From hurricanes to wildfires, 2017 was the most expensive year on record for natural disasters.
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The National Centers for Environmental Protection says the price tag was more than $300 billion.
Here in our area, Hurricane Harvey alone cost $125 billion. That's second only to Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Irma flattened the Florida Keys in September as a Category 5 storm with high winds and strong surge. Twenty-five percent of the area's buildings were destroyed at a cost of $50 billion.
Then in December, the wildfires out west. The Thomas fire north of Los Angeles was a raging inferno, torching nearly 10 million acres.
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Forty-four people died in the fires and more than 15,000 homes were destroyed. In all, $18 billion in damages.
NOAA has been tracking these storms since 1980.
Since then, the costs have reached more than $1.5 trillion.
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