Climate Disasters

More frequent climate-related disasters means most Americans have experienced such a disaster since March 2020.

Number of FEMA county disaster declarations

Mar 1, 2020 - Dec 31, 2021

Source: FEMA. Notes: Excludes COVID declarations.

Climate disasters have compounded the nation’s misery since the pandemic struck. 59% of Americans live in a county that has had a disaster since March 2020. Disasters have been particularly frequent in the South and many Southern counties have experienced more than one disaster. Louisiana has experienced the most disasters, with every county (parish) in the state having more than 12 FEMA disaster declarations since March 2020.

The map above depicts the number of county-level disaster declarations, which includes hurricanes, fires, floods, tornadoes, levee breaks, landslides, earthquakes, severe ice storms, and other severe storms. (Although Covid was a declared FEMA disaster, it is excluded from this analysis.)

Although the U.S. experienced an average of 7 climate disasters causing at least a billion dollars in damages annually from 1980 to 2020,¹ in 2021, there were 20 such large-scale disasters.² Disasters have been shown to increase inequity: low-income housing is more likely to be located in vulnerable areas and may be less well constructed; people in low-income jobs often don't have the savings needed to evacuate or rebuild; and the time- and document-intensive FEMA application process can be too burdensome for smaller/rural municipalities and people with low-incomes.³ At the same time, federal disaster bailouts disincentivize financial markets from investing in resilient infrastructure and housing.⁴ Strategic investments in climate resilience will be needed to keep state economies moving forward.

1. “2020 U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in historical context”. Smith. Climate.gov. January, 2021. https://www.climate.gov/disasters2020

2. “Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview”. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/

3. “As Disaster Costs Rise, So Does Inequality. Howell, Elliott. Sage Journals. December, 2018. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023118816795

4. “Are federal disaster policies making the harmful impacts of climate change even worse?” Frank, Gesick, and Victor. Brookings. March, 2021. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2021/03/26/are-federal-disaster-policies-making-the-harmful-impacts-of-climate-change-even-worse/