News reports on this year’s Hurricane Ian make for grim reading. Headlines tell of residents returning to flattened homes, rising death tolls and colossal damage to infrastructure. With its impact centred mostly on Florida in the North Atlantic hurricane basin, the $50bn bill for the damage is so great that, according to CNN, it is likely to “put a dent” in US GDP growth. At least 137 people have died as a result of the weather incident that (by some media estimates) was made 10 per cent worse due to the effects of climate change.
Despite Hurricane Ian’s impact and exposure on the news cycle, it ranks just 23rd on the list of all-time worst hurricanes to hit the US. For all the carnage wreaked, it was in a lesser league to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which accounted for more than 1,800 lives, or 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which killed nearly 3,000. The Atlantic Hurricane season – that officially extends from the start of June to the end of November – is when...