JP3.32
Distributions and trends of death and destruction from hurricanes in the United States, 1900-2006
Hugh E. Willoughby, Florida International University, Miami, FL
Deaths and destruction due to hurricanes in the US from 1900-2006 varies by >4 orders of magnitude from season to season. Common logarithms of the number of deaths or damage in millions (when > 0) are convenient measures.
Mortality and damage during most seasons when at least one major hurricane (maximum winds > 48 m/s) made landfall (MJ) lie above the time-varying geometric mean; most seasons without a major hurricane landfall (HH), lie below. MJ mortality decreases with a halving time of 38 years because of increasingly effective prevention of disasters that kill > 100 people. HH mortality is essentially constant. Historical damage normalized for population growth, individual wealth, and inflation does not exhibit a significant trend for either the MJ or HH subsets.
Common logarithms of death and damage stratified by MJ and HH subsets exhibit bimodal normal distributions. Extrapolated to 2006 and multiplied by the probability that damage is > 0, the arithmetic means are 33 deaths and $9.7 billion. The expected frequency for disasters that cause > $100 billion in damage is about three times a century and for those that end > 1000 lives prematurely is about once a century.
Adjusted for inflation only, hurricane damage doubles every 15 years. Since the hurricane Power Dissipation Index requires 127 years to double, mounting damage is primarily due to growth of assets in harms way.
Joint Poster Session 3, Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Poster Session
Monday, 21 January 2008, 2:30 PM-4:00 PM, Exhibit Hall B
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