The Greatest and Deadliest Hurricanes to Impact the Bahamas: The Stories Behind the Great Storms

By Wayne Neely and Bill Read

The Bahamas is ideally located directly in the path of hurricanes in the North Atlantic. These massive tropical cyclones have been ravaging the Bahamas since the Lucayan Indians blessed these islands with their presence. Now for the very first time, these greatest and deadliest Bahamian hurricanes have been presented and documented in book-form. Such named storms include Hurricanes Andrew, Floyd, Donna, Dorian, David, Matthew, Betsy, Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma. While other unnamed storms include, The Great Nassau Hurricane of 1926, The Great Abaco Hurricane of 1932, The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1866, The Great Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, and The Great Andros Island Hurricane of 1929. The Bahamas hurricane season, which lasts from June to November, has seen plenty of catastrophic storms throughout history. Here's a look at some of the greatest and deadliest storms that have hit the Bahamas over the past five centuries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532089220

Wayne Neely

Wayne Neely is a noted Bahamian meteorologist, international speaker, best-selling author, lecturer on hurricanes, and meteorologist. Traveling extensively throughout the region and worldwide, Wayne addresses critical issues affecting all aspects of hurricanes. He majored in Geography, History, and Environmental Science at the University of The Bahamas. He has written 14 best-selling books on hurricanes. Wayne has written for National Geographic, Weather-Wise Magazine, Weather Brains, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, People, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The Nassau Guardian, The Nassau Tribune, and the American Meteorological Society. He regularly speaks to schools, colleges, and universities worldwide. He has been a hurricane advisor for Jeopardy, The History Channel, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. His book, The Great Okeechobee Hurricane, was featured in National Geographic. In addition, he has contributed to and was featured in PBS/NOVA documentaries: 1) Killer Hurricanes, 2) Hurricane Dorian, and 3) MyRadar-Climate Series.

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Copyright © 2019 Wayne Neely.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-8923-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8922-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019919740

iUniverse rev. date: 12/05/2019

CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

William (Bill) Read

Preface

Author’s Note

Introduction

Chapter One

The History behind the word ‘hurricane’

and Other Tropical Cyclones’ Names

Chapter Two

The Naming of Hurricanes

Chapter Three

How Bahamians Tracked and Monitored

Hurricanes in the late 1800s and early 1900s

Chapter Four

The Major Bahamian Hurricanes from 1494 – 1600

Chapter Five

The Major Bahamian Hurricanes from 1600 – 1800

Chapter Six

The Major Bahamian Hurricanes from 1800 – 1900

Chapter Seven

The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1866

(or the Great Nassau Hurricane of 1866)

Chapter Eight

The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1899 impact on the islands of The Bahamas (or The Great San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899)

Chapter Nine

Damages Sustained to Shipping after the Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1899

Chapter Ten

The Major Bahamian Hurricanes from 1900-1919

Chapter Eleven

The Great Nassau, Miami and Havana–Bermuda Hurricanes of 1926

Chapter Twelve

The Impacts of the three Hurricanes of 1926 on the Various Islands throughout The Bahamas

Chapter Thirteen

The Great Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas and Florida

Chapter Fourteen

The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929 or the Great Andros Island Hurricane of 1929’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas

Chapter Fifteen

The Great Abaco Hurricane of 1932’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas

Chapter Sixteen

The 1933 North Atlantic Hurricane Season-The year The Bahamas was Impacted by 4 Hurricanes and 1 Tropical Storm and their Impacts on the Islands of The Bahamas

Chapter Seventeen

The 1941 and 1945 Hurricanes Impacts on the islands of The Bahamas

Chapter Eighteen

Hurricane Donna’s impact on the islands of The Bahamas in 1960

Chapter Nineteen

Hurricane Betsy’s impact on the islands of The Bahamas in 1965

Chapter Twenty

Hurricane David’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas in 1979

Chapter Twenty-One

Hurricane Andrew’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas in 1992

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hurricane Floyd’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas in 1999

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hurricane Michelle’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas in 2001

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne’s Impacts on Islands of The Bahamas in 2004

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hurricane Wilma’s Impact on the Islands of The Bahamas in 2005

Chapter Twenty-Six

Hurricanes Katrina, Noel, Irene and Sandy’s Impacts on the Islands of The Bahamas in 2005, 2007, 2011 and 2012

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hurricanes Joaquin, Alex and Matthew’s Impacts on the Islands of The Bahamas in 2015 and 2016

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hurricanes Arlene, Irma, and Dorian’s Impacts on the Islands of The Bahamas in 2017 & 2019

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Personal Recollections of Past Bahamian Hurricanes

Conclusion

Sources

Acknowledgment

About The Book

About The Author

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated first and foremost to all the victims of these Greatest and Deadliest Bahamian Hurricanes. By telling of their stories of heroism and tragedy amid such adversity in this book; it is my hope and desire that their stories will forever be told in the annals of the Bahamian history. Furthermore, it is also my hope that these stories will live on for future generations of Bahamians to read about and to appreciate why these storms were regarded as, ‘some of the greatest and deadliest hurricanes to impact The Bahamas.’

To my dad and mom Lofton and Francita Neely thanks for the great love and support you’ve showed me over the years. To my Uncle and Aunt Coleman and Dianna Andrews thanks for being there for me during my time of need…I will never forget what you did for me.

To the late Mr. William Holowesko, it was your great kindness and support for me by lending me personal copies of your books on hurricanes that got me started on this faithful and noble journey of documenting the great hurricanes of The Bahamas and the region. I will not forget you, nor the contributions you made in assisting me with writing these books…RIP.

To Mr. Les Brown, who at a conference held in The Bahamas, through his own unique way and method reminded me: 1) Pass it on; 2) It is important how you use your down time; 3) Someone’s opinion of you doesn’t have to become a reality; and 4) In the time of adversity, expand! To the late Dr. Myles Munroe, who always reminded me to: 1) Die empty! 2) Pursue my purpose! 3) Purpose is when you know and understand what you were born to accomplish. Vision is when you see it in your mind and begin to imagine it! and 4) Maximize my potential. I listened to them, and this book is the result. Thank you, Mr. Les Brown and Dr. Myles Munroe, for your invaluable contributions to my life.

