Ah, interesting.

The year 1985 had a double-double whammy on the Gulf Coast:

Round One

Danny: Landed in LA on 15 Aug, Cat-1 with maximum winds of 80-kt and min pressure of 987 mb. The hurricane strengthened up to the point of landfall on the sparsely-populated central coast. Peak storm surge to the east of the hurricane rached 5-8 feet in LA and 2-3 feet in AL and MS.

Elena: Landed near Biloxi, MS, on 02 Sep with maximum winds of 110-kt and a min pressure of about 953 mb. Like Danny, this hurricane continued strengthening even as it neared the coast. The storm surge, generally 3-6 feet, reached 6-10 feet at some locations to the east of the center.

Round Two

Juan: Landed near Morgan City, LA, on 29 Oct with maximum winds of 75-kt and a min pressure of 971 mb. Then, after looping over Lafayette (the second loop on a complex path), the weakening tropical cyclone moved back into the GOM in the vicinity of Vermilion Bay. Juan, reorganizing over the warm waters, headed east toward a FL landfall on 31 Oct, with maximum winds of about 75-80 kt. Juan's slow, loopy path kept the system in the northern GOM for about five days.

Kate: Landed near Mexico Beach, FL, on 21 Nov with maximum winds of 85-kt and a min pressure of 967 mb. Mainly due to the presence of cooler waters in the northern GOM, and increasing shear from an approaching midlatitude trough, Kate was on a weakening trend before landfall. Peak intensity had been 105-kt and 955 mb on 20 Nov. An encounter with Cuba on 19 Nov, where the eye largely went over land, had only a modest impact on this hurricane's strength, and, after moving into the GOM, the hurricane intensified at nearly 1 mb/hr over the next day. Storm surge reached 11 feet at Cape San Blas, FL.

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Given Katrina+Rita in 2005 and Gustav+Ike in 2008, it seems like one hurricane can have a significant impact on energy infrastructure, but two in close temporal association can have an incredibly bad impact. I wonder if a "one hurricane in isolation" is the typical assumption for emergency planning and the hardening of critical networks such as the electricity grid? Two hurricanes striking in a similar vicinity within a month of each other is rare on the Gulf Coast, but not incredibly so, perhaps a once-a-decade event. A triple or quadruple attack over 2-3 months is more rare, but common enough to appear in the historical record.

-best,

Wolf

Yes, 1 is looking like it's about to form - Kyle would be his name I believe.