Natural Disaster Damage
Tropical Cyclones Do Most Damage in the U.S.
Droughts did the second most monetary damage, causing about $244 billion in damage over the same time frame. These dry conditions can often set the stage for devastating wildfires, which the West was plagued by in 2018. Wildfires have caused $79 billion in damage over the course of nearly 4 decades. Of that $79 billion, $40 billion or over half, of that damage has been done in the past two years alone. The past 37 years of wildfire damage (1980 to 2016) is roughly equal to the past two years of wildfire devastation.
