By: Nora Carroll

Major hurricanes have left thousands of people in devastation across coastal states in the southeast United States. There have been nine named hurricanes this season, of which Beryl, Helen, and Milton made landfall.

Hurricane Beryl was the first major hurricane to hit the United States in 2024. Beryl made landfall as a category one hurricane in late June in the Houston region of Texas. Hurricane Beryl was breaking records as one of the earliest forming category 5 hurricanes that have ever been recorded. The hurricane caused a tornado outbreak in the area as Beryl moved through the area. Hurricane Beryl ended up directly taking 64 lives while on its path. 

Hurricane season calmed down for a few months until Hurricane Helene started brewing in late September. Helene hit Florida as a category 4 storm, but caused catastrophic damage, especially flooding, in parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Taking at least 288 known deaths, according to an analysis from USA Today, Hurricane Helene has been remembered as one of the deadliest storms in recent years. 

“The impact my hometown took was a hard one,” explained Florida resident that is currently enrolled at WVWC, Bailee Einsphar, “We had about a 15 foot storm surge that flooded the town and followed that with tornadoes and another hurricane flooded the town.” 

Einsphar, and many others on this campus were forced to be away from their families while watching Hurricane Helene hit and Hurricane Milton make its way to land. “It hasn’t been that hard being away from my family because we were far enough out from the storm surge that my house did not take a hit. I was more worried about the wind speeds knocking down telephone poles and not reaching my parents for a few days,” Einsphar said. 

The last hurricane to make landfall this hurricane season was Hurricane Milton. Milton was predicted to hit Florida as a category 5 hurricane, but thankfully only was a category 3 when it made its way to land. Regardless of the high expectations of the storm, the decrease of the categories and the preparation the state of Florida had, the extent of the damage was caused by flooding and tornadoes, limiting the direct deaths to around 17. 

“Lots of buildings were ruined, but nothing compared to what happened up in the mountains of North Carolina. I am very grateful that my hometown did not take as big of a hit as those small towns up in North Carolina did” Einsphar noted. 

The 2024 hurricane season was truly like no other, with high casualty counts and destroyed cities, no one could have seen this travesty coming. 

Photo by Tommy Walsh in Yancey County, North Carolina