Dive Brief:

• A hurricane-swept surge of water crash-landing on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts could inundate more than 6.6 million homes, causing $1.5 trillion in damage, CoreLogic reported Thursday.

• More than 3.8 million Atlantic Coast homes are at risk of storm surges, while almost 2.8 million are vulnerable on the Gulf Coast, the report said.

• "The number of hurricanes each year is less important than the location of where the next hurricane will come ashore," Tom Jeffery, senior hazard risk scientist for CoreLogic, said in a release. "It only takes one hurricane that pushes storm surge into a major metropolitan area for the damage to tally in the billions of dollars.”

Dive Insight:

Jeffery said the risk intensifies as new homes are built in storm-prone coastal communities.

Florida has the highest number of properties at risk, followed by Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia.

Still, post-Hurricane Katrina upgrades to Louisiana’s levees have downgraded the level of risk there, even though a great number of homes sit in the path of potential storms. "The levee system in and around New Orleans is one of the most extensive in the world," Jeffery said.