Elsa caused $1B in damage amid Florida landfall and beyond

ORLANDO, Fla. — New information on Hurricane Elsa spun into formation last week, seven months after the first hurricane of the 2021 season took form.

The National Hurricane Center released Friday its findings on the Category 1 hurricane that made landfall July 7 in the United States along Florida’s big bend as a tropical storm.

The 2021 storm was notable to meteorologists for many reasons, including its longevity. Elsa lasted eight days as a named storm, which was the most named storm days for an Atlantic storm forming in July since 2008’s Bertha, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist of Colorado State University.

The center reported a total of $1 billion of damage to the southern United States and multiple Caribbean countries. Thirteen people were directly killed by Elsa, including a 26-year-old man who died when Elsa’s tropical-storm-force winds knocked down a tree and crushed him. Another nine were killed offshore in the Florida Straits, the center reported.

Two days before it made landfall, Elsa had become a tropical storm and was getting closer to the Florida peninsula. On the way there, it encountered a boat of 22 people who had departed from Cuba, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The passengers hoped to arrive in South Florida but were met with Elsa’s 50 mph sustained winds, which capsized the boat, forcing the passengers to endure the storm without help for about 18 to 22 hours.

The Coast Guard was able to rescue 13 of the passengers; seven men and two women, before suspending its search for the other nine.