1947 Fort Lauderdale hurricane
Meteorological history | |
---|---|
Formed | September 4, 1947 |
Dissipated | September 20, 1947 |
Category 4 major hurricane | |
1-minute sustained (SSHWS/NWS) | |
Highest winds | 145 mph (230 km/h) |
Lowest pressure | 938 mbar (hPa); 27.70 inHg |
Overall effects | |
Fatalities | 51 direct |
Damage | $110 million (1947 USD) |
Areas affected | The Bahamas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi |
IBTrACS / [1] | |
Part of the 1947 Atlantic hurricane season |
The 1947 Fort Lauderdale hurricane (Air Weather Service designation: George[2][nb 1]) was a long-lived and an intense tropical cyclone that affected the Bahamas, southernmost Florida, and the Gulf Coast of the United States in September 1947. The fourth Atlantic tropical cyclone of the year, it formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on September 4, becoming a hurricane, the third of the 1947 Atlantic hurricane season, less than a day later. After moving south by west for the next four days, it turned to the northwest and rapidly attained strength beginning on September 9. It reached a peak intensity of 145 mph (233 km/h) on September 15 while approaching the Bahamas. In spite of contemporaneous forecasts that predicted a strike farther north, the storm then turned to the west and poised to strike South Florida, crossing first the northern Bahamas at peak intensity. In the Bahamas, the storm produced a large storm surge and heavy damage, but with no reported fatalities.
A day later, the storm struck South Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, its eye becoming the first and only of a major hurricane to strike Fort Lauderdale. In Florida, advance warnings and stringent building codes were credited with minimizing structural damage and reducing loss of life to 17 people, but nevertheless widespread flooding and coastal damage resulted from heavy rainfall and high tides. Many vegetable plantings, citrus groves, and cattle were submerged or drowned as the storm exacerbated already high water levels and briefly threatened to breach the dikes surrounding Lake Okeechobee. However, the dikes held firm, and evacuations were otherwise credited with minimizing the potential death toll. On the west coast of the state, the storm caused further flooding, extensive damage south of the
On September 18, the hurricane entered the Gulf of Mexico and threatened the
Meteorological history
Hurricane Four was first monitored as an
While retaining its intensity, the storm, its northwesterly course having been blocked by a
Once over water, the hurricane had diminished to about 90 mph (140 km/h);
Preparations
On the evening of September 15, the U.S. Weather Bureau expected the storm to recurve, precipitating a possible landfall between
As the hurricane entered the Gulf of Mexico, initial forecasts expected the storm to strike between
Impact
The Bahamas
As the storm passed nearby,
Florida
The storm killed only 17 people in Florida,[20][34] many fewer than the size and intensity of the storm suggested, largely due to improved warnings and preparations, as well as more stringent construction standards,[9] since the 1920s.[20] The hurricane was not only intense and slow-moving, but also unusually large:[20] some reports indicated winds of hurricane force extended 120 mi (190 km) from the center in all directions.[5] Winds of over 50 mph (80 km/h) spread nearly 150 mi (240 km) in all directions, affecting practically the entire Florida peninsula below the latitude of Brevard County.[20] In spite of the winds, wind-caused structural damage was generally minor;[35][36] in Broward County only 37 homes were irreparably destroyed, primarily small homes or those undermined by coastal waves,[36] while in the Palm Beach area most of the unroofed buildings were small and cheaply built; most newer structures, built since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, resulted in less damage in the September 1947 storm.[35]
Upon making its first U.S. landfall, the storm produced wind gusts estimated at up to 127 mph (204 km/h) in Fort Lauderdale,[20][21] though estimates varied as other observations elsewhere in South Florida ranged from 140 mph (230 km/h)[37] to 180 mph (290 km/h),[38] and up to 150 mph (240 km/h) in Fort Lauderdale itself.[20] Intense wind gusts unroofed hundreds of homes and apartments in the Hollywood–Fort Lauderdale area, and reportedly "few utility poles were left standing, many having been snapped like toothpicks by the 150 mph (240 km/h) gusts."[20] At the Boca Raton Army Air Field, the hurricane destroyed 150 barracks, supply houses, warehouses, the post stockade, the fire station, and the theater and mess buildings.[37] Losses as lately reported were 1947 US$4,500,000,[26] hastening existing plans to close the base.[38][39] At West Palm Beach, 40% of the initial 1947 US$1,500,000 in damages was related to roof damage.[35] Farther south, the 11,000-seat Hialeah race track was mostly unroofed, with barns and paddocks damaged and many of its famed flamingos missing.[40]
