Wet and windy Atlantic hurricane season looms
© 2000 Reuters Limited
June 2, 2000
Story by Angus MacSwan
MIAMI - It is that time of year again. Householders dig out shutters from the back of the garage, TV weather gurus dust off their tracking charts, and from the Caribbean islands to the Carolinas, anxious eyes watch every storm that brews in the Atlantic Ocean in case it swells into the big one.
The Atlantic hurricane season started yesterday and forecasters say it is going to be wild, wet and windy. A gloomy official U.S. forecast predicted 11 tropical storms, seven of which could grow into hurricanes packing winds of 74 mph (118 kph) or more.
"But it's not all about numbers," said Max Mayfield, director of National Hurricane Centre in Miami. "What really counts is where they make landfall and how strong they are when they do."
When it comes, the first storm will be named Alberto, according to the NHC's official list. The first several weeks are usually fairly quiet and September, October are the most worrisome months. The season ends on Nov 30.
Still, as Florida's favourite singer Jimmy Buffett said in one song, trying to reason with hurricane season is not easy. "The storms will come, we just don't know when and where," Mayfield said.
Hurricanes - the word comes from the Taino Indian language - are part of the lore and legend of the Caribbean and the southeast U.S. coast.
Christopher Columbus hid from one on his fourth and final voyage to the West Indies in 1502. Winslow Homer painted them. Ernest Hemingway wrote about the death and destruction unleashed by a 1935 hurricane in the Florida Keys.
And despite the array of satellite imagery, computer data banks and other scientific tools monitoring the storms within the NHC's thick concrete walls, they can spell big trouble if they come your way.
In 1999 Hurricane Floyd provoked the biggest evacuation in U.S. history, with more than 2 million people jamming Florida highways as it bore down on the U.S. coast. Hitting land in North Carolina, it killed more than 50 people, flooded a wide area and caused more than $6 billion worth of damage.
In 1998 Hurricane Mitch caused the deaths of at least 9,000 people in Honduras and Nicaragua. Hurricane Georges the same year killed 500 people in Hispaniola and was still going strong when it washed over the Florida Keys.
In south Florida, where the terror of 1992's Hurricane Andrew is etched on the collective memory, hurricane preparations are almost a ritual for some families.
Forecasters and newspaper supplements advise people to lay in supplies of tinned food and bottled water, check possible evacuation routes, and make sure they have flashlights and batteries. Hardware stores stockpile plywood for makeshift shutters.
Still, Mayfield said, many people are blase about hurricanes and wait until a storm is almost upon them before taking action. "The battle against hurricanes is won out of season. It's about preparedness. Too many people just think it cannot happen to them," he told Reuters.
A main danger along the U.S. coast is the storm surge - the wall of water piling in from the sea which brings floods. "If your house is well-built, flee from the wake but hide from the wind," he advised.
Elsewhere in the Caribbean, the season also causes some to worry and some to shrug.
The Daily Nation of Barbados urged residents to trim trees and unblock drains in an effort to be ready to face any storm. But it lamented in an editorial, "Unfortunately we still drag our feet too much, only to indulge in a mad rush, at times bordering on confusion, if we learn that a hurricane is approaching."
The NHC keeps watch over most of the Caribbean, working in close cooperation with authorities in the small island nations. It also has a good working relationship with Cuba, long a political foe of the United States.
Because of its strictly controlled system, the communist nation is better placed than most of its neighbours to confront storms, with the Civil Defence and grass-roots organisations taking care of evacuations and cleanups.
The U.S. hurricane watchers keep in close touch with Havana's Institute of Meteorology.
"Whatever goes over Cuba is likely to go over us too," Mayfield said.