Billion-dollar disasters

Hurricane Charley

August 13 to 14, 2004 · Tropical Cyclone · $27 billion in 2024 dollars

One of the tropical cyclone disasters on NOAA’s billion-dollar list: $27 billion in losses at 2024 prices ($16 billion at the time) and 35 deaths.

What the offices filed during it

The 129 most significant tropical cyclone episodes filed in these dates, colored by kind.

  • Tornadoes
  • Tropical storms and surge
  • Floods
  • Wind
  • Hail
  • Winter weather
  • Heat and drought
  • Cold
  • Fire, smoke and dust
  • Marine and coastal
  • Other

Open the live radar

The toll

Losses, 2024 dollars
$27 billion
Losses at the time
$16 billion
Deaths
35

The losses and deaths are NCEI’s, counting everything the disaster did. The episodes below are only what the Weather Service filed in its Storm Events record, which counts damage differently and often not at all, so the two never add up and are shown apart.

By state, as filed

StateEventsDeathsInjuriesDamage filed
Florida5810781$5.8 billion
North Carolina68339$24 million
South Carolina2806$8.0 million
California2001$5.5 million
Pennsylvania1300$1.1 million
New Mexico1701$800,000
Virginia1001$780,000
Texas1700$675,000
New York600$520,000
Vermont900$110,000
Arizona910$30,000
Nebraska700$8,000
Maryland400$4,000
Alabama100$3,000
Georgia800
Maine600
Nevada400
Colorado200
Delaware100
Alaska100
New Hampshire100

Episode by episode

More

Every billion-dollar disasterEvery storm of 2004The 2004 hurricane seasonTornadoes in 2004

Sources

NOAA NCEI, U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2025), https://doi.org/10.25921/stkw-7w73, and the Storm Events Database for the episodes.