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Extreme Weather Events This Decade Have Cost America $750B (nbcnews.com) 151

Posted by EditorDavid from the stormy-weather dept.
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News: An analysis of weather disasters that did more than $1 billion in damage from the National Centers for Environmental Information finds that such high-cost events are up markedly since the 1980s. (The dollar figures for the events were adjusted for inflation.) There have been 250 such events since 1980 and almost half them, 111, have occurred in the current decade. And the 2019 figure does not include any events after May, so Hurricane Dorian is not on the list yet. There were only 28 billion-dollar weather events in the 1980s.

There is a wide range of events in that extreme weather calculation. Besides hurricanes, it includes floods, droughts, freezes, severe storms, wildfires and winter storms. And there are some trends in the data. For instance, there were seven freeze/winter storm events on the list in the 1980s, but only six (so far) in the current decade. But there were only seven severe storms on the 1980s list and 64 in the current decade...

The 28 high-impact weather events in the 1980s cost a total of about $172 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. But the current set of 111 storms this decade has cost a total of more than $761 billion dollars. Again, that does not include the costs of Dorian and of two other events on the list -- the March floods in the Midwest and May floods of the Southern Plains. When you tally it all up, the costs are likely to end up at three-quarters of a trillion dollars or more. And that's just for this decade. At this pace, the number seems all but certain to climb over the trillion-dollar mark in the 2020s.

And then there are the human costs. The number of fatalities from these extreme weather events has largely been climbing -- from 2,800 in the 1980s to almost 5,200 this decade (again before Dorian's damage is added in).
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Extreme Weather Events This Decade Have Cost America $750B More

Extreme Weather Events This Decade Have Cost America $750B

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  • Yes, the planet is being destroyed (Score:5, Funny)

    by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:03AM (#59198548)

    But for a beautiful moment in time we're creating a lot of value for shareholders.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 )

      And a lot of work for builders.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      First of all, climate change doesn't destroy the planet. It undermines current human uses of the planet. We are destroying vulnerable communities, and in the short term we are losing biodiversity and ecologically based human wealth.

      Second, even without climate change we'd still have *some* extreme weather events. So what climate change does is increase our costs.

      Costs really are what this is all about. There are people who make a lot of money out of shifting costs onto the public. By in large the planet

  • Anonymous reporting of mainstream press? What? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by davide marney ( 231845 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:04AM (#59198550) Journal

    Oof, standards for newsworthiness are really slipping if an anonymous repetition of an NBC news story makes the grade on slashdot.

  • Define "cost America" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:16AM (#59198564)

    The ones who end up footing the bill are either the insurance company (when the damn sumbitches don't manage to writhe out of honoring payouts that is) or the individual property owners who lose everything. The emergency funds granted by the federal government usually amount to diddly squat in the grand scheme of things - they're just there to make the POTUS du jour look good for a few days.

    So extreme weather doesn't just "cost America 750B", it really makes AmericaNs that much poorer, financially fragile, and all the more unable to contribute to the national wealth because they can't pay taxes no more.

    • Re:Define "cost America" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:42AM (#59198630)
      Insurance companies don't ever "foot the bill." They just raise everyone's premiums. That's you and me, bucko.

      • Yes, they do foot the bill. Just like the state does foot many other bills. And yes, be it the insurance companies or the state, we all end up paying more for what they pay on our behalf. Duh... Still, we don't foot the bill directly.

        • Yes, they do foot the bill. Just like the state does foot many other bills. And yes, be it the insurance companies or the state, we all end up paying more for what they pay on our behalf. Duh... Still, we don't foot the bill directly.

          I think you need to re-read what you just wrote. The truth is in there somewhere...

        • Um, you're quite silly if you think anyone with that kind of money ... wouldn't have insurance.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          duh

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      So extreme weather doesn't just "cost America 750B", it really makes Americans that much poorer, financially fragile, and all the more unable to contribute to the national wealth because they can't pay taxes no more.

