Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Central Texas Wildfire Victims Benefit from $4M in Donations
Mar 8 2012 // Parts of Central Texas devastated by wildfires last year have benefited from more than $4 million in private donations and the help of volunteers who are rebuilding homes. The Austin American-Statesman reports that in...
Liberty Mutual Posts $284M Q4 Income; $365M Profit for Full Year
Mar 7 2012 // Liberty Mutual Group reported $284 million in net profit for 2011 fourth quarter — down 50.7 percent compared to the same period one year ago. The insurer said the quarterly operating results were hurt especially by...
7-Day Advance Hurricane Forecasts Not Far Away, Says Storm Center Chief
Mar 7 2012 // National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read said that science will improve to the point where forecasters can reliably issue forecasts showing where a hurricane will be a week ahead of time. “We’re two to five...
NWS: Warning System No Match for Fast-Forming Tornado
Mar 6 2012 // Meterologists in the Topeka, Kan., bureau of the National Weather Service say the tornado that hit Harveyville on Feb. 28 formed too quickly to have time to issue a warning. The EF2 tornado killed one person, injured 11...
FEMA Begins Survey of Illinois Tornado Damage
Mar 6 2012 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency on March 5 began surveying the damage from tornadoes and other severe weather that roiled southern Illinois last week, starting in the small town of Harrisburg, where six people were...
Polak Named Texas Windstorm Insurance Association General Manager
Mar 6 2012 // John PolakJohn Polak has been named general manager of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA). Since April 2011, Polak served as interim general manager for the association. Polak has more than 39 years of...
Insurance Claims from Recent Tornadoes May Top $1B
Mar 5 2012 // March came in like a very large and powerful lion, spawning severe weather across the Midwest, interior south and southeast United States. Insured losses from the tornadoes, hail and high winds that struck in late February...
Illinois Church That Gave Hurricane Aid in ’05, Now Gets Tornado Aid
Mar 5 2012 // Four pickup-and-trailer loads of goods brought over the weekend to tornado-stricken Harrisburg, Ill., are just a partial return for help after Hurricane Rita in 2005, say residents of Lake Arthur, a town of 2,700 in...
Another Bad Year For Arizona Wildfires Could Return
Mar 5 2012 // Conditions that pushed fire through a million acres of Arizona grassland and forest last year could return this spring to Southern Arizona. The warnings are out, and some early fires have already proved difficult to...
Small Towns in Southeast Hit Hard by Tornadoes
Mar 5 2012 // Residents of towns throughout the Southeast are recovering from the shock of last Friday’s severe storms and tornadoes. Along with pubic and insurance officials, they are beginning to assess the damage from the...
2011 an Exceptional Year for Tornadoes
Mar 5 2012 // While 2011 marked the fourth deadliest year on record for tornadoes in the United States, Texas was spared tornado-related fatalities and recorded fewer-than-average number of such storms. Not so in Alabama, which led all...
U.S. Should Expect Another Above-Normal Tornado Season
Mar 5 2012 // The U.S. should expect an active severe weather season with above-normal tornadoes in 2012. That’s after a near-record number of tornadoes in 2011, according to forecasters at AccuWeather.com in State College,...
California Earthquake Authority Kicks Off Second Marketing Program for Agents
Mar 5 2012 // The business of selling earthquake insurance to homeowners may have just gotten a bit easier. The California Earthquake Authority has launched its annual “Marketing Value Program,” in which the quasi-private...
Natural Catastrophe Insurance Payouts Accelerate
Mar 5 2012 // Natural catastrophe-related insurance claims payouts to U.S. P/C policyholders grew seven-fold as a share of total claims payouts between 1960 and 2010. The trend has accelerated over the past two decades, with hurricanes...
Tornado Season Begins. Now What?
Mar 5 2012 // Tornado season usually starts in March and then ramps up for the next couple of months, but it got off to an early and deadly start in late January when two people were killed by separate twisters in Alabama. Preliminary...
4.0 Earthquake in Missouri Shakes 9 States
Mar 5 2012 // Just days after the 200th anniversary of a series of massive earthquakes in southeast Missouri, residents woke up on Feb. 21, 2012, to a rumbling reminder that they live in one of the continent’s most active seismic...
Insurers Face Huge Losses from Latest Deadly Tornadoes
Mar 3 2012 // Less than a year after a series of tornadoes caused some of the worse insured losses in U.S. history, the insurance industry is likely facing substantial costs again after storms killed at least 33 people on...
Death Toll, Damage Mount from Tornadoes in Midwest, South
Mar 3 2012 // Across the South and Midwest, survivors emerged Saturday to find blue sky and splinters where homes once stood, cars flung into buildings and communications crippled after dozens of tornadoes chainsawed through a region of...
North Carolina Resolves Hurricane Irene Claims
Mar 2 2012 // North Carolina regulators have recovered over $400,000 for policyholders stemming from claims filed in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. At the same time, the regulators are calling for a five year extension in the federal...
Tales of Chaos After Deadly Pre-Dawn Midwest Storms
Mar 2 2012 // Jeff Rann had ample warning that terrible weather was approaching before dawn. A frantic call to his wife from his mother-in-law alerted them to reports that a tornado was barreling down, and Rann heard the deafening wail...
