The Effects of Hurricane Ivan
The 2004 hurricane season began quietly with only one tropical storm between June and July. By the same time last year two hurricanes and six tropical storms had occurred. August however has brought an influx of four hurricanes and four tropical storms, four of which have hit the US and Caribbean. Hurricane Francis and Charley being among the worst already strained defenses put in place but due to warm weather tracks a cycle of hurricanes emerged.
Causes of Hurricane Ivan:
In order to look at the effects of Hurricane Ivan you must first acknowledge the cause of previous hurricane.
No one was shocked by the storms beginning on August 9th because many had been watching storm Bonnie when a tropical depression occurred outside the outer regions of the Caribbean. It quickly became Tropical Storm Charley and then, south of Jamaica, a full hurricane. After leaving a trail of heavy rains and winds in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, Charley struck Cuba during a two-hour crossing that left five people dead and $1 billion in damage. After that it was clear Charley was heading for Florida, the media played it was a category 2 storm heading for Tampa bay. But Charley turned into a Category 4 hurricane at the last minute with wins of 145mph hitting charlotte bay not Tampa Bay. By the time Charley exited the state's central east coast a new danger - Hurricane Frances - had taken form 1,800 miles away in the Atlantic. Frances was a turtle storm, plodding through the Caribbean before hitting Florida. Its powerful crawl paralyzed the state's east coast. Frances struck the Turks and Calicos Islands, then the Bahamas for hours as a Category 4 storm, with winds up to 140 mph. just before making landfall, Frances abruptly de-intensified to Category 2. It dumped rain and spread more destruction throughout Florida. It crossed into the Gulf of Mexico only to come ashore in weakened condition in the Panhandle.Even as Frances moved into Northwest Florida, Ivan was becoming a ferocious system deep in the Atlantic. Combining the punch of Charley with the breadth of Frances, it went through the Caribbean. Ivan came after two huge Hurricanes which had drained the defenses of the Caribbean and the US so the subsequent effects were disastrous.