A) The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you-Tony Robbins.

B) The secret of getting ahead is getting started-Mark Twain.

C) If there is no struggle, there is no progress-Frederick Douglass.

D) The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

FOREWORD

I am pleased to introduce the reader to Mr. Wayne Neely’s latest book. The Greatest and Deadliest Hurricanes to Impact The Bahamas – the stories behind the Great Storms of the Islands of The Bahamas. Mr. Neely is an accomplished meteorologist with the Bahamian Weather Service and is an acknowledged expert on hurricanes and The Bahamas. In this book Wayne provides a very detailed compilation of the meteorology, impact, and societal implications of the many storms that have crossed The Bahamas during the Nation’s long history. While there are many documents that describe one or several of the important storms in our history, none have covered in one volume the entirety of hurricanes in The Bahamas. In doing so, Mr. Neely has provided a valuable service for those who wish to understand how hurricanes have shaped the history and economy of The Bahamas. Included in the book are easy to understand descriptions on the science behind hurricanes and of the changing understanding of the forecast challenges we who live along coasts threatened by these storms face.

As a collector of books written about hurricanes and society, I will treasure the addition of this new volume to my collection. I particularly enjoyed the added Bahamian history Wayne has included for context. I will enjoy referring to this book for interesting facts of storms from long ago. For people living in the Islands as well as other hurricane prone areas, The Greatest and Deadliest Hurricanes to Impact The Bahamas – the stories behind the Great Storms of the Islands of The Bahamas is a must read!

Bill Read

Director, U.S. National Hurricane Center 2008-2012

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William (Bill) Read

Former Director of the U.S.A’s National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida (Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center).

WILLIAM (BILL) READ

William L. Read has served the United States Navy and the National Weather Service during his career. His weather service career began in 1977, and he has worked in Sterling, Virginia, Fort Worth, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, Silver Spring, Maryland, Houston, Texas, and Miami, Florida over the years. Bill was appointed as the Deputy Director of the National Hurricane Center from August 2007 until he was selected for the position of Director on January 25, 2008.

Bill served in the U.S. Navy, where he served as an on-board meteorologist with the Hurricane Hunters. He began his weather service career in 1977 with the National Weather Service test and evaluation division in Sterling, Virginia. He served as a forecaster in the Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas offices before becoming the severe thunderstorm and flash flood program leader at the National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. Read was appointed to direct the Houston/Galveston weather forecast office in 1992 and led it through the National Weather Service modernization and restructuring program of the mid-1990s. He was also part of the Hurricane Liaison Team at the National Hurricane Center in Miami when Hurricane Isabel came ashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in September 2003. Bill Read became the Director of the Tropical Prediction Center, which includes the National Hurricane Center and two other divisions, in Miami, Florida in January 2008 and served until June 4, 2012 when relieved by Richard Knabb. Read had previously served as the center’s acting Deputy Director between August 2007 and January 2008.

Bill received the National Hurricane Conference Public Education Award in spring 2004 for hurricane preparedness efforts. Under his leadership, the Houston/Galveston forecast office conducted an annual Houston/Galveston Hurricane Workshop, which was considered the largest meeting of its kind in the United States.

PREFACE

For the foreseeable future, policies that reduce disaster losses will be those that focus on increasing disaster preparedness. Linking rising disaster losses to climate change distorts the science and points us away from the policies that can be most effective in preparing for disasters.¹

In 2005, when I first wrote a book of similar characteristic, I had every intention of not adding a second volume of that book. Over the last 14 years of increasing research materials, new and more accurate weather records and hurricane information available to me I felt compelled to add a more complete and accurate listing of the greatest hurricanes to affect The Bahamas. This is because increasing disaster threats not only reflect the devastating onset of events such as hurricanes, but also the changing demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the North Atlantic coastal populations. A large, destructive, and violent hurricane, for instance, passing over the open ocean presents little danger. On the other hand, a relatively weak hurricane can pose significant risks to human life and can result in great economic losses in densely populated areas. While the intensity is important, of equal or greater importance is the presence of a population whose demographic or socioeconomic characteristics may place its members at greater risk of harm before, during, and after a hurricane disaster.

More than fifteen years ago, when I got the initial idea to write my first book about one of the greatest storms to affect The Bahamas called by the locals The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929, or the Great Andros Island Hurricane of 1929, one of the first and obvious places where I conducted research for my book was at the National Hurricane Center, the governing body for hurricanes of the North Atlantic basin, located in South Florida in the United States. About 90-95% of all the worldwide research works on hurricanes or better yet tropical cyclones are conducted in the North Atlantic region even though it only accounts for 12% of the world’s total of tropical cyclones. I got a lot of work done there and upon leaving one of the hurricane researchers suggested that I get a hold of several books by noted hurricane authors if I wanted to continue to write future books on hurricanes. He sarcastically wished me good luck as he wrote the names of the book titles and authors’ names on a blank paper for me.

He commented that most of those books were out of print and if I did find any, the prices for these books would be very expensive. Sure, enough I searched everywhere including, all our libraries in The Bahamas, eBay and other online bookstores and found one of the books but at a crazy price out of range of my limited budget at the time. By the next day, it too was bought, and I was back at square-one. The names of the books among others were: 1) José Millas’s, book published in 1968 called, Hurricanes of The Caribbean and Adjacent Regions 1492-1800. 2) Ivan Ray Tannehill’s book published in 1950 called Hurricanes-Their Nature and History-Particularly those of the West Indies and the Southern Coasts of the United States. 3) Marjorie Stoneman Douglas’s book published in 1958 called, Hurricane.

It is an amazing story of how I got my hands on some of these books. At the time, I had just started interviewing persons about their recollections about this deadly hurricane in 1929. One of the first persons I interviewed about his recollection of this hurricane was a man by the name of Mr. Andrew McKinney. After he was finished his recollections to me, he then recommended that I should interview a lawyer by the name of Mr. William Holowesko as he might be able to assist me. I asked myself how would an attorney be able to assist me with information on this or any other Bahamian hurricanes? I reluctantly took his advice and went to see Mr. Holowesko at his office in downtown Nassau called Bay Street, expecting nothing but a dead-end and wasted time. When I finally met him, and told him I was writing a book about, the Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929 and someone recommended I speak to him. He then told me that he wasn’t born in The Bahamas to experience this hurricane firsthand, but he said he heard his mother-in-law and others, frequently talking about this very devastating hurricane.

