The present estimate of losses arising from Hurricane Helene, which struck Florida and Georgia and brought about flooding within the Carolinas and Tennessee, is between US$20 to US$34 billion, in accordance with Moody’s Analytics, with US$15-$26 billion being property injury. Of this, AM Greatest is estimating USD5 billion will likely be insured. This reveals the persevering with development of insurers shifting away from high-risk areas, beginning way back to the 1960’s, when a typical hurricane would have the business overlaying round 60% of the losses.
60 persons are reported to have perished, with tens of millions of houses with out energy.
What we’re seeing this time is consistent with Hurricane Ian in 2022, when over 20 electrical automobiles caught fireplace after being submerged or partially submerged by saltwater from flooding or storm surge. This example turns into worse if the automotive is inside a storage that’s a part of a house or related construction. This places huge stress on the emergency providers, who’re already stretched coping with the consequences of the storm.
There are various movies on YouTube reporting on the difficulty. Here’s a hyperlink to at least one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReD1-oHfSyU&pp=ygUZZXYgZmlyZXMgZm9sbG93aW5nIGhlbGVuZQpercent3Dpercent3D
It isn’t simply electrical automobiles that may catch fireplace after being inundated by saltwater however any lithium batteries, starting from golf carts to energy instruments, computer systems and telephones.
The message from fireplace departments within the US is to take away electrical automobiles which have been inundated by saltwater to an space the place it’s at the least 15 meters away from any flamable materials. For smaller batteries, the required distance is much less, however the significance of eradicating them out of a houses, places of work, or different buildings as soon as broken by saltwater shouldn’t be ignored.
I’m not in opposition to electrical automobiles. Now we have one within the household, and whereas they’ve nice advantages, in addition they include dangers that have to be understood and acted upon. The main takeaways are batteries which have been broken from any trigger, together with inundation by saltwater, shouldn’t be positioned on cost, have to be stored effectively away out of your houses or different buildings, and changed as quickly as attainable.
As an apart, I consider care must be taken with lithium batteries on or round pleasure craft as a result of danger of fireplace from broken batteries.
