Is it me or are there more disasters in the US?

Is it just me, or do you also think the number of major natural disasters is increasing each year?  Disasters make news.  Are they just being over-hyped by the onslaught of 24/7 reporting?

The U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) actually maintains a website that answers this question.   NOAA’s list of billion dollar weather and climate disasters goes back to 1980 and records the date, place, deaths and total cost.  Since 1980 there have been 212 disasters, which NOAA calculates have a combined cost of over US$ 1.2 trillion. Continue reading