Stop waiting and start saving. Get a free debt analysis right now at pdsdebt.com/swegle - It only takes thirty seconds! Thanks so much for watching! Which hurricanes would you have included on the list?
I would have included the 1970 Bhola Cyclone. Edit: Thank you guys so much for the correction. Otherwise, if this was not included, Hurricane Florence in 2018.
I would've at least added the Long Island Express storm of 1938 as an honourable mention, seeing as not only did it take nearly 600 lives, but showed that hurricanes did hit the Northeast/New England coast. Other notable hurricanes for the NE include The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944; Carol, Edna & Hazel of 1954; Donna of 1960; and, to a lesser extent, Gloria in 1985 and Bob in 1991. Also in 1991 was what is now known commonly as "The Perfect Storm", which was a merging/phasing of a strong cold front and a strong ocean storm with a then late season Hurricane Grace, before developing into a hurricane itself for a short time, though it remained unnaned to reduce confusion in warnings and advisories that had already been issued.This was a good list; I enjoyed watching the video a lot. The leftovers from Debby came through my area today so it was very timely. :)
I appreciate you including Hurricane Maria. I’m from PR currently living in south Florida and my entire family lost everything. And unfortunately, I lost my Aunt to the hurricane. One of the hardest things during that time was hearing everyone on the mainland saying, “thankfully it only hit the Caribbean instead of us.” Although PR is a territory, we are still US Americans!!
My sister and her husband were federal employees living there and lost their home. Their friends and neighbors lost everything as well. It was sad to see how the residents were of PR were treated as Americans.
My great great grandmother lived through the 1900 Galveston hurricane! She was incredibly young at the time and the whole family survived by taking shelter at the Bolivar lighthouse. She was one of the last through the door and had to dive down to get through it. She sat on the steps with a hundred other people and till the day she died never forgot the sound of the wind and screaming outside.
My great great great grandfather survived that too by climbing a tree covered in snakes! He stayed to help after evacuating the rest of my family the day before.
You're gonna have to update this to include Helene when the results are in, but you may wait to include Milton. We're in for a very rough ride! God bless all those impacted by these storms.
@@jasemorris9572 right, but part of being on the list of "worst" hurricanes (in this case) is the death toll... so let's hope that is actually not what happens...
I was a victim of Hurricane Ian in 2022. I lived in Fort Myers. I can't really explain how bad the devastation was. People were unprepared, as it made it's turn towards Ft. Myers at the last moment. Imagine someone coming into your house, and throwing everything everywhere, like a teenagers bedroom, but worse and with broken glass, a hoarders house. Then, upscale that for the entire city. I left Florida after the hurricane, but according to some of my old friends, there are parts of the city that are still heavily damaged as a result of the Hurricane.
fort myers beach will never be the same after Ian. There's still buildings and boats that havent been taken care of. Luckily bonita springs where im at didnt get hit too hard but Irma was still fresh in our minds. Hope you're doing well, whereever you are.
i was in cape coral at the time, you are so right absolutely no one was prepared. we usually stay for our hurricanes, would only think about leaving if it was a cat 4 or higher. we weren't expecting ian to be so devastating. to this day i regret staying and i've been horrifed of even rain storms since.
@@hannahukki My little brother is from Cape Coral, luckily he was on vacation at my house ( Virginia), he and his wife returned home to absolute devastation.
I'm not writing this comment to be mean, I can't comprehend the scale of the event and I 100% believe you that you felt unprepared for the storm turning. I can only apologize helplessly for the length of this comment and hope you won't take it as a malicious lecture because that's not at all how I mean it. For some necessary context, I was born and raised in Florida and my parents rode Ian out in North Port an hour north of you, where the highest non-surge flooding was that day. I was watching the storm like a hawk in the week leading up to the event and have done a lot of research afterwards and so I can say: You are just not correct that the turn towards Fort Myers was 'at the last moment'. The greatest fear in the media was a direct hit on Tampa Bay in the leadup, yes, but Fort Myers and Naples never left the cone of uncertainty and in my experience never left the conversation among meteorologists. Having been raised a gulf coast Floridian I'm very familiar with how desensitized people are to hurricanes. The people of Fort Myers expected this to be a nothing storm like all the others and ended up losing on that gamble. That's not a moral judgement, mind! I probably would have made the same call had I lived in Ft. Myers at the time. Most people on the Florida coast just can't take half a week or more off work every time they're in the cone of uncertainty for a major hurricane, and that's becoming more true as EVERY storm that hits the coast rapidly intensifies leading up to landfall. Floridians on the coast are expected to take this gamble multiple times a year and when they lose, when you're at ground zero, the public conversation becomes "well why didn't you evacuate?" so I see this "the hurricane turned at the last moment" thing a lot no matter what actually happened. It pins the responsibility for whatever unnecessary deaths and suffering occurred on the whims of a churning storm. I see it as a communication and policy failure, personally - really convenient for the politicians and hotel owners with blood on their hands to blame a storm that stopped existing a week later - but not everyone will agree. Regardless, the actual place that the storm struck was not unexpected. There was no last-minute change of track. I think it's important that we don't revise history this way because these storms aren't going to become less frequent and we need to start learning lessons from our response to them. Ian's actual landfalling location was an overall best case scenario... it hitting exactly where Charlie did decades prior meant that many homes in the area are built or retrofitted to more modern building codes. Ian was a catastrophe and a tragedy, but a Tampa landfall would have been apocalyptic. And I would venture a guess if we ever see one, the victims and their congresspeople will be telling the press exactly this: they couldn't see it coming. I hope you and others who rode out that awful storm find some peace in the memory. I'm so very glad you survived it.
My dad adopted a tiny black kitten who was born during Hurricane Harvey. All the animal shelters near Houston were closed and damaged, so the shelters in other parts of Texas took the animals in. One of those kittens ended up at a shelter in Austin, where my dad adopted him. He grew up to be a HUGE warm cat with a loud purr. 😸
I'll never forget Katrina. My dad evacuated us out if Houma. We were watching the landfall on Fox 8 News while in Camaren Parish. The most coked out meteorologist in history, Bob Breck, said those magic words. "We did it folks! We dodged the bullet!" I swear to God right as he said that, around 8am August 29th, the levees broke. I'll never forget that hubris. Also, there are two hurricanes that I think should be honorable mentions: the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 and the Chenire Caminada Hurricane of 1893. The graveyard for that Hurricane is barely still there between Grand Isle and Fourchon
Katrina was so hainting, hearing about the people huddling together in one place and knowing you can’t help, just donate money to the right people and hope it’s enough. I was cleaning out my car during that whole thing, safe and dry in California, and a woman in the next bay looked at the remains of water bottles I was dumping because my kids dropped them after drinking part of it and they’d been in a hot car ever since. She made a comment, not really a criticism but just observing that they sure could use that in Louisiana. I sadly agreed. I try and use reusable bottles these days.
@@Ren-_-Drxxms same year, the Sea Islands Hurricane of August 31st, 1893, it's believed that 2,000 Charlestonians died due to a 13 ½ foot storm surge came over the battery wall. 1893 was a deadly year.
@@justahugenerd1278 yea, but down in Hobe Sound a bank my friends mom owns roof came off, and in Palm Beach Gardens where most of the tornadoes were houses got destroyed, there’s a middle school some of my friends go to called Murray Middle School, my mom actually went there, comepletly destroyed.
@@YourLocalBiGurl that's awful, I'm sorry to hear that. The tornadoes associated with this hurricane were crazy, super destructive. Please stay safe and remember to go to a basement if you have one should any tornadoes come near you guys!
Hurricane Andrew being an honorable mention instead of top 3 is silly. It made TWO separate US landfalls including one as a Cat 5, completely wiped entire cities off the map, was the costliest hurricane in US history until Katrina, created a massive permanent population displacement, and is still affecting Florida today (such as causing the Burmese python population explosion in the Everglades, and catalyzing building code changes that are resulting in the current redevelopment of coastal South Florida.) Andrew was so devastating the name was retired and replaced with Alex. Florida looks the way it does today because of Andrew. It's more impactful than Ian.
I lived in Miami during Andrew, so let me tell you that what you're saying is nothing but facts. Andrew still holds a cloud, no pun intended, over the city of Miami
The rainfall rates from Camille in Virginia were so intense that birds drowned in the air. Scientists believe that it dropped "the probable maximum rainfall which meteorologists compute to be theoretically possible."
"so intense that birds drowned in the air" Pretty ridiculous statement that doesn't pass the sniff test. If that was hypothetically possible, it'd be too much for a bird to fly at all and it'd drown on the ground/in the flooding water.
@@tHebUm18 "rainfall was so heavy that reports were received of birds drowning in trees, and of survivors having to cup hands around their mouth and nose in order to breathe through the deluge."
@@RIPjkripper Welp, now the birds are in trees. That's closer to reality. Still sounds like the hyperbolic old timey nonsense that was either said by one person to a reporter or the reporter made up entirely. Glad searching that brings me to Wikipedia where it's tied to a source that goes to some random, unrelated Vietnamese website and searching about citation finds some podcast potentially lost to the internet from 2006.
Helene was bad for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, but most especially North Carolina were historical monuments were completely wiped out the map and caused the worst floodings seen in years
Interesting list. But I gotta say, Andrew not in the top 2 is amazing. Not being in the top 10 is flabbergasting. A storm that literally changed the building code, wiped out Homestead, tore the wind vein off the NHC HQ... Was the costliest hurricane before Katrina.
Yeah I was surprised it didn't make the list. I was a kid visiting FL when it hit (but I wasn't impacted at all) and gosh I remember how awful it was. I just figured maybe because I was a kid, I'd exaggerated my memories and maybe it wasn't as bad as I remember the news showing it.
A very significant hurricane that I think often is forgotten, though recent, is category 5 Hurricane Michael in 2018. It completely destroyed the small town of Mexico Beach, FL and Tyndall Air Force Base, and caused significant damage further into the Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia. Other than causing some bad damage in the eastern Panama City suburbs, it didn't hit any major population centers, which I think leads to it being forgotten. I drove through the FL Panhandle on I-10 a few months after the storm, and all the forest that used to cover the area it hit was completely gone. Just sparse trees. It was very sad to see, and it won't be the way it used to be for a long time.
I recently reconnected with some family from the Panama City area. They lost everything. My cousin was a manager at a hotel at the time and was in charge of every guest there as Michael ravaged. As you could imagine, a lot of people took shelter there. Going to visit and seeing the damage still left, then having the best time at Mexico Beach, was so interesting. We're native New Orleans, we reconnected in our post-disaster evacuation of Ida, so it was a very surreal experience going from one active disaster zone to see a town just as left behind as some towns in my own area after Katrina.
What I mainly learned is you're right - it was forgotten. I had no idea how destructive Michael was until I saw it first-hand. Dead and downed trees everywhere, years later. I thought about moving to the area but the opportunities are so sparce now - no company wants to invest in having locations anywhere in that area. They always stick to the Panama City Beach area. Would've had to travel 30+ minutes a day to any decent job. Having family from St. Bernard, one of the hardest hit places by Katrina even now, the similarities were uncanny. Two forgotten towns, once great and rich with history, run down by disaster.
Bro I live in bay county and I was there when it hit. A tree struck or house and my parents had to pay over 50K dollars. We were lucky though, both of my friends' houses were flattened. Donald Trump himself came down to Florida to look and stopped by to one of my friend's houses 💀 After the hurricane, we didn't have power for three weeks. No water for a week (other than the flooding right outside) Honestly it was scary as hell, even being just eight years old. Today.. well today Bay county is doing much better, but there are still tons of debarked trees if you ever come down here. 😢
I sat through Harvey in an older house. I lived near Corpus Christi at the time and it felt almost like a fever dream witnessing the 140+ mph winds hitting first hand. I'll never forget how the old walls bent a solid foot inwards for much of the time the hurricane was active in our area. We had it relatively easy on flooding given the elevation, but it didn't save a lot of other towns from flodding significantly.
Wherever you live, there's a natural danger of some kind which could become a disaster. There's no escaping it so all you can really do is decide if the risks are too much where you live.
I’m glad not a lot of category 5 and above hit my area we normally just get a bunch of rain and a little bit a rain like a tropical depression: (i live in north Florida)
@@b_f_d_d Anywhere in the world actually. Know your local hazards and be ready to deal with them if they happen, and if you can. Live life fully within all that.
Hurricane Maria survivor here. I didn't have electricity or running water for months. A lot of people lost everything. Personally I still have a form of trauma because of it, so hurricane seasons are extremely stressful.
I to this day will ask people how their family back home is doing. It was 2 years before I heard the power was restored fully. And even then they told me there were still areas
I survived too I lost power for long I had to be at my grandma's house I could hear signing when the hurricane was there it was the wind it still scares me today
Hurricane Katrina caused me to become a prepared minded citizen. I was a HS Science teacher in a town on the eastern side of the Birmingham, AL metro. Many families came to our area seeking refuge because they had family in our town. The kids that enrolled in our district had no documentation of any kind because all of it was lost in the storm. One of the kids in my classes had no idea about family members' whereabouts or mortality. Imagine finding yourself two states away tomorrow with no ID docs of any kind, no money, no change of clothes and no clue if you'd ever see some family members again. This young man didn't reunite with his mother until May of that school year....9 months later.
My mom had all that stuff in a file cabinet ready to go at a moments notice..As i do also its called responsbilty.Ids birth certificates insurance papers important papers..
@@teddyghioto I agree.....that's why people MUST take warnings seriously. Doesn't change ground truth after an event. The same thing happens every year, multiple times per year after tornados. People's documents are scattered to the four winds and they're left with nothing. Not far from where I live a door was ripped off a floor safe, the safe was removed from the original site and the safe was deposited half a mile from the original structure.....so, no matter how responsible someone is, Mother Nature can make us look foolish.
I was at attending UAH when Katrina hit and drove back home to tend to safe keeping with my mom in Gardendale. I will never, until the end of my days, forget seeing the thousands of cars evacuating onto I65 from Mississippi the days before, during, and after. All I could think of was like seeing the exodus from the bible, and all I could do was pray for their safety.
I’m from Birmingham myself and was a freshmen at Auburn University when Katrina hit. I remember walking to class with the tornado sirens going off! I moved to Florida at the end of 2016. We lost power for 9 days after Irma in 2017, and some of my neighbors had to rebuild because of trees decimating their homes. I’m 30 minutes inland from Tampa Bay. I am getting very concerned about Milton. I’m also a teacher ❤ I teach 8th grade social studies. I’m in my final month of pregnancy too. 😬 so that is adding extra stress to Milton’s potential impacts.
I’m a Puerto Rican that lived the experience of hurricane Maria, I spend six months without electricity and I know that many people had to wait more than a year to receive electricity again, also many had to spend two, three or four hours in a line at a grocery store just for a gallon of milk. There are even disputes on the actual death rate of the event on the island, some suggest it could have been as high as 4,600+. Truly, a tragic event that the island will never forget. Thanks for the mention of it in the video.
It's awful. The hurricane was already bad enough, and the local and federal government's response was slow and lackluster when it did happen. Similar to what happened during Katrina. A natrual disaster made worse by the government.
A very well done video, young man. When I was young, I used to track hurricanes on a sheet that was provided by the newspaper. I would track them and update their position every couple of hours, then marking the path all the way to landfall. I was fascinated by the meteorological phenomenon from a very early age but moved on to other things as I grew older.
