3. Hurricane Diane hit North Carolina in 1955
During the hurricane season of 1955 North Carolina found itself the target of three separate hurricanes, all of which made landfall along its coastline. One of the storms was Hurricane Connie (in those days all hurricanes were given female names) which struck just south of Wilmington on August 12. Five days later Diane hit the same area, though it had weakened to a tropical storm prior to landfall. Diane crawled up the eastern Atlantic states, through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, before returning to the Atlantic south of New York City, though the heavy rains it produced created flooding in southern New England. The worst flooding in the history of Connecticut was generated by Diane’s heavy rains.
Diane destroyed more than 800 houses, damaged more than 14,000 more, and in New England alone caused the breach of more than 200 dams and levees. The ensuing floods swept away bridges and towns, destroyed crops, and damaged roads and other infrastructure. Areas of eight eastern states were declared federal disaster areas in the storms wake. Across the region which suffered from the storm and the disasters it spawned at least 184 people lost their lives, 101 of them in the flooding the hurricane generated in Pennsylvania. The name Diane was stricken from the list of names to be assigned to hurricanes in tribute to the damage caused by the storm, despite it being a tropical storm when it first came ashore.