worst natural disasters
I never visited New Orleans. For all my dark gothy tendencies, every time I thought about doing it it was either too close to Mardi Gras or in the middle of summer. Plus, reasonably enough, I figured no rush, it's not going anywhere.
Anyway, along with everything else that's been said over the past week, people seem to keep calling Katrina one of the worst natural disasters in US history. Really, to judge that claim, one has to define one's terms. Forbes has a list of global disasters by estimated cost of damage caused. I found a list on the FEMA website that lists them by FEMA payout. Call me old fashioned, but I like to rank my disasters based on bodycount.
Some recent disasters with huge dollars and cents costs barely had any human cost at all: Hurricane Andrew caused only 23 deaths in the US. Camille, to which Katrina has been compared, was worse, but even that was only in the 250-260 range.
Although Mrs. O'Leary's cow has mostly been exonerated at this point, I'd still call the Great Chicago Fire a natural disaster. However, even there, there were only 300 dead. And I have to say that although I'm a morbid kind of guy, I was still a little surprised that they'd name Chicago's pro soccer team after it.
The Johnstown Flood of 1889 killed 2,200 people or so; I'm sure Katrina will top that.
The official death toll from the 1906 SF earthquake was only like 700, though the USGS cites research that argues this underestimates the true total by 3-4x, so an actual death toll in the same range as Johnstown, maybe.
Getting bigger and better, the Galveston Flood of 1900 destroyed Galveston, Texas, and took out an estimated 6,000 people there alone, and 10,000-12,000 total. Most would consider this the bar Katrina+floods+pathetic relief efforts will have to beat. I don't know if Galveston's pro soccer team is called the Flood, but that would be hysterical.
Folks who stop here show a failure of imagination. I'd go one better and say the very worst natural disaster in the history of the US was the 1918 influenza pandemic. In 1918, the flu is estimated to have killed 675,000 Americans (and 20-40m people worldwide). Although not limited geographically, given that the epidemic happened over a very short time it should count as a single 'natural disaster', and is going to be very tough to ever top, at least until the next outbreak.
And of course if one extends one's scope outside the US, even the flu pandemic starts to look like a fairly average disaster. Millions dead in this flood, hundreds of thousands in that tsunami or the other earthquake...
There are many morals to this story, but I'll stick to three relevant ones here: (1) you might die at any time; (2) someplace you want to go might be destroyed at any time; so (3) take a vacation now.
Anyway, along with everything else that's been said over the past week, people seem to keep calling Katrina one of the worst natural disasters in US history. Really, to judge that claim, one has to define one's terms. Forbes has a list of global disasters by estimated cost of damage caused. I found a list on the FEMA website that lists them by FEMA payout. Call me old fashioned, but I like to rank my disasters based on bodycount.
Some recent disasters with huge dollars and cents costs barely had any human cost at all: Hurricane Andrew caused only 23 deaths in the US. Camille, to which Katrina has been compared, was worse, but even that was only in the 250-260 range.
Although Mrs. O'Leary's cow has mostly been exonerated at this point, I'd still call the Great Chicago Fire a natural disaster. However, even there, there were only 300 dead. And I have to say that although I'm a morbid kind of guy, I was still a little surprised that they'd name Chicago's pro soccer team after it.
The Johnstown Flood of 1889 killed 2,200 people or so; I'm sure Katrina will top that.
The official death toll from the 1906 SF earthquake was only like 700, though the USGS cites research that argues this underestimates the true total by 3-4x, so an actual death toll in the same range as Johnstown, maybe.
Getting bigger and better, the Galveston Flood of 1900 destroyed Galveston, Texas, and took out an estimated 6,000 people there alone, and 10,000-12,000 total. Most would consider this the bar Katrina+floods+pathetic relief efforts will have to beat. I don't know if Galveston's pro soccer team is called the Flood, but that would be hysterical.
Folks who stop here show a failure of imagination. I'd go one better and say the very worst natural disaster in the history of the US was the 1918 influenza pandemic. In 1918, the flu is estimated to have killed 675,000 Americans (and 20-40m people worldwide). Although not limited geographically, given that the epidemic happened over a very short time it should count as a single 'natural disaster', and is going to be very tough to ever top, at least until the next outbreak.
And of course if one extends one's scope outside the US, even the flu pandemic starts to look like a fairly average disaster. Millions dead in this flood, hundreds of thousands in that tsunami or the other earthquake...
There are many morals to this story, but I'll stick to three relevant ones here: (1) you might die at any time; (2) someplace you want to go might be destroyed at any time; so (3) take a vacation now.
