Rita could cause $80 billion damages in Houston, page 1

A study that was performed by Dodson & Associates last year stated that if a Category 5 hurricane were to hit the Huston area, it would potentially flood up to 359 square miles of Harris county. This area would include the homes of 700,000 people, the Johnson Space Center as well as a number of chemical plants in the Texas City area. The cost estimated at that time to rebuild Huston could cost up to $80 billion dollars.

www.usatoday.com
Hurricane Rita has the potential to flood an area almost twice the size of New Orleans when it reaches shore early Saturday, causing tens of billions of dollars in damage to the Houston metropolitan area and plunging yet another major Gulf Coast metropolis into disarray.
A study performed last year by the engineering firm Dodson & Associates found that a Category 5 storm could inundate 369 square miles of Harris County, which contains Houston and some of its suburbs. The study estimated the total cost of a worst-case storm at $80 billion, with 75% due to flooding and the rest from wind damage.

"You're looking at the southeast quadrant of the city of Houston, from downtown to Galveston Bay, being underwater," said Chris Johnson, president of Dodson & Associates.

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With Katrina costing an estimated 70 billion, How is the US to bear the added burden of an addition 80 Billion on top of the cost of the "War on Terror"?
I can see this breaking the back of the American Financial backbone.

[edit on 26-9-2005 by asala]