The 1947 Fort Lauderdale hurricane (Air Weather Service designation: GeorgeMultiple sources:) was a long-lived and an intense tropical cyclone that affected the Bahamas, southernmost Florida, and the Gulf Coast of the United States in September 1947. The fourth Atlantic tropical cyclone of the year, it formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on September 4, becoming a hurricane, the third of the 1947 Atlantic hurricane season, less than a day later. After moving south by west for the next four days, it turned to the northwest and rapidly attained strength beginning on September 9. It reached a peak intensity of on September 15 while approaching the Bahamas. In spite of contemporaneous forecasts that predicted a strike farther north, the storm then turned to the west and poised to strike South Florida, crossing first the northern Bahamas at peak intensity. In the Bahamas, the storm produced a large storm surge and heavy damage, but with no reported fatalities.
A day later, the storm struck South Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, its eye becoming the first and only of a major hurricane to strike Fort Lauderdale. In Florida, advance warnings and stringent building codes were credited with minimizing structural damage and reducing loss of life to 17 people, but nevertheless widespread flooding and coastal damage resulted from heavy rainfall and high tides. Many vegetable plantings, citrus groves, and cattle were submerged or drowned as the storm exacerbated already high water levels and briefly threatened to breach the dikes surrounding Lake Okeechobee. However, the dikes held firm, and evacuations were otherwise credited with minimizing the potential death toll. On the west coast of the state, the storm caused further flooding, extensive damage south of the Tampa Bay Area, and the loss of a ship at sea.
On September 18, the hurricane entered the Gulf of Mexico and threatened the Florida Panhandle, but later its track moved farther west than expected, ultimately leading to a landfall southeast of New Orleans, Louisiana. Upon making landfall, the storm killed 34 people on the Gulf Coast of the United States and produced a storm tide as high as , flooding millions of square miles and destroying thousands of homes. The storm was the first major hurricane to test Greater New Orleans since 1915, and the widespread flooding that resulted spurred flood-protection legislation and an enlarged levee system to safeguard the flood-prone area. In all, the powerful storm killed 51 people and caused $110 million (1947 US$) in damage.
Meteorological history
On September 2, 1947, an observer for Pan American Airways at Dakar, French West Africa, noted a tropical wave. Within a few days it moved offshore, dropping of rain there. The wave was also discernible as a trough aloft, in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and was seen near Cape Verde on September 5. At 12:00 UTC on September 4, the Atlantic hurricane database—HURDAT—initiated a tropical depression midway between Cap-Vert and the archipelago. Before 2014, HURDAT began it as a tropical storm and made it a hurricane within 18 hours of formation, raising its winds from 50 mph (85 km/h) to 75 mph (120 km/h); however, reanalysis found that it took more than a week to become a hurricane. For nearly six days the cyclone—at a brisk —headed south of due west, crossing half the tropical Atlantic, during which observers lost track of it after the second day, due to sparse in-situ data. Late on September 10, the ship Arakaka radioed the next definite report of its position, near . At 15:00 UTC the next day, reconnaissance was first sent to sample the storm, finding it of moderate intensity. At this point the cyclone began turning north of due west. Within a day it underwent rapid intensification, its winds increasing from 60 mph (95 km/h) to 100 mph (155 km/h), and a new flight reported a pressure of , indicating a 24-hour drop of . Now equal to a Category 2 storm, the cyclone trekked west-northwest, a heading it kept for more than three days while being closely surveilled by aircraft. Just after, it attained winds of 115 mph (160 km/h)—major hurricane status—and for the first time aircraft noted concentric eyewalls in an Atlantic hurricane. The storm became a Category 4 hurricane on September 14. Late that day a flight found a pressure of in the storm's eye, a record low for a mission to date in the Atlantic, implying maximum sustained winds of . Due to a eye—smaller than average for its location—reanalysis assigned winds of 145 mph (230 km/h), equal to mid-range Category 4 status. Within a day the storm weakened and slowed considerably, nearing a "standstill" late on September 15 off the northernmost Bahamas, possibly due to a strong ridge.Multiple sources:
Quasi-stationary, the storm lumbered west early on September 16, while sited 250 miles (405 km) east of Palm Beach, Florida. Its trajectory then shifted south of due west, nearing the Abaco Islands. At 19:00 UTC the cyclone made its first landfall, on Great Guana Cay, with winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). A weather station on a hilltop to its south—at Hope Town, Elbow Cay—recorded , its highest winds on record, feeling the storm's radius of maximum wind. Shortly afterward it logged near the edge of the eye, along with a pressure of at the same time, suggesting a central pressure of . Both the pressure and the station's elevation justified Category 3 winds, a demotion from the storm's former Category 5 rank in HURDAT. Early on September 16 the storm, now very large—and accordingly described as a "monster" by media—turned west-southwest, brushed Grand Bahama, and began to regain force, closing in on peninsular Florida. By the time it reached the state's east coast, its twin eyewalls had formed a large eye, confirming its completion of an inner-core replacement.Multiple sources:
