After almost a week of making landfall in northwest Florida as a category 4 hurricane, Helene It is currently responsible for more than 200 deaths and is now the second deadliest cyclone recorded in the continental United States in the last 50 years.
Ahead of him, already with a considerable advantage, is the hurricane Katrinawhich with 1,392 deaths attributed is among the five deadliest tropical cyclones in the history of the United States, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of this country.
These are the deadliest hurricanes to hit the continental United States in the last 50 years:
‘Katrina’ (2005)
The huge hurricane Katrina hit the US coast of the Gulf of Mexico with virulence in August 2005. It first made landfall in Keating Beach, Florida, as a category 1 cyclone, and then reached Louisiana and Mississippi as a category 3. The highest number of deaths were reported in the city of New Orleans (Louisiana), which registered catastrophic floods by storm surge.
According to NHC records, Katrina is surpassed by the hurricane known as Great Galveston, in Texas, of 1900 and which is estimated It claimed at least 8 thousand lives, as well as that of Lake Okeechobee, in Florida, in 1928 and responsible for some 2,500 deaths.
‘Helene’ (2024)
It entered northwest Florida, in the area known as Big Bend, on the night of September 26 with a category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale (out of a maximum of 5) and from there it left a wake of at least 800 kilometers of devastation across six states in the southeastern United States. In North Carolina, The death toll rises to almost a hundred, especially in the area south of the Appalachian Mountains, but authorities do not rule out that the number will increase in the coming days.
‘Ian’ (2022)
The powerful hurricane Ian entered the United States through the west coast of Florida and, as Helene, He did it with category 4. It left 156 deaths mainly in Florida, as well as North Carolina and Virginia. After destroying more than 19,000 homes and buildings in Lee County, where Fort Myers is located, Ian It made landfall again in South Carolina.
The “superstorm” ‘Sandy’ (2012)
It caused at least 147 direct deaths and a catastrophic storm surge on the coasts of New York and New Jersey, where made landfall at the end of October like a gigantic post-tropical cyclone.
‘Harvey’ (2017)
It produced record-breaking rains in Houston, Texas, a state whose central coast faces the Gulf of Mexico. made landfall on August 25, as a category 4 hurricane. The death toll reached 103 and caused destruction in that state and in Louisiana.
Other hurricanes worth mentioning are Agnes (1972), which claimed 128 lives, especially in the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Maryland, where considerable flooding after the cyclone made landfall in northwest Florida as a Category 1 hurricane.
Likewise, the hurricane Audreywhich made landfall in Louisiana in June 1957 as a category 3, and was responsible for more than 400 deaths after recording a storm surge of up to 3.5 meters (12 feet) in areas of that state and Texas.
And finally, the hurricane Mariacategory 4, which in September 2017 devastated Puerto Rico and is considered the most destructive in the recent history of the Caribbean island, which almost entirely was left without electricity.
Although 67 deaths were initially attributed to it, a subsequent study carried out by George Washington University on behalf of the government of Puerto Rico, raised the number of fatalities to 2,975.
EHR
