Rain, rain, go away...
Another hurricane season is ending, but clean-up and rebuilding efforts continue
November 13, 2018
Every fall, we turn on the news and see high winds, lashing rains, and swollen rivers ravaging coastal residents in the United States. Hurricane season peaks between August and October—and this year we’ve met Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Florence, Michael...
But who can forget the deadly storms of 2017?
Houston suffered record rainfall, floods, and deaths from Hurricane Harvey. Puerto Rico, which was slammed by two Category 4 hurricanes in less than a month, is still in ruins.
Did you know?
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"Harvey" was retired from the hurricane name list in April 2018 because of extensive destruction.
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$215 billion... Total damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, both Category 4 storms.
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3 Days... Consecutive time Hurricane Irma held on to Category 5 status in the Atlantic, but even more impressive was that it kept its peak intensity—185 mph—for 37 hours and set a world record.
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80% of New Orleans was underwater after Hurricane Katrina broke the city’s levee system.
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1,000+... Number of commercial flights canceled when Florence hit the East Coast this September.
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1900... Year of the Great Galveston Hurricane—it remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, killing at least 8,000 people. The Weather Bureau, predecessor to the National Weather Service, was only 10 years old.
Remembering Harvey and Maria
We look back a year to Hurricanes Harvey and Maria with three College of Science and Engineering alumni.
Read more about Kenton Spading (Civil Engineering ’84), Jay Axness (Mechanical Engineering ’08), and Ruben Otero De Leon (Electrical Engineering M.S. ’15, Ph.D. ’17) by clicking on the web links below.
For more about Spading, read "Restoring infrastructure to rebuild lives."
For more about Axness, read "Addressing a different sense of urgency."
For more about Otero De Leon, read "Puerto Rico flashback."
Written by Pauline Oo