Costa Rica storms

A tropical storm called "Matthew" is forecast to bring intense rainfall to Costa Rica. The National Emergency Commission declared a yellow alert for the entire Pacific coast. Matthew is the 13th storm of this year's hurricane season. The CNE restocked emergency supplies at their operations center. Several homes have already been flooded due to heavy rains and high tides. 
The thing that comes to mind when I read about this was that it seems like other countries have a lot more trouble with flooding that the U.S. does. Is that just me not knowing what's going on in the world or is that maybe true? I know there was Katrina and a few other big hurricanes, but it seems like the U.S. is hit less than most countries.

This week in spanish I learned how to correctly address my relatives in spanish. I now know how to tell people about my family (kind of). I'm not good at spanish to begin with, but I feel like family words are a  lot harder in spanish than they are in english. It just seems so complicated.