Is Your Community Ready?

After the hurricane-busy summers of 2004 and 2005, I remember some of the hold-ups for getting aid into stricken areas.

DISTRIBUTION SITES

FEMA may be ready to bring in water, ice, and other supplies, immediately after a disaster, but where and how will that be distributed to people in need?

After Ivan, a line of cars, and another long line of people on foot would snake around the parking lot where trucks were passing out water and ice. Permission had to be obtained from the parking lot owner. The parking lot had to be clear of debris and downed power lines. The roads in and out of that area had to be clear for traffic. The sites needed to be in areas accessible to a lot of people, including people who don't have their own cars or maybe didn't have enough gas in their tanks to sit in a line of traffic for two hours.

Major roads or airport tarmacs in the disaster area must also be cleared. The trucks are usually waiting nearby, loaded with supplies. Our local power company sent a caravan of linemen and other personnel to the area about to be hit by Hurricane Irene. They traveled most of the way a day or two before the storm made landfall, so they could move in immediately after the storm passed to start putting power lines back together.

Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Katrina (2005) both destroyed major roads and bridges, cutting off that route into the disaster area. That meant everyone who evacuated merged with everyone coming to help and they crawled along a secondary route. Necessary detours and traffic jams can add hours to the process of bringing in supplies and other aid.

These things have to be coordinated with local emergency management officials. If they haven't thought through potential disaster scenarios (hurricane, tornado, earthquake, flood, disease, fire, terrorist attack), they may find themselves playing catch-up. Hopefully, your city or county has created a disaster playbook that will allow them to provide instructions quickly and easily to FEMA and other agencies and help them communicate what's happening to residents and aid workers.

We don't like to think about worst case scenarios, but it's the only way to effectively prepare for disaster.

After Disaster: How to Help

Making a Difference with Your Group 

If your church or civic organization wants to take aid to areas hit by a disaster, you need a plan. Sure, you can load your truck with hand tools and water and head to the disaster area with the best intentions, but it’s much better to make contact with someone in the area and know exactly what you’ll be doing and what to bring along.

Repairs and Rebuilding

If you have able-bodied people with carpentry or DIY skills, you can help people make repairs to their homes. Figure out who you are going to help before you leave and take all the materials and tools you need with you.

For the first couple of weeks, until electricity is restored, power tools are useless unless you have your own generator, extension cords and plenty of gasoline.  If you are going to replace roofs, you need to know what kind of roof you’ll be working on, do you need shingles or rolled roofing? How big is the house? Will you need plywood, OSB or planks to repair a damaged structure or are you just replacing shingles?

Cleaning Up

Bring trash bags, bar magnets for picking up nails, and disinfectant wipes. Unless you know for sure that water is running to the home where you’re working, bring your own water tanks for washing hands or cleaning tools.  Discuss with the homeowner or resident whether you can leave your trash bags there for pick-up. If access to the area is difficult because of damage, the garbage trucks may not be running.  You may need to take your trash to a landfill or another area designated for debris. See if you can find out whether any fees are being charged at those sites. The local government will probably seek reimbursement from FEMA rather than charging people whose homes sustained damage, but it’s better to find out before you get there.

Feeding the Hungry

In a disaster area where power is out, a hot meal is a blessing to disaster victims, first responders, utility crews, and volunteers.  If you want to help feed the army, you need a portable cooking trailer or a commercial kitchen, perhaps available through a church or community center.  Before you leave home, determine what resources you can take with you and what will be available where you’re going.  If you need bottles of LP gas, charcoal for a grill, a generator and gasoline – take it with you. 

Don’t assume you’ll be able to buy what you need in the disaster area. Many stores will be closed and those that are open may not be restocked for a couple of weeks due to roads being closed or lack of electricity. Decide what you’re cooking and look at a recipe. You may have made your grandma’s goulash a thousand times, but that doesn’t mean you’ll remember to pack the salt without reading the recipe or making a list.

You’ll need serving utensils, plasticware, paper or Styrofoam plates, and napkins, as well as salt and pepper shakers (or those little packets), ketchup and other condiments. Try to think through the whole process of cooking the meal, from start to finish and make a list of everything. Ask a couple of other people to look at the list. They may remember something you didn’t.

Clothing Donations

After any natural disaster in our region, the newsroom where I work would be inundated with calls from people asking where they can donate clothing.  It’s understandable. You can clean out your closet and give to people who may have lost everything but the clothes on their back. 

Unless you are gathering items for a specific family and you have their sizes, don’t even think about it.

After Hurricane Katrina, mountains of clothing sat in parking lots getting rained on, because no one was available to sort and distribute it. Also, thrift stores will tell you that they throw away a lot of clothing donations because they really should be trashed due to stains or other wear-and-tear.  

The best way to use your old clothes to help disaster victims is to look first at every piece and ask if you would want to receive it if you’d just lost everything. Be honest. Then hold a yard sale to sell it and donate the money for disaster aid.

Break Time

No matter what you are doing in the disaster area, you should bring plenty of food and water for everyone on your team and a good first aid kit. Resources are very limited after a natural disaster.

NOAA Gets It Spot On

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration got the track of Hurricane Irene exactly right. Click on the link and watch the video. About 7 seconds in, the satellite image will pause for a second and you'll see the forecast track overlaid. Watch as the eye follows the track exactly.

