marco_islander wrote:CrazyC83 wrote:marco_islander wrote:what is it with Marco Island attracting all these storms... Wilma, Irma and now this (even though it's minor- thank goodness!)
Fay also made landfall at that location in 2008.
I don't even remember that. Yikes! That doesn't bode well.
So much for local legend that
Marco Island is adverse to storms...
There have been a number of significant hits on or very close to Marco Island since records began in 1851, of which the subjective top five,
pre-Irma, are listed in red:
- 1870 (20 October) — Category 1 hurricane passed overhead with 80-knot (90-mph) winds
- 1876 (20 October) — Category 2 hurricane passed to the east, hit Everglades City with 90-knot (105-mph) winds; storm surge of up to ten feet on Biscayne Bay and in Everglades backcountry
- 1894 (25 September) — Category 2 hurricane passed to the west, hit Punta Rassa with 90-knot (105-mph) winds
- 1910 (18 October) — Sprawling, infamous storm in Ten Thousand Islands lore (Edgar J. Watson, Peter Matthiessen's Killing Mister Watson, etc.); produced ten-foot storm surge on Marco Island, hit Punta Rassa as a strong Category 2 hurricane with 95-knot (110-mph) winds; settlers at Chokoloskee, Goodland, etc. climbed trees to survive the surge
- 1924 (21 October) — Drenching Category-1 storm with 80-knot (90-mph) winds; eye passed over Marco Island and Caxambas with 975-mb pressure; produced twenty-three inches of rain in twenty-four hours on Marco Island
- 1926 (18 September) — Major hurricane crossed from Miami to Sanibel and Captiva islands; produced storm surge of eight to ten feet at Chokoloskee, Everglades City, and Marco Island, even though eye passed to the north; major flooding in Southwest Florida
- 1935 (3 September) — Most intense U.S. hurricane on record; headed northwest from the Keys; eyewall struck Marco Island with 145-knot (165-mph) winds while eye remained just offshore; extremely severe wind damage to the Keys, Ten Thousand Islands, and Southwest Florida
- 1935 (5 November) — Crossed from Miami to the Gulf of Mexico, passing just south of Marco Island with 70-knot (80-mph) winds
- 1941 (6 October) — Crossed from Homestead to Sanibel and Captiva islands; produced six feet of storm surge at Everglades City, Chokoloskee, and Marco Island; center passed north of those locations with 75-knot (85-mph) winds
- 1960 (10 September) — Donna, one of the most devastating hurricanes in Southwest Florida on record, moved northwest from the Keys to Goodland, just east of Marco Island (Category 3 at landfall in SW FL, 105 knots/120 mph); eyewall affected Everglades City; eye hit Marco Island, Goodland, and Naples; storm surge of up to twelve feet in Marco Island, Everglades City, and Naples
- 2005 (24 October) — Wilma, of course
The myth that Marco Island *escapes* big storms probably derives from the old Calusa (Native Amerindian) shell mounds that populate the Ten Thousand Islands, Charlotte Harbor, and the rest of coastal Southwest Florida. Both the Indians and the white settlers built and/or used the elevated shell heaps as a barrier (berm) to protect lives and property against storm surge. For some reason, during the twentieth century arose the notion that the mounds somehow steer storms *away* from Marco Island and other mound-populated areas, which history proves was never the case (after all, the Indians built the mounds
because of the frequency of storm surge).
Anyway, back to Philippe, but multidisciplinary history surely is enlightening. Weather, archaeology, and genealogy meet.
At least Philippe isn't measuring up to any of the storms in this compendium!
