1. The Question When you compare hurricanes during the past century, which hurricane was the worst of them all? What traits make a hurricane especially damaging? To answer this question, you must compare the damage done by several hurricanes and rank the list from most damage at the top to the least damage at the bottom.

2. The Information Sources You will visit a government Website to learn about the damage done by recent hurricanes—the National Climatic Data Center. We will not look at every hurricane from the past century. Hurricane Fran Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Georges Hurricane Bonnie Hurricane Brett Hurricane Katrina

3. The Student Activity It’s your job to fill in the grid below, comparing the hurricanes. You should build this grid in Microsoft Word. Once you have all the information, then you may rank the hurricanes from most damage to least. 1 = top damage 6 = least damage Name of Hurricane Damage $DeathsWindOtherDateRank Hurricane Fran Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Georges Hurricane Bonnie Hurricane Bret Hurricane Katrina

Name of Hurricane Damage $DeathsWindOtherDateRank Hurricane Fran $2.3 billion Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Georges Hurricane Bonnie $ 1.0 million3104 mphAug. 26, 1998 Hurricane Bret $6.1 billion4190 mphAug. 22, 1969 Hurricane Katrina $ billion mph250,000 displaced Aug. 23, 2005

4. The Assessment Activity Now write a essay telling which hurricane you would pick as the “storm of the century” given the list you had time to consider and research. Provide convincing facts as evidence to back your choice.