It's a disturbing phrase that hurricane forecasters hate but hear all the time: “This is just a Category 1 hurricane. There's nothing to worry about.”
Or worse: “Tropical storm? Just wind and rain.”
but look hurricane berylThe “only” Category 1 storm that hit Texas this week — with much weaker winds than the Category 5 storm that swept through the Caribbean just days earlier — still left 2.7 million customers without power. The storm killed eight people in the U.S.
Beryl is not the only example. To put the numbers in perspective, Tropical Storm Fay in 2008 didn't even reach the size of a dangerous storm before making four landfalls in Florida. In this case, it turns out that the key wasn't Fay's strength, but his speed – or lack thereof. The listless storm lingered over the state for several days, dumping as much as 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain in some places. Floods destroyed crops and destroyed homes. Roads were flooded and alligators swam alongside first responders as they rescued people trapped in their homes.
What's in the numbers?
this Saffir-Simpson scale — which measures the intensity of hurricanes on a scale of Category 1 to Category 5, with Category 5 being the strongest — was introduced to the public in 1973, the year gasoline prices soared from 39 cents a gallon to 55 cents, Tony Orlando Dawn Won first place of the year with “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree”.
In other words, times have changed, and so should the way people think about how dangerous storms are when they hit.
Or think about it in terms of your health: While checking your blood pressure is important, it's just one of many measures that determine your health.
“Don't focus on categories” when monitoring storms, advises former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate, who also served as Florida's emergency management director during some of the state's worst storms. . “We really need to talk about the impact of hurricanes and not just numbers that apply to wind intensity.”
Forecasters developed the Saffir-Simpson scale and other tools like flood maps and storm prediction cones as a shorthand way to easily and quickly communicate the severity and scope of a storm, but they have been burdened with it, Fugate said. Big role.
“We found that there were a lot of things in emergency management that we didn't really think about how to communicate, and we ended up falling into these traditional narratives that were hard to shake,” he said.
The storm's girth, speed and rainfall are all important factors, as is where it hits: geography, population and quality of infrastructure. Additionally, it's important to remember that tornadoes can form regardless of the size of the storm.
This is not just a matter of strength
Fugate noted that a compact, fast-moving Category 5 storm would cause much less damage than a storm that is less powerful, wet, has a larger girth and stalls in densely populated areas.
For example, Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Ida are both Category 4 storms. But Hurricane Charley, which struck Florida's southwestern Gulf Coast in 2004, was so compact that it quickly lost strength as it moved inland. Ida made landfall in Louisiana in 2021, causing deadly tornadoes and catastrophic flooding as far away as the northeastern United States. Sixty people were killed in New York and New Jersey alone. It also proved to be the second costliest storm in U.S. history, behind Hurricane Katrina.
“Hurricane Charley was a Category 4 storm and caused very severe damage when it made landfall, but Hurricane Ida was a much larger storm and caused more widespread damage,” Fugate noted.
stay local
As the storm forms and begins to move toward land, Fugate said it's good to keep an eye on the Weather Channel and watch updates from the National Hurricane Center, but the closer the storm is, the better it is to look for local weather information.
“Everyone is focused on the hurricane center,” he said. “They're responsible for storm intensity and track. They don't necessarily have all the impacts locally.
Fugate says when a storm approaches, a better place to be National Weather Service home pagewhere you can enter your zip code and see what's happening in your area.
“Your (regional) National Weather Service offices are taking all this information and localizing it so they can tell you what kind of winds to expect, what kind of flooding to expect,” Fugate said. “Are you in a storm surge area? When does the tide come in?
Don't make assumptions
Fugate warned that relying on FEMA flood zone maps to determine a storm's potential impact is just as unwise as relying solely on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
“People think, 'Well, this is a flood map. If I didn't live in this area, I wouldn't be flooded. No! This is an insurance rate map. Not being in that special risk area doesn't mean There won't be any flooding, it just means insurance is cheaper.
Also, don’t be fooled by the term “100-year flood zone.” That doesn't mean the area only floods once every 100 years, as many people think; rather, there's a 1 percent flood risk, Fugate points out.
Finally, don’t be misled by prediction cones.
This cone—called the “cone of uncertainty” for a reason—shows where the hurricane's center may be heading, but not how far the storm's strength winds extend.
Outside the cone, people can be injured, killed or suffer severe property damage—a lesson Northeast residents learned during their time in IDA.
One mistake is to look at the chart and think, “'I'm not in the cone, I'm fine,'” Fugate said. “is not what it means!”
