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Hurricane Sandy and an broad drought made 2012 the United States ' second dearly-won class for raw disasters since 1980 , federal officials said today ( June 13 ) .
Weather and mood disasters racked up $ 110 billion in damages across the country last year , grant to a report card give up today by the National Climate Data Center ( NCDC ) .
This map shows the 11 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters that hit the United States in 2012.
There were 11 event in 2012 that each incurred at least $ 1 billion in terms , include spring tornado outbreaks in the Midwest and Texas , aderechothat plowed from the Plains to the Northeast , and the yearlong drought and its associate heatwaves and wildfires that burn more than 9.2 million acres , mostly in the West .
All secern , more than 300 multitude were kill in these 11 utmost weather events — 159 of those lives were claim by Sandy .
Sandyby far was the most costly result of the yr , with $ 65 billion in indemnification . The gigantic storm , which at one percentage point had tropic storm - force play winds extend almost 500 mile ( 800 kilometers ) from its center , made landfall on the Jersey Shore on Oct. 29 . It stimulate a record book storm soar , historic flooding and far-flung mightiness outage along a huge stretch of the East Coast .
Last year ’s severe , yearlong drouth , meanwhile , was estimated to have cost about $ 30 billion in damage , much of it due to widespread harvest failure . For most of 2012 , more than half the country was affected by the drought , which covered the largest surface area of any drouth since the 1930s , according to the NCDC ’s report .
The pricy year on record for raw disasters was 2005 — the twelvemonth Hurricane Katrina lay waste to New Orleans and the Gulf — with $ 160 billion in damages . According to the NCDC , 2012 also ranks second for number ofbillion - one dollar bill disasters , just behind 2011 , which saw 14 such event .
