They are called by different names in different parts of the world: Cyclones in the south Pacific, Typhoons in the Indian Ocean, and Hurricanes in the north Atlantic, but the power they posses is the same. It is the most destructive natural power on earth.
In the northern hemisphere, hurricanes spin counterclockwise around an area of low pressure which causes air to rise into the atmosphere from the surface of the sea, sucking in the surrounding cooler air at ever increasing speeds up to and beyond 200 miles per hour.
These weather systems (to call them storms would be an understatement) travel forward up to 20 miles per hour, which has the effect of increasing their wind speed on one side of the circulating eye and decreasing it on the other. In the Caribbean their paths are usually westerly to northwesterly, so if a 100 mile an hour hurricane is approaching your location in the Caribbean at 20 miles per hour and the eye passes to the south, the strongest wind will come from the east at 120 miles per hour because of the counter clockwise rotation around the eye. If it passes to the north, the worst wind will be from the opposite direction at 80.
The highest wind speed occurs at the eye wall. Inside the eye is an area of calm which in the most intense hurricanes is smaller than 20 miles across. If a 10 mile wide eye passes exactly overhead in a system that is traveling at 10 miles per hour, you would be able to look up and see a clear sky for about an hour before the fury of the other side of the wall would hit from the opposite direction..