Katrina and the decade of luck
Wha hasn't happened since 2005 as stunning as what did happen that year.
With the 10th anniversary approaching, in the coming days Hurricane Katrina might rival the visit of Pope Francis for media attention.
Katrina remains one of the world's all-time worst disasters, with thousands of lives lost, families disrupted, and a price tag so hefty that U.S. taxpayers still are paying for it.
Katrina inundated the National Flood Insurance Program, which relies on the U.S. Treasury – as in taxpayers – as the reserve fund.
Katrina resulted in 162,000 flood-insurance claims, averaging about $95,000 each for a total of $15.4 billion, according to government figures.
IBefore 2005, in the entire history of the program, which dates to the 1970s, the total payout had been $14.6 billion.
Katrina was such a mega-event that it overshadowed its successors that year, Rita and Wilma, which would have made major national news in almost any other season.
In all, the 2005 hurricane season cost the Federal Emergency Management Agency – as in taxpayers, again – over $40 billion in direct disaster assistance.
You might recall that the 2005 season not surprisingly stimulated debate over how global warming might be affecting hurricane activity.
What has followed, however, has been astonishing.
For nine consecutive seasons, not a single major hurricane has made landfall in the United States and no hurricane of any kind has made landfall in Florida, both records.
Keep in mind that Sandy technically was not a hurricane at landfall, and Irene orchestrated its flood mayhem as a tropical storm.
The outlooks see a generally tranquil season with cooler waters in the tropical Atlantic and warmer than normal waters in the tropical Pacific generating strong storm-shearing winds from the west.
So chances are quite good that this could be the 10th year without a major landfall.
One might conclude that the atmosphere spent itself in 2005. But doubly perplexing is that overall tropical-storm activity has been well above normal since then, notes Frank Marks the head of the government's Hurricane Research Division, in Miami.
In that period the annual average was 14 named storms – those with winds of at least 39 m.p.h. The long-term average for the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, is 11.
May that good fortune continue; the taxpayers could use a break.