Hurricane Wilma

Hurricane Wilma really did a number on the southern tip of Florida, but what are hurricane Wilma's stats?

Hurricane Wilma

As we have heard over and over again on the television, hurricane Wilma was the 21st named storm of the hurricane season. And since there are a few letters of the alphabet that we do not use to name storms, she was also the last to be named according to the Latin alphabet. After Wilma the storms will all have to named according instead to the letters of the Greek alphabet - and that has never before happened since we began keeping a record of storms in the Atlantic basin. Hurricane Wilma can also boast being the 3rd category 5 hurricane of this year's season.

The strength of hurricane Wilma

Before hurricane Wilma, we all learned a very hard lesson about hurricane safety and how much of that entails making proper preparedness measures, but we always seem to be lax in that area, both on an individual level as well as on a national level. Although we are looking mainly at the aftermath of hurricane Wilma in south Florida, hurricane Wilma also caused major destruction in Mexico and Cuba before it finally reached its final destination of Florida. In total, there have been about 47 deaths as a result of the hurricane, and as is so often the case, many of them could have been prevented with proper weather safety knowledge. People seem to be so curious about what it is like to be outside during or immediately after one of these storms, and this is the most dangerous time. During the hurricane itself, any number of flying objects can fly into a person at any given moment, especially if there is a big gust of wind, which often do the most damage.

In Florida there have been deaths related to the storm as late as 10 days after the storm. These deaths were caused by the power lines that were down or hanging loosely. The same wires that a child might have played with the day before and was unharmed by could at any time be live again because of all the work being done by the electric company. Proper safety should be the top priority, even if the kids are going stir crazy from being cooped up in the house for so long. Children should not be allowed to play anywhere near powerlines and it is a good idea to try and keep play as an indoor activity for as long as it takes the electricity to get up and running again and before all of the lines have been repaired. Home safety should be the only thing on your mind until all is back to normal.

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