He told me that he has several books on hurricanes which he felt could help me. He then opened his metal bookcase and the first three books he removed from this bookcase and handed them to me made my heart skip a beat. To my surprise, there were those three books I searched desperately for locally and internationally but to no avail. In fact, his copy of Hurricanes by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas had the author’s original signature in it further increasing its’ value. I remembered staring at the books with no emotions on my face but deep inside I wanted to jump up and scream with joy. He then looked at my blank stare and asked me if these were useful books that I could use, and I immediately told him yes. Then he told me that I could use them but only in his office because he didn’t know me, but he would put a desk and chair in the back of his office in the research area, to allow me to conduct my studies there while using these books.

After three or four consecutive days of me coming into his office to use these books, he came to my desk and asked me how my research work was coming along? I told him it was coming along just great and the books were of great help to my research. Surprisingly, he then told me that I could take the books home and simply bring them back when I was finished with them because he now trusted me. I thanked him and did just that and today all those books he loan to me formed the foundation of all my 13 books on hurricanes. It didn’t end there; as the book project was coming to an end, he gave me a monetary contribution towards the publication of my next book. He then suggested I approach the local insurance companies to ask them for sponsorship in return I could feature their companies’ names, address, and logos in my book as a form of advertisement to defray the cost of publishing my future books. Today, I still have many of these companies sponsoring my books each year and I owe this to Mr. William Holowesko.

Shortly, before he died, he summoned me to his office, and he went to his library and gave me stacks of books on Bahamian history and hurricanes in general. At the time, he was very frail and walked with the assistance of a cane. Clearly, he was gravely ill and didn’t have much longer to live, he with his weak, feeble hands, hoarse voice and frail body shook my hand and hugged me and told me to make good use of the books he gave me. I promised him I would do just that and will make him proud of me one day thanks to the great sources of books I used from him. I then walked out of his office with stacks of books and tears in my eyes. That was the last time I ever saw him alive because he died shortly thereafter. This book is dedicated in memory of him.

In this book, the reader will learn about the vulnerability perspective in hurricane disasters, which is rapidly emerging as a dominant view in the North Atlantic, assumes that a real hurricane disaster occurs when it strikes an underprivileged population. Vulnerability is formally defined as the characteristics of a person or group and their situation that influences their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hurricane hazard.² Implicit here is differential vulnerability; that is, different populations face different levels of risk and vulnerability. Consequently, policies aimed at addressing risk and vulnerability must also consider these differential impacts and outcomes of these storms disasters. Although the sources of vulnerability are multiple and quite diverse, some of the most important factors that affect vulnerability include population growth and distribution and social diversity, as this book will clearly show later.

This book is about devastating hurricanes and tropical storms and more specifically, how these great storms of The Bahamas impacted people and their lives. Furthermore, it depicts how they have changed the built and natural environments of The Bahamas over the last five hundred years. It is important to note that, it draws on the extraordinary expertise of dozens of historians, meteorologists, highly noted scholars, scientists, and institutions tracking hurricanes and understanding of, and relationship with, the climate system on planet Earth. This book was written for the general reader. It is intended to bring to life important and fascinating historical periods that were impacted by The Bahamas most devastating hurricanes. I must add that it is not an exhaustive history of these hurricanes. Indeed, many more pages would be required even to address adequately the tangled skein of these hurricanes impacting The Bahamas.

Contemporary weather forecasting has made it quite conceivable to monitor, track, and forecast the path of deadly hurricanes with ease, thanks in part to and with the help of advanced weather equipments and technology such as, satellites, radar, and 24-hour-a-day watch over the North Atlantic basin with the assistance of super-fast computers and dynamic computer weather models. Even with these advancements, these powerful storms have the strength to destroy homes, cities, and lives. As a result, there could be great devastation in the areas impacted by these storms.

Combining hurricane history, first-person accounts, and basic hurricane science, this book takes a closer look at the most terrifying and devastating storms of The Bahamas. In addition, it also features the stories behind them and what made them so unique and memorable in the annals of The Bahamas’ hurricane history. Witness nature’s fury as some of the greatest and deadliest hurricanes to impact The Bahamas comes alive. Grab a chair, sit down and relax as I take you on a journey down memory lane through the archives of these deadly storms. Each of these hurricanes is like fingerprints on a hand: no two are alike but each one has a unique and compelling story to tell, as you will see later in this book.

Witness the rage of Hurricane Andrew, the great death tolls of the Great Bahamas Hurricanes of 1866 and 1899, which along with other deadly hurricanes greatly impacted the entire Bahamas. See the massive size and great clean-up costs associated with Hurricanes Dorian, Floyd or Matthew, the unbelievable deadly flood waters of Hurricanes Frances, Noel and Jeanne as they battered most of the eastern most islands. These islands, along the eastern-most coastal locations like Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island and Grand Bahama, experienced the brunt of these hurricanes. In this book you will visit many of the greatest and deadliest hurricanes of The Bahamas firsthand and see their destructive aftermaths. Spanning more than five centuries and drawing on extensive archival research in Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, this book emphasizes the continuing role of race, societal inequality, and economic ideology in the shaping of our responses to hurricanes.

Hurricanes have played an amazing role in The Bahamas panorama. They have literally altered the lives and society of Bahamians great and small. At times they have even changed the course of our political, geographical, and economic history. Furthermore, they have even transformed the shape of our islands’ coastlines, from Grand Bahama in the north to Inagua in the south. There have been hurricanes whose effects were felt on the shores of the Old World as well as the New. Hurricanes Matthew, Joaquin, Andrew, Floyd, Betsy, The Great Abaco Hurricane of 1932, The Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1929, The Great Nassau Hurricane of 1926 and others are mentioned in great details, partly because of the deadly, powerful and record-breaking features associated with them.

