REMEMBERING HURRICANE FLOYD - "THE 500 YEAR FLOOD"

Hurricane Floyd was the sixth named storm and the third major hurricane of the 1999 hurricane season. It made landfall near Cape Fear as a category 2 hurricane and caused flooding in some North Carolina rivers to reach there 500 year flood level. Hurricane Floyd claimed 57 lives and caused over 9 billion dollars in damage. North Carolina was at the top of the list with 35 fatalities caused directly by Floyd and damages in the billions of dollars.

Just prior to Floyd, Hurricane Dennis dropped 15 inches of rain to some parts of North Carolina only to be followed by 17 inches more by Floyd. This caused major flooding and power outages for people living in Eastern North Carolina. During the course of floyd the Coast Guard rescued over 1,700 people and Floyd left over 500,000 people without power and many towns we're literally under water for days. The flooding and damage sustained by Floyd caused over 10,000 people to become displaced and have to be moved to shelters. When it was all said and done there was damage to over 50,000 homes and business leaving 10,000 uninhabitable and 7,000 complete destroyed.

Floyd will forever be remembered in the minds of the people living in Eastern North Carolina at that time and will be studied be meteorologist for decades to come. Floyd made landfall on September 16, 1999 and left us with some incredible images that are shown below.

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