America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster – the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 - (September 8)

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is estimated to have killed as many as 12,000 individuals, but the number most often cited in official reports is 8000 – the true number will never be known. More people were killed in this single storm than the total of those killed in all the tropical cyclones that have struck the United States since. Indeed, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster to ever strike the US. By contrast, the second deadliest storm to strike the US, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, caused more than 2500 deaths and the deadliest storm of recent times, Hurricane Katrina of 2005, claimed the lives of approximately 1800 people.