      Considering Harvey caused about $125 billion in damage [noaa.gov], insurance companies only plan on paying out about $16 billion [insurancejournal.com], and the federal government seemed to pay out less than $10 billion (I'm having trouble finding exact figures), it does seem local governments and property owners paid most of the cost. I doubt those costs include reduced economic output over the next few decades as a result of those damages. Many families will be feeling significant economic effects of Harvey for the rest of their lives.

      • Re:Define "cost America" (Score:4, Interesting)

        by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @08:47AM (#59199002)

        Considering Harvey caused about $125 billion in damage, insurance companies only plan on paying out about $16 billion, and the federal government seemed to pay out less than $10 billion (I'm having trouble finding exact figures), it does seem local governments and property owners paid most of the cost.

        Probably not. Most hurricane "losses" are really lost business - the tourists don't show up, so your hotel rents fewer rooms both before and after, ditto restaurants, shops, etc. All things not covered by insurance...

        So much of the "losses" are the sort of "loss" your restaurant might endure if a bunch of party-goers decided to go 50 miles further before grabbing lunch....

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ranton ( 36917 )

          Probably not. Most hurricane "losses" are really lost business - the tourists don't show up, so your hotel rents fewer rooms both before and after, ditto restaurants, shops, etc. All things not covered by insurance...

          That doesn't make the cost any less real for those residents. If my $20k car is destroyed or I lose $20k in income, the result to my finances is roughly the same. The long lasting effects to the community are the same as well.

          • That doesn't make the cost any less real for those residents. If my $20k car is destroyed or I lose $20k in income, the result to my finances is roughly the same. The long lasting effects to the community are the same as well.

            Not arguing that it's any less real. Arguing that insurance claims aren't synonymous with "losses"....

          • The difference is that insurance will cover your car - it will not cover your loss of income because you have no customers... That's not a fault of insurance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      No. The losers can also be entire communities or parts of a state when significant portions now have to deal with the pollution that can be caused by flooding. Flood waters can contain a nice range of toxic substances.

  • Thats nothing (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 )

    The cost of the Afghanistan War is over $2.4 trillion and counting. $750B is nothing.

    • Re:Thats nothing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:45AM (#59198642)

      The cost of the Afghanistan War is over $2.4 trillion and counting. $750B is nothing.

      You know... what's remarkable about this comment is that humans tend to do more damage to themselves than nature but then complain about nature as if they actually value life. Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

  • Not Accounted For (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:26AM (#59198590) Journal

    This is not an Apples to Apples comparison, even though they're doing so in current dollars. The population has increased over time as have the developed areas. Thus, if you took an old hurricane and ran it over the same location currently, you might double the damage. That's not to claim that things aren't getting worse, but it's a huge part of the equation that's missing.

    • Re:Not Accounted For (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sique ( 173459 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:34AM (#59198612) Homepage
      That's one of the reasons why the sums rise. But it's not the only one. And even then: Why are places getting developed, which were spared before? There is a reason why for instance flooding plains of rivers once were not being built on. And large mining and wood cutting projects also increase the probability that a hurrican that once did only medium damage now grows into a large desaster. New roads, new settlements, large parking lots reduce the ability of the soil to absorb rain, increasing surface flooding etc.pp.

      • Re:Not Accounted For (Score:4, Interesting)

        by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:40AM (#59198622) Journal

        I made no claim that it was the only one, and in fact pointed to two...population and development. Why you ask?...because the population has doubled in many areas over the last 30-40 years. Coastal development is higher than the rest of the nation. As for people not building on flood plains, that's simply false...look at all the cities/towns along the Mississippi that have been there for a couple centuries as a simple example. I used to live near the Mosel river in Germany, where there are homes from the 1500s with high water marks on the sides of them.

        • Here in California they built a housing development in an area that had been 5 meters under water in a flood the previous decade. Somehow the developers managed to convince the city that it wouldn't happen again or something.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dcw3 ( 649211 )

            It's rather unfortunate that we allow people to do this and still buy flood insurance and low prices, so we're all paying for them being idiots.

