EMERGENCY RISK REDUCTION

Although now living in British Columbia, some of you are aware that I grew up in South Carolina. The areas are as different as chalk and cheese. One of these is the weather and what influences it.    Here we have the Japanese current, bringing relative warmth to our part of the southern Canadian Pacific coastline. In South Carolina, we are impacted by the tropical Atlantic current, and this includes hurricanes that are birthed from warm equatorial waters near Africa and travel west toward the Americas.

The result is wind and rain.  Lots of both. And the hurricane is heading toward the high population centers, typically located along the coastlines. Sometimes beyond the coastlines. An example is the Carolinas, Georgia, and north Florida, which have ‘barrier islands’ off the coastline. These islands do exactly as expected – they create a barrier to protect the coast. But they no longer serve a purpose since bridges have been built and now residences, read tony and expensive,  have been built and are incredibly exposed to the Atlantic storms.

As you may be aware, hurricanes are rated by ‘Categories’ from 1 to 5, with a Cat 5 being the strongest winds. Astonishingly destructive winds. But the Category rating is deceptive, because it does not include flooding. High water is arguably more destructive than wind because it often happens over a huge swath of land.  For instance, some of the barrier islands have an elevation less than 10 feet, and can be completely submerged during a hurricane.

As the ‘cane approaches an island, the fury of wind and rain is unloaded as it crosses. A 2019 example is Hurricane Dorian and the Bahamas.   The storm doesn’t even slow down, and may increase in intensity due to shallower, warmer water. Then, as the hurricane makes coastal landfall, its strength usually reduces because of the ‘energy source’ of water is less available. A Category 5 or 4 will quickly become a Cat 2 or 1. But the population is far from safe for two reasons.

A large hurricane can push immense volumes of water toward the coast, raising the sea level and causing massive flooding, especially if tides are also high. It’s commonly called a ‘storm surge’. Secondly, hurricanes often ‘stall’ when reaching land, and travel at a crawl.  Although winds may reduce, torrential rains continue — sometimes day after day.  The flood damage along coastal cities from ‘tropical storms’ is often greater than that of the hurricane — that at least travel more rapidly.   Property damage can be catastrophic, totaling into the billions of dollars. And this doesn’t include the human cost, which I will cover in my next blog.

Thanks for reading.

Monty