The Rising Frequency and Cost of Severe Storms | SERVPRO® of Clatsop, Columbia Counties

7/12/2021 (Permalink)

When storms do damage, we go to work to make things right. Contact SERVPRO of Clatsop, Columbia Counties to start the restoration process.

As if 2020 wasn’t dramatic enough with a global pandemic, it also brought the extra stress of being a record-setting year for natural disasters. 2020 saw more weather disasters than any year for which we have data.

There were 22 officially classified disasters in 2020 (which means there were 22 events that caused at least a billion dollars in damages), plus a number of other damaging storms that didn’t reach that financial level. The National Weather Service actually ran through its entire planned list of names and had to resort to naming storms using the Greek alphabet for only the second time in history.

Not Just Hurricanes

Hurricanes get the finger pointed at them first for causing destruction and financial damage, but in fact, the most expensive disasters of 2020 in the contiguous United States were thunderstorms and tornadoes. 

Fourteen of 2020’s official weather disasters were severe thunderstorms, some of which caused destructive tornadoes as well. Unlike hurricanes, thunderstorms happen year-round in the United States, and they happen coast to coast.

Just take this example of what a single storm can do: In August 2020, a seemingly normal line of storms in Nebraska gained steam and gave birth to a derecho (think of a tornado comprised of slashing straight-line winds instead of rotating air) which damaged more than 10 million acres of Nebraska’s corn fields. That’s almost half the state’s crop, and over 11% of the corn crop of the entire United States.

While Oregon suffered the devastation of wildfires in 2020, Oregonians also dealt with heavy rains, snow and even historic windstorms.

Not Just 2020

One would like to think 2020 was an outlier in this regard, but unfortunately, it seems as though it’s just part of the current pattern. It was the 10th year consecutively with at least 8 official disasters, following up 2018 and 2019, which saw a total of $136 billion in weather damages, and 2017, which saw a record total of over $300 billion by itself.

Storms are a potential problem for everyone, and as a home or business owner, it’s in your interest to take the necessary precautions to minimize property damage and keep everyone under the roof safe. But should those precautions prove insufficient or ineffective in an unexpected weather disaster, remember that you’ve got a friend in the restoration industry.

When storms do damage, we go to work to make things right. Contact SERVPRO today to see how we can help.