My mom worked for the Texas government for my entire life (24 years) until this year. During every hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster she would go work at the state emergency management bunker. I remember her basically living in the bunker during Harvey for weeks because of how bad it was. She has helped save thousands of lives and I’m so freaking proud of her. She now does the same job for the federal government.
When Katrine hit, i remember looking at the forcast saying it'll reach here by tomorrow while you seen surfers at the beach, then i looked out side the window and all the light poles where LITERALLY EXPLODING like fire balls and the rain hurt like rocks where being thrown at you. And i sat there home alone with my sister thinking Its not here yet and its doing this? I think im going to die. I looked back at the TV watching the reporters hall ass back to their van screaming "ITS HERE! ITS HERE! Kateina is making impact. Like nearly an hour later my grandma and uncle came back from getting supplys and a whole warehouse roof ripped off the building and landed over me and my neighbors houses luckly the front door wasnt blocked. But ill never forget how hard that rain was hitting. And im not 100% sure but i swore Hurrican William hit that same year and knocked out the power for the whole cityand i got the see the galaxy and milkyway. It was so beautiful and i sat in the back of my dads truck and staired at the night sky for hours because in florida we got heavy light pollution. 2 strong ass hurricanes like 46 days apart, what a time to be alive... or a time to survive in my case.
@dkennell998 it was the best experience I have ever seen, especially being a city boy. It felt like something the government didn't want me to see, how crazy it was. And I never got scared of a hurricane again. It was so bad that the other week, my nephew, who was born around 2008, said hurrican Erma ( I think it called) was terrible, and I didn't even know that hurricane existed. Apparently, it came sound 2017, I think. And somehow, my fat ass missed it even though I was in it. If it was what I'm thinking about now, the power went out for about 3 hours and came back on, and after that, I probably slept through the whole thing.
I realized. A hurricane has to be truly monstrous for one to think they'll die because of how intense it is. It's one of the worst feelings. And even worse is realizing that the true nightmare is only beginning
@nooneimportant8991 that shit had presentation, black clouds, quiet but mildly windy, then the sounds of popping and sparks out the window, light poles literally turning into electrical explosions the sound of wind building up hitting your window (like it's a crazy person trying to break in via double fist banging sounds) the sound of lost souls howling like wolves. There were no lightening strikes at all yet, but once it started to rain, it it was like a train mixed with a giant water hose spraying your window and walls. Once my grandma and my uncle got home, I had to run outside to get the food, and it was like trying to survive a mountain hike as the wind blew so hard I had to literally lean like I was in a game of tug of war just to not fall over. And the rain felt like pebble sized rocks once inside. All we had was a hand crank radio and snacks and a flipped over couch with some candles already lit due to the power quickly cutting off. All this happened down the street from Attucks Middle school.
If you haven’t read it, get the book “Roar Of The Heavens” about Hurricane Camille. It’s a great read. It was said that at times in Virginia, the air was 100% water from the rain. Us older folks in Alabama and Mississippi still use Camille as the benchmark for hurricanes
I heard people were out on the beach playing in the waves while Camille approached, they just didn’t have the warning systems we have now. They were all obliviously obliterated 😮😵🥹
during ian a woman on my facebook group was begging for help as they were trapped in their cars with no one to help. if you can believe it commenters were shaming her for not evacuating and being toxic (remember, evacuation isn't an option for many, yall). the woman i saw asking for help was simply too far for me to travel in time in a storm. however luckily the woman and her dog are OK. also people on sanibel island were shot which was never reported on in the media (possibly because they were shot by police) only discussed online
@@pookie87 in the height of the storm when matlache was underwater and no one could enter or exit the island. the way i heard it was that police shot looters but could have also been property owners shooting looters as well. my wife was the one reading me the information online and it was so crazy at the time i didn't get a ton of details. maybe if you dig you could find something more about it, but from what i have seen the media was entirely silent, which lends me to believe it was the police shooting
@@dovemaarika1668 The gunshine state is a bad place to do post storm looting. EMS services in SW FL had so much on their plate, I don't really blame them for brushing a looter shooting under the rug, especially when they had plenty of water bloated dead bodies to see already.
I live in Port Charlotte, FL. I've lived in South West Florida for most of my life and been through countless hurricanes. Some were worse than others but never did I truly feel unsafe. Hurricane Ian was on a whole other level. It was like living through a disaster movie. Multiple times it occurred to me how surreal everything was. Bedroom window had a branch come through it and fill half of my house with water. Outside was truly incredible. Countless massive trees snaped like a tooth pick. Every street/stop sign was was gone and many houses with serious damage. We didn't have power for 8 days, cell service was basically nil and took 2 weeks to get back TV/Wi-Fi. When I saw the red cross driving down the street for the first time I again thought to myself that I feel like I am in a movie. All the neighbors worked together to make sure each could survive until help arrived. In short, Hurricane Ian is something I will never forget and pray to never go through again.
I live in north port and rode out Ian. Our street only got about 6 inches of water but on a street that connects to mine that a canal goes under, there was water 2 feet deep that would easily wipe a car off the road and made me surprised the road was still intact. There was only minor damage to my house (soffits blown off, fence damaged), but the house almost got clipped by the 30 something foot palm tree in my front yard. The WiFi and power at my house was out for 2 weeks, but I went to my grandparents and stayed there for almost a month helping them out with the cleanup and repairs. It was bad here, in the eye wall for multiple hours, no actual eye for us. I still think of tropical storms and hurricanes as time off school and time to grill and party, but I would not want something anywhere near as bad as Ian.
MY GRANDMOTHER LIVES IN PORT CHARLOTTE, she experienced Ian, she got lucky as the only thing ruined was her pool, but if she left her doors would’ve blown in and trashed everything, as she had to hold them, but crazy how y’all live in same city, she lives on the river from the bay, she’s from utah, then moved to maryland (where I’m from) and then moved to Florida a few years ago
Charlie was a monster storm. The strongest I've been through. Wind was on another level. Took a last minute shift and hit an area that was not fully prepared. Weather service was all projecting Tampa. I remember the aftermath, seeing block buildings with their walls caved in. Didn't experience Ian personally but from the experiences of others, it was essentially a reincarnation, albeit on a much larger scale.
@@chloesmith9690 Yes, me on a personal level because I had investment interests I'm Miami. "Mine" because I had people in Miami who ended up homeless and depended on me for help!
It had a low death toll due to it being very small and the warnings that people got at the time, however it was definitely a historically strong storm. My mom helped volunteer down there when it happened and she said she’s never seen anything like south dade county after Andrew.
Agnes fact: the flooding it caused in PA was so bad that cemeteries along the Susquehanna River actually got dredged up by the floodwater and hundreds of coffins and their occupants were washed away. And to this day, quite a few have never been found.
With Hugo in 89 we had at least one cemetery get washed away. And the state forest on the coast was beyond decimated. It took a couple of decades to look like itself again.
How about doing a video on the worst hurricane seasons? I'm a genuine Florida Man. Born and raised, 42 years. I have ridden out so many hurricanes, I can't remember them all. But I might already have the answer of the worst season, at least in Florida. It has to be 2004 when we got Charlie, Francis, Jeane, and Ivan. Yeah, people forget Ivan hit us before it hit Texas. And all four hit us in about 6 or 8 weeks. We were without power for a month. It was ridiculous. We ended up moving into a hotel room for two weeks of that month. That was the worst year and I'll never forget it. I was a pizza delivery driver and I have VHS-C footage of me driving around town during Charlie and Francis trying to deliver pizzas because the place I worked for refused to close if we had power. We were SO busy. People were really nice, though, and tipped well saying things like, "Sorry to drag you out in this, here's $10."
Oh man that’s crazy! My family are all mostly around PA and NJ but one of my mom’s brothers lived in Florida back in the 1960s with his then wife and their 8 kids. My mom remembers my aunt and uncle putting sandbags against all the windows before Camille blew in
@@sluggytube I've never seen snow. I'm 42 and I've never seen snow. I've been as far north at Boulder, Colorado and DC, but it was in the middle of the summer. We just kind of get used to it. Personally, I don't take them seriously until they're about 12 hours away because they change direction and strength so fast. So, if it is 12 hours out and the forecast still says it's going to be bad and it's heading right for me, I'll get out. I've only done that one time in 42 years - in the mid 90s - and didn't really need to. Plywood and sandbags don't help, in my opinion. I guess there are situations where they can help but when I see people with beach houses putting up plywood, I don't get it. If it's bad enough to need the plywood, the plywood isn't going to do anything to save your beach house. We have storm/hurricane shutters on our house. And if the water gets high enough to need sandbags, it is going to be there for a few days and soak through them, so why bother? I'd rather use that time, money, and effort getting supplies together and a plan to leave if I need to. My mom's birthday is around the first day of hurricane season so that's our reminder every year to check everyone's hurricane supplies and update it.
2004 was definitely the worst for a single state in terms of numbers. Jeanne and Francis made landfall miles apart only a few weeks removed from each other. There was also a tropical storm that hit the state among that mess, though I forget its name. Then 2005's hyperactivity and Katrina happened, and it overshadowed the previous year (rightfully so). I'd say 2017 was the worst year for the US for landfalls in recent memory, since you had Irma, Harvey, and Maria all three that year. Florida got it bad in 04, but any single one of those in 17 were worse than two or more of the storms in 04 combined.
August 9 - Jake uploads Top 10 worst hurricanes video. September 26 - Helene: "Can I play? Camille was my idol." October 9 - Milton: "Yeah, I might be down too."
The strangest hurricane I remember in my lifetime was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It arrived late into hurricane season (the day before Halloween) and the eye of the storm first struck not Florida or a southern state, but way up north to New Jersey in the middle of the fall. It's coverage reached all the way to where I live in Rochester, NY, bringing us winds around 65 - 70MPH, and to make things much crazier, Ohio and Indiana received several inches of snow from this hurricane. Snow with a hurricane can happen, but it's extremely rare.
I had just moved out of the Catskills a few years before Sandy hit, and I have friends who's entire houses were washed away. It's not often that the mountains of NY get hit with hurricanes.
Yep Sandy deserves number 10 not 11 in my very humble opinion as a new Yorker. Not only was it extremely costly, the fact that it went up so north in a (relatively) unprecedented way I think makes it stand out. I lived in the outskirts of new York city my family was out of power for a week, and we got LUCKY!
I’m dumbfounded that hurricane Michael isn’t somewhere on this list. One of four category five hurricanes to ever hit the continental United States, the 11th most costly in history, all I can assume is that it’s because of the lower death toll. I was there and I can tell you it deserves at least an honorable mention, and even that feels like it’s being undersold.
YES! I worked for the Sheriff's Office in Port St. Joe, Gulf County. The southern eyewall hit Mexico Beach, 10 minutes up Hwy 98 from where I lived two blocks off St. Joe Bay. As first responders, we didn't evacuate. I'm also an Iraq War veteran and it was the only comparison I could even draw in the aftermath. I remember trying to drive into Mexico Beach two days after, trying to check on people we were told had ridden it out; almost every home on the bay side of 98 was gone or on top of the homes on the right side of 98. I could hear alarms going off under the rubble... everything sounded muted and super eerie. We also had more deaths after the fact than during the actual hurricane.
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane being in the top spot didn't surprise me in the least, the book Isaac's Storm by Eric Larson paints a very descriptive scene of the power this one caused
@@Gic424_YT DAMN I learned a lot of stuff from I Survived series and I literally only today found out they had a book about the 1900 storm. Now I want it so I can further conduct my research
I recommend “A Weekend In September”, it’s an incredible compilation of survivor accounts in a beautiful narrative style. Read it when I was 12 and could not get enough of it
I lived trough Hurricane Ian. It was definitely the scariest event i have ever lived through. We live a few miles away from sanibel beach. I recall watching the damage feom my tv and then the power went out. I witnessed a house fly across my front lawn and power lines swinging on my front porch. We had no power for a couple weeks but we got back into the swing of things. P.S. my family and I are okay, everything is repaired!
Being a South Carolina native, Hurricane Hugo scares the absolute fucking shit out of me. I pray to God we never have another storm like that again. It had sustained 150 mile per hour winds. It caused 11 billion dollars worth of damage. In 1989. Which is 30 billion today. Towns were destroyed from Savannah, Georgia all the way up to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The entire coast was hit. McClellanville, South Carolina, where it first made landfall, had a 20.2 foot storm surge. The highest storm surge ever recorded in South Carolina. It complexly flooded Lincoln High School, in McClellanville, where a shelter was set up in the gym. Several people were staying there and they had to climb up on the bleachers and into the rafters to keep out of the flood water. It spawned several dozen tornadoes. Many of which hit right outside of Summerville, South Carolina where my mother was staying. She's lucky to be alive. Charleston along with several other major cities were completely flooded for weeks. It even did severe damage to North Carolina and Virginia as a category 1 hurricane and a tropical storm. My dad was attending Winthrop University at the time and he experienced very heavy rain and strong winds. And worst of all 51 people died. In the grand scheme of things, it was not that bad. It's really not comparable to any storms on this list. But it the worst hurricane that has hit South Carolina in recent history. Hurricane wise, we have been very lucky over the past 3 decades. DISCLAIMER: Take this information with a grain of salt. It may not be 100% accurate. I have gotten most of it from stories of people that were in South Carolina during this storm, that I have talked to over the years. Not from professional meteorologists.
I'm a Charlestonian myself. I wasn't born until October '90, over a year later, but my parents stayed with my grandma in Columbia. She had a massive oak in her yard. This oak, five feet wide, was uprooted by the storm, all the way up in Columbia. My uncle nearly drowned when he decided to stay on Isle of Palms, like an idiot. His house was brick but his one floor was flooded, he couldn't go to the attic because the ceiling had blown off. He only survived by treading water. That was a crazy storm, definitely overlooked.
Hugo was a fast moving storm. It was still a category 1 storm when it hit Charlotte. No one was expecting that. Trees down everywhere, old, huge trees. Every letter carrier I worked with got bee stung at least once. Those bees had lost their homes and were very upset.
For those who unfortunately have gone through Hurricanes Helene and Milton, we in New Orleans went through Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as a category four storm. Our local governments executed a mandatory evacuate from our homes before the storm hit. We were only allowed to check our properties for a day in the week after the storm but were not allowed to remain. We were not allowed to return to our homes permanently until after most of the power was restored three weeks later.
Sucks that happed to you guys but at least you didn’t have whole towns being washed away so that’s a positive. Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee lost a whole lot due to Hurricane Helene. Historical towns washed away with unsuspecting people.
the biggest issue with katrina was the levees and flood walls. if katrina didn’t happen, it most certainly would’ve been another storm in the future. the walls were eroding, incomplete, and not up to any safety standards. the flood walls were also built to only endure a cat 3 hurricane, despite knowing it wouldn’t be adequate for a stronger storm. after the walls broke, homes in the 9th ward filled with water at rates of a foot per minute. people in prisons and nursing homes were left to fend for themselves. public transport was closed before the storms impact and they simply did not have enough gas or bus drivers to help evacuate. the governor at the time refused to sign an emergency act allowing anyone with a license to drive a bus for evacuation. so people unable to leave were forced to stay. the difference between other hurricanes and katrina is that the preparation and aftermath of katrina was a complete failure from the local, state, and federal level.
I. Agree, I live in pace. Floridai was working on eggland airports base at the time. I'. Ve had a lot of bad luck with hurricanesmy father was killed in hurricane Camille. I lost a house in hurricane Frederick. So I know how you feel.Michael was horrible
I’m from Panama City, where Michael hit and trust me when I tell you I couldn’t live in my house for 5-7 months, had to live in a small camper with my 4 other siblings, my two parents, my 4 cats and 2 dogs. It was HORRIBLE.
