The deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record tore through the Caribbean
On this day · 10 October 1780
The Great Hurricane of 1780 reached Barbados around October 10 and killed an estimated 22,000 people across the eastern Caribbean.
No Atlantic storm has ever killed more people than the Great Hurricane of 1780. Likely a Cabo Verde hurricane born off the West African coast, it crossed the ocean and reached Barbados around October 10, 1780, then raked the Lesser Antilles through the middle of the month.
The toll was staggering: an estimated 20,000 to 22,000 dead — more than perished in many entire modern hurricane seasons combined. Some 4,300 died on Barbados, roughly 9,000 on Martinique, and thousands more on Sint Eustatius.
One contemporary estimate put wind gusts near 200 mph as the storm came ashore.
It struck during the American Revolution, wrecking British and French fleets stationed in the region and reshaping naval operations. Nearly two and a half centuries later, it remains the benchmark for the deadliest hurricane in recorded Atlantic history.
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