U.S. on a pace in 2011 to set a record for cost of weather-related disasters
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States is on a pace in 2011 to set a record for the cost of weather-related disasters and the trend is expected to worsen as climate change continues, officials and scientists said on Thursday.”The economic impact of severe weather events is only projected to grow,” Senator Dick Durbin said at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and Government, which he chairs. “We are not prepared. Our weather events are getting worse, catastrophic in fact.”
Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, held a hearing on the role of government in mitigating the economic impact of weather disasters as Republicans in the House of Representatives were considering an appropriations bill with a number of riders designed to curtail environmental regulation.
As of June, the United States has seen eight weather disasters exceeding $1 billion each in damage, and the annual hurricane season has hardly begun, said Kathryn Sullivan, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction and NOAA’s Deputy Administrator.
The record is nine in a single year, 2008. But April alone saw separate tornado, wildfire, flood and drought disasters.
“Any one such a event in a year would be considered quite notable, and we had four in totally different hazard categories in the space of a month,” Sullivan told Reuters.
The costs of weather-disaster damages have climbed past $32 billion for 2011, according to NOAA estimates.
The agency also projects that water flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from record flooding will create the largest-ever “dead zone” from pollutants led by run-off from agricultural chemicals, threatening marine life and threatening the $2.8 billion annual commercial and recreational fisheries. – Mother Nature Network
The LOZ (Lions of Zion, Yahweh’s Elite Warriors) has been successful in that they have been primarily causing collateral damage verses the loss of life. Adding to the monetary loss of this country’s treasury. This being Satan’s throne of authority, the LOZ is nudging him toward his new seat of rulership as he realizes he cannot sustain this country due to the ever mounting debt. The infrastructure – aging bridges, buildings, dams, etc., this all is set for a crumbling-to-ground effect when the LOZ launches its campaign to tremor the fault lines in the USA. That will bring forth the final demise of the already debt ridden nation. They will continue to apply pressure to Satan”s new ruling authority, making it rough water for him to effectively serve as the Antichrist. His unwillingness to relinquish power over his prized child brings with it ramifications he did not expect.
