While the rain continues to fall in Texas and Louisiana, analysts are scrambling to work out how much the damage done by Hurricane Harvey will cost. The US government won’t be releasing an exact estimate for a month but its lead expert says it looks like it will easily pass the $160 billion cost (in combined private sector and government spending) of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“Each day that passes, as impacts multiply, it seems more likely that Harvey will eclipse the cost of Katrina…. It might not even be close—it may blow Katrina out of the water,” said Adam Smith, lead researcher for the US Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters program at the National Centers for Environmental Information.