(Bloomberg) -- The US endured a record number of 28 weather and climate disasters in 2023, each causing $1 billion or more in damage and collectively killing at least 492 people.
The disasters, which included major floods in California, the Northeast and Florida and wildfire in Hawaii, broke the old mark of 22 such disasters set in 2020, the National Centers for Environmental Information reported Tuesday. Deaths were the eighth highest in records for the contiguous US going back to 1980. The disasters caused a total of $92.9 billion in damages and losses, but that figure could rise after a final analysis is done to storms and flooding that hit the East Coast in mid-December.
The annual number of disasters has increased significantly in recent years as climate change sparks more extreme weather. Last year was “the fourth consecutive year in which 18 or more separate billion-dollar disasters events have impacted the US, marking a consistent pattern that is becoming the new normal,” the agency said in a statement.
Since 1980, when the record began, the US has been hit with 376 weather and climate disasters with an overall damage of $1 billion or more and the cumulative costs have exceeded $2.66 trillion. In that time, at least 16,350 people have died.
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