Hurricane Francine is the sixth named storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, and one of a number of hurricanes to take aim at the Gulf Coast over the last several years.
Hurricanes have hit Gulf Coast states every year since 2016. They have prompted evacuation orders from Texas to Florida, devastated coastal communities and left major cities including Houston partially underwater. Hundreds have died as a result of these storms.
As tropical storms and hurricanes have intensified, government officials in Gulf Coast states have had to plan ahead for major impacts.
August 2024: Hurricane Debby
Hurricane Debby hit Florida’s Big Bend area, south of Tallahassee and west of Gainesville, in early August. The storm left Cedar Key, a cluster of small barrier islands, badly battered and flooded, with beach houses severely damaged and at least one R.V. park submerged.
The storm was only briefly a Category 1 hurricane, but it caused widespread damage in and beyond Florida because of the sustained rainfall it brought to several states. Parts of Florida received close to 20 inches of rain, while parts of Georgia got about a foot.
Between Debby and Francine, there was a lull. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 17 to 25 named storms for the year’s hurricane season, an “above-normal” number — hurricane seasons typically produce 14 named storms, on average.
(When a storm system’s wind speeds reach 39 miles per hour, it becomes a tropical storm and is given a name. At 74 m.p.h., it becomes a hurricane.)
June 2024: Hurricane Beryl
Hurricane Beryl became the earliest recorded Category 5 storm to form in the Atlantic. After wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, Beryl weakened and made landfall in the United States as a Category 1 hurricane in southeast Texas at the end of June.
The storm killed at least seven people in Texas and an eighth in Louisiana, and knocked out power for nearly three million. Some of the deaths were caused by falling trees.
August 2023: Hurricane Idalia
Hurricane Idalia also smashed into Florida’s Big Bend area in 2023, making landfall as a Category 3 storm with 120-mile-per-hour winds and a storm surge of seven to 12 feet along the coast, placing it among the strongest storms to have hit the area.
September 2022: Hurricane Ian
Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm, thrashed Southwestern Florida in September 2022 and killed an estimated 160 people, the majority of them in Florida. The hurricane killed more people in that state than any other storm in nearly 90 years. Many drowned. It left entire huge numbers of people without electricity, drinking water or habitable homes, and Gov. Ron DeSantis said it would take years for the area to recover.
August 2021: Hurricane Ida
On the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ida made landfall on the Southeastern Louisiana coast near Port Fourchon as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of up to 150 m.p.h. Far from where it made landfall, the storm caused devastation. In several northeastern states, flash flooding stranded drivers, grounded flights and led to the deaths of more than 50 people. In total, more than 90 deaths were attributed to the storm.
August 2020: Hurricane Laura
Laura was one of the strongest storms on record to hit Louisiana. It made landfall in the United States in late August in Cameron, La., as a Category 4 hurricane and continued to carve a path of destruction as it moved north. More than a dozen deaths were ultimately attributed to the storm.
October 2018: Hurricane Michael
Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle as a Category 5 hurricane in October 2018, leaving places like Mexico Beach looking as if they had been hit by a tsunami.
Gov. Rick Scott called Hurricane Michael “the worst storm that our Florida Panhandle has seen in a century.” With winds of around 150 m.p.h., Michael remains one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States.
September 2018: Hurricane Irma
Hurricane Irma made landfall in the United States at Cudjoe Key, Fla., as a Category 4 storm. Barbuda and other islands in the Caribbean had been devastated by the storm before it arrived in the United States, and officials warned that its impact on Florida could be catastrophic. However, cities like Naples were spared; the Florida Keys and Marco Island saw most of the damage.
August 2017: Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas in late August 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, causing severe flooding, dozens of tornadoes and at least 68 deaths. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit Texas in more than a century.
The post Gulf Coast States Have Been Battered by Hurricanes in Recent Years appeared first on New York Times.