Tuesday's List: Hurricanes Striking Florida Since 1960

In light of the ongoing disaster in coastal Texas because of Hurricane Harvey, I thought I'd be a little reflective and list the hurricanes striking Florida since I began to "follow" them. 

Oh, I suppose I could have made the following list more comprehensive and list all of the Atlantic hurricanes and/or tropical storms hitting land in the United States...or in any other country for that matter...as well as going back further in time.  But this happens to be a personal blog and so I decided to list those hurricanes that struck somewhere in my home state of Florida since 1960, when I was three years old and experienced my first hurricane while living with my family in Opa-Locka, a suburb of Miami.  And I left out tropical storms as well...let's face it, they're just nowhere near as memorable as hurricanes.  On the list I capitalized the names of the hurricanes that directly affected me where I lived at the time (1960-76: South Florida, 1977-Present: Gainesville).  As for my Gainesville encounters with these storms, none of them were technically hurricane "experiences", but they affected us here anyway...even if they only, like David, Elena, Charley, and Matthew, at times seemed to have us directly in their "sights"...

Which of the below affected me the most?  I'd have to say it was Cleo in 1964: the eye passed directly over us in West Hollywood and the winds nearly blew in our front door...pretty scary stuff, especially when you're just seven years old...

1960 DONNA...only a toddler when it hit, I just remember a big storm with others worried
1964 CLEO...house boarded up, door almost lost, eye passed over us
1964 Dora...much damage in Jacksonville and Lake City
1964 ISBELL...not a direct hit, but plenty of wind and rain
1965 BETSY...fortunately turned south of us and hit mainly in southern Dade county
1966 Alma...passed in Gulf parallel to coast, caused damage upstate, hit Apalachicola
1966 INEZ...threatened us from SW but just grazed south Florida
1968 Gladys...hit from Gulf north of Tampa, passed through Ocala
1972 Agnes...didn't directly hit us but merging with front caused much rain, hit Panhandle
1975 Eloise...Category 3 impact at Panama City
1979 DAVID...looked like it would hit on the NE Fla coast, but steered by us
1985 ELENA...was poised to come inland at G'ville from Cedar Key, but did an about-face
1985 Juan...although it technically hit Louisiana, spin-off bands soaked us for days
1985 Kate...rare well-organized November hurricane hit around Pensacola
1987 Floyd...grazed south Florida from SW
1992 Andrew...this Category 4 storm spared my parents' Hollywood home when it veered to south Dade
1995 Erin...crossed state from Vero Beach, then hit west Panhandle
1995 Opal...Category 4 impact near Pensacola
1998 Earl...hit Panama City from SW
1998 Georges...passed through Keys, extensive flooding in Panhandle
1999 Floyd...mass evacuations, but eye stayed off NE Fla coast, bands hit inland
1999 Irene....hit Keys, then south Florida
2004 CHARLIE...originally projected to hit Gainesville, missed us but devastated Punta Gorda
2004 FRANCES...lots of wind and rain, we escaped widespread power outages
2004 Ivan...hit hard in Mobile, Ala/Pensacola area
2004 JEANNE...we lost power for 3 hrs, tropical storm winds tore off trim on side of house
2005 Dennis...June storm hit Pensacola/Mobile, Ala area
2005 Katrina...passed though S. Florida on way to New Orleans and Mississippi
2005 Rita...passed through Fla. Keys on way to eastern Texas, western Louisiana
2005 Wilma...slammed into south Florida with high winds from SW, moved fast
2016 HERMINE...hit just north of us from Gulf but feeder bands caused widespread damage in state
2016 MATTHEW...flirted with hitting northern Fla before passing east in Atlantic

This list isn't truly complete without me mentioning the terrible Storm of the Century that hit the eastern United States on March 12, 1993. Although technically a winter cyclone and not a hurricane, it had the same devastating effects and caused a lot of damage in Gainesville...including essentially finishing off our privacy fence...

Some of these storms, like Katrina and Rita, made their biggest impact elsewhere in the country while others devastated the Caribbean area, causing many casualties and much damage before approaching Florida.  And considering what is going on right now in eastern coastal Texas, I feel that we have been extremely fortunate and blessed over the years to have escaped such disaster...