Latest Catastrophe Headlines
All the headlines from our Catastrophe Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Rare Northern Michigan Tornado Kills 2, Injures More than 40
May 23 2022 // Roofs and walls on a busy business stretch were turned to tangled rubble. Mobile homes were destroyed. Tornadoes are so uncommon in northern Michigan that Gaylord doesn’t have a siren system to warn people about...
New Mexico Wildfire Evacuees Worry About Their Future
May 23 2022 // As more than 2,700 firefighters in northern New Mexico continued to battle the nation’s largest active wildfire on Sunday, many evacuees were growing concerned about their future after weeks away from home The...
Hawaii Hurricane Season Forecasted to be Slow With La Nina
May 20 2022 // Hawaii and the Central Pacific basin should expect two to four hurricanes, tropical depressions or tropical storms this year, federal forecasters said. The annual National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration outlook...
Northern Michigan Wildfire 98% Contained
May 19 2022 // A wildfire in a heavily forested area of northern Michigan is now 98% contained and all road closures in the area have been lifted, state officials said Tuesday. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said a stretch...
NWS Confirms Weak Tornadoes in Kansas, Nebraska
May 19 2022 // The National Weather Service has confirmed a series of weak tornadoes across rural parts of northwestern Kansas and a county in southwestern Nebraska along the Kansas line. The tornadoes hit Tuesday afternoon as a line of...
Oregon Officials Warn of Difficult Wildfire Season
May 19 2022 // Oregon remains poised to see a potentially “challenging” wildfire season this summer, despite a wet and cool spring in much of western Oregon, one of the state’s top fire watchers said Monday. The rain...
Climate Change Boosted Cost of Japan’s Typhoon Hagibis by $4B: Study
May 19 2022 // The effects of human-caused climate change were responsible for roughly $4 billion of the $10 billion in insured losses resulting from Typhoon Hagibis that struck Japan in October of 2019, according to a new analysis of...
Growth of Massive New Mexico Wildfire Slowed
May 18 2022 // Firefighters have been able to slow the growth of a massive wildfire burning in the mountains of northeastern New Mexico as they prepared Wednesday for another round of red-flag weather that has the potential to push the...
Researchers to Build ‘Cat 6’ Hurricane Simulator with 200 mph Winds
May 18 2022 // The Category 6 hurricane’s howling winds accelerate to a startling 200 mph in Miami, mercilessly pummeling a two-story wood-frame house until the roof tears off and the rattling windows explode. And a towering...
Rain Brings Relief to Massive New Mexico Wildfire
May 17 2022 // Lightning sparked a few new small fires in the drought-stricken Southwest Monday but the thunderstorms brought welcome rain to the monster blaze that’s been churning for a month in New Mexico and is now the...
Sunshine State Could See Higher Risk of Property-Destroying Wildfires
May 17 2022 // Perhaps the rain from hurricanes can help extinguish the wildfires. That may be the only silver lining to computer modeling reports suggesting that just as hurricanes and flooding from tropical storms are likely to...
How Climate Change Is Fueling More Intense Global Wildfires
May 16 2022 // Already, 2022 is taking its place in a pantheon of years that have seen the nature of fire change — and all parts of the world fall under threat. It’s only expected to get worse, with drought and heat waves looming...
Report Forecasts ‘Above-Normal’ U.S. Wildfire Season, Worse in Drought-Plagued West
May 16 2022 // The U.S. has in store an “above-normal” wildfire season if a prediction from fire weather experts holds true — “intense” may be a better word for the expectations in the Western region. Early...
The Evolution of Catastrophe Modeling Since Hurricane Andrew
May 16 2022 // There’s no question Hurricane Andrew was a wake-up call for the industry. The event paved the way for catastrophe models to revolutionize the way (re)insurers quantify, price, transfer, and manage catastrophe risk....
Report Estimates $530M Reconstruction Cost for Homes in Line of California Wildfire
May 13 2022 // Newly released data from CoreLogic show the Coastal Fire in California has burned at least 20 homes in the Orange County community of Laguna Niguel. The estimated reconstruction cost value is $530 million for the area...
Study Links Cleaner Air to More Atlantic Hurricanes
May 13 2022 // Cleaner air in United States and Europe is brewing more Atlantic hurricanes, a new U.S. government study found. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study links changes in regionalized air pollution across...
California Fire Destroys Mansions; New Mexico Wildfire Grows
May 12 2022 // The largest wildfire in the U.S. was spreading toward mountain resort towns in northern New Mexico, prompting officials to issue another set of warnings for more people to evacuate. Meanwhile, a wildfire that erupted...
SageSure, SURE Close Debut $150 Million Multi-Year Catastrophe Bond
May 11 2022 // SageSure and SureChoice Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange (SURE) announced that SURE, a coastal property reciprocal insurer whose policies are exclusively available through SageSure, has successfully closed a $150 million...
Massive New Mexico Wildfire Costs Top $65M
May 11 2022 // Many homes near America’s largest wildfire survived the latest barrage of howling winds and erratic flames but New Mexico’s governor said Tuesday the risk of more destruction is high and that the long-term...
Wisconsin Officials Issue Wildfire Warnings
May 10 2022 // Wisconsin officials issued wildfire warnings across the state this past weekend. The state Department of Natural Resources has listed 52 counties in the “very high risk” category for fires, mostly in the...
