VENICE — Venice Assistant City Manager James Clinch told the City Council on Tuesday that he and Fire Chief were excited to be presenting an update on hurricanes Helene and Milton.
The excitement, he said, was because it could have been a report on three hurricanes.
Fortunately, Tropical Storm Sara, which was projected to strike the area as a hurricane this week, broke up after making landfall in Central America.
It appears now that the area may be safe as hurricane season winds to a close on Nov. 30, he said.
According to Weather.com, there have been 13 tropical or subtropical storms in December since the late 19th century, of which only four developed into hurricanes — the most recent in 1984 — and none of which reached the U.S. mainland.
The back-to-back impact of major storms was a first for the city, and one Clinch said he hopes it never experiences again.
But it’s a certainty that the storm surge each of them caused will occur again, he said.
Helene was a “one-dimensional” storm, Clinch said, with comparatively little rain and wind. Predictions of a 6-to-7-foot storm surge proved to be pretty accurate, however.