Rebuilding from 2017's Natural Disasters: When, For What, and How Much?

by Kermit Baker and
Alexander Hermann

The bulk of repairs to homes damaged by this year's record-setting disasters will not be done until 2019 or 2020, according to our analysis of post-disaster spending between 1994 and 2015. The analysis, which looked at the estimated annual cost of natural disasters alongside annual estimates of disaster-related home repairs and improvements, suggests that an increase of $10 billion in total disaster losses any time in the previous three years is associated with about $300 million in additional annual spending on disaster-related home repairs and improvements.

Notes: Dollar values are adjusted for inflation using the CPI-U for all items. Natural disaster costs include only natural disasters that generate over $1 billion in damages after adjusting for inflation.
Sources: JCHS tabulation of US Housing and Urban Development, American Housing Survey, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

The finding is significant because 2017 was an unusually destructive year. While inflation-adjusted, disaster-related damages averaged about $40 billion a year between 1994 and 2015, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria together caused about $150 billion in damages, according to estimates from CoreLogic and Moody’s Analytics (Figure 1). Moreover, damages from 2017’s winter storms, droughts, and wildfires will push these numbers even higher. In fact, the total cost of 2017’s disasters could exceed damages from any year in the last two decades, including 2005, the previous record year, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (and a host of smaller but significant disasters) combined to cause more than $200 billion in damages (in inflation-adjusted dollars).

As in other years that were marked by particularly destructive storms and other disasters, this year’s damages should lead to a spurt in construction activity. Some of it will be construction of and renovations to infrastructure and commercial buildings. Some will be the construction of new single-family homes and multifamily housing units. And some will be disaster-related repairs and improvements to both owner-occupied and rental housing.

Extensive flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Port Arthur, Texas.

To estimate how much will be spent on post-disaster home repairs, and when that spending is likely to occur, we combined information on disaster-related damages reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with data on disaster-related home repairs and improvements for the same years found in the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey (AHS). The AHS, as a survey of households, only asks owners to report spending on their homes. The comparison suggests that renovation spending continues to increase for about two to three years after the natural disaster occurs, and that an increase of $10 billion in disaster losses any time over the prior three years generates about $300 million in additional disaster-related home improvement spending during the year studied. If this pattern holds, the bulk of the spending from 2017 losses won’t occur until 2019 or 2020. But when it occurs, there is likely to be a substantial increase in spending on home renovations in those years.

While the delay between disaster losses and repair expenditures may seem unusually lengthy, it is consistent with a study funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that examined the rebuilding that took place following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In a recent Joint Center blog on that study’s implications, our colleague Jonathan Spader (who worked on the initial HUD study) reported that only 70 percent of hurricane-damaged properties in Louisiana and Mississippi had been rebuilt by early 2010, five years after the storms. The study further found that 74 percent of owner-occupied homes had been rebuilt, compared to only 60 percent of the rental properties.

The delays are due to many factors. Insurance companies need to assess the extent of the damage and determine how much is covered. Home improvement contractors, stretched to the limit and suffering from a labor squeeze, must delay certain projects. Owners have to consider local housing and labor market conditions to determine if repairs or improvements make financial sense. Often, federal, state, and local government entities may slow down rebuilding while they decide whether it’s feasible and, if so, whether building codes and insurance guidelines should be more stringent.

Nevertheless, spending will occur and, when it does, it can be substantial. Illustratively, in 2015 (which came after a few relatively mild years for disasters) spending on disaster-related home renovations accounted for almost $11 billion of the $220 billion spent nationally improving owner-occupied homes according to the 2015 AHS. (Lightning and fires accounted for $2.4 billion of this spending, floods for $2.0 billion, and tornados and hurricanes for $1.6 billion. Winter storms, thunderstorms, earthquakes, and drought accounted for the remainder.)

In short, 2017’s hurricanes and other disasters are likely to result in substantial spending on rebuilding, repairs, and improvements to disaster-damaged homes. Moreover, while that spending will ramp up slowly, it is likely to stretch into next decade.

Rebuilding Housing in Harvey’s Aftermath: Two Lessons from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

by Jonathan Spader
Senior Research Associate

As floodwaters finally subside in Houston, and as Florida residents prepare for Irma, residents, civic leaders, and policymakers can glean two important lessons from the intensive efforts to rebuild homes and communities after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, two devastating storms that hit the U.S. in back-to-back succession in 2005. 

First, rebuilding residential properties is a lengthy process likely to take several years. Second, the rebuilding process will be especially lengthy for rental properties (as compared to owner-occupied homes), which could greatly affect the 950,000 renters (who account for 41 percent of households) in the greater Houston metropolitan area, as well as additional renters affected by Hurricane Harvey in elsewhere in Texas and in other states. The slower pace of rental rebuilding is due to several factors including both renters’ dependence on property owners to rebuild rental housing units and historical differences in the availability and terms of federal aid for rental property owners as compared to homeowners.

To be sure, the need for emergency assistance and shelter for displaced residents will continue for weeks to come. Nevertheless, Congress is already starting to discuss an aid package. Moreover, the extensive damage (and the need to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program before September 30) may spur new efforts to develop policies and programs to support housing recovery in the wake of future natural disasters. As policymakers, civic leaders, and local residents begin to focus on the rebuilding process, they might want to keep the following in mind.

