Damages Mount – again – In Storm-battered South Central States
As the town of Picher, Okla., began to climb out of the wreckage of the deadly tornadoes that swept across Southeastern Oklahoma, Missouri and beyond over the weekend of May 10-11, some predicted that the town may not rebuild.
Picher is the site of one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters and Super-fund sites, due to the now-closed lead and zinc mines that caused the population grow to about 20,000 in the mid-20th century. The majority of Picher’s citizens took advantage of federal and state buyouts in recent years and moved away, leaving a town of about 800 before the storms hit May 10.
Piles of mine waste, or chat, are now peppered with debris from homes flattened by the tornado that killed six people in Picher. In total, the storms killed 21 people, 14 in Missouri and one in Georgia, according to Associated Press reports.
Gov. Brad Henry, who toured the area after the storms, told the AP that the buyout program won’t stop just because homes were leveled. He went so far as to say he would “guarantee” that those awaiting buyouts who lost their homes would be treated fairly.
“We will continue to assess the situation. … We will make sure the people get the assistance that they need,” Henry said. “If they need help to be moved to another location, we’ll do everything we can to help them do that. I think it’s kind of speculative for me to sit here and say exactly what’s going to happen. I don’t know at this point.”
On the federal level the buyout program is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. Because of Picher’s Superfund status, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is unlikely to grant assistance to homeowners to rebuild in the town, Oklahoma Emergency Management Director Albert Ashwood told the AP.
An Endless Parade
Arkansas, Oklahoma and north Texas have been battered with seemingly endless parade of storms this spring. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland told Insurance Journal that while mounting damages from frequent disasters could cause property insurance rates to spike in that state, she hasn’t seen any evidence of that so far.
Arkansas was relatively spared in the most recent round of storms, but violent weather a week earlier caused nearly $11 million in damages, according to figures released by the Arkansas Insurance Department. Still, the town of Stuttgart in Arkansas was hit by the May 10-11 storms, damaging some 200 homes, 50 businesses and causing numerous, but not life-threatening, injuries.
In Texas, tornadoes, high winds and hail storms have struck Texas this year causing insured losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Insurance Council of Texas reported. Nationwide, violent thunderstorms with outbreaks of tornadoes have caused more than $3 billion in insured losses this year alone.
“The contrast between the colder wintertime air masses and the warmer sub-tropics, coupled with an active jet stream, have contributed to a number of fairly widespread severe weather outbreaks,” according to Greg Carbin of the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
Carbin said nationwide, preliminary data indicate a record or near record for tornadoes in January and February and May is beginning in fairly typical fashion with the most recent outbreak.
Nationwide, direct tornado-related fatalities are now at or near 100, the highest annual number in a decade, the ICT reported.
Texas 4th in Insured Losses
Texas’ insured losses in the first quarter of the year amounted to $270 million. Much of that destruction came from severe thunderstorms that raked north Texas with tornadoes, straight-line winds and hail storms. Only Georgia, Tennessee and California experienced worse losses earlier this year, according to the ICT.
Gary Kerney with the Insurance Service Office Property Claim Services said severe weather has resulted in catastrophic losses of $3.35 billion for the first three months of the year. He said the losses represent the worst first quarter results in a decade. “More than 600,000 claims were reported in 22 states with the majority of the losses coming from damaging winds, large hail, flooding, tornadoes and a winter storm,” Kerney said.
The ICT’s Mark Hanna said Texas averages 150 tornadoes each year and that May usually brings the highest numbers of tornadoes and fatalities.
“The deadliest tornado in Texas history occurred on May 11, 1953, killing 114 people in Waco,” Hanna said. “Many Texans will never forget other deadly May tornadoes such as Lubbock, Saragosa and Jarrell that combined killed 83 people.”
The March 28, 2000, tornado, that struck downtown Fort Worth, remains the costliest tornado on record in Texas, with insured losses set at $445 million.
Information on tornadoes and severe weather in Texas, can be found online at www.insurancecouncil.org/insurancefacts.asp.
Associated Press and ICT reports contributed to this story.