The tropical Atlantic isn't quite as boiling hot as last year; forecasters
say that should mean fewer hurricanes. But for the Lowcountry it could be bad
news. The "cooler" water might turn more storms this way.
Today is the official start of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, that
annual twitch to the nerves of at least 13 Southern states. The National
Hurricane Center begins posting its daily tropical updates. Forecasters,
emergency managers and residents begin looking at every new "wave" rolling
through the Caribbean and Atlantic.
People already are edgy. In 2005 a record 28 named storms formed and three
major hurricanes made landfall. In the United States, 2,200 people died and $100
billion in damage was done, much of it not from a storm itself but the breach of
the levees in New Orleans in the wake of the botched Hurricane Katrina
evacuation.
A lot of people for the first time saw a U.S. city brought not only to its
knees but nearly to the point of collapse.
The hurricane center forecast for this year is for 13 to 16 storms, 8 to 10
of them hurricanes, and 4 to 6 major hurricanes, or storms with winds greater
than 110 mph at the core. A forecaster said privately that many forecasters
already are bumping up that number to 15-20 storms.
South Carolina's storm and recovery plans, already championed as among the
best in the South, have been tweaked. Officials are asking for money to pay for
40 satellite phones and are looking for open land to set up temporary "trailer
cities."
Emergency managers are emphasizing the three-day rule: Make sure you have a
safe place to go and emergency supplies to make do for a minimum of three days.
If a big one strikes, you may well have to.
Much of the refinement to the state's emergency plans has been geared toward
getting equipment in position so officials can restore communications quickly
and ensuring adequate fresh supplies are available should a storm wreak
havoc.
"Once the big wind blows, everything changes. It's your ability to deal with
that gray area" that will make the difference, said Mike Russell of the S.C.
Emergency Management Division. "Hopefully one of the lessons we learned
nationally from Katrina was, please, pay attention."
And don't wait to evacuate if a storm approaches and you can leave. Computer
models suggest that, even with Interstate 26 lane reversals, evacuation time
from Charleston to Columbia slows from 3-4 hours to 8-10 hours after a mandatory
evacuation gets underway, said Ron Osborne, division director.
Last year's onslaught of hurricanes moved largely into the Gulf of Mexico and
away from landfall in the Carolinas because the record-warm ocean sucked the
"Bermuda high" - that storied Atlantic high pressure ridge - farther
south than usual. The pressure pushed the storms west.
This year, the ridge appears to be back to normal. So, "they will start
heading up the East Coast," particularly during the Cape Verde period, roughly
August and September, when storms form off the African coast, said Steven Naglic
of the National Weather Service.
This is considered the heart of the season, and for Charleston the time of
greatest threat.
The competitive field of forecasting has turned the season into such a deluge
of predictions, landfall risk percentages, historical averages and guesses that
Weather Channel storm expert Steve Lyons recently released a disclaimer saying
the numbers are not accurate or proven science.
Emergency managers respond with the adage that it takes only one storm to
make a very bad season.
Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday that an unusual
low pressure trough now sits over the East Coast and could get in the way of a
tropical storm making landfall.
But he added, "That trough could stay; it could go. We don't like to talk
about landfall. The steering patterns for hurricanes are very uncertain. I
wouldn't put a lot of credence in predictions for landfall, because of that
very, very large uncertainty."
And after a year in which "Katrina" became the watchword for what not to do,
Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon last week offered another watchword.
"Everybody's paying attention to the Katrina model. But there's another
model - Hurricane Hugo," he said. Before that storm, Lowcountry evacuations
were handled safely because "leadership early on told people, you need to leave
now, you need to leave now." And they listened.
On the Net
View the PDF of the hurricane forecasting data. Click here.
Reach Bo Petersen at bpetersen@postandcourier.com or
745-5852.
