There’s always another disaster…

Like taxes, we can always be sure that there will be another disaster.   What follows are some data on 2012 but, as I write, the 2013 tally seems on its way with the increasing number of communities in Canada declaring disasters due to rising water levels from the thaw.   The sad, and somewhat irritating, fact is that many of these events are predictable with predictable consequences.   It is notoriously difficult to maintain sustained public (and, therefore, political) interest in high-consequence, low-probability events.   However,  something like the annual thaw flooding or the annual hurricane season should not have anyone, least of all politicians, looking wide-eyed in shock.

We can debate causes and exacerbating factors but it is undeniable that more people are being affected than ever before.   Below is a graph from the most recent newsletter of the Belgian Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) newsletter.   It’s not the only source of such data (see the links at the end) but I like the graph because it separates the continents and shows trends over time.

Reported Natural Disasters 1950-2011 from CRED

Reported Natural Disasters 1950-2011 from CRED

While the CRED graph to the right bundled North and South America, the Munich Re data for 2012 does not and shows how many natural disasters happened on our continent last year – roughly two events every three days.   I think it’s thought-provoking that of the 10 most expensive disasters last year, six affected the United States and nine of the ten were weather-related.   I also find it interesting that, for those six disasters, the insured losses were about half of the actual losses.   (When did you last check your insurance coverage?)

Some additional references you might find interesting:

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