Hurricane Pauline, that most recent of disruptive VIPs to pass through Acapulco, has left a trail of devastation in her tragic wake. The estimated toll of 400 people dead is very high by recent standards. It compares with only 26 fatalities in Florida associated with the notorious Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and 200 casualties left by Gilbert in the Caribbean in 1988.
Years ago, however, death tolls from hurricanes tended to be higher. The Galveston Hurricane which invaded the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico in 1900, for example, killed 6,000 people, about a sixth of the population of the area.
But if hurricanes nowadays, on average, tend to cause less loss of life, it is mainly because better tracking and forecasting techniques allow vulnerable areas to be evacuated in good time. It is certainly not because there are fewer or less vigorous hurricanes and, indeed, many are afraid that the opposite may be the case.
Moreover, houses and other fixtures cannot be removed to safety and, as vulnerable coastal and sub-tropical areas experience a steady increase in population and economic activity, the financial consequences of such disasters become greater year by year.
Hurricane Hugo in 1989, for example, caused an unprecedented $6 billion worth of damage. In 1991, Cyclone Ofa broke all financial records in the Pacific, only to be bettered less than a year later by Cyclone Val, which completely devastated Western Samoa.
Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992 and left a bill of $28 billion. It was followed a few weeks later by Cyclone Iniki, the strongest cyclone ever to cross the islands of Hawaii. In such circumstances, as Bertolt Brecht remarked, "if the praying does no good, insurance helps".
However, the insurance industry is seriously worried about its capability to meet these steadily increasing liabilities and its fears are exacerbated by the uneasy feeling that global warming may make matters worse.
Their concern has a scientific basis. Higher temperatures associated with a warmer world are likely to enhance evaporation and provide more energy to fuel violent storms like Hurricane Pauline.
In a warmer world, the area where it would be possible for hurricanes to form might also be significantly increased; such storms might occur in regions hitherto unaffected and travel along tracks quite different from those to which we are accustomed now.
The combined result, it is feared, might be more vicious, more frequent and more widespread hurricanes. So insurance underwriters see their future shrouded in uncertainty and envisage a scenario in which the risks are massive, their current actuarial calculations all but useless and the financial implications potentially catastrophic.