New information recently released by the Texas Comptroller's Office shows how some of the hurricanes to hit the state in the last 40 years have also been some the country's costliest ones.
The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) said the most financially devastating hurricane to hit Texas is Hurricane Harvey, which came through in 2017. The Consumer Price Index (CPI)-adjusted estimated cost of the category 4 was $158.8 billion. Hurricane Ike was also listed in the NCEI’s top 10 costliest in U.S. history at $43.2 billion in financial loss.
Number one on the list is Hurricane Katrina from 2005. That hurricane caused $200 billion worth of damage to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Hurricane Harvey was not the most deadly hurricane. In 2005, Hurricane Rita ended up taking the lives of 119 people, but was not as costly as Harvey and Ike.
Galveston County Judge Mark Henry said it's no surprise that hurricanes are costly.
"Because of inflation and the rising cost of everything," he said. "Everything costs more than it did 30 and 50 years ago."
In Texas, more people are moving to the state because of some favorable policy like no state income tax, however the price of real estate has gone up along with people's cars and electronics.
"It's going to continue forever as far as I can tell that hurricanes will just become more expensive because they're destroying things that cost more than they used to," said Henry.
The Texas Comptroller's Office is looking into ways to limit the storm damage through a federally authorized Coastal Texas Project. The "Coastal Spine" project, as described by Henry, includes building a "protective dam-like structure" that would stretch along the Louisiana state line over to Texas near the San Luis Pass. The barrier would try to limit storm surge.
Judge Henry calls it a great concept but would take a lot of time and effort to become a reality.
"It's going to be phenomenally expensive and take decades to build," Henry said. "It's difficult for me to see how it gets implemented with any kind of realistic time frame in the near future."
The most recent hurricane to hit Texas, Hurricane Beryl, was only a category 1 and ended up turning off the lights to more than 2.2 million CenterPoint Energy customers in the Greater Houston area.