Agnes was born on June 16, 1972, forming as a tropical storm east of the Yucatan Peninsula. The infamous hurricane would be a storm with two distinct lives. She would move north over the Gulf of Mexico and strike the Florida Panhandle as a minimal hurricane on June 19th. The highest wind reported on the Gulf Coast was a gust to just 56 mph at Apalachicola, Florida. The $10 million in damage in the Florida Panhandle was just a drop in the bucket. The main damage would begin two days later.
Agnes was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved through Georgia, but regained tropical storm strength over eastern North Carolina. She would produce tremendous rains from Virginia to New York.
On June 22, Agnes’ torrential rains deluged parts of Pennsylvania. The state capital of Harrisburg was inundated and the governor’s mansion flooded. Nineteen inches of rain deluged Wilkes-Barre PA, forcing the Susquehanna River over its thirty eight foot high dikes.
Hurricane Agnes’ five-day romp through the Atlantic seaboard made the storm the costliest natural disaster in the United States at that time. Damage was estimated at $3.5 billion and 134 deaths were reported from Florida to New York. Agnes would produce more damage than all tropical cyclones in the previous six years, including Camille.
