Flooded by water and blown away by the wind, it is a pitiful sight to watch the remains of a city after a hurricane passes through it. Regular life of people is not only disrupted but the immense damage it causes is sometimes beyond repair. Lives are lost, houses shattered and loved ones are gone forever! People who have experienced the wrath of these deadly hurricanes have this near-to-death experience edged permanently into their minds. So, here is a list of 6 of the World’s worst hurricanes ever recorded in the history of our world.
– Hurricanes are tropical storms with the wind blowing above 74 miles per hour (119 kilometers per hour)
– They are caller Hurricanes in the western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans. While they are called Cyclones in the Indian Ocean, South Pacific Oceans, while they are called Typhoons in the Western Pacific.
THE GREAT HURRICANE OF 1780
Killing as many as 22,000 people, the Great Hurricane of 1780 came blasting from the Caribbean Islands. Majority of the people who perished in the hurricane were American and British soldiers who were living throughout the region after the Revolutionary War. Although there is no record about its intensity, but it had rampaged several Caribbean islands such as Barbados, St. Lucia and Martinique. It is considered the deadliest hurricane in the history of mankind.
MITCH
Not as popular as Sandy and Katrina in the USA, but Mitch caused immense devastation and death compared to the other hurricanes but the devastation and the number of death it caused exceeds the other recent hurricanes. On October 1998, Mitch reached Honduras and started pouring 4 inch rain per hour for two constant days. This lead to mudslides, and the death of 11,000 people and a financial damage of $5 billion in Honduras.
GALVESTONE HURRICANE
If you thought Katrina was one of the most terrible hurricanes you ever experienced, then the Galvestone hurricane just surpassed your thought. Galvestone affected the state of Texas and passed away to Florida Keys and finally ended in Galvestone. This hurricane of 1900 took away the lives of 6,000 to 12,000 people only in Texas. A Category 4 storm, this hurricane brought along 20 feet storm surges and flooded Kansas and Oklahoma after destroying Texas, leaving 3,600 people homeless.
MARIA
The year 2017 saw two category 5 hurricanes. Maria came just 2 weeks after Irma and caused more devastation all through its path. With a wind intensity of 175 mph, it reached landfall on 18th Sep 2017 at Dominica and then moved away to Guadalupe and Virgin Islands after completely destroying the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. A year after Mitch, a death toll of 2,975 was confirmed by the Puerto Rican government.
KATRINA
Referred to a more man-made disaster, hurricane Katrina caused a lot of damage to the areas along the Gulf Coast. Starting as a minor, Katrina only became stronger to be categorised as Category 5 hurricane. It started on August 26 and by Aug 28, caused a mandatory evacuation in the city of New Orleans. By this time, it was a category 3 hurricane and had already forced almost 80% of the city to be underwater. Almost 1,833 people lost their lives and $161 billion financial damage was cost to the state of New Orleans.
SANDY
A slow moving storm, Sandy made its way to New York City after barrelling through island countries like Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and Jersey Shore. Sandy made a landfall in October 2012 and caused 13 feet huge storm surges, submerging the lower suburbs of Manhattan under water. It caused a total damage of 650,000 houses in the Northeast region and killing 117 people in USA alone and many more in other countries like Canada and the Caribbean islands.