Nearly $10B In Hurricane Debby Damage Was In Areas Without Flood Insurance [1]
"Hurricane Debby left billions of dollars of damage in its wake as it moved across the southeastern U.S. last week — losses made all the more devastating because so many of them may have been uninsured.
More than three-quarters of the houses damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Debby were in regions where flood insurance isn’t required, a new report from nonprofit First Street Foundation has found.
That’s because nearly $10 billion of the slow-moving storm’s estimated $12.3 billion in damage happened in regions outside the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) designated Flood Zones.
FEMA’s flood maps dictate where homeowners are required by law to purchase flood insurance — a financial protection that is becoming increasingly necessary to shield families from crippling losses as flood risk worsens around the country."