This month marks the four-year anniversary of Hurricane Dennis, a Category 3 storm that slammed into the panhandle of Florida with sustained winds of 120 m.p.h. While Dennis inflicted more than $2.2 billion in damage in 2005 in what was an historically destructive hurricane season, it was not the most damaging hurricane to make landfall in July, according to a new Web site (www.icatdamageestimator.com) that calculates the damage previous storms might inflict if they were to hit today.
On July 5, 1916 the “Middle Gulf Coast” hurricane made landfall near the Alabama/Mississippi border as a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 m.p.h. The storm surge in Mobile, Alabama was measured at almost 12 feet, and water inundated the entire business district. If this storm were to strike in 2009 it would cause an estimated $13.8 billion in damage – more than five times that of Dennis – based on calculations from the ICAT Web site. This amount of damage is comparable to Hurricane Frances ($11.8 billion) that struck Florida in 2004 or Hurricane Rita ($11.3 billion) that struck Texas and Louisiana in 2005.
The Web site provides access to each of the 235 tropical storms and hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S. from 1900-2008, and answers the question: ‘How much damage would these storms cause if they made landfall today, in 2009?’ Users can select specific portions of the U.S. coastline for loss estimates. The Web site will track all active storms during the 2009 hurricane season.
Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Hurricane Training Development
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