What Type of Damage Can a Hurricane Cause? Lessons from Milton, Ian, and Michael

When a hurricane reaches the coast, the headline is always the wind speed. But for a business, the storm's category is only the start of the story. The same event that tears the roof off one building can leave the one next door barely touched, and even a business whose premises survive can lose weeks of revenue due to flooding, power loss, and blocked roads. Understanding how hurricanes actually cause damage, and why outcomes vary so widely, is the first step to protecting against it.

This guide walks through how a hurricane inflicts damage, how the Saffir-Simpson scale measures storm strength, what three of the most destructive recent storms did to coastal communities, and why two nearby properties can end up in completely different conditions after the same storm.

Key takeaways

• A hurricane damages property three ways: extreme winds, storm surge, and inland flooding. 
• The Saffir-Simpson scale measures wind only. A lower-category storm, or even a tropical storm, can still cause severe damage through surge and rainfall.
• Damage is not linear: a small rise in wind speed can produce a large jump in destruction.
• Two nearby buildings can fare very differently depending on construction, age, roof design, elevation, and mitigation features.
• For businesses, the largest loss is often downtime, not physical repair. Operations, sales, and supply chains can stay disrupted long after the storm passes.
• Parametric insurance can complement traditional cover by paying out fast, based on measured storm intensity, to fund recovery in the critical first days.

What type of damage can a hurricane cause?

A hurricane damages property through high sustained winds, wind-driven debris, storm surge along the coast, and heavy rainfall that drives inland flooding. As wind speed increases, the damage curve is not linear: a relatively small jump in wind speed can produce a large jump in destruction. The amount of damage depends on the strength of the storm and what it hits, and for a business the loss extends well beyond physical repairs into downtime and lost revenue.

The sections below cover the four distinct hazards, how storm strength is measured, and how all of this translates into business exposure.

What are the main hazards of a hurricane?

A hurricane threatens a business through three main hazards: extreme winds, storm surge, and inland flooding. For a commercial operation, each hazard also disrupts operations, supply chains, and revenue.

Extreme winds

High winds are the hazard most businesses picture first. Hurricane winds can destroy buildings and manufactured structures, and loose objects such as signs, roofing material, and outdoor equipment can turn into flying debris during a storm. 

For a business, that means exposure not just to roof and facade damage but to shattered storefronts, damaged inventory and machinery, and yard or rooftop assets becoming projectiles that harm neighboring properties. 

The strongest hurricanes generate enough force to drive debris through solid structures; Hurricane Andrew's winds famously drove a piece of wood straight into the trunk of a palm tree. An Extreme Wind Warning is issued when sustained winds of 115 mph or greater are imminent, the point at which even well-built commercial premises are at serious risk. 

Source: NHC NOAA

Storm surge

Storm surge is the abnormal rise of seawater pushed onshore by a storm's winds, and it is historically the leading cause of hurricane-related deaths in the United States. As a storm nears the coast, it can raise the sea level by as much as 20 to 30 feet, and the water piles up with nowhere to go but inland. 

Combined with battering waves, storm surge can demolish docks, warehouses, ground-floor retail, and roads, and erode the land a property sits on. For coastal businesses such as hotels, marinas, ports, and waterfront retail, this is the hazard most likely to cause a total loss rather than a repairable one, and it can wipe out ground-floor stock, equipment, and electrical systems in hours. 

The flooding from storm surge often lasts only a few hours, but it can cause a tremendous amount of damage, and it is worse when it coincides with high tide.

Inland flooding

Heavy rainfall can cause severe flooding far from the coast, and it is the second leading cause of deaths from landfalling tropical cyclones. Widespread torrential rains can flood areas hundreds of miles inland, and that flooding can persist for several days after the storm has weakened. 

This is a critical point for businesses that assume they are safe because they are not on the waterfront: even a relatively weak tropical system can flood an inland warehouse, distribution center, or office, damage stored goods, and cut off the roads that staff, customers, and deliveries depend on. Flooding inland also tends to outlast the storm, extending downtime well beyond the event itself. 

The bigger business exposure: downtime

Across all three hazards, the loss a business feels most is rarely confined to physical repairs. A damaged or inaccessible site means halted production, lost sales, idle staff, spoiled stock, and disrupted supply chains, and that revenue does not return until operations do. Power and access can be unavailable for days to weeks after a major storm, so even a business whose building survives can face significant non-physical losses. This is exactly the kind of exposure that traditional property cover, focused on physical damage, may only partly address.

How is hurricane strength measured? The Saffir-Simpson scale 

The clearest way to understand the scale of potential wind damage is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which ranks storms from Category 1 to Category 5 based on sustained wind speed. 

Source: NOAA, Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale

One important caveat: the Saffir-Simpson scale rates wind alone. A storm's category says nothing about its storm surge or rainfall, so a lower-category hurricane, or even a tropical storm, can still cause severe damage and major business interruption. Category is a useful shorthand but it is not the full picture of a storm's destructive potential.

The three storms below show how these wind levels played out in real coastal communities, and what they mean for the businesses operating in them.

Hurricane Milton damage (October 2024)

Hurricane Milton made landfall near Sarasota, Florida on October 10, 2024 as a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of about 120 mph, after briefly reaching Category 5 over the Gulf. It pushed a storm surge of roughly 5 to 10 feet along the coast from Naples to Charlotte Harbor and caused an estimated $34 billion in damage.

