America Struggles With Natural Disasters

The Atlantic 2017 Hurricane Season came bursting right out of the gates this year, with the eventual Hurricane Harvey forming east of the Windward Islands as a tropical storm on August 17, before forming into a fully fledged hurricane on August 24th, before dropping record breaking amounts of rain across Texas. Harvey was a category 5 hurricane, and caused 77 confirmed fatalities and an estimated $70 billion in damage. Harvey was followed by Hurricane Irma, also a category 5, which became a tropical depression on August 30th, before turning into a fully fledged hurricane later that same day. Irma swept through many Caribbean islands and Florida, killing a confirmed 132 people and causing an estimated $63 billion dollars in damage. Irma was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Wilma in the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Hurricane Jose was the next storm of the season, rapidly forming into a category 4 hurricane. Jose was thought to be moving rapidly towards Caribbean islands and the American coast, before making a sharp turn North along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, staying offshore the entire time.

The 2017 Monsoon season in Southern Asia has also displaced millions and killed at least over 1,000 people so far, as storm after storm has swept into the impoverished and overpopulated regions, where many lack the protection required to brace for the damage, nor the financial assets required to safely evacuate. These storms also come at a time of political turmoil in Myanmar, where millions of native Rohingya Muslims are being forcibly removed from the country, leading to more death and displacement as storms ravage the coastlines.

So far this year, over 8 million acres of land in North America have also been ravaged by wildfires, with more than $2 billion in combined assets having been used to fight these destructive fires, with a long drought making conditions worse. Plumes of smoke from these fires have reached all the way across the continental United States, with possible health defects such as pneumonia and cancer a possibility for all of those affected by the falling ash particles.