What were the worst hurricanes?

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Only three category-5 storms have hit the United States since record-keeping beganÑthe 1935 Labor Day hurricane, which devastated the Florida Keys, killing 600; Hurricane Camille in 1969, which ravaged the Mississippi coast, killing 256; and Andrew in 1992, which leveled much of Homestead, Fla. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was a category-5 storm at peak intensity over the central Caribbean, Mitch in 1998 was a category-5 storm at its peak over the W Caribbean, and Gilbert in 1988 was a category-5 storm at its peak. Gilbert was the strongest Atlantic tropical cyclone of record until Wilma in 2005, which was at its peak while category-5 storm over the W Caribbean. The 1970 Bay of Bengal tropical cyclone killed some 300,000 persons, mainly by drowning, and devastated Chittagong (now in Bangladesh); some 130,000 died when a cyclone struck Myanmar along the Andaman Sea in 2008. The deadliest U.S. hurricane was the 1900 Galveston storm, which killed 8,000-12,000 people and destroyed the city. Hurricane Katrina (2005), one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, was economically the most destructive U.S. storm, devastating the SW Mississippi and SE Lousiana coasts, flooding New Orleans, killing some 1,200 people, and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Hugo (1989) in South Carolina and Opal (1995) and Charley, Ivan, and two others (2004) in Florida, and Rita (2005) in Louisiana and Texas also caused billions of dollars worth of damage. Weak hurricanes can still cause major flooding and damage, even when downgraded to a tropical storm, as did Hurricane Agnes (1972).