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The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest in history, with some eight thousand lives claimed, packed winds in the 150-mile-per-hour range; while Andrew, in 1992, the costliest hurricane in history, with $25 billion in damages, was also officially labeled a Category 4, 155-mile-per-hour storm. Given what was coming at them on Labor Day of 1935,
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
The threshold wind speed for such a storm is 155 miles per hour, and a tidal surge of eighteen feet can be expected to come ashore in advance of those winds. Only two storms of such intensity have struck the United States in the twentieth century. One was Camille, which came ashore near Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1969, with winds of approximately 175
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
According to Saffir-Simpson, those who experience a Category 5 storm, the strongest on the scale, can expect the following: “Complete roof failures on many residences and buildings. Some complete building failures. Major damage to all structures located less than fifteen feet above sea level. . . . Intensive winds continue far into inland areas.”
Les Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
were a storm as powerful as the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 to strike Key West today, they say, the 22,000-person island would likely be wiped as clean of life and property as the Matecumbes were years ago. Were such a storm to strike a major population center such as Miami, property damage would likely outstrip Andrew one hundred times over.)
Les Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
The storm of 1906 had concentrated its fury on the Upper Keys, where most of the work ongoing at the time had been centered. The hurricane of 1909 had blasted the Middle Keys, where work had similarly progressed by that time. In 1910, as if guided by an especially malevolent hand, the storm turned its greatest intensity upon the Lower Keys, where u
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
America’s Carbon Bill Is Coming Due
megalopolis endured three of the ten most costly national disasters since the Civil War.
Mike Davis • Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster
As Zarrilli knows better than anyone, Hurricane Sandy, which hit New York City in October 2012, flooding more than 88,000 buildings in the city, killing 44 people, and causing over $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity, was a transformative event.
Jeff Goodell • The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
