Coastal Services Center

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How Hazards Affect Your Community

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Storm Facts

Up to $2.2 trillion of the U.S. economy are believed to be effected annually by weather and climate events.

Damage from hurricanes averages $5.1 billion and 20 deaths per year.

Although property damages rose rapidly during the twentieth century, deaths from hurricanes decreased dramatically.

An estimated 50 to 100 people die annually from hurricane-related events in the US.  Nine out of ten people who die from hurricanes are a result of storm surge.

Total damage losses (due to disasters) from 1975 to 1998 were $500 billion (in 1994 dollars)
Prior to 2005, the costliest hurricane seasons were:
2004: ~$42 billion in U.S. damage
1992: ~$35 billion in U.S. damage (adjusted for inflation, 2000 values)
1989: ~$10.6 billion in U.S. damage

Since the1950s, the average annual number of disaster declarations has tripled (peaking at 75 in 1996). Between 1976 and 2000, there were 861 major disaster declarations, an average of 34 per year.

Floods are the most frequent natural disaster; one in three Federal disaster declarations is related to flooding.

Economic losses have increased with urban expansion into flood-prone areas by 2% per year.

Erosion is estimated to claim one out of four houses within 500 feet of the U.S. shoreline without coastal engineering projects over the next 60 years.

Coastal Population Facts

Approx. 60% (3.6 billion) of the world’s population lives within 60km (37 miles) of the coast Our coastal population is growing faster than the nation’s population as a whole, and that trend is expected to continue.

Coastal counties constitute only 10% of the land in the lower 48 states, but have nearly five times the population density of the rest of the country.

By 2025, 75% of the U.S. population will live within 50 miles of a coast.

14 of the 20 largest U.S. cities are located in coastal zones.

Over the past 30 years coastal population growth has quadrupled; more than 69 million people now reside along hurricane prone coastlines in the United States.