      • Places are developed for lots of different reasons.

        Throughout history it has been common to build in flood zones for one or more reasons. Before the invention of rail, waterways were the only way to transport loads too large or heavy for a single wagon. But in modern times, we highly value flat land. Most flat land is on a flood plain.

        Now we use roads to transport most goods, so towns can be located anywhere there is drinking water, or you can pipe some in. But we still like to build on flats.

        • Re:Not Accounted For (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @07:01AM (#59198666)

          Flood zones also tend to be fertile. The Nile river and its flood plains were the foundation of the Egyptian empire.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          In former times, settlements were built on sandy hills, while the floody plains were kept for farming. A flood thus would at a maximum destroy this year's harvest, but no other goods, and on the other hand, settlements would not reduce the precious space for farming.

          Coming the industrialisation, many settlements grew out of their former size, and now former farming land was built upon, destroying fertile soils and creating settlements prone to flooding. In most industrialized countries, soil within towns

          • It's quite ironic, actually. Instead of using the best and most fertile soils to grow food, we use land that barely gets us some harvests, just because of its lesser quality, it is far away enough from the next settlement not to be needed for housing, traffic or commercial zones.

            A lot of food consumed in the USA is grown on what is literally prime coastal real estate in California. Most of the strawberries come from (again, literally) the most desirable undeveloped land on the coast, in between the 1 and the sea, and between Santa Cruz and Monterey (much of it in and around the city of Watsonville.) Gilroy remains a center for garlic production, despite being a viable bedroom community based on its location (given Californians' willingness to commute.) Up here in Mendo I see orchar

    • This is not an Apples to Apples comparison, even though they're doing so in current dollars. The population has increased over time as have the developed areas. Thus, if you took an old hurricane and ran it over the same location currently, you might double the damage. That's not to claim that things aren't getting worse, but it's a huge part of the equation that's missing.

      TFA mentions this:

      There could be forces at play under those data: more expensive homes and buildings being hit leading to higher costs in some places, poor construction leading to more deaths in others. Maybe communities are building too much in places that are too prone to dangerous weather events.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        They barely mention it and downplay it.

        "There could be forces at play under those data: more expensive homes and buildings being hit leading to higher costs in some places, poor construction leading to more deaths in others. Maybe communities are building too much in places that are too prone to dangerous weather events.

        But the reasons are largely moot."

        The reasons are not moot, the reasons play a huge portion of the increase in cost of lives and property.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by EmagGeek ( 574360 )

        "There could be forces at play under those data..."

        The fact that they did not investigate those forces betrays their agenda.

    • Let's not even mention that the bar for declaring an emergency has changed quite a bit since NIMS (National Inident Management System) became a thing. All one locality has to do is escalate to the next higher tier in NIMS, and the escalation continues until someone with enough money stops the escalation (usually FEMA because that's where the federal dollars come from).

      I'm not bashing NIMS, but i'm pointing out it is easier to declare an emergency using that system over the older "when does the Fed step in a

    • That's not to claim that things aren't getting worse, ...

      Actually they're getting normal - more like the first 2/3 of the 20th century.

      We had a few decades of exceptionally non-disastrous weather (especially the cheery-picked 1980s) and have a way to go yet before it gets "worse" by the earlier-decades yardstick.

    • I knew it will be some Hollywood accounting

  • Before I bother reading more, I want to know... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Musical_Joe ( 1565075 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:40AM (#59198624)

    How are such costs measured?

    Have they always been measured the same way?

    Is the fact that cities in the path of destruction become more densely populated as time has progressed been taken into account?

    Have the figures been adjusted for the differences in construction costs in different times?

    ...and so on. Comparisons like these are completely pointless unless you explain what you consider to be "fixed" and what is "variable". What are you comparing against what?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      A country with almost 50% higher population and 30-40 years of additional property development sustained more damage from weather.

    • At least some of the additional cost is in the added-on construction standards for replacement. The 1980's were when we were starting to insist that people who rebuilt in (select disaster type here)-prone areas construct using methods that were (select disaster type here)-resistant.

