<p>Disasters are often framed as idiosyncratic events that punctuate the normal order of things, after which recovery involves an urgent return to the status quo. However, in places that are repeatedly exposed to hazards, such a disaster-free “normal” may not exist. New disaster events occur in landscapes shaped by previous disaster experience, and that experience in turn shapes vulnerability to future disaster and the processes through which recovery occurs. Here, I examine the effects of repeated disaster exposure on the economic valuation of place, as measured by post-disaster trajectories in neighborhood housing prices. I use the case of tornadoes in the United States (1980–2010) to show that disaster exposure has a long-term negative effect on median home value and rent even after reconstruction, providing evidence that disasters are “scarring” in nature. I also show that frequent exposure to mild disasters leads to a compounding of negative effects with an impact similar to that of a single, more severe event. I argue that past disaster experience forms an important part of the local context in which <i>any</i> social phenomena take place and should be considered even in research that does not specifically center around disaster events.</p>