Impact of Hurricane Opal on the Florida/Alabama coast.

Bibliography: p. 5-6

Spiral bound

Hurricane Opal passed over the Florida panhandle between the cities of Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach on the night of October 4, 1995. Although the storm weakened in the hours prior to landfall from a strong Category 4 to barely a Category 3 hurricane, major beach erosion, storm surge flooding, and overwash occurred along a stretch of shoreline extending from Gulf Shores, Alabama, to Mexico Beach, Florida, a distance of over 150 miles. By and large, wave damage was restricted to the first row of buildings and it was severe in a stretch from Pensacola to Fort Walton Beach. Overwash was over one meter thick in many places and pervasive from Gulf Shores to Fort Walton Beach. The character of the shoreline helped control damage as did development patterns. To classify Opal in a few words, it was a "water storm", meaning most of the damage caused by the storm was in the form of storm surge, wave attack, and overwash. Contrast this to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which was a more intense storm and whose principal agent of destruction was wind. Wind impacts from Opal were, however, felt to a minor degree in some areas along the coast. The coastal impacts from Opal were generally the result of wave action and flooding rather than wind. However, the damage caused by waves and storm surge was extreme, ranking Opal as the ninth costliest storm to strike the coast of the United States, causing an estimated 2.9 million dollars worth of damage. Much can be learned on how to mitigate future damage from a survey of the damage patterns using a geological perspective