Absolutely true.. I would also add that any Mississippi or Alabama hurricane experiences are very much overlooked because of the close proximity to (especially) New Orleans and the Florida panhandle.
My mom was in the hospital in Biloxi during Camille. I remember as a kid visiting her several times before Camille hit. I was so supposed to see huge boats on the other side of the highway when we were able to visit her again. Terrible loss of life and property.
I feel like Hurricane Michael deserves at the very least an honorable mention. It was one of the largest in history. I’m from where the eyewall hit (the worst part of the storm)… October 10th 2018. That date is burned into my brain lol.
I'm shocked it wasnt mentioned. But people tend to gloss over Michael so part of me is not shocked. Cat 5 at impact. It pushed over a train and all it's carts over on its side. Twisted a cell tower then bent it over on itself. Many spots in Panama City and Mexico Beach are still destroyed and are dealing with impact even now in 2024. My family nearly died taking shelter in a church that was coming down around them. The climate is even warmer and more windy there because millions of pine trees were snapped in half. That also resulted in forest fires as well as these trees have died and dried out.
I just commented about Micheal. I live right where it hit too (north east bay county), and every video on hurricanes I’ve come across always omits Micheal. I watched a documentary by some storm chasers (RUclips channel: Storm chaser videos) that referred to Micheal as the forgotten category 5 hurricane, and it’s so f’ing true.
I lived through hurricane Michael and it blows my mind it never gets mentioned. Idk that this area will ever fully recover. It's coming up on the six year anniversary and you still see the damage it left.
FL native here, this stuff always intrigues me having lived thru a few of these. Thanks for doing this SS. FYI, I think you meant $117B in damage on Ian, not $117M.
I truly appreciate that you included Alabama in Gulf Coast Hurricanes. If a hurricane hits anywhere between Eastern Louisiana and Western N Florida, Alabama and Mississippi will feel the impacts. However, I feel like it was disrespectful to not include Mississippi and Alabama in the Katrina section. The highest storm surge values (Bay St Louis, Biloxi, Pascagoula, Grand Bay, and Coden) were on the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. I lived in Mobile directly near the shoreline for 30 years and that was the most intense storm I’ve ever experienced. A barge from the Gulf came up 30 miles and made it into the Mobile River. Mississippi Gulf Coast was literally wiped off the map. Louisiana gets a lot of attention as it should, but jeez does the rest of the coast not exist. If you do a video of Katrina damage look up the coast guard video that starts at the Baldwin county (Al) coast line all the way to New Orleans. The damage gets more intense the further east they go.
THANK YOU. The highest storm surge from Katrina was in Pass Christian, Mississippi at almost 28 feet. This is the record highest storm surge from a U.S. hurricane. And amazingly, the same city also experienced the record second highest storm in a U.S. hurricane from Hurricane Camille.
Its destruction in South Florida definitely puts it in top 10 for the state, but the death toll was low for how strong it was and its financial impact has been surpassed by many other storms just in the last 25 years. It was also small, which limited its overall impacts compared to larger storms like Irma, Katrina, or Maria (all of which were deadlier and more costly).
Bro has no idea what actually affects florida locals since he isn't one. Michael from 2018 not being on here is a joke. It completely deleted nw florida
Andrew's legacy is arguably more in the aftermath and the legislation that came out of it. Every hurricane from 1992 to eternity that strikes Florida has the echoes of Andrew in it, because the current building codes that allow Floridians to hold hurricane parties in the face of major 'canes can be owed in large part to it.
I’m from South Texas, a city called McAllen, and my mother talks about Hurricane Beulah every time there’s a hurricane. It happened September 1967 and she was 15 at the time. We’ve had many hurricanes since, of course, but that’s the one that traumatized her the most.
I would also consider adding Gilbert, Allen, Frederic, and Carla for honourable mentions as well. Hurricane forecasting was still finding its footing in the 70s and 80s.
I responded to Hurricane Ian. At the time I was a crew chief in a blackhawk MEDEVAC unit, and we were some of the first people there besides two coast guard helicopters. I was still pretty new with only about two years flying at that point and had never seen anything. Hurricane response for us aviation assets in the Guard are usually we fly somewhere and then waste money and don’t do anything while the coast guard does it all. This time was different. Once we assessed the damage (we were there hours after landfall at fort Myers), we landed on sanibel island. I was absolutely humbled by the damaged and we landed on a beach where a man waved us down. He was a father with a wife and three kids and dogs. He cried. He said he almost got his family killed. I still remember the wave that little girl gave me from her mom’s arms when we dropped them off at a collection point at a school. I went on to see some really hurt people and saw and smelled a lot of things I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget that time and it made me grow up a lot. Sometimes we were told we couldn’t land and get out and search houses and it pissed me off. It pissed us all off. A man waved at us but they wouldn’t give us authorization to hoist down and pick him up. He thought we were coming and saw him so he stopped waving and went inside. We then told a coast guard helicopter to try but they didn’t find him. Im sorry we couldn’t do more but we did all we could and fought back against the chain of command as much as we could. We did a lot but I wish I could’ve help the people of fort Myers more. I started writing a book about it, but I think it was more just to help me process it. I know it wasn’t war or the worst thing that ever happened but I’ll always be grateful we could help some of those people in fort Myers and I’ll never forget you, little girl.
I was born and raised in Ft Myers. Pine Island to be. exact, i’ve been through several of these hurricanes over the years but hurricane in had to be one of the worst that I’ve ever lived through, to this day, I still have a hard time watching any videos about hurricane Ian. I know for a fact that that the body count was higher then what was reported
It absolutely was a war. One waged by Mother Nature. I managed to get on to Sanibel Island about 10 days after impact. I've never seen anything like it. It looked like a nuclear bomb went off. Trees were completely bare of leaves, or just gone. Every telephone pole was snapped like a toothpick. There must have 40 power line trucks out there, from all over, re-installing poles and connections. There were CONCRETE BUILDINGS with some of their walls completely collapsed. I'm sorry you weren't able to rescue that man. Especially if you were able to get to him. That's an awful thing to have to learn to live with... But at least you were able to help others.
Well, he is learning! By theway hurricane andrew killed 56 people flooded even basements in cleveland ohio a good week later! I know I was there. Plus gusts were measured at 210 mph.
I remember living through Hurricane Opal in 1995 when I was only 8 years old. Up until that point, I had thought hurricanes were really cool, and I'd have my mom take me to the library so I could look at the books they had about various storms. I remember reading about Hurricane Camille and seeing all the photos and thinking "wow it would be so cool to see a hurricane!" obviously having no idea of what I was talking about. When my mom told me I was getting my wish before Opal hit, I was so excited. Little did I know... lol. After my family and I rode out Opal while living in Ft. Walton Beach, I never wanted anything to do with hurricanes again. I recall seeing the sand dunes completely gone, boat washed up into the roads and yards (I lived only a few miles from shore). It's crazy how powerful and destructive these storms are!
I was stationed at Eglin AFB when Opal hit, just a month or two after Hurricane Erin hit. We got the order to evacuate the base way too late, and many people rode out that storm stuck on Hwy 85 between Niceville and Crestview trying to evacuate.
I wasn’t in Houston for Harvey but buying houses based on whether it flooded during Harvey or not was shocking lol . And 3+ days of no power during beryl absolutely sucked- with it being so hot out
2:55 It should be noted, Hurricanes love warmer water, and when a hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico it gathers strength rapidly, on top of the fact that estimated landings are just that, estimates. In truth when it reaches the gulf it can literally go in any direction at that point.
Swegle, Don't forget about Hurricane Hugo back in 1989. That storm was destructive as heck and I remember that wild storm. Awesome video, man!!!!!!!!!!!!
No mention of Hugo or Andrew? Hm. Those I would have added to the honorable mentions, at least. They're my earliest memories of hearing about hurricanes.
@@catherinehayes8912 Hugo remains my benchmark, and I've been in the Charleston area for all my life and a veteran of every tropical cyclone that's impacted the Lowcountry. With Debby, it entered my top 5 list all time, and number 1 for tropical storms. The torrential rainfall totals and tornadoes spawned off by Debby was incredible.
Hugo and Andrew both get overlooked a lot I think because they affected smaller areas. I guess Andrew did make 2 landfalls. Hugo, though, didn't. And it dissipated quickly. But it was scary.
I’m grateful you covered hurricane María, I was one of the survivors of said disaster and I can still vividly hear the hurricanes roar through my little apartments windows. My mother was also physically affected but alright and we also almost starved as the winds were so powerful that it knocked two of our biggest and most sturdiest trees in our entire apartment complex and blocked both road exists and entries to go and get help. Our community gather and cut the trees enough to make a on foot passage, but if we weren’t prepared, I genuinely believed me and my family could have starved to death. I know live in NY and I now feel a lot safer, despite the fear of tornadoes and hurricanes wanting to show up at any random and rare moment.
Great video! I live in Houston and experiencing Harvey was crazy, had to leave my home for a while because it flooded. Also experienced Hurricane Beryl and the Derecho storm that hit in May.
I'm out in Katy. The derecho took out power out for 72 hours. That was a drag, but it turned out to be a good thing. It knocked over any weak power poles and such because with Beryl we only had several short blackouts. Many in the Houston area lost power for long stretches after Beryl.
when i experienced hurricane harvey my area got flooding but my neighborhood only got like 2 feet of rain in the circle parts that houses live on i forgot what thats called. my ass rlly played in the water 😭
Enjoyed the video! Would love to see you talk about how much damage the MS coast had after Katrina. All eyes were on New Orleans but the MS coastline got absolutely rocked.
They always manage to leave out that 44 counties (of 88) here in Mississippi were declared disaster areas, and 228 people died from Katrina. I realize we aren't New Orleans. But 228 deaths and half of an entire state a disaster, it's baffling that many people don't even realize how much damage we took, much less how many died here.
@@Jenufir As well as the fact it missed New Orleans and Hit Buras before going back into the ocean. Then the eye passed over Waveland which was all but completely destroyed.
I was hit head on by Hurrican Ian (ironically, it shares my name) in the Cape Coral area. It was supposed to hit up at Tampa, but at the last minute (about 2 days before) the Hurricane shifted as it passed and turned right into us. Of course, this wasn't a complete surprise that it could have hit the area, but they only knew exactly where not long before landfall, and no one actually expected the storm to turn. I remember clearly a new anchor say "This is the worst case scenario for SouthWest Florida." The storm was slow moving, large, and one of the scariest experiences I have ever lived through. We stayed because by the time we'd have been able to leave, the highways and all roads leading out of the area were too crowded and we didn't want to get stuck at a gas station. We lost power for 10+ days , the devastation was insane. It is an experience I don't want to go through again. We had Hurricanes since I moved here, but nothing like Ian. I was terrified. There are still houses with tarps on the roofs some places and a lot of things have to be rebuilt. Boats are still under water in the Caloosahatchee and other rivers and lakes. Luckily, my house took minimal wind damage and no water damage and we had went shopping long before for supplies just in case, but I was lucky. It was a war zone after it passed. Fun fact, Hurricane Ian had an almost identical track to Hurricane Charley when it started to get close to Florida,, which happen 18 years prior, as far as I remember.
Impossible for me to forget that, i used to work on Fort Myers beach, all those businesses are gone, so many of my old co-workers lost their homes completely. That area was basically half-erased and it took a good 9 months to even allow SOME of the beaches to finally open again. That shit was devastating, there's been too many cat 5 hurricanes in the past decade, and that was the final straw for me. i dont want to loose everything iwork for to a hurricane overnight.
@@diodelvino3048 I used to live on Fort Myers Beach and worked at the Sand Piper for a little bit and then Junkanoo's/ Anthony's for a year. I LOVED that place. When I saw what was left of the Junk I bawled my eyes out, I still get teary eyed thinking about it. My dad has a duplex on Fairweather Lane that was one of the few left standing, but it was totally underwater. They just recently got it back to livable. 😢
Texas middle schoolers have to take a year of Texas history, and the Galveston hurricane burned itself into my memory. The storm itself was a horror story, but the people of Galveston coming together to raise the whole island and rebuild was amazing to me.
I wish people up here in the northeast would help rebuild the same way y'all do down there after disasters. The most we get up here is a few donations and a lot of stealing.
Yup. When Hurricane Rita came through in 2005 I was thinking about the Galveston hurricane. They didn't know it was coming. 100 years later I'm in the command center at Air Liquide with a meteorologist on the phone, big screens with satellite images of Rita, etc. I even got a helicopter ride out of it to four Air Liquide plants hit by Rita in Louisiana to survey the communication situation.
My family and I happened to be in New Orleans the week before Katrina hit....we flew out just a couple days prior to landfall...my brother who at that time lived there...lost everything...he ended up living with me up in Maryland for a few months...thankfully he was able to recover
I am from southern Louisiana and I lived through Katrina. That was a really crazy storm. You can still find seashells all over the streets on the sides of the streets from when Katrina hit.
I think Hugo was worth a mention at least. But maybe Im biased because I remember it. I was only 4 but I'll never forget it. It wiped out my town and we didnt have power for 2-3 weeks, literally cut the island in half. I remember being scared and disoriented in the aftermath because everything was unrecognizable.
Camille was a game changer as how forecasters looked at hurricanes. The area was unihabitable for weeks after. She is still the single, most powerful storm to ever strike the mainland US. For some reason, they down graded her wind speeds, even though she was a "modern" hurricane and NOAA planes flew into her and recorded on the last flight thru, sustained winds of 190 mph, with gusts to 210. The plane was damaged and had to land in Houston and no other crews would volunteer to fly into her again....and that was 6 hours before landfall. Shes still the storm by which all others are measured.
@@randallrhoads3271 Agree 100% . I drove across hiway 90 a few weeks after Camille hit. Devastated !! I grew up on the Gulf Coast, and it was the worst I've EVER seen. Historic Civic War mansions wiped completely off their foundations, asphalt missing in many places, and everything absolutely sand-blasted.
Hey, just wanted to say, great video and list. I remember Katrina well. I grew up about 30 minutes from New Orleans in St. Charles Parish. We were fine, but i remember the damage and not having power for a long time. And I remember my grandparents telling stories of Andrew and Camille. But I'd love to hear more about pre-1900 hurricanes and natural disasters. They are less known, usually more damaging because of the surprise, and i think would be a cool topic.
I rode out Hurricane Ida in southern Louisiana in 2021. I can't really put the experience into words, as it was all so surreal and vivid. What was calm and sunny one day was a nightmare of extreme wind and flying debris the next.
I rode out Hurricane Ida as well. I was in the area where the eye wall was passing over after it made landfall. It was something that I can never forget no matter how much I want to.
@@uigoku3923 yes we were in the western eye wall for the entirety of the storm. It was horrible. It was almost as if the house was “breathing” with the wind and pressure changes. If I recall correctly starting around 5 pm or so ( not really sure of the time) it got really really intense for a few hours before finally starting to ease up. That’s when bits started ripping off the house, the full shed was shoved about 5 feet off its blocks (sounded like a bomb went off) and the fence came down. The sounds were indescribable. I have trouble just getting through a thunderstorm now.
@@Littlemoose6699 the part of the experience that bothered me the most wasn’t the storm itself. It was the fact that one of my next door neighbors evacuated without their dog. Now I live in St. John the Baptist parish. I was in an area that had over 2ft of water. After my area flooded and things were starting to calm down, I heard the dog barking. Now it was barking pretty loud, but it was outside because if it was in the house I wouldn’t be able to hear it that much. I telling I’ve never felt so much anger in my life.
