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FILE – Bruce Hickey walks along the waterfront littered with debris and shrimp boats in the mobile home park where he and his wife Kathy have a winter home on San Carlos Island, Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Blackwell\/AP Photo\/Rebecca Blackwell<\/p>\n
FILE – A bicyclist making his way past a stranded taxi on a flooded New York City street as Tropical Storm Irene passes through on Aug. 28, 2011.<\/p>\n
Peter Morgan\/AP Photo\/Peter Morgan<\/p>\n
FILE – Edie Kearns stands on the floor of her home that was destroyed by a tornado associated with Hurricane Ivan in Marianna, Fla., Sept. 17, 2004.<\/p>\n
ERIC GAY\/AP Photo\/ERIC GAY<\/p>\n
FILE – Caskets, that floated from their tombs during flooding from Hurricane Ida, sit along a roadside in Ironton, La., Sept. 27, 2021.<\/p>\n
Gerald Herbert\/AP Photo\/Gerald Herbert<\/p>\n
Residents pick up sandbags at the James Seals Jr. Parks & Recreation Center as they prepare for Hurricane Isaias expected landfall along the Gulf Coast, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Mobile, Ala.<\/p>\n
Octavio Jones\/AP Photo\/Octavio Jones<\/p>\n
Be wary of hurricanes that start with the letter \u201cI.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The ninth letter of the alphabet leads all others in the number of named Atlantic storms that have been retired over the decades due to their destruction or high death tolls.<\/p>\n
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Next up is Isaias, which became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season on Wednesday night. Whether it lives up to the misery of others whose first letter it shares remains to be seen. The latest forecast appeared to be less dramatic than those of other scarier storms.<\/p>\n
Isaias was expected to make landfall on the northern Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to be prepared for the worst,\u201d said Jeff Collier, mayor of Dauphin Island, Alabama, a 15-mile (24-kilometer) long barrier island at the mouth of Mobile Bay. \u201cWe take all of the storms seriously, once they get into the Gulf.”<\/p>\n
Atlantic hurricanes have been given names since 1953, and 100 of them are no longer used. There have been 14 storms with \u201cI\u201d names retired, including 12 this century. When eastern and central Pacific hurricanes are considered, that retired \u201cI\u201d list grows to 20.<\/p>\n
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Ten Atlantic storm names starting with \u201cF\u201d have been retired, followed by \u201cC\u201d with nine, and \u201cD\u201d and \u201cM\u201d with eight apiece, according to a list compiled by the hurricane center.<\/p>\n
Why I is such a foreboding letter<\/p>\n
Hurricanes starting with \u201cI\u201d typically occur in the middle of the June 1-Nov. 30 season, when warming ocean waters can supercharge a storm’s energy.<\/p>\n
The timing of Isaias is an exception to this trend, due to the current super El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern, which stunted Atlantic hurricane formations through September while cranking out storms throughout the Pacific region.<\/p>\n
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Isaias came one day shy of tying a 121-year-old record for the latest-forming initial hurricane of the Atlantic season.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019 storms prove to be costly<\/p>\n
Of the 55 costliest hurricanes to hit the United States, a dozen began with the letter \u201cI”, including four in the top 10.<\/p>\n
Category 4 Ian in 2022 came in at No. 3 with $119.6 billion in damage. Ian hammered Florida with such ferocity that it wiped out whole neighborhoods, tossed boats onto highways, swept away beaches and swamped homes in roof-deep waters.<\/p>\n
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Category 4 Ida, devastating parts of Louisiana in 2021, was the sixth-costliest hurricane at $84.6 billion. Category 4 Irma tore through the Florida Keys in 2017 for No. 8 at a cost of $64 billion. Category 2 Ike made landfall near Galveston, Texas, in 2008 for No. 10 at $43.2 billion. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> said it based these figures on the 2024 Consumer Price Index adjusted cost.<\/p>\n In 2020, they ran out of names. Then came Iota<\/p>\n The 2020 hurricane season exhausted that year\u2019s alphabetical list of storm names by mid-September, so later storms were identified using Greek letters, including Iota, the 30th named storm of that record-breaking year.<\/p>\n Category 4 Iota decimated Nicaragua and Honduras in November 2020 only two weeks after another hurricane had passed through the region.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The World Meteorological Organization, which oversees storm naming, later decided not to use<\/a> the Greek alphabet for future storms, citing potential confusion when translated into other languages. Instead, a supplemental list of names will be used when the standard list is exhausted in a particular season.<\/p>\n Ivan spawned 118 tornadoes in a destructive loop<\/p>\n Ivan tore through Grand Cayman island in 2004, damaging or destroying an estimated 95 percent of the buildings there<\/a>, the National Weather Service said. Then it slammed into the United States, spawning 118 tornadoes from Florida to Pennsylvania, more than any other tropical system since modern-day records have been kept starting in 1950, the weather service said. The storm was blamed for 124 deaths, including 57 in the United States.<\/p>\n