The NATCO Differential, Part II

Our series on The NATCO Way of doing business.

The Storm Next Time

Our first NATCO Differential entry focused on that Billion-Dollar Disaster Report and how we handle extreme events.

Today, we drill down into the data and explore how these setbacks can, and do, impact the nation and the hemisphere.

For this year to date, we’ve experienced 23 billion-dollar disaster events in throughout the United States.

As the National Centers for Environmental Information summarizes:

“In 2023 (as of December 8), there have been 25 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect United States. These events included 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 19 severe storm events, 1 tropical cyclone event, 1 wildfire event, and 1 winter storm event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 482 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted.”

Major events affecting Texas and nearby states in 2023 have included:

Drought (April through September) that caused $10.5 billion in damage.

• Hail Storm (September 23): $1.3 billion.
• Severe Weather (June 28 – July 2): $2.1 billion.
• Severe Weather (June 15 – June 18): $3.8 billion.
• Severe Weather (June 11 – June 14): $4.1 billion.
• Hail Storm (May 18 – 19): $1.6 billion.
• Tornadoes & Hail Storms (May 10 – 12) $3.4 billion.
• Severe Weather (May 6 – 8): $2.1 billion.
• Severe Weather (April 25 – 27): $1.3 billion.
• Severe Weather (April 19 – 20): $3.0 billion.
• Severe Weather (April 15): $1.4 billion.
• Severe Weather (April 25 – 27): $1.3 billion.
• Severe Weather (April 4 – 6): $2.9 billion.
• Tornadoes (March 31 – April 1): $5.5 billion.
• Severe Weather (March 24 – 26): $3.0 billion.
• Severe Weather (March 2 – 3): $5.9 billion.

What’s so unfortunate, aside from the events themselves, is the tight grouping of events, one after the other, in such close timelines. Just when you get a reprieve, another extreme event pummels the area. Loss of life and livelihood. Literally digging out from the damages.

NATCO abhors these catastrophes. Yet, we do our part: at the ready to organize the logistics of moving equipment into place, securing permits, working with local, state, and federal operations to assure movements that are as smooth and as quickly efficient as possible, all with our drivers’ safety paramount to the process.

Weather (and worse) happens. We can’t control the weather. We can, and do, control our response to help mitigate the fallout.