Today, it is fair to say that these hurricanes are now anchored in the archives of Bahamian weather history. Nonetheless, I must add that they are certainly not alone in significant deaths and massive devastation they created in the archipelago of The Bahamas. There have been many others before or after them, and they were certainly just as compelling, as this book will clearly show. This book will feature some of the strongest, most damaging and deadly hurricanes to ever affect The Bahamas. From the time of Christopher Columbus, the Spaniards and others traversing these waters in late 1490s and 1500s, the pirates of the 1600s and 1700s, the local Bahamian sponger men of the late 1800s to early 1900s, up to Hurricane Dorian in 2019, no stone will be left unturned to discover the effects of these mysterious but powerful hurricanes and the impact they had on the Bahamian society. This book does not include every single hurricane to significantly impact this country. However, it does provide an almost complete profile and history of some of the more notable or notorious Bahamian hurricanes.

Despite the numerous hurricanes that struck The Bahamas over the years and centuries, we still behave as if hurricanes disasters are outliers. Why else would we continue to build in flood prone areas or along the shorelines of The Bahamas in droves? The word ‘disaster’ in its simplistic form means ‘a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction.’ The word could have little meaning in the absence of humans; for example, it could only be used to describe the effects of a moving hurricane on the built environment. Without a human to judge whether that is a disaster or not, that concept remains in the world of academic discourse. Hurricanes, without a shadow of a doubt when they encounter man’s ever-expanding society, are some of the greatest disasters the natural world can produce or throw at us on this volatile planet. Just the mention of its name makes humans quiver with fear, anxiety or fascination. Thankfully, hurricanes as large and powerful as they are, only become a significant issue or a great disaster when they encounter some populated town, city or country that humans have inhabited.

Scientists say that the Earth’s climate is a non-linear system, and this is just another fancy way of saying, that the climatic changes on Earth are not all gradual but they can come suddenly in big jumps. The Earth’s climate is like a giant heat engine that transports heat energy away from the equator towards the poles, and cold energy from the poles to the equator. The Earth has a simple but effective and fascinating way of achieving these dynamic mechanisms or processes. For example, to take the built-up cold air from the poles and transfer it to the hot equator is accomplished primarily by frontal systems, upper-level winds and oceanic currents. On the other hand, to remove warm air from the equator and transfer them to the poles, hurricanes, upper-level winds and oceanic currents are the primary sources for this cycle of heat transfer. Of all the various sources, hurricanes are some of the most efficient forms of heat transfer within the Earth’s atmosphere. In the final analysis, none of these systems ever gets to completely accomplish their primary goals or mandates. For example, while taking heat from the equator to the poles, the hurricane eventually dies out in the tropical or temperate latitudes before making it to the poles. On the other hand, a cold front travelling from the poles to the equator becomes so modified that it eventually dies out before making it to the equator. The result of this heat and cold transfer of energy exchange is life on planet Earth as we know it to be today. In addition, it creates a climate, which we as humans can not only live with but thrives on a planet that supports all kinds of lifeforms due to these vital and dynamic mechanisms of heat and cold transfer within planet Earth.

When Hurricane Matthew in 2016 engulfed wide swaths of the coastal areas of The Bahamas, including North Andros, Nassau, Grand Bahama and other islands in the Northwest Bahamas, it became an instant symbol of a new age of extreme weather disaster fueled by the possibility of climate change. But is it, really? As one of the most dangerous kinds of extreme weather, hurricanes already pose a significant human threat to anyone living anywhere along the Atlantic, the Caribbean, The Bahamas, North and Central American and Gulf Coasts locales and other tropical cyclones troubled spots. If we face the prospect of routine superstorms amped up by the extra heat and moisture in the Earth’s fickle atmosphere from global warming—or, in the case of Matthew, merging with other weather systems and turning into massive weather disasters—that’s a truly apocalyptic threat.

But like many questions in science, this isn’t a simple or straight forward case of cause and effect. Many scientists accept the broad premise that a hotter climate likely contributes to some increase in hurricane strength, that this process is already underway, and that it will intensify. There’s also unambiguous evidence that sea-level rise, another product of climate change, will contribute to higher, more dangerous storm surges. Beyond that, though, the science of meteorology gets more speculative, as it’s based on computer models tracking the complex dynamics of climate and weather and sometimes incomplete records of hurricane data. There’s a lot of uncertainty built into hurricanes. Here’s a look at what we know, and don’t know, about global warming and hurricanes.

First, hurricanes act as the earth’s filter system removing polluted and toxic air out of the atmosphere and without them the atmosphere over time will get more toxic and eventually not support life. Second, hurricanes, in a nutshell are giant heat engines. They play a critical role in the transfer of heat energy from the equator to the poles. They transfer latent heat energy from the oceans to the atmosphere, transforming some of it into mechanical energy in the process: the turbulence of hurricane-force winds and giant waves. If you introduce more heat into such a system, warming up the atmosphere and the oceans, it stands to reason that the venting will grow stronger. High sea surface temperatures lead to the evapouration of moisture, which provides fuel for the storm. Then it gives it up in the form as latent heat and that’s what powers the storm. Together they provide for stronger storms.

Let’s look at another storm as an example-Superstorm Sandy which devastated the Eastern Seaboard of the United States in 2012. Sea surface temperatures off the East Coast were about 3 degrees Celsius above average at the time Sandy approached and some speculated that perhaps 0.6ºC of that, was attributable to global warming. With each degree rise in sea surface temperatures, the atmosphere holds 4% more moisture, which may have boosted rainfall by as much as 5% to 10% over what it would have been 40 years ago. Scientists have wrestled with this vexing question for decades, trying to understand the systematic relationships between the atmosphere, Earth’s climate, the oceans, and hurricanes.

