How Hurricane Maria stacks up against other deadly, destructive storms

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Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Devastating hurricanes in U.S. history
From Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Andrew to Hurricane Harvey, these storms will go down in history.

A new report found that Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico, making it one of the deadliest in the nation's history.

With so many ways to measure a hurricane -- from sustained wind speeds, to total cost to lives lost -- it can be hard to quantify what makes a hurricane historic. In 2017, FiveThirtyEight examined some of the costliest, deadliest modern tropical storms, putting together a list of tropical storms that have caused at least $1 billion damage since 1980.

The updated numbers for Maria make it deadlier than any on the list.

Here's a look at how Maria stacks up against the 10 deadliest of those storms.

Maria

Date: Sept. 20, 2017

Estimated Damage: $140 billion

Estimated Deaths: 2,975

Katrina

Date: Aug. 25, 2005

Estimated Damage: $160 billion

Estimated Deaths: 1,833

Sandy

Date: Oct. 30, 2012

Estimated Damage: $70.2 billion

Estimated Deaths: 159

Rita

Date: Sept. 20, 2005

Estimated Damage: $23.7 billion

Estimated Deaths: 119

Ike

Date: Sept. 12, 2008

Estimated Damage: $34.8 billion

Estimated Deaths: 112

Hugo

Date: Sept. 21, 1989

Estimated Damage: $18.2 billion

Estimated Deaths: 86

Floyd

Date: Sept. 14, 1999

Estimated Damage: $9.7 billion

Estimated Deaths: 77

Harvey

Date: Aug. 25, 2017

Estimated Damage: Could be as much as $180 billion

Estimated Deaths: At least 70

Juan

Date: Oct. 27, 1985

Estimated Damage: $3.5 billion

Estimated Deaths: 63

Andrew

Date: Aug. 23, 1992

Estimated Damage: $47.8 billion

Estimated Deaths: 61

Ivan

Date: Sept. 12, 2004

Estimated Damage: $27.1 billion

Estimated Deaths: 57