On Sunday, it’s time to call it a day on the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. This season was a pretty full one – the fullest since 1944, although no storm, hurricane or tornado reached the devastating strengths of Rita or Katrina, although this season was declared to be the second most destructive hurricane season on record. However, the hurricane season still managed to bring around a total number of 16 named storms. Out of these 16 storms, eight were hurricanes. Out of these eight hurricanes, five either reached or exceeded the Category 3 strength. Out of all these storms, it was Tropical Storm Fay that was the most damaging of all. According to official statistics, the Tropical Storm Fay caused 15 deaths in Florida. Its strength had 41 counties declared federal disaster areas.

In just one month, the state of Florida was under threat from four major storms, namely the aforementioned Tropical Storm Fay, but also Gustav, Hanna and Ike. In order to support response and conduct the necessary recovery operations, the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee was opened and remained functional for a whopping period of 27 days. Florida isn’t out of trouble, however, just because the hurricane season is over. Because the temperatures are dropping and because the air is getting drier and drier, the possibility of extended wild fires increases. Such a tragedy occurred recently in the Los Angeles area, were thousands of houses were burned down, as the firefighters were simply unable to topple the flames.