Winter Storm Damage

Winter Storms account for 7.1% of all insured catastrophe losses from 1993 to 2012. Behind only tornadoes and tropical storms and hurricanes. Winter Storms account for nearly 27.8 billion dollars in insured losses, or about 1.4 billion dollars annually.

Winter Storms that even reached Texas.

Winter Storms that even reached Texas.

 

There were at least 30 million dollars in residential insured losses after a December ice storm hit North Texas. These figures, no matter how staggering they are, do not take into account several other factors. These include, expenses of cleanup and safety, as well as damage to government property and vehicles. According to this article, Dallas County spent 300,000 to 400,000 dollars just to keep slick roads as clear as possible. Sanding and salting roads were some of the counties best efforts, according to County Judge Clay Jenkins. He also said that the biggest costs came from closing offices, including the court system. 1.5 million dollars was lost due to the weather-related shutdown.

December weather claimed 29 lives, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and insured losses. Overall losses caused by global disasters were actually below the 10 year averages, direct overall losses were 184 billion dollars while insured losses were 56 billion. Last year these totals were 125 billion dollars and 31 billion dollars, respectively.