Typhoon Faxai 2019

Post Landfall 1 | Summary
Posting Date: September 15, 2019, 12:30:00 PM

AIR Worldwide estimates that industry insured losses from Typhoon Faxai, which made landfall in Japan on September 9, will be between JPY 340 billion (USD 3 billion) and JPY 740 billion (USD 7 billion).

ALERT™ subscribers can now download Touchstone^®, CATRADER^®, and Touchstone Re™ event sets and a shapefile for the median wind speed footprint for Typhoon Faxai from the Downloads tab. To obtain a full view and understanding of the uncertainty in the loss range for this event, subscribers are encouraged to perform both detailed analyses in Touchstone and aggregate sums insured-based analyses in Touchstone Re or CATRADER for Typhoon Faxai.

AIR’s loss estimates explicitly capture residential, commercial, industrial, automobile, and agriculture/mutual losses from wind and storm surge. These loss estimates were derived based on AIR’s high-resolution Industry Exposure Database (IED) for Japan and the event’s hazard measures, including wind speed and surge inundation depth, modeled using the event-based probabilistic AIR Typhoon Model for Japan. AIR’s loss estimates and event footprint reflect all affected areas in Japan.

The range in AIR’s loss estimates also reflects uncertainty in the payment of damage to buildings, damage to contents, and extra expenses. Please note that total economic losses are expected to be higher than industry insured loss estimates.

See below for additional information on what AIR’s loss estimates capture.

AIR’s modeled insured loss estimates include:

• Insured damage to property (residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural/mutual), both structures and their contents, and automobile from wind and storm surge

AIR’s modeled insured loss estimates do not include:

• Losses from precipitation-induced flood
• Landslide
• Losses to land
• Losses to infrastructure
• Losses to CAR/EAR, marine hull, or marine cargo lines of business
• Business interruption losses
• Loss adjustment expenses
• Demand surge—the increase in costs of materials, services, and labor due to increased demand following a catastrophic event; demand surge can be applied by AIR software users who want to account for this variable

Typhoon Faxai Recap

Faxai formed in the Northwest Pacific Basin and gradually tracked north-northwest toward Japan. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) initiated advisories for the tropical depression on September 1, and the next day upgraded it to a tropical storm. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) followed suit three days later, upgrading the storm from a tropical depression to a tropical storm. According to the JMA, the storm reached peak intensity on September 8 with 1-minute sustained winds of around 180 km/h (112 mph), the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale just as Faxai began its northward approach to Japan.

Typhoon Faxai made landfall in Yokosuka, a southern suburb of Tokyo, on the main island of Honshu at around 3:00 a.m. local time Monday, September 9 (18:00 UTC, September 8), with 1-minute sustained wind speeds of 170km/h (105 mph). Faxai crossed Tokyo Bay to strike Tokyo City with winds still equivalent to a strong Category 2 hurricane. Faxai traversed the eastern edge of the mainland and re-emerged into the Pacific Ocean, losing strength to become a weak Category 2 storm early the following day—from there it was further downgraded as it continued to move northeast, presenting no further danger to land.

Faxai brought damaging winds across southeastern Honshu, along with storm surge and heavy precipitation to coastal regions. Impacts were reported across Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka prefectures. Storm surge was highest along the eastern shores of Tokyo Bay: JMA recorded a storm surge of more than 1 meter in Mera, Chiba Prefecture. The city of Izu in Shizuoka Prefecture experienced 17 inches of rain in 24 hours through early Monday, with recorded rates of more than four inches per hour.

Typhoon Faxai surpassed Typhoon Higos for the strongest sustained wind speed at landfall in the region and tied with 1958's Typhoon Helen for the lowest recorded central pressure. Faxai was comparable in strength to Typhoon Jebi, which devastated the southern Shikoku Island in 2018.

Reported Damage and Disruption

The typhoon disrupted major transport networks during the Monday morning commute. Many coastal highways were shut down, trains and subways were suspended, and more than 100 flights to and from area airports were canceled. Streets were reported flooded and blocked by debris and downed electrical poles. Some of Tokyo’s train services remained suspended into the next day. More than 13,000 people were stranded at Narita International Airport until rail and highway access were restored late Tuesday.

High winds downed two electrical towers and multiple utility poles, leaving more than 900,000 without power in the prefectures of Chiba, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, and Tokyo. By the evening of September 13, nearly 180,000 households were still without power and around 20,000 people in Chiba Prefecture had no access to running water. There was a fire at Japan's largest floating solar power plant, as panels were reportedly blown atop one another and subsequently overheated. Flooding was reported at two Nissan plants west of Tokyo, and scaffolding at the construction site of a parking garage at Tokyo International Airport, commonly known as Haneda Airport, was damaged.

Although some ship departures were canceled at Tokyo Port in advance of the storm, collisions were reported among many still in the harbor due to winds and rough seas. There were reports of ships adrift and damage to docks in the region. Storm surge was reported to have caused damage to automobiles, marine cargo, and residential and commercial properties in Yokohama’s Naka-ku Ward.

More than 600 residential homes were damaged in Chiba Prefecture. Faxai also impacted crops in the region, ravaging rice fields and fruit farms just before harvest time. Reports show images of fallen trees, flipped-over vehicles, downed signs, shattered windows, toppled construction scaffolding, and ripped-off siding.

ALERT™ subscribers can now download Touchstone^®, CATRADER^®, and Touchstone Re™ event sets and a shapefile of the median wind speed footprint for Typhoon Faxai from the Downloads tab.

Users of Touchstone version 6.x may not see storm surge losses due to a Known Issue in Touchstone.  Contact your local client service representative or see the Touchstone Known Issues list in the AIR Client Portal for more details.  This issue is resolved in Touchstone version 7.

Post Landfall 1 | Downloads
Posting Date: September 15, 2019, 12:30:00 PM

Simulated Event Set

Note: The "All simulated scenarios" set consists of all the events simulated by AIR using the event's actual parameters. The "Select simulated scenarios" set consists of a subset of the full distribution that is most representative of the range of potential industry losses.

Product	Version	Description	Download
TOUCHSTONE Re	2019 and CT 21	Selected Set of Simulated Scenarios	​
TOUCHSTONE	6.2 and 7.0	Selected set of simulated scenarios	​

Similar Stochastic Event IDs

Note: These lists give event IDs taken from our stochastic catalog that have similar characteristics as the current event.

Product	File Type	Description	Download
TOUCHSTONE	xls	Selected set of stochastic events	​
TOUCHSTONE Re	xls	Selected set of stochastic events	​

Additional Downloads

Note: Additional downloads related to the posting are listed below. Please use the appropriate application to view these files.

Title	File Type	Description	Download
Typhoon Faxai Wind Footprint	Shapefile (.shp)	Shapefile of the wind speed footprint for Typhoon Faxai and import instructions for Touchstone.	​