A massive hurricane, a historic drought and 16 other major disasters across the U.S. collectively racked up $165 billion in damages and killed at least 474 people in 2022, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analysis published Tuesday.
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information track the biggest of the big disasters, each one costing at least $1 billion in damage. 2022 was the nation’s third-most expensive year for billion-dollar disasters by NOAA’s ranking, following 2017 ($373.2 billion) and 2005 ($253.5 billion).
Billion-dollar disasters are the new normal in the U.S. and the rest of the world. That’s because people continue to move and build in risky areas — and the risk itself increases as the planet gets warmer, wetter and more prone to extremes. Severe weather events and other disasters globally cost roughly $120 billion in insured losses and $270 billion in uninsured losses last year, according to estimates by insurance giant Munich Re. And all these disasters played out during the fifth-warmest year on record, estimates the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
