Hurricane Irma's Flooding Wasn't as Severe as First Feared, Possibly Sparing Half a Million Homes

For all the devastation that Hurricane Irma wreaked – particularly in the Caribbean and the Florida Keys – and in the hot, humid aftermath for millions of Floridians left without electricity, the damage to homes on the Florida mainland could have been far worse.

Predictions at one point were for Miami and much of Southern Florida to take the full might of the one-time Category 5 hurricane. But after making landfall as a Category 4 storm in the Keys, its winds lost speed, causing much of Florida to experience the storm at a Category 2 level or less – still formidable, but far less destructive than initially feared.

If the mainland of Florida had been struck by a Category 4 storm, our estimates show that just over a million homes statewide, worth a combined $329 billion, could have been flooded by storm surges. That's more than a third of the homes in Florida.

Making the same statewide assumptions, but at a Category 2 level, some 516,000 homes worth $185 billion would be expected to flood from storm surges -- a number that could be even lower, given that Irma's strongest initial winds upon hitting much of the coastline actually pushed water out to sea. By the time the back end of the storm arrived, its winds had weakened, and they brought less flooding than had been feared. Some parts of Naples and Fort Myers saw surges of four to five feet – damaging and serious, but lower than early predictions had warned.

In Hillsborough County, where Tampa is, Category 4 storm surges could have inundated nearly 135,000 homes. At a Category 2 level, just over 72,000 were threatened.

Lives -- and homes -- have been destroyed by Hurricane Irma, in Florida and in other states, and the suffering continues. There's some question whether insurers doing business in Florida can handle the losses, even with a $17 billion Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund to draw on.

Damage to half a million homes, if that's what it comes to, is nothing to take lightly. And yet, damage to more than a million homes would have been even worse.