Necessity
Myth #6: “I don’t live near a river or coast, I won’t flood.”
In August of 2017 Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 hurricane. However, it wasn’t the winds or coastal water surges that caused the most damage, but historic rainfall. The storm stalled over southeast Texas dropping an unprecedented 60 inches of rain, approximately 15 inches more than the average annual rainfall for the area. Twenty-six percent of Hurricane Harvey-related flood insurance claims were from properties outside of the high-risk Special Flood Hazard Areas. The storm displaced nearly 780,000 Texans and resulted in an astounding $8.8 billion in NFIP payments. With an estimated $125 billion in total damages, Harvey was the second-most costly hurricane in U.S. history, behind only Hurricane Katrina.