      Examples include raising buildings off the ground so flood waters could pass under them, requiring better attachment of roof structures, roads built with better drainage, etc. All things that increase costs.

    • How are such costs measured?

      Money

      Have they always been measured the same way?

      Yes

      Is the fact that cities in the path of destruction become more densely populated as time has progressed been taken into account?

      Maybe

      Have the figures been adjusted for the differences in construction costs in different times?

      Probably not

  • Yardstick (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @06:43AM (#59198636) Journal

    Does anyone else see a fundamental flaw in measuring "storm damage" in dollars?

    I mean, I get that the $ have been corrected for inflation, but storm-damage-dollars - PARTICULARLY in coastal areas, ie most of the discussion - is more a measure of urban sprawl, overpopulation, and developers buying/building in ever more marginal areas, not a useful yardstick for storm severity/extent.

    I'm in a phone or I'd link it, but there's a great website that shows for a specific southeastern US coastal city (Charleston?) a map of damage claims vs development since Iirc 1900...the flood claims map PRECISELY to lands that were originally left undeveloped because they were marshy swampy lowlands. As the value of land increased, developers filled in these marshes and built on them...guess what places were nevertheless prone to flooding? I wonder why?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Layzej ( 1976930 )
      Likewise, building and zoning practices have improved so that infrastructure and housing is more resilient to intense storms. In that case the trend will underestimate changes in storm severity. It's not a perfect metric.

    • Does anyone else see a fundamental flaw in measuring "storm damage" in dollars?

      I do.

      I remember seeing the damage from a tornado hitting a factory somewhere in the Midwest. The place looked like it just had a concrete slab scrubbed clean with a power sprayer. Thankfully there was a tornado resistant vault for the workers to shelter in while the tornado lifted the rest of the factory and carried it into the next county.

      Had this factory not been there then that would not have been counted as "storm damage". But if this factory had not been there then many people would not have had job

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Uecker ( 1842596 )

      I think you missed the point. The intention of the original report was *not* to demonstrate increasing severity of storms by measuring the damage it dollar, but to measure financial damage caused by storms which goes up for a variety of reasons including the ones you cite (all mentioned there). It makes a lot sense to measure financial damage in dollars

  • I'm waiting on a category 5 to hit Miami. Got the popcorn and champagne ready.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Miser ( 36591 )

      I'd love to live in Florida.

      What's stopping me is the hurricanes.

      My guess is there really is no where in the continental US that doesn't have some variant of bad weather ....

  • I wonder what the numbers would look like adjusted not only for inflation, but for population growth and real estate development. There are more people and buildings to wipe out now than there were 40 years ago.

  • Exceeds $1.27 trillion.

    127 million homes * $20,000 roof replacement cost / 20 years per roof * 1 decade (10 years).

    Fear mongering is the order of the day.

  • Why [insurancejournal.com] are [wsj.com] insurance [riskandinsurance.com] companies [yale.edu] taking [pbs.org] it seriously [munichre.com].
  • While it does seem there is more extreme weather, I'd point out most of the increased cost is increased development of coastal areas. If you have more people, they have more houses that get blown down. Simple example, Florida in 1980 was about 8m people. It is now 21. Houston is probably the worst case. Not just population increase but a increase in impervious cover so less drainage and more houses. I just laugh at the articles that want to blame climate change for things like Jakarta which is SINKING at 6.
    • Climate will change whether humans cause that change or not. We need to learn to adapt either way. Lasting changes in climate will also change the relative habitability of various locations as compared to others. For economic as well as humanitarian reasons, it is IMPERATIVE that we get over our fear of human migration from less to more habitable parts of the world. If the globe is heating up, then parts of central Africa, the Middle East, and other very hot regions will gradually become uninhabitable.

    • I just laugh at the articles that want to blame climate change for things like Jakarta which is SINKING at 6.7in per year, but it is the ocean rise at 3.4mm that is causing the problem.