MIT climatologist Professor Kerry Emanuel (Ph.D.) first suggested a link between climate and hurricanes in a 1987 academic paper, which proposed a new method for measuring overall hurricane force. Normal measurements such as barometric pressure, maximum strength, sustained wind speeds, or size, are constantly changing, and thus do not convey much about the storm’s overall performance. Instead, he came up with an absolute baseline called the power dissipation, roughly equivalent to the total amount of energy a storm expends over its lifetime, which can last weeks. (In physics, power is a measurement of energy expended over time). Emanuel’s analysis of past storm data demonstrates that this has fueled the cumulative violence of cyclones, far beyond what his initial theories predicted. Hurricanes Joaquin, Matthew, Irma and Dorian validated this point many times over in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019 respectively, when they struck and devastated The Bahamas.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Over the last 28 years of my life as a professional Bahamian meteorologist, hurricanes and their impact on my country of The Bahamas and the region have led me to write thirteen books on hurricanes. These books have allowed me to procure some of the best meteorologists in the business to write the foreword for me, from Bryan Norcross (Ph.D.), Hurricane Specialist at the Weather Channel; the late Herbert Saffir, co-creator of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale; Phil Klotzbach (Ph.D.), from Colorado State University; the late Professor William Gray, from Colorado State University. Steve Lyons (Ph.D.), former Hurricane Specialist at the Weather Channel and now meteorologist in charge of the San Angelo National Weather Service Office in Texas. Chris Landsea (Ph.D.), Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center; and Kerry Emanuel (Ph.D.), Professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Michel Davison, lead Forecaster and Chief Coordinator of Administration at the US Weather Prediction Center, NCEP’s (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) International Desks of the U.S. National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration.

Every new book I write and publish on hurricanes, I feature a meteorologist or a person in the science field who has made a significant contribution to the science of meteorology to write the foreword for my new book. You might not know their names, but if I were to mention these individuals’ contributions, I am sure most persons will immediately recognize them for their life’s work. This book is no different with Mr. William Read. This was done not only to add credibility to these books but also to show the importance of hurricanes and their significant impact on the lives of people of all walks of life in The Bahamas, this region and worldwide.

INTRODUCTION

The weather may very well be mankind’s most widely discussed topic. Its effects are all-pervasive, ranging from the trivial issue of whether we should wear a certain colour or style of clothing to work or whether we should take an umbrella to work to tragedies that unfold during extreme weather events such as hurricanes or floods. The weather dictates the kind of life we live, the way we build our homes, the way we dress and to what we eat. In conjunction with the geological forces at work on our planet, the weather has shaped the landforms around us, and the variety of life here on Earth reflects nature’s myriad solutions to the range of meteorological conditions that have occurred throughout history. There is nothing like them in the atmosphere. Born in warm tropical waters, these spiraling hurricane masses require a complex combination of atmospheric processes to grow, mature, and then die.

Hurricanes are not the largest storm systems in our atmosphere or the most violent, but they combine these qualities as no other phenomenon does. In the North Atlantic basin, they are called hurricanes, a term that echoes colonial Spanish and Caribbean Indian words for evil spirits and big winds. These powerful storms have been a deadly problem for residents and sailors ever since the early days of colonization. Today, hurricanes damages cost billions of dollars, but fortunately, people injured or killed during tropical cyclones have been steadily declining. However, our risk from hurricanes is increasing. With population and development continuing to grow exponentially along coastal areas, greater numbers of people and property are vulnerable to the threat of hurricanes. Large numbers of tourists also favor coastal locations, adding significantly to the problems of emergency managers and local decision-makers during a hurricane threat. It is important to add that hurricanes can’t be controlled, but our vulnerability can be reduced through preparedness and education.

The North Atlantic hurricane season is the period in the year when hurricanes usually form in the North Atlantic region. Tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic basin are called hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions. In addition, there have been several storms over the years that have not been fully tropical and are categorized as subtropical depressions and subtropical storms. Even though subtropical storms and subtropical depressions are not technically as strong as tropical cyclones, the damage can still be devastating. Worldwide, tropical cyclone activity peaks in late summer, generally late July to mid-September, when the difference between temperatures aloft and sea surface temperatures are at their greatest. However, each basin has its own seasonal and climatic tropical cyclonic patterns and can vary considerably from one year to the next, depending on the atmospheric and sea surface temperature conditions at the time.

The size of The Bahamas and its geographical and societal conditions makes it susceptible to influences associated with hurricanes. In fact, of the various types of hurricanes impacting the North Atlantic (Bahama Busters-type, Cape Verde-type, Gulf of Mexico-type and Southern or Western Caribbean-type) all make their presence felt here with most of these hurricanes passing through or near The Bahamas. In the North Atlantic there are four different types of hurricanes that influence us in some way or the other. The first is the Cape Verde type hurricane which as it namesake suggests, it originates off the African Coast in the vicinity of the Cape Verde Islands initially moving in a westerly direction and then in a west-northwest to a northwesterly track as it makes its way through the Caribbean. The Cape Verde Islands is an archipelago about 400 miles off the West African. One notable example of this would be Hurricane Dorian in 2019. This type of hurricane forms over the North Atlantic mainly during the early part of the season, June thru mid-September months when the easterly waves are most dominant features in the Caribbean region. At the beginning and the middle of the hurricane season, storms also tend to form near The Bahamas and this type has come to be known as ‘Bahama Busters’ according to world renowned late Professor William Gray from Colorado State University. An example of this type was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This hurricane formed just east to The Bahamas from a TUTT Low and moved initially westward and then northwestward into the Gulf of Mexico and then over Louisiana.

Then there is the Gulf of Mexico type, which as its names suggest originates in the Gulf of Mexico and influences Latin America, and the Gulf Coast of the United States. With this type of hurricane, The Bahamas mainly only gets the outflow of this hurricane spiral rain bands. Finally, there is the southern or western Caribbean Sea type which forms during the early and late parts of the hurricane season and forms in the most notable location near the southern Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Honduras mainly in May and June and mid-September thru late November. The formations of these cyclones are due in part to the seasonal movement of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, also known as the equatorial trough. From its inception, this type of hurricane seems to take a northward movement, which normally takes a track over the island of Cuba and into The Bahamas, the severity of which is influenced by how long the cyclone remains over the mountainous terrain of Cuba. An example of this type of hurricane was Hurricane Michelle in 2001.

