Hurricanes are frightening.
There is no other way to put that.
From tiny little category 1 storms to the category 5 behemoths there are few things
as powerful and as destructive as a hurricane.
So we thought we would look at some of the most devastating hurricanes on record.
Speaking of devastation we would be devastated if you didn't hit that subscribe button and
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10.)
In 2005 After scaring Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area, Hurricane Charley rapidly intensified
and moved into Charlotte Harbor as an intense
Category 4 hurricane on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004.
Charley was the most powerful hurricane to strike
the U.S. since Hurricane Andrew destroyed parts of South
Florida in 1992.
Charley's intense eyewall crossed through the cities of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte,
causing heavy damage.
Charley accelerated as it quickly moved northeastward through central and
northeast Florida, blasting intense winds through the Florida Peninsula.
Orlando recorded maximum continuously wind speeds of 79 mph with a
high end speed gust of 105 mph, and in Dayton Beach
an EF1 tornado ripped through it southern sections.
Charley would make a second landfall south of
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and tracked into southeast Virginia before losing its
tropical characteristics.
At the time, Hurricane Charley had become the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history,
with damage estimated around $15 billion in 2004
dollars).
Charley injury many and 10 people lost their lives.
09.)
Making landfall in the Florida Keys with a pressure of 892 millibars.
This Category 5 Labor Day hurricane of 1935 is the most powerful hurricane
to ever hit the United States.
The hurricane went from a Category 1 to a Category 5 as it moved from Andros Island
in the Bahamas on Sept. 1, 1935 to the Florida Keys
on the the evening of Sept. 2.
According to NOAA, maximum sustained winds at landfall were estimated
to be 185 mph with storm surge reaching 20 feet.
NOAA says the winds caused 408 fatalities, primarily among World War I veterans who were
working on construction in the area.
Many victims were waiting for the arrival of a train from Miami
that would evacuate them; However, it never arrived, since much of it was swept from the
tracks by the hurricane.
08.)
Sandy was a massive hurricane with an expansive wind field, which sent a destructive storm
into parts of New Jersey and New York.
41 of the 72 direct deaths associated with Sandy in the U.S.
were related to storm surge flooding.
A total of 650,000 houses were either damaged or destroyed
by Sandy, mostly from storm surge and battering waves.
Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and
west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan
and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in
New Jersey and New York.
Its storm surge hit New York City on Oct. 29, 2012, flooding streets, tunnels and subway
lines and cutting power in and around the city.
Around 8.5 million customers in the Northeast lost power due to
the winds from Sandy.
Some were without power for weeks.
The damage estimate for Sandy is $65 billion, making it the second-costliest hurricane in
United States history.
07.)
As it traversed across the Atlantic.
The 1938 Hurricane was only a tropical storm which intensisified
and was upgraded to a hurricane on Sept. 15, 1938, off of the east coast of puerto rico.
By Sept. 19, it began to turn when it moved north of Hispaniola.
Of course at that time it was a full fledged hurricane.
The storm reached Long Island and southern New England with great ferocity, packing a
high storm surge and incredible wind gusts.
The tide completely enveloped Fire Island on the south side of
Long Island.
More than 150 homes were destroyed at Westhampton.
There was massive destruction to coastal areas on Long Island and the coastal
areas of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Wind gusts of over 180 miles per hour were recorded at the Blue Hill Observatory south
of Boston.
Providence, Rhode Island, experienced terrible flooding as the tide, even inside the city,
rose to almost 14 feet.
The 1938 storm was a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
Damage exceeded $306 million and 256 people were killed in the storm.
06.)
Hurricane Camille devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
At the time of its landfall on the night of Aug. 17-18, 1969, the pressure was 900 millibars.
The exact wind speeds in Camille will never be
known, as all wind-measuring instruments near the core of the storm were destroyed.
The storm surge of 24 feet in southern Mississippi set a U.S. record that would later be surpassed
by Hurricane Katrina.
Because Camille was compact, the devastating surge focused on a narrower
swath of coastline than that of Katrina.
More than 140 people died as a result of Camille's landfall, and another 113 perished in Virginia
from flash flooding resulting from the storm's
remnants.
05.)
This gigantic Category 5 hurricane crushed Puerto Rico and only weakened slightly before
hitting south Florida.
The storm made landfall near West Palm Beach with winds of 145 mph.
In the city, more than 1,711 homes were destroyed, but the impact was worse
Lake Okeechobee.
Storm surge caused the lake to overflow and put the surrounding area under
10 to 15 feet of water.
Numerous houses and buildings were swept away in Belle Glade,
Canal Point, Chosen, Pahokee and South Bay.
