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This Day In History, October 4th, 2019 – “Hurricane Flora”



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It was just 56 years ago today, October 4, 1963, when death and destruction from mother nature struck in the Atlantic. History is full of good and bad, of peace and war, great achievements, and just pure disaster. Hurricane Flora, with a death toll of 7,193 people, is such a disaster. With winds as high as 145 mph, Flora is not the strongest Hurricane we have seen throughout history, in fact, it was only a category 4. But what made Flora so deadly was that it was so slow moving, and still today holds the record for the wettest Hurricane for Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, which recorded a record breaking 39.43 inches of rainfall. Haiti itself, which Flora remained over for more than three days, received some 57 inches of rain fall. Major floods, with parts of islands being completely swallowed up by the sea, severely damaged the island nations. Haiti bore the brunt of the storm, with some 5,000 deaths, next came Cuba, which had 1,750 estimated deaths. Hurricane Flora, with its loop turn around in the Caribbean was disastrous, though thankfully the storms path missed most of the United States, as Flora moved back out into the Atlantic, where she finally sputtered out off the coast of Canada. Hurricanes have wreaked havoc throughout mans history, one must always be safe, but know this, whatever mother nature throws at us, man still has survived.

This Day in History, history, American History


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One response to “This Day In History, October 4th, 2019 – “Hurricane Flora””

  1. Douglas Baker says:

    Sir/madam, my personal experience with Hurricane Flora, I was on the British Merchant ship Matina, we had to leave Jamaica in a hurry because Flora was bearing down on us.Entering The Windward Passage we received a radio message requesting us to be on the lookout for survivors washed out to sea, soon after,we had a blip on radar, this turned out to be 8 survivors clinging to flotsam, the Captain of Marina ordered a lifeboat to be launched, this was in very rough seas,the men rowed that lifeboat and successfully rescued the survivors. The Captain took them into Cuban territorial waters, the survivors were refused to land there, so the Captain took them to Haiti, the same refusal came from them, the Captain had no choice but to take them to England, there was no accolades for the rescuers, I believe the rescued people were handed over to the British Red Cross.

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