This Is What Extreme Weather Really Means For Taxpayers

Cost of Extreme Flooding Recovery Efforts

Climate change is also to blame for many of the heavy rains and extreme flooding that several states — including Texas and Louisiana — have experienced in recent years. While some regions across the country are more prone to heavy rains and flooding, climate change only exacerbates the problem, according to scientists and researchers at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

The estimated costs of recent flooding across the U.S. include:

Missouri and Arkansas, April and May 2017: $1.7 billion

California, February 2017: $1.5 billion

Houston, April 2016: $2.8 billion

Torrential rains in Louisiana in August 2016 caused catastrophic inland flash flooding, and more than a half-dozen rivers in southeast Louisiana had record river flooding. The total economic losses of these floods were $10 billion to $15 billion, according to the Global Catastrophe Recap report by Aon Benfield of Impact Forecasting.

Because the state couldn’t afford to cover disaster recovery efforts on its own, Gov. John Bel Edwards had to request a $2 billion bailout package, and the federal government pledged to cover 90 percent of FEMA costs — states usually pay back 25 percent of FEMA costs — funds that would likely come from taxpayers.