IT WILL be little consolation to those affected by this year’s storms and fires, but the natural disasters of 2003 could have been far worse.
It didn’t seem that way in Australia, though, where the year began with its most serious bush fires in 50 years. Fires ravaged southern California through October, and a historic heatwave claimed thousands of lives in France, started bush fires in Portugal and toppled temperature records from London to Baghdad.
Hurricane Isabel raged in the North Atlantic as a category 5 storm, the worst possible. By the time it hit the US coast on 18…
