[The Duke]

I simply cannot understand how Ike could have caused so much damage when Hurricane Elicia, 25 years ago, had the same wind speed and traveled exactly the same path (but travelling 3mph rather than 15mph!) - even hitting land at exactly the same time of day - but with far less damage.

My wife and I experienced that one first hand.

[metmom]

It was the storm surge. Ike actually missed being a Cat 3 by a wind speed of one mile an hour.

But factors came together just right to form a huge storm surge. Not much can handle waves pounding on it for hours.

That’s typically where most of the damage comes from in a hurricane.

[shield]

Alicia was not near as huge as IKE...IKE is much more like Carla in storm surge....of course, not winds. The storm surge is the worst part of a hurricane. IKE was piling up water for miles where Alicia was much smaller in size...wind speed was higher but the storm surge was very small compared to IKE. IKE moved much slower than Alicia. The back half of the eye winds were very strong...big difference than Alicia.