It's tough being a Floridian
Charley and Frances slammed the state. Now Ivan is a Category 5 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph. Its five-day projected path shows it moving straight up the peninsula (click image for large view).

Ivan is now projected to make American landfall at the west-southern tip of the state, after devastating central Cuba. Let us hope its strength decreases significantly. However, as bad as strong winds can be, the main threat is flooding.

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]

Floyd caused $6 billion in damage. North Carolina floods were so heavy that satellite photos reveal their extent even to the untrained eye.

In addition to the 35 deaths, North Carolina suffered,

. . . 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.

So let us pray that Ivan is much less severe in it effects, even as it turns north.

In September 2002, as Hurricane Lili threatened New Orleans, I posted about how federal studies warned that a Category 5 hurricane could remove city from the face of the earth, causing devastation possibly worse than the San Francisco earthquake.

I heard this story on NPR then. The Army Corps of Engineers studied what would happen to New Orleans if it gets hit by a Cat 5 hurricane. The answer? A catastrophe of biblical proportions. The lowest estimate of deaths is in five figures; the public emegencies director for the New Orleans area estimates at least 40,000 dead, with the city under 20 feet of water.

Update, 1715 hrs: Obviously, the projected track has moved since this morning when I first posted this. Now Ivan is predicted to move west of Florida's peninsula, which is good news. The peninsula will still get a lot of rain thought, that its residents can ill afford. Now, however, the projected track takes Ivan right to the panhandle; this storm is going to hit the US somewhere, for sure.

Ivan has caused the Tennessee Titans's season opener at Miami has been moved from Sunday to Saturday afternoon, for the information of the fans of those teams.

by Donald Sensing, 9/9/2004 07:25:20 AM. Permalink |