American businesses will lose tens of billions of dollars in 2022 for an unavoidable reason

As climate change increases water levels, causing heavy rains and devastating hurricanes, American businesses will lose millions of days of operation and billions of dollars in damage from flooding.

Source: CNN

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, flood damage in the United States washes away billions of dollars each year. A new analysis by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit research and technology group that assesses flood risk, and commercial engineering firm Arup, shows that retailers, offices and many apartments could lose of more than 13.5 billion USD in 2022 due to floods.
In addition to the direct losses, these businesses will lose a total of 3.1 million operating days by 2022 as they recover from the floods. According to the report, the number of days of downtime will affect the financial stability of the company as well as the income of employees.
As the climate crisis intensifies and floods become more frequent and severe, the annual costs of doing business will also increase. Within 30 years, the cost of damage will amount to $16.9 billion and the number of downtime days will be up to 4 million days.
Jeremy Porter, head of research and development at First Street, says that assessing the impact of flooding on businesses until recently has been a real struggle.
Matthew Eby, founder and chief executive officer of First Street, said the company plans to make the data available to commercial property owners and government leaders free of charge to help them evaluate flood risk of current or future properties.

Source: USA Today

In August, scientists reported that human-caused climate change was making floods worse around the world. The most obvious example is the two storms Henri and Ida, which broke the rainfall record in the northeastern US for two weeks and exposed the weakness of the US infrastructure to what climate change is causing.
A recent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report found that the financial costs and lost incomes associated with extreme weather and natural disasters are increasing dramatically, accounting for one-quarter of all economic losses. Among them, floods cause the most damage.
According to WMO, six of the world's most damaging weather and climate-related disasters occur in the US, and three in 2017 alone. Eby says businesses need to be able to plan, invest and grow their operations as climate change increases extreme weather events.