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Hurricane Isabel: 10th Anniversary of a Monster Storm

Ten years ago, on Sept. 18, 2003, one of the Mid-Atlantic’s most memorable and destructive hurricanes made landfall on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Hurricane Isabel landed near Drum Inlet, N.C., but its effects were felt across a large swath of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Isabel originated near the Cape Verde Islands and took a steady track west-northwest across the Atlantic, eventually strengthening into a Category 5 powerhouse on Sept. 11 to the northeast of the Lesser Antilles.

Isabel was still a monster storm by the time the first reconnaissance aircraft arrived on Sept. 12. The following day, an instrument dropped from one of those planes recorded an instantaneous wind speed of 234 mph about 4,500 feet above the sea surface. This is the strongest wind ever measured in an Atlantic hurricane. (However, it is important to note that official hurricane wind speeds are measured as one-minute averages at 33 feet above ground level.)

Double Whammy: Storm Surge, Wind Damage

Isabel packed a one-two punch of storm surge and widespread high winds, inflicting damage across a vast zone from North Carolina to western New England and the eastern Great Lakes.

Hurricane Isabel cut this breach through Hatteras Island near the town of Hatteras, N.C., as viewed by a USGS aircraft on Sept. 21, 2003. (Image credit: USGS)

Near the point of landfall, the sea cut a gash through Hatteras Island, severing it between Hatteras and Buxton. Winds gusted to near 100 mph, with an unofficial gust of 117 mph at Kitty Hawk.

(VIDEO: Mike Seidel's Extreme Hurricane Live Shots)

While most hurricanes that affect this region are already curving north and northeastward, Isabel took a northwestward path, cutting like a buzz saw through North Carolina, the Virginias, and eventually western Pennsylvania before petering out over Canada. Only one other hurricane in the past 50 years, Fran in 1996, took a similar northwestward track in this region (though a bit farther south).

As a result of this path, onshore winds were able to pile water into Chesapeake Bay and other inlets for a prolonged period, and some of Isabel’s worst storm surge came there. Some 2,500 piers and wharves were destroyed by the storm surge in and around the bay.

Record storm surge flooded Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and Fells Point districts; the Museum of Industry alone suffered $1.5 million in damage. Annapolis also suffered record storm surge, as did the Potomac River at Washington, D.C. In all three cases, storm surge records dating from the 1933 Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane were broken.

The James River in Virginia suffered flooding from both ends, as torrential rainfall sent freshwater flooding downstream while Isabel’s storm surge sent an 8.5-foot rise in the water level all the way inland to Richmond. The top rainfall total from Isabel was in western Virginia at Upper Sherando, Augusta County, with 20.20 inches.

Millions Lost Power

Isabel’s somewhat unusual track, combined with a field of tropical storm force winds (39 mph or greater) from North Carolina to western New England, yielded tremendous tree and power line damage.

Roughly two million customers lost power in Virginia alone, making it the state’s worst power outage in history – worse even than the derecho that followed nine years later. Over 10,000 homes were heavily damaged or destroyed, and another 100,000 had lesser damage; 660,000 dump truck loads of debris were generated by Isabel’s wind damage.

Isabel’s Unusual Florida Swell

Swell – ocean waves propagating away from the wind that generates them – from distant hurricanes is often blocked by the Bahamas before reaching South Florida. But in rare cases, when the swell is propagating in just the right direction, it can sneak through narrow gaps in the Bahamian island chain.

Isabel was a classic example of this, as the swell moved in just the right direction to sneak through the Providence Channel between Great Abaco and Eleuthera Islands (among others).

The result was a very narrow zone of 10-to-14-foot surf that affected the area around Delray Beach, Fla., while other areas of South Florida saw far less action.

Areas just 10 miles north or 20 miles south from Delray Beach only saw 1-to-3-foot seas from Isabel.

(VIDEO: Expert Explains Isabel's Swell)

Maryland also took a heavy blow; over 90 percent of utility customers in Anne Arundel County lost power, and Prince Georges County alone hauled 5,000 tons of storm debris in the aftermath.

The nation’s capital itself lost over 700 trees to Isabel, and 129,000 customers lost power.

Farther north, some 1.4 million people lost power across Pennsylvania and several hundred thousand more in New Jersey. Hundreds of trees fell in New York City, and there were even scattered power outages as far northwest as Toronto as Isabel transitioned to a post-tropical system.

In all, Isabel's damage is estimated at over $5 billion.

(MORE: 10 Years of Billion-Dollar Hurricanes)

Isabel’s impact is seared into the memory of those who lived through it – even those who didn’t personally suffer the worst destruction.

Kathryn Prociv, now a weather content producer at The Weather Channel, was a high school freshman in Fairfax County, Va.

“I was already into weather at this point and was following the situation closely,” Prociv says. “I had an essay due the next day at school and I tried my luck betting school would be closed so I didn't bother staying up late to write my essay the night before. The gamble paid off since school was in fact canceled the next day!”

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Hurricane Isabel Photos, September 2003