At least 2,500 people drowned, but it's possible this
number is as high as 3,000.
While crossing Florida, the system weakened significantly.
It curved and briefly re-emerged into the Atlantic and made another landfall near Edisto
Island, South Carolina, with winds of 85 mph.
04.)
Andrew was a small hurricane, but it packed extreme winds, estimated to be Category 5
strength at landfall along the southeastern Florida coast.
The pressure at landfall was 922 millibars.
After striking southern Florida, Andrew made a second landfall in south-central Louisiana
as a Category 3 hurricane.
The intense winds caused catastrophic damage in southern Florida, destroying or damaging
approximately 127,000 homes.
Andrew's total cost was $26.5 billion, mostly in Dade County, Florida.
At the time, it was the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history.
Incredibly, a landfall just a few miles farther north would have caused catastrophic damage
to downtown Miami and Ft.
Lauderdale.
03.)
The eye of the hurricane passed over downtown Miami and parts of Coconut Grove and South
Miami early Sept. 18, 1926.
Residents of the city, unfamiliar with hurricanes, thought the storm was
over and emerged from their places of refuge out into the city streets.
The lull lasted only about 35 minutes, according to the NOAA.
The worst part of the hurricane brought 10-foot storm surge onto
Miami Beach.
As the hurricane moved inland, water from Lake Okeechobee was blown toward the southwest
shore and the town of Moore Haven.
A weakened muck dike that had been constructed to protect
Moore Haven broke in several places.
About 150 people drowned in the floodwaters that persisted in
Moore Haven for weeks afterward.
The Red Cross reported that 372 people died in the storm.
Damages in 1926 dollars were estimated at $105 million, which would be more than
$100 billion in today's dollars.
The 1926 Miami Hurricane made a second landfall in Florida near Pensacola before moving in
a weakened state to coastal Mississippi and
Louisiana.
2.)
The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history hit the Upper Texas coast in 1900.
It began as a tropical storm in the central Atlantic and followed
a path south of Hispaniola.
As it moved over Cuba, it remained a tropical storm.
It rapidly intensified and reached hurricane status as it passed just west of
Key West, Florida.
The hurricane made an abrupt turn to the west in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
As the hurricane approached, the winds grew fierce and the
tide rose quickly.
Wind gusts of over 120 miles per hour pierced Galveston Island and the seas rose
to over 20 feet in height.
The Galveston hurricane was a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
An estimated 8,000 to 12,000 people lost their lives, mostly in
the Galveston area.
More than 3,000 homes were destroyed and damage was estimated at over $30 million.
The storm maintained tropical storm strength as it tracked up through Oklahoma and Kansas.
It then weakened and moved through the Great Lakes,
over the St. Lawrence River and back out over the
North Atlantic Ocean
1.)
Hurricane Katrina, like Andrew 13 years earlier, struck both Florida and the central Gulf Coast
as a damaging hurricane.
But unlike Andrew, Katrina's greatest fury was reserved for its second
landfall, and its most catastrophic impacts were from storm surge rather than wind.
Katrina delivered a billion-dollar blow to South Florida as a rapidly intensifying Category
1 hurricane.
But after it emerged into the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina strengthened into a monster.
At one point, Katrina's central pressure dropped to 902 millibars, the lowest pressure observed
in an Atlantic basin hurricane since Gilbert in
1988.
Katrina was also a large hurricane, guaranteeing a
devastating storm surge as it approached the north-central Gulf coast.
Katrina made its first landfall near Buras, Louisiana, with a pressure of 920 millibars.
It remains the lowest pressure on record for a Category 3
landfall; Instead of a focused core of powerful winds,
Katrina's energy was distributed by a larger area of strong, but not as extreme, winds.
The large field of strong onshore winds pushed catastrophic storm surge into the Mississippi
Gulf Coast, peaking at an estimated 28 feet around
Waveland and Pass Christian, the highest surge on
record in the U.S.
The surge penetrated six miles inland across most of South Mississippi, and up to
12 miles inland along bays and rivers.
Over 200 people lost their lives in Mississippi, mostly due to
the surge.
Water also pushed west into Lake Ponchartrain, leading to a storm surge of 10 to 19 feet.
Water also surged into the network of canals and channels
around New Orleans, and the subsequent overtopping and breaching of levees and floodwalls
eventually combined to flood 80 percent of New
Orleans; it would take six weeks to remove all the water from the city.
Katrina claimed 1,577 lives in Louisiana.
And that is the list.
Which hurricane so you think is the most powerful ever on record.
Will we ever see something higher than a category 5 in
our lifetime?
Let us know in the comments and make sure to subscribe to our channel watch our other
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