Latest Flood Headlines

All the headlines from our Flood Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Major Flooding Expected in North Central U.S.

Feb 18 2011 // A large swath of the country is at risk of moderate to major flooding this spring, from northeastern Montana through western Wisconsin following the Mississippi River south to St. Louis, National Weather Service flood...

Cedar Rapids Seeks $200 Million in State Flood Aid

Feb 17 2011 // Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is seeking $200 million in long-term state financial aid to help pay the costs of a $375 million flood-control project to protect the city from another disaster similar to the floods of 2008.The Des...

Nashville Launches Flood Preparedness Program

Feb 16 2011 // Nashville Mayor Karl Dean says the city has assembled a team to develop a unified flood preparedness program to lessen the damages that could be caused by future flood events in Nashville and Davidson County.The process...

Spring Flooding Could Swell North Dakota Lake by 50 Square Miles

Feb 11 2011 // The cost of flood control in North Dakota’s Devils Lake region has surpassed $1 billion, but the worst could be yet to come this spring if forecast predictions of rises in the lake’s level prove accurate,...

ICA Posts Revised Claims Figures for Queensland, Victoria Floods

Feb 11 2011 //

SPECIAL REPORT: Extreme Weather Batters Insurance Industry

Feb 9 2011 // In Chester County, South Carolina, off a dirt road in the middle of a field, insurance companies are literally unleashing a storm.To simulate hurricane-like conditions, an industry group has built a wind tunnel big enough...

Wild Weather Could Push Miners to Heed Insurers’ Warnings; Reassess Risks

Feb 8 2011 // A surge in weather-related disasters in Australia could push global mining firms to overhaul supply contracts and rethink how bad weather will affect their operations and customers worldwide.Climate scientists say a warmer...

Declarations

Feb 7 2011 // Flood Warning“We can’t stop the rain, but we can and must do a better job at warning people of the potential for dangerous flooding. A few hours of warning could have saved lives and prevented millions of...

AIR Estimates Yasi Insured Losses between $356 Million and $1.5 Billion

Feb 4 2011 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has issued early estimates indicating that insured losses to properties and business income from the Category 5 (Australia Bureau of Meteorology intensity scale) cyclone Yasi that...

Aon Benfield Monthly Cat Report Highlights Australian Floods, Brazil Landslides

Feb 4 2011 // Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon Corp., has released the latest edition of its Monthly Cat Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during...

Reno Facing Decision on Creation of Flood Agency

Feb 3 2011 // Fourteen years after being hit by flooding, Reno, Nev., elected officials appear split on a plan to create a multi-jurisdictional flood control management authority.The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that while Washoe...

Flood-ravaged Queensland Braces for Tropical Cyclone Yasi

Feb 1 2011 // Just as TC Anthony dissipated over Queensland the flood ravaged State received a warning that another tropical cyclone is heading its way. According to catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide, Cyclone Yasi was “about...

Queensland Hit by TC Anthony, Perth by TC Bianca – RMS Report

Feb 1 2011 // Tropical Cyclone Anthony made landfall over the coast of the Australian State of Queensland on Sunday, close to the town of Bowen, and approximately 275 miles (440 kms) southeast of Cairns.An analysis of the storm from...

Chubb Reports Q4, 2010 Results; Expects Australia Flood Losses

Jan 28 2011 // The Chubb Corp. reported that net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $620 million, compared to $695 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. For the year ended Dec. 31, 2010, net income was $2.2 billion, the same as in...

Insurance Council of Australia Takes New Initiatives in Wake of Floods

Jan 28 2011 // The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has reacted quickly to the disastrous flooding in the State of Queensland earlier this month with two new initiatives aimed at “developing a more effective and sustainable...

Australia Imposes New Tax to Fund Flood Recovery

Jan 27 2011 // Australia’s minority Labor government imposed a reconstruction tax and cut environmental spending on Thursday to help fund the recovery from this month’s devastating floods, and immediately ran into opposition...

North Dakota Residents Urged to Prepare for Red River Floods

Jan 26 2011 // Fargo officials told residents this week that they need to start preparing soon for what’s expected to be a third straight year of major spring flooding along the Red River.‘I don’t think anybody is ready...

Judge Rules Barge Did Not Cause Katrina Flooding in New Orleans

Jan 25 2011 // A federal judge has ruled that a barge that landed on top of several homes in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans did not cause the floodwall to break during Hurricane Katrina.U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. of New...

Corps Study Shows Higher Flows on Des Moines River

Jan 25 2011 // The Des Moines River in Iowa is rising higher and more often, which means floods like those that swamped the city in 1993 and 2008 are more likely to occur again than experts had previously estimated, according to a study...

Poor Forecasting of Tennessee Flood Blamed on Bad Data

Jan 24 2011 // River forecasters for the National Weather Service underestimated the flood level that a major river would reach during Nashville’s fatal May floods because they relied on inaccurate data from the U.S. Army Corps of...