April 6, 2018

Poor Stewardship, Disastrous Results

In the United States alone, billions of dollars are spent recovering from natural disasters.

by

Adventist Review Editors

Horrific natural disasters in the United States in 2017 incurred comparably horrific amounts of expense. While some Christians and others dispute any relationship between human behavior and earth’s haywire meteorology, careful Bible reading points to increasingly grave catastrophes and casts blame: the God who made us His stewards promises to return soon to gather His earth-caring faithful to Himself, and destroy “those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18). The following statistics paint a picture of the dollar amount attached to the weather phenomena that caused disaster across the nation.

Southern tornado outbreak	$1.1 billion	January
Southeast severe weather	$2.1 billion	March
Southeast freeze	$2.1 billion	March
Central tornado outbreak	$1.8 billion	March
Midwest tornado outbreak	$2.1 billion	March
California flooding	$1.5 billion	March
Missouri and Arkansas flooding	$1.7 billion	April
Central severe weather	$2.2 billion	May
Upper Midwest severe weather	$2.5 billion	June
North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana drought	$2.5 billion	Spring-Fall
Western wildfires	$2.5 billion	Summer-Fall
Hurricane Harvey	$198 billion	August
Hurricane Irma	$65 billion	September
Hurricane Maria	$102 billion	September
Northern California wildfires	$9.4 billion	October