Puerto Rico - Hurricane Maria
Maria first made landfall near the southeastern town of Yabucoa. The powerful Category 4 storm plowed across the island with sustained winds of 155 mph, uprooting trees, downing weather stations and cell towers, and ripping wooden and tin roofs off homes. Electricity was cut off to 100 percent of the island, and access to clean water and food became limited for most.
Heavy rains and flash floods brought on by the storm exacerbated widespread devastation, turning streets into rivers full of debris. In some areas, floodwaters were waist-high — more than 30 inches deep — and often sewage-ridden.
Hurricane Maria was the worst storm to hit Puerto Rico in over 80 years, and arrived only two weeks after Hurricane Irma passed just north of the island and left 1 million people without power. The effect on Puerto Rican families — and the island’s infrastructure — will take many years to heal.
Houston, TX - Hurricane HArvey
When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas Aug. 25, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane, it became the country’s first major — Category 3 or higher — hurricane since Wilma hit Florida in October 2005 and the first major hurricane to strike southern Texas since Celia in 1970. It kicked off a historically destructive 2017 storm season for the Caribbean and the southern U.S.
Causing about $125 billion in damage, Harvey ranks as the second-most costly hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since 1900. Hurricanes Irma and Maria followed within a month of Harvey, affecting Florida, Puerto Rico, and much of the Caribbean, respectively causing $50 billion and $90 billion in damages.
NEW ORLEANS, LA - Hurricane KATRINA
Hurricane Katrina made landfall off the coast of Louisiana on August 29, 2005. It hit land as a Category 3 storm with winds reaching speeds as high as 120 miles per hour. Because of the ensuing destruction and loss of life, the storm is often considered one of the worst in U.S. history. An estimated 1,200 people died as a direct result of the storm, which also cost an estimated $108 billion in property damage, making it the costliest storm on record.
The devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina exposed a series of deep-rooted problems, including controversies over the federal government's response, difficulties in search-and-rescue efforts, and lack of preparedness for the storm, particularly with regard to the city's aging series of levees—50 of which failed during the storm, significantly flooding the low-lying city and causing much of the damage. Katrina's victims tended to be low income and African American in disproportionate numbers, and many of those who lost their homes faced years of hardship.
Ten years after the disaster, then-President Barack Obama said of Katrina, "What started out as a natural disaster became a man-made disaster—a failure of government to look out for its own citizens."
The city of New Orleans and other coastal communities in Katrina's path remain significantly altered more than a decade after the storm, both physically and culturally. The damage was so extensive that some pundits had argued, controversially, that New Orleans should be permanently abandoned, even as the city vowed to rebuild.
ROCKAWAY, NY - Hurricane SANDY
Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest hurricane of 2012 and one of the most destructive hurricanes in history to hit the United States. Toward the end of October 2012, Hurricane Sandy plowed through the Caribbean — killing 75 people before heading north. As it approached the East Coast, it produced the highest waves ever recorded in the western Atlantic, causing devastating storm surge and floods throughout coastal New York and New Jersey. At one point, Sandy engulfed a swath of 800 miles between the East Coast and the Great Lakes region.
Also called Superstorm Sandy, it caused $70.2 billion worth of damage, left 8.5 million people without power, destroyed 650,000 homes, and was responsible for the deaths of at least 72 Americans.
