Disaster Occurrence by U.S. County from 1930-2010 (1)

In this past year alone, the U.S. has experienced several major natural disasters, like Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas, the Camp Fire in Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire in Southern California. These events cause numerous fatalities and cause billions of dollars worth of property and infrastructure damage. The map below has tallied about a century’s worth of data on the occurrence of natural disasters events, both big and small, from sources like the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for every U.S. county.

The concentration of natural disasters in the south, especially counties lining the Gulf of Mexico is likely due to the frequent hurricane-related disasters they experience. In the northeast, a common cause of natural disaster events is usually winter storms. While the midwest seems to have experienced a lesser frequency of natural disasters, dangerous tornadoes and twisters are known to occur in these areas perennially. Counties on the border of the Mississippi river also appeared to experience a number of natural disasters. This might be due to the fact that areas in the flood plain of a river or on the coast are much more likely to experience a greater volume of natural disasters due to the inherent flooding risk.

Suprisingly, this data shows that the county with the largest number of disasters in the U.S. is Los Angeles county, with a total of 83 disasters over this time period.

There are growing concerns that global warming related climate change will cause a sharp increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters like hurricanes, fire, flooding, and many more.

Source:

National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, “The Effect of Natural Disasters on Economic Activity in US Counties: a Century of Data”