‘Billion Dollar’ Natural Disasters on the Rise

This content leverages data from USAFacts, a non-profit that visualizes governmental data. You can learn more on its website, Facebook, and Twitter.

The number of natural disasters requiring more than $1 billion in relief funding has been on the rise in recent years, according to USAFacts’ annual report.

While the overall frequency of “billion-dollar” natural disasters has increased, the number of severe storms surpassing that threshold has grown significantly in recent years:

Additionally, hurricanes represent the six costliest natural disasters of the last 40 years:

What’s Congress doing about disaster relief?

On Friday, House Democrats were joined by 34 Republicans in voting for a disaster relief package that ended up containing more than $19.1 billion in funding after amendments were adopted. The Senate is likely to take up a different version of the bill as Republicans and Democrats continue to negotiate a compromise.

Additionally, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on Thursday unanimously passed the DISASTER Act (H.R. 1984), which would create a publicly searchable report detailing all federal disaster relief spending.

— Eric Revell

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