Friday, 11 Jul 2008

The Great Storm of 1703

Looking into disaster scenarios and doing actuarial and engineering forecasts of potential impacts, I came across a fascinating paper about the impact of “The Great Storm of 1703“¹ on southern England and the Channel coast. Obviously this predates modern meteorology, so what makes it interesting is how they modeled what the wind forces likely were.

Given that there is every likelihood that such conditions can arise again, the forecast of the economic impact (specifically, claims in excess of available reinsurance) means such and event would likely have a catastrophic effect on the financial system if it had already been weakened by other difficulties — kind of like as it is at present.

AfC

¹ A 7 page retrospective published in .pdf form by a firm named Risk Management Solutions at their website. The fate of the Eddystone Lighthouse, pictured above, is also interesting.

great-storm-of-1703, posted by Andrew Cowie in engineering/background at 2008-07-11T08:06:51Z

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