Hurricane Alicia

DÃ©jÃ vous all over again - Hurricane Alicia did a similar job on this Galveston hotel in 1983.

Hurricane Alicia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hurricane Alicia

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Hurricane Alicia was the third depression, the first tropical storm, and the only major hurricane of the 1983 Atlantic hurricane season. It struck Galveston and Houston, Texas directly, causing $2.6 billion USD ($5.27 billion 2006 USD) in damage and killing 21 people; this made it the worst Texas hurricane since Hurricane Carla (1961 season), and Texas' first billion-dollar storm. Hurricane Alicia became the last major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) to strike Texas until the stronger Hurricane Bret in 1999 made landfall. Alicia was the first storm for which the National Hurricane Center issued landfall probabilities.

Hurricane Alicia was notable for the delayed post storm evacuation of Galveston Island (since the eye of the storm traveled the evacuation route up I-45 from Galveston to Houston). The hurricane was also notable for the shattering of many windows in downtown Houston by loose gravel from the roofs of new skyscrapers and by other debris, prompting changes to rooftop construction codes.

Hurricane Alicia was the first hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Allen in August 1980. The time between the two storms totaled three years and eight days (1103 days), the longest gap between hurricanes striking the United States during recorded hurricane history. The time was the longest the Texas coast has gone without a hurricane landfall since a nearly four year hiatus in hurricanes occurred between September 1882 and June 1886.

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