Extreme and violent weather events leave much to be reconciled in their wake, and perhaps the most dire practical circumstance is property damage. Over the last decade, more than $1 trillion in property damage has occurred in the U.S. due to unforeseen weather events, which not only makes recovery challenging but, in the longer term, siphons already limited resources in many regions of the country, including clean water, building materials, and temporary housing.
People worldwide watched as Hurricane Irene tore the Atlantic seaboard in 2011, devastating Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. Superstorm Sandy hammered the Atlantic Coast—and New Jersey, in particular—a year later. Residents of Puerto Rico are still struggling to rebuild after 2017's Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island before Hurricane Michael rammed into Florida in 2018. Other expensive and terrifying disasters, such as the 2010 flooding that affected every city and town in Rhode Island, escaped widespread national attention yet caused numerous injuries and wrenching losses.
Violent weather events rarely occur on their own. The remains of hurricanes and tropical storms travel, wreaking havoc even as they weaken. Cold air meets warm air, creating thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes and hail. Wildfires gather strength in windy, hot, and dry conditions. Hail storms build when updrafts in thunderstorms push raindrops into colder parts of the atmosphere, where they freeze into hard balls of ice. Tornadoes and hailstorms are capable of causing extraordinary damage, particularly when they strike highly populated areas.
Over the last decade, at least four states faced over $100 billion in damage-related costs from weather-related events and natural disasters. The worst hit in the last 10 years? Louisiana, with $555 billion overall, followed by Puerto Rico, with $240.8 billion.
Stacker ranked each state (and Puerto Rico) by the average cost of property damages due to weather-related disasters on its citizens between 1980 and 2023, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Billion-Dollar Disasters database. Data only includes storms and disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages in the state and is adjusted for inflation. (Washington D.C., having not experienced any disasters that cost at least $1 billion, is excluded from this list.) Data is current as of June 8, 2023. States are ranked by per-resident costs on average per year based on 2022 American Community Survey estimates. An estimated 80% of damage costs due to extreme weather come from billion-dollar disasters.
Read on to see where your state lands.
