“Since 2006, federally declared weather-related disasters in the United States have affected counties housing 242 million people – or roughly four out of five Americans,” Environment America’s new “In the Path of the Storm” report finds.
“However, the number of people affected by weather-related disasters in 2011 was unusually high, and the number of extremely costly disasters was unprecedented…. The number of disasters inflicting more than $1 billion in damage (at least 14) set an all-time record, with total damages from those disasters of at least $55 billion.”
Above is a map of extreme-weather-related disasters from 2006-2011 in the U.S., by county. Somehow, South Carolina went unscathed, but most of the rest of the U.S. suffered some damage from one extreme weather event or another. Imagine this is only going to increase in the years ahead, since we are so slow to act on global warming and stop such events from happening so often.
h/t Think Progress
