![]() The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) response to Maria, at a time when it was overstretched by the previous hurricanes, has been widely criticized, as has Donald Trump for arriving in the US territory late, then jocularly throwing paper towels to residents in front of the cameras, and later spreading a baseless conspiracy theory about the estimated death toll. A year later, Puerto Rico is still dealing with multiple problems caused or worsened by Maria. The category 4 storm affected the whole island, crippling the electricity grid, tearing off roofs and causing deadly mudslides. Maria pummeled other Caribbean islands but is chiefly remembered for devastating Puerto Rico, where about 3,000 people died. Hurricane Maria – Puerto Rico’s deadliest disaster “Irma was a real outlier it’s incredible it stayed so fast for so long,” said Klotzbach. It cost 97 lives and $51bn in clean-up costs. Unlike Harvey, which slowed and dumped buckets of rain, Irma maintained wind speeds of 185mph for 37 hours – the record in modern measurements. Hurtling into the Florida Keys as a category 5, Irma wiped out a quarter of the Keys’ buildings before surging up the spine of the state. If Harvey’s mode of destruction was rainfall, Irma was notable for extraordinary, enduring pace. People are still suffering down here because of it.” Hurricane Irma – record duration of speed “I think it gave me PTSD, my brain was in a fog. ![]() “We got 17in of water with Harvey,” said Gaye Marie Thurmond, who had to flee her Houston home of 40 years. More than 200,000 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed, with $127bn in damages – a cost rivaled only by Katrina in US hurricane history. Over six days, more than 20tn gallons of water poured on to Texas and Louisiana. In Nederland, Texas, rainfall reached 60.5in, a US record.Ī rescue boat evacuates people from rising waters following Hurricane Harvey in a neighborhood west of Houston, Texas. It slowly meandered across east Texas triggering biblical floods – more than 30in of rain fell on to 7 million people in a few days. In August last year, Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas, near Rockport, with 130mph winds, the first category 4 storm to hit the US in 12 years. Here’s how America’s year of major hurricanes unfolded. There’s general agreement in the scientific community that the intensity of the strongest storms are increasing.” “New records may even occur again this year. “The past couple of years have been seasons of records, and I’m sure we’ll have more to come,” said Collins. But climate change is a growing influence, as storms are energized by rapidly heating ocean waters and rainfall is exacerbated by a moisture-laden, warming atmosphere. Last year’s, which decimated Puerto Rico, drowned parts of Houston and rattled most of Florida, triggered another record in terms of total damages – $306.2bn, eclipsing the previous high from 2005, the year Katrina hit New Orleans.Įvery hurricane is different and its impact is shaped by surprisingly subtle variances – wind shear, the depth of the seabed near shore, dry air coming off Sahara dust storms. The US has now been hit by four category 4 hurricanes of 130mph-plus – Harvey, Irma, Maria and Michael – in the past two storm seasons, the most in 150 years of records. “We had hurricane amnesia and now our period of good luck has come to a screeching halt,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University. The past year has been marked by hurricanes of record ferocity, apocalyptic damage and thousands of deaths, forcing increasingly frantic discussions about disaster preparedness and climate change.įlorence and Michael have been “devastating for those affected – and for those not affected they should learn from the impact of these storms,” said Jennifer Collins, a researcher of weather and climate at the University of Southern Florida.Īfter a relatively quiet post-Katrina period – no category 3 storms had made landfall on the US mainland for 10 years until 2016 – the past year or so was a jarring reminder of the toll they can wreak. Remnants of Hurricane Michael, which roared over Florida’s panhandle and other states last week, hit those still recovering from Florence. Kennedy, who has turned into a local organizer for climate resilience and disaster recovery, is far from the only person to suffer repeated hurricanes.
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