14. The Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928
The Okeechobee Hurricane was one of the deadliest in history, causing great death and destruction in the Caribbean before striking the United States’ territory Puerto Rico and ultimately the American mainland in Florida. Formed off the coast of Africa in early September, by the 13th it became a Category 5 storm, having already taken more than 1,200 lives in Guadaloupe. Around six o’clock that day the storm struck Puerto Rico, still at Category 5 strength. The storm damaged more than 200,000 homes, completely destroyed more than 24,000, and killed at least 312 people as it ravaged the island with the ferocity of winds which exceeded 160 miles per hour. Once the storm was once again over the Atlantic and sweeping through the Bahamas it weakened to a Category 4, on a direct course for the Florida Coast. Half a million Puerto Ricans behind it were left homeless.
On September 17 the storm, still a Category 4, crashed into West Palm Beach Florida, with a storm surge which forced water out of Lake Okeechobee at its southern shore. The displaced lake water and the storm surge created hundreds of square miles under water at depths of up to twenty feet. The storm turned to the northeast, reentered the Atlantic, and made another landfall at Edisto in South Carolina. It spent most of its fury in Florida, by the time it struck Edisto it was at Category 1 strength, and it quickly dissipated over the Carolinas. In total the storm killed over 4,000 people in the Caribbean and the United States. About 2,500 of the fatalities were on the US mainland, the vast majority of them killed by the flooding from Lake Okeechobee in Florida.