[Black Tooth]

That's not too far-fetched. I just saw something about hurricanes creating earth tremors on their own.

Someone is pulling your leg. Hurricanes don't cause earthquakes.

In a way, the people down in that area are fortunate, as they at least have a warning of whats coming.

Then again, these things seem to happen much more frequently nowadays, especially in places like Florida.

[spycatcher]

Hurricanes don't cause earthquakes Soemone is pulling your leg

One example: http://www.iris.washington.edu/about/ENO/iows/9_2004b.htm

"Hurricanes can easily be recorded by seismographs, and before the days of satellite images, seismographs were sometimes used to track the storms. Ocean waves generated by the hurricane cause the most shaking, but shaking trees and buildings also contribute to the seismic waves. 24 hours of ground movement is plotted in the figure (each line is 2 hours long) and a gradual decrease in the amplitude over the course of the day is seen. This time period corresponds to the time when the winds from Hurricane Ivan dropped from 135 to less than 50 miles per hour. The signals shown on the plot are referred to by seismologists as microseismic noise and are always visible to some degree on global seismographs. The amplitude varies depending on the weather and the distance a seismic station is from the coast."

[Law is not justice but process]

"Someone is pulling your leg. Hurricanes don't cause earthquakes."

It is possible for hurricanes to cause seismic tremors from wave action pounding on the beach. That may be the source of the "earth tremors" statement (a 20 or 30 foot wave breaking is a hell of a lot of energy being expended over a wide front). However, it is not absolutely beyond possibility that the weight of water moved inland by a storm surge could break loose a fault that is near the point of breaking anyway. Imagine 20 feet of water (the height of the surge north of Charleston in comparatively tame Cat 4 Hugo) spread up to 10 or 15 miles inland over about 50 to 100 miles of coast. I do not know of an instance where that has happened, but is is far from impossible.

That said, I would worry about the winds first. Wind force is proportionate to the fourth power of wind velocity, not linearly, squared or even cubed. That means 175 mph is vastly stronger than 135 we saw in Hugo or even the 155 that caused such utter destruction in Andrew as it hit South Florida. I would worry about storm surge second (unless I was within 10 miles of the beach - in which case I would not be debating this on FR but di-di-mauing on up to higher ground). Camile had a 25 to 30 foot storm surge in the same region in 1968. On both counts, even without earthquakes, this could be the worst storm ever in the US.

By the way, brace for $100 a barrel oil, as this storm will shut down Gulf oil production for at least a few weeks. I dare say the price of Gulf Coast oysters and shrimp will skyrocket as the great fishing fleets of Louisiana and Mississippi will be decimated.

My prayers for safety to all residents of the affected area.