PANAMA CITY, FL - OCTOBER 10:  Debris is blown down a street by Hurricane Michael on October 10, 2018 in Panama City, Florida. The hurricane made landfall on the Florida Panhandle as a category 4 storm.  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Watch Hurricane Michael's 155 mph winds
01:18 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

Hurricane Michael isn’t a truly “natural disaster.”

Neither was Harvey in Houston.

Nor Maria in Puerto Rico.

Yet we continue to use that term.

Doing so – especially in the era of climate change – is misleading if not dangerous, according to several disaster experts and climate scientists I reached by phone and on Twitter.

“The phrase ‘natural disaster’ is an attempt to lay blame where blame really doesn’t rest,” said Kerry A. Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT and a global expert on hurricanes.