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 1. Home
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 3. insurance
 4. Home-insurance


THE MOST EXPENSIVE NATURAL DISASTERS IN US HISTORY

Wind, water, fire and drought have all wreaked havoc on the United States.
What’s been the worst?

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

By David Muhlbaum
last updated 5 July 2024
Contributions from
Alexandra Svokos
in Features

Hurricane Beryl wreaked havoc on Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and
Barbados in early July and before making landfall on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula
near the resort of Tulum. It's the first major hurricane to threaten the
Caribbean and Gulf Coast in 2024. 



The full cost of Hurricane Beryl is yet to be determined as it continues its
path, but historically, hurricanes have been the most expensive natural
disasters in U.S. history, with cyclonic storms making up the first eight in our
list. Storm surge (damage from which is not covered by homeowner’s insurance and
may require flood insurance) is the main source of hurricanes' damage. 

Take a look here at the 11 most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history. 

DISCLAIMER

Estimated cost and death figures are from the NOAA’s National Centers for
Environmental Information. Estimated costs are adjusted for inflation.
U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate
Disasters. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/, DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73


(Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. James L. Harper Jr.))


11. HURRICANE IKE (2008), $40.2 BILLION IN DAMAGE

Deaths:  112

Hurricane Ike was only a Category 2 hurricane when it struck land in September
2008, but its size was exceptional.

Tropical-force winds extended a total of 425 miles from the northwest to the
southeast as the eye came across Texas, bringing a destructive and deadly storm
surge across the Texas and southwest Louisiana coasts.



That area is home to extensive oil and gas drilling, along with associated
industries, and the storm resulted in severe gasoline shortages in the southeast
U.S. due to damaged oil platforms, storage tanks, pipelines and refineries. Fuel
prices across the country — and into Canada — spiked.

Many waterfront communities, including Galveston, Texas, and the nearby Bolivar
Peninsula, were hit hard. Even the Houston Texans’ NFL home opener had to be
delayed due to damage to Reliant Stadium.


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


10. GREAT FLOOD OF 1993, $38.6 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 48

Storms get official names from the U.S. government; floods don’t. But the
persistent heavy rains and thunderstorms that swelled the Mississippi and
Missouri rivers and their tributaries became known as the Great Flood of 1993.
The National Weather Service considers it the "largest and most significant
flood event ever to occur in the United States."

A huge swath of the Midwest was affected, and much of the river economy was shut
down. Barge traffic was stopped for two months. Major bridges across the
Missouri and Mississippi were out or inaccessible. Even commercial airports were
flooded. And millions of acres of farmland were underwater.


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


9. DROUGHT AND HEAT WAVE (1988), $50.6 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 454

 1988’s drought struck a large portion of the U.S., with severe losses to
agriculture and related industries; the upper Midwest was particularly hard hit.
Eleven states officially declared all of their counties disaster areas.

The combined flow of the three largest rivers in the lower 48 states — the
Mississippi, St. Lawrence and Columbia — was 45% below normal in June, marking
the lowest combined June flow in 60 years, according to a report by NOAA.
Combined direct and indirect deaths due to heat stress were estimated at 5,000.
Regional impacts of the drought lasted into 1999.


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(Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo)


8. HURRICANE ANDREW (1992), $51.3 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 61

 Hurricane Andrew was a compact but incredibly powerful cyclone — one of only
four storms to hit the U.S. as a Category 5, with winds of 157 mph or higher.
And it was those winds, rather than the storm surge, that did most of the damage
to South Florida in August 1992, peeling the paint off buildings, pulling trees
and utility poles from the ground, and flipping cars and semi-trailers. Among
the locations damaged: NOAA’s own meteorological lab, on Key Biscayne, just
outside Miami. Andrew gave the region little time to prepare. The first storm of
the season, it weakened so significantly as it headed west across the Atlantic
that the National Hurricane Center almost stopped tracking it. But then it set a
course for land and blew up to its peak strength in less than 36 hours. 

Memorable images from this storm include the almost-complete devastation of the
town of Homestead, Fla. The nearby Homestead Air Force Base, pictured above,
also suffered heavy damage (it today functions as an Air Force Reserve location.
The storm came ashore a second time, as a Category 3 storm, in Louisiana as
well.

Andrew also led to far more stringent building codes in Florida; many homes are
now required to have storm shutters or impact-resistant glass. 


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


7: HURRICANE IRMA (2017), $59.5 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths:  97 

 Irma first directed its wrath on two of the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. John and
St. Thomas, devastating both while still a Category 5 storm. It had only
weakened to Category 4 when it made landfall at Cudjoe Key, Fla., in September
2017. The Florida Keys were heavily impacted, according to NOAA, with 25% of
buildings destroyed and 65% significantly damaged. 

Wind and storm-surge damage occurred along the coasts of Florida and South
Carolina, with Jacksonville experiencing the worst flooding in more than 200
years. Irma maintained a maximum sustained wind of 185 mph for 37 hours, the
longest in the era of satellite observation. 


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


6. HURRICANE IDA (2021), $59.5 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 96

 Oh look, another hurricane whose name starts with “I.” Not a coincidence, at
least according to The Washington Post. Given the use of an alphabetical naming
convention for hurricanes (a tradition that dates back to the 1950s, it’s simply
a matter of timing that the “typical peak of the hurricane season between
mid-August and the end of September,” which generates the most destructive
storms, coincides with the middle of the alphabet.

According to NOAA, when Hurricane Ida struck near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, it
was one of three hurricanes in recorded history to make landfall in Louisiana
with 150 mph winds. “Heavy damage to the energy infrastructure across southern
Louisiana causing widespread, long duration power outages to millions of
people,” NOAA reported. “Parts of New Orleans were without power for nearly a
week due to the widespread damage.”

