The Beauty and the Beast

The Beauty and the Beast

The wind suddenly picks up, and the trees begin to shake violently. A loud whistling noise suddenly screams throughout the air, piercing the ears of everyone who hears it. The city is evacuated except for the unfortunate few who could not escape what was coming. They are huddled together with only the slightest hope that they will survive. The wind is getting stronger and the rain begins to beat upon the ground. The water level rises and slowly begins to eat up the houses of the city. The few who have run to their attics to escape the flooding begin to pray, and the others who are watching on a television weep as they witness everything they had worked so hard for disappear. This short story is an example of just how terrifying a hurricane can be. Although hurricanes start off slowly and people are able to prepare for them, they can quickly turn into extremely destructive storms that tear apart entire cities and leave nothing behind.

Hurricanes start out as regular tropical storms but quickly take a turn for the worse. There are many conditions that are necessary for a hurricane to form. Some of these necessities are for the area to be hot and have ocean water that is 81 degrees Fahrenheit or more. Another important factor for this to take place is high humidity. High humidity is often found in tropical areas and it is for this reason that hurricanes are considered tropical storms.

Due to the fact that hurricanes take so long to form, scientists are able to tell people they are coming and help everyone to evacuate the cities. Hurricanes can live up to three weeks,

which gives people plenty of time to escape. Before satellites and radar, people did not know about the weather just sixty miles off shore. Now meteorologists can track a storm's birth and give evacuation notices up to two days before the hurricane hits. Another way people can receive notice of hurricanes is from the hurricane hunters. These brave people fly weather instruments straight into the storms and relay data to everyone else. Thanks to this advanced preparation, most people have evacuation plans that help them find where to go. Once they get there, people are given a supply kit filled with canned food, water, flashlights, and first aid. Because of the slow development of these hurricanes and the advanced technology that is in the world today, many lives are saved each storm.

The immense destruction of hurricanes is frightening. These monstrous storms kill thousands of people each time they strike. Even with today's technology, some people are killed by the winds and other lives are taken by the flooding. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. There were 1,833 deaths confirmed by this storm and the cost was 108 billion dollars. The most deadly hurricane of all was the Galveston Hurricane of 1900,