Sea Surges

Sea Surge Disasters

Storm surges have caused massive destruction and loss of life throughout history. Near Lake Okeechobee, Florida, storm surge in 1928 caused the lake to overflow its banks and inundate the surrounding area to a depth of six to nine feet; 1,836 people died as a result. In 1995, Hurricane Opal caused extensive storm surge from Florida to Mexico, and damage estimates were near $3 billion. Hurricane Hugo in 1989 devastated the West Indies and the southeastern United States, killing 60 people and causing $7 billion in damages.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused severe destruction along the Gulf Coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded catastrophically, and at least 1,800 people lost their lives. Damages from Katrina were extensive where coastal development had increased in recent decades. In these areas, wetlands that would have buffered sea surge had been destroyed or removed by human activity and development. The storm is estimated to have been responsible for $100 billion in damage, making it the costliest as well as deadliest hurricane in U.S. history.

Asian regions have faced even higher death tolls and destruction from sea surges. World Vision published Planet Prepare, a report that investigates the disaster threats facing coastal communities in the Asia Pacific region. For example, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar on May 2, 2008, killing as many as 140,000 people. Most of the farmers and fishermen who lived on the delta flat-lands were killed not by the cyclonic winds, but also by the resulting sea surge that swept up to 22 miles inland. A great number of children, especially in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, lost all of their closest relatives and become orphaned due to the sea surge disaster. A cyclone ripped through southern Bangladesh and eastern India in 2007, killing 191 people, and leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless as a result of the storm surges.

Vulnerability and Disaster Reduction

The danger from storm surges along the densely populated coastlines is tremendous. As more people build in coastal areas, destruction of coastal dunes for building sites increases the vulnerability of a shore to sea surge. The increase in coastal settlement has put much economic investment at risk from sea surges and flooding, which damage households, food stocks, and crops, and cause major local supply shortages.

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