Hurricane Isabel could be terrible
Here is the five-day-forecast track for Hurricane Isabel, a Category 5 hurricane, the strongest category. Isabel has winds of more than 160 mph.



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Update: This image is updated frequently by NOAA. Since first posting, the projected track of the hurricane has moved sharply northward. If it keeps up, Isabel might miss the US altogether.

This is not good. Hurricane Andrew in 1992, also a Cat. 5, was the costliest hurricane to make landfall in the United States, causing $26.5 billion in damage. It was also the third-most-intense hurricane to make US landfall, surpassed only by Camille in 1969 and an unnamed ‘cane that hit the Fla. Keys in 1935. (All data since 1900, that is.)

The deadliest hurricane to hit the US since 1900 came ashore at Galveston, Texas, in 1900 and killed an estimated 8,000 people, perhaps as many as 12,000.

While intensity directly relates to physical damage a hurricane causes on land, intense hurricanes do not necessarily take more lives. People tend to flee them more than less-intense storms. But the threat to life from hurricanes is flooding. Flooding is the reason that the Cat. 4 Hurricane Floyd ranks as the 20th-most-lethal hurricane since 1900. It dropped 15-20 inches of rain along much of the east coast, especially in eastern North Carolina, killing 35 people there and 22 elsewhere.

Many rivers set new flood records. Whole communities were underwater for days, even weeks in some areas. Thousand's of homes were lost. Crop damage was extensive. The infrastructure of the eastern counties, mainly roads, bridges, water plants, etc., was heavily damaged. [link]

. . . 7000 homes destroyed; 17,000 homes uninhabitable; 56,000 homes damaged; most roads east of I-95 flooded; Tar River crests 24 feet above flood stage; over 1500 people rescued from flooded areas; over 500,000 customers without electricity at some point; 10,000 people housed in temporary shelters; much of Duplin and Greene Counties under water; severe agricultural damage throughout eastern NC; "Nothing since the Civil War has been as destructive to families here," said H. David Bruton, the state's Secretary of Health and Human Services.