The National Hurricane Center forecasts Hurricane Laura to reach Category 4 intensity later today.  A ‘life-threatening’ storm surge of 10 to 15 feet is predicted, one of the worst in years, along with destructive winds. The storm is poised to strike the upper Texas coast and western Louisiana.  Hurricane and storm surge warnings have been issued for much of this zone.

If you live in an area ordered to evacuate, leave now. Do not attempt to ride out the storm.  Take your insurance contact information and home inventory with you.

In an analysis based on the assumption that Hurricane Laura would come ashore on the Louisiana coast as a Category 3 storm, CoreLogic, a catastrophe modeling firm, warns that nearly 432,000 single-family and multi-family homes along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana could be damaged from storm surge. According to the analysis, Laura threatens approximately 431,810 homes with a combined reconstruction value of approximately $88.63 billion.

Said Tom Larsen, principal, insurance solutions at CoreLogic, “The coincidence of two catastrophes—a damaging hurricane season and the ongoing global pandemic—underscores the importance of the correct valuation of reconstruction cost, one of the core tenets of property insurance.”