A look at the increasing “disaster economy” to the criticism crisis

In early July, when the heavy rains that fired a fatal flash in Texas Hill Control began, she began to waive, a resident of Kiir Province, standing on a bridge Pictures of something She floats towards it through trees. It was a house in a creamy farm style with a black trim-so it seemed to seem like the swollen Guadalpe River might put it in its position, and it is the ownership to pick up the place where they stopped. “There is a cat there,” someone is watching Note.

After seconds, the house was immersed in the bridge, and abandoned its symptoms while crushing it against steel iron.

The appraisers in Kiir Province estimate that thousands of houses such homes were damaged or destroyed due to the floods of July 4, and they are total More than 240 million dollars In the value of missing property alone. In the end, the disaster killed more than 130 people and caused economic damage and losses 18 billion dollars at least.

The tragedy in Texas is the latest addition to the country Swelling of the catastrophe of the professorAnd it is on the right path to exceed $ 1 trillion in this contract.

As the two countries continue to emission heat heat Greenhouse gasesA warmer planet nourishes more severe hurricanes, forest fires, floods, droughts and temperatures. Responding to – and rebuilding from – these disasters cost Americans amazing amounts of money. The greater the disaster, the more economic consequences are rippled.

Below is six graphic drawings that show this increasing economy of disasters, of the amount of the federal government to reduce the increasing prices for home insurance and building materials.

Decades ago, two meteorologists in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration I started tracking The largest natural disasters in the United States – those you have incurred At least one billion dollars In damage. The annual federal disaster has indicated in one direction since: UP. Despite this disturbing trend, the Trump administration directed this year Noaa to stop publishing data on disasters by billions of dollars, which destroyed one of the clearest indicators on the increasing cost of natural disasters on the planet of warming.

In the first decade of existence, Fema dealt with 25 main average advertisements on average. In the past decade, since disasters have given larger paths through dense societies and the most expensive infrastructure, the agency was forced to provide 63 ads annually – an increase of 150 percent.

The average of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has reached disaster spending, including the public health crisis in Covid-19, $ 12 billion over the past thirty years. But the average blocks the disturbing trend: the number of very large disasters rises, and it corresponds to a significant rise in the specifically spent on response and recovery. Between 1992 and 2004, the average disaster relief fund at the agency reached a special container in funds for disaster response operations, $ 3.4 billion annually. Now, annual spending reaches 16 billion dollars, as disasters are increasing more intense and the number of people and the amount of infrastructure increases in areas at risk.

Disasters of home owners often require rebuilding from A to Z, but the cost of building a new house has almost doubled since 1996 (after inflation). So when the harsh weather becomes more intense, the high construction costs makes it difficult for families to recover them.

Insurance premiums for American homes increased by 30 percent on average since 2020. The increase has not been equal to all over the country. He saw homeowners in areas with the highest danger of natural disasters – along the coasts and in the middle of the country where hurricanes are common – their installments rise more than others (control of all other factors). For example, families in some parts of Florida have seen their insurance premiums $ 4,000 or more.

Disasters are expensive, repeatedly outperforming, but Americans are increasingly putting themselves in the way of harm. In 2023, approximately 63,000 people moved to great risk provinces, about 16,000 who moved to cross -floods, many of whom in search of less tax and more clear housing at reasonable prices. The opposite trend reveals in low -risk areas: about 38,000 people left low -risk provinces in the country, leaving approximately 7,000 people with low risk provinces.

There is a way to break the course. Through the accounts of the private federal government, each dollar spends a disaster before it reaches $ 6 at the bottom of the line. But the Trump administration has turned this proper logic on its head, eliminating the country’s main tables to finance the preparedness of disasters and weakening the FEMA ability strongly to help prepare for disasters and respond to them as soon as they are beaten.

Since April, the Trump administration has reduced 750 million dollars In financing new flexibility and responding to return Almost 900 million dollars In financing for the promised grants, it has not yet been disbursed to the states to make improvements such as upgrading rainwater systems, conducting the prescribed burns, and building flood control systems. About 10 percent of the Fema employees, their dismissal or placed on leave, and the agency have been lay off It can lose up to 30 percent of its working power By the end of the year.

Millions of people, especially those in the country’s most climatic parts, will lose as a result of meeting Climate -based weather events Disaster management reforms in the Trump administration. But the other parties stand to earn.

“There are many reasons why we do not have global peace, and part of it is that the war is profitable,” said Victoria Salinas, who led flexibility initiatives in Fema during the era of former President Joe Biden. “Likewise, the response to disasters is profitable. For some.”

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