Latest Natural Disasters Headlines
All the headlines from our Natural Disasters Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Geographer Recreates ‘The Great Louisiana Hurricane of 1812’
Feb 3 2011 // Nearly 200 years before Hurricane Katrina, a major storm hit the coast of Louisiana just west of New Orleans. Because the War of 1812 was simultaneously raging, the hurricane’s strength, direction and other...
Texas Windstorm Insurance Assoc. to Begin Paying Commissions Monthly
Jan 28 2011 // The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the property insurer of last resort along the Texas Gulf Coast, reports that in the second quarter of 2011 it will begin paying agents’ commissions monthly. TWIA will...
Massachusetts Allows for Terrorism Exclusion in Commercial Insurance
Jan 28 2011 // Commercial property insurers in Massachusetts will be allowed to exclude terrorism coverage from commercial fire insurance policies under a new law signed by Gov. Deval Patrick. The law modifies the standard fire insurance...
Oklahoma Lawmaker, Manufactured Housing Assoc. Tackling Tornado Safety
Jan 27 2011 // Oklahoma State Rep. Pat Ownbey and the Manufactured Housing Association of Oklahoma Board of Directors’ are seeking to develop sample emergency plans for mobile home communities to prevent deaths in the event of a...
RMS Analyzes Terrorist Attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport
Jan 27 2011 // Risk Management Solutions has analyzed the circumstances pertaining to the bombing at Domodedovo airport in Moscow on Monday, which killed 35 people and wounded 180. RMS said the “attack was perpetrated by a lone...
Florida Charities, Businesses Call for End to Hurricane Premium Taxes
Jan 20 2011 // A coalition of Florida charitable and business groups is pressing the state to eliminate assessments charged all policyholders to subsidize the state-backed insurance provider and hurricane claims fund. In a letter to Gov....
Australia Floods Could be Costliest Natural Disaster Ever
Jan 18 2011 // Floods that ravaged Australia’s northeast and swamped a major city could be the country’s most expensive natural disaster ever, the government said Monday. Flooding inundated new areas in the south Monday,...
Study Says Climate Change Link in Hurricane Losses Decades Away
Jan 13 2011 // Tropical cyclones are expected to cause more damage in the United States and Asia but it could be more than a century before insurers can point to climate change as a factor in losses from storms, scientists say. In a...
Federal Audit Rips Spending for Texas’ Hurricane Ike Cleanup
Jan 10 2011 // A scathing audit by the federal Department of Homeland Security questions whether some $45 million in public money was properly spent to remove debris in the cleanup of Chambers County, one of the Southeast Texas counties...
Swiss Re Places $97 Million Windstorm Cat Bond for Groupama
Jan 7 2011 // Swiss Re Capital Markets has successfully structured and placed €75 million [app. $97 million] of notes issued by Green Fields Capital Limited covering French windstorm events. “Green Fields is a newly...
Southeast Texas County Defends Hurricane Ike Spending
Jan 5 2011 // Chambers County officials are defending their spending of tens of millions of federal dollars for cleanup from Hurricane Ike after a federal audit questioned whether the money was properly used in the Southeast Texas...
Federal Audit Rips Spending for Texas Hurricane Cleanup
Dec 31 2010 // A scathing audit by the federal Department of Homeland Security questions whether some $45 million in public money was properly spent to remove debris in the cleanup of Chambers County, one of the Southeast Texas counties...
Alabama Tornado Survivors Still Coping 10 Years Later
Dec 22 2010 // Whitney Crowder doesn’t remember the day her father died. What happened Dec. 16, 2000, has gone down in state history: Eleven people, including her father and baby brother, died when an F4 tornado hit south...
California and Feds Sign Earthquake Plan
Dec 16 2010 // California and federal emergency responders have signed a plan designed to respond to a disastrous earthquake in Southern California. A similar state-federal pact was developed two years ago for dealing with a quake in...
Tropical Storm Risk on ‘Remarkable’ 2010 Hurricane, Typhoon Seasons
Dec 3 2010 // To mark the end of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Risk (TSR), which provides resources for predicting and mapping tropical storm activity worldwide and is co-sponsored by Aon Benfield, has issued a...
Extremely Active Atlantic Hurricane Season was a ‘Gentle Giant’ for U.S.
Nov 29 2010 // The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends tomorrow, was one of the busiest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In contrast, the eastern North Pacific season had the fewest...
Is Gas Drilling Causing West Virginia Earthquakes?
Nov 24 2010 // Officials say there’s no clear explanation for what may have prompted several earthquakes near Frametown earlier this year. Some have speculated that the cluster of small earthquakes was linked to local gas...
Series of Earthquakes Shake Arkansas
Nov 22 2010 // A series of earthquakes, including one with a magnitude of 3.9, has rattled parts of Central Arkansas. The U.S. Geological Survey reported a number of temblors near Guy on Saturday, with magnitudes ranging from 1.7 to...
Death Toll from Indonesian Volcano Eruption Passes 240
Nov 15 2010 // Mount Merapi, Indonesia’s most volatile volcano, unleashed another cloud of searing gas as rescuers pulled more bodies from a village smothered a week ago by eruptions. The death toll from a series of blasts passed...
Minnesota Leads on Tornado Touchdowns
Nov 8 2010 // Minnesota can claim this touchdown record. It leads all others in the number of tornadoes that have swept through the state this year. The National Weather Service says 104 tornadoes touched down in Minnesota in 2010,...
