Events

2003
2003
Event Cost Range Filter:
$1B
$202B
In 2003, 1 Wildfire, 1 Drought, 1 Tropical Cyclone, and 4 Severe Storm billion-dollar disaster events affected the United States (CPI-adjusted).
Event
Type
Begin
Date
End
Date
Summary
CPI-Adjusted
Estimated
Cost
(in Billions)
Deaths
Hurricane Isabel
September 2003
Tropical CycloneSeptember 18, 2003September 19, 2003Category 2 hurricane makes landfall in eastern North Carolina, causing considerable storm surge damage along the coasts of NC, VA, and MD, with wind damage and some flooding due to 4-12 inch rains in NC, VA, MD, DE, WV, NJ, NY, and PA.$9.3 CI55
Southern Derecho and Eastern Severe Weather
July 2003
Severe StormJuly 21, 2003July 23, 2003Derecho across several southern states with the most focused damage across the Memphis, Tennessee metro area. Severe storms impact states across the South, Southeast, Midwest and Northeast regions including AR, AL, MS, GA, FL, SC, TN, KY, MI, NY, OH, PA and VT.$1.7 CI7
Midwest/Plains Severe Weather
July 2003
Severe StormJuly 4, 2003July 9, 2003Severe storms affect the states IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, VA, WV across the Midwest and Plains.$1.5* CI7
Severe Storms/Tornadoes
May 2003
Severe StormMay 3, 2003May 10, 2003Numerous tornadoes over the midwest, Mississippi valley, OH/TN valleys, and portions of the southeast, with a modern record one-week total of approximately 400 tornadoes reported$7.1 CI51
Severe Storms/Hail
April 2003
Severe StormApril 4, 2003April 7, 2003Severe storms and large hail over the southern plains and lower MS valley, with Texas hardest hit, and much of the monetary losses due to hail.$3.5 CI3

*Exceeds $1 billion-dollar threshold after 2024 Consumer Price Index adjustment

The confidence interval (CI) probabilities (75%, 90% and 95%) represent the uncertainty associated with the disaster cost estimates. Monte Carlo simulations were used to produce upper and lower bounds at these confidence levels (Smith and Matthews, 2015).

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