National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration FAQs:

"Contributed by Roger Edwards, Storm Prediction Center:

The differences are in scale. Even though winds from the strongest tornadoes far exceed that from the strongest hurricanes, hurricanes typically cause much more damage individually and over a season, and over far bigger areas. Economically, tornadoes cause about a tenth as much damage per year, on average, as hurricanes. Hurricanes tend to cause much more overall destruction than tornadoes because of their much larger size, longer duration and their greater variety of ways to damage property. The destructive core in hurricanes can be tens of miles across, last many hours and damage structures through storm surge and rainfall-caused flooding, as well as from wind. Tornadoes, in contrast, tend to be a few hundred yards in diameter, last for minutes and primarily cause damage from their extreme winds."

Learn More

• Storm Events Database (Webpage and Database), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  This resource compiles information on fatalities, injuries, and damages caused by severe weather events. These data are also described in the monthly publication, Storm Data, available here. 
   
• Weather Fatality, Injury, and Damage Statistics (Webpage and Database), National Weather Service
  Simple statistics factsheets compiled from Storm Data, (see above). Note: a significant proportion of the fatalities, injuries, and damages associated with tropical cyclones, the class of storm systems that includes hurricanes and tropical storms, are often reported in other categories, e.g. flood and wind.

• Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview (Webpage and Database), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  Information and data on severe weather/climate events since 1980 that have caused $1 billion or more in damages.
   
• Potential Increases in Hurricane Damage in the United States: Implications for the Federal Budget (Report), Congressional Budget Office
  2016 report reviewing past and present hurricane damage, and estimating the extent to which climate change and coastal development will increase damage from hurricanes in the future, with a focus on the implications for federal spending on disaster relief and other related programs.