Bear with me, I'm about to throw a lot of numbers at you, but I think it's interesting.

There are several different ways to define "worst" hurricane. First, let's consider the deadliest, with records going back to the 1800s. 16 of the 20 storms that claimed the most lives hit before 1953. That's the year the National Weather Service started using "people" names. Before that the storms were categorized by area of landfall, like "Sea Islands, SC" or "Grand Isle, LA".

If you define "worst" as costliest in terms of damage, the top 20 list flips. Only 2 occurred prior to 1953--and you don't get to one of those unnamed storms until #16 ("New England", 1938). It and #18 ("Northeast U.S.", 1944) will probably get bumped from the list all together over the next few hurricane seasons. (By the way, the money totals are in adjusted dollars, so all the storms are on even economic ground.)

As a point of reference, the list of 20 most intense storms is almost exactly evenly split pre-and-post our 1953 dividing line.

So what does all this tell us? First, that astounding technological advancements have led to greater human expertise in tracking tropical systems. We can get people out of harm's way or increase the odds they'll hunker down somewhere safe so much faster than our counterparts in day's gone by. Every fatality is awful, but far fewer people lose their lives now during hurricanes.

But it also shows us the (literal) price we pay for the explosion of development along the coast. People want to live by the beach, or within a reasonable drive. Of course, we understand that considering where we call home, and it's not always a choice (thinking of our military men and women). There is no doubt, however, this comes at substantial risk and cost. I think of it every time I hear about a new project going up on the water. From what I've read there seems to be real concern in the weather and emergency preparedness business about what we're setting ourselves up for along the East Coast and in the Gulf.

With that in mind, we'll keep watching this storm and the others sure to develop over the next couple months.