The names of Florence and Michael are removed from the list to name hurricanes

Miami, March 20 (EFE).- The names of the category 4 hurricane destroyers Florence and Michael, formed in 2018 in the Atlantic, were removed from the official rotating list prepared by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported this Wednesday. authorities.

The substitutes are Francine and Milton, but they will not be used until 2024, when, according to the established order, the same list of names from the 2018 season should be used again, said the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). USA

Florence, with winds of up to 220 kilometers per hour (140 m/h), unleashed "epic" rains and "catastrophic flooding," which devastated parts of North and South Carolina, claiming the lives of at least 51 people.

After impacting the islands of Cape Verde and Bermuda, Florence made landfall on September 14 in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, where according to the state government it caused $12.7 billion in damage.

In neighboring South Carolina, damage was 1.2 billion, mainly due to historic flood records, which also affected Virginia.

Michael, which made landfall in northwest Florida on October 10, was the other major hurricane of the 2018 hurricane season.

The greatest damage was caused in the US, but Cuba was not free from its winds and rains, which left thousands of homes without power, flooding and damage on the western tip of the island.

In Florida alone it caused the death of 43 people, according to the most updated data from the state Division of Emergency Management, and there were also a dozen more deaths in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

According to NOAA records, Michael is the strongest to have hit the northwestern Florida panhandle so far.

With winds of almost 250 kilometers per hour (155 m/h), the hurricane was also the fourth most powerful to have made landfall on the US mainland.

The cyclone made landfall in Mexico Beach, a small coastal town, which, along with the neighboring and larger Panama City, suffered the worst of Michael's passage in Florida, a state in which agricultural losses of more than 1.5 billion dollars occurred, according to data from the then Commissioner of Agriculture of this state, Adam Putnam.

As active as it was, the 2018 season did not reach the level of destruction of 2017, in which hurricanes Irma and Maria left devastation in their path through the Atlantic basin and the Caribbean.

Its damages were equivalent to about 200 billion dollars.