2020 A Record Hurricane Season, But Not For Losses

When Hurricane Delta smashed ashore along the Louisiana coast at 6 p.m. Friday, it became the 10th tropical storm to make landfall in the United States in 2020, breaking a record that had survived more than a century.

It was the seventh storm to land on the Gulf shores, which have been a tropical-storm punching bag in this ultra-busy and peculiar season.

It also was the second significant hurricane in six weeks to target the same region of southwestern Louisiana. Its predecessor, Hurricane Laura, was blamed for 14 deaths.

By comparison, the Atlantic Coast has been showered with luck. And in a historically active hurricane season, so have U.S. taxpayers.

Taken together, the collective U.S. damage caused by all 25 storms this season likely won’t come close to matching those of individual catastrophic storms that caused massive destruction in highly populated areas such as Katrina, in 2005, and Sandy, in 2012.