Hurricane Allison

Cuba–Southern United States, June 2–5, 1995 A minimal Category 1 hurricane,

Allison became the earliest mature-stage hurricane in recorded history to strike the mainland United States when it came ashore at Apalachicola, Florida, on the morning of June 5, 1995. The 1995 hurricane season’s first tropical cyclone Allison originated as a tropical depression 150 miles (241 km) northeast of Honduras on June 2. Carried almost due north at between 10 and 14 MPH, the strengthening tropical storm slid across the western tip of Cuba on June 3, bringing steady rains and 50-MPH (81-km/h) winds to the island. One man was killed in Havana.

Clearly bound for the Florida Panhandle, Allison continued to intensify throughout that day and night, prompting that state’s civil defense authorities to post hurricane warnings from Pensacola to Clearwater and to commence the evacuation of some 5,000 particularly vulnerable coastal residents.

Shortly before 11 o’clock on Monday morning, June 5, Allison made landfall in Taylor County, approximately 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Tallahassee. With a fairly mild central barometric pressure of 29.05 inches (984 mb), Allison’s fitful 75-MPH (121-km/h) gusts buffeted trees and severed power lines, leaving an estimated 48,000 residents in seven counties with neither electricity or telephone service. Along a 150-mile (241-km) stretch of Florida’s Big Bend, Allison’s eight-foot (3-m) storm surge flooded more than 65 surfside homes and caused extensive water damage to three hotels and a restaurant on the barrier island of St. George.

In Apalachicola, three fishing boats were swamped at their piers while five-inch (127-mm) rainfalls threatened the bay’s fragile oyster beds. The soaring Bryant Patton Bridge, linking Apalachicola with St. George Island, was closed for much of the storm’s duration as streaming seas washed debris onto its low-lying approaches. Further inland, isolated flooding damaged three houses and a grocery store and inundated a trailer park. Quickly moving into southwestern Georgia on the afternoon of June 5, Allison’s downgraded winds spawned a tornado that touched down in the town of St. Marys, gutting an empty grade school at the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. No serious injuries or deaths were

reported in either Florida or Georgia.

With some $785,000 in property damage to its credit, Allison was largely dismissed by survivors as one of the mildest hurricanes to have ever struck Florida. Nevertheless, it was in turn touted by scholars as the earliest storm of hurricane intensity to have made landfall in the United States since consistent record-keeping began in 1889. Although in the intervening 120 years no less than eight storms reached hurricane strength before June 10, only three—Hurricane Alma, June 9, 1966, an unnamed tropical storm in late May of 1970, and Hurricane Allison— ever touched the nation, making them official, record-breaking landfalls. Bearing a central pressure of (1,001 mb) and 52-MPH (84-km/h) winds, Tropical Storm Allison made landfall in Texas on June 26, 1989. Formed on June 24, the system—the first to bear the name Allison—caused no deaths or major property losses in Texas.

The name Allison was retired from the rotating list of North Atlantic tropical cyclone names in 2001.