The cost of a decades-worth of hurricanes
It isn’t very often than something as immense as 10 years worth of hurricane’s damages can be visualized. But our friends at the Univeristy of North Carolina have done just that with their latest infographic. More than $310 Billion in damages have been caused by landfalling hurricanes in the United States during the past decade, with notable names such as Katrina, Wilma, and in our area — Sandy. Despite all of those names, many major coastal cities have escaped major damage since the early 2000’s. Hurricane Arthur, which made landfall this summer, was the strongest to make landfall since Ike in 2008. We haven’t seen a Major Hurricane make landfall since Wilma in 2005.
Adam Levenson, Community Manager for the UNC School of Government’s online masters of public administration program, said the research and infographic was a team effort. “Both faculty and staff at the School of Government were involved with the ideation, research, and editing processes”, Adam said. “The graphic itself was designed by ObizMedia. Our MPA program trains many students each year, most of whom go on to serve in local government. We had examined disasters from the local level in the past but wanted to see what insight investigating disasters on the macro level would provide.”