Around 8pm local time on Monday, extra-tropical cyclone Sandy made landfall along the coast of southern New Jersey. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) the center of Sandy tracked around five miles southwest of Atlantic City, New Jersey and around 40 miles northeast of Cape May, New Jersey, according to a report from RMS.

The NHC reported maximum sustained winds of 80 mph at landfall and that the system had become extra-tropical within the hour prior to landfall. Hurricane force wind gusts have been reported over Long Island and the New York Metropolitan areas. Widespread flooding from record breaking storm surge has occurred in New Jersey and New York. Over 5 million are without power across 15 states.

Sandy has impacted a very densely populated region which has a very high insured exposure values. In New York City alone, there is US$2.1 trillion worth of insured property, mainly comprising of commercial/industrial buildings. Current damage reports from Manhattan consist of blown out windows and flooding, including the flooding of basements which in cities often contain high value equipment (seen in Allison in 2001).

The effects are very far reaching due to the size of the storm. Expect to see a lot of building damage and auto damage due to tree fall over a wide area, business interruption, fire following damage, coastal surge damage, and inland flooding will all contribute to the total losses. Inland damage relating more to what we typically see from winter storms is expected, for example, roof damage due to snow loading.

RMS says it is too early to estimate losses as ongoing event but to provide a benchmark, Irene affected similar region last year and caused around $4.5bil insured losses but Sandy event is much more severe (relate to characteristics) and has impacted New York City to a much worse degree than Irene. The event is fairly unusual due to the size of wind field and the track path, i.e. making direct hit on coast and travelling far inland rather than skirting coastline. Observed wind gust max are around 80mph and in the lower cat 1 range the fact that a large area was impacted makes a big difference.

Share Story: