The places in the U.S. where disaster strikes again and again
By Sahil Chinoy
[...]
About 90 percent of the total losses across the United States occurred in ZIP codes that contain less than 20 percent of the population, according to an analysis of data from the Small Business Administration.
The federal government, through disaster relief programs and flood insurance, subsidizes the cost of rebuilding in areas hit repeatedly by storms, floods and fires. Critics say that encourages too much development in those regions, wasting tens of billions of dollars in tax money and endangering lives.
[...]
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attempts to calculate the full cost of major disasters, namely those that cause more than a billion dollars in damages. They estimate that 2017 was the costliest year on record, with 16 billion-dollar disasters that together cost the United States more than $300 billion.
While natural disasters are unpredictable, the annual losses from billion-dollar disasters, adjusted for inflation, have increased over the last 40 years.
In the first three months of 2018, billion-dollar storms hit the United States three times. In the first three months of an average year, one disaster that causes more than a billion dollars in damages occurs, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records dating back to 1980.
[...]