And Ida didn’t just give Louisiana a bit of a flashback to Katrina’s impact – it
managed to also remind the Northeast about Superstorm Sandy (next up in our
rogue’s gallery). Ida joined up with a frontal system to drop inches of rain
across a wide region from eastern Pennsylvania to New York. Flash flood
emergencies were declared in New Jersey and New York for the first time,
producing damage to homes, businesses, vehicles and infrastructure while also
causing dozens of fatalities. 


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


5. SUPERSTORM SANDY (2012), $82.0 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 159

Sandy was no longer a hurricane when it came ashore at Atlantic City, N.J., in
October 2012. But the storm was still giant (in diameter), even if winds were
off the mark. Furthermore, the landing of what became known as Superstorm Sandy
happened at high tide, exacerbating the storm surge that brought waves inland
and flooded large swaths of the northeast coast. Lower Manhattan was
particularly hard hit, with the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel completely flooded. 

The New York Stock Exchange had to close for two days in a row, the first time
that had happened since a snowstorm in 1888. Effects of the saltwater inundation
linger to this day on the train tunnel that runs under the Hudson River, a
critical link in the northeast’s transportation infrastructure.

New York and New Jersey bore the brunt, but all the coastal northeast states
suffered extensive damage. Further inland, the storm merged with a developing
nor’easter to pummel parts of the Appalachian ridge with wind, rain and heavy
snow.


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


4. HURRICANE MARIA (2017), $107.1 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 2,981

The last of 2017’s troika of Category 4 storms to hit the U.S., Maria will be
most remembered for the damage it did to Puerto Rico (though it also struck St.
Croix, the U.S. Virgin Island that had just been spared by Hurricane Irma). One
of the deadliest storms to impact the U.S., with numerous indirect deaths in the
wake of the storm’s devastation, Maria left the island’s transportation,
agriculture, communication and energy infrastructure devastated. 

Virtually everyone was left without power, and cellular communications were down
as well, complicating rescue efforts. Extreme rainfall of up to 37 inches caused
widespread flooding and mudslides across the island, and rebuilding is expected
to take years.


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(Image credit: Jeffrey Greenberg, Universal Images Group via Getty Images)


3. HURRICANE IAN (2022), $112.9 BILLION IN DAMAGE

Hurricane Ian was one of the most powerful storms to hit the United States, with
massive storm surges lashing Florida’s southwest coast, along with high winds
and flooding across the state. It slammed into Cayo Coast, Florida, bringing
destruction to barrier islands like Sanibel, Pine and Fort Myers Beach. 

There was also over 20 inches of rainfall in some places. The destruction was
deadly. At least 149 people died from the hurricane, according to the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement, primarily from drowning. After crashing through
Florida, the storm made landfall again as a tropical storm near Myrtle Beach in
South Carolina, bringing additional damage to the Carolinas. 

In total, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the
storm caused $112.9 billion in damage, making it the first hurricane to cause
more than $100 billion in insured and uninsured losses in Florida, according to
NOAA. 


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(Image credit: U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Johanna Strickland)


2. HURRICANE HARVEY (2017), $148.9 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 89

Hurricanes cause damage due to a combination of wind, storm surge and rain, but
the proportions vary. In Hurricane Harvey’s case, it was the extreme rainfall;
once the storm lurched ashore near Rockport, Texas, (as a Category 4) in August
2017, it stalled over one of the most densely populated areas of the Gulf Coast.

Per NOAA, the storm was the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in
U.S. history — both in scope and peak rainfall amounts — since reliable rainfall
records began around the 1880s. A frog-strangling 60 inches fell on Nederland,
Texas, but high water levels were widespread, with more than 30 inches of rain
falling on 6.9 million people. The result was massive flooding that displaced
more than 30,000 people and damaged or destroyed more than 200,000 homes and
businesses.


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(Image credit: Getty Images)


1. HURRICANE KATRINA (2005), $186.3 BILLION IN DAMAGE

 * Deaths: 1,833

Hurricane Katrina will long be remembered for its cost in lives and dollars, as
well as the harder-to-measure human suffering it brought to the Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama coasts — in particular, New Orleans.

Striking the northern Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm, Katrina weakened
quickly, but not before bringing with it a storm surge that in some places
exceeded 20 feet, overtopping many levees and seawalls meant to protect the
low-lying area. About 80% of the city of New Orleans flooded, to varying depths,
within a day or so after landfall of the eye. With so many houses destroyed,
many who fled never came back; the city’s population is still below its
pre-storm levels.

Along the coast, the storm surge was exacerbated by heavy waves, a leftover from
when Katrina had reached Category 5 strength while over the Gulf. Coastal
structures — including many oil rigs — were battered.


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(Image credit: Getty/John Coletti)


STORM PREPAREDNESS

When it comes to insurance for disaster-prone areas, it can be more difficult to
obtain but there are options, as Kiplinger previously reported. That's true even
though some insurers are restricting coverage in places like California and
Florida in the wake of natural disasters there.



Neither hurricane nor wildfire season are over yet, so check your emergency kit
and have a financial plan in place in case you have to evacuate. That emergency
kit can include items like masks, water filters and, of course, a first aid kit.
There are ways to prepare for hurricanes and other natural disasters, including
by clearing your rain gutters and keeping storm shutters maintained, depending
on where you live. 


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David Muhlbaum
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Former Senior Online Editor

In his former role as Senior Online Editor, David edited and wrote a wide range
of content for Kiplinger.com. With more than 20 years of experience with
Kiplinger, David worked on numerous Kiplinger publications, including The
Kiplinger Letter and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. He co-hosted  Your
Money's Worth, Kiplinger's podcast and helped develop the Economic Forecasts
feature.

With contributions from
 * Alexandra SvokosSenior Digital Editor



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