Insured loss from Delta projected to run at $2billion

Storm-weary coastal Louisiana residents who fled from the path of Hurricane Delta in recent days streamed back to their homes on Sunday to face cleanup and repairs from the second hurricane to batter their state over the past six weeks.

Many returned to find that Delta, dissipating substantially as it drifted farther inland on Sunday, had ripped away temporary tarpaulin roofs installed over their homes in late August after Hurricane Laura, a more powerful storm, struck with devastating force.

Delta, the 10th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season to make U.S. landfall, churned ashore on Friday evening near the southwestern Louisiana town of Creole as a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, packing maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour (160 kph).

By Sunday, the storm had been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone over the southern Appalachians, but still posed a heavy rainfall threat, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

U.S. energy workers headed back to offshore oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico to restart production that was largely halted as Hurricane Delta barreled into the region, with 91% of crude oil output remaining off-line on Sunday, according to federal regulators.

The misery index for returning evacuees was compounded by extreme heat and humidity engulfing southern Louisiana following Delta, and the discovery of property damage made worse by the latest storm.

Insured losses from Delta were projected to run to $2 billion, while Laura’s losses were estimated at around $10 billion, including over $2 billion to offshore energy production facilities.