SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS OF HEAVY PRECIPITATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Heavy precipitation manifests itself in three major ways: extreme rainfall, snowfall, and hail, each producing a myriad of impacts on the nation?s society and the economy. Most effects are negative but some are positive. The amount of precipitation that rates as damaging varies geographically, seasonally, and by sector affected. An 20-cm rainstorm in a mountainous river valley produces vastly different outcomes that in a Midwestern prairie, and a heavy precipitation event in mid-winter results in very different outcomes than the same event in summer. A summer rainstorm in Minnesota causes a very different magnitude of losses to local agriculture than to a major food-processing firm, whereas a snowstorm in January drastically affects all forms of transportation with little agricultural effects. Positive outcomes are generally in areas unaffected by an event; that is, the 1993 Midwestern flood ruined crops in Iowa but this raised prices for corn and farmers in Indiana and Ohio, which had no floods, were winners. The message is clear?impacts from precipitation extremes are complex and difficult to define. Regardless, impacts of heavy precipitation are pervasive and widespread. Most areas of the nation are impacted in some way annually by heavy rain, or heavy snow, or by hail. The primary losses resulting from heavy precipitation are due to floods which create losses averaging $4 billion and 94 human lives per year. The average losses resulting from winter storms $2 to $3 billion and 47 deaths. Hailstorms producing large hail create annual losses amounting to $1.2 billion, on average. These losses get translated into costs not only to the individuals impacted, but to the insurance industry and to local, state, and federal government agencies. Most property losses from large hail, amounting to $1 billion a year, are covered by insurance companies, and in the record 1993 floods, the federal government paid $6.2 for relief assistance and rebuilding costs with states providing $1 billion, and together these costs were nearly 40 percent of the total losses attributed to the event.