Wilma was ONLY a Category One...

[flhurricaneguy]

frances was a cat 2 and it sat over us for days. i think it started to rain on thursday evening and eye didnt even pass over until about 3am sunday morning.

[Derek Ortt]

major brain freeze

of course Wilma was third, behind Katrina and Andrew. My head must have been up my darrier when I was typing as I meant third

[Patrick99]

Cat 1? Yea ok, and Katrina was a tropical storm, the damage tells the story. No cat 1 is going to cause $16.8 Billion in damage without a surge or flooding, especially moving as quickly as Wilma was.
I believe the NHC's number of 120mph.

All you have to do is look at Wilma's appearance while crossing Florida......I've looked at a lot of satellite pictures of hurricanes, and she did not *look* like a Cat. 1.

[Jim Cantore]

She didnt even look like she weakened at all, but then again, thats what recon is for.

[MGC]

Katrina never happened, it has all been a very, very bad dream.....MGC

BTW....that 80 Billion is insured losses. And, considering most people didn't have flood insurance that 80 Billion figure is quite Conservative. The Sun Herald newspaper ran an article a few months back with damage estimates from Mississippi alone that was over 100 Billion Dollars.......MGC

[Jim Cantore]

Katrinas damage total may be listed at 81.2 Billion but I agree it's well over 100 billion, last year at this time, the thought of a 100 billion dollar Hurricane was unimagineable, then it happened

Back to Wilma though

Wilmas cat 3 winds were in a very small area south of the eye (unusual but Wilma came in on her side almost literally) However sustained cat 1 winds were very widespread

Cat 3 winds only got to certain areas

Everglades City
Dry Tortugas

Cat 1 winds on the other hand

Naples
Marco Island
Key west (most of the keys)
Miami
Palm Beach
Fort Lauderdale
Belle Glade
Boca Raton
Pompano Beach
Deerfield Beach
Delray Beach
Stuart
and many more places

Due to where Wilma hit (a populated area) 6 million lost power and the damage total was heightened, with a surge we'd be looking at 18-22 billion. Please note that Wilmas strongest winds stayed away from populated areas, if she would have come 20 miles further south, Key west would've gotten the worst and we'd have over 100 deaths.

[T'Bonz]

In my area (Coral Springs, which is in N Broward), I rather doubt it was a one. Going by the classification of damage according to size, it was a solid 2 around here, close to a 3.

Having said that, I don't want to be around from a 3-5. Used to be I'd evac for a 4-5. After Wilma, I think I'd bail if a 3 was due to hit us.

Lots of blue tarps still, and horror stories. Most of those condo stories, like the one the original poster referenced, were cheaply made crappy ones, built in the late 60s or early 70s, in-beween bad hurricane patches. I lived in Tamarac for 20 years and know the condos which were referenced. If they had showed streets on the map in the original article, you'd see where I lived, LOL, I'm 5 minutes away by car from the condos.

Shoddy building in a hurricane-prone area doesn't pay off. There are similar stories down here, in Sunrise, Sunrise Lakes II, a massive condo unit (dozens of buildings) had similar damage and the people there are older people (retirees) ill-equipped to repair or pay double mortgage/rents.

My Mom lives in a development 2 minutes from me. When Wilma went down, we drove down the street to see the damage there. Of the eight end units in each building, each building had half of their windows blown out.

Category 1 my backside.

[Derek Ortt]

Everglades city did not come close to receiving a cat 3 storm from Wilma. The cat 3 winds were down near Flamingo.

Not one person in Florida saw anything near cat 3 winds from Wilma. Some, such as Lauderdale, saw cat 2 conditions, but the vast majority "only" had cat 1, and let me tell you, cat 1 conditions are Hell

[DESTRUCTION5]

Everglades city did not come close to receiving a cat 3 storm from Wilma. The cat 3 winds were down near Flamingo.

Not one person in Florida saw anything near cat 3 winds from Wilma. Some, such as Lauderdale, saw cat 2 conditions, but the vast majority "only" had cat 1, and let me tell you, cat 1 conditions are Hell

Sure are..Spent 2 hrs holding my 250 lbs up against my 6 ft slider so they would not collapse in my living room All the way up in Stuart...Trust me I don't want to go there again...

[Jim Cantore]

Everglades city did not come close to receiving a cat 3 storm from Wilma. The cat 3 winds were down near Flamingo.

Not one person in Florida saw anything near cat 3 winds from Wilma. Some, such as Lauderdale, saw cat 2 conditions, but the vast majority "only" had cat 1, and let me tell you, cat 1 conditions are Hell

I read of a gust to 134mph in Everglades City

[DESTRUCTION5]

Everglades city did not come close to receiving a cat 3 storm from Wilma. The cat 3 winds were down near Flamingo.

Not one person in Florida saw anything near cat 3 winds from Wilma. Some, such as Lauderdale, saw cat 2 conditions, but the vast majority "only" had cat 1, and let me tell you, cat 1 conditions are Hell

I read of a gust to 134mph in Everglades City

Gust is not sustained...

[Derek Ortt]

a gust to 134 m.p.h. over land is consistent with category 2 conditions

we start seeing anamometer failure at the cat 3 and higher winds (and at much higher values)

[Jim Cantore]

Ah, your right, sustained at cat 2 gusting to 134

Sustained at cat 3 is about when anamometers start to go, look at andrew, how many got blown out that night?

And how do they break, does the fan fly off?

[f5]

Katrina beats Andrew by a fat margin even if you include his inflation

[Derek Ortt]

some anamometers can last over 150KT (one in Charley at the Charlotte County hospital recorded as gust to 150KT before it was destroyed)

about Andrew, him hitting today would be more destructive as the people did not learn their lesson... they rebuilt to levels greater than 1992, including near Biscayne Bay

[HurricaneBill]

about Andrew, him hitting today would be more destructive as the people did not learn their lesson... they rebuilt to levels greater than 1992, including near Biscayne Bay

Unfortunately, it seems when an area gets destroyed, the response is to bring it back "bigger and better".

[Derek Ortt]

Unfortunately, it seems when an area gets destroyed, the response is to bring it back "bigger and better".

And that is why we keep having hurricane disasters and always will. We just dont accept that some areas are not meant to be lived in

[tgenius]

and one other thing

Wilma is the first most expensive hurricane in US history with a damage toll of 16.8 billion

Katrina was actually the first most expensive hurricane with a damage total over 80 billion, and Andrew was second with a total over 20 billion. Wilma was 3rd or 4th (depending on what source you use) with a total somewhere between 13-17 billion.

If you put inflation into the mix, Andrew's 20 million in 92 will go over Katrina's 80 billion 05 dollars.

How do you figure?

You better explain that one to the experts that are saying and writing that Katrina is the worst and costliest natural disaster to ever hit the United States.

It's the same reason why Gone with the wind is the highest grossing movie of all time using adjusted for inflation numbers. 20 billion in 1992 (Andrew)is not the same as 20 billion would of been in 2005.

[jusforsean]

cat one by Butt, The extent of the damage in my neighborhood alone was proof that it had to be stronger, otherwise the only other explanation could be those :"microbursts they speak of because i noticed such a pattern of sporatic damage all over.

[Derek Ortt]

Sean,

if you're in Miami, it was a cat 1. I was on the Rickenbacker, just next to Miami Seaquarium, which was trashed by Wilma. Highest sustained was 81 mph with gusts between 110-115 mph, not too much above tropical storm force