Billion-dollar events to affect the United States from 1980 to 2024 (CPI-AUnadjusted)
Disaster TypeEventsEvents/​YearPercent FrequencyTotal CostsPercent of Total CostsCost/​EventCost/​YearDeathsDeaths/​Year
Drought320.77.9%$367.5B CI12.6%$11.5B$8.2B4,658104
Flooding451.011.2%$203.0B CI7.0%$4.5B$4.5B74216
Freeze90.22.2%$37.4B CI1.3%$4.2B$0.8B1624
Severe Storm2034.550.4%$514.3B CI17.6%$2.5B$11.4B2,14548
Tropical Cyclone671.516.6%$1,543.2B CI52.9%$23.0B$34.3B7,211160
Wildfire230.55.7%$147.9B CI5.1%$6.4B$3.3B53712
Winter Storm240.56.0%$104.2B CI3.6%$4.3B$2.3B1,46333
All Disasters4039.0100.0%$2,917.5B CI100.0%$7.2B$64.8B16,918376
Drought320.79.2%$214.5B CI10.6%$6.7B$4.8B4,658104
Flooding380.811.0%$119.5B CI5.9%$3.1B$2.7B66615
Freeze80.22.3%$15.5B CI0.8%$1.9B$0.3B1624
Severe Storm1683.748.6%$365.4B CI18.1%$2.2B$8.1B1,76839
Tropical Cyclone621.417.9%$1,128.9B CI55.9%$18.2B$25.1B7,168159
Wildfire210.56.1%$110.1B CI5.5%$5.2B$2.4B52012
Winter Storm170.44.9%$64.1B CI3.2%$3.8B$1.4B1,12025
All Disasters3467.7100.0%$2,018.0B CI100.0%$5.8B$44.8B16,062357

Deaths associated with drought are the result of heat waves. (Not all droughts are accompanied by extreme heat waves.)

Flooding events (river basin or urban flooding from excessive rainfall) are separate from inland flood damage caused by tropical cyclone events.

The confidence interval (CI) probabilities (75%, 90% and 95%) represent the uncertainty associated with the disaster cost estimates. Monte Carlo simulations were used to produce upper and lower bounds at these confidence levels (Smith and Matthews, 2015).