@@uigoku3923 I will never understand that. I hope the poor pup was ok. I’m in terrebonne. We had made arrangements to go to my brother in law’s house in Mississippi with our 2 cats and 1 dog. No way we were leaving them behind. But the idiot place I work for kept dallying and we weren’t released from work until 3 pm on Friday. My husband was working out of Cameron at the time and was released Thursday night so he could come home. Because of that we didn’t finish boarding up and securing the property until late on Saturday. By then the interstate was jammed and there were reports that gas stations along the way were out of gas. We decided to ride it out rather than risk getting caught on the road in a cat 4-5. Things were badly mishandled by parish officials here.
I lived through some of these. Ivan was bad. Michael was horrendous, and isn't even on this list. I can't believe Michael wasn't even an honorable mention.
Hurricane Sandy literally affected the mountains of Maryland in a way you wouldn't expect. Garrett County temperatures were so low that Sandy came as heavy wet snowfall. It caused the eastern white pine trees to snap like twigs. It totally changed the landscape of Swallow Falls State Park forever. I literally have two albums of photos Swallow Falls - pre Sandy and post Sandy. A completely different set of photos.....
Good video bc a lot of these storms aren't well known. Storms that weren't on the list that could have been off the top of my head Hazel, Hugo, Irene and Matthew. And im here after Helene so that will absolutely make top 3 in the the future.
Hey Swegle, I’m from Vancouver, BC where we get smashed with some pretty crazy atmospheric rivers, especially one we got in 2021 that flooded a significant portion of the Fraser valley. Always thought atmospheric rivers would make a neat subject for a video. Thanks mang.
Funny. I'm from the Island and watching Swegle has made me appreciate that besides the flooding every once in a while we're so lucky when it comes to natural disasters. No tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis or bad earthquakes. Though that flooding did hurt us as I'm in food services and all our deliveries come from the Abbotsford area.
I lived in Houston all my life and saw tons of hurricanes, but none of them were like Harvey. In the past, you knew the storm was coming, but that it would leave within a day. This one just camped out and we were all literally trapped in our homes. I have such a clear memory of the first day the sun finally came out, it felt like the whole city breathed a sigh of relief. Even after the storm was over, there was just so much water. I have a screenshot on my phone of all the closures in my area and I had to maneuver to a different area north of the city to rescue my friend, whose entire apartment complex was underwater. I was only able go get within three blocks of her place and she had to wade through water with two dogs in order to get to me. In the end, her building was completely condemned because of the water damage and her car had been flooded as well. Thankfully, my own home was okay other than roof damage, we happened to be on a tiny hill compared to the rest of the neighbourhood and that saved us. I wouldn't wish that whole experience on anyone. I no longer live in Houston for many reasons, but I had so much PTSD when it came to storms that I still struggle with it, 7 years later, even though I live in Germany, where those kinds of storms just don't happen.
You nailed it. I was living in China with my wife and decided to go back home to Houston to spend some time with my parents. Harvey hit and that ended up being one of the worst decisions I ever made, and I survived Ike with 3 weeks no electricity. I live in Katy for that reason now, and the last hurricane hit us directly. Getting harder to avoid these things.
I think another hurricane to have somewhere would be hurricane Ivan. It started off the coast of northwest africa, moved across the atlantic, went below floride, turned back around and hit alabama and louisiana, came off the west coast, moved back down and hit south florida, moved back across the gulf of mexico and hit texas where it eventually dissipated
As a survivor of a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew, I find its listing as an honorable mention scandalous. It made landfall as a Category 5 and cost today's equivalent of $56 billion in damage.
Yeah my grandparents survived Andrew and it destroyed their entire neighborhood, they didn’t have electricity for weeks and lived in a trailer for months because of how bad it was
I grew up in Ashley. I remember going to Knoebles when I was a kid and seeing the markers on the trees for the high-water lines. I wasn't born until 2 years after Agnes, but plenty of people still talk about it. At least I got to play in the Blue Coal coal breaker a bunch before they knocked it down :)
Watched all my friends lose their houses in Harvey. I was just right outside the flood zone in our neighborhood. That absolutely sucked because there wasn’t much I could do to limit their suffering.
I worked at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during Katrina and Rita. We were tasked with trying to find the children separated from their parents during the absolute chaos that were the post-hurricane rescues. The Exploited Child Unit looked into the numerous incidents in the Superdome as well. It took weeks - and a lot of phone calls with distraught and angry parents - but to my recollection, each family was reunited. The totality of those disasters, both storm damage and the human toll, will never leave me.
Hurricane Micheal truly is the forgotten Category 5. It totally flattened/destroyed Mexico Beach to nothing, and absolutely ravaged Panama City (Not Panama City Beach, which was relatively untouched yet somehow always gets the attention). The amount of trees and forest that were leveled is relatively unprecedented. The trees that made it out alive are growing at an angle, and on the side of the wind the limbs are gone making the trees look totally unique and weird. There are still parts of town to this very day that need plenty of work, blue tarps on the roofs abandoned houses, people still fighting their insurance companies. Nobody had a cell phone connection for weeks to communicate with worried family members because it totally destroyed our grid. I went 60 days on the dot without power with no generator, no cash, no water (the no water was the worst part for me, even the city took almost a month to turn the water back on but even then it was a slow trickle and wasn't supposed to be used for anything except rinsing off). I had no food. Thankfully our neighborhood stuck together and we all made sure we shared what we had, worked for eachother cutting trees up and off our houses, helping clean up etc. We couldn't leave our neighborhood to get any supplies for over 3 weeks because the amount of downed trees made it impossible for vehicles to get in/out, and it took days for the storm surge to recede. We had looters running around stealing from people at gunpoint and there was next to zero law enforcement or medical aid. The town is nothing like it used to be. It has changed so much. The population of the town has doubled since then with developers buying up derelict properties and land, jacking up the prices of rent and everything else you can think of. From Panama City to Mexico Beach is a completely different landscape with almost a completely different population. Absolutely bizarre in and of itself, but also bizarre in the next to zero attention it has gotten as one of only 4 Cat 5 hurricanes to hit the mainland US.
Hurricane Andrew got snubbed. The accidental release of the Burmese Python has almost led to the eradication of several native species and thinking about the damage ecologically it may have been the worst hurricane of all time
I was surprised that Andrew didn’t make the list. I was a toddler in broward and I remember Andrew being THE hurricane that everyone talked about but it was SO COMPACT. I was also very shocked that Sandy didn’t make it. As someone who was living in broward when we were directly hit by Wilma and in Lee county when they were directly hit by Ian, I am profoundly appreciative of Ian making the list. Ian was horrible for so many reasons, particularly the failures at the state and county level. It was also SO SLOW and 10 hours of the highest winds nonstop is very unnerving particularly without power and without adequate warning to even get to a store while they were still open….😳
Hurricane katrina literally has a song based on it that's how known and famous it is. Also, i have family who live in Mississippi. im so happy they lived. I dont know how, but im happy.
16:01 Would enjoy that. Recently went down the rabbit hole on Katrina for the first time since watching it live. Lots of Wikipedia, looking at Google Maps and other maps of the extent of flooding, watching Five Days at Memorial mini series, and watching urban explorer YT vids looking at some of the places still abandoned today around New Orleans. Approaching the 20th anniversary and it's staggering to see how much of the city is still not fully recovered or at least torn down and ready for something new to replace.
@@crazydrummer181 I mean, 80% of a major US city flooding in some areas up to ~18 feet deep in water and flooding persisting for weeks, displacing 400,000+ people some of whom never returned is a massive story compared to "some town of 500 on the Mississippi coast took the eyewall!" New Orleans is the center of attention because the levees failing turned a significant storm into arguably the greatest natural disaster to strike the US this century so far with a staggering human impact. It also demonstrated incredible failures of local/state/federal gov't, infrastructure, emergency management, etc. I'm sure you can find info on the other impacts of Katrina, but New Orleans is without a doubt the centerpiece that gets the most attention for good reason.
@@tHebUm18 I know the story of New Orleans. I live 45 minutes outside of it. The Mississippi coast had a population of around 400,000 before Katrina. Basically every coastal city was completely wiped off the map. Not just flooded, but completely leveled. The highest recorded storm surge in US history was during Katrina, 28 feet in Mississippi. Many people were never able to return and over 200 died. I lost some good friends and countless childhood memories that day. Forgive me for expecting at least some kind of recognition outside of New Orleans.
It’s tragic out here tonight I got friends that stayed in Florida I hope they alright. I’m in NC and my entire backyard is flooded and the storm hasn’t even got here yet it’s wild man
@keonhobgood1551 I mean.. I followed up on the Storm and it was prognosed that it will strengthen over the warm water and might as well turn out to be a cat 4 if not 5.. Nd that was said 2-3 days before Helene hit.. so idk, the info was definetly there on the internet
Wow, I had heard the Galvaston hurricane was bad, but did not understand why. With the island being only 9 feet above sea level and the tidal flood being higher than that, NOW I understand.
Thanks for including Ian. My family lost everything in that and I was only a teenager and didn't know how to handle things like that. We flooded so much.
Tell him to actually mention the hundreds of miles of catastrophic damage that occurred outside of New Orleans, since that’s all Katrina is remembered for.
Thank you Jake for talking about these hurricanes, around August 7th, me and my family was hit by Tropical Storm Debby, we were only hit by the outer bands of it as it moved through Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina, Virginia (where I live). Sadly it made landfall in Florida and claimed 6 lives in total, we are okay though. :)
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Thanks so much for watching! Which hurricanes would you have included on the list?
I would have included the 1970 Bhola Cyclone.
Edit: Thank you guys so much for the correction. Otherwise, if this was not included, Hurricane Florence in 2018.
Here before this is popular! 😂😂🎉🎉☺️🥰🥰😗😶🌫️😃🤫😝😝😘🤪😶🌫️😐💝🙉👈🤞💙🤜👌🙆♀️🙋♂️🙋🙅♂️🙅♂️👩🎓🙇♀️👩🎓👩⚕️🤸♂️🛌🤽🧘♂️🤼♀️🤜🙉☺️💝☝️🙅♂️💙💙💀
i wouldve added Hurricane Beryl of this year as an honorable mention
I would've at least added the Long Island Express storm of 1938 as an honourable mention, seeing as not only did it take nearly 600 lives, but showed that hurricanes did hit the Northeast/New England coast. Other notable hurricanes for the NE include The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944; Carol, Edna & Hazel of 1954; Donna of 1960; and, to a lesser extent, Gloria in 1985 and Bob in 1991. Also in 1991 was what is now known commonly as "The Perfect Storm", which was a merging/phasing of a strong cold front and a strong ocean storm with a then late season Hurricane Grace, before developing into a hurricane itself for a short time, though it remained unnaned to reduce confusion in warnings and advisories that had already been issued.This was a good list; I enjoyed watching the video a lot. The leftovers from Debby came through my area today so it was very timely. :)
@@JesseLikesWeather The Bhola Cyclone did not hit the US...
Who’s here after Helene and before Milton?
Yikes!
here
Here
Same
Here
Yeah….
I appreciate you including Hurricane Maria. I’m from PR currently living in south Florida and my entire family lost everything. And unfortunately, I lost my Aunt to the hurricane. One of the hardest things during that time was hearing everyone on the mainland saying, “thankfully it only hit the Caribbean instead of us.” Although PR is a territory, we are still US Americans!!
Lost 2 of my greats grandparents and one great uncle to a hurricane in PR mant many years ago
My sister and her husband were federal employees living there and lost their home. Their friends and neighbors lost everything as well. It was sad to see how the residents were of PR were treated as Americans.
You are absolutely US American, as are all Puerto Ricans. I hope you are finding happiness in Florida. Sorry for your loss.
Pr plays both sides.... They want to be independent in good times and Americans in bad
Hurricane Laura was than Katrina
Smdh
My great great grandmother lived through the 1900 Galveston hurricane! She was incredibly young at the time and the whole family survived by taking shelter at the Bolivar lighthouse. She was one of the last through the door and had to dive down to get through it. She sat on the steps with a hundred other people and till the day she died never forgot the sound of the wind and screaming outside.
Wow
Neat
My great great great grandfather survived that too by climbing a tree covered in snakes! He stayed to help after evacuating the rest of my family the day before.
Wow! My father lives in Houston and I’ve been to Galveston several times. It’s a cool place.
I didn’t want to “like” this but wow, that is quite the story she had to tell.
You're gonna have to update this to include Helene when the results are in, but you may wait to include Milton. We're in for a very rough ride! God bless all those impacted by these storms.
MILTON HAS TO BE IN HERE ITS A CAT 5 AND I HEARD 200 MPH WINDS
@@jasemorris9572 OMG I FEEL LIKE WERE ALL REWATCHING THIS RN
@@jasemorris9572 right, but part of being on the list of "worst" hurricanes (in this case) is the death toll... so let's hope that is actually not what happens...
Praying for all of those who might end up affected my Milton. Be safe if you’re in Florida
Tornados, for us? We dodge them, WHY? HEART ATTACK MOMRNTS
I was a victim of Hurricane Ian in 2022. I lived in Fort Myers. I can't really explain how bad the devastation was. People were unprepared, as it made it's turn towards Ft. Myers at the last moment. Imagine someone coming into your house, and throwing everything everywhere, like a teenagers bedroom, but worse and with broken glass, a hoarders house. Then, upscale that for the entire city. I left Florida after the hurricane, but according to some of my old friends, there are parts of the city that are still heavily damaged as a result of the Hurricane.
fort myers beach will never be the same after Ian. There's still buildings and boats that havent been taken care of. Luckily bonita springs where im at didnt get hit too hard but Irma was still fresh in our minds. Hope you're doing well, whereever you are.
@@Has-uo1lq yes and sadly it is more commercialized now they are putting in that margaritaville BS
i was in cape coral at the time, you are so right absolutely no one was prepared. we usually stay for our hurricanes, would only think about leaving if it was a cat 4 or higher. we weren't expecting ian to be so devastating. to this day i regret staying and i've been horrifed of even rain storms since.
@@hannahukki
My little brother is from Cape Coral, luckily he was on vacation at my house ( Virginia), he and his wife returned home to absolute devastation.
I'm not writing this comment to be mean, I can't comprehend the scale of the event and I 100% believe you that you felt unprepared for the storm turning. I can only apologize helplessly for the length of this comment and hope you won't take it as a malicious lecture because that's not at all how I mean it. For some necessary context, I was born and raised in Florida and my parents rode Ian out in North Port an hour north of you, where the highest non-surge flooding was that day. I was watching the storm like a hawk in the week leading up to the event and have done a lot of research afterwards and so I can say:
You are just not correct that the turn towards Fort Myers was 'at the last moment'. The greatest fear in the media was a direct hit on Tampa Bay in the leadup, yes, but Fort Myers and Naples never left the cone of uncertainty and in my experience never left the conversation among meteorologists. Having been raised a gulf coast Floridian I'm very familiar with how desensitized people are to hurricanes. The people of Fort Myers expected this to be a nothing storm like all the others and ended up losing on that gamble.
That's not a moral judgement, mind! I probably would have made the same call had I lived in Ft. Myers at the time. Most people on the Florida coast just can't take half a week or more off work every time they're in the cone of uncertainty for a major hurricane, and that's becoming more true as EVERY storm that hits the coast rapidly intensifies leading up to landfall. Floridians on the coast are expected to take this gamble multiple times a year and when they lose, when you're at ground zero, the public conversation becomes "well why didn't you evacuate?" so I see this "the hurricane turned at the last moment" thing a lot no matter what actually happened. It pins the responsibility for whatever unnecessary deaths and suffering occurred on the whims of a churning storm. I see it as a communication and policy failure, personally - really convenient for the politicians and hotel owners with blood on their hands to blame a storm that stopped existing a week later - but not everyone will agree.