On the east coast of Florida, many cities experienced significant flooding; tides of up to 11 ft (3.4 m) affected Broward and Palm Beach counties,[20] washing out large portions of State Highway A1A between Palm Beach and Boynton Beach,[41] as well as between Sunny Isles Beach and Haulover.[20] High tides carved a channel 3 ft (0.91 m) deep and rendered a nearby road impassable while nearly reopening New River Inlet, which had silted over and never re-emerged since the 1935 Yankee hurricane.[42] At Miami Beach many of the 334 resort hotels as well as homes and apartments were battered by waves.[40] There, a three-to-four-ft-deep (0.9-to-1.2-m) layer of sand covered many oceanfront grounds, and nearby neighborhoods on the Venetian Islands, like Belle Isle, were flooded to a depth of several feet.[27] As it crossed South Florida at about 10 mph (16 km/h), the storm dropped a prodigious amount of rain over a broad area, peaking at 10.12 in (257 mm) at Saint Lucie Lock.[20] In Miami, the city manager claimed 200 mi (320 km) of city streets were flooded out, while in Miami Springs half the homes were flooded.[20] The town of Davie, having lost 35,000 citrus trees to floodwaters in preceding months,[36] suffered devastating losses to groves and vegetable beds.[43]
On Lake Okeechobee, concerns about disastrous flooding were heightened by memories of the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane on the south shore and of the 1926 Miami hurricane at Moore Haven. During the storm, tides peaked at 13 ft (4.0 m) on the north shore of the lake[44] and 21 ft (6.4 m) on the south shore at Clewiston and Moore Haven, nearly overrunning the Herbert Hoover Dike that surrounded the lake.[20] However, due to revamped improvements in the dike, the storm caused only minor damage, and the dike prevented a repeat of the flooding of 1926 and 1928, in which over 2,500 people drowned.[45] Nevertheless, floodwaters in the Everglades region resulted in significant losses to cattle, and hundreds of small block homes in the agricultural districts were blown off their foundations.[21][36] Much of the marshy country was waterlogged during and after the storm.[46]
On the west coast of the state, the hurricane produced sustained winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) at Naples, but the
Gulf Coast of the United States
The center of the storm, estimated at the time to have been 25 mi (40 km) wide,
A large part of Greater New Orleans was flooded, with 2 ft (0.61 m) of water shutting down
A
Aftermath
In Florida, a federal state of emergency was declared by then-U.S. President Harry S. Truman.[20] The combined flooding from the September hurricane and a later hurricane in October was among the worst in southern Florida's history, even spurring the creation of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District along with a plan for new flood-control levees and canals.[9][10][52] In New Orleans, the United States Congress approved the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Project to assist ongoing efforts to increase the height of the existing levee along the lakeshore; to bolster the existing seawall in Orleans Parish, an 8-ft-high (2.4-m) levee was erected along lakeside Jefferson Parish.[50] Louisian's Walnut Street Ferry was damaged and never replaced.
The storm is most commonly called the 1947 Fort Lauderdale hurricane but is sometimes referred to as Hurricane George, the 1947 New Orleans hurricane, or the 1947 Pompano Beach (or Broward) hurricane.[53][54] If this same storm were to hit today it would probably do around $11.72 billion (2004 US$) in damages.[55]
See also
- List of Category 4 Atlantic hurricanes
- List of Florida hurricanes (1900–1949)
- Hurricane Andrew (1992) - A devastating Category 5 hurricane that took a similar path
- Hurricane Jeanne (2004) – A Category 3 hurricane that caused major damage when it made landfall in Central Florida
Notes
- ^ Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin were not formally named prior to World War II. Storms such as this one were denoted by their attributes, including coincidence with Catholic saints' feasts. Starting in 1947 the United States Weather Bureau office in Miami, in conjunction with the military, informally applied the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet to Atlantic tropical cyclones; the first storm to be so designated in public advisories was Hurricane Fox in 1950.[3][4]
- ^ All damage totals are in 1947 United States dollars unless otherwise noted.
