I get my back up when I hear Super Storm Sandy too. It was big but not particularly bad or super.
In terms expressed as monetary damage, Sandy ranks 2nd with Katrina being first on the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_costliest_Atlantic_hurricanes
The greatest number of people die and the most property damage occurs during a hurricane or a tropical storm as the result of flooding either from rain or from the storm surge or a combination of both. As far as storm surge, size matters as well as the speed and the track.
Hurricane Andrew was an exception. It was a rather small hurricane in size but with very intense winds. Hurricane Andrew only pushed a light to moderate storm surge ahead of it and did not have a lot of rain and was a fast moving storm, but near its center where wind gusts were reported at over 170 mph and in some places with imbedded tornadoes, the destruction was devastating and near complete.
Agnes in 1972 was at its strongest only a Cat 1 but did most of its damage as a TS. TS Agnes still holds the record here in PA for flooding on the Susquehanna River. I was 10 years old and living in Baltimore when Agnes came through. There were some gusty winds but it was the torrential rain that I remember. I also remember listening to the radio with my mother about the flooding in Maryland, in places like Ellicott City and in the north east Maryland towns at the base of the Susquehanna, and in her hometown of Harrisburg, PA. And also of the news reports on the Conowingo Dam and how the Army Corps of Engineers had placed explosive charges to blow up part of the dam to prevent a complete failure as the flood waters were within a few feet of breaching the dam and causing a total collapse.
The combination of its size and the angle at which Sandy landed pushed a tremendous amount of storm surge ahead of it along the Jersey Shore and including the East River in NYC causing major flooding and damage thee and in lower Manhattan. FWIW, I personally know two families who lost both their homes and their businesses as a result of Sandy. My cousin who lives in northern NJ was spared but knew many other families who were not so lucky.
It sort of makes my blood boil when people say “It was just a tropical storm” or “it wasn’t that bad”.
It was just a tropical storm, but it was a bad one. Even a nor’easter can do major damage under the right (or wrong as the case may be) circumstances.
You didn’t mention the 1900 storm that destroyed Galveston Texas and killed between 6000 and 10,000 people.
I grew up hearing about that storm because my grandfather survived it and then spent months pulling bodies from the wreckage and burning them on the beach. Now that was a storm.!
Allow me to repeat myself; it was just a tropical storm. Yep, there was a lot of damage, it was an expensive storm, no doubt.
We are not particularly fond of areas like the north east sucking up all the insurance money since we have the strictest of building codes here in South florida.
In the Keys we get a big storm and we get for the most part minimal damage since we are ready for it.
We build 11` feet off the ground using concrete.
Big difference between how structures are built on the rest of the east coast.
Still we pay crazy insurance rates. My last house I paid 10k per year for insurance.