Hurricane Ike: A Category 2 With Category 4 Consequences

More than a century after the deadliest hurricane in American history leveled Galveston, Texas, another major storm found the same stretch of coastline. Hurricane Ike made landfall almost exactly where the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 did, and while a century of engineering meant far fewer lives were lost, Ike still ranks among the most destructive and expensive hurricanes in U.S. history.

An Enormous Storm That Took an Unusual Path

Ike formed from a tropical wave off the coast of Africa in early September 2008 and rapidly intensified into a Category 4 hurricane over the open Atlantic, with peak sustained winds of 145 mph. What made Ike unusual wasn't just its strength, it was its size. Ike was one of the largest-diameter hurricanes ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico, meaning its damaging winds and storm surge extended across an enormous stretch of coastline, far beyond the storm's immediate landfall point.

After crossing the Turks and Caicos and battering eastern Cuba as a major hurricane, Ike's structure was disrupted by its lengthy interaction with Cuba's mountainous terrain. Rather than rapidly restrengthening once back over open water, the storm's wind field simply grew wider, a pattern that meant its eventual landfall in Texas would affect a far larger area than its peak wind speeds alone might suggest.