Estimated property replacement value from Oklahoma tornado more than $2 billion: AIR

Preliminary damage estimates from a tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma place replacement value of properties between $2.2 billion and $6.4 billion, according to AIR Worldwide.

The replacement value is dependent on the buffer zone around the track of the tornado — within a 0.4 mile buffer zone (total width of 0.8 miles) the estimate is $2.2 billion, while within a 1-mile buffer zone (total width of 2 miles) of the storm track the estimate is $6.4 billion, the catastrophe modelling firm reported.

“These two buffer zones, and in the different estimated replacement value associated with them, reflect the uncertainty in the exact size of the tornado,” according to AIR.

“However, it is important to note that the exposure within each buffer zone is not equally at risk from damaging winds. In fact, exposures on the periphery of the 1-mile buffer zone would experience wind speeds of F-0 force, and hence much lighter damage, than exposures within the 0.4-mile buffer zone.”

On the afternoon of May 20, an EF-5 tornado – the highest category on the EF scale —with estimated wind of between 200-210 mph, tore through Moore, OK before continuing northeast and dissapating about 5 miles east. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the tornado had a path length of 17 miles and width of 1.3 miles.

Initial damage was found around 4.4 miles west of Newcastle, and tracked North East before taking a more eastward track through Moore, the NWS reported. While the storm initially produced EF0 and EF1 damage, the storm intensified very rapidly producing EF4 damage, with some areas determined at EF5.

The same system produced another 21 tornadoes, though the Moore event was by far the most damaging, according to AIR.

Six people unaccounted for following Monday’s Oklahoma tornado, official says on.cnn.com/13Lw78W

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 22, 2013

Fourteen years ago, on May 3, 1999, another EF5 tornado swept through much of the same area, and causing insured claims payouts of nearly $1 billion (roughly $1.4 billion in today’s dollars) and generated about 146,000 claims, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III).

Severe thunderstorms, including tornado events, caused $15 billion in U.S. insured losses in 2012. In 2011, it was $25 billion because of the two costliest tornado events in U.S. history: the $7.5 billion in insured damages (in 2012 dollars) arising out of the late April 2011 twisters that struck multiple states, most notably Alabama, which accounted for nearly $3 billion of the total damages; and the $7 billion in insured damages (in 2012 dollars) that resulted from the May 2011 tornado outbreak, which also affected numerous states.

Joplin, Missouri, was the hardest hit community in May 2011, incurring $2.2 billion of the $7 billion in damages, making that tornado the single largest insurance event in Missouri’s history, according to the III.

“Over the past five years, insurers paid some $75 billion to victims of these events. As the events in Moore tragically demonstrate, this trend toward more violent and destructive weather patterns shows no signs of abating,” according to Dr. Robert Hartwig, president of the III and an economist.

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