Snow days are fun for most everyone and maybe that’s because people don’t immediately realize the economic impact of snowfall on the areas hardest hit. Let’s take D.C. for example. The area is still digging out from snowstorms that dumped a total of 54.9 inches of snow (as measured at Reagan Airport) — breaking a record last set in 1899.
As one could imagine, when a major city shuts down almost completely for more than four days, the financial repercussions are far-reaching. Washington, D.C.’s Office of Personnel management has said each snow day costs taxpayers $100 million in lost productivity from federal workers, not to mention lost productivity for state and local governments.
Then there’s the cost of removing the snow.
Maryland, Virginia and D.C. will likely ask for emergency federal aid to cover the cost of the massive cleanup. Though it’s too early to put a number on the cost of the cleanup, we can compare it to the 1993 blizzard that struck the East Cost and cost more than $6 billion. As for New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that each one inch of snowfall this week cost the city $1 million.
And as thousands of flights were cancelled due to the storm, an untold number of business meetings were also nixed, representing a loss of potential business. And it almost goes without saying that grounding planes for an extended period of time also hurts the airline companies’ bottom line.
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These points have been floating around the news since the snow began to fall on the East Coast in December. But what has not been mentioned quite as much is what happened recently at Dulles airport that has the potential to severely affect the aircraft insurance market. Saturday’s heavy snowfall in the D.C. area caused a roof collapse at a Dulles Airport hangar.
The bill to general aviation from last weekend’s massive snowstorm on the east coast could hit tens of millions of dollars and most of that could come from the partial collapse of one building at Dulles International Airport. As we reported Saturday, part of the roof of Dulles Jet Center came down under the weight of the snow. At the time, all that was known was that there were aircraft inside but photos provided to AVweb by a reader show a scene that is enough to make any insurance executive shiver. Two Bombardier Global Express jets and a Gulfstream 550 appear to be in takeoff attitude inside the hangar, their tails pushed to the floor under the weight of the crushed structure of the building. It’s not immediately known whether they can be repaired and it might be tricky getting them out from under the twisted steel.
For an already tight and volatile aircraft insurance market, the incident at Dulles will undoubtedly severely affect premiums as millions in claims are paid out for this incident.
And as more snow is expected to blanket the East Coast once again early next week, the total economic loss continues to add up.
