Hurricane could bring storm surges

September 14, 1999
Web posted at: 11:39 a.m. EDT (1539 GMT)

(CNN) -- Hurricanes are defined by their winds but they bring with them an even more deadly force of nature -- water in the form of a storm surge.

A storm surge is a big pile of water that gets pushed up ahead of a storm by high winds much like water pushed up the bow of an ocean-going vessel, said James St. John, a research scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Where a hurricane hits land, the storm surge does most of the damage and causes nine out of ten hurricane-related deaths.

"If you can imagine being hit by a freight train moving at 20 or 30 mph, these weigh a lot more than a freight train," St. John said.

Billy Wagner, a staffer with the Florida Keys office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the consequences can be fatal.

"If the water is high enough where you can't get above it, you're gonna drown and your life is at stake," Wagner said.

The last time the Atlantic Coast faced a hurricane as strong as Floyd, Hurricane Andrew came ashore with a 15-foot storm surge.

That's part of the reason the 1992 storm was the United States' most costly natural disaster.

And since forecasters say Floyd is packing a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet, they are warning people in its potential path to pay close attention to where this giant storm is heading.

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