For this reason, many of the islands (notably Grand Bahama, Abaco and Andros) are in the top ten places to be hit or brushed by hurricanes passing through the North Atlantic. In fact, some other countries are only impacted by one or two of the different types of hurricanes impacting the region. Take, for instance, Barbados, which is basically only affected by the Cape Verde-type and the Southern Caribbean-type hurricanes. The Bahamas is in a unique position when it comes to the various types of hurricanes impacting the region, because it is affected by all four types of hurricanes, and only the state of Florida in the United States can equal this record.

Climatology serves to characterize the general properties of an average season and can be used as one of many other tools for making accurate forecasts. Most storms form in warm waters several hundred miles north of the equator near the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) from tropical waves. A tropical wave, in the Atlantic Ocean, is a type of atmospheric trough, an elongated area of relatively low air pressure, oriented north to south, which moves from east to west across the tropics, causing areas of cloudiness and thunderstorms. The Coriolis effect is usually too weak to initiate enough rotation near the equator. The Coriolis effect is an inertial or apparent force which causes particles or objects in motion to be deflected towards the right of motion in the northern hemisphere. It is negligible near the equator because there is no turning of the surface of the Earth (in terms of rotation) underneath a horizontally and freely moving object’s or particle’s path as measured relative to the Earth’s surface. The object path is straight, that is, there is no Coriolis effect. This is the reason why some countries like Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean are rarely impacted by hurricanes due to their proximity to the equator.

Storms frequently form in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the tropical North Atlantic Ocean as far east as the Cape Verde Islands, the origin of strong and long-lasting Cape Verde-type hurricanes. Systems may also strengthen over the Gulf Stream off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, wherever water temperatures exceed 26.5°C (79.7°F), the minimum threshold for hurricanes to form. Meteorologists in the twenty-first century are still attempting to comprehend these powerful storms in greater detail and calculate the massive energy they release. Today, their power is sometimes expressed in a measure that did not exist in the distant past–atomic bombs. When a hurricane reaches its peak intensity, it may release energy equivalent to 500,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs, although that energy is distributed over a wide, expansive area and is not concentrated as it would be in an atomic bomb explosion.³

Although most storms are found within tropical latitudes, occasionally storms will form further north and east from disturbances other than tropical waves such as cold fronts and upper-level lows. These are known as baroclinically induced tropical cyclones. There is a strong correlation between the North Atlantic hurricane activity in the tropics and the presence of an El Niño or La Niña event in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño events increase the wind shear over the North Atlantic, producing a less-favorable environment for formation and decreasing tropical activity in the North Atlantic basin. On the other hand, La Niña causes an increase in activity due to a decrease in wind shear. In general, El Niño tends to decrease hurricane activity across the North Atlantic and vice-versa for La Niña across the North Atlantic.

El Niño causes strong upper-level winds that can prevent tropical cyclone development or tear apart a tropical system. El Niño is always a welcome sight in the North Atlantic, but stronger ones are always preferred. When it comes to La Niña the opposite applies. El Niño and La Niña have great impact on the world’s weather. El Niño and La Niña are common meteorological terms that we hear frequently in the seasonal hurricane forecasts – and with good reason. El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by warmer than normal water in the eastern Pacific equatorial region. While El Niño occurs in the Pacific Ocean, it has widespread impact on the global climate and displaces the different weather patterns around the world in both negative and positive ways.

Climatologically, approximately 97 percent of tropical cyclones that form in the North Atlantic basin develop between June 1 and November 30 – dates which delimit the modern-day North Atlantic hurricane season. Though the beginning of the annual hurricane season has historically remained the same, the official end of the hurricane season has shifted from its initial date of October 31. Regardless, on average once every few years a tropical cyclone develops outside the limits of the season; in fact, today there have been 66 tropical cyclones impacting the North Atlantic basin in the off-season, with the most recent being Tropical Storm Arlene in 2017.

The first tropical cyclone of the 1938 North Atlantic hurricane season, which formed on January 3, became the earliest forming tropical storm and hurricane after reanalysis concluded on the storm in December 2012. Hurricane Able in 1951 was initially thought to be the earliest forming major hurricane – a tropical cyclone with winds exceeding 115 mph – however following post-storm HURDAT reanalysis it was determined that Able only reached Category 1 strength which made Hurricane Alma of 1966 the new record-holder; as it became a major hurricane on June 8. Though it developed within the bounds of the North Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Audrey in 1957 became the earliest developing Category 4 hurricane on record after it reached that intensity on June 27. However, reanalysis from 1956 to 1960 by NOAA downgraded Audrey to a Category 3, making Hurricane Dennis of 2005 the earliest Category 4 on record occurring on July 8, 2005. The earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane, Emily, reached its highest intensity on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale on July 17, 2005.

Though the official end of the North Atlantic hurricane season occurs on November 30, the dates of October 31 and November 15 have also historically marked the official end date for the hurricane season. December, the only month of the year after the hurricane season, has featured the cyclogenesis of fourteen tropical cyclones. Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005 was the latest tropical cyclone to attain tropical storm intensity as it did so on December 30. However, the second Hurricane Alice in 1954 was the latest forming tropical cyclone to attain hurricane intensity. Both Zeta and Alice were the only two storms to exist in two calendar years – the former from 1954 to 1955 and the latter from 2005 to 2006. No storms have been recorded to exceed Category 1 hurricane intensity in December. In 1999, Hurricane Lenny reached Category 4 intensity on November 17 as it took an unprecedented west to east track across the Caribbean; its intensity made it the latest developing Category 4 hurricane, though this was well within the bounds of the hurricane season. Hurricane Hattie (October 27-November 1, 1961) was initially thought to have been the latest forming Category 5 hurricane ever documented, though reanalysis indicated that a devastating hurricane in 1932 reached such an intensity later. Consequently, it made this hurricane the latest developing tropical cyclone to reach all four Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale classifications past Category 1 intensity.⁴

June is the beginning of the hurricane season and is most closely related to the timing of increases in sea surface temperatures, convective instability, and other thermodynamic factors. Although June marks the beginning of the hurricane season, generally little activity occurs during the month with an average of 1 tropical cyclone every 2 years. Tropical systems usually form in the Gulf of Mexico or off the east coast of the United States. Since 1851, a total of 81 tropical storms and hurricanes formed in the month of June. During this period, two of these systems developed in the deep tropics east of the Lesser Antilles. Since 1870, three major hurricanes have formed during June, most notably Hurricane Audrey in 1957. Audrey attained intensity greater than that of any other North Atlantic tropical cyclone during the months of June or July until Hurricanes Dennis and Emily of 2005. The easternmost forming storm during June, Tropical Storm Ana in 1979, formed at 45°W.

