It’s interesting and not at all ironic that the most recent Cat 4 landfall (Charley) and Cat 5 landfall (Andrew) are remembered as wind events because they had a compact core of winds riveling most tornadoes that bulldozed a relatively small area of real estate and inflicted incredible damage without surge being the primary weapon. It took Sandy which impacted hundreds of miles of coastline and tens of millions of people to surpass Andrew in damage $ when the intense damage area of Andrew was an area from SW 88th St south to Homestead – about 20 miles or so north to south and 12 miles east to west (till you hit the Everglades).
My concern is not about how officials and communities would react to another Charley (although his surprise jump to a Cat 4 hours before landfall is a nightmare that could one day kill thousands left with their pants down expecting a weaker storm) or another Andrew. I guarantee that if another Katrina or Andrew are threatening, communities in the hurricane warning area will prepare and react.
The challenge has been and will continue to be, despite the NHC providing more detailed surge estimates that are not based only on the wind speed of the storm, getting officials and, as a result, businesses and residents, to prepare for a ‘lesser’ storm. With storms like Ike and Sandy, it didn’t really matter if landfall of the exact center was 25 miles north or 100 miles north of a given point. These enormous storms had such large windfields that any location even 150 miles to the right of the center were going to get an epic surge, especially because they effect surge prone areas due to the shape of the coastline, slope of the seabed, etc. The NHC forecast this and advertised this days in advance.
If the NHC had issued the same surge warning in terms of potential impact as they did for Sandy as early as Sunday morning at 5am, 30 hours before the worst impacts began, for a storm that was at Cat 4 intensity approaching New York and New Jersey, there would have been a different response from officials and in turn residents:
HURRICANE SANDY ADVISORY
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
1100 AM EDT SUN OCT 28 2012
...SANDY EXPECTED TO BRING LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGE FLOODING TO
THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST...INCLUDING LONG ISLAND SOUND AND NEW YORK
HARBOR...
Are communities and businesses going to go through the effort and more importantly expense and down time for a storm where they hear it is ‘only a Cat 1’ or even a tropical storm even though the NHC is saying life-threatening surge expected? Unless an area has been hit hard in recent memory, as parts of the upper Texas coast were in Ike and the NY/NJ area where in Sandy, probably not.
One FEMA study in 2010 showed that if ordered to evacuate, 52% of people surveyed in a storm prone region would ride a Cat 1 out at home vs. 26% for a Cat 3. I recall a discussion from local morning radio show hosts in south florida a few days before Isaac potentially was forecast to hit as a hurricane and one of the hosts said that they don't really pay attention until it is a Cat 3. Anything less, who is hosting the hurricane party. Another host responded by saying that the only way to prepare for a Cat 1 is a trip to the liquor store. Joking aside, these attitude are ingrained and usually can only be changed by losing alot from a storm that you underestimated, even in spite of warnings issued.
Even the reaction to wind events such as tropical storm are not always correct – the company I work for in South Florida has a general policy of not closing for a tropical storm warning or hurricane watch. We would need a hurricane warning to trigger closing without question. 5 miles inland from the beaches puts my place of work out of the surge risk map for any Cat storm hitting Boca Raton/Fort Lauderdale, but we have had tropical storm situations with sustained winds of 60 mph gusting to hurricane force and grudgingly we have been allowed to go home early and fight flooded roads, downed trees, etc. Following Isaac, some of my co-workers in northern Palm Beach county came to work the next day and told stories of people abandoning cards on some roads due to the 12” of rain that fall after we came in to work for a delayed opening at 11am. During Sandy, Palm Beach county schools closed at noon on Thursday and all day Friday but businesses remained open and parents scrambled to pick up kids, bring them to work with them, etc. It was nuts.
