Skip to main content

The Most Expensive Natural Disasters In the US

Image By Fallschirmjäger  ✉ [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Did you ever wonder what the most expensive natural disasters in the US are? 
From winter storms, tornadoes and hurricanes to hail winter can be costly in lives and dollars, and in summer we have droughts, wildfires and haboobs (always wanted to use that phenomenon in a sentence) but which type of natural disaster is the costliest for our nation? 
Annual statistics from the National Weather Service are published annually and are often available to the public around May. The most recent report dated May 20, 2014 for the Summary of Natural Hazard Statisticsfor 2013 in the United States details categories such as fatalities, injuries and property damage as well as a separate category for crop damage. 
Every type  of weather “event” you could imagine is accounted for on this list which utilizes raw data that was compiled and analyzed from offices in the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands.

In order from least damaging in dollars (including deaths), here are the Ten Most Expensive Natural Disasters in the US for the year (2013):

                             
Image By Winchell Joshua, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

10.           Weather Event: High Wind
                Fatalities: 19 Injuries: 15
                Property Damage: $77.8+ million
                Total Damage: $82+ million 
           
                *2012 Total Damages: $4,067 million
Image By Dajohnson6000 “David Johnson” (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

9.            Weather Event: Extreme Temperature-Cold
                Fatalities: 24 Injuries: 2
                Property Damage: $159+ million
                Total Damage: $179+ million

                *2012 Total Damages: $237+million



 
 Image By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Image By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


8.            Weather Event: Fire Weather
                Fatalities: 20 Injuries: 24
                Property Damage: $340 million
                Total Damage:$341+ million

                *2012 Total Damages: $1,464+ million





Image By Attercop311 (talk) (Uploads).Attercop311 at en.wikipedia [Public domain or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

7.          Weather Event: Winter Storm
              Fatalities: 21 Injuries: 50
              Property Damage: $345million
   Total Damage: $345+ million

     *2012 Total Damages: $198+ million
                

Image By Rosendahl [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


6.            Weather Event: Thunderstorm Wind
                Fatalities: 17 Injuries: 121
                Property Damage: $626+ million
                Total Damage: $677.4 million

                *2012 Total Damages: $322.4 million
                

Image By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

5.            Weather Event: Flash Flood
                Fatalities: 60 Injuries: 25
                Property Damage: $955+ million
                Total Damage: $978.43 million

               *2012 Total Damages: $376.75 million
                
                

Image By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

4.            Weather Event: River Flood
                Fatalities: 22 Injuries: 8
                Property Damage: $1,215+ million
                Total Damage: $1,265.11 million 

                *2012 Total Damages: $124 million


Image By Skatebiker at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.


3.            Weather Event: Hail
                Fatalities: 0 Injuries: 54
                Property Damage: $2,414.4 million

                *2012 Total Damages: $2,508 million  


           
                
Image by National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Photo Library. Image ID: wea00206, Historic NWS Collection.

Image By NWS [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


2.            Weather Event: Tornado
                Fatalities: 55 Injuries: 756
                Property Damage: $3,642+ million
                Total Damage: $3,648.74 million
                
               *2012 Total Damages: $1,650 million


Photo by Tim McCabe, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. (USDA NRCS Photo Gallery: NRCSAR83004.tif) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


1.            Weather Event: Drought
                Fatalities: 0 Injuries: 0
                Property Damage: $15.9 million
                Total Damages: $3,721+ million (mainly crop damages)

               *2012 Total Damages: $5,764.22 million

In the same report for the previous year (2012) the number one most expensive weather event was Coastal Storms. 
Image By Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Weather Event: Coastal Storm
Fatalities: 44 Injuries: 1
Property Damages: $21,605.5 million
Total Damage: $21,606+ million


Image By Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What you may not know about Rochambeau

It is a lingua franca, or a universal game, dating back to the Han dynasty of China (206 BC-220 AD), simply called shoushilling (trans. ‘hand command’) and nearly two thousand years later we still play this simple game, called by various names all over the globe.  English speakers call it Roshambo (technically Rochambeau) or “rock-paper-scissors”, “ick-ack-ock”, or even “ching-chang-walla” and is most often played between 2 people in a decision-making challenge, much like drawing straws or plucking daisy petals, but requires no props real props.  While it was introduced to Europeans as late as the 1920’s for its portability and simple instructions, quickly gained popularity for its considered “uncheatable” fairness. In the 1930’s Rochambeau was promoted widely in America, more specifically aimed towards school-age children that could take this game with them where-ever they may be and use it to settle trivial disputes (thereby freeing up the parents/adults need to inter...
Post a Comment
Read more

Making sense up as I go

Side effects can be good. New data that science has been acquiring and collecting about the brain itself has provided an over-stimulating amount of data to condense usable information from. How much we don’t know about the brain is not only ironic, it's borderline tragic. I keep my eyes and ears on new studies published. Reading knowledgeable interpretations of information about the brain are much easier to chew on. I am hopeful the number of senses will be revised, upgrading our generation to Human version 2.0, but minimally I am hoping for an official promotion of ‘intuition’ as a new addition the team of five sense staples. I realize these chances are about as likely as Pluto getting an official reinstatement, and it’s at least as many miles away from sociological acceptance in the mainstream. Why intuition as our sixth sense? I’m not talking about ESP, or anything metaphysical (maybe hyper-real at most), but every human knows what this (intuition) is, every culture, all t...
Post a Comment
Read more

One of a kind of...

I do not have a problem with being unique, or should I say not being unique. I mean, I suspect beyond a hunch that I am exactly like many people-most people even-but not all people in more than a handful of ways. I like the uniqueness of others. I am not unique though. I am like many people that are as just different as I am. “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” Harper Lee Americans love sugar, we even coat our fondest words with it. And fat, we love to chew our fat too. It seems most of us will eat whatever is placed in front of us. I lived in Texas briefly and many, many men (and a few women) called me ‘Sugar’ or ‘Hon’ or ‘Doll’, I only took personal offense with ‘Sugar’ and actually adopted the habit of saying ‘Hon’. Not many people say ‘Hon’ in California, I guess that’s different. Californians don’t actually say ‘DUDE’, not all Californians are actors, athletes, hippies or hobos although we do have these citizens. Most Californians say, ‘it’s all good’ or ‘no wor...
Post a Comment
Read more