Though we're only halfway through 2011, natural disasters have already cost the U.S. $32 billion, and that number will continue to climb. Over the weekend, the Suris River crested in Minot, North Dakota, leaving 4,000 homes underwater. Fewer than 400 residents of the city—the state's fourth largest—have flood insurance. North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the U.S., and one of the fastest growing economies. 

This morning, survivors of the six southern states hit by Wednesday’s rash of deadly tornadoes continue the hard work of surveying and cleaning the damage. We speak with Julie Steel, News reporter for WUTC in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a town that was hit repeatedly by waves of storms.

Floods in mountain towns north of Rio de Janeiro have killed at least 600 people, and weather forecasters say more rain is on the way. The death toll has risen steadily as rescuers reach remote areas and unearth corpses from mounds of debris. As Brazilians wait for the water to recede, authorities fear the spread of disease through contaminated water. Brazil’s civil defense agency has distributed vaccines against tetanus and diphtheria, according to its website.

More than five hundred people have been killed by flooding and mudslides in southeastern Brazil. Authorities have sent nearly a thousand rescue workers to the region. The floods have affected poorer rural residents, who live in houses built in risky areas. BBC Brazil correspondent, Paulo Cabral, reports from Brazil on the flooding and the dramatic rescue efforts.

The Australian state of Queensland — a state with the area the size of France and Germany combined — has been hit by flooding, inundating 20 towns and affecting more than 200,000 people. It’s one of the area’s worst natural disasters, and Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard has boosted emergency support, increasing rescue crew numbers and providing hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency grants to residents.

Thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky over the Arkansas town of Beebe just before midnight on New Year's Eve, leaving people in the area scratching their heads and speculating about the possible cause: a lightning strike? Aliens? A secret government project? We're joined by Keith Stevens, of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which is investigating the incident. 

In Pakistan, the Indus River is vital to the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis, and, as we saw last month, has the power to destroy just as many. As the flood waters receded, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool travelled along the river, seeing not only the physical scars left, but also the mental distress left in those communities that witnessed one of the worst natural disasters in their country's history.

Pakistan’s floods are producing some mind-boggling numbers: 3.5 million children are at risk of disease, and roughly one-fifth of the country is under water. 20 million people have been displaced from their homes by the ongoing deluge.   

And some more disturbing numbers: the UN has asked for $460 million in emergency aid. To date, donor nations have only pledged 35 percent of that amount. A little less than half the donations - roughly $76 million - has come from the United States.

When you think of the biggest natural disasters in U.S. history, what are the first things that come to mind? Certainly Hurricane Katrina, maybe one of the several San Francisco earthquakes, the great Chicago fire. However, most people have never heard of one of the most lethal: the heat wave of 1896.

Rescuers are still searching for victims missing after flash floods swept through a campground in southwest Arkansas on Friday, claiming the lives of at least 19 people, including six children.

The devastating floods that hit the South earlier this month are responsible for dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in financial damage. But musicians in Nashville are experiencing a unique loss. Not only were classic music venues, such as the Grand Ole Opry, damaged by the rising water, many of the instruments used to give Music City its reputation were also destroyed.

From airlines champing at the bit to get back in the air over western Europe despite Iceland's volcanic ash, to some dirty dealings at Goldman Sachs, questions of risk and risk-taking are dominating the news cycle this week. But what happens if we avoid risk all-together? Is it even possible?

• ENVIRONMENT TAKEOUT: It's flood season in North Dakota. Prairie Public Broadcasting reporter Todd McDonald gives us the latest on the flood preparations in Fargo and tells us why some people are still not moving away from the town's most exposed area.
• MONEY TAKEOUT: Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan will be at the Brookings Institution today to present his most detailed report on the roots of the financial meltdown, 48-page paper titled, "The Crisis." New York Times reporter Louise Story discusses Greenspan's limited admission of failure and his new argument on what really caused the housing bubble.

In the last three weeks, millions of dollars have poured into Haiti. But at home, it's taken nearly 16 months for Galveston, Tex. to receive federal aid since Hurricane Ike swept through the city. The hurricane destroyed whole neighborhoods and forced thousands from their homes.

Kids often feel scared and powerless when a disaster – like the Haiti earthquake – hits. But there are constructive ways to talk with them about traumatic world events, and to channel their anxieties into positive outcomes.

If you go to any national park or protected wilderness in the U.S. today, you will find the friendly, heroic figure of the forest ranger: a uniformed caretaker of natural splendor, and watcher for forest fires. Oftentimes, these forest heroes go unnoticed, but in his new book, Timothy Egan writes about how forest rangers banded together, along with President Theodore Roosevelt, to control a blazing inferno.

We talk with Pulizer Prize–winning author Timothy Egan about his new book, "The Big Burn," on the huge forest fire back in 1910 that blazed through forests in Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Aid groups are rushing into Indonesia on the heels of a second earthquake that shook the country yesterday. Indonesia's Health Ministry says nearly 3,000 people may still be trapped under rubble after a powerful earthquake two days ago. Aid organizations are mobilizing a relief effort.

We speak with Bill Horan, the president of Operation Blessing International, about what his organization is seeing on the ground in Indonesia as relief efforts get underway in earnest after this week's earthquakes.

We then talk with Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist from the U.S. Geological Survey. After three earthquakes in three days in Indonesia and the Pacific Islands, followed by tremors in California and Peru, we ask: How interrelated are all these seismological events?

A second earthquake struck Indonesia last night. This follows yesterday's devastating quake that has killed over 500 people, many trapped under collapsed buildings. The death toll is expected to climb further. The BBC's Karishma Vaswani joins us again from Padang, capital of West Sumatra, which is the nearest city to the earthquake's epicenter.

An 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the shore of Samoa and American Samoa early yesterday. The huge earthquake launched a tsunami that has devastated the Samoa islands and killed at least 75 people as it tore through villages and resorts. Ian Cooper has been living in Samoa for the past five years and saw his diving business destroyed by the enormous wave. Meraiah Foley, a reporter for The New York Times, joins us from Sydney, Australia with the local reaction and response.

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The floodwaters in the Philippines are starting to recede now that Typhoon Ketsana (locally known as Typhoon Ondoy) has passed through, but the situation in Manila and the surrounding areas is still dire. The city is still recovering as 20 feet of floodwater begins to drain away and the government struggles to cope with 450,000 displaced citizens.

We talk with Stephen Anderson, head of the World Food Program in the Philippines, who talks to us from Manila; and Bing Branigan, Filipina American community liaison for the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, who is leaving for Manila on Wednesday to assist in the relief effort.