When it comes to the cost of a bad forecast, researchers have finally gone beyond damaged buildings and vehicles and have calculated the cost of injuries, evacuations and the long-term cost of losing public trust.
Leaders rely on hurricane forecasts to make expensive decisions before they know exactly what a storm will do. Preparing too early can cost millions. Waiting too long can put lives and infrastructure at risk. In a new study led by FIU statistician Sneh Gulati and Buck Sampson, a former meteorologist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, scientists developed an expanded economic model to measure the value of hurricane forecasts. Building on work supported through the Office of Naval Research's Senior Research Fellowship, the team incorporated injuries, evacuation costs and the long-term consequences of forecast errors into their calculations. This study was published in the journal of Natural Hazards.
To estimate injury costs, researchers analyzed decades of hurricane data, accounting for storm intensity and preparedness levels. They found that a single injury carries an average economic cost of $133,066.
Military bases served as a real-world testing ground for the model. Using this expanded model, the team estimated savings ranging from about $200,000 per storm at smaller military bases to more than $70 million at larger installations. As readiness levels increase, preparations can range from securing facilities to evacuating personnel and relocating ships and aircraft, creating measurable costs that can be weighed against storm risk.
"These computations can perhaps help the public and government entities to realize the importance of storm preparation and accurate forecasting," Gulati said.
While the model was tested using military bases, the approach could be applied to cities, coastal communities and other storm-prone regions. By putting a dollar value on injuries, evacuations and forecast errors, the research offers a more complete picture of what is at stake before a storm arrives.
