If you’re like me you’re probably channel-surfing between CNN and the other new networks watching the coverage of hurricane Gustav as it approaches the Gulf Coast. As someone who lived in Miami for eight years and went through many hurricanes, including the record 2005 season, I can attest to the hype surrounding Gustav. It’s refreshing to hear the media taking this category 3 storm seriously. I’m sure some people think that he media is being overly dramatic about the storm and sensationalizing - so I thought I’d share what is probably my favorite picture from the record breaking 2005 hurricane season. The damage you see in the picture if from hurricane Wilma which was actually the strongest (in terms of pressure) hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. When it passed through Miami and Ft. Lauderdale it came through as a very strong category 3 (almost a category 4) storm. While the hurricane intensity scale goes up to five, it’s important for people to know the kind of damage that just a category 3 storm can do. New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana is in for a rough ride.
The building above is an office building in downtown Miami. While it look like the damage is isolated to the top floors I can assure you that the damage continues down the building blocked by the other building in the foreground. This happened to be the most devastated building in downtown but countless others were damaged in similar ways. As we walked around downtown immediately after the storm we found every street in downtown Miami covered in 1-inch thick skyscraper window glass that had been blown out of Miami’s skyline. It took more than six months before most building windows were replaced and more than a year for all of downtown Miami’s building to return to their normal appearance.
Update:
Gustav has since made it’s run through Louisiana, and now Ike has hit Texas also as a category-2 (borderline category-3) storm. If you pull up pictures of the Chase Financial tower in downtown Houston, it’s eerily similar to my pic from Miami. A hurricane does not have to be a cat-4 or 5 to do severe damage.