Hurricane Floyd Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hurricane Floyd - Essay Example The Hurricane Floyd activated the third biggest evacuation in the United States record where 2.6 million seaside residents were moved from their homes as the hurricane approached (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Hurricane Rita, among the Atlantic Hurricanes, came to be the fourth–most extreme to ever be registered. It was the most extreme tropical cyclone, in the Gulf of Mexico, ever seen. The coast of West Africa was its origin and moved westward though the Straits of Florida. Hurricane Floyd preparedness and response compared to Hurricane Rita Both Hurricane Floyd and Hurricane Rita were so devastating causing a lot of damage to property and death. The hurricane Floyd caused rainfall over North Carolina. This is a place that had just recently been hit by Hurricane Dennis. This rain led to massive flooding in the area and the rivers were registered to have exceeded the 500-year flood levels. Hurricane Floyd caused the death of 57 people and the damage recorded was estimate d at $4.5 billion which is an equivalent cost of $6.31 billion in 2013 (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Hurricane Rita overwhelmed low-lying areas near the shore in Louisiana causing effects of Hurricane Katrina that had just happened a month ago to worsen. Lake Charles was hit by massive flooding. In Texas, the massive damage was due to the hurricane winds. The hurricane led to nine counties in Texas to be declared as disaster areas. There were interrupted electric services in the states of Louisiana and Texas for weeks after the hurricane. The damage caused by hurricane Rita along its path was calculated and given to be about $12 billion dollars which is $15.2 billion dollars in 2013. In the four states of United States directly affected by Rita, there was a fatality of 120 people (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). When Hurricane Floyd was predicted, the United States started to enact some measures in preparation of the Hurricane. In the official forecasts of the storm though, there was no prediction of the hurricanes movement northwards and that it would weaken before landfall. There was high hurricane alert on the East coast from Florida to Massachusetts although it turned out that only a part of this region experienced the hurricane winds. In planning for a possibly disastrous landfall, there was evacuation of one million and above residents of Florida. Two hundred and seventy two of those evacuated were from Miami-Dade County. There was a declaration of emergency by the president of United States, Clinton, in both Georgia and Florida in expectation of the Hurricane. There was more evacuation when the storm started heading north. Not all areas evacuated were hit by the storm, but this showed a lot of preparedness in the United States during Floyd (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Several things were done way better in preparing for Hurricane Floyd than in hurricane Rita. The first problem arose because the prediction of the hurricane Rita was not do ne early enough like that of hurricane Floyd. This was to prove to be a huge error because it provided for a very short time for a large number of people to be evacuated. Hurricane Rita is known to have sparked the largest evacuation in the history of the United States estimated at 2.5 – 3.7 million people. Hence the time that was needed to evacuate this large number of p