Extensive flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Southeast Texas. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel J. Martinez

1. Rebuilding residential properties takes time.

An initial lesson from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is that the rebuilding process takes time, with many properties continuing to show observable damage several years after the storms had passed. In early 2010—almost five years after both hurricanes made landfall—a HUD-commissioned study that I worked on surveyed the exterior conditions of properties damaged by those storms. The survey produced representative estimates of the rebuilding outcomes of properties that experienced “major” or “severe” damage—defined by FEMA as $5,200 or more in storm-related damage—that were located on significantly-affected blocks—defined as a city block on which three or more properties experienced “major” or “severe” damage.

The survey found that 17 percent of hurricane-damaged properties in Louisiana and Mississippi still showed substantial repair needs as of early 2010, almost five years after the storms had hit. Almost half these properties did not meet the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of a “habitable structure,” a housing unit that is closed to the elements with an intact roof, windows, and doors and does not show any positive evidence (e.g. a sign on the house) stating that the unit was condemned or was going to be demolished. Only 70 percent of hurricane-damaged properties in Louisiana and Mississippi were rebuilt by early 2010, and 13 percent contained cleared lots in which the damaged property had been removed from the parcel (Figure 1).

In the case of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the properties that still were damaged included some whose owners had received rebuilding grants through federal programs designed to aid housing recovery. The largest source of assistance following the 2005 hurricanes was the $18.9 billion special Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) appropriations passed by Congress between 2005 and 2008. Some portion of the properties with remaining damage likely also reflect abandonment by owners who moved elsewhere in the wake of the hurricanes. For such properties, funding for demolition, rehabilitation, and land banking may be necessary to transition the properties to a new use, and potentially to support efforts to encourage residents to rebuild in areas with lower flood risks.

Notes: Sample is representative of properties in Louisiana and Mississippi that experienced major or severe hurricane damage and that were located on significantly-affected blocks. Rebuilt structures are residential structures that do not show substantial repair needs as defined in Turnham (2010). Cleared lots contain an empty lot or a foundation with no standing structure. Damaged structures are residential structures that show substantial repair needs—and include all uninhabitable structures. Uninhabitable structures are residential structures that do not meet the Census definition of habitability. 

Source: Spader (2015).

2. Rental properties were rebuilt more slowly than homeowner properties.

A second lesson from the rebuilding process following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is that rental properties were rebuilt more slowly than owner-occupied homes. This likely was due to several factors. While homeowners directly control the rebuilding progress of their home, renters are dependent on landlords’ rebuilding decisions. Smaller “mom-and-pop” landlords may also be slower to rebuild investment properties if their own home is also damaged. And policymakers have been wary of providing rebuilding assistance to rental property owners who did not purchase sufficient insurance.

Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, both Louisiana and Mississippi used the CDBG special appropriations for disaster recovery to create rebuilding assistance programs for homeowners and small rental property owners. (Texas, which faced less damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, created only a homeowner program.) In both Louisiana and Mississippi, the homeowner programs covered much of the difference between the estimated cost to rebuild and the amount available to the homeowner from insurance and other rebuilding-assistance programs. Conversely, the grant programs for 1-4 unit small rental properties included a more complex set of eligibility requirements that included commitments for the rebuilt units to be rented to qualifying low- and moderate-income tenants. The result was that few rental property owners applied for and received rebuilding assistance, compared to widespread take-up of the homeowner assistance programs. While concerns about the incentive effects associated with bailing out under-insured investors are reasonable, a secondary effect was to reduce the number of rebuilt properties available to renters.

Figure 2 displays the share of hurricane-damaged properties on significantly-affected blocks that received a rebuilding grant through the CDBG-funded homeowner and small rental programs, along with the share of homeowner and small rental properties that were rebuilt by early 2010. The results show that 58 percent of hurricane-damaged homeowner properties in Louisiana and Mississippi received a rebuilding grant, compared to 10 percent of small rental properties. While this rental figure is limited to 1-4 unit small rental properties, a GAO report similarly found that federal assistance through CDBG, the Individual and Households Program, and the Home Disaster Loan Program together reached only 18 percent of all damaged rental units (including units in larger multi-family buildings), compared to 62 percent of damaged homeowner units. The rebuilding outcomes documented in the HUD-commissioned survey also showed sizable gaps, with 74 percent of homeowner properties rebuilt by early 2010 compared to 60 percent of rental properties.

 Source: Spader and Turnham (2014); Spader (2015)

A final question for policymakers is whether to use this opportunity to create a permanent program to support housing recovery following natural disasters. While Congress has relied on the CDBG program for this purpose since the early 1990s, its role is currently defined by the special appropriations legislation drafted following each individual disaster. Making disaster recovery a permanent function of the CDBG program (or creating some other permanent program for housing recovery) would allow HUD to develop permanent regulations and program guidance in anticipation of future disasters. While it is too late for this change to benefit victims of Hurricane Harvey, it might improve preparedness for the next disaster.