ABC News
Gulf Coast Suffers Record Hurricane Season
Gulf Coast Suffers Through Deadly, Disastrous, Record-Setting Series of Gulf Coast Hurricanes
By DEBORAH HASTINGS AP National Writer
The Associated Press
Oct 22, 2005 —Not in the last century, since it was decided that the dead and detritus of every hurricane should be recorded, has there been such a disastrous barrage of wind and rain and saltwater on the Gulf Coast.
Twenty-one tropical storms and hurricanes in the past five months, the most ever in a single season. So many there was only one letter left in the tempest alphabet W and that has gone to Hurricane Wilma.
The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency responsible for christening these uncontrollable offspring of nature, has never before run out of names. (There is no X, Y or Z, no U or Q not enough proper nouns begin with those letters, the agency says.) If there are more before the season ends on Nov. 30, and a potential storm was brewing this weekend south of Puerto Rico, noms de storms revert to the Greek alphabet, beginning with Alpha.
By July, one month into the season, there were already seven named storms tropical storms Arlene, Brett and Cindy, hurricanes Dennis and Emily, and tropical storms Franklin and Gert.
The worst of that bunch was Dennis, which from Independence Day to July 12 battered coastal Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and many spots in the Caribbean with 150 mph wind. At least 32 people died. In Tallahassee, Fla., more than seven inches of rain poured down in four days, more than a normal summer month's worth.
After that beginning, the busiest-ever storm season got worse. Much worse.
The end of August brought Hurricane Katrina, whose damage statistics are still being tallied. The National Hurricane Center says Katrina may be the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. It will take a very long time to decide that.
Because of huge backlogs of autopsies at Federal Emergency Management Agency morgues, it has been impossible to sort the dead from the missing (among them the lost souls whose bodies were sucked into the gulf and not returned). As of this past week, the death tally stands at more than 1,280 across five states.