The Great Bahamian Hurricanes of 1899 and 1932: The Story of Two of the Greatest and Deadliest Hurricanes to Impact the Bahamas

Hurricanes have long been a fact of life in the Bahamas. With extensive exposed coastlines jutting out of the Atlantic and uniquely flat lands and shallow coastal waters, these islands had seen many tempests before there was a Bahamas as we know it today.

Hurricanes have shaped the islands’ landscape and, in a sense, their people as well. In the history of the Bahamas—often considered a patriarchal society in which the hurricanes traditionally bore the names not of women, but of the islands...