There is something uniquely chilling about a natural disaster, the uncontrolled, unpreventable fury of normally benign elements: a blue sky now black exploding in water and electricity; the air around us suddenly quick, weaponized; a resort lake bewitched into a ferocious wall of water; the solidity of the very ground belied. In these moments nature proves its dominance, as if to remind us that there are some things in its arsenal before which we will always be powerless.

But if the year of recrimination over Hurricane Katrina has shown us anything, it’s the potency of human intervention in the hours and days before and after those moments. A nation that might have grown blasé was reminded late last summer how vital protective engineering and prompt relief can be—even if the lesson came in their failure. To mark the first anniversary of Katrina, here is an assessment of the 10 deadliest natural disasters to strike the United States. As a whole, they paint a sobering picture of the impermanence of human enterprise, but they also reveal some fascinating—and familiar—patterns.

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