The US Census Bureau has launched a national survey to estimate the human, material and financial consequences of natural disasters. Southern states are hardest hit.
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Approximately 2.5 million Americans were displaced within the United States in 2023 due to natural disasters. This is the official figure from the American Census Bureau, which conducted a survey by SMS and email, sent to more than a million households. The first results, made public this week, relate to the responses of more than 40,000 people.
The country experienced 28 climate disasters last year, each costing at least a billion dollars. And unsurprisingly, hurricanes remain the main cause of displacement cited by those interviewed, ahead of floods and fires. The hardest hit states are Florida, Texas, California and Louisiana, all of which have seen hundreds of thousands of people flee their homes.
Objective: draw up a precise overview of displaced people
After a natural disaster, we always have a financial assessment of the damage, but not much information on life afterward, on the consequences for the victims. The emergency services that intervene in these situations, such as Fema, the Federal Agency responsible for responding to natural disasters, or NGOs, never know precisely the number of people they are helping. We are at a time when urgency takes priority, where the priority is to save disaster victims, shelter families whose houses have been blown away by a cyclone or tornado, swept away by rising waters or ravaged by a fire. In these periods, we do not necessarily produce statistics.
Not to mention that there are all those who are displaced but who do not request assistance, who fend for themselves, who load their pick-ups with the essentials and who will find refuge with relatives or in a motel while they wait. to rebuild or relocate. Experts say there is an urgent need to understand the human toll of disasters, not just their financial costs. Especially since global warming accentuates extreme weather phenomena.