Report: R.I. properties at risk of storm surge damage

ACCORDING TO CORELOGIC'S Storm Surge Report, 16,722 Rhode Island properties worth $7.2 billion are at risk of storm surge damage from hurricanes. / COURTESY CORELOGIC
ACCORDING TO CORELOGIC'S Storm Surge Report, 16,722 Rhode Island properties worth $7.2 billion are at risk of storm surge damage from hurricanes. / COURTESY CORELOGIC

IRVINE, Calif. – More than 16,500 properties in the Ocean State are at risk of storm surge damage, according to an annual report from real estate-data firm CoreLogic. Of those 16,722 at-risk Rhode Island properties, 3,899 were described as being at “extreme risk” of hurricane-related storm surge damage.

The CoreLogic Storm Surge Report – released Friday – provided a breakdown of residential property along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts at five geographic levels: national, regional, state, metro and ZIP code.

According to the report, the 2013 findings reflected a “significant increase” in both the number of total properties at risk and the total value.

In Rhode Island, the value of the at-risk properties totaled $7.2 billion. Of that, 3,899 homes worth $2.3 billion were in “extreme risk” areas, 3,890 homes totaling $1.6 billion were at “very high” risk, 4,170 totaling $1.6 billion were described as “high” risk and 4,763 totaling $1.7 billion were described as “moderate” risk. Rhode Island had no “low” risk areas.

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“Public awareness of the risk hurricane-driven storm surge poses to coastal homeowners has never been higher coming off the heels of Hurricane Sandy last fall,” Howard Botts, vice president and director of database development for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions, said in prepared remarks. “Sandy was a harsh reminder of the potential destruction associated with storm-surge flooding, and of just how many communities are vulnerable to that risk, in areas typically assumed to be relatively safe from hurricanes along the northeastern Atlantic shoreline.”

Neighboring Massachusetts had a total of 107,657 properties at risk of storm surge damage, which could account for $50.3 billion worth of damages.
Nationally, there are more than 4.2 million residential properties exposed to storm surge risk valued at roughly $1.1 trillion. Of that, more than $658 billion is concentrated in the country’s 10 major metropolitan areas.
Of the 50 United States, Florida tops the rankings with nearly 1.5 million properties worth $386 billion at risk. Louisiana ranked second with slightly more than 411,000 homes, worth $135 billion, in storm surge zones.
Read the full CoreLogic report at: www.corelogic.com.

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