Hurricane Hattie

Hurricane Hattie.
Hurricane Hattie was the strongest and deadliest tropical cyclone of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season. The ninth tropical storm and seventh hurricane of the season, Hattie became a major hurricane on October 28 and strengthened to Category 5, with reported maximum sustained winds of 165 mph (270 km/h). It produced hurricane-force winds and caused one death on San Andres Island, and it dropped rainfall of up to 11.5 in (290 mm) on Grand Cayman. It weakened to Category 4 before making landfall on October 31 in British Honduras (now Belize). In Belize City, 70% of the buildings were damaged, leaving more than 10,000 people homeless and prompting the government to relocate the country's capital inland to Belmopan. Across the country, 307 people were killed. Elsewhere in Central America, Hattie killed 11 people in Guatemala and one in Honduras. (This article is part of a featured topic: 1961 Atlantic hurricane season.)