- ^ Note, however, that reconnaissance-derived estimates of wind speed are considered unreliable prior to the mid-1970s, if not more than a decade later.[15]
References
- ^ "The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492–1996". NOAA/NHC. Archived from the original on August 10, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
- ^ Multiple sources:
- AWS 1948, pp. 15–6
- Barnes 1998, p. 171
- ^ Landsea, Christopher W.; Dorst, Neal M. (June 1, 2021). "Subject: Tropical Cyclone Names: B1) How are tropical cyclones named?". Hurricane FAQ – NOAA/AOML. Hurricane Research Division. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
- ^ Norcross 2007, pp. 138–9.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Sumner 1947.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Atlantic hurricane best track (HURDAT version 2)" (Database). United States National Hurricane Center. April 5, 2023. Retrieved June 15, 2024. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ a b c d e f U.S. Weather Bureau Microfilm. Miami, FL: National Hurricane Center. September 1947.
- ^ a b c "Strong Winds Expected Here Today". Daytona Beach Morning Journal. September 16, 1947.
- ^ a b c d "Three 1947 Storms Produced Record Rainfall". Miami Herald. September 3, 1978.
- ^ a b c d Norcross 2007.
- ^ a b c d Roth, David (2010). "Louisiana Hurricane History". NOAA National Weather Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 5, 2008. Retrieved July 10, 2012.
- ^ "U.S. Daily Weather Maps Project". NOAA. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
- ^ a b "Hurricane Warnings Issued, Lauderdale to Titusville". Miami Daily News. September 16, 1947. p. 1.
- ^ a b c National Hurricane Center; Hurricane Research Division; Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (March 2014). "Atlantic hurricane best track (HURDAT) Meta Data". United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
- ^ Landsea, Strahan-Sakoskie & Hagen 2012, pp. 4444–5.
- ^ Barnes 1998, pp. 193–5
- ^ a b Daily Local Record for Hillsboro Light. Miami, FL: U.S. WBO. September 1947.
- ^ Heath, Richard C.; et al. "Hydrologic Almanac of Florida" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 15, 2004. Retrieved November 22, 2008.
- ^ Williams, John M.; Iver W. Duedall (1997). "Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms: Revised Edition" (PDF). University Press of Florida. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 13, 2007. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnes 1998, pp. 172–3
- ^ a b c d Florida Climatological Data. National Climatic Data Center. 1947.
- ^ Blake; Rappaport & Landsea (2006). "The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones (1851 to 2006)" (PDF). NOAA. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 16, 2008. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
- ^ a b c d USWB 1947.
- ^ a b "Storm Nears Florida: Rich Resort Area Periled". Kingsport News. September 17, 1947.
- ^ a b "Winds Rake Coast in Hurricane Path Nearing Florida". The New York Times. September 17, 1947.
- ^ a b "Boca Field Digging Its Way Out". Delray Beach News. September 26, 1947. p. 5.
- ^ a b "Miami: Beach Hard-Hit". Miami Daily News. September 18, 1947. p. 2.
- ^ "L. W. (Lake Worth) Reports Few Hardships". The Palm Beach Post. September 19, 1947. pp. 1, 4.
- ^ "Storm Heads for Louisiana". The Palm Beach Post. September 19, 1947. p. 1.
- ^ a b c d "Hurricane Hits New Orleans". Windsor Daily Star (Ontario, Dominion of Canada). September 19, 1947. pp. 1–2.
- ^ "Hurricane (Continued From Page 1)". Times Recorder. September 18, 1947.
- ^ "Assess Atlantic Hurricane Damage". Lethbridge Herald. September 18, 1947.
- ^ "Coast Guard Cutter Takes Food, Medicine to Bahama Island". The News and Courier (Charleston, SC). September 21, 1947. p. 3.
- ^ a b "NOAA: Gulf Coast hurricanes". Archived from the original on September 23, 2005. Retrieved September 29, 2005.
- ^ a b c "Loss Reported Many Millions In Palm Beach". The Palm Beach Post. September 19, 1947. pp. 1, 4.
- ^ a b c d "Broward County Takes Stock of Storm Damage". Fort Lauderdale Daily News. September 22, 1947. p. 12.
- ^ a b "Summary Of Damage From Storm In South Florida". Miami Daily News. September 19, 1947. p. 12.
