Hurricane Betsy was a powerful hurricane of the 1965 Atlantic hurricane season which caused enormous damage in the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana. Betsy made its most intense landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River, causing significant flooding of the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans. At the time it was the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States, and, as the first hurricane to cause over a billion dollars i...
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Hurricane Betsy was a powerful hurricane of the 1965 Atlantic hurricane season which caused enormous damage in the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana. Betsy made its most intense landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River, causing significant flooding of the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans. At the time it was the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States, and, as the first hurricane to cause over a billion dollars in damage (1965 dollars, not adjusted for inflation), earned the nickname "Billion-Dollar Betsy".
Betsy formed east of the Windward Islands, and moved north through the island chain as a tropical storm, at one point making a complete loop. When it was about 350 miles (560 km) east of Daytona Beach, Florida, and seemed to be on its way to hit the Carolinas, it turned back toward the southwest (making a second complete loop), passing over the Bahamas where winds on Great Abaco Island reached 147 mph (237 km/h). Betsy travelled just north of...
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