Forecasters warn that rapid hurricane intensification can leave residents with little time to prepare, as demonstrated by Hurricane Otis in 2023.
Consider this: last year, on the morning of Oct. 24, forecasters were monitoring Tropical Storm Otis, which sat about 150 miles south of the resort town of Acapulco, Mexico. The storm was forecast to make landfall near Acapulco the next day, possibly as a hurricane. Well, it didn’t play out that way. In fact, what occurred over the next 24 hours was nothing short of historic.
Otis intensified at an alarming rate. It reached hurricane strength hours later, and became a major hurricane shortly after that. Its winds increased 105 mph in just 21 hours, reaching Category 5 strength.
The maximum sustained winds peaked at 165 mph just prior to landfall. It moved onshore near Acapulco at 160 mph, the strongest landfall on record for the eastern Pacific basin.
The impacts, unsurprisingly, were catastrophic. Fifty-six people lost their lives.
Otis stands alone now as the costliest hurricane in Mexican history, totaling $12 to $16 billion in damages.
And imagine, only two days before, the area where Otis made landfall was not even under a hurricane watch.
While not quite to this extreme, we see a similar trend when we look at the Category 5 storms that have struck the United States.
There have only been four Category 5 hurricane landfalls in the U.S.
The 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Keys, Camille in Mississippi, Andrew in South Florida in 1992, and most recently, Hurricane Michael in the Florida Panhandle in 2018. All four were mere tropical storms less than three days before making landfall at Category 5 strength.
So then, as we head into the heart of this year's hurricane season, I want you to ask yourself this question – if a major hurricane made landfall two days from now, would you be ready?
History tells us that may be all the warnings you’d have.
Is your hurricane kit stocked up and ready to go? If a sudden evacuation order comes down for your area, do you know where you would go? Do you know what evacuation zone you live in?
We have plenty of tips and information you can use to get prepared on our
website
and the
ABC7 News app
.