most destructive storms
One of the communities blasted by the Tri-State Tornado was Griffin, Ind. The town was completely destroyed.
Many tornadoes leave death, injury and destruction in their wake, but one tornado stands in a class by itself. On March 18, 1925, the Tri-State Tornado struck, and it still remains the deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
Sweeping out from southeastern Missouri, the Tri-State Tornado careened clear across the southern tip of Illinois before finally dissipating in the lower regions of Indiana. What's remarkable is that these three locales are 352 kilometers (219 miles) apart, and the tornado traveled this distance in just three and a half hours [source: SEMP].
To really understand how impressive the Tri-State Tornado was, let's compare it to an average tornado. Typically, tornadoes travel about 45 kilometers (30 miles) per hour and are between 150 to 600 meters (500 to 2,000 feet) wide. Generous estimates suggest they travel an average of 10 kilometers (6 miles) before dissipating [source: Tarbuck]. The Tri-State Tornado, on the other hand, had an average speed of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour and a top speed of 117 kilometers (73 miles) per hour. It traveled more than 36 times an average tornado's usual distance, and some eyewitnesses said its path was nearly a mile wide [source: NOAA].
Although the death toll from this furious storm wasn't a record-breaker, Hurricane Katrina's financial impact was incomparable. Let's take a look at the storm that changed New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region forever.
In August 2005, trouble began brewing in the Atlantic. The storm first began to form in the vicinity of the Bahamas and proceeded to travel across the southern end of the Florida peninsula. The hurricane was relatively tame during its journey in Florida, compared to what was coming. Upon returning to open waters, Katrina strengthened with a vengeance and grew into a Category 5 hurricane. In the 18 hours prior to landfall, it mellowed into a Category 3 storm.
On Sept. 8, 1900, Galveston, Texas, braved a storm of biblical proportions. The island city, located just off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico, had a population of about 37,000 people and bright economic prospects before that fateful day. But on September 9, the city had a population of about 30,000 and millions of dollars in damage [source: The 1900 Storm].
So what brought this turn of events to the people of Galveston? A hurricane -- estimated to be Category 4 strength -- slammed into the unprotected, low-lying island, and the destruction it brought with it was immense. Generally, researchers estimated the Galveston storm's death tolls to be between 8,000 and 10,000 people (wider estimates range from 6,000 to 12,000 people). However, remains were still washing ashore in February of the following year. To this day, it's the deadliest natural disaster to ever strike U.S. territory.
The hurricane's 225 kilometer-per-hour (140-mile-per-hour) winds and 4.5-meter-high (15-foot-high) storm surge demolished 3,600 buildings [source: The 1900 Storm]. The whole island was submerged, and when the waters finally receded, 12 city blocks (nearly three-quarters of the city) were washed away [source: Zarrella]. In the intervening hours, people struggled to stay alive, clinging to anything they could find above water.
The Great Hurricane of 1780
What happens when hurricanes and cyclones hit land?
When hurricanes and cyclones build in strength, people begin to take notice and seem to focus on preparing the coastal area. Ninety percent of hurricane- and cyclone-related fatalities occur when storm surge smashes into the coastline. Storm surge is a wall of water that can accompany the storm and is usually between two to three meters (6 to 10 feet) above the high tide line [source: Tarbuck]. In extreme cases, the storm surge can be much higher -- Hurricane Katrina's storm surge is estimated to have been about 8.5 meters (28 feet) high [source: Knabb]. Also, hurricanes and cyclones typically begin to rapidly diminish in strength soon after they make landfall because they lose contact with their key source of power -- large amounts of warm water.
No hurricane in the Atlantic had even come close to matching the death toll from this massive storm until 1998's Hurricane Mitch, which struck Central America. That hurricane took the lives of 11,000 to 18,000 people, mostly from Nicaragua and Honduras.
However, the Great Hurricane of 1780 still overshoots that devastating statistic. An estimated 22,000 people perished between October 10 and October 16 in the eastern Caribbean, mainly in the Lesser Antilles, with the heaviest losses on the islands of Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados. Beyond these casualties, it's estimated that thousands of sailors, mostly French and British, who were campaigning in the region also perished in the storm when the dramatic weather plowed into their vessels [source: NOAA].
A year before Bangladesh would become an independent nation by seceding from Pakistan, it was struck by a raging cyclone. The cyclone caused chaos on the low-lying costal delta, and according to some, was a contributing factor in the fight for independence.
Although cyclones do not necessarily occur more often in and around Bangladesh, when cyclones strike they cause immense devastation because of the country's topography. The 1970 storm, nicknamed the Bhola Cyclone, proved to be one of the greatest natural disasters in recorded history, even though it only made landfall as a Category 3 storm. Fatality estimates range from 300,000 to one million people, although most estimates put the tally at 500,000 people.
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