Latest Natural Disasters Headlines
All the headlines from our Natural Disasters Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Update: Hurricane Melissa Bears Down on Jamaica as Category 5 Storm
Oct 28 2025 // Hurricane Melissa is churning toward Jamaica as the island’s worst-ever storm, with high winds and flooding rains already pummeling coastal areas in the hours before landfall. Melissa’s top winds reached 185...
Update: Hurricane Melissa Churns Toward Jamaica as Category 5 Storm
Oct 27 2025 // Hurricane Melissa plowed toward Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm, threatening to bring widespread destruction to the island. Melissa’s top winds reached 165 miles (266 kilometers) per hour, up from 160 mph...
Intruders Release Mink From Iowa Farm in What Trade Group Calls ‘Terrorist Act’
Oct 27 2025 // One or more intruders broke into an Iowa mink farm and released 2,000 of the furbearing animals in what a trade group called a “terrorist act” under federal law. Sometime between last Monday night and Tuesday...
Tropical Storm Melissa Brings Heavy Rain to Haiti, Dominican Republic and Jamaica
Oct 23 2025 // Tropical Storm Melissa began dumping heavy rain on Hispaniola on Tuesday as forecasters warned of a significant flood risk in parts of the Caribbean region later this week. The rains snarled traffic in the Dominican...
Industry Groups Applaud Bill to Treat Forests, Mitigate Wildfire Risk
Oct 23 2025 // Insurance industry trades praised a Senate committee for the passage this week of the Fix Our Forests Act, a measure to address high-risk wildfire regions. “The risk of wildfire can no longer be ignored or...
Charges Dropped Against Owner of Dog Found Left Behind in Hurricane Milton
Oct 20 2025 // Criminal charges have been dropped against a Florida man who authorities said abandoned his tied-up dog in floodwaters near a highway as residents evacuated Florida’s Gulf Coast last year shortly before Hurricane...
Natural Disaster Claims in 2025 to Again Top $100B Despite ‘Abnormally Low’ Q3 Events
Oct 16 2025 // Global insured losses from natural catastrophes during the first nine months of 2025 are estimated to hit US$105 billion, bringing the sixth consecutive calendar year with losses topping US$100 billion and the eighth year...
1 Dead, 2 Missing and Dozens Rescued After Remnants of Typhoon Lashed Alaska
Oct 15 2025 // One person was dead and two were missing in western Alaska after the remnants of Typhoon Halong over the weekend brought hurricane-force winds and ravaging storm surges and floodwaters that swept some homes away,...
La Niña’s Back, but Will It Amp Up Hurricane Season?
Oct 10 2025 // La Nina, the cooler and at times costlier flip side of El Nino, has arrived to warp weather worldwide, meteorologists said Thursday. This natural weather phenomenon often turbocharges the Atlantic hurricane season, but...
Florida County Hit by 2024 Hurricanes Takes on Beach Restoration Without Fed Help
Oct 10 2025 // The white sandy beaches along a swath of Florida’s Gulf Coast were battered by three hurricanes last year, leading to a multimillion-dollar effort to repair a coastline that is the region’s economic...
Man Charged With ‘Maliciously’ Starting Massive LA Wildfire
Oct 8 2025 // Federal authorities arrested a 29-year-old man on charges that he intentionally started the blaze that days later became the Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in the Pacific Coast area...
EF5 Tornado That killed 3 in North Dakota was Nation’s First in 12 years
Oct 8 2025 // A deadly tornado that tore across southeastern North Dakota this summer has been upgraded to an EF5 with winds topping 200 mph (322 kph), the strongest classification of tornado and the first confirmed on American soil in...
Tropical Storm Jerry Is 10th Storm in Atlantic Hurricane Season
Oct 8 2025 // Tropical Storm Jerry formed in the Atlantic east of the Caribbean, becoming the 10th system in the 2025 hurricane season. Jerry, with top winds of 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour, was about 1.315 miles east of the...
US Sues Southern California Edison Over 2019 Wildfire
Oct 8 2025 // The U.S. government sued Southern California Edison to help restore National Forest System lands burned in the Saddleridge wildfire near Los Angeles in 2019. Tuesday’s lawsuit seeks damages for fire suppression costs...
Industry Reps Back Reauthorization of Federal Terrorism Backstop
Oct 6 2025 // Michelle Sartain, president Marsh U.S. and Canada, who has worked at Marsh for more than 28 years, encouraged lawmakers on Capitol Hill last month to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. More than two decades...
Hurricane Katrina Impacts Then and Now
Oct 6 2025 // I recently read several articles marking the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The articles covered a plethora of changes, including ISO form changes, the quality of claims serviced, the enormous financial cost, the...
More NC Outer Banks Homes Collapse into Surf as Hurricanes Stay Far Offshore
Oct 3 2025 // Six unoccupied houses along North Carolina’s Outer Banks have collapsed into the ocean as Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda rumble in the Atlantic, the latest private beachfront structures to fall as sea levels rise due...
Typhoon Matmo Strengthens as It Hits Philippines, on Track to China
Oct 3 2025 // Typhoon Matmo intensified as it made landfall in northern Philippines on Friday where it’s forecast to dump heavy rain, with the nation still reeling from the impact of two deadly typhoons in the past two...
September Marks Rare Absence of Hurricane Landfalls in US
Oct 1 2025 // September turned out to be a slumber for hurricane watchers. For the first time in a decade, the month of September produced no hurricane landfalls in the United States. Seven of the previous eight years this occurred, no...
Vietnam Estimates Property Damage From Typhoon Bualoi at $303 Million
Oct 1 2025 // Vietnam’s government said Typhoon Bualoi caused an estimated 8 trillion dong ($303 million) of property damage this week, saying in a preliminary assessment on Wednesday that nearly 170,000 houses were damaged or...
