Will Emily be retired?

[Derek Ortt]

2000 wer ekilled in Nicaragua, 7000 in Hounduras; thus, the 2000 figure is accurate as it was with a feature similar to the one that killed those in Stan

[Jim Cantore]

ah I got you now

[AussieMark]

that mitch toll will never be known tho.

the 9,000 estimate from Mitch is a estimate I think going from memory at the time.

quite often when u have disasters like with Mitch in central america
Georges and Jeanne in Hispaniola the total death toll is never really 100% accurate.

[Extremeweatherguy]

that mitch toll will never be known tho.

the 9,000 estimate from Mitch is a estimate I think going from memory at the time.

quite often when u have disasters like with Mitch in central america
Georges and Jeanne in Hispaniola the total death toll is never really 100% accurate.

yes, you can never tell for sure. The same thing happened with the Great Galveston hurricane of 1900. The "official" death toll stands at 8,000, but in reality, the total number killed may have topped 15,000.

[HurricaneBill]

yes, you can never tell for sure. The same thing happened with the Great Galveston hurricane of 1900. The "official" death toll stands at 8,000, but in reality, the total number killed may have topped 15,000.

I think many often forget that the Galveston hurricane affected more than just Galveston Island.

[f5]

how many more people could of been killed had Mitch made landfall with 180 mph sustained winds?

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Every one

[HurricaneBill]

how many more people could of been killed had Mitch made landfall with 180 mph sustained winds?

Honestly? I think the toll would have been lower. Keep in mind, the reason Mitch was so deadly was because he pretty much parked off the coast of Honduras for a couple days and this resulted in non-stop heavy rains in the same areas. I think one area in Honduras received 72 inches of rain!

Regardless of intensity, the deadliest storms often seem to be the slow-moving supersoakers.

[Derek Ortt]

FEMA handed out millions to Miami/Dade county where they didnt even get tropical storm winds.

There was damage to Miami-Dade from Frances, had gusts approaching 70 mph and the rains caused some damage

[Derek Ortt]

had Mitch moved quickly as a 5 inland, far feweer would have died

[Audrey2Katrina]

that mitch toll will never be known tho.

the 9,000 estimate from Mitch is a estimate I think going from memory at the time.

quite often when u have disasters like with Mitch in central america
Georges and Jeanne in Hispaniola the total death toll is never really 100% accurate.

yes, you can never tell for sure. The same thing happened with the Great Galveston hurricane of 1900. The "official" death toll stands at 8,000, but in reality, the total number killed may have topped 15,000.

While there is absolutely no doubt that the Galveston storm of nearly 106 years ago is (and will hopefully ever be--but that's doubtful) the worst natural death toll in US history from a tropical cyclone, I have never seen a figure that high. Not even the monument dedicated to that storm in Galveston itself (which cites 6,000 dead) remotely suggests a number that high. There is no doubt it was horrendous by any standard. One out of every six residents was killed; but the toll I hear most frequently is something between 8-10,000, at the high end, and those numbers are the ones that DO include areas besides Galveston.

http://www.qsl.net/w5www/hurricane.html

The Discovery channel did an excellent documentary on this storm and brought out the fact that many of the dead "may" have been double-counted as their initial attempts at taking thousands of the bodies out and dumping them from a barge only resulted in the bodies being brought back in ghoulishly decomposed, so they resulted in cremating them. Because of this, and less than the most reliable statistic gathering methods at that time, it is a certainty that we will never know the actual death toll of the storm; but given that in accounting for those whom they found, and those who were missing, the given estimate of 6,000 from Galveston proper and 2,000 from other areas, is probably close to the mark.

A2K

[HurricaneBill]

While there is absolutely no doubt that the Galveston storm of nearly 106 years ago is (and will hopefully ever be--but that's doubtful) the worst natural death toll in US history from a tropical cyclone, I have never seen a figure that high. Not even the monument dedicated to that storm in Galveston itself (which cites 6,000 dead) remotely suggests a number that high. There is no doubt it was horrendous by any standard. One out of every six residents was killed; but the toll I hear most frequently is something between 8-10,000, at the high end, and those numbers are the ones that DO include areas besides Galveston.

http://www.qsl.net/w5www/hurricane.html

The Discovery channel did an excellent documentary on this storm and brought out the fact that many of the dead "may" have been double-counted as their initial attempts at taking thousands of the bodies out and dumping them from a barge only resulted in the bodies being brought back in ghoulishly decomposed, so they resulted in cremating them. Because of this, and less than the most reliable statistic gathering methods at that time, it is a certainty that we will never know the actual death toll of the storm; but given that in accounting for those whom they found, and those who were missing, the given estimate of 6,000 from Galveston proper and 2,000 from other areas, is probably close to the mark.

A2K

I read somewhere that another problem was that the surge caused cemataries to "burp up" their coffins and that caused problems identifying the hurricane dead.

Also, were African-Americans excluded from the toll like in the 1928 hurricane?

[benny]

The RA-IV meeting is going on this week so we will soon know what names are retired and what their replacements are. My guess is that Emily will be gone, along with Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, Wilma... perhaps Beta... depends on what the respective countries want.

[StormScanWx]

When will this meeting conclude? Is there a link about this meeting?

[f5]

Mitch with 180 mph winds with overland gust approaching 250 mph would tear those improvish people's homes to shreads which would have resulted in a huge humanilitian crisis beacuse those homes are just huts.Central Amercia has a high povery rate despite the nice travel resorts you see on the travel channel which is rather deceving

[HurricaneBill]

Mitch with 180 mph winds with overland gust approaching 250 mph would tear those improvish people's homes to shreads which would have resulted in a huge humanilitian crisis beacuse those homes are just huts.Central Amercia has a high povery rate despite the nice travel resorts you see on the travel channel which is rather deceving

With a monster Category 5 threatening, I'm sure there would be massive evacuations.