Regardless, the actual place that the storm struck was not unexpected. There was no last-minute change of track. I think it's important that we don't revise history this way because these storms aren't going to become less frequent and we need to start learning lessons from our response to them. Ian's actual landfalling location was an overall best case scenario... it hitting exactly where Charlie did decades prior meant that many homes in the area are built or retrofitted to more modern building codes.
Ian was a catastrophe and a tragedy, but a Tampa landfall would have been apocalyptic. And I would venture a guess if we ever see one, the victims and their congresspeople will be telling the press exactly this: they couldn't see it coming.
I hope you and others who rode out that awful storm find some peace in the memory. I'm so very glad you survived it.
My dad adopted a tiny black kitten who was born during Hurricane Harvey. All the animal shelters near Houston were closed and damaged, so the shelters in other parts of Texas took the animals in. One of those kittens ended up at a shelter in Austin, where my dad adopted him. He grew up to be a HUGE warm cat with a loud purr. 😸
Best comment ❤
These are my FAVORITE STORIES!!!
Awwwwww! At least something good came out of such a tragic situation
Kitty survivor
Nice dad!
I'll never forget Katrina.
My dad evacuated us out if Houma. We were watching the landfall on Fox 8 News while in Camaren Parish. The most coked out meteorologist in history, Bob Breck, said those magic words. "We did it folks! We dodged the bullet!" I swear to God right as he said that, around 8am August 29th, the levees broke. I'll never forget that hubris.
Also, there are two hurricanes that I think should be honorable mentions: the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 and the Chenire Caminada Hurricane of 1893. The graveyard for that Hurricane is barely still there between Grand Isle and Fourchon
Katrina was so hainting, hearing about the people huddling together in one place and knowing you can’t help, just donate money to the right people and hope it’s enough. I was cleaning out my car during that whole thing, safe and dry in California, and a woman in the next bay looked at the remains of water bottles I was dumping because my kids dropped them after drinking part of it and they’d been in a hot car ever since. She made a comment, not really a criticism but just observing that they sure could use that in Louisiana. I sadly agreed.
I try and use reusable bottles these days.
I agree that Chenire Caminada Should be on here. it might be second, That hurricane led to over 2,000 deaths in Louisiana alone
@@Ren-_-Drxxms same year, the Sea Islands Hurricane of August 31st, 1893, it's believed that 2,000 Charlestonians died due to a 13 ½ foot storm surge came over the battery wall. 1893 was a deadly year.
@@Stormsfury777 But is sad is that hurricanes then are forgotten. like Chenire and Sea of islands they are older so more forgotten
I was in Mississippi where the storm surge reached 28 feet high. Insane
Hurricane Milton speedrunning right now to get #1 worst Hurricane
Any% glitch less run 💀🙏
Fr bro, so many sticks in my yard, trees fallen, tornadoes, like bro is Florida
@@YourLocalBiGurlyou all doing okay down there?
@@justahugenerd1278 yea, but down in Hobe Sound a bank my friends mom owns roof came off, and in Palm Beach Gardens where most of the tornadoes were houses got destroyed, there’s a middle school some of my friends go to called Murray Middle School, my mom actually went there, comepletly destroyed.
@@YourLocalBiGurl that's awful, I'm sorry to hear that. The tornadoes associated with this hurricane were crazy, super destructive. Please stay safe and remember to go to a basement if you have one should any tornadoes come near you guys!
Hurricane Andrew being an honorable mention instead of top 3 is silly. It made TWO separate US landfalls including one as a Cat 5, completely wiped entire cities off the map, was the costliest hurricane in US history until Katrina, created a massive permanent population displacement, and is still affecting Florida today (such as causing the Burmese python population explosion in the Everglades, and catalyzing building code changes that are resulting in the current redevelopment of coastal South Florida.) Andrew was so devastating the name was retired and replaced with Alex. Florida looks the way it does today because of Andrew. It's more impactful than Ian.
Agreed
My dad was an insurance adjuster and Hugo and Andrew were the worst storms he ever witnessed. The pictures he showed me from both are wild.
I lived in Miami during Andrew, so let me tell you that what you're saying is nothing but facts. Andrew still holds a cloud, no pun intended, over the city of Miami
Thank you, as someone who grew up in Florida I heard about Andrew more than any other, it's a crime it's just a mention.
He said 1993. It was 1992. So obviously he didn't give it enough of a look. Homestead AFB was completely destroyed.
The rainfall rates from Camille in Virginia were so intense that birds drowned in the air. Scientists believe that it dropped "the probable maximum rainfall which meteorologists compute to be theoretically possible."
Poor birds 😢
"so intense that birds drowned in the air"
Pretty ridiculous statement that doesn't pass the sniff test. If that was hypothetically possible, it'd be too much for a bird to fly at all and it'd drown on the ground/in the flooding water.
@@tHebUm18 "rainfall was so heavy that reports were received of birds drowning in trees, and of survivors having to cup hands around their mouth and nose in order to breathe through the deluge."
@@RIPjkripper Welp, now the birds are in trees. That's closer to reality.
Still sounds like the hyperbolic old timey nonsense that was either said by one person to a reporter or the reporter made up entirely.
Glad searching that brings me to Wikipedia where it's tied to a source that goes to some random, unrelated Vietnamese website and searching about citation finds some podcast potentially lost to the internet from 2006.
@@tHebUm18 You sound like you're insufferable to be around
Who’s here after Helene
Right here man
yes. had to flee Asheville NC 😢
I think helene topped most these hurricanes
Helene was bad for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, but most especially North Carolina were historical monuments were completely wiped out the map and caused the worst floodings seen in years
The southern states were effected bad but man NC and TN were demolished by it
Interesting list. But I gotta say, Andrew not in the top 2 is amazing. Not being in the top 10 is flabbergasting. A storm that literally changed the building code, wiped out Homestead, tore the wind vein off the NHC HQ... Was the costliest hurricane before Katrina.
❤ Totally agree.
Yea Andrew gotta make at least top 3. It literally changed building codes in FL
I lived in Homestead at the time. The farm fields looked like lakes.
Yeah I was surprised it didn't make the list. I was a kid visiting FL when it hit (but I wasn't impacted at all) and gosh I remember how awful it was. I just figured maybe because I was a kid, I'd exaggerated my memories and maybe it wasn't as bad as I remember the news showing it.
Destroyed the base… Yeah it’s insanity. I lived in Miami when the storm hit. It’s straight up disrespectful. 😂
A very significant hurricane that I think often is forgotten, though recent, is category 5 Hurricane Michael in 2018. It completely destroyed the small town of Mexico Beach, FL and Tyndall Air Force Base, and caused significant damage further into the Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia. Other than causing some bad damage in the eastern Panama City suburbs, it didn't hit any major population centers, which I think leads to it being forgotten. I drove through the FL Panhandle on I-10 a few months after the storm, and all the forest that used to cover the area it hit was completely gone. Just sparse trees. It was very sad to see, and it won't be the way it used to be for a long time.
We rode it out in our hallway 😭
I recently reconnected with some family from the Panama City area. They lost everything. My cousin was a manager at a hotel at the time and was in charge of every guest there as Michael ravaged. As you could imagine, a lot of people took shelter there. Going to visit and seeing the damage still left, then having the best time at Mexico Beach, was so interesting. We're native New Orleans, we reconnected in our post-disaster evacuation of Ida, so it was a very surreal experience going from one active disaster zone to see a town just as left behind as some towns in my own area after Katrina.
What I mainly learned is you're right - it was forgotten. I had no idea how destructive Michael was until I saw it first-hand. Dead and downed trees everywhere, years later. I thought about moving to the area but the opportunities are so sparce now - no company wants to invest in having locations anywhere in that area. They always stick to the Panama City Beach area. Would've had to travel 30+ minutes a day to any decent job. Having family from St. Bernard, one of the hardest hit places by Katrina even now, the similarities were uncanny. Two forgotten towns, once great and rich with history, run down by disaster.
I was in Florida when Michael hit. They’re still rebuilding in some areas to this day.
Bro I live in bay county and I was there when it hit. A tree struck or house and my parents had to pay over 50K dollars. We were lucky though, both of my friends' houses were flattened. Donald Trump himself came down to Florida to look and stopped by to one of my friend's houses 💀
After the hurricane, we didn't have power for three weeks. No water for a week (other than the flooding right outside)
Honestly it was scary as hell, even being just eight years old. Today.. well today Bay county is doing much better, but there are still tons of debarked trees if you ever come down here. 😢
I sat through Harvey in an older house. I lived near Corpus Christi at the time and it felt almost like a fever dream witnessing the 140+ mph winds hitting first hand. I'll never forget how the old walls bent a solid foot inwards for much of the time the hurricane was active in our area. We had it relatively easy on flooding given the elevation, but it didn't save a lot of other towns from flodding significantly.
19:45
"This is not a good area, don't live in this area."
Me, who lives there: "Thanks."
Wherever you live, there's a natural danger of some kind which could become a disaster. There's no escaping it so all you can really do is decide if the risks are too much where you live.
I’m glad not a lot of category 5 and above hit my area we normally just get a bunch of rain and a little bit a rain like a tropical depression: (i live in north Florida)
@@P_RO_exactly there is no escaping a natural potential disaster threat anywhere in the entire United States
@@b_f_d_d Anywhere in the world actually. Know your local hazards and be ready to deal with them if they happen, and if you can. Live life fully within all that.
Same 😂
Who’s here pre-Milton?
Here m8
Here
Here
After it became a category 5?
I'm in Cape Coral 🤘😝😢
Hurricane Maria survivor here. I didn't have electricity or running water for months. A lot of people lost everything. Personally I still have a form of trauma because of it, so hurricane seasons are extremely stressful.
I to this day will ask people how their family back home is doing. It was 2 years before I heard the power was restored fully. And even then they told me there were still areas
I understand. ❤
same. i didint lose much but every hurricane season is still scary. and the power company here sucks.
Hurricane Maria was so bad that people are still recovering from it, it was devastating
I survived too I lost power for long I had to be at my grandma's house I could hear signing when the hurricane was there it was the wind it still scares me today
Hurricane Katrina caused me to become a prepared minded citizen. I was a HS Science teacher in a town on the eastern side of the Birmingham, AL metro. Many families came to our area seeking refuge because they had family in our town. The kids that enrolled in our district had no documentation of any kind because all of it was lost in the storm. One of the kids in my classes had no idea about family members' whereabouts or mortality. Imagine finding yourself two states away tomorrow with no ID docs of any kind, no money, no change of clothes and no clue if you'd ever see some family members again. This young man didn't reunite with his mother until May of that school year....9 months later.
My mom had all that stuff in a file cabinet ready to go at a moments notice..As i do also its called responsbilty.Ids birth certificates insurance papers important papers..
@@teddyghioto I agree.....that's why people MUST take warnings seriously. Doesn't change ground truth after an event. The same thing happens every year, multiple times per year after tornados. People's documents are scattered to the four winds and they're left with nothing. Not far from where I live a door was ripped off a floor safe, the safe was removed from the original site and the safe was deposited half a mile from the original structure.....so, no matter how responsible someone is, Mother Nature can make us look foolish.
I lived through Katrina. Hell on earth
I was at attending UAH when Katrina hit and drove back home to tend to safe keeping with my mom in Gardendale. I will never, until the end of my days, forget seeing the thousands of cars evacuating onto I65 from Mississippi the days before, during, and after. All I could think of was like seeing the exodus from the bible, and all I could do was pray for their safety.
I’m from Birmingham myself and was a freshmen at Auburn University when Katrina hit. I remember walking to class with the tornado sirens going off!
I moved to Florida at the end of 2016. We lost power for 9 days after Irma in 2017, and some of my neighbors had to rebuild because of trees decimating their homes. I’m 30 minutes inland from Tampa Bay. I am getting very concerned about Milton.
I’m also a teacher ❤ I teach 8th grade social studies. I’m in my final month of pregnancy too. 😬 so that is adding extra stress to Milton’s potential impacts.
I’m a Puerto Rican that lived the experience of hurricane Maria, I spend six months without electricity and I know that many people had to wait more than a year to receive electricity again, also many had to spend two, three or four hours in a line at a grocery store just for a gallon of milk. There are even disputes on the actual death rate of the event on the island, some suggest it could have been as high as 4,600+. Truly, a tragic event that the island will never forget. Thanks for the mention of it in the video.
It's awful. The hurricane was already bad enough, and the local and federal government's response was slow and lackluster when it did happen. Similar to what happened during Katrina. A natrual disaster made worse by the government.
@@nooneimportant8991yuuuuuuup. The comparison is on point.
Maria was horrible, people are still recovering, I still remember coming back to puerto rico after the hurricane, everything was gone
A very well done video, young man. When I was young, I used to track hurricanes on a sheet that was provided by the newspaper. I would track them and update their position every couple of hours, then marking the path all the way to landfall. I was fascinated by the meteorological phenomenon from a very early age but moved on to other things as I grew older.
My mom worked for the Texas government for my entire life (24 years) until this year. During every hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster she would go work at the state emergency management bunker. I remember her basically living in the bunker during Harvey for weeks because of how bad it was. She has helped save thousands of lives and I’m so freaking proud of her. She now does the same job for the federal government.
Ur mother deserves an award. Not all heroes wear capes!!
When Katrine hit, i remember looking at the forcast saying it'll reach here by tomorrow while you seen surfers at the beach, then i looked out side the window and all the light poles where LITERALLY EXPLODING like fire balls and the rain hurt like rocks where being thrown at you. And i sat there home alone with my sister thinking
Its not here yet and its doing this? I think im going to die. I looked back at the TV watching the reporters hall ass back to their van screaming "ITS HERE! ITS HERE! Kateina is making impact. Like nearly an hour later my grandma and uncle came back from getting supplys and a whole warehouse roof ripped off the building and landed over me and my neighbors houses luckly the front door wasnt blocked. But ill never forget how hard that rain was hitting.
And im not 100% sure but i swore Hurrican William hit that same year and knocked out the power for the whole cityand i got the see the galaxy and milkyway. It was so beautiful and i sat in the back of my dads truck and staired at the night sky for hours because in florida we got heavy light pollution. 2 strong ass hurricanes like 46 days apart, what a time to be alive... or a time to survive in my case.
Wow. That's a crazy detail about being able to see the stars suddenly.
@dkennell998 it was the best experience I have ever seen, especially being a city boy. It felt like something the government didn't want me to see, how crazy it was. And I never got scared of a hurricane again. It was so bad that the other week, my nephew, who was born around 2008, said hurrican Erma ( I think it called) was terrible, and I didn't even know that hurricane existed. Apparently, it came sound 2017, I think. And somehow, my fat ass missed it even though I was in it. If it was what I'm thinking about now, the power went out for about 3 hours and came back on, and after that, I probably slept through the whole thing.
