|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lili damage estimated at $600 million
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Hurricane Lili could cost U.S. insurers $600 million in claims, the Insurance Information Institute said Saturday. Lili rushed ashore Thursday morning, sweeping through central Louisiana and spreading heavy rain and winds through Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and parts of Texas. But Lili, the first hurricane to hit U.S. shores in 2002, could have been far worse. Just a few hours before landfall, the storm carried winds of 145 mph, but those dropped to 100 mph before the storm came ashore. The institute's preliminary information came from a survey of insurers and an average of initial estimates obtained from computer models. Official property loss estimates will not be available for several weeks. Standard homeowners and business insurance policies cover wind damage, but not flood damage, which is covered under policies written by the National Flood Insurance Program. Tropical Storm Isidore, which came ashore in almost the same area of Louisiana a week before Lili, cost an estimated $100 million in insured losses, the institute said. The institute also said that natural disasters have cost the insurance company $4 billion so far in 2002, compared with $7.5 billion for the whole of 2001. Louisiana has been declared a disaster area by President Bush. Rapid needs assessment teams -- consisting of federal and state emergency workers -- surveyed the damage at first daylight Friday, according to Jim Ballow of the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness. The storm knocked power out of nearly 465,000 homes, but by late Thursday workers had restored power to nearly 58,000 homes, Ballow said. About 6,200 people had lost their phone service. The entire population of Vermilion Parish -- home to 55,000 people -- had no power, according to Maxine Trahan, a spokeswoman for neighboring Acadia Parish's Sheriff's Office. The most severe damage reports were coming from the parishes of Iberia and Acadia. Two people in Acadia were injured when a roof collapsed, a spokeswoman for the parish's emergency operations center said, and two utility workers suffered minor injuries when a wall of bricks fell on their car, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office said. None of the injuries was life-threatening. A police officer in Pointe Coupee Parish, northwest of Baton Rouge, suffered minor injuries when a tree fell on his car. The Acadia Parish town of Crowley, replete with large, historic homes and old live oak trees, was hit especially hard, Trahan said. At one car dealer in the town all the windows of the showroom were blown out, she said. The storm snapped trees, ripped off roofs and shingles, knocked down traffic signs and cut down utility wires in New Iberia, a town of 34,000 in Iberia Parish. Lili even caused rare whitecaps on the town's normally peaceful bayou, said Mayor Ruth Fontenot. In Terrebonne Parish, on the Gulf coast, 25,000 people are displaced because of high water, said Federal Emergency Management Agency director Joe Allbaugh, who was preparing to head to the state. Allbaugh estimated 150,000 people in various coastal parishes were out of their homes. Two tornadoes touched down around noon in Lafayette Parish, said Lt. Ray Schexnider with the local emergency operations center. There were no reports of damage or injuries, he said. The storm also ripped the roof off a motel and caused some flooding, he said, but he added that the tidal surge was not as high as was feared. In all, nearly 900,000 people were covered by evacuation orders as Lili approached -- many of whom heeded the warning and sought refuge farther inland, Shenofsky said.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
