PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Ten years ago Tuesday, Hurricane Ivan made landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama (just west of the Florida/Alabama border) as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Maximum sustained winds at landfall were estimated to be 120 mph.
At the time of U.S. landfall, the eye diameter had increased to near 50 miles resulting in storm surge of 10 to 15 feet along the coasts from Destin in the Florida panhandle westward to Mobile Bay, Alabama. I remember flying in a helicopter over these worst hit areas on a disaster survey.
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A quarter-mile of an Interstate 10 bridge collapsed into Pensacola Bay. Severe damage to complete destruction occurred to numerous beachfront homes as well as to apartment and condominium buildings. Some buildings collapsed due to scouring of the sand from underneath the foundations caused by the inundating wave action.
An outbreak of 117 tornadoes occurred in association with Ivan extending from Florida and Alabama northeastward into Maryland and Virginia.
U.S. rainfall totals generally ranged from 3 to 7 inches along a large swath from Alabama and the Florida panhandle northeastward across the eastern Tennessee Valley and into New England.
Ivan was a classical, long-lived Cape Verde hurricane that developed from a tropical wave over the far eastern Atlantic, became a hurricane over 1000 miles east of the Windward Islands, strengthened to a major hurricane before the center passed near Grenada, just south of Jamaica, near the Cayman Islands, through the Yucatan Channel, and at landfall in the U.S.
The forces of Ivan were directly responsible for 92 deaths including 39 in Grenada, 25 in the United States, 17 in Jamaica, 4 in Dominican Republic, 3 in Venezuela, 2 in Cayman Islands, and 1 each in Tobago and Barbados.
Total U.S. damage estimate is $18.8 billion (in 2004 dollars not adjusted for inflation).
One way to characterize tropical cyclone activity is by the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index which accounts for the combined number, intensity, and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes during a given season. A 30-year average ACE value for an entire Atlantic hurricane season is 104.
The ACE value for Hurricane Ivan alone was 70!