10/2017
The summer of 1980, I spent a long weekend of September 5th sitting on the couch, watching TV and waiting for Danielle. (1) The drama was intense, for the time. No Cable News Networks, they hadn’t been invented yet. We had to suffer through the 4-times-daily broadcast of the news of old fashion TV. The stores were just as barren of supplies then as today’s Houston and Florida residents were/are experiencing. You know, no bottled water, no batteries, no canned goods, long lines at the gas pumps and all that. But, Danielle never grew to hurricane status.
It was all about hurricane Danielle. Local grocery store chains had grocery bags with hurricane charting maps on them, back in the day when paper sacks were used for grocery sacks. The local news programs predicted that Danielle would come right up the Houston ship channel into Houston proper and cause all sorts of destruction and misery.
But it didn’t. It was a tropical storm that hit near Galveston Bay and resulted in severe widespread flooding because of prolonged rain. In Houston, we had some nice summer showers, but not much else. Having just moved from the desert to subtropical Houston, I was angry because I had just wasted 3 days waiting for the predictions of mayhem to come true. I could have mowed the yard or done something else productive.
So, this was my introduction to news hysteria (I’ve previously written about Marvin Zindler and Dave Ward of Channel 3 Eye Witness News in Houston).
Today, we are inundated with minute-to-minute reports on the status of hurricane Harvey and then hurricane Irma. Every word out of the mouth of these reporters is a lie, exaggeration or something presented in a way just to scare the bejesus out of everyone. Consider the following examples for comparison.
On September 8, 1900, The Great Storm (this was before the 1953 naming convention for hurricanes) hit Galveston. (2) It accounted for somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 deaths. Because of contradictory forecasts (and the lack of technology at the time), there was a false sense of complacency. Today we estimate that it was a category 4 hurricane and resulted in a 15-foot storm surge. At that time the island elevation was 8 feet above sea level. Subsequently, the island was raised 17 feet and a seawall was built along 10 miles of the south shore. This was the deadliest natural disaster in US history.
In August of 2017, hurricane Harvey was touted to be the worst hurricane to hit Texas. Because of unusual weather patterns, it hit landfall 3 times and on the second, hovered over the Houston area and dumped 54″ of rain. This was touted as an “unprecedented” amount of rainfall causing severe flooding.
But on July 24, 1979, Hurricane Claudette dropped 54″ of rain in 24 hours on Alvin, Texas (the same Houston area). (3) This resulted in severe flooding. Just like the “unprecedented” Harvey. I guess journalists use a different dictionary for the word “unprecedented”.
On September 13, 2008, Hurricane Ike visited Galveston. (4) It has been classified as a “large” category 2 hurricane. But, what the heck is a small category 2 and if one really investigates the issue, there is a lot of controversy over the current Idiots Guide to Classifying Hurricanes (fueled significantly by Hurricane Ike). You see, this little ‘ole storm (using local Texas vernacular) dropped 18.9″ of rain and had a storm surge of 20 feet. It was one of the deadliest and most costly of US hurricanes with 84 deaths and an estimated $19.3 billion in damage.
This week I have caught various news reports on Hurricane Irma. About 3 days before landfall, Irma was billed as a “Monster” hurricane of the strongest category 5 (as opposed to the weakest category 5) and would run right through Miami. The storm surge was then estimated to be 4-5 feet. About 2 days before landfall, we were told that it was a category 4 hurricane, but that it would most assuredly increase again to category 5 before Florida landfall with storm surges of 10-12 feet. At that time there was a mandatory evacuation order for Miami. Over the next 3 days, we were told that the hurricane raged down to a category 2 and that somewhere between a few hundred thousand and 7 million residents had fled to refugee camps, oops, I mean storm shelters.
About 12 hours before landfall, FoxNews interviewed a local Miami resident live. The guy, wearing his ball cap backward (this was a live broadcast after all), was being introduced by the reporter. He suddenly fished his cell phone out of his pocket and stuttered with “uh” a couple of times distractedly before putting it away and replying to the interviewer’s question. Seems, the guy had as little faith in the predictors as I do and was planning on riding out the storm in his high-rise apartment. Of course, he had provisions as far as food and stuff.
Hurricane Irma made landfall as a category 4 hurricane and almost immediately was downgraded to a 3, then 2 and then 1. Key West took the hit and Irma turned up the west coast of Florida. 12 hours after landfall, Irma was listed as a “powerful” category 2 hurricane (as opposed to a weak category 2, I suppose) with potentially lethal storm surges of 10 feet. The reporter for FoxNews was standing in ankle deep water to make his report. Yeah, I’ll bet Houston really misses that ankle-deep water. The reporter commented, “This is the damage and devastation we expected.” I guess ankle deep water is the same as 4-5 feet or 10-12 feet storm surges (whichever report you listen to). Less than 24 hours after landfall, reporters were driving around Orlando surveying the damage, pointing out downed limbs and such from the relatively safe and security of their SUVs interior.
If you notice, there seems to be no relationship between the amount of rainfall, the number of tornados, the storm surge or the amount of damage done by a hurricane and the category assigned to it. That’s because there isn’t any.
The only relationship I got out of this reporting is that hurricane Irma wiped hurricane Harvey off the cable news networks faster than a West Texas jackrabbit could run from me when I was 10 years old.
So, what about these evacuees? Where will 30% (the latest census of evacuees) of the residents of Florida go? You’d be surprised, but not if you really thought about it.
Schools, sports stadiums, National Guard Armories and the like are multi-tasked as shelters for a variety of natural disasters. None of which were intended to be used to house masses of unrelated people for indefinite periods of time. Maybe the Armories would come close to satisfying those needs, but not likely and most civilians are not accustomed to living in communal military style. Evacuees have been housed in these facilities for weeks, sometimes months, under conditions that often are little better than where they left. No running water, no toilets, no kitchens, no beds and no privacy. Often there are individual or bands of thief’s, rapists, and murderers. There are primitive communication facilities, if any. Healthcare resembles refugee camps in most third world countries. And when the hurricane is over, FEMA will put you up in a mobile home/travel trailer, just in case another hurricane or tornado comes along.
So, why wouldn’t someone want to brave the storm on their own? Our ancestors have been doing just that since the beginning of mankind. We’re here, so some of them must have done something right.
Why do live newscasts have an audience?
Why do natural disasters in Texas fall off the news focus so quickly? I mean, they’re still talking about hurricane Katrina, but Harvey and Ike who?
All I know is that sailboat shopping is going to be good in the near future.
From your grumpy Uncle/brother, Hurricane Dave.
Weary.
1. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/storm_wallets/atlantic/atl1980-prelim/danielle/prelim01.gif
2. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/history/article/Great-Storm-of-1900-brought-winds-of-change-7724171.php
3. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/storm_wallets/atlantic/atl1979-prelim/claudett/prelim01.gif
4. http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/txhur.pdf