The city of Hurricane is located in Putnam County, on Interstate 64 midway between Huntington and Charleston. The city was named for Hurricane Creek, and the most generally accepted version of how the creek received its name is that in about 1774 surveyors discovered the effects of a storm that had laid low giant trees. The place was located at the mouth of a large creek, and the creek was shown on early maps as Hurricane Creek.

Among the earliest settlers, James Conner of eastern Virginia made extensive exploration of the area in 1777, receiving acreages of land through grants from the governor of Virginia. His land holdings may have included 4,000 to 5,000 acres. About 1815, a small settlement began to form near the present eastern corporate limits of Hurricane. The settlement was named Hurricane Creek Bridge and was a stop on the James River & Kanawha Turnpike. When the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway arrived in the 1870s, the community was called Hurricane Station. When the town was formally incorporated in 1888, the name was shortened to Hurricane. The town became a city when the population reached 3,000 in the 1970s.

Hurricane has one high school, one middle school, and four elementary schools, as well as Hurricane City Park and Valley Park. The population has increased in recent years as Hurricane has become a center of Putnam County's growing suburban community. The population was an estimated 6,359 in 2012.