      What do you think is causing the ocean rise? Asking for a... excuse me, there's some water coming in here

      • So would you rather have 170mm or 3.4? Jakarta and Shanghai both have a huge sinking problem. The ocean rising part is a small fraction of the problem. Shanghai pumped its way into the problem.

  • Fake news (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 )
    I'm generally an optimist, but a large chunk of our society just doesn't trust the science or the scientists anymore. Right wing politicians, companies with deep pockets and conservative talk show hosts have been engaging in a multi-decade long campaign of social programming. It takes time to unwind that sort of thing. The climate is going to have to get *very* bad before we do anything.

    In the US, it's going to be "fake news" to most of our society until we see city-busting weather. Hurricanes that re
  • Real Estate has appreciated in most areas more than the official average inflation number. I'd be curious to see how they adjusted for inflation.

  • NBC "news" (Score:3)

    by NikeHerc ( 694644 ) on Monday September 16, 2019 @11:49AM (#59199792)
    Their cherry picking of data missed some WX doozies: the Galveston hurricane of 1900 (about 8,000 dead), the year of no summer (1816), "six ships, carrying 3 million pesos, were wrecked in a storm off Dominica. The island's natives killed all the survivors..." (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadlyapp2.shtml? [noaa.gov], the Hakata Bay Typhoon of 1281 (http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/pre1900s/1281/ [hurricanescience.org]).

    If you don't want to die in a hurricane, get out of the area. It ain't rocket science.

    Earth's inhabitants have always had severe WX events and will always have severe WX events. Period.

  • Translation:

    Climate Change has a cost, and it's growing exponentially.

    Either realize you have 8.5 years left to have completed switching to a lower carbon economy, as we in the Western US already have, or the bills will get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

    Move the US to a WW II or Moon Shot economy investing massively in Renewables and Efficiency at every level. Stop all fossil fuel subsidization, deductions, exemptions, exclusions, and depreciation by 2020.

    We know what to do.

    We're just cowards, afr

  • I saw this video recently where there's a couple very experienced nuclear engineers talking with a newly minted nuclear engineer. It's about a half hour long and the back and forth of the problems today versus the problems of 60 years ago was something I found fascinating.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    At about 12 minutes in there's a comment about convincing the powers that be of the safety of nuclear power. The comment was basically that the licensing authorities did not believe how safe these "next generation" reactors could be. ("Next generation" in scare quotes because while these are far more advanced than every civil nuclear power plant reactor operating today this was something built 60 years ago.) Because they had this built-in fear of nuclear power they were coming up with more and more outrageous cases of how the reactor could fail and release radiation to the public.

    At about 13 minutes in there is a comment on how Japan is (or was) developing nuclear power at a much greater pace. The response from the Japanese engineer was that they were moving more quickly because they ran out of options. Japan has no coal, limited natural gas resources, and limited access to renewable energy. They move more quickly because they have no other options. They are still looking for safety but they are looking for reasons to issue licenses rather than looking for excuses why they can't.

    Much of the world will find itself in this same situation soon. They will be looking for reasons to build nuclear power instead of excuses why they can't. They will do so because the alternative is running out of heat, lights, and clean water.

    Germany will reverse their policy on banning nuclear power very soon. As will France. The USA is finally looking into next generation nuclear for civil power plants, and I expect this will move to full scale prototypes as quickly as they can. They will all come to decide to build more new nuclear power soon because they will inevitably realize like Japan did that there is no other option given the technology available to us today.

    As pointed out in the video this is 60 year old technology but it didn't make it to market over the solid fuel reactors because the technology of the day imposed limitations on measuring the results and developing solutions. We now have better materials, better computers, and just generally better technology. We can solve the few remaining problems with these liquid fuel nuclear reactors very quickly today if only there is the realization we have run out of options.

    We've run out of options, and we've run out of excuses. With the additional problem of global warming today we have far more motivation to develop nuclear power than we did 60 years ago. We will have more nuclear power, or we will have more global warming.

  • the NOAA says that more frequent storms and intensity are projected, for the future. In the here and now there is no evidence of either.

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