Natural disasters in the U.S. - Statistics & Facts

The economic impact of Hurricane Katrina

The most destructive natural disaster in economic terms in the United States was a storm on August 29, 2005. Known as Hurricane Katrina, the storm sent shockwaves around the nation and the world. Outsiders watched the devastation unfold before their eyes through their screens. While the damage done on the day was catastrophic, a slow governmental response resulted in a lingering financial burden for many of those who lost most of what they had to Katrina.

Natural disasters from extreme weather

Material property and economic damage can cripple a city such as New Orleans. However, the real tragedy of this hurricane was the number of fatalities. Sadly, many such deaths often occur in a more mundane, but equally lethal, set of natural disasters. Heat and cold waves can exacerbate conditions among children, the elderly, or the ill. Such events can also prove more deadly to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds as some lack the means to afford air-conditioning or heating in their homes. The most deadly of these events was a heat wave that stuck Kansas City, Missouri and St Louis in 1980.

Flooding and wildfires

Other disasters are less deadly but claim their disaster tag through the sheer number of people they affect. Flooding across the Midwest in June 2008 affected more than 11 million people, the most people affected by a natural disaster in U.S. history. While it is often the horrors of death that gather the widest media attention, government support and intervention is often just as necessary in less lethal cases. Although many natural disasters are impossible to contain, the battle against wildfires in the United States frequently rages on. As the area of acres burnt due to wildfires from 2000 to 2020 shows, millions of hectares are lost to fire each year.

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