Credit: American Red Cross
Mid-August of 1893 was extremely busy for the Atlantic basin. For several days there were four hurricanes occurring simultaneously around the Basin, three of them being major. On the evening of Aug. 27th, the sixth hurricane of that year, known as the Great Sea Island hurricane, struck the Georgia coast near Savannah. In addition to its estimated 120 mph winds the Cape Verde storm brought a large storm surge to the mainland and the off-shore Sea Islands. Fatalities were estimated in the range of 2000 and damages of a million dollars occurred.
1893 marks the first year when the American Red Cross organized relief efforts after a hurricane landfall. Efforts in Georgia, however, were delayed until October since the organization was already involved in aiding after an earlier June storm in South Carolina. These labors were further delayed when yet another hurricane struck the Carolinas in mid-October.
NOAA has been reanalyzing all Atlantic hurricanes back to 1851. For the record of U.S. landfalling hurricanes from the reanalysis, see
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html