All the headlines from our Natural Disasters Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Sep 28 2020 // A wind-driven wildfire erupted on Sunday in the heart of northern California’s Napa Valley wine country to spread across nearly 2,000 acres (809 hectares), forcing the evacuation of a hospital and hundreds of homes,...
Sep 28 2020 // A Louisiana utility says the cost to restore electricity and repair power lines damaged in the state during Hurricane Laura is now up to $1.4 billion.Entergy Corp., the New Orleans-based utility serving many of the areas...
Sep 25 2020 // Smoke from the West Coast wildfires has tainted grapes in some of the nation’s most celebrated wine regions with an ashy flavor that could spell disaster for the 2020 vintage.Wineries in California, Oregon and...
Sep 24 2020 // The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association’s actuarial and underwriting committee is seeking more data from TWIA staff and an actuarial consulting firm on rate adequacy and catastrophe modeling for potential hurricane...
Sep 24 2020 // Silicon Valley’s innovation engine has been slow to produce useful new tools to help firefighters like Dave Winnacker extinguish the deadly blazes that each year fill California’s skies with smoke.Winnacker, a...
Sep 23 2020 // The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services’ Division of Financial Regulation has issued an insurance emergency order for people affected by the state’s wildfires. Insurance companies must...
Sep 23 2020 // A lack of firefighting resources in the hours after it was sparked allowed a fast-moving wildfire to make an unprecedented run through Southern California mountains and eventually find fuel in old-growth trees to become...
Sep 22 2020 // Slow-moving Tropical Storm Beta made landfall on the Texas coast on Sept. 21 at around 10 pm near the Matagorda Peninsula, packing heavy rains and sustained winds of around 45 mph.Beta is the ninth named storm to hit the...
Sep 22 2020 // A wildfire burning through brush and timber from the mountains to the desert northeast of Los Angeles threatened more than 1,000 homes on Tuesday as crews across the West battled dozens of other major blazes.The Bobcat...
Sep 22 2020 // Wildfires among ponderosa pines and Douglas firs of the U.S. West have long been part of nature’s cycle of renewal, as much as the changing of the seasons.But as climate change makes the region more arid, wildfires...
Sep 21 2020 // U.S. park officials have failed to show enough was done to keep the public updated as a deadly wildfire spread from Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2016, a judge ruled.The decision earlier this month by U.S....
Sep 21 2020 // Hundreds of thousands of people were without power Friday along the Alabama coast and the Florida Panhandle in the aftermath of Hurricane Sally as officials assessed millions of dollars in damage that included a broken...
Sep 21 2020 // Repairs to a leaking gas well just off the Texas coast have been halted because of Tropical Storm Beta, according to the city of Corpus Christi.“Due to deteriorating weather conditions, offshore repairs are...
Sep 21 2020 // Utah’s wildfire season has broken records for the number of human-caused fires and the costs to taxpayers.During a presentation of the Utah State Legislature’s powerful Executive Appropriations Committee, the...
Sep 18 2020 // Hurricane Sally is not expected to cause a major insurance loss – compared to events such as the ongoing wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington, or Hurricane Laura, according to AM Best. As the storm was more of...
Sep 18 2020 // This post is part of a series sponsored by CoreLogic.Though the COVID-19 pandemic is occupying most of our attention at the moment, hurricane season has begun and natural catastrophes never take a holiday. Forecasts for...
Sep 18 2020 // GULF SHORES, Ala./HOUSTON – As an Alabama resident, Toby Wallace has seen his fair share of hurricane damage working for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he handles flood insurance claims.But that did...
Sep 18 2020 // In an effort to help insureds avoid falling victim to scams and abuse, as well as to speed up the claims process, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is urging its policyholders to “Call Citizens First” as they...
Sep 17 2020 // GULF SHORES, Ala., Sept 17 – 06:00 PM – The remnants of Hurricane Sally dumped more than a foot of rain over the U.S. Southeast on Thursday, killed at least one person, washed out bridges and roads and left...
Sep 17 2020 // The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that 550,000 acres of Iowa corn will not be harvested this fall due to damage caused by the Aug. 10 windstorm that swept across the state.That estimate in a report released...