastern U.S.”
But the estimate is also higher because the storm was so much bigger than expected, with experts saying the hurricane released more than 40 trillion gallons of rain – an unprecedented amount of precipitation.
No matter which valuation is used, Helene will be remembered as an exceptionally large and damaging storm. “This is going to be one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history in terms of total damage and economic loss and the tremendous and urgent humanitarian crisis that is going on right now,” Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, told Bloomberg.
Reviewing the storm’s damage in Florida and Georgia Thursday, President Joe Biden called for bipartisan cooperation in responding to the storm. “In moments like this, it’s time to put politics aside,” he said. “It’s not one state versus another — it’s the United States.” Saying the relief effort would no doubt cost billions of dollars, Biden called on lawmakers to provide help quickly. “Congress has an obligation, it seems to me, to ensure states have the resources they need,” he said, adding that aid “can’t wait. People need help now.”
