"Census: Disasters Displaced More Than 3 Million Americans In 2022"

"More than 3 million adults were forced to evacuate their homes in the past year because of a natural disaster, according to a new Census Bureau tally that marks a rare federal effort to assess the uprooting caused by hurricanes, floods and other events.

The Census Bureau estimate far exceeds other counts of U.S. evacuees and reflects the uncertainty about how much disruption disasters and climate change are causing. Census figures show that 3.4 million adults were displaced in 2022, or 1.4 percent of the U.S. adult population.

By contrast, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which tracks people who are displaced within their own country for any reason, estimates that disasters displaced an average of 800,000 U.S. residents a year from 2008 through 2021."

Thomas Frank reports for E&E News February 6, 2023.

Source: E&E News, 02/07/2023