America smashed the record for billion-dollar weather disasters this year with a deadly dozen, and counting.
The U.S. in 2011 has seen more weather catastrophes that caused at least $1 billion in damage than it did in all of the 1980s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There were 12 natural disasters in 2011, NOAA said, each of which cost more than $1 billion, and together, cost $52 billion.