Hurrican Essay, Research Paper

Hurricane Erie

On June 12, 3005, Hurricane Erie made land fall on the coast of Virginia. At 4:56am the eye of Hurricane Erie had moved across the city of Fredericksburg. Hurricane Erie huddled over the town of Fredericksburg for an amazingly twenty-four hours. Those twenty-four hours set a record for the most consecutive hours a hurricane sustained in one area. Most hurricanes do not stay in one are for more than ten hours. One day later the town of Fredericksburg was no longer a town. Fredericksburg was completely destroyed. In that twenty-four hour span, five thousand people lost their lives. High winds, storm surges and waves, and flooding were the reasons Fredericksburg was no longer on the map.

Hurricane Erie was categorized as a category five on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. A category five means that the intensity of the winds was exceeding one hundred fifty five miles an hour. The actual recorded wind speed of Hurricane Erie was one hundred seventy miles an hour. These winds caused trees to be lifted from their roots and become flying missiles. These trees slammed into houses breaking windows, screened porches, and the structure of the house. High-rise buildings crumpled to the ground. The winds took mobile homes and threw them twenty feet into the air. Mrs. Abi’s mobile home was found six miles from the original location. Many people lost their cars and boats. Their cars were flipping upside down and some were wrapped around trees. Their boats had either sunk or where in the ground. An estimate of twenty-five billion dollars was the cost alone on wind damage.

The storm surge caused waves over thirty feet high. A storm surge is water that is pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds swirling around the storm. The waters were so strong that they eroded the beach. The once beach called Fun was now part of the Atlantic Ocean. Buildings and homes were swept away from their foundation and sank into the ocean. On the coast of Virginia, there is now a mile of beach going out before the ocean is reached.

Hurricane Erie’s flooding was the main reason why some many people lost their lives and why the town of Fredericksburg was banished from the map. Water weighs about over one thousand pounds per cubic yard. Flooding is caused by intense continuous rainfall. The recorded amount of rain that fell over the twenty-four hour time spanned was over forty inches. The Lowery River that runs through the middle of the town had risen over fifty feet over its banks. Many houses were floating down the street. Cars, trucks, sheds, barns, and buildings have severe water damage.

To this day the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia is still trying to recover for the horrible night of June 12. Three hundred billion dollars is said to be an estimate of the complete damage done by Hurricane Erie. Many of the town’s people who did survive had nothing to go back to. They had no home, car, or clothes. Most of the people who survived moved away from the coast and now live inland. Every time they hear about a possible hurricane in the Atlantic, they flee more inland. That night still haunts them and they are trying to forget those memories of Hurricane Erie.