Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Seth Borenstein

These hurricanes were so disastrous their names are being retired

A resident surveys the damage following flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl in Plainfield, Vermont - (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Hurricanes Helene, Milton and Beryl were so nasty last year that their names are being retired.

These storms caused more than 300 deaths and inflicted more than $119 billion in damage, prompting the World Meterological Organization (WMO) to remove them from the six-year rotating list of Atlantic storm names.

Replacing them are Brianna, Holly, and Miguel, which will be used in future storm seasons.

The practice of retiring names for particularly destructive storms is standard procedure for the WMO, and the list of retired names is now nearing 100.

Helene was by far the deadliest and most expensive of the trio with its flooding claiming 249 lives, the most in the United States since 2005's Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish on 29 August, 2005. The Category 5 storm killed nearly 1,400 people.

David DeMeza walks out with belongings through sands pushed on to the streets by Hurricane Helene (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

It also was the seventh most expensive storm in American history, with damages reaching $78.7 billion, according to the National Hurricane Center. While it came out of the Gulf and hit Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4, most of the deaths and damage were inland in North Carolina and South Carolina.

The devastation was especially bad in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where at least 57 people died in and around Asheville, North Carolina, a tourism haven known for its art galleries, breweries and outdoor activities.

Milton came on the heels of Helene, bringing high winds, flooding and tornadoes to cause $34.3 billion in damage, almost all of it in Florida.

Beryl, which in June because the earliest Category 5 storm to form in a season, killed 68 people in the United States, Grenada, Venezuela, Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

In the Pacific region, the name Jack is replacing John, a Category 3 storm that killed 29 people in Mexico.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.