Natural disasters forced an estimated 3.4 million people in the United States to leave their homes in 2022, underscoring how climate-related weather events are already changing American communities, NBC News reported over the weekend, citing Census Bureau data collected earlier this year.

The overwhelming majority of these people were uprooted by hurricanes, followed by floods, then fires and tornados. Nearly 40 percent returned to their homes within a week. Nearly 16 percent have not returned home (and may never do so), and 12 percent were evacuated for more than six months.

"These numbers are very distressing," Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, was quoted as saying. "These numbers are what one would expect to find in a developing country. It's appalling to see them in the United States ... They're only going to get worse in the years to come because climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more severe."

Some states experienced far more of an impact than others. Louisiana and Florida had the most displacements in the country, when adjusted for population, with more than 888,000 in Florida and more than 368,000 in Louisiana displaced in 2022.

The Census Bureau count is based on 68,504 responses it received as part of the Household Pulse Survey conducted Jan. 4 to 16. The data collection is one of the few federal efforts to track displaced people, starting only in 2020. The bureau says the data is "experimental," and is extrapolated based on its sample data.

(Cover image via VCG)

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