Hurricane Agnes was a 1972 storm that proved that a hurricane doesn't have to be strong to cause extensive damage.
Agnes was a typical June storm that began life as a tropical depression over the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It drifted east toward Cuba and then north, becoming a hurricane on June 18 in the southern Gulf of Mexico.
Agnes never did strengthen beyond a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. It made landfall near Apalachicola, Florida.
Most of the damage caused by Agnes occurred after landfall. The storm moved slowly through Georgia and the Carolinas, dumping heavy rain in the southern Appalachians. Seventeen tornadoes were reported, mostly in Florida. Flooding was reported from North Carolina through Virginia.
From June 20 to 23, the low pressure system hardly moved as it lingered near the Pennsylvania/New York border. Over 15 inches of rain fell in this region and flooding, especially in the Susquehanna River basin, devastated many. Most of the damage was in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
