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Disaster Statistics

http://www.unisdr.org/disaster-statistics/introduction.htm
These Web pages from the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction feature statistics, tables, graphics, and maps on disaster occurrence and their impacts for the period 1994-2003.

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/socasp/stats.html
The "Societal Aspects of Weather" Web site includes pages on such climate/weather phenomena as floods, El Nino, tornadoes, extreme temperature, lightning, hurricanes and tropical cyclones, and winter weather, including this page on the societal impacts data.

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/climate/severeweather/extremes.html
http://www5.ncdc.noaa.gov/pubs/publications.html
The Web Site of the National Climate Data Center includes data from thousands of weather stations around the world, as well as hundreds of images, numerous technical reports on extreme weather events, and lots of other climate/weather information.The second URL above focuses on climate extremes and severe weather related to climate change. It includes sections on U.S hurricanes, rainfall, temperature extremes, and tornadoes; billion dollar weather disasters; global climate change; El Nino/La Nina; 1991-98 weather extremes; historical global extremes; climate of 1998; U.S. local storm reports; climatic data; satellite images and radar omposites. The third URL offers Storm Data Publications - including Storm Data, which contains a chronological listing, by state, of hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail, floods, drought conditions, lightning, high winds, snow, temperature extremes, and other weather phenomena. The reports are provided by the National Weather Service and contain statistics on personal injuries and damage estimates.

www.nws.noaa.gov/pa
www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml
The National Weather Service Office of Public Affairs Web page provides links to several NWS pages with weather and weather disaster data. Specifically, at the second URL above, the National Weather Service offers a "Summary of Natural Hazards Statistics," which covers fatalities due to all hazards, severe weather, lightning, tornadoes, tropical storms, heat, floods/flash floods, cold, winter storms, and high wind.

www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hic/flood_stats/
This Weather Service site provides data on both flood fatalities and flood damage.

NOWData
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html
NOWData (NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Online Weather Data), a tool from the National Weather Service (NWS), provides climate information, such as past weather conditions and temperature and precipitation averages and extremes. Visitors to the NWS’ national climate Web portal at www.weather.gov/climate/ can click on a desired location on a national map and be taken directly to the local climate page of the appropriate NWS forecast office. Then, by clicking on the NOWData tab, users can access a wide range of climate products for nearly 3,900 locations. Daily weather is available for the last two years with climate averages for the standard 30-year period of 1971-2000 and extremes for as long as a station has been taking observations.

www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml
www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadlya1.html
The U.S. National Hurricane Center offers much information on hurricanes past and present, including data on the deadliest, most expensive, and most intense storms. Its Web site also lists U.S. strikes by decade and U.S. strikes by state. The data on the deadliest hurricanes are derived from the monograph The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492 - Present by Edward N. Rappaport and Jose Fernandez-Partagas, the complete text of which is available from the second URL.

www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/tsu.shtml
This NOAA site provides a tsunami database that can be searched along any of several parameters, including location, date, magnitude, and number of deaths.

http://www.cbo.gov/
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/bysubject.cfm?cat=49
The Web site of the Congressional Budget Office includes a page of publications on Disaster Assistance expenditures as well as a special collection on the Effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

www.ibhs.org
The Institute of Business and Home Safety Web site maintains insurance loss data for the United States.

www.disastercenter.com/tornado.htm
The Disaster Center Web site includes 50 pages dealing with data from a NOAA tornado statistics data base. The site developers have compiled cost, injury, and frequency data, and then conducted comparisons across states and calculations based on population. Individual state data are accessible this tornado page.

PERI Presidential Disaster Declaration Site
www.peripresdecusa.org/
Created by the University of Delaware with funding from the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI), the PERI Presidential Disaster Declaration Site is a free online resource that provides information about presidential disaster declarations made between 1981 and 2003 to help communities better understand their exposure to various types of natural and human-caused disasters. The site will be continuously updated and by this time next year should incorporate all declarations made between 1953 and 2006. It allows users to search and access information about presidential declarations of major disasters and emergencies in any state, county, or territory within the United States. Searches can be refined to focus on specific time periods or types of disaster declarations. Features also include the ability to examine disaster requests that were turned down, a utility for users to create their own summary tables, links to summary data, and links to useful sites for disaster information and emergency management. Although the data compiled and used on the site comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), much of the information is not currently available on FEMA Web sites.

www.cred.be/
The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) Database (EM-DAT) documents natural and technological disasters around the world. EM-DAT contains essential core data on the occurrence and effects of thousands of mass disasters in the world from 1900 to present. The database is compiled from various sources, including U.N. agencies, nongovernmental organizations, insurance companies, research institutes and press agencies. At present, the EM-DAT databases are in two forms: standard and enhanced. The standard database consists of the data taken from an existing disaster database, checked for duplications, but not having any additional information included. As the databases are enhanced (i.e. additional information added) they are added to the Web site. Data are downloadable in several formats. Information in the databases includes:

  • The date when the disaster occurred
  • Country
  • Region
  • Continent
  • Dead
  • Affected Population
  • Injured
  • Homeless
  • Primary source of disaster information
  • A unique disaster number for each disaster
  • Whether OFDA responded to a disaster

The site also provides "Disaster Profiles" derived from data on natural disasters occurring during the last century. The profiles cover three areas: Top 10, Chronological Table, and Raw Data; and there are profiles covering individual countries, regions, the entire globe, and various disaster types. The site also offers other summary data and information on disaster trends in the form of graphs, charts, and maps.

www.ifrc.org/publicat/
The World Disasters Report, published annually by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, offers an accounting of disasters world-wide.

www.disastercenter.com/disaster/TOP100P.html
www.disastercenter.com/disaster/TOP100T.html
www.disastercenter.com/disaster/TOP100K.html
www.disastercenter.com/disaster/TOP100C.html
The Disaster Center Web site offers lists of what it considers to be:

  • The Most Deadly Technological Disasters of the 20TH Century
  • The 100 Most Expensive Technological Disasters of the 20TH Century
  • The 100 Most Deadly Natural Disasters of the 20TH Century
  • The 100 Most Expensive Natural Disasters of the 20TH Century

http://www.ilankelman.org/disasterdeaths.html
This Web site compiles literature covering the causes and circumstances of disaster-related deaths. The current focus is on studies which examine individual fatalities from disasters involving environmental phenomena. Comments and additions are encouraged and should be sent to ilan_kelman@hotmail.com.