Report: Hurricane damage cost doubling every decade

Population growth along the coast is leading to a potentially rapid increase in the cost of storm damage. It could double every 10 to 15 years.

The damage caused by hurricanes is doubling every 10 to 15 years -- not because of global warming but because more people are crowding into Broward, Miami-Dade and other vulnerable areas, according to a new study.

One particularly ominous conclusion:

If a storm like the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 struck today, it would inflict at least $140 billion in damage, dwarfing the $81 billion cost of Hurricane Katrina's assault on New Orleans, other parts of the Gulf Coast and South Florida.

If the same storm hit Broward, Miami-Dade and the rest of South Florida 12 years from now, the cost could be $200 billion.

''We're seeing a big jump in damages, mostly due to more people living along the coast and more wealth and infrastructure in place than during previous generations,'' said Chris Landsea, a coauthor of the report and the National Hurricane Center's science and operations officer.

The study, written by Landsea and four other prominent hurricane researchers, appears in the current edition of Natural Hazards Review, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Accounting for population growth, inflation and changes in wealth, the researchers ''normalized'' -- or brought up to date -- the estimated costs of all U.S. landfalling hurricanes between 1900 and 2005.

They found a steady doubling of economic damage every 10 to 15 years, and that hurricanes now cost the nation about $10 billion every year in total property losses.

''And that's just direct destruction,'' Landsea said. ``That does not account for secondary effects like lost tourism and lost jobs. Those are all additional factors.''

Further inflaming the scientific debate on the relationship -- if any -- between climate change and hurricane frequency and intensity, the researchers found no link between global warming and storm-inflicted damage.

''There's just no appreciable impact that we can see,'' said Landsea, a leading critic of those who claim that global warming already is causing more intense storms.

The 1926 hurricane, a Category 4 storm that was slightly weaker than Hurricane Andrew but far larger, killed hundreds of people and devastated the region from the Florida Keys to Palm Beach County.

Scientists say a storm of equal strength and scope eventually will strike this area and Landsea said the ``entire metropolitan region would suffer a severe impact.''

''We would not have the same kind of damage as New Orleans and the Mississippi coast had [during Hurricane Katrina in 2005] because we don't have the same storm surge problem,'' Landsea said.

``But it would be major wind-destruction event and, along coastal areas, we would have significant flooding.''

In reaching their conclusions, Landsea and the other researchers painted an alarming picture of the present and the future.

''The analysis here should provide a cautionary warning for hurricane policy makers,'' the study said, calling for mitigating action, including an unlikely slowdown in population growth.

``Unless such action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and properties in coastal areas where hurricanes strike, damage will increase, and by a great deal, as more and wealthier people increasingly inhabit coastal locations.''

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