I realized. A hurricane has to be truly monstrous for one to think they'll die because of how intense it is. It's one of the worst feelings. And even worse is realizing that the true nightmare is only beginning
@nooneimportant8991 that shit had presentation, black clouds, quiet but mildly windy, then the sounds of popping and sparks out the window, light poles literally turning into electrical explosions the sound of wind building up hitting your window (like it's a crazy person trying to break in via double fist banging sounds) the sound of lost souls howling like wolves. There were no lightening strikes at all yet, but once it started to rain, it it was like a train mixed with a giant water hose spraying your window and walls. Once my grandma and my uncle got home, I had to run outside to get the food, and it was like trying to survive a mountain hike as the wind blew so hard I had to literally lean like I was in a game of tug of war just to not fall over. And the rain felt like pebble sized rocks once inside. All we had was a hand crank radio and snacks and a flipped over couch with some candles already lit due to the power quickly cutting off. All this happened down the street from Attucks Middle school.
@@carlbrown1000yes no joke that's crazy right there!!!!
If you haven’t read it, get the book “Roar Of The Heavens” about Hurricane Camille. It’s a great read. It was said that at times in Virginia, the air was 100% water from the rain. Us older folks in Alabama and Mississippi still use Camille as the benchmark for hurricanes
I heard people were out on the beach playing in the waves while Camille approached, they just didn’t have the warning systems we have now. They were all obliviously obliterated 😮😵🥹
Im watching this as im experiencing hurricane Milton
Me too. Hope you are ok and the rest of your family and friends as well. ❤️❤️❤️
Me to
I’ve never experienced a hurricane or a tornado. I hope you all are safe after this.
you doing good bro?
Swegle knows what tickles my fancy. My eyes are glued to the screen while watching his videos. A true weather content creator 👍👍
during ian a woman on my facebook group was begging for help as they were trapped in their cars with no one to help. if you can believe it commenters were shaming her for not evacuating and being toxic (remember, evacuation isn't an option for many, yall). the woman i saw asking for help was simply too far for me to travel in time in a storm. however luckily the woman and her dog are OK. also people on sanibel island were shot which was never reported on in the media (possibly because they were shot by police) only discussed online
Why were they shot?? Accidentally?
What?? They were shot at sanibel?? When???
@@pookie87 in the height of the storm when matlache was underwater and no one could enter or exit the island. the way i heard it was that police shot looters but could have also been property owners shooting looters as well. my wife was the one reading me the information online and it was so crazy at the time i didn't get a ton of details. maybe if you dig you could find something more about it, but from what i have seen the media was entirely silent, which lends me to believe it was the police shooting
@@Scottocaster6668 see my other comments cheers
@@dovemaarika1668 The gunshine state is a bad place to do post storm looting. EMS services in SW FL had so much on their plate, I don't really blame them for brushing a looter shooting under the rug, especially when they had plenty of water bloated dead bodies to see already.
I live in Port Charlotte, FL. I've lived in South West Florida for most of my life and been through countless hurricanes. Some were worse than others but never did I truly feel unsafe.
Hurricane Ian was on a whole other level. It was like living through a disaster movie. Multiple times it occurred to me how surreal everything was. Bedroom window had a branch come through it and fill half of my house with water.
Outside was truly incredible. Countless massive trees snaped like a tooth pick. Every street/stop sign was was gone and many houses with serious damage. We didn't have power for 8 days, cell service was basically nil and took 2 weeks to get back TV/Wi-Fi.
When I saw the red cross driving down the street for the first time I again thought to myself that I feel like I am in a movie. All the neighbors worked together to make sure each could survive until help arrived.
In short, Hurricane Ian is something I will never forget and pray to never go through again.
I live in north port and rode out Ian. Our street only got about 6 inches of water but on a street that connects to mine that a canal goes under, there was water 2 feet deep that would easily wipe a car off the road and made me surprised the road was still intact. There was only minor damage to my house (soffits blown off, fence damaged), but the house almost got clipped by the 30 something foot palm tree in my front yard. The WiFi and power at my house was out for 2 weeks, but I went to my grandparents and stayed there for almost a month helping them out with the cleanup and repairs. It was bad here, in the eye wall for multiple hours, no actual eye for us. I still think of tropical storms and hurricanes as time off school and time to grill and party, but I would not want something anywhere near as bad as Ian.
MY GRANDMOTHER LIVES IN PORT CHARLOTTE, she experienced Ian, she got lucky as the only thing ruined was her pool, but if she left her doors would’ve blown in and trashed everything, as she had to hold them, but crazy how y’all live in same city, she lives on the river from the bay, she’s from utah, then moved to maryland (where I’m from) and then moved to Florida a few years ago
Were you there for hurricane Charley? That was the worst storm before Ian.
Were you here for Charlie? It was worse in Punta Gorda and was a lot smaller in scope than Ian, but we got severely impacted by both.
Charlie was a monster storm. The strongest I've been through. Wind was on another level. Took a last minute shift and hit an area that was not fully prepared. Weather service was all projecting Tampa. I remember the aftermath, seeing block buildings with their walls caved in. Didn't experience Ian personally but from the experiences of others, it was essentially a reincarnation, albeit on a much larger scale.
Suffered through Ian, Helene, Imera, and Now Milton 😩
Its not that deep
@@imfosher yes it is 😩
@@The_AmazingRoger we just had typhoon super typhoon krathon and violent typhoon gaemi just this year
How can Andrew not be in the Top 5? That SOB was historic and personally cost me and mine quite a bit!
You and yours?
@@chloesmith9690 Yes, me on a personal level because I had investment interests I'm Miami. "Mine" because I had people in Miami who ended up homeless and depended on me for help!
Busted out the ME AND MINE
It had a low death toll due to it being very small and the warnings that people got at the time, however it was definitely a historically strong storm. My mom helped volunteer down there when it happened and she said she’s never seen anything like south dade county after Andrew.
Andrew caused so much long term damage to the Everglades that we’re still seeing today with the invasive pythons. Surprised it wasn’t mentioned.
Agnes fact: the flooding it caused in PA was so bad that cemeteries along the Susquehanna River actually got dredged up by the floodwater and hundreds of coffins and their occupants were washed away. And to this day, quite a few have never been found.
With Hugo in 89 we had at least one cemetery get washed away. And the state forest on the coast was beyond decimated. It took a couple of decades to look like itself again.
A cemetery that a bunch of my ancestors were buried in in Wythe Count VA got washed away in 1902. It's also quite a ways from the ocean.
saskatchewan*
How about doing a video on the worst hurricane seasons? I'm a genuine Florida Man. Born and raised, 42 years. I have ridden out so many hurricanes, I can't remember them all. But I might already have the answer of the worst season, at least in Florida. It has to be 2004 when we got Charlie, Francis, Jeane, and Ivan. Yeah, people forget Ivan hit us before it hit Texas. And all four hit us in about 6 or 8 weeks. We were without power for a month. It was ridiculous. We ended up moving into a hotel room for two weeks of that month. That was the worst year and I'll never forget it. I was a pizza delivery driver and I have VHS-C footage of me driving around town during Charlie and Francis trying to deliver pizzas because the place I worked for refused to close if we had power. We were SO busy. People were really nice, though, and tipped well saying things like, "Sorry to drag you out in this, here's $10."
Oh man that’s crazy! My family are all mostly around PA and NJ but one of my mom’s brothers lived in Florida back in the 1960s with his then wife and their 8 kids. My mom remembers my aunt and uncle putting sandbags against all the windows before Camille blew in
@@sluggytube I've never seen snow. I'm 42 and I've never seen snow. I've been as far north at Boulder, Colorado and DC, but it was in the middle of the summer. We just kind of get used to it. Personally, I don't take them seriously until they're about 12 hours away because they change direction and strength so fast. So, if it is 12 hours out and the forecast still says it's going to be bad and it's heading right for me, I'll get out. I've only done that one time in 42 years - in the mid 90s - and didn't really need to. Plywood and sandbags don't help, in my opinion. I guess there are situations where they can help but when I see people with beach houses putting up plywood, I don't get it. If it's bad enough to need the plywood, the plywood isn't going to do anything to save your beach house. We have storm/hurricane shutters on our house. And if the water gets high enough to need sandbags, it is going to be there for a few days and soak through them, so why bother? I'd rather use that time, money, and effort getting supplies together and a plan to leave if I need to. My mom's birthday is around the first day of hurricane season so that's our reminder every year to check everyone's hurricane supplies and update it.
2004 was definitely the worst for a single state in terms of numbers. Jeanne and Francis made landfall miles apart only a few weeks removed from each other. There was also a tropical storm that hit the state among that mess, though I forget its name.
Then 2005's hyperactivity and Katrina happened, and it overshadowed the previous year (rightfully so). I'd say 2017 was the worst year for the US for landfalls in recent memory, since you had Irma, Harvey, and Maria all three that year. Florida got it bad in 04, but any single one of those in 17 were worse than two or more of the storms in 04 combined.
1995, 2004, 2005, 2017 and 2020 all are probably in that top 10
Man, I really want to see Swegle do a video on the worst hurricane seasons now!
Also, thank you for your service, brave hurricane pizza man o7🍕😅
August 9 - Jake uploads Top 10 worst hurricanes video.
September 26 - Helene: "Can I play? Camille was my idol."
October 9 - Milton: "Yeah, I might be down too."
As a Puerto Rican I’m surprised that hurricane Maria was in the list since Puerto Rico is often ignored
It did not go unnoticed to me
Oh, no! You guys still matter, no matter what anyone else says.
WEPA
That’s very sad to hear. Fellow Americans should never be ignored, even if you aren’t in the mainland
I’m a Katrina survivor. I definitely remember when Maria struck. I felt so bad.
The strangest hurricane I remember in my lifetime was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It arrived late into hurricane season (the day before Halloween) and the eye of the storm first struck not Florida or a southern state, but way up north to New Jersey in the middle of the fall. It's coverage reached all the way to where I live in Rochester, NY, bringing us winds around 65 - 70MPH, and to make things much crazier, Ohio and Indiana received several inches of snow from this hurricane. Snow with a hurricane can happen, but it's extremely rare.
I had just moved out of the Catskills a few years before Sandy hit, and I have friends who's entire houses were washed away. It's not often that the mountains of NY get hit with hurricanes.
Yep Sandy deserves number 10 not 11 in my very humble opinion as a new Yorker. Not only was it extremely costly, the fact that it went up so north in a (relatively) unprecedented way I think makes it stand out. I lived in the outskirts of new York city my family was out of power for a week, and we got LUCKY!
I’m dumbfounded that hurricane Michael isn’t somewhere on this list. One of four category five hurricanes to ever hit the continental United States, the 11th most costly in history, all I can assume is that it’s because of the lower death toll. I was there and I can tell you it deserves at least an honorable mention, and even that feels like it’s being undersold.
YES! I worked for the Sheriff's Office in Port St. Joe, Gulf County. The southern eyewall hit Mexico Beach, 10 minutes up Hwy 98 from where I lived two blocks off St. Joe Bay. As first responders, we didn't evacuate. I'm also an Iraq War veteran and it was the only comparison I could even draw in the aftermath. I remember trying to drive into Mexico Beach two days after, trying to check on people we were told had ridden it out; almost every home on the bay side of 98 was gone or on top of the homes on the right side of 98. I could hear alarms going off under the rubble... everything sounded muted and super eerie. We also had more deaths after the fact than during the actual hurricane.
I think this video was post before Micheal
Bro 💀 it was posted a month ago 💀
I totally agree, so many died by Michael that we were not allowed in the area to help due to dead bodies.
I came back from evacuation and my house was half flooded
Dude. Sweet background videos of the old school weather channel. On the tube TV too. Kudos. I listen to the tunes when I'm golfing
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane being in the top spot didn't surprise me in the least, the book Isaac's Storm by Eric Larson paints a very descriptive scene of the power this one caused
If you’ve heard of the I survived series, I read “I survived the 1900 Galveston hurricane”, I knew it was number one
@@Gic424_YT DAMN I learned a lot of stuff from I Survived series and I literally only today found out they had a book about the 1900 storm. Now I want it so I can further conduct my research
@@salt907 I’ve read like almost all of them 😂😂😂 there’s only a few I haven’t, and I have 2 right now that I haven’t read
I recommend “A Weekend In September”, it’s an incredible compilation of survivor accounts in a beautiful narrative style. Read it when I was 12 and could not get enough of it
@@myhsterie I have that exact book in my room I bought it last year and it does not disappoint. I would recommend
I lived trough Hurricane Ian. It was definitely the scariest event i have ever lived through. We live a few miles away from sanibel beach. I recall watching the damage feom my tv and then the power went out. I witnessed a house fly across my front lawn and power lines swinging on my front porch. We had no power for a couple weeks but we got back into the swing of things. P.S. my family and I are okay, everything is repaired!
Being a South Carolina native, Hurricane Hugo scares the absolute fucking shit out of me. I pray to God we never have another storm like that again. It had sustained 150 mile per hour winds. It caused 11 billion dollars worth of damage. In 1989. Which is 30 billion today. Towns were destroyed from Savannah, Georgia all the way up to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The entire coast was hit. McClellanville, South Carolina, where it first made landfall, had a 20.2 foot storm surge. The highest storm surge ever recorded in South Carolina. It complexly flooded Lincoln High School, in McClellanville, where a shelter was set up in the gym. Several people were staying there and they had to climb up on the bleachers and into the rafters to keep out of the flood water. It spawned several dozen tornadoes. Many of which hit right outside of Summerville, South Carolina where my mother was staying. She's lucky to be alive. Charleston along with several other major cities were completely flooded for weeks. It even did severe damage to North Carolina and Virginia as a category 1 hurricane and a tropical storm. My dad was attending Winthrop University at the time and he experienced very heavy rain and strong winds. And worst of all 51 people died.
In the grand scheme of things, it was not that bad. It's really not comparable to any storms on this list. But it the worst hurricane that has hit South Carolina in recent history. Hurricane wise, we have been very lucky over the past 3 decades.
DISCLAIMER: Take this information with a grain of salt. It may not be 100% accurate. I have gotten most of it from stories of people that were in South Carolina during this storm, that I have talked to over the years. Not from professional meteorologists.
I'm a Charlestonian myself. I wasn't born until October '90, over a year later, but my parents stayed with my grandma in Columbia. She had a massive oak in her yard. This oak, five feet wide, was uprooted by the storm, all the way up in Columbia. My uncle nearly drowned when he decided to stay on Isle of Palms, like an idiot. His house was brick but his one floor was flooded, he couldn't go to the attic because the ceiling had blown off. He only survived by treading water. That was a crazy storm, definitely overlooked.
Now Helene putting that Hugo legacy to the test for us here in the Carolinas.
The amount of water is mind boggling... So much destruction.
@@makotroid108 That is the most ignorant shit I’ve ever heard. You’re comparing a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane.
My ohioan ass doesn't understand this shit
Hugo was a fast moving storm. It was still a category 1 storm when it hit Charlotte. No one was expecting that. Trees down everywhere, old, huge trees.
Every letter carrier I worked with got bee stung at least once. Those bees had lost their homes and were very upset.
For those who unfortunately have gone through Hurricanes Helene and Milton, we in New Orleans went through Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as a category four storm. Our local governments executed a mandatory evacuate from our homes before the storm hit. We were only allowed to check our properties for a day in the week after the storm but were not allowed to remain. We were not allowed to return to our homes permanently until after most of the power was restored three weeks later.
