What is the hurricanes deadly weapon: storm surge or the high winds?
Hurricane safety materials often say that storm surge is the biggest killer in hurricanes, but that hasn’t been true in the United States for almost 30 years. Historically, surge has been the big killer and it certainly has the potential to kill more people than hurricane winds. In 1969 Hurricane Camille killed 256 people. About half of those deaths were from storm surge when Camille came ashore in Mississippi. Most of the other half were killed when the storm’s remnants caused flash floods in Virginia. Camille’s surge toll would have been much worse if not for a last-minute report from an Air Force hurricane hunter airplane that the storm had strengthened and a prediction from a new storm surge computer model that it would cause major storm surge. The National Hurricane Center stressed the surge danger in its forecasts and local emergency management officials took the warnings seriously and evacuated thousands of people at the last minute. Since Camille storm surge has killed only a h
