Severe storms. Overflowing rivers. Coastal flooding. Tornadoes. Hurricanes Sandy, Katrina, Irma, ad nauseum. These days it seems as if the news is always carrying some story or another about our unpredictable weather ‒ and its disastrous after-effects. Whether (pun not intended) or not climate change is the root cause all these natural disasters is debatable. However, what is not debatable are the astonishing costs that these bad weather incidents wreak on the US economy.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there have been three weather and climate disaster events in the first quarter of 2018, with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events, the agency reports, included one severe storm and two winter storms, resulting in the deaths of 34 people, all of which had significant economic effects on the areas affected.1