Billion Dollar Disasters

I learned two important facts last night about climate-change-induced weather damage on All In with Chris Hayes.

One was that Hurricane Helene damaged pipes that had been buried 24 feet deep in anticipation of future severe weather. So "future-proofing" didn't work against Helene.

The other was how much inflation-adjusted billion-dollar weather events have increased since 1980:

Those unlabeled lines closer to the bottom are generally the years before 2017, if they had billion-dollar events. Even 2005, the year of Katrina, doesn't rate compared with the disasters of recent years, as the climate has warmed further. 2011 is the only year from those before 2017.

And 2023 is clearly an outlier, with 28 events. It will be notable to see how 2024 rates compared to 2023.