Hurricane Hazel Makes Landfall

Date: October 15, 1954 • Location: Hamlet, United States

Hurricane Hazel made landfall in the Carolinas in the United States before moving north to Toronto in Canada later the same day, killing 176 people in the two countries.

Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second-costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before it struck the United States near the border between North and South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane. After causing 95 fatalities in the US, Hazel struck Canada as an extratropical storm, which raised the death toll by 81 people, mostly in Toronto. As a result of the high death toll and the damage caused by Hazel, its name was retired from use for North Atlantic hurricanes.