Impact
In Florida, winds on the ground were reported around 125 mph (201 km/h) and the pressure measured at 935 mbar (27.61 inHg) — though all such data is suspect. Most of the coastal inhabitants had not evacuated, partly because of short warning (a hurricane warning was issued just a few hours before landfall) and partly because the "young" city's population knew little about the danger a major hurricane posed. A 15-foot (4.6 m) storm surge inundated the area, causing massive property damage and some fatalities. As the eye of the hurricane crossed over Miami Beach and downtown Miami, many people believed the storm had passed. Some tried to leave the barrier islands, only to be swept off the bridges by the rear eyewall. "The lull lasted 35 minutes, and during that time the streets of the city became crowded with people," wrote Richard Gray, the local weather chief. "As a result, many lives were lost during the second phase of the storm."
Inland, Lake Okeechobee experienced a high storm surge that broke a portion of the dikes, flooding the town of Moore Haven and killing many. This was just a prelude to the deadly 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane, which would cause a massive number of fatalities estimated at 2,500 around the lake.
Coastal regions between Mobile and Pensacola, Florida also suffered heavy damage from wind, rain, and storm surge, but this paled beside the news of the destruction in Miami. According to the Red Cross there were 373 fatalities. Other estimates vary, since there were a large number of people listed as "missing". Between 25,000 and 50,000 people were left homeless, mostly in the Miami area.
| Rank | Hurricane | Season | Cost (2005 USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Miami" | 1926 | $157 billion |
| 2 | "Galveston" | 1900 | $99.4 billion |
| 3 | Katrina | 2005 | $81.0 billion |
| 4 | "Galveston" | 1915 | $68.0 billion |
| 5 | Andrew | 1992 | $55.8 billion |
| 6 | "New England" | 1938 | $39.2 billion |
| 7 | "Cuba–Florida" | 1944 | $38.7 billion |
| 8 | "Okeechobee" | 1928 | $33.6 billion |
| 9 | Donna | 1960 | $26.8 billion |
| 10 | Camille | 1969 | $21.2 billion |
The damage from the storm was immense; few buildings in Miami or Miami Beach were left intact. The toll for the storm was $100 million ($1.31 billion 2012 USD). It is estimated that if an identical storm hit in the year 2005, with modern development and prices, the storm would have caused $140–157 billion in damage. After the hurricane, the Great Depression started in South Florida, slowing recovery.
In response to the widespread destruction of buildings on Miami Beach, John J. Farrey was appointed Chief Building, Plumbing and Electrical Inspector. He initiated and enforced the first building code in the United States, which more than 5000 US cities duplicated.
Read more about this topic: 1926 Miami Hurricane
Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)