Officials: Irene cost NYC more than $55M

Tropical Storm Irene cost New York City some $55 million in storm damage to infrastructure and overtime expense for police and other emergency responders, a number that is likely to increase as figures are fine tuned, officials said Tuesday.

"That number is only damage to public infrastructure, and public costs associated with the response and recovery," said Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for the city Office of Emergency Management. "We are still collecting costs and many agencies have additional numbers to report."

About 90 percent of the $55 million amount -- or any increase -- is likely to be reimbursed by the federal government, according to city officials. A full estimate of infrastructure and other municipal costs won't be known for several weeks.

The city costs don't include payouts being made by insurance companies to cover damage to business, residential and personal properties. Still, New York City's storm costs were relatively light compared to some areas, particularly upstate New York and parts of New England, both of which were hit hard by storm-related flooding that destroyed homes and washed out bridges and roads.

Insurance industry officials didn't have estimates of costs to metropolitan area policy holders for damage from Irene. But AIR Worldwide, a firm that does computer modeling of disasters, estimates U.S. insured losses attributed to Irene ranged from $3 billion to $6 billion. Irene hit the United States on the coast of North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane. When it made landfall at Coney Island on Aug 28, it had lost strength and was a tropical storm.