History Of Hurricanes

Anyone who's watched the local news when a hurricane just hit an area near them has seen the destruction. Demolished buildings, downed trees, flooded streets. Maybe the reporters had talked about how there was no internet, and how only certain spots had service. Hurricanes can cause all of these things, and unfortunately, more. 

There are the storm surges that can come crashing in, sending terrific amounts of water to flood the streets of that poor town being destroyed by that hurricane. Storm surges happen when water is pushed into the coast by a spinning hurricane. Then there are the tornadoes. Hurricanes can spawn them, and of course tornadoes can cause destruction. Tornadoes can start fires, destroy houses, knock down telephone poles, leaving no service, break dams, so they can start flooding, etc. Another weapon that hurricanes are armed with is the rain. Heavy rain, shooting down like bullets from the sky. The rain can cause flooding. It is also what the rain bands are made out of. Rain and thunderstorm clouds. The rain bands stretch around the eye wall, and they can go on for hundreds of miles. And of course, there is flooding. If there is enough flooding somewhere, a place where humans lived and breathed can be turned into the Lost City of Atlantis. Now, most of a hurricane's damage is caused by storm surges and flooding, but a hurricane does have it's wind. Lots of intense winds can send debris - leftover bits of waste and remaining pieces of things - flying through the air. In some hurricanes, bits of structures, parts of vehicles, and other debris can be sent airborne. 

Recent Hurricane Helene hit Florida on September 26, 2024 in Category 4, but the effects reached all the way up to North Carolina. Rural areas around Asheville, NC, and the town of Black Mountain, a town near Asheville, lost access to highways and emergency services, and so National Guard helicopters were bringing food to communities for weeks. Some didn't realize how bad the hurricane was going to be until less than a week before. “It took us a while to realize how bad the damage was.” says Emily Greenwalt, a resident of Black Mountain. She and her family evacuated to Vermont, which many around them did as well, even though a mandatory evacuation wasn't called. A mandatory evacuation means that if you're able to leave, you have to. But just because a mandatory evacuation isn't called, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't leave. If you want to stay on the safe side, you should leave, if possible. 

Hurricanes have some very long-term effects. In Florida, a place prone to hurricane activity, the FBC (Florida Building Code) makes it so that all new construction in Florida must have either impact resistant windows or hurricane shutters. These things can be expensive, and due to the price of new housing in Florida, the demographic of people living there, sadly, may soon change.