Not much tropical activity occurs during the month of July, but on average most hurricane seasons see the formation of one tropical cyclone. From 1944 to 1996, the first tropical storm in half of these seasons occurred by July 11, and a second formed by August 8. Their formation usually occurs in the eastern Caribbean Sea around the Lesser Antilles, in the northern and eastern parts of the Gulf of Mexico, near the northern Bahamas (Bahama Buster-type hurricanes), and off the coast of The Carolinas and Virginia over the Gulf Stream. Storms travel westward through the Caribbean and then either move towards the north and curve near the eastern coast of the United States or stay on a north-westward track and enter the Gulf of Mexico. Since 1851, a total of 105 tropical storms have formed during the month of July. Since 1870, ten of these storms reached major hurricane intensity. Only Hurricane Emily of 2005, the strongest July tropical cyclone in the North Atlantic basin, attained Category 5 hurricane status during July, making it the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record. The easternmost forming storm and longest lived during the month of July, Hurricane Bertha in 2008, formed at 22.9°W and lasted 17 days.

In August, a decrease in wind shear from July to August contributes to a significant increase of tropical activity. An average of 2.8 North Atlantic tropical storms develops annually in August. On average, four named tropical storms, including one hurricane, occur by August 30, and the first intense hurricane develops by September 4. The peak of the hurricane season occurs on September 10 and corresponds with low wind shear and the warmest sea surface temperatures. The month of September sees an average of 3 storms a year. By September 24, the average North Atlantic season features 7 named tropical storms, including 4 hurricanes. In addition, two major hurricanes occur on average by September 28. Relatively few tropical cyclones make landfall at these intensities.

In October, the favorable conditions found during September begin to decay in October. The main reason for the decrease in activity is increasing wind shear, although sea surface temperatures are also cooler than in September. Activity falls markedly with 1.8 cyclones developing on average despite a climatological secondary peak around October 20. By October 21, the average season features 9 named storms with 5 hurricanes. A third major hurricane occurs after September 28, in half of all North Atlantic tropical cyclone seasons. In contrast to mid-season activity, the main focus of formation shifts westward to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, reversing the eastward progression of June through August. By November, wind shear from westerlies increases substantially through November, generally preventing cyclone formation. On average, one tropical storm forms during every other November. On rare occasions, a major hurricane occurs. The few intense hurricanes in November includes, the Great Cuba Hurricane of 1932 in late October and early November 1932 (the strongest November hurricane on record peaking as a Category 5 hurricane), Hurricane Lenny in mid-November 1999, Hurricane Kate in late November 1985 which was the latest major hurricane formation on record until Hurricane Otto (a Category 3 storm) of the 2016 hurricane season. Hurricane Paloma was a very powerful Category 4 storm that made landfall in Cuba in early November 2008.

Although the hurricane season is defined as beginning on June 1 and ending on November 30, there have been several off-season storms. Since 1870, there have been 32 off-season cyclones, 18 of which occurred in May. In the same time span, nine storms formed in December, with two formed in April, and one each in January, February and March. For four years (1887, 1953, 2003 and 2007), tropical cyclones formed in the North Atlantic Ocean both during or before May and during December. In 1887, four storms occurred outside the season, the most in a single year. High vertical wind shear and low sea surface temperatures generally preclude tropical cyclone formation during the off-season. Tropical cyclones have formed in all months. Four tropical cyclones existed during the month of January and two of which formed during late December: the second Hurricane Alice in 1954/1955, and Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005/2006. The only two hurricanes to form in January are a Category 1 hurricane in the 1938 season, and Hurricane Alex in the 2016 season. A subtropical storm in January also began the 1978 North Atlantic hurricane season. No major hurricanes have occurred in the off-season.

On a worldwide scale, the month of May is the least active month, while September is the most active. In the Northern Atlantic basin, a distinct hurricane season occurs from June 1 to November 30, sharply peaking from late August through mid to late September; the season’s climatological peak of activity occurs around September 10 each season. This is the norm, but in 1938, the North Atlantic hurricane season started as early as January 3 and more recently in 2017, it started as early as January 12 with a hurricane called Alex. Hurricane Alex was the first North Atlantic hurricane in January since Hurricane Alice in 1955, and the first to form in the month since 1938. The first tropical cyclone of the 2016 North Atlantic hurricane season, Alex originated as an extratropical cyclone near The Bahamas on January 7, 2016.⁵

Tropical disturbances that reach tropical storm intensity are named from a pre-determined list. On average, 10.1 named storms occur each season, with an average of 5.9 becoming hurricanes and 2.5 becoming major hurricanes (Category 3 or greater). The most active season was 2005, during which 28 tropical cyclones formed, of which a record 15 became hurricanes. The least active season was 1914, with only one known tropical cyclone developing during that year. This, however, is considered suspect because of the lack of complete satellite coverage over the North Atlantic basin during this era. During the season, regular tropical weather outlooks are issued by the National Hurricane Center incoordination with the Weather Prediction Center and this occurs for systems which have not formed yet but could develop during the next three to seven days.

Hurricane author Poey (1855) considered hurricane historian Moreau de Jonnes’s chronology of 1822 to be the first chronological list to attempt to document all the known hurricanes in the West Indies dating back to 1495. Southey (1827) produced an important list of hurricanes. He also appears to be the first person to use the newspaper collections of the Reverend Dr. Charles Burney, purchased by the British Museum in 1818. This collection is the core of the British Library-Newspaper Library Collection today. Subsequent lists lean towards relying heavily on pre-existing chronologies (Evans, 1848; Schomburgk, 1848; Johnston, 1855; Poey, 1855). By the time Poey produced his 1855 chronology, the scientific investigation of tropical cyclones had been underway for more than three decades. Sir William Reid (1838, 1849), William Redfield (1831, 1854), and Henry Piddington (1848) were the most important researchers publishing their results.

