Hurricane Matthew: The Economic Fallout

Hurricane Matthew is on track to inflict billions of dollars’ worth of damage to properties and businesses on the U.S. Southeast coast, early estimates show, according to an article published Saturday on the mashable.com website.

Wind and storm surge damage could cause property losses of between $4 billion and $6 billion — and that's just for insured homes and commercial buildings, CoreLogic, a real estate research firm, said Saturday morning.

The estimates don't include the economic losses that are likely to stem from additional flooding and business interruption, which could raise total U.S. storm costs by tens of billions of dollars in the coming days.

Total U.S. losses from storm damages may eventually total $25 billion, according to Chuck Watson, a modeler with Enki Research, USA Today reported. Moody's Analytics suggested costs would be even higher, potentially rivaling the nearly $70 billion in damage wrought by 2012's Hurricane Sandy, journalist Maria Gallucci reports on mashable.com.