island has been relatively unaffected by major storms. The most recent hurricane to impact Key West was Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in the Keys in the morning of September 10, 2017 as a Category 4 storm. Some locals maintain that Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005, was the worst storm in memory. The entire island was told to evacuate and business owners were forced to shut their doors. After the hurricane had passed, the resulting storm surge sent of water inland completely inundating a large portion of the lower Keys. Low-lying areas of Key West and the lower Keys, including major tourist destinations, were under as much as of water. Sixty percent of the homes in Key West were flooded. The higher parts of Old Town, such as the Solares Hill and cemetery areas, did not flood, because of their higher elevations of . The surge destroyed tens of thousands of cars throughout the lower Keys, and many houses were flooded with of sea water. A local newspaper referred to Key West and the lower Keys as a "car graveyard". The peak of the storm surge occurred when the eye of Wilma had already passed over the Naples area, and the sustained winds during the surge were less than . The storm destroyed the piers at the clothing-optional Atlantic Shores Motel and breached the shark tank at the Key West Aquarium, freeing its sharks. Damage postponed the island's famous Halloween Fantasy Fest until the following December. MTV's The Real World: Key West was filming during the hurricane and deals with the storm. In September 2005, NOAA opened its National Weather Forecasting building on White Street. The building is designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and its storm surge. The most intense previous hurricane was Hurricane Georges, a Category 2, in September 1998. The storm damaged many of the houseboats along "Houseboat Row" on South Roosevelt Boulevard near Cow Key channel on the east side of the island. Demographics 2020 census As of the census of 2020, there were 26,444 people, 10,501 households, and 5,463 families residing in Key West. The population density was 4,285.0 inhabitants per square mile (1,653.3/km2). There were 13,306 housing units at an average density of 2,237.9 per square mile (863.4/km2). There were 10,501 households, out of which 19.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.7% were married couples living together,