As A Likely New $1+ Billion Disaster Hits, U.S. Recovering From 28 Billion Dollar Disasters From 2023

A man makes his way through floodwaters surrounding a 
house in Richmond, Vermont on July 11, 2023. This
summer's floods in the Green Mountain State was
part of one of 28 weather and climate disasters
in the U.S. that cost at least $1 billion. 

The storm that pummeled the East Coast this week will very likely cause over $1 billion in damage.

It will be the first of probably many billion dollar disasters in 2024, at least if trends in recent years continue. 

In 2023, the United States endured 28 weather and  climate disaster, each of which caused at least $1 billion in damage, the National Centers for Environmental Information said Tuesday. 

The disasters included one drought, four floods, 10 severe storm events, one wildfire and one winter storm. 

The upward trend in such mega disasters in recent years is worrying. Says NCEI: "The 1980-2023 annual average is 8.5 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent five years (2019-202) is 20.4 events (CPI-adjusted)."

If there was a bright side, the big U.S. weather and climate disasters in 2023 were less expensive than in recent years, but still well above the average since 1980. Again, all these figures are inflation-adjusted. 

The 28 disasters billion dollar disasters in 2023 cost $92.9 billion, which makes it the ninth most expensive year since 1980. But that's still more than the inflation adjusted average since 1980, which is $60.5 billion

But 2023's financial tally was less than in either 2022 or 2021.  The big disasters of 2022 cost $178.7 billion. In 2021, the figure was $159.8 billion.

The most expensive year was 2017, with $383.7 billion in damage from the big weather and climate events.  That year included hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which made landfall in Texas and Florida, respectively, causing catastrophic damage. 

Here in Vermont, we participated - for lack of a better word -  in three of those disasters. One was the flooding and severe storms in the Northeast, especially Vermont, on July 9-15.  Another was the extensive Northeastern U.S. floods in December. The third was a sharp cold wave on Feb 3-4, which, frankly, caused little damage in the Green Mountain State. 

NCEI has data for Vermont specifically. It basically shows that we're tied with 2011 as the most expensive weather year on record in Vermont. However, I don't see evidence they included the December, 2023 floods in the data, so it appears this year is worse. 

I'm pretty sure I've said this before but it's worth repeating. This big huge increase in expensive weather disasters is in large part due to climate change, but it's definitely not the whole story.

Storms are in general getting bigger, stronger, more intense and destructive than they used to be thanks to climate change. There's no question about that. 

We also continue to put ourselves in harms way, which probably explains much of the spiraling costs of these weather and climate disasters.  I think human are hard-wired to prefer living near water. Makes sense from an evolutionary stand point. We need water to survive, obviously. 

And we locate ourselves near oceans, which are obvious ways to navigate, to trade, to encourage commerce, all that. 

Beach front homes and condos,  vacation property along rivers and lakes and waterfront businesses that keep popping up are all prone to big floods and storm surges. Now more than ever.  You'll notice some of the most expensive disasters in recent years have been hurricanes and floods. 

I suspect municipalities don't really want to discourage building in such disaster-prone areas because they don't want to forfeit the tax revenue. It's short term thinking without considering long term losses.

So, as climate change intensifies and we keep building and rebuilding in flood prone areas, many of these disasters will keep happening, and escalating.