Top Five Worst Storms in Recent Memory

Like the ice storm that hit 12 days, earlier, the Christmas Day, 2000 ice storm knocked out power to most customers AEP Southwestern Electric Power Company’s (SWEPCO) service area.

It was a Christmas to remember, with freezing rain and sleet rendering the roads impassable. The only way to stay warm was getting in front of the fireplace or using the Coleman stove. If you had a generator, you were one of the lucky ones.

This storm impacted about 80 percent of AEP Southwestern Electric Power Company’s (SWEPCO) service area, when 329,300 SWEPCO customers lost power at some point during the 23-day recovery process.

Over 90 percent of these affected customers had electricity restored in six days. This storm was the worst in SWEPCO’s 98-year history, and total recovery cost was $35.4 million dollars. Over 4,900 SWEPCO and contract personnel were dedicated to storm recovery work.

The second worst storms in the company’s history were from damage after Hurricanes Rita (2005) and Ike (2008), when some 187,000 customers lost power following their landfall.

Hurricane Rita made landfall on the Texas and Louisiana state line on September 24th, 2005, but the outer rain bands produced the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded over an 36 hour period.

After this tornado outbreak ended, 55 tornadoes were confirmed, 1 person was killed and over 15 people were injured. Of the 55 total tornadoes confirmed, 1 was rated an F3 and 7 were rated F2s. The other tornadoes were rated F-1s and F-0s.

It formed on the morning of August 25, 2008, about 260 miles (420 km) southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and rapidly strengthened into a tropical storm that afternoon and into a hurricane early on August 26. Later that day, it made landfall near the Haitian town of Jacmel.

It inundated Jamaica and ravaged Western Cuba and then steadily moved across the Gulf of Mexico. Once into the Gulf, Gustav gradually weakened because of increased wind shear and dry air.

It weakened to a Category 2 hurricane late on August 31, and remained at that intensity until landfall on the morning of September 1 near Cocodrie, Louisiana.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana-Mississippi border, causing death and destruction on a historic scale.

A Category 3 storm, Katrina’s rain and storm surge caused almost every levee in metropolitan New Orleans to fail. At least 1,800 people died. A study of the victims found that most had survived the height of the storm only to die in the flooding that followed the breaching of the levees.

Federal, state, and local government agencies were widely criticized for their slow response to the plight of the people of New Orleans.