In 1999, Hurrican Floyd made landfall near Bald Head Island just ten days after after Tropical Storm Dennis dumped 6 to 16 inches of rain across the eastern part of the state. Hurricane Floyd hit eastern North Carolina as a Category two with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph and dumped 20 inches of rain which caused unprecedented flooding across sections of eastern North and South Carolina. Floyd’s death toll reached 36 in North Carolina and 57 across the United States as a whole, with total damage estimates near $6.5 billion. According to the National Weather Service, it is still the most powerful storm to ever hit Wilmington.
