When adjusted for inflation, the nation has seen an increase in billion-dollar disasters each decade. During the 1980s, the average was about one major disaster a year, and climbed to nearly four every year of the '90s. The new millennium saw four to five annually, and the average over the past two years has been 7.5.
"It's hard to get past the human suffering before you start thinking about the economic cost of it," said John Whitehead, economics professor at Appalachian State University and co-author of the blog Environmental Economics. "But it seems like we have so many more of these [disasters] because our population is growing, and more people are living closer to the coasts -- there are more people in harm's way."
What happened to all of the false starts, awkward pauses, stutters and profanity? I hate it when my quotes are cleaned up.
