Houston, Texas hit by hurricane-like winds and flash floods during deadly storms

Houston, Texas has been hit by deadly storms that reportedly blew out windows in high-rise buildings, caused flash floods, and knocked out power to nearly a million homes and businesses.

Four people have died following the storms, during which Houston’s mayor, John Whitmire, observed winds reaching 100 mph – the equivalent of Hurricane Ike – causing considerable damage downtown.

According to utility tracker PowerOutage.us, almost one million customers were without power in Texas as of late Thursday night, with the vast majority of outages in Harris County, which contains Houston and is home to more than 4.7 million people.

Flights were also grounded at Houston’s two major airports because of the weather, and the Houston Independent School District cancelled school Friday due to the severe weather and flooding.

It’s no secret that the US has suffered greatly from severe convective storms (SCS) in recent times. Moody’s noted in a report at the start of the year that the P&C sector faced significant financial setbacks in 2023, primarily attributed to a series of SCS rather than major catastrophes.

These storms, encompassing hail, straight-line winds, and tornadoes, though individually less costly, collectively amassed considerable damages, surpassing $60 billion out of a total estimated $100 billion in insured losses.

Aon’s weekly cat report released on April 12 of this year this noted that SCS, which occurred the week before, would drive economic and insured losses into the hundreds of millions or higher.

In that paper, it was confirmed that around 450 storm reports were submitted to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) between April 8-11, all spanning from Texas to South Carolina.

Aon noted that the most extensive damage was due to extreme rainfall, primarily in states such as Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida.

Then, on May 3, the broker observed more severe weather outbreaks, along with flooding. which impacted central US states between April 25 and May 2nd.

Several powerful tornadoes are said to have caused catastrophic damage in Nebraska, Iowa, and Oklahoma, which resulted in many homes and businesses being destroyed.

On this occasion, Aon said that losses could potentially run into the billions of dollars, on both an economic and insured basis.

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