Sucks that happed to you guys but at least you didn’t have whole towns being washed away so that’s a positive. Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee lost a whole lot due to Hurricane Helene. Historical towns washed away with unsuspecting people.
the biggest issue with katrina was the levees and flood walls. if katrina didn’t happen, it most certainly would’ve been another storm in the future. the walls were eroding, incomplete, and not up to any safety standards. the flood walls were also built to only endure a cat 3 hurricane, despite knowing it wouldn’t be adequate for a stronger storm. after the walls broke, homes in the 9th ward filled with water at rates of a foot per minute.
people in prisons and nursing homes were left to fend for themselves. public transport was closed before the storms impact and they simply did not have enough gas or bus drivers to help evacuate. the governor at the time refused to sign an emergency act allowing anyone with a license to drive a bus for evacuation. so people unable to leave were forced to stay.
the difference between other hurricanes and katrina is that the preparation and aftermath of katrina was a complete failure from the local, state, and federal level.
I’m shocked that Hurricane Michael didn’t even make an honorable mention. That beast destroyed the Panhandle.
I.
Agree, I live in pace. Floridai was working on eggland airports base at the time. I'.
Ve had a lot of bad luck with hurricanesmy father was killed in hurricane Camille.
I lost a house in hurricane Frederick. So I know how you feel.Michael was horrible
@@emmettrobinson9708 yeah i experienced it and it was a devastating tragedy
I’m from Panama City, where Michael hit and trust me when I tell you I couldn’t live in my house for 5-7 months, had to live in a small camper with my 4 other siblings, my two parents, my 4 cats and 2 dogs. It was HORRIBLE.
Camille had gust over 200+ mph on the Mississippi coast. No one talk's about it today. They kinda down play it. It was a monster
Absolutely true.. I would also add that any Mississippi or Alabama hurricane experiences are very much overlooked because of the close proximity to (especially) New Orleans and the Florida panhandle.
@@tjohns25waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh cry me a hurricane
My mom was in the hospital in Biloxi during Camille. I remember as a kid visiting her several times before Camille hit.
I was so supposed to see huge boats on the other side of the highway when we were able to visit her again.
Terrible loss of life and property.
@@KOLD504 No need to act like a heartless asshole.
@stevenmarquis2073 the tug boat that washed up on hwy 90 in Gulfport that became a gift shop was taken out by Katrina.
I feel like Hurricane Michael deserves at the very least an honorable mention. It was one of the largest in history. I’m from where the eyewall hit (the worst part of the storm)… October 10th 2018. That date is burned into my brain lol.
I'm shocked it wasnt mentioned. But people tend to gloss over Michael so part of me is not shocked. Cat 5 at impact. It pushed over a train and all it's carts over on its side. Twisted a cell tower then bent it over on itself. Many spots in Panama City and Mexico Beach are still destroyed and are dealing with impact even now in 2024. My family nearly died taking shelter in a church that was coming down around them. The climate is even warmer and more windy there because millions of pine trees were snapped in half. That also resulted in forest fires as well as these trees have died and dried out.
Same with Ida
It’s a shame Micheal is forgotten
I just commented about Micheal. I live right where it hit too (north east bay county), and every video on hurricanes I’ve come across always omits Micheal. I watched a documentary by some storm chasers (RUclips channel: Storm chaser videos) that referred to Micheal as the forgotten category 5 hurricane, and it’s so f’ing true.
I lived through hurricane Michael and it blows my mind it never gets mentioned. Idk that this area will ever fully recover. It's coming up on the six year anniversary and you still see the damage it left.
FL native here, this stuff always intrigues me having lived thru a few of these. Thanks for doing this SS.
FYI, I think you meant $117B in damage on Ian, not $117M.
I truly appreciate that you included Alabama in Gulf Coast Hurricanes. If a hurricane hits anywhere between Eastern Louisiana and Western N Florida, Alabama and Mississippi will feel the impacts. However, I feel like it was disrespectful to not include Mississippi and Alabama in the Katrina section. The highest storm surge values (Bay St Louis, Biloxi, Pascagoula, Grand Bay, and Coden) were on the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. I lived in Mobile directly near the shoreline for 30 years and that was the most intense storm I’ve ever experienced. A barge from the Gulf came up 30 miles and made it into the Mobile River. Mississippi Gulf Coast was literally wiped off the map. Louisiana gets a lot of attention as it should, but jeez does the rest of the coast not exist. If you do a video of Katrina damage look up the coast guard video that starts at the Baldwin county (Al) coast line all the way to New Orleans. The damage gets more intense the further east they go.
Biloxi, Mississippi here. Preach that shit
Absolutely
THANK YOU. The highest storm surge from Katrina was in Pass Christian, Mississippi at almost 28 feet. This is the record highest storm surge from a U.S. hurricane.
And amazingly, the same city also experienced the record second highest storm in a U.S. hurricane from Hurricane Camille.
Very surprised not to see Hurricane Andrew in the top 10!
Its destruction in South Florida definitely puts it in top 10 for the state, but the death toll was low for how strong it was and its financial impact has been surpassed by many other storms just in the last 25 years. It was also small, which limited its overall impacts compared to larger storms like Irma, Katrina, or Maria (all of which were deadlier and more costly).
Bro has no idea what actually affects florida locals since he isn't one. Michael from 2018 not being on here is a joke. It completely deleted nw florida
Andrew's legacy is arguably more in the aftermath and the legislation that came out of it. Every hurricane from 1992 to eternity that strikes Florida has the echoes of Andrew in it, because the current building codes that allow Floridians to hold hurricane parties in the face of major 'canes can be owed in large part to it.
Andrew tore up florida and louisiana
@@VjjQueenthe fact that Ian is on here but not Michael or Irma says a ton
I remember Hurricane Andrew from 1992. I never forgot how big that one was! That one made an impression on me that I still remember to this day!
Yes, Hurricane Andrew was definitely one of the worst.
I almost died from beryl.
@@jenniferkubik478 Actually Andrew was small but the second most powerful. Only thehurricane of 1935 is stronger.
Milton and Helene:
*”Allow us to introduce ourselves”*
I dont understand, as an ohioan I have never heard of these so called "hurricanes"
@@SolLovesTeamGrimoireThink of your average rainy day and turn it up to an 100
@RUclipsHANDLERAHHHH hmmm, still cant understand it
@@SolLovesTeamGrimoire Think of a Super SUPER bad Rainstorm
imagine it rains and then oops your house is gone@@SolLovesTeamGrimoire
I’m from South Texas, a city called McAllen, and my mother talks about Hurricane Beulah every time there’s a hurricane. It happened September 1967 and she was 15 at the time. We’ve had many hurricanes since, of course, but that’s the one that traumatized her the most.
I would also consider adding Gilbert, Allen, Frederic, and Carla for honourable mentions as well. Hurricane forecasting was still finding its footing in the 70s and 80s.
I’m surprised Swegle didn’t mention this one since it spawned 115 tornados. That record would stand for 37 years until Ivan produced 120 in 2004
@@jawstheproducer1593That’s so frightening. Thank goodness I wasn’t alive then. Ha.
I responded to Hurricane Ian. At the time I was a crew chief in a blackhawk MEDEVAC unit, and we were some of the first people there besides two coast guard helicopters. I was still pretty new with only about two years flying at that point and had never seen anything. Hurricane response for us aviation assets in the Guard are usually we fly somewhere and then waste money and don’t do anything while the coast guard does it all. This time was different.
Once we assessed the damage (we were there hours after landfall at fort Myers), we landed on sanibel island. I was absolutely humbled by the damaged and we landed on a beach where a man waved us down. He was a father with a wife and three kids and dogs. He cried. He said he almost got his family killed. I still remember the wave that little girl gave me from her mom’s arms when we dropped them off at a collection point at a school.
I went on to see some really hurt people and saw and smelled a lot of things I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget that time and it made me grow up a lot. Sometimes we were told we couldn’t land and get out and search houses and it pissed me off. It pissed us all off. A man waved at us but they wouldn’t give us authorization to hoist down and pick him up. He thought we were coming and saw him so he stopped waving and went inside. We then told a coast guard helicopter to try but they didn’t find him. Im sorry we couldn’t do more but we did all we could and fought back against the chain of command as much as we could. We did a lot but I wish I could’ve help the people of fort Myers more. I started writing a book about it, but I think it was more just to help me process it. I know it wasn’t war or the worst thing that ever happened but I’ll always be grateful we could help some of those people in fort Myers and I’ll never forget you, little girl.
I was born and raised in Ft Myers. Pine Island to be. exact, i’ve been through several of these hurricanes over the years but hurricane in had to be one of the worst that I’ve ever lived through, to this day, I still have a hard time watching any videos about hurricane Ian.
I know for a fact that that the body count was higher then what was reported
It absolutely was a war. One waged by Mother Nature. I managed to get on to Sanibel Island about 10 days after impact. I've never seen anything like it. It looked like a nuclear bomb went off. Trees were completely bare of leaves, or just gone. Every telephone pole was snapped like a toothpick. There must have 40 power line trucks out there, from all over, re-installing poles and connections. There were CONCRETE BUILDINGS with some of their walls completely collapsed. I'm sorry you weren't able to rescue that man. Especially if you were able to get to him. That's an awful thing to have to learn to live with... But at least you were able to help others.
Im surprised Hurricane Andrew didnt make the top 10 but instead an honorable mention.
it hit in 1992 not 1993. I was wondering if it was going to be mentioned.
Well, he is learning!
By theway hurricane andrew killed 56 people flooded even basements in cleveland ohio a good week later!
I know I was there.
Plus gusts were measured at 210 mph.
I get the feeling Helene will be added to this list since close to 200 people have died so far and entire towns are completely gone now
I remember living through Hurricane Opal in 1995 when I was only 8 years old. Up until that point, I had thought hurricanes were really cool, and I'd have my mom take me to the library so I could look at the books they had about various storms. I remember reading about Hurricane Camille and seeing all the photos and thinking "wow it would be so cool to see a hurricane!" obviously having no idea of what I was talking about. When my mom told me I was getting my wish before Opal hit, I was so excited. Little did I know... lol. After my family and I rode out Opal while living in Ft. Walton Beach, I never wanted anything to do with hurricanes again. I recall seeing the sand dunes completely gone, boat washed up into the roads and yards (I lived only a few miles from shore). It's crazy how powerful and destructive these storms are!
I was stationed at Eglin AFB when Opal hit, just a month or two after Hurricane Erin hit. We got the order to evacuate the base way too late, and many people rode out that storm stuck on Hwy 85 between Niceville and Crestview trying to evacuate.
I lived in the Houston area when Harvey hit. It was rough. And just went through Hurricane Beryl, while visiting family. It was a crazy experience!
I wasn’t in Houston for Harvey but buying houses based on whether it flooded during Harvey or not was shocking lol . And 3+ days of no power during beryl absolutely sucked- with it being so hot out
I almost died from beryl
@josephmcbeth8650 I hope you and your family is okay.
Harvey was a unique problem because of its size and the fact that it stalled and just dumped rain relentlessly.
@MichaelJW72 True it did sit over Corpus Christi for 4 days
Hurricane Michael truly is the "Forgotten Five".
MILTON is going to be on this list
2:55 It should be noted, Hurricanes love warmer water, and when a hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico it gathers strength rapidly, on top of the fact that estimated landings are just that, estimates. In truth when it reaches the gulf it can literally go in any direction at that point.
Swegle, Don't forget about Hurricane Hugo back in 1989. That storm was destructive as heck and I remember that wild storm. Awesome video, man!!!!!!!!!!!!
No mention of Hugo or Andrew? Hm. Those I would have added to the honorable mentions, at least. They're my earliest memories of hearing about hurricanes.
As a lifelong resident of SC, it's the worst I remember. We had damage even in the Upstate
@@catherinehayes8912 Hugo remains my benchmark, and I've been in the Charleston area for all my life and a veteran of every tropical cyclone that's impacted the Lowcountry. With Debby, it entered my top 5 list all time, and number 1 for tropical storms. The torrential rainfall totals and tornadoes spawned off by Debby was incredible.
Hugo was scerry.
Hugo and Andrew both get overlooked a lot I think because they affected smaller areas. I guess Andrew did make 2 landfalls. Hugo, though, didn't. And it dissipated quickly. But it was scary.
@@xliquidflamesbro the thumbnail shows Andrew but is labeled Katrina 🤦♂️
I’m grateful you covered hurricane María, I was one of the survivors of said disaster and I can still vividly hear the hurricanes roar through my little apartments windows. My mother was also physically affected but alright and we also almost starved as the winds were so powerful that it knocked two of our biggest and most sturdiest trees in our entire apartment complex and blocked both road exists and entries to go and get help. Our community gather and cut the trees enough to make a on foot passage, but if we weren’t prepared, I genuinely believed me and my family could have starved to death. I know live in NY and I now feel a lot safer, despite the fear of tornadoes and hurricanes wanting to show up at any random and rare moment.
Great video! I live in Houston and experiencing Harvey was crazy, had to leave my home for a while because it flooded. Also experienced Hurricane Beryl and the Derecho storm that hit in May.
I'm out in Katy. The derecho took out power out for 72 hours. That was a drag, but it turned out to be a good thing. It knocked over any weak power poles and such because with Beryl we only had several short blackouts. Many in the Houston area lost power for long stretches after Beryl.
@@kevingray8616 I was in the Katy Prairie, never really lost power. Glad I moved a bit more NW.
when i experienced hurricane harvey my area got flooding but my neighborhood only got like 2 feet of rain in the circle parts that houses live on i forgot what thats called. my ass rlly played in the water 😭
Here after Helene
👇🏻
What about beyrl?
You mean before Milton? ;-;
@@LeoDaKiiinghurricane beryl hit us hard in Houston
I’m in the direct path of hurricane in Milton
Now we have to deal with Milton and hitting right on top on us.
Enjoyed the video! Would love to see you talk about how much damage the MS coast had after Katrina. All eyes were on New Orleans but the MS coastline got absolutely rocked.
They always manage to leave out that 44 counties (of 88) here in Mississippi were declared disaster areas, and 228 people died from Katrina. I realize we aren't New Orleans. But 228 deaths and half of an entire state a disaster, it's baffling that many people don't even realize how much damage we took, much less how many died here.
@@Jenufir As well as the fact it missed New Orleans and Hit Buras before going back into the ocean. Then the eye passed over Waveland which was all but completely destroyed.
Well time to update thie list
I was hit head on by Hurrican Ian (ironically, it shares my name) in the Cape Coral area. It was supposed to hit up at Tampa, but at the last minute (about 2 days before) the Hurricane shifted as it passed and turned right into us. Of course, this wasn't a complete surprise that it could have hit the area, but they only knew exactly where not long before landfall, and no one actually expected the storm to turn.
I remember clearly a new anchor say "This is the worst case scenario for SouthWest Florida." The storm was slow moving, large, and one of the scariest experiences I have ever lived through. We stayed because by the time we'd have been able to leave, the highways and all roads leading out of the area were too crowded and we didn't want to get stuck at a gas station. We lost power for 10+ days , the devastation was insane. It is an experience I don't want to go through again.
We had Hurricanes since I moved here, but nothing like Ian. I was terrified. There are still houses with tarps on the roofs some places and a lot of things have to be rebuilt. Boats are still under water in the Caloosahatchee and other rivers and lakes. Luckily, my house took minimal wind damage and no water damage and we had went shopping long before for supplies just in case, but I was lucky. It was a war zone after it passed.
Fun fact, Hurricane Ian had an almost identical track to Hurricane Charley when it started to get close to Florida,, which happen 18 years prior, as far as I remember.
Impossible for me to forget that, i used to work on Fort Myers beach, all those businesses are gone, so many of my old co-workers lost their homes completely. That area was basically half-erased and it took a good 9 months to even allow SOME of the beaches to finally open again. That shit was devastating, there's been too many cat 5 hurricanes in the past decade, and that was the final straw for me. i dont want to loose everything iwork for to a hurricane overnight.