- ^ a b Ling 2005, p. 179
- ^ "The History of the Boca Raton Airport". Boca Raton Airport Authority. Archived from the original on January 23, 2010. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
- ^ a b "Wind-Lashed South Florida Digs Out of Storm's Debris". Miami Daily News. September 18, 1947. p. 1.
- ^ Kleinberg 2003, pp. 219–20
- ^ "New River Inlet Nearly Reopened". Fort Lauderdale Daily News. September 18, 1947. p. 1.
- ^ McIver 1983, p. 137
- ^ "Glades Come Out of Hurricane With Relatively Small Damage". The Palm Beach Post. September 19, 1947. pp. 1, 4.
- ^ Will 1961.
- ^ a b "Times Writer Plunges Into Heart of Hurricane, Comes Out With Dramatic Story of 'Big Blow'". Saint Petersburg Times. September 19, 1947. p. 10.
- ^ a b "Coast Guard Searches For Two Boats With Eight Men and One Woman Aboard". Saint Petersburg Times. September 19, 1947. p. 13.
- ^ Bourne, Joel K Jr. (October 2004). "Gone With the Water". National Geographic. 206 (4): 88–105.
- ^ Yamazaki, Gordon; Shea Penland (2001). "Recent hurricanes producing significant basin damage". In Shea Penland; Andrew Beall; Jeff Waters (eds.). Environmental Atlas of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin. New Orleans: Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation. p. 36.
- ^ a b c d e Colten 2009, pp. 22–4
- ^ a b U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1970). "Hurricane Camille: 14 – 22 August 1969" (PDF). U.S. Army Engineer Mobile District. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 6, 2012. Retrieved July 19, 2012.
- ^ "Top 10 Weather Events MIAMI-DADE COUNTY". NWS Miami, FL. Retrieved July 5, 2012.[dead link]
- ^ Bush et al., p. 41
- . Retrieved July 22, 2012.
- ^ "NOAA/NHC costliest US hurricanes (normalized)". Archived from the original on October 28, 2005. Retrieved November 5, 2005.
Sources
- Air Weather Service (July 1948). West, W. A. (ed.). Report on the Off-Season Operations of the Air Force Hurricane Office 1947–1948 (PDF) (Technical report). Air Weather Service Technical Report. Washington, D.C. 105-37, Report on the Off-Season Operations – via Defense Technical Information Center.
{{cite tech report}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - Barnes, Jay (1998). Florida's Hurricane History (1st ed.). ISBN 0-8078-2443-7 – via Internet Archive.
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- Churl, Donald W.; Johnson, John P. (1990), Boca Raton: A Pictorial History, The Downing Company Publishers, ISBN 978-0-89865-792-0
- Colten, Craig C. (2009), Perilous Place, Powerful Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana, University Press of Mississippi, ISBN 9781604733457
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- Williams, John M.; Duedall, Iver W. (2002) [1997]. Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, 1871–2001 (2nd ed.). ISBN 0-8130-2494-3– via Internet Archive.
- Williams, John M.; Duedall, Iver W. (2002) [1997]. Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, 1871–2001 (2nd ed.).
- ISBN 1-879362-02-3.
- — (July 1993). Significant Tornadoes 1680–1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events. ISBN 978-1879362031.
- — (July 1993). Significant Tornadoes 1680–1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events.
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- – via Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
- Ling, Sally J. (2005). Small Town, Big Secrets: Inside the Boca Raton Army Air Field During World War II. ISBN 1-59629-006-4.
- McIver, Stuart (1983). Fort Lauderdale and Broward County: An Illustrated History. ISBN 978-0897810814.
- ISBN 978-0312371524– via Internet Archive.
- Norton, Grady (September 1947). Written at Miami. Bennett, William J. (ed.). "Reports of hurricanes, September 1947". Florida section. Climatological Data. 51 (9). Washington, D.C.: United States Weather Bureau: 53.
- "Severe Local Storms for September 1947" (PDF). Monthly Weather Review. 75 (11): 183–84. September 1947. . Retrieved July 19, 2012.
- Simiu, Emil; Vickery, Peter; Kareem, Ahsan (July 2007). "Relation Between Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale Wind Speeds and Peak 3-s Gust Speeds Over Open Terrain". .
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- OCLC 3024697– via Internet Archive.
- Will, Lawrence E. (1961). Okeechobee Hurricane and the Hoover Dike (1st ed.). OCLC 1309988– via Internet Archive.