941,392 Homes with Storm Surge: Hurricane Ida Threatens

In New Orleans, Hurricane Ida, which is projected to attain Category 4 status, carries and extreme storm surge potential, with a total of 941,392 homes in the Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi coastal areas exposed to storm surge damage, as stated by CoreLogic.

These homes have a combined reconstruction cost value of approximately $220.37 billion, reported CoreLogic, a property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider,

Hurricane Ida, which is slated to be a major hurricane making landfall on Sunday evening, August 29.

The National Weather Service forecasts that landfall will occur on the central Louisiana coast with significant impact on surrounding areas.

Due to the intensity and size of Hurricane Ida’s wind field, a trifecta of impacts is expected: damaging winds between 130-156 mph, life-threatening storm surge of up to 15 feet, and extremely heavy, widespread rainfall between 10-15 inches.

“Atmospheric conditions are highly favorable for rapid intensification after Ida emerges from Cuba on Saturday into Sunday,” said Dr. Daniel Betten, meteorologist and senior leader for Weather Science at CoreLogic. “Ida will also be passing over an extremely warm loop current, which is known to contribute to the rapid intensification of hurricanes in the central Gulf of Mexico, most famously seen with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.”

Four years ago, Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast and dumped 50 inches of rain on the Houston area late in August 2017.

Harvey was the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event since reliable rainfall records began around the 1880s, as stated by the National Hurricane Center.