Milton is a useful reminder that a storm's hazards do not stop at its headline category. It spawned dozens of tornadoes across southern Florida, including an EF3, and knocked out power to more than 3 million customers. It also damaged high-profile commercial structures well away from the worst surge: the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg was shredded and cranes in the downtown were damaged. For local businesses, the lasting problem was less the wind than the aftermath: days to weeks without reliable power and water, and roads that stayed impassable, keeping staff, customers, and deliveries away long after the storm had passed.

The takeaway from Milton is that a "mid-range" major hurricane, with wind, surge, and tornadoes all in play, is still capable of tens of billions in damage and weeks of disruption well before reaching the top of the scale.

Hurricane Ian damage (September 2022)

Hurricane Ian struck southwest Florida near Cap Coral on September 28, 2022 as a high-end Category 4, with sustained winds of about 150 mph, just short of Category 5. It became the costliest hurricane in Florida's history, with damage estimated at around $110 billion, and it remains a textbook case of water doing more harm than wind. 

Ian drove a storm surge of 10 to 15 feet across the barrier islands, with an unprecedented inundation of up to 18 feet reported along parts of the coast and a record 7.26-foot surge in the city of Fort Myers. The water, not the wind, caused most of the destruction: a large section of the Sanibel Causeway collapsed and washed away, cutting off all road access to the island, exactly the kind of infrastructure failure that can leave a business and its customers stranded for weeks. Ian also moved slowly inland, dropping up to 17 inches of rain and flooding areas far from the coast. For businesses in Lee County, the combination of catastrophic surge, wind, and prolonged flooding meant closures measured in months, not days.

Ian shows how surge and a slow-moving track can combine to leave little of a structure intact and extend business interruption long after landfall.

Hurricane Michael damage (October 2018)

Hurricane Michael came ashore near Mexico Beach, Florida on October 10, 2018 as a Category 5, with sustained winds of 160 mph at landfall. It was the first Category 5 to strike the United States since Andrew in 1992 and the most powerful storm on record to hit the Florida Panhandle, causing about $25 billion in damage. 

At Category 5, the scale's worst-case description became reality. In the town of Mexico Beach, roughly 1,584 of 1,692 structures were damaged and more than 800 were destroyed outright, with a storm surge of about 14 feet erasing entire blocks. The winds stayed destructive far inland: Michael was still a hurricane well into Georgia, where agricultural losses alone exceeded $3.8 billion, a reminder that inland businesses are not beyond reach. For commercial owners along the coast, this was near-total loss rather than repairable damage, with whole commercial districts cut off and uninhabitable for weeks to months.

Michael shows the ceiling of what a hurricane can do: not partial damage, but the near-erasure of a local economy, with effects reaching hundreds of miles inland.

Why do similar homes experience different hurricane damage?

Two properties exposed to the same hurricane can suffer very different losses, because outcomes depend heavily on each building's physical resilience, not just the storm's strength. This is why a wood-framed waterfront unit and a reinforced concrete building a block away can end up in very different conditions after the same event. 

The physical characteristics that most influence hurricane damage include:

• Construction materials: Reinforced concrete and masonry generally outperform older wood framing under high wind loads.
• Building age and code era: Structures built to modern wind-resistant codes tend to fare better than older construction.
• Roof design and attachment: Roof shape, decking, and how the roof connects to the walls strongly affect whether a roof stays on.
• Elevation and location: Distance from the coast and height above expected surge levels shape exposure to flooding.
• Mitigation features: Impact-rated windows, shutters, and reinforced openings reduce the chance of a breach that leads to internal pressure failure.

Understanding this difference in vulnerability is central to pricing and structuring protection that actually reflects a property's real exposure.

How can coastal property owners and businesses recover faster after a hurricane?

Parametric insurance can complement a traditional program by paying a predefined amount quickly, often within days to a few weeks, based on the measured intensity of a hurricane rather than a lengthy on-site loss adjustment. That speed gives a business cash when it needs it most: in the first days after a storm, when payroll, cleanup, and temporary operations all compete for limited funds. 

Parametric solutions work alongside traditional coverage and are designed around a few core benefits:

• Fast liquidity: Payouts are issued in days or weeks once the trigger conditions are met, helping cover immediate expenses while a traditional claim is still being processed.
• Certainty and transparency: Payout conditions are defined and agreed upfront and measured with independent data such as wind speed, so both sides share the same view of when and how a claim pays.
• Flexible use of funds: Because payment is based on the severity of the event, funds can be applied to a wide range of financial losses, not only physical repairs.
• Customizable structure: Coverage can be built around a specific property profile and budget, which matters when vulnerability varies so much from one building to the next.
• A complement, not a replacement: A parametric layer can sit on top of an existing program to help address deductibles and coverage gaps and to add a quick-paying source of post-event liquidity.

Parametric is particularly suited to the losses that are hardest to address with traditional coverage, such as revenue lost when a hurricane disrupts operations without directly damaging the property, for example a coastal hotel losing weeks of bookings after a nearby storm, or a supplier idled because flooding cut off the roads its trucks rely on. 

Read more: Hurricane Season 2026: How Parametric Insurance Helps Businesses Recover Faster

Build resilience before the next storm

Hurricane damage is not just about whether a storm hits; it is about how quickly a business, or community can recover afterward. Descartes works with brokers to design parametric solutions that complement existing coverage and deliver fast, transparent payouts when it matters most.

To explore how parametric protection can strengthen coverage for coastal property, visit descartesunderwriting.com.