Katrina not the worst natural disaster in US history

I keep hearing reporters and politicians claim that Hurricane Katrina is the "worst natural disaster in America's History". It's not. It may end up being the most expensive natural disaster, but on September 8, 1900 between 6 to 8,000 people were killed when a hurricane hit Galveston, Texas.

The bodies were so numerous that burial was not a viable option. Initially, the dead were taken out to sea and dumped. However, the currents of the gulf washed the bodies back onto the beach, so a new solution was needed. Funeral pyres were set up wherever the dead were found. In the aftermath of the storm, pyres burned for weeks.

If you look at the history of natural disasters in other places of the world?

In Bangladesh, in 1970, a cyclone hit and the resulting floods killed 500,000 people.

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch killed at least 10,000 people in Honduras and Nicaragua , while leaving two million homeless. Mudslides caused by torrential rains may have buried thousands of more people.

"The Great Hurricane" that hit the Caribbean in October 1780 is the most deadly Western Hemisphere hurricane on record. It killed 22,000 people on the islands of Martinique, St. Eustatius, and Barbados.

The worst flood in history happened in China in 1887. The Yellow River overflowed its banks, leading to the deaths of 900,000 people.

The Johnstown Flood of 1889, in Pennsylvania was triggered by a freak rainstorm that burst a nearby dam forming a lake for a fashionable fishing and hunting retreat. When the dam broke, it unleashed 20-million tons of water in a giant wave that roared through Johnstown, killing more than 23-hundred men, women and children and destroying the homes of thousands more.

So, as the media and others talk about the "worst" or "one of the worst" natural disasters? Thankfully Katrina is not from a loss of life perspective. You can rebuild homes or businesses, but there is no way to bring back the dead.