History
Some major hurricanes that have hit the United States in the past have been Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and a category 4 hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900.
Hurricane Andrew
Hurricane Andrew formed off of the coast of Africa. On August 13, 1992 it started off as thunderstorms over western Africa. As the storms moved over the Atlantic Ocean the winds started converging at low angles and started to form a rotating air mass. By August 17 the storm had been upgraded into a tropical storm. However, high-level winds stopped the upward growth of the core of clouds and weaked and disorganized the storm. By August 21 the storm had moved across the Atlantic Ocean and the upper-level winds had died down enough that cloud height and wind speeds increased. On August 22 wind speeds had increased to above 74 mph and the storm was classified as a hurricane and was named Andrew. Hurricane Andrew moved over the Bahamas, southern Florida, Louisiana's coastline and finally died down as rain over Mississippi. When it was all done a roughly 52 people had been killed. Hurricane Andrew's top wind speeds reached 155 mph with gusts up to 175 mph. Hurricane Andrew was one of the most destructive hurricanes in history with $30 billion in damages.
Source: http://www.noaa.gov/andrewsatellite.html
Hurricane Hugo
Hurricane Hugo hit the eastern coast of the United States on September 21, 1989. First Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston, South Carolina and the moved northward with tropical storm intensity hitting just west of Charlotte North Carolina. The storm continued northward along the Appalachian Mountains and finally lost the storm lost it's status of a tropical weather system by the night of September 22, 1989. Hurricane Hugo wind speeds reached up to 160 mph, had storm surge that reached 17 feet and was classified as a Category 4 hurricane. Hurricane Hugo took a total of 49 lives and caused over $7 billion in property damages.
Source: http://www.stormsfury1.com/Weather/Hugo.html
Source: http://www.zestive.com/whurrhugo.htm
Galveston, Texas
On Septmeber 8, 1900 a hurricane hit Galveston, Texas in the late afternoon and was considered to be one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the United States. The hurricane was classified as a Category 4 and had winds that reached 120 mph. The island was completely flooded and most of the residents that had not already evacuated took shelter in the Bolivar lighthouse. All the bridges to the mainland had been destroyed along with all of the boats. Roughly 7,200 people had been killed.
Source:www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/100.html
Source: www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/maps/maps_swusa.html
Source: www.our.homewithgod.com/bibletruths/GalvestonTexas.html