Hurricane, tropical storm, and Nor'easter damage on the Northern Neck




Anyone living on the Northern Neck expects hurricanes, tropical storms, and Nor'easters.

Between January 1, 1950* and April 30, 2017, 22 events were reported by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information Storm Events Database in Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland, and Lancaster counties. (Events are defined as weather in a county so if a hurricane hit four counties, it would be counted as four events.) These events impacted the four counties on nine days, caused property damage on six days and crop damage on three days, and were made up of three types of events: high wind, hurricanes/typhoons, and tropical storms. Thankfully, no deaths or injuries resulted from any of the events.

Combined, the 16 of the 22 events caused an estimated $17,225,000 in property damage and $3,412,000 in crop damage. Northumberland County by far experienced the greatest damage in terms of dollar value, as is shown in the pie chart below.


Lancaster County had seven events of which five caused property damage and/or crop damage. Damage totaled $1.32 million of which $817,000 was in property damage and $503,000 in crop damage.
  • Hurricane Floyd, 9/15/1999: $560,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Ernesto, 9/1/2006: $200,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Tropical Storm Hanna, 9/6/2008: $5,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Irene, 8/27/2011: $42,000 (property damage), $503,000 (crop damage)
  • High wind, 10/29/2012: $10,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)

An example of a hurricane in the southern part of the neck:

Five of seven storms hitting Northumberland County caused $16.9 million of which $1.15 million was crop damage. The rest was property damage.
  • Hurricane Floyd, 9/15/1999: $617,000 (property damage), $147,000 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Ernesto and High wind, 9/1/2006: $15,000,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Tropical Storm Hanna, 9/6/2008: $5,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Irene (tropical storm), 8/27/2011: $125,000 (property damage), $1 million (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Isabel, 9/18/2003: $0 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Hermine, 9/2/2016: $0 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • High wind, 10/29/2012: $10,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)

Richmond County was hit by four storms of which three caused $953,000 in damage, $141,000 in property damage and $812,000 in crop damage.
  • Hurricane Isabel, 9/18/2003: $0 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • High wind, 10/29/2012: $10,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Irene (tropical storm), 8/27/2011: $129,000 (property damage), $812,000 (crop damage)
  • High wind, 2/25/2011: $2,000 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)

Westmoreland County was hit by four storms; three storms caused damage. The total damage was $1.5 million. Of this, $510,000 was property damage and $950,000 was crop damage.
  • Hurricane Isabel, 9/18/2003: $0 (property damage), $450,000 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Irene (tropical storm), 8/27/2011: $500,000 (property damage), $500,000 (crop damage)
  • Hurricane Fran, 9/5/1996: $0 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)
  • High wind, 10/29/2012: $10 (property damage), $0 (crop damage)

Here are two videos shot in Westmoreland County showing damage caused by these storms.




Additional details about the 22 events are in the Cost of hurricanes on the Northern Neck spreadsheet.


* From the Storm Events Database:
The database currently contains data from January 1950 to April 2017, as entered by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS). Due to changes in the data collection and processing procedures over time, there are unique periods of record available depending on the event type. NCEI has performed data reformatting and standardization of event types but has not changed any data values for locations, fatalities, injuries, damage, narratives and any other event specific information. Please refer to the Database Details page for more information.

This is the seventh in a series of posts about threats and risks, especially during hurricane season.