States located along coastal areas in the United States are always at risk during hurricane season.
According to a new study released by CoreLogic, Alabama ranks No. 15 among coastal states for storm surge risk, out of 19 total states.
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While thousands of homes are still considered in extremely high risk or very high risk, this compares favorably against other Southeastern states like Texas, Louisiana and Florida, who all rank among the highest.
In Alabama, there are approximately 6,593 homes listed as “extreme” when it comes to storm surge risk, followed by 17,161 as “very high”, 32,254 as “high”, 44,503 as “moderate” and 58,179 as “low.”
“There is substantial variation in storm surge risk by state,” the CoreLogic report stated. “Factors such as the length of a state’s coastline, coastal elevation and the density of residential development all combine to determine the susceptibility of an area to flooding from storm surge. As previous analysis has shown, Texas and Florida consistently have a greater number of homes at risk than other states, primarily due to the length of their respective coastlines. Again this year, as in previous years, Florida has the most homes exposed to storm surge flooding at more than 2.7 million. Texas ranks third with more than 500 thousand homes at risk. Reconstruction cost value (RCV) is highly correlated with the number of homes at risk, and as a result, Florida has the highest total at $536 billion, while Texas comes in fifth with $94 billion.”
Florida, which ranked No. 1, has 348,727 homes at “extreme” risk, with 1,057,013 homes at “very high” risk.
Louisiana, another Southeastern state, ranked No. 2, Georgia No. 10 and Mississippi No. 12.
