What would you consider the most notorious hurricanes in U.S. history?

The Mout Rushmore concept

You may have had an argument with friends or heard a podcast discuss something like, "Who would be on your Mount Rushmore of all-time quarterbacks?" Or best movies, best places to travel, best rock bands, anything you can think of.

That debate probably lasted a while, because you only get four slots.

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There may be one or two that were locks to be included on that list.

But then narrowing down the last two of the four can be challenging. Not only are you picking which two, but you're also eliminating the rest, each of which may have a legitimate case to be on that lofty perch of Mount Rushmore.

So, we asked some hurricane experts and followers on social media to give us their Mount Rushmore of U.S. hurricanes.

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We didn't provide any criteria, except that it could be the mainland U.S., as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Hawaii, to see what responses we received.

One landslide winner: Katrina

All but one of those who responded had Katrina carved into their Mount Rushmore.

It happened this century, it remains the only mainland U.S. hurricane after 1928 that claimed over 1,000 lives and it's by far America's costliest hurricane ($201.3 billion damage, according to NOAA).

It hammered the Mississippi coast with record storm surge. It drowned most of New Orleans in up to 20 feet of water for months. And the images and video of the horrible aftermath remain forever burned in the minds of many.

There was a small silver lining after Katrina.

"A spigot opened to fund hurricane research, including the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program, which has sliced errors in hurricane track and intensity forecasts in half," said WPLG-TV hurricane expert Michael Lowry, in a message to weather.com.

Lowry also noted the National Hurricane Center's budget was increased the following year to almost double its hurricane forecasting staff. In 2006, Congress also passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act.

"It's an overarching authority that remains a bedrock of disaster response and recovery," Lowry said.

(MORE: What I'll never forget about covering Katrina)

Andrew

About 70% of the meteorologists we polled had Andrew in their top four.

Andrew is one of only four hurricanes to have made landfall in the U.S. at Category 5 intensity, when it clobbered South Florida on Aug. 24, 1992, then later made its final landfall in Louisiana.

It was the nation's costliest hurricane at the time, inflicting an estimated $60.5 billion in damage (adjusted for inflation to 2024), and remains among the top 10 costliest in the U.S. 34 years later.

Andrew damaged or destroyed about 125,000 homes, almost entirely in South Florida in what is now called Miami-Dade County.

As catastrophic as it was, its track spared downtown Miami, which would have been a much worse fate. A 17-foot storm surge occurred near where Andrew made landfall near Homestead Air Force Base.

And again, it lead to significant changes.

"Andrew's winds laid bare major issues with the way homes were built in South Florida and led to a massive overhaul of the state's building codes, eventually codified by the unified Florida Building Code in 2002," Lowry told weather.com.

"Florida's stringent building codes have remained the gold standard for the rest of the country ever since."

Galveston 1900

Imagine staring down an intense hurricane decades before the National Hurricane Center, satellites, weather models, television and social media existed.

On Sept. 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane roared into Galveston Island, Texas. A storm surge of up to 15 feet with battering waves swept over the barrier island that was less than 9 feet above sea level, accompanied the hurricane eyewall's intense winds.

Roughly 8,000 were killed, though some estimates were as high as 12,000 fatalities, more than double the death toll of any other U.S. hurricane before or since.

According to NOAA, the south, east and west sides of the city were wiped out as much as five blocks inland by the storm surge. An estimated 3,500 homes and buildings were destroyed.

At the time, the island had only 44,000 residents, but was a boomtown.

"In 1900, Galveston had more millionaires per capita than any other city in America. It had so much going for it," NBC weather anchor Al Roker told weather.com when his book, "Storm of the Century," was released in 2015.

While the hurricane prompted the construction of a sea wall that was completed in 1911, Galveston would never reclaim its pre-hurricane status. That would eventually migrate farther inland up the bay to Houston.

Camille

The last hurricane to receive enough votes to land in the top four was the most iconic Gulf Coast hurricane of the modern era prior to Katrina.

Camille roared ashore along the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the night Aug. 17-18, 1969, packing Category 5 winds estimated at 175 mph. But the exact wind speeds will never be known, as all wind-measuring instruments near Camille's core were destroyed.

The storm surge of 24.6 feet in southern Mississippi set a U.S. record that would later be surpassed by that of Katrina. Because Camille was more compact, that devastating surge focused on a narrower swath of coastline than that of Katrina.

One hundred forty-three people died from Camille's landfall, and another 113 perished in Virginia from flash flooding resulting from Camille's remnants.

Once again, Camille had a lasting legacy.

"After then-National Hurricane Center Director Bob Simpson surveyed the damage in Camille's aftermath, it inspired him and Miami-based engineer Herb Saffir to design the now-ubiquitous Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale that bear their names," Lowry told weather.com.

Many honorable mentions

Since we only allowed four slots, there were many damaging, historic hurricanes that didn't get as many votes, but certainly had strong cases.

• Labor Day 1935: It's still the most intense U.S. hurricane landfall by pressure (892 millibars) and estimated winds (185 mph).
• Maria 2017: Almost 3,000 were killed and $115 billion damage was inflicted on Puerto Rico in this devastating strike
• Long Island Express 1938: This Category 3 hurricane plowed into Long Island while moving at a speed of 60 to 70 mph. An estimated 600 were killed, including those offshore, and over 57,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.
• Harvey 2017: America's wettest tropical cyclone on record (up to 60 inches of rain) was also the nation's second costliest ($160 billion) and was Texas' deadliest since 1919 (68 deaths).
• Hugo 1989: The iconic South Carolina hurricane of the modern era, it claimed 26 lives on the mainland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and was America's costliest hurricane at the time ($22.7 billion damage).
• Superstorm Sandy 2012: Since we polled mainly meteorologists and tropical weather fans, maybe it was Sandy's "post-tropical" classification just before landfall that kept it off the list. Not that it mattered one iota as far as its deadly, destructive, historic impacts.
• Lake Okeechobee 1928: Never heard of this one? Well, it's the mainland's second deadliest hurricane, which claimed 2,500 to 3,000 lives, mainly from surges of water over levees and dikes along Florida's Lake Okeechobee.
• Great Miami 1926: Picture a probably larger version of Andrew driving a 15-foot surge into Miami Beach. Every building in downtown Miami was either damaged or destroyed. An estimated 372 people died, either in South Florida or along the northern Gulf Coast.
• Floyd 1999: It wasn't as wet as Harvey, but Floyd's pummeling of North Carolina just weeks after Hurricane Dennis soaked the same area destroyed 7,000 homes and damaged another 56,000 in the Tar Heel state.
• Michael 2018: It was one of only four mainland U.S. Category 5 landfalls when it clobbered the Florida Panhandle and inland areas into Georgia.
• Hazel 1954: This Carolinas hurricane roared ashore at Category 4 intensity near Cape Fear, driving an up-to-18-foot storm surge and bringing winds up to 90 mph as far inland as parts of New York state.
• Wilma 2005: Before it reached the U.S., it became the most intense Atlantic hurricane by pressure (882 millibars), parked over Cancún for days, then inflicted a $30 billion damage toll across parts of Florida.

What's your Mount Rushmore of U.S. hurricanes? Hit me up on my social accounts below and let me know.

(MORE: The most forgotten US hurricanes)

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.