Storm Surge: What Causes Most Hurricane Damage

Even 200 miles away from the center of a big hurricane, the storm surge of a hurricane can cause plenty of trouble in low-lying areas like downtown Mobile, which has an average elevation of only 10 feet above sea level. In 2005, for example, Hurricane Katrina's storm surge -- a wind-driven wave that came ashore like a little tsunami -- was 16 feet high at Mobile, which means that a six-foot wall of water was pouring out of the Mobile river into the streets of downtown Mobile. Near the old L&N station on the waterfront all the parking meters were completely underwater, and the water was about five-feet deep in the lobby of the train depot. Elsewhere, about three-quarters of mile away from the river, the wall of water was still at least four-feet high as it poured into a parking lot across from the Admiral Semmes Hotel. All the cars in that parking lot were covered in water, and many of the electric locks on the cars' trunks shorted out, leaving the trunks standing wide open and full of water. Probably the worst problem from the surge, however, came at the Bankhead Tunnel, which runs under the Mobile River. The five or six feet of water pouring down Government Street found the open mouth of the tunnel and began to pour into the tunnel. Imagine being caught by that water if you were driving through the tunnel! Of course, Mobile didn't suffer from Katrina as badly as New Orleans or the Mississippi Coast, but that was because those other places were at even lower elevations and had even higher storm surges.