Inside the Storm: Hurricanes, by Jacqueline Cantu, art director. The project is accompanied by an excellent set of print infographics. Look for them to be posted here.
My all-time favorite hurricane infographic, published in the Times-Picayune newspaper in 2002, three years before Hurricane Katrina (eerily prescient). The infographic shows how the paths of storms like Hurricane Betsy (1965) and Georges (1998) make the critical difference between a close call and a catastrophe. The graphic was part of the paper’s five-part series, Washing Away, published June 23-27, 2002. Click through for a high-resolution PDF.
In the audio above, Hurricane Hunter Paul Flaherty talks about his recent flight through the center of Hurricane Irene. Irene was the 100th hurricane he’d flown through in his career.
Technically, Flaherty’s title is flight meteorologist, but hurricane hunter just sounds so much cooler.
Source: hereandnow.wbur.org
Photo: Isabel (2003) as seen from the ISS. Click through for full image on Wikipedia.
Practical advice from one hurricane veteran:
I grew up in New Orleans and have been affected by countless hurricanes over the decades, from Flossy and Audrey in the 1950s, to Betsy and Camille in the 1960s, to Katrina and Rita in this century. Let me share a bit of sensible advice with Tumbrs who are threatened by Irene:
Water kills. Make your decision to evacuate not on the size of the storm, but on whether you live in an area that could be flooded. Water is the killer in hurricanes, not wind. This includes low-lying coastal areas, river and stream flooding, and flash flooding from heavy rainfall in hilly or mountainous areas.
The storm looks bigger than it is. The full spread of storm clouds may be hundreds of miles across, but the greatest danger is within about 30 to 50 miles from the eye, primarily in the strong northwest quadrant. If the storm will not be approaching your immediate area, you will have some nasty weather, but not a catastrophic storm. Flooding may be more widespread. Again, focus on flooding risk rather than wind.
You cannot outrun water. Remember the tsunami videos from Japan? Hurricane storm surge does not move that fast, but still will come up far faster than you can imagine. Do something that many Japanese could not: take advantage of the ample advance warning provided by modern satellite and computer weather forecasts and leave long before the threat arrives.
Get out of the way. If you live in a low-lying coastal area, there is no question: leave for higher ground now. Do not wait to see if it “may turn.” If you are on higher ground that is unlikely to flood, stay put. Stay out of the way of those who need to leave.
Leave early. You do not need to be the first person to evacuate, but you need to be ahead of 80 percent of the others who decide to evacuate from your city. Do not wait for officials to declare an evacuation. Use your own good sense. Officials usually call an evacuation 36 to 48 hours ahead of landfall. You need to make your own decision before then.
Have a plan before you leave. Make a hotel reservation, call Aunt Sophie, head for a shelter, or you will wind up spending a few nights in your car in miserable weather. If you don’t know where you are going, you are not evacuating, you are panicking.
Evacuation is risky too. You could be more likely to die from the evacuation than from the storm. More people die from indirect causes than from the hurricane itself. For example, when Hurricane Rita caused mass evacuations in Houston, only 7 people died as a result of the storm, but 25 people died in traffic-related incidents during the evacuation. You are safer staying put if flooding is a low risk for you.
Health conditions. Other reasons to evacuate are if you have a serious health condition, if you are caring for an elderly person or an infant, or even if you would have medical issues from spending one or two weeks without electricity, air conditioning, and refrigeration in your home in August summer heat. The danger isn’t over once the storm has passed.
Gas up. If the gas tank in your car is not full, get in line and fill it. Keep it full at every opportunity. Houston (the fourth largest US city) literally ran out of gas during Rita and it was nearly a week before gas stations were back to normal, even in a city home to gasoline refineries. If you are staying put and have half a tank, let others have the limited available fuel. You will only need to make very short trips to find food and supplies after the storm.
Drinking water is your most precious resource. Travel with water, and plan on having a gallon of drinking water per person per day on hand if your water system becomes contaminated. Your pets need water too. Your local grocery shelves will be as bare as a Moscow market in winter, but you are unlikely to starve.
Stay inside. It is fun to stand outside and get buffeted by the wind, but remember that the wind carries tree limbs, power lines, broken glass and flying sheets of metal that can slice a human body in half. The goofy TV newscasters that “bravely” confront the elements are actually only a step or two from solid shelter just off camera. Once the wind reaches gale force (39 mph) stay indoors. That’s when police, fire, and other first responders stop responding and wait for the winds to subside after the storm. Same thing for the awesome crashing waves on the beach. Getting swept out to sea really is not that much fun.
Evacuate up if possible. Stay in a steel and concrete multi-story building (such as a highrise hotel) and stay far away from windows. The hotel won’t help you when the power goes out for a week, but while everyone else spends 12 to 18 hours inching their way inland in cars, you’ll be relaxing in an air conditioned suite watching HBO and enjoying the mini bar.
Hotels overbook. Another reason for leaving early is that you may arrive at your hotel and find that there’s no more room at the inn, even though you have a reservation. Many hotels overbook (or do not override their overbook system). Staff will do what they can to help, but I’ve seen families in tears in the lobby with nowhere to go.
ATMs run out of cash. They do not print money, they dispense it, and they can be emptied when thousands of people need cash at the same time. You can count on not being able to count on routine conveniences like working ATM machines.
Do not leave pets behind. They cannot swim any better than you can. If you are staying in a public shelter you probably will not be able to bring pets. Many hotels allow pets (some allow them in emergencies), such as Motel 6, Red Roof, and La Quinta on the low end, and some luxury hotels on the high end. If you evacuate with your pet in your car, keep your pet safely locked in a carrier except for bathroom stops. Frightened pets are very likely to run away when you open your car door (a friend lost two cats at a rest stop while evacuating for Katrina). Pets may die from the heat if left in a car even for a few minutes. If you are sitting in dead-stopped traffic for hours and cannot run your car’s air conditioning system, how will you keep your pets cool?
Use text messaging. If the cell network goes down or becomes saturated with voice calls, often text messages can get through when phone calls can’t.
You have time to make any calm, rational plans you need to make and execute them in an orderly fashion. You do not have time to delay your decisionmaking or “wait and see.” If you are at risk of flooding or because of health issues, make a sensible choice now.
Turn off the news. Once you have the information you need to make your decision, turn off the news. This is a painfully slow-motion event, and the TV folks will be frantically broadcasting 24 hours a day for several days, building tension, uncertainty, and anxiety, making you want to watch every moment to see “what happens.”
Remember that “what happens” will happen whether you watch it or not, and you can save yourself a lot of suffering over events that you cannot control if you just switch the channel to a good movie, play a game, read a good book, or simply enjoy the silence. It is not news until something actually happens, and repeated reports of impending doom do not help you. Once the storm has passed, you will find out what really happened. Get yourself somewhere safe, and then relax knowing that you have done what you have needed to do.
Bottom line: Would you rather evacuate and find out it wasn’t really necessary, or stay put and find out it was?
