Environment
The Huge Costs of Weather Damage in 2016
Climate change, population growth, and infrastructure are all contributing to the rise in billion-dollar disasters in the U.S., according to NOAA.
The brutal, globe-spanning heat that made 2016 the second-warmest year in more than a century of records wasn’t the only recent atmospheric plague on Earth. Last year also witnessed a huge number of costly weather and climate disasters in the U.S., including ferocious wildfires, devastating floods, and a slew of severe, house-splintering storms.
There were 15 disasters in 2016 that caused more than $1 billion in damages, making it the second-hardest-hit year in modern history for these kind of meteorological monsters (right behind the 2011 total of 16 such events). All told these calamities reaped 138 lives and piled up $46 billion in direct costs, according to a NOAA analysis.