Another hurricane, which still holds the title of the most deadly hurricane in United States history, struck Galveston again in 1900.
This would prove catastrophic as a severe hurricane ravaged Galvez’s town (now present-day Galveston, TX) and claimed an estimated 1,000 lives. They, however, thought it was nothing more than just that, a storm, which was a normal occurrence, they did not give it much thought. One of the earliest such accounts details how in September 1818, colonists along the Texas coast noticed the signs of an approaching storm. With the onset of the nineteenth century came the first records of hurricanes moving inland. Such storms, which are now believed to have been hurricanes, continued to enter the written record from the sixteenth century through the eighteenth century as these storms continuously sank ships and claimed countless lives. While thousands of hurricanes undoubtedly occurred prior to the one that sank Panfilo de Narváezboat’s ship, this was the first Texas storm to make it onto the written page. The storm sunk the ship of Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narváezboat and killed over 200 of his men off the coast of Galveston Island. The first record of a major storm sweeping through Texas’ coastline, comes from 1527. These byproducts of hurricanes can lead to the decimation of coastal communities and can potentially reach far inland. According to the Royal Meteorological Society, “… A hurricane is on average 500 miles wide and 10 miles high and moves forward like an enormous spinning top at a typical speed of 17 knots.” As hurricanes make landfall, they bring with them gale force winds, surge flooding, and immense rain, a disastrous combination that can cause extreme flooding, tornadoes, and rip currents. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that hurricanes begin as “…low-pressure systems with organized thunderstorm activity that form over tropical or subtropical waters.” As these storm systems gain energy from the warm ocean waters, they continue to strengthen, causing the surface winds to blow in a continuous circular motion, forming a storm that, if boasting a wind speed above 63 knots (~72.5mph), is officially considered a hurricane. A natural part of the Earth’s climate system, hurricanes have existed long before humans started to record them.
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