It seems that America faced endless floods, hurricanes, tornados, and wildfires last year. The Center for Climate Change and Energy Solutions recently posted research that supports some of these assumptions. The level of the disasters was almost certainly exacerbated by global warming. The NOAA reported that 2021 was the sixth hottest year worldwide in history. It pointed to huge hurricanes as potentially resulting from this trend.
Disasters fall into two categories in terms of times frame. Wildfires can last for weeks as efforts to contain them become nearly impossible. Tornadoes can last less than an hour, but destroy property and take lives.
To determine the most devastating natural disaster in America in 2021, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the National Centers for Environmental Information’s list of Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters, a record of the natural disasters that caused at least $1 billion worth of damage in 2021. Damage estimations are adjusted to the consumer price index. Information on the duration of the events and the fatalities they caused comes from the same source.
Last year, 20 of the costliest weather-related disasters in the U.S. inflicted a total of $145 billion in damage to public and private properties. The median cost of these incidents was $1.45 billion, while the three most expensive disasters — wildfires in the West, winter storms across the country’s northern reaches, and Hurricane Ida — caused a combined $110 billion worth of damage.
The worst American natural disaster of 2021 was Hurricane Ida. Here are the details:
> Estimated damages: $75 billion
> Duration: Aug. 29-Sept. 1, 2021
> Deaths: 96
Hurricane Ida, the Category 4 storm responsible for more the half of the total cost of the weather disasters on this list, made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, about 100 miles south of New Orleans, damaging or completely destroying all of the homes in this coastal community. Millions of people in Louisiana lost power before the storm made its way into the Northeast, causing flash flooding from eastern Pennsylvania to New York.
Click here to read The Most Devastating Natural Disasters In America in 2021.
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