None of them produced a chronology as such, but Poey drew on their work to supplement his list. He spent time in New York with Redfield copying out all the notes on storms that Redfield possessed (Poey, 1855). The list of Poey is a famous document for students of tropical meteorology. Since 1855, dozens of authors have used his list to produce their own updated lists of hurricanes and tropical storms. Tannehill (1938) used Poey’s list (and those made since Poey’s time) in his updating of the North Atlantic basin hurricane history, omitting all storms in the months of December through May that were included in Poey’s list. This was done because it was well-known by this time that tropical cyclones in these months are very rare and the number too great in the historical record to be accurate. Subsequent work by Jose Millas (1968) confirmed the dating errors from English sources prior to 1752 due to the late acceptance of the Gregorian calendar in England, relative to that of France and Spain. He also made the first critical analysis of the sources used by Poey, rejecting some storms, and including new storms made by his own research. Ludlum (1963) constructed the best chronology of landfalling tropical cyclones in the United States; many of these storms can be associated with their counterparts in earlier history in the Caribbean region. These sources are carried into the North Atlantic hurricane database known as HURDAT (Landsea et al., 2004), and an assessment of their reliability based on new information was made. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has the responsibility for issuing advisories and U.S. watches/warnings for tropical cyclones, which includes tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes, for the North Atlantic and east Pacific basins.

So, you might be wondering why the track forecasts are more accurate today than in the past. Well, the primary reason is the advancements in technology, specifically the improvements in the weather observing platforms (satellites and radars, for example) and the various modeling systems we use to make forecasts. The amount and quality of data available to the models so they can paint an initial picture of the atmosphere have increased dramatically in the last 20 to 30 years. Also, the resolution and physics in the models we use today are far superior to what forecasters had available in the 1990s or prior decades, in part due to the tremendous improvements in computational capabilities. In addition, the National Hurricane Center has found ways to even beat the individual dynamical models by using a balance of statistical approaches and experience.

Predicting the intensity of a tropical storm or hurricane is usually more challenging than forecasting its track. This is because the intensity of these weather systems is affected by factors that are both big and small. On the large scale, vertical wind shear (the change of wind speed and direction with height) and the amount of moisture in the atmosphere greatly affects the amount or organization of the thunderstorm activity that the tropical cyclone can produce. Ocean temperatures also affect the system’s intensity, with temperatures below 80°F usually being too cool to sustain significant thunderstorm activity. However, smaller-scale features can also be at play. One of the more complex phenomena that affect a tropical cyclone’s intensity is an eyewall replacement cycle. Initially, when two eyewalls, one inside the other, are present, the hurricane’s wind field will begin to expand, and as the inner eyewall dies, the hurricane’s peak winds start to weaken. However, if the second eyewall contracts, the hurricane can often re-intensify. Hurricane Irma in 2017, for example, had a double eyewall replacement cycle.

What is most striking about the historical hurricanes impacting The Bahamas one might ask? It is the one glaring fact that we tend to be incomprehensible about the dangers associated with hurricanes impacting The Bahamas. While we are praying and asking God for His Divine judgment to be spared or engaging in rescue and clean-up, it is patently clear that the modern Bahamas fares better in hurricanes than almost any other territory on the planet. That’s important for us because three islands in The Bahamas (Grand Bahama, Abaco and Andros) are always in the top ten areas of the North Atlantic to be hit or brushed by a hurricane. Why was and will The Bahamas be continually be exposed to potential dangers from these historical storms one might ask? Part of the reason for country being actively hit by hurricanes comes directly from our very geography. We have a large and expansive area within our bounraries and over 700 islands and cays. We have no rivers to overflow and break their levees, and we have no mountains to create landslides or flash floods. In fact, the highest point in The Bahamas is Mount Alvernia (also known as Como Hill). It rises to 206 feet (63 meters) and is topped by a monastery called the Hermitage which is located on the Island of Cat Island. Therefore our geography will continue to make us vulnerable to the ravages of future hurricanes.

There are other common ways that people die in hurricanes and probing into our historical archives can tell us how they were killed. People are drowned in storm surges (as happened in Andros and New Providence in the powerful hurricanes of 1866, 1899, 1926, and 1929) and people are killed by falling debris when houses are torn apart, when roofs fly off. Since the 1930s, the number of houses that were torn apart in The Bahamas have been a whole lot fewer, and that is due to the nation’s radio station ZNS coming on stream on May 26, 1936. It had an effective range that encompassed the entire island chain and provided adequate warnings well-ahead of time before the hurricane struck that island. Thankfully, it is fair to say that we have learned how to build for storms with our rigid building codes and this resulted in fewer fatalities.

One might wonder which islands and settlements around The Bahamas where the most intense hurricanes hit, how strong, deadly and impactful they were. What would happen if they were to hit today with the same intensity, and what would be the present-day costs when inflation is factored in? How many persons died in the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, the Great Andros Island Hurricane of 1929 or the Great Bahamas Hurricane of 1866? They are three of the deadliest hurricanes to affect The Bahamas. Meanwhile, the Great Abaco Hurricane of 1932, Hurricane Andrew of 1992, and Hurricane Dorian of 2019 were three of only 4 Category 5 hurricanes on record to impact The Bahamas. Furthermore, which islands were impacted by these hurricanes? Simply, read further on as this book will seek to provide comprehensive answers to these and many other thought-provoking questions. This book will provide a full and unbiased viewpoint of the most destructive, deadliest and strongest hurricanes ever faced by residents of The Bahamas over the last few centuries. This book will seek to examine these questions and come up with this list or gallery of mega-storms.

Today, it’s hard for many younger Bahamians to imagine the possibility of experiencing more than 1 hurricane impacting The Bahamas in one season. Amazingly, one time ago in the 1920s and 1930s, having bumper years of more than one