Hurricane Harvey's historic flooding in Texas is set to wreak havoc on the auto industry and its insurers with analysts now predicting the storm could damage more vehicles than Hurricane Katrina. In August 2005, Katrina wiped out some 500,000-600,000 vehicles but William Armstrong of CL King warns that Houston has about 5x more people than New Orleans did at the time.
Levees at Columbia Lakes in Brazoria County have been breached, according to the official Brazoria County website.
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FLASH FLOOD WARNING western Brazoria county until 5:45 PM. Brazos levee at Columbia Lakes has breached. All residents urged to evacuate now pic.twitter.com/7MZRyL3M3x
— FOX26Houston (@Fox26Houston) August 29, 2017
Amid desperate efforts to save stranded citizens - police report over 3,000 rescues alone - and the arrival of the so-called 'cajun navy' to assist, Harvey continues to pummel Texas, paralyzing Houston as the region braces for yet more rain after the Tropical Storm recharged over warm waters and heading back in-land.
There are still two to three days before the peak flooding - and damage - in Houston arrives, yet already Wall Street is trying to calculate how much the worst natural disaster in decades befalling the 4th largest American city will impact US GDP. Or rather boost it, because in two notes out late in the day Monday, one from Goldman and one from JPM, the authors come to two polar opposite conclusions: Goldman claims that the Houston natural disaster will reduce Q3 GDP by as much as 0.2%, while JPMorgan predicts that the "net impact on Q3 and Q4 GDP should be positive."
Hurricane Harvey has unleashed unparalleled devastation on southwest Texas, flooding Houston, the fourth largest city in the US, and many towns along the Gulf coast from Galveston, to Port Lavaca and beyond. But even Harvey’s 130 mph winds aren’t strong enough to threaten the ironclad balance sheets of America’s largest insurers, which have amassed a “fatter-than-ever” capital cushion capable of absorbing any payouts related to what looks to be, by several measures, one of the worst hurricane in US history, according to the Wall Street Journal.