Climate Exodus: Movement of the People

I’ve got love and assurance, I’ve got new [property] insurance

And I’ve got strength and endurance, so I count my blessings.

-Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, Count Your Blessings

In 1955, the island community of Isle de Jean Charles, some 80 miles south of New Orleans, covered 22,000 acres. Since then, rising water levels and subsiding land have shrunk the island every year. Inch by inch and acre by acre, the surrounding marshes have claimed most of the island’s grassland and forests, so that today only about 450 acres remain. 

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Hurricane Dorian Claims: Spotlight On Independent Adjusters’ Liability

After devastating the Bahamas, Hurricane Dorian has moved up the Atlantic Coast and is now affecting the Canadian Maritimes. Dorian was the fifth Atlantic hurricane to reach Category Five status in four years and has already broken records with sustained wind speeds exceeding 185 miles per hour. Many are attributing Dorian’s strength and fury to climate change. Although Dorian was ultimately downgraded - it is now a Category 1 after impacting the Carolinas as a Category 2/3 - it has had wide-reaching impacts along the Eastern Seaboard, and early estimates suggest the cleanup and repairs will cost tens of billions of dollars.

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Zelle Hosts CAT-Law Webinar Week

Managing Insurance Claims in the Wake of Catastrophes
July 22-26, 2019

Zelle LLP invites you to join us for a week of webinars featuring insurance topics that are of critical importance to adjusters and insurance professionals. This series will cover managing insurance claims in the wake of catastrophes. All webinars will be offered free of charge and 1.0 of CE credit will be offered to attendees. These courses have been approved for CE credit in the following states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming.

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The Return of the Bomb Cyclone

A year after a series of “bomb cyclones” struck the United States as reported by my partner Seth Jackson last year, the “bomb cyclone” is back in the news as part of large winter storm that wreaked havoc across the United States earlier this week. As a result of the most recent “bomb cyclone,” it was reported that nearly 650,000 people were without power and more than 80 million people were under high wind advisories.

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New Lessons from Oroville

Climate Change Creates Evolving Risks for Dam and Reservoir Systems

Two years ago this month, communities along California’s Feather River braced for the worst when the primary spillway at the Oroville Dam failed, and rising waters in the Oroville Reservoir overtopped the dam’s emergency spillway. Catastrophic failure was averted, but in the wake of that crisis, my colleague Dan Millea and other experts urged that the near miss should be a wake-up call about the need to inspect other dams to detect risks of similar failures. At the same time, climatologists speculated about how climate change may have contributed to the incident. Two years later, there is still no precise answer to that question, but experts agree that climate change is altering the environmental stresses for which dams have been designed in the past. Today we urge insurers to consider how climate change creates new and evolving risks to dams and reservoir systems, and the potential impact on the risks they insure.

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Staying Agile and Resilient to Future Climate Risks

Looking for a cozy read under extreme weather conditions? May we suggest a few chapters of the invaluable, two-part Fourth National Climate Assessment to warm you up. 

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Sometimes CAT Insurance is Fun!

We noted this article in today’s New York Times, spotlighting FM Global’s Rhode Island research lab.  

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Atmospheric Rivers Making Landfall in California and Causing Major Flooding

Last month, several powerful storms hit California, causing widespread flooding in both Northern and Southern California. 

The storms caused multiple rivers to flood in Northern California, including the Russian River in Sonoma County. Southern California experienced record-breaking rainfall in many places, including the Los Angeles Airport. Throughout the state, the storms prompted evacuations, forced thousands to flee their homes, caused mudslides and rockslides, knocked down power lines, uprooted trees, and flooded roads and freeways causing numerous accidents.  At least eight people died. Many of the damages from the storms will likely be covered losses under homeowners’ and commercial insurance policies. 

These storms were atmospheric rivers (ARs). This is a weather phenomenon consisting of water vapor forming over the ocean and being transported in long and relatively narrow regions of the atmosphere (on average 400-600 km wide). 

ARs can create extreme rainfall and major flooding when they make landfall over an area.  According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory, a strong AR can transport an amount of water vapor equal to up to 15 times the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. 

ARs are particularly significant in the west coast of the United States, where it is estimated that they generate about 30-50% of annual precipitation. A type of AR bringing water from the tropics near Hawaii is commonly known as a “Pineapple Express.” 

In the Golden State, ARs have been responsible for numerous winter storms and multiple floods over the last two decades. For example, from late December 1996 to early January 1997, a Pineapple Express struck Northern California, causing a major flood that became known as the “New Year’s Day Flood,” and resulted in over $1 billion in damages. ARs are therefore very significant events for the insurance industry. 

While ARs can lead to devastating floods, the precipitation they cause is critical to California’s water supply. In addition to heavy rain, last month’s winter storms also brought blizzard conditions in parts of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Northern California, and significantly increased its snowpack, a key source of water for the state. These ARs have helped alleviate California’s six-year drought conditions – about 18% of the state is now free of drought. 

ARs can now be forecasted. The National Weather Service has techniques that can identify these phenomena and give advance warnings of their presence, 5 to 7 days before the ARs make landfall. Additionally, scientists within the ESRL have developed AR observatories along the west coast, to monitor ARs and improve our understanding of them. It is expected that these advances will help to mitigate the risk of major flood events, and at the same time improve water management decisions in California and the other western states. 

Nevertheless, experts are concerned that, as a result of climate change, ARs are projected to become more frequent and intense. This can result in major insured losses in the west coast.  The United States Geological Survey, Multi Hazards Demonstration Project, has developed a megastorm scenario called “ARkStorm” (for Atmospheric River 1000 Storm), studying the catastrophic impact of a series of extreme ARs in California. We will discuss this scenario, referred to by the USGS as “California’s other ‘Big One,’” in an upcoming post. 

Posted by José Umbert