There has to be a better indicator of disaster severity than the economic impacts of the damage. If an area is hit that has built strongly in anticipation of such an event it will counter productively cause the size of that disaster to diminish in the results.
Shouldn't we be looking at wind speeds, time spans of events, precipitation records, water level increases and other such values instead of anything having to do with economics? Watching a friend of mine dealing with insurance companies after a house fire I can guarantee that the values coming out of such processes aren't as tied to reality as we'd like to think.
Shouldn't we be looking at wind speeds, time spans of events, precipitation records, water level increases and other such values instead of anything having to do with economics? Watching a friend of mine dealing with insurance companies after a house fire I can guarantee that the values coming out of such processes aren't as tied to reality as we'd like to think.