NOAA Report Flags Undercounted Ferry Terminal Exposure in Disaster Models
NOAA-9's July 2026 Billion-Dollar Disasters release finds that reduced freeway-asset losses in the Oakland corridor are offset by a systematic undercount of ferry terminal, dock, and vessel exposure to king-tide and storm-surge events. The finding signals a structural gap in Earth9's coastal infrastructure risk accounting.
The release shows that Earth9's disaster accounting inherited freeway-weighted loss models from legacy frameworks, which do not adequately capture the concentration of value and function in Bay Area ferry terminals. Coastal exposure from storm surge is particularly undercounted at terminals built or expanded after 1989. Council infrastructure analysts say the gap is material enough to warrant a formal reweighting of ferry-terminal assets in the next disaster exposure index update. No specific terminal was identified as critically exposed in the July release.