At 16:30 UTC on September 17, the cyclone struck South Florida near Fort Lauderdale with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 km/h), equal to low-end Category 4 status. At Hillsboro Inlet Light an anemometer, above sea level, measured a gust of —the strongest to be verified in a Florida hurricane before Andrew in 1992—and a brief lull, the latter during the eye passage; the former hinted at sustained winds of 131–138 mph (211–228 km/h) near standard height. A barometer there sampled a low of , and another at Cap's Place noted , while readings farther south, nearer the center of the eye, varied from ; as Fort Lauderdale saw a longer calm than Hillsboro, the lowest pressures—reckoned to be near —occurred by the eye's edge, implying eyewall mesovortices.Multiple sources: The storm's radius of maximum wind was 15 miles (30 km)—near the mean for its intensity and location—but its size was huge and movement slow: hurricane-force winds extended outward 120 miles (195 km) and the storm crept inland at less than 10 mph (15 km/h). Winds over 100 mph (160 km/h) swept more than 70 miles (110 km) of coast between a point "well north" of Palm Beach and northern Miami. The storm's top winds were between Lake Worth and Fort Lauderdale, lashing lesser-populated areas such as Pompano, Deerfield, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Coconut Creek, Coral Springs, and Margate. Winds topped 50 mph (80 km/h) over most of Florida below Brevard County, a radius of 150 miles (240 km). Meteorologist Grady Norton dubbed the storm a "Great Hurricane", one of only 10 such Florida storms on record (from 1880–1948), signifying overall intensity and impact; 13 years later his understudy Gordon Dunn deemed it "Extreme".Multiple sources:
Upon landfall, the sprawling storm headed west over the marshy Everglades and the Big Cypress region; while slowly weakening, it lightly damaged rural Collier and Broward counties. Just north of Naples, which received the southern side of the eye, the storm entered the Gulf of Mexico around 03:00 UTC on September 18, bearing winds of 100 mph (155 km/h). Moving offshore, it skirted Sanibel and Captiva islands, the latter of which recorded a pressure of .Multiple sources: Once over water, the hurricane turned more northwesterly and began to restrengthen, its forward pace rising to . Around 14:00 UTC on September 19, the hurricane traversed the Chandeleur Islands and hit St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, as a high-end Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 110 mph (175 km/h). Its eye passed over Saint Bernard, Belle Chasse, and downtown New Orleans; several barometers read , supporting a central value of , as Belle Chasse Naval Air Station and the U.S. Weather Bureau office in New Orleans intercepted the calm center. After passing inland, the vortex hit the Louisiana state capital Baton Rouge with sustained winds of , but degenerated rapidly thereafter: within 10 hours of landfall it lost hurricane status. Over Ark-La-Tex the tropical storm weakened further, becoming a tropical depression in North Texas late on September 20. Past the Red River its track bent northeast, and by 12:00 UTC the next day the system became extratropical, at which time it also dissipated.
Preparations On the evening of September 15, the U.S. Weather Bureau foresaw a north turn, suggestive of landfall between Jacksonville, Florida, and Savannah, Georgia. As a precautionary measure, small watercraft between Jupiter, Florida, and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, were advised to remain in port. Early on September 16, the forecast was revised, and hurricane warnings were issued for eastern Florida from Titusville to Fort Lauderdale, later to be expanded to Miami. These were eventually issued for the west coast of the state south of Tampa, along with storm warnings in the Florida Keys. P. 2 At least 5,000 people sheltered in a courthouse at Miami. P. 2 As the hurricane approached Northern commercial flights were grounded, and 1,500 National Guard troops were readied to be mobilized if needed by Florida Governor Millard Caldwell. 4,700 persons in Broward County moved into Red Cross shelters, while up to 15,000 people evacuated the flood-prone Lake Okeechobee region. In all, more than 40,000 people statewide moved into Red Cross shelters. Military aircraft were flown to safer locations, in some cases four or days more in advance. Hotels in the at-risk area filled quickly due to fears of a disaster like the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane; at Melbourne and Cocoa no vacant hotels were left for evacuees. During the storm, the MacArthur, North Bay (now Kennedy), and Venetian Causeways in Miami were closed to traffic. At Lake Worth alone, 1,800 people sheltered in nine official shelters during the storm. As the hurricane reached the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters thought it would hit between Apalachicola and Pensacola, Florida, but by 04:15 UTC on September 19, the Weather Bureau office in New Orleans posted hurricane warnings from St. Marks, Florida, to Morgan City, Louisiana. As the storm neared Louisiana, Emile Verret, the acting governor of Baton Rouge, closed the state capital and sent public officials home. In New Orleans, local National Guard units were mobilized.
Impact Impacts by regionRegionDeathsInjuriesLocaleDeathsInjuriesDamagesSourceCaribbean and Bahamas0? Bahamas 0 Multiple sources:
P. 10United States51935 Florida 17 186 Multiple sources: Louisiana 12 95 Mississippi 22 654 Total51935Multiple sources:
P. 10
The Bahamas As the storm passed nearby, Green Turtle Cay was flooded by of water and the local weather station abandoned.