Charles County, Missouri, which lies in a floodplain
at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri
Rivers, occurred in 1986.
Heat waves linked to El Niño in 1980 and 1988
throughout major portions of the United States
proved to be several of the deadliest such events on
record. In 1980, a strong high-pressure ridge kept
temperatures above ninety degrees for much of the
summer, breaking temperature records in a number
of cities. Resulting droughts and windstorms caused
an estimated $20 billion in damages, largely in agri-
cultural losses. Estimates placed the number of heat-
related deaths between 1,250 and 10,000. The 1988
heat wave and drought caused an estimated $40 bil-
lion in damages and between 5,000 and 10,000
deaths. Smaller heat waves and droughts occurred
in 1986 and 1989. At the other extreme, freezes
in Florida during the winters of 1983 and 1985 re-
sulted in billions of dollars in losses to the citrus in-
dustry. Extremely dry conditions and high winds
also helped fuel an outbreak of forest fires in Yellow-
stone National Park in the summer of 1988. Thou-
sands of fire fighters fought flames that had burned
more than 1.5 million acres by the summer’s end.
Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Volcanoes
The decade saw a number of costly hurricanes. In
1982, Typhoon Iwa passed near Hawaii, and its
excessive winds left one person dead and caused
$250 million in damages. Hurricane Alicia struck
Galveston, Texas, as a Category 3 storm on August 18,
1983, causing an estimated $2 billion in damages,
twenty-one deaths, and numerous injuries. In 1985,
Hurricane Elena stalled off Florida’s west coast over
the Labor Day weekend as a Category 3 storm, result-
ing in the largest peacetime evacuation to that point
in U.S. history. On September 2, Elena came ashore
near Biloxi, Mississippi. Elena caused four deaths
and an estimated $213 million in damages. Hurri-
cane Juan struck Louisiana from October 26 through
November 1, 1985. Although only a Category 1
storm, Juan caused severe flooding that resulted in
sixty-three deaths and $1.5 billion in damages. The
decade’s worst U.S. hurricane was 1989’s Hurricane
Hugo, which first struck Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands. It then struck the Carolinas on Sep-
tember 22 as a Category 4 storm with a twenty-foot
storm surge and severe winds, resulting in $7 billion
in damages and thirty-five dead.
On March 28, 1984, tornadoes struck North and
South Carolina, causing fifty-seven deaths and over
1,000 injuries. On May 31, 1985, tornadoes struck
Pennsylvania and Ohio, resulting in 756 deaths and
an estimated $450 million in damages. In 1988, an
F4 tornado struck North Carolina at night, leaving
$77 million in damages, four dead, and 154 injured
in its wake. A 1982 San Francisco landslide left
twenty-five dead and $66 million in damages, but the
most well known disaster in this category was the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that also struck the
San Francisco area. The quake, which measured 7.1
on the Richter scale, left heavy damage and resulted
in sixty-two deaths. One of the most spectacular and
well known of the decade’s natural disasters was the
1980 eruption of the volcano Mount St. Helens in
Washington State. The hot cloud of ash particles and
a subsequent mudflow decimated forty square miles.
There were fifty-seven deaths, as well as a rash of re-
spiratory diseases in the surrounding area.Impact The modernization of weather forecasting,
such as the development of NEXRAD, Doppler ra-
dar, and improved computer technology, resulted in
more timely warnings of impending natural disas-
ters and helped save lives. The new technology also
led to the 1989 decision to restructure the NWS and
eliminate a number of branch offices. It also allowed
for the creation of mobile forecasting units that
could be dispatched where needed. For example,
mobile forecasting units called Air Transportable
Mobile Units (ATMU) could be deployed to forest
fires nationwide by 1987. Improved forecasts from
the National Hurricane Center allowed people in
threatened areas to decide whether or not to evacu-
ate well in advance of approaching storms. Such
evacuations sometimes revealed the remaining un-
predictability of nature, however, as when numerous
people evacuated parts of Texas in advance of 1988’s
Hurricane Gilbert, only to see it shift direction and
strike Mexico.
Population growth and development in areas vul-
nerable to natural disasters such as floods, hurri-
canes, and earthquakes not only led to increases
in property damages but also led to demands for
stricter building codes. The Loma Prieta earth-
quake’s destruction of housing moved the cities of
the Bay Area to act on the issue of buildings that
were not reinforced or designed to withstand such
quakes, and the 1986 Missouri flood led to questions
over whether the federal government should re-698 Natural disasters The Eighties in America