@@diodelvino3048 I used to live on Fort Myers Beach and worked at the Sand Piper for a little bit and then Junkanoo's/ Anthony's for a year. I LOVED that place. When I saw what was left of the Junk I bawled my eyes out, I still get teary eyed thinking about it. My dad has a duplex on Fairweather Lane that was one of the few left standing, but it was totally underwater. They just recently got it back to livable. 😢
Texas middle schoolers have to take a year of Texas history, and the Galveston hurricane burned itself into my memory. The storm itself was a horror story, but the people of Galveston coming together to raise the whole island and rebuild was amazing to me.
I wish people up here in the northeast would help rebuild the same way y'all do down there after disasters. The most we get up here is a few donations and a lot of stealing.
Yup. When Hurricane Rita came through in 2005 I was thinking about the Galveston hurricane. They didn't know it was coming. 100 years later I'm in the command center at Air Liquide with a meteorologist on the phone, big screens with satellite images of Rita, etc. I even got a helicopter ride out of it to four Air Liquide plants hit by Rita in Louisiana to survey the communication situation.
Swegle just made my day. I love it when he posts a new natural disaster video.
My family and I happened to be in New Orleans the week before Katrina hit....we flew out just a couple days prior to landfall...my brother who at that time lived there...lost everything...he ended up living with me up in Maryland for a few months...thankfully he was able to recover
I am from southern Louisiana and I lived through Katrina. That was a really crazy storm. You can still find seashells all over the streets on the sides of the streets from when Katrina hit.
I think Hugo was worth a mention at least. But maybe Im biased because I remember it. I was only 4 but I'll never forget it. It wiped out my town and we didnt have power for 2-3 weeks, literally cut the island in half. I remember being scared and disoriented in the aftermath because everything was unrecognizable.
Camille did not get its due in that quick segment. Nasty, nasty storm.
Probably the worst in my lifetime. When a storm is described in mythical terms and they made movies about it, you know it was a bad storm.
I agree
Camille was a game changer as how forecasters looked at hurricanes. The area was unihabitable for weeks after. She is still the single, most powerful storm to ever strike the mainland US. For some reason, they down graded her wind speeds, even though she was a "modern" hurricane and NOAA planes flew into her and recorded on the last flight thru, sustained winds of 190 mph, with gusts to 210. The plane was damaged and had to land in Houston and no other crews would volunteer to fly into her again....and that was 6 hours before landfall. Shes still the storm by which all others are measured.
@@randallrhoads3271 Agree 100% . I drove across hiway 90 a few weeks after Camille hit. Devastated !! I grew up on the Gulf Coast, and it was the worst I've EVER seen. Historic Civic War mansions wiped completely off their foundations, asphalt missing in many places, and everything absolutely sand-blasted.
Camille is from the same year 1969 as both Woodstock and the moon landing
I’m in Vermont and I remember Katrina even was 6-7 feet of water in waterbury and a couple other towns by the lake
It may not be on the list, but I remember Hurricane Irene from 2011. We were hit by Irene here in New Hampshire and we lost power for a few days.
Hey, just wanted to say, great video and list. I remember Katrina well. I grew up about 30 minutes from New Orleans in St. Charles Parish. We were fine, but i remember the damage and not having power for a long time. And I remember my grandparents telling stories of Andrew and Camille.
But I'd love to hear more about pre-1900 hurricanes and natural disasters. They are less known, usually more damaging because of the surprise, and i think would be a cool topic.
I rode out Hurricane Ida in southern Louisiana in 2021. I can't really put the experience into words, as it was all so surreal and vivid. What was calm and sunny one day was a nightmare of extreme wind and flying debris the next.
We also rode out Ida although not by choice. We will not be staying in South Louisiana after retirement.
I rode out Hurricane Ida as well. I was in the area where the eye wall was passing over after it made landfall. It was something that I can never forget no matter how much I want to.
@@uigoku3923 yes we were in the western eye wall for the entirety of the storm. It was horrible. It was almost as if the house was “breathing” with the wind and pressure changes. If I recall correctly starting around 5 pm or so ( not really sure of the time) it got really really intense for a few hours before finally starting to ease up. That’s when bits started ripping off the house, the full shed was shoved about 5 feet off its blocks (sounded like a bomb went off) and the fence came down. The sounds were indescribable. I have trouble just getting through a thunderstorm now.
@@Littlemoose6699 the part of the experience that bothered me the most wasn’t the storm itself. It was the fact that one of my next door neighbors evacuated without their dog. Now I live in St. John the Baptist parish. I was in an area that had over 2ft of water. After my area flooded and things were starting to calm down, I heard the dog barking. Now it was barking pretty loud, but it was outside because if it was in the house I wouldn’t be able to hear it that much. I telling I’ve never felt so much anger in my life.
@@uigoku3923 I will never understand that. I hope the poor pup was ok. I’m in terrebonne. We had made arrangements to go to my brother in law’s house in Mississippi with our 2 cats and 1 dog. No way we were leaving them behind. But the idiot place I work for kept dallying and we weren’t released from work until 3 pm on Friday. My husband was working out of Cameron at the time and was released Thursday night so he could come home. Because of that we didn’t finish boarding up and securing the property until late on Saturday. By then the interstate was jammed and there were reports that gas stations along the way were out of gas. We decided to ride it out rather than risk getting caught on the road in a cat 4-5. Things were badly mishandled by parish officials here.
Whos here whilst Hurricane Milton is happening rn
me :(
I lived through some of these. Ivan was bad. Michael was horrendous, and isn't even on this list. I can't believe Michael wasn't even an honorable mention.
Hurricane Sandy literally affected the mountains of Maryland in a way you wouldn't expect. Garrett County temperatures were so low that Sandy came as heavy wet snowfall. It caused the eastern white pine trees to snap like twigs. It totally changed the landscape of Swallow Falls State Park forever. I literally have two albums of photos Swallow Falls - pre Sandy and post Sandy. A completely different set of photos.....
Peace Swegle been loving your content for the past few months. Sending you the idea to do top 10 worst F4 tornadoes
Good video bc a lot of these storms aren't well known.
Storms that weren't on the list that could have been off the top of my head Hazel, Hugo, Irene and Matthew. And im here after Helene so that will absolutely make top 3 in the the future.
Hey Swegle, I’m from Vancouver, BC where we get smashed with some pretty crazy atmospheric rivers, especially one we got in 2021 that flooded a significant portion of the Fraser valley. Always thought atmospheric rivers would make a neat subject for a video. Thanks mang.
Funny. I'm from the Island and watching Swegle has made me appreciate that besides the flooding every once in a while we're so lucky when it comes to natural disasters. No tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis or bad earthquakes. Though that flooding did hurt us as I'm in food services and all our deliveries come from the Abbotsford area.
atmospheric rivers?
I lived in Houston all my life and saw tons of hurricanes, but none of them were like Harvey. In the past, you knew the storm was coming, but that it would leave within a day. This one just camped out and we were all literally trapped in our homes. I have such a clear memory of the first day the sun finally came out, it felt like the whole city breathed a sigh of relief. Even after the storm was over, there was just so much water. I have a screenshot on my phone of all the closures in my area and I had to maneuver to a different area north of the city to rescue my friend, whose entire apartment complex was underwater. I was only able go get within three blocks of her place and she had to wade through water with two dogs in order to get to me. In the end, her building was completely condemned because of the water damage and her car had been flooded as well. Thankfully, my own home was okay other than roof damage, we happened to be on a tiny hill compared to the rest of the neighbourhood and that saved us. I wouldn't wish that whole experience on anyone. I no longer live in Houston for many reasons, but I had so much PTSD when it came to storms that I still struggle with it, 7 years later, even though I live in Germany, where those kinds of storms just don't happen.
You nailed it. I was living in China with my wife and decided to go back home to Houston to spend some time with my parents. Harvey hit and that ended up being one of the worst decisions I ever made, and I survived Ike with 3 weeks no electricity. I live in Katy for that reason now, and the last hurricane hit us directly. Getting harder to avoid these things.
I think another hurricane to have somewhere would be hurricane Ivan. It started off the coast of northwest africa, moved across the atlantic, went below floride, turned back around and hit alabama and louisiana, came off the west coast, moved back down and hit south florida, moved back across the gulf of mexico and hit texas where it eventually dissipated
That hurricane fucking hated florida for some reason
Ivan is the one I remember most around 2005. Hit my area pretty good
Same@@toychannel7331
Excellent video, you actually used actual photos. Very professional. Thanks from St. Petersburg, Florida.
As a survivor of a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew, I find its listing as an honorable mention scandalous. It made landfall as a Category 5 and cost today's equivalent of $56 billion in damage.
Yeah my grandparents survived Andrew and it destroyed their entire neighborhood, they didn’t have electricity for weeks and lived in a trailer for months because of how bad it was
i agree I live in West Palm Beach, and tho not impacted like Southern Dade County, but seeing all the damage done on the news was heartbreaking.
I was in Wilkes Barre and seeing the destruction of Hurricane Agnes made was devastating.
I grew up in Ashley. I remember going to Knoebles when I was a kid and seeing the markers on the trees for the high-water lines. I wasn't born until 2 years after Agnes, but plenty of people still talk about it.
At least I got to play in the Blue Coal coal breaker a bunch before they knocked it down :)
Watched all my friends lose their houses in Harvey. I was just right outside the flood zone in our neighborhood. That absolutely sucked because there wasn’t much I could do to limit their suffering.
I worked at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during Katrina and Rita. We were tasked with trying to find the children separated from their parents during the absolute chaos that were the post-hurricane rescues. The Exploited Child Unit looked into the numerous incidents in the Superdome as well. It took weeks - and a lot of phone calls with distraught and angry parents - but to my recollection, each family was reunited. The totality of those disasters, both storm damage and the human toll, will never leave me.
Hurricane Micheal truly is the forgotten Category 5. It totally flattened/destroyed Mexico Beach to nothing, and absolutely ravaged Panama City (Not Panama City Beach, which was relatively untouched yet somehow always gets the attention). The amount of trees and forest that were leveled is relatively unprecedented. The trees that made it out alive are growing at an angle, and on the side of the wind the limbs are gone making the trees look totally unique and weird. There are still parts of town to this very day that need plenty of work, blue tarps on the roofs abandoned houses, people still fighting their insurance companies. Nobody had a cell phone connection for weeks to communicate with worried family members because it totally destroyed our grid. I went 60 days on the dot without power with no generator, no cash, no water (the no water was the worst part for me, even the city took almost a month to turn the water back on but even then it was a slow trickle and wasn't supposed to be used for anything except rinsing off). I had no food. Thankfully our neighborhood stuck together and we all made sure we shared what we had, worked for eachother cutting trees up and off our houses, helping clean up etc. We couldn't leave our neighborhood to get any supplies for over 3 weeks because the amount of downed trees made it impossible for vehicles to get in/out, and it took days for the storm surge to recede. We had looters running around stealing from people at gunpoint and there was next to zero law enforcement or medical aid. The town is nothing like it used to be. It has changed so much. The population of the town has doubled since then with developers buying up derelict properties and land, jacking up the prices of rent and everything else you can think of. From Panama City to Mexico Beach is a completely different landscape with almost a completely different population. Absolutely bizarre in and of itself, but also bizarre in the next to zero attention it has gotten as one of only 4 Cat 5 hurricanes to hit the mainland US.
Hurricane Andrew got snubbed. The accidental release of the Burmese Python has almost led to the eradication of several native species and thinking about the damage ecologically it may have been the worst hurricane of all time
I was surprised that Andrew didn’t make the list. I was a toddler in broward and I remember Andrew being THE hurricane that everyone talked about but it was SO COMPACT.
I was also very shocked that Sandy didn’t make it.
As someone who was living in broward when we were directly hit by Wilma and in Lee county when they were directly hit by Ian, I am profoundly appreciative of Ian making the list.
Ian was horrible for so many reasons, particularly the failures at the state and county level. It was also SO SLOW and 10 hours of the highest winds nonstop is very unnerving particularly without power and without adequate warning to even get to a store while they were still open….😳
Hurricane katrina literally has a song based on it that's how known and famous it is. Also, i have family who live in Mississippi. im so happy they lived. I dont know how, but im happy.
16:01 Would enjoy that. Recently went down the rabbit hole on Katrina for the first time since watching it live. Lots of Wikipedia, looking at Google Maps and other maps of the extent of flooding, watching Five Days at Memorial mini series, and watching urban explorer YT vids looking at some of the places still abandoned today around New Orleans. Approaching the 20th anniversary and it's staggering to see how much of the city is still not fully recovered or at least torn down and ready for something new to replace.
Doesn’t anything actually mention what happened outside of New Orleans? Nobody seems to ever mention that part.
@@crazydrummer181 I mean, 80% of a major US city flooding in some areas up to ~18 feet deep in water and flooding persisting for weeks, displacing 400,000+ people some of whom never returned is a massive story compared to "some town of 500 on the Mississippi coast took the eyewall!"
New Orleans is the center of attention because the levees failing turned a significant storm into arguably the greatest natural disaster to strike the US this century so far with a staggering human impact. It also demonstrated incredible failures of local/state/federal gov't, infrastructure, emergency management, etc.
I'm sure you can find info on the other impacts of Katrina, but New Orleans is without a doubt the centerpiece that gets the most attention for good reason.
@@tHebUm18 I know the story of New Orleans. I live 45 minutes outside of it. The Mississippi coast had a population of around 400,000 before Katrina. Basically every coastal city was completely wiped off the map. Not just flooded, but completely leveled. The highest recorded storm surge in US history was during Katrina, 28 feet in Mississippi. Many people were never able to return and over 200 died. I lost some good friends and countless childhood memories that day. Forgive me for expecting at least some kind of recognition outside of New Orleans.
Gotta update your list now... LOL
It’s tragic out here tonight I got friends that stayed in Florida I hope they alright. I’m in NC and my entire backyard is flooded and the storm hasn’t even got here yet it’s wild man
Crazy thing is nobody knew it was gonna be a cat 4 the news didn’t mention that it didn’t turn cat 4 until 30 minutes before impact
@keonhobgood1551 I mean.. I followed up on the Storm and it was prognosed that it will strengthen over the warm water and might as well turn out to be a cat 4 if not 5.. Nd that was said 2-3 days before Helene hit.. so idk, the info was definetly there on the internet
And may need to update it yet again if Milton slams into us here in Tampa. 😢
That's a fact. Thoughts and prayers for those in NC. Terrible what's going on.
Wow, I had heard the Galvaston hurricane was bad, but did not understand why. With the island being only 9 feet above sea level and the tidal flood being higher than that, NOW I understand.
That hurricane is why a seawall now exists
Thanks for including Ian. My family lost everything in that and I was only a teenager and didn't know how to handle things like that. We flooded so much.
If you do that video on the before and after images of Katrina, I'd love to help with pronunciation of the weird names us Cajuns have
Tell him to actually mention the hundreds of miles of catastrophic damage that occurred outside of New Orleans, since that’s all Katrina is remembered for.
@@crazydrummer181 No kiddin!! Katrina wasn't just about NOLA.💀
I honestly feel like Camille is way too underrated
Camille destroyed my hometown
Thank you Jake for talking about these hurricanes, around August 7th, me and my family was hit by Tropical Storm Debby, we were only hit by the outer bands of it as it moved through Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina, Virginia (where I live).
Sadly it made landfall in Florida and claimed 6 lives in total, we are okay though.
:)