Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Federal Officials Okay Individual Aid for Tornado Victims in Northwood, N.D.
Sep 17 2007 // Federal officials have approved individual aid to residents of Northwood, N. D. to help them recover from an Aug. 26 tornado that killed one person, injured 18 and left much of the town in ruins, Gov. John Hoeven and the...
Cleanup Begins in Texas, Louisiana After Hurricane Humberto
Sep 17 2007 // Utility crews restored electricity Sept. 14 to half of the homes and businesses left without power after Hurricane Humberto, while experts estimated total damages from the storm would cost less than $500 million. Humberto,...
After Humberto, Three Texas Counties Declared Disaster Areas
Sep 14 2007 // Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared three southeast Texas counties disaster areas as a result of Hurricane Humberto, which made landfall in Southeast Texas in the early hours of Sept. 13. The storm moved ashore near the town...
Calif. Passes Bill to Fund Earthquake Authority with $1.3 Billion from Insurers
Sep 13 2007 // The California Legislature has passed SB 430, designating $1.3 billion from participating insurers to fund the California Earthquake Authority (CEA). This additional $1.3 billlion contribution is being made with no...
Powerful Quakes Hit Sumatra
Sep 13 2007 // A powerful earthquake off western Indonesia triggered warnings of a potentially destructive tsunami across much of the Indian Ocean region Wednesday, meteorological agencies said. [IJ Ed. Note: Several powerful aftershocks...
Poll Says MacGyver Character Is Disaster Preparedness Top Hero
Sep 13 2007 // In the event of disaster, Americans have chosen a 1980’s TV show character, “MacGyver” to have by their side. That was one result in a survey released this week in which participants were given a choice...
Alabama, Florida Officials Share Costs on Hurricane Evacuation Route
Sep 12 2007 // Alabama and Florida officials started a jointly funded project this week that will provide a four-lane hurricane evacuation route from the Florida Panhandle to Interstate 65 in Alabama. It’s a rare case in which a...
Insurers Call on N.C. to Strengthen Coastal Building Code Requirements
Sep 11 2007 // In testimony today before the North Carolina Building Code Council, the American Insurance Association urged that stronger hurricane resistant construction standards be required for all areas of the coast vulnerable to...
Sept. 11 is Reminder of Need for Terror Reinsurance, Say P/C Insurers
Sep 11 2007 // Six years after September 11, 2001, the threat of terrorist attack remains a source of tremendous uncertainty for the United States economy, with potentially negative consequences for both business interests and...
Colorado Forecaster Calls for 5 More Atlantic Hurricanes
Sep 10 2007 // Hurricane expert William Gray downgraded his 2007 Atlantic storms forecast slightly, but he still predicted above-average activity for the rest of the season, with five more hurricanes, two of them major. As Hurricane...
EQECAT, AIR Estimate Japan Typhoon Losses – Less than $1 Billion
Sep 10 2007 // Catastrophe modeling firms EQECAT and AIR Worldwide have indicated that losses from Typhoon Fitow, which came ashore on Friday, Sept. 7 in Japan’s Shizuoka prefecture, would not exceed $1 billion The storm, rated...
Gabrielle Aiming at North Carolina Coast
Sep 10 2007 // Tropical Storm Gabrielle began to shower North Carolina’s Outer Banks with rain and batter them with high winds Sunday as the storm slogged slowly toward the coast. Forecasters expected the storm to increase its wind...
Tornado-Ravaged N.D. Town Tallies $3.5M in Uninsured Losses
Sep 10 2007 // Data collected from residents in tornado-ravaged Northwood, N.D., show about $3.5 million in uninsured losses, Gov. John Hoeven’s office says. Hoeven and members of North Dakota’s congressional delegation have...
Cat Modeling Pioneer Clark Honored by Reinsurance Industry
Sep 7 2007 // Karen Clark, the founder of modern day catastrophe risk modeling, has been awarded The Review Worldwide Reinsurance Awards’ Lifetime Achievement award. The award recognizes an individual who has made the most...
Guy Carp Issues Annual Cat Report; Rates Down by 6%
Sep 6 2007 // Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC has published its annual, comprehensive study of the global property catastrophe reinsurance market – “The World Catastrophe Reinsurance Market: New Capital Stabilizes...
Industry Skeptical, While Treasury Opposes, Natural Disaster Pool
Sep 6 2007 // Federal legislation that encourages states to pool their catastrophe pool risks and then transfer them to the private market as been greeted with a lukewarm insurance industry reaction at best and outright opposition from...
Mont.’s Wildfire Funding Process Convoluted, Analysts Say
Sep 6 2007 // Montana legislative analysts agreed that more money is needed to fight fires in Montana but called the state’s current system for funding wildfire suppression “convoluted” and raised concerns about some...
Costs of Wildfires go to Montana Lawmakers
Sep 5 2007 // The speaker of the Montana House says he has no quarrel with Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s request for $55 million to pay for fighting wildfires as lawmakers convene in a special legislative session this week. But Speaker...
AIR, RMS Comment on Felix
Sep 4 2007 // Both AIR Worldwide and Risk Management Solutions have issued bulletins commenting on Hurricane Felix. Its sudden formation and rapid strengthening into a category 5 storm are virtually unprecedented. “Since 1900,...
Felix the Cat – 4 or 5
Sep 4 2007 // Hurricane Felix, which is poised to come ashore along the border of Nicaragua and Honduras later today, is a strange storm (See following article). It developed suddenly from a tropical depression on Friday, Aug. 31 into a...