NOAA Video

Hurricane forecasting is not an exact science, but I think this video shows that the NOAA and National Hurricane Center has developed a real knack for using their weather forecasting tools, historical evidence, and the various ensemble models from agencies and universities around the world to give us a forecast that gives people in the storm's path the best chance to prepare and protect their homes, businesses, and families.

Excellent work, NOAA!

Hurricane Aid: How Can I Help

First an earthquake, then a hurricane. The mid-Atlantic states were slammed in August 2011. If you’re not in that area, and you want to help those who are, here are some ways you can make a difference.

Help Someone You Know

Do you have friends or family in the affected area? Maybe a former co-worker has moved up there or someone you deal with for work is based there. Ask them how they are doing and what they need. Keep in mind that the mail may not run for a few days until roads are cleared of debris or flood waters recede, so it may be hard to meet immediate needs. Of course, if the person evacuated, depending on where they went, you can meet them or send them something to where they’re staying. 

Work As a Group

Churches and civic organizations often travel to the affected area, taking supplies like water, non-perishable food, school supplies and clothing (for people who lost their homes). They may help people clean up their yards or repair damage. Sometimes, if they have a portable food trailer available or can arrange to use an available kitchen in the area, they prepare and serve meals, so people who live in the community have one less thing to worry about; they can just sit down and eat. 

Give to Reputable Charities

The American Red Cross and Salvation Army will provide food, water and ice to people whose electricity is out or those living in shelters because their homes are flooded or destroyed. They also help people who lost everything get some clothing or shelter while they’re waiting for insurance payments (assuming they have insurance). Organizations like that have systems to help make sure the money gets to people who legitimately need it. Of course, someone’s always going to fool the system, and those are the ones you hear about, but these charities really do help those in need.

Don’t Forget the Animals

Many animals will end up in shelters because they got separated from their owners or maybe some didn’t have homes but they got picked up during the massive sweeps that will go through the hard-hit areas.  You can send money to an animal charity, such as the Humane Society or ASPCA that serves one of the disaster areas. A lot of pet rescue organizations will also go into help rescue trapped, injured or traumatized animals, and they’ll need money to buy food, bottled water for the animals and their workers, and supplies to help clean up and treat the pets. 

Beware of Scams

After a disaster, the con artists come out. You may see pleas for help on Facebook or online forums. Someone may come to your door and say they evacuated to your community from North Carolina and can you help them. Scammers will make phone calls to random numbers asking you to give money to help those in need.  Be wary. Don’t give to someone who calls you on the phone. Don’t click on links in emails to “donate now.” It’s much better for you to look up the organization you want to give to and call them or find their website on your own to donate. Emails that may look like they’re coming from an legitimate organization can still be fakes.

Dangerous Even at a Distance

In August 2009, a few dozen people in New England went down to the shore to watch Hurricane Bill go by. The storm sent furious waves crashing onto the rocks, sweeping several people into the water. A seven-year-old girl drowned.

This is Bill's track. You can get a closer look at the map at Unisys Weather. As you can see, the storm just barely brushed the U.S. coastline, but it was still violent enough to claim a child's life.

Please don't look at a dot on the map and think that because a hurricane is far out to see, that you're safe. Your safer than if it made landfall by your house. But even out to sea, a hurricane can still pack a deadly punch.

Be safe.

Rock Me Like a Hurricane

The U.S. Eastern Seaboard is getting slammed this week with double disasters. A 5.8 magnitude quake centered in Virginia shook the earth from Georgia to Canada on Tuesday, and Hurricane Irene is pelting the Bahamas with a triptych that takes the storm right along the U.S. coastline.

Even if Irene never makes landfall in the U.S., a powerful hurricane off shore -- even hundreds of miles off shore -- will have an impact on coastal communities. Hurricanes are often hundreds of miles across, so if the eye of the storm is 150 miles out to see, coastal areas could still get battered by high winds, drenched by rain, and flooded from storm surge.

If you live on the East Coast of the United States, I urge you to make sure you have bottled water and non-perishable food in your home in case of power outages. Check your first aid kit and make sure it's stocked with the essentials. Know where your insurance papers are. Pick up extra batteries for your radio and flashlights. Be aware if you're in a flood zone. Prepare your home by securing lawn furniture and moving anything inside that could become a missile in high winds. If advised, protect your windows with shutters, aluminum roofing sheets or plywood.

Watch the storm's progress on TV or use the National Hurricane Center website. Pay attention to any local advisories. Be safe.

The National Hurricane Center is watching two more areas of disturbed weather right behind Irene.

Disturbances in the Atlantic

Doesn't that title sound like a ghost story? Disturbances or low pressure systems or tropical waves are kind of ghostlike, at least from here on shore. I'm sure that if you were in the Atlantic, in the middle of one of those disturbances, it would be a pretty strong thunderstorm. Sitting comfortably on land, looking at the National Hurricane Center's Tropical Prediction page, they look like little blobby ghosts. Ephemeral things that may never develop into anything stronger than a thunderstorm.

A few years ago, the only things that showed up on the National Hurricane Center's website were tropical depressions and named storms. I think it was probably in response to people like me that they started including information about areas they were watching. You see, I'd go to the NHC to look for depressions or check on named storms, but then I'd hit Weather Underground or Crown Weather to see what else was on the horizon. This was after 2004 -- "summer of the storm" -- when Florida got hit by four named storms, and 2005 the year that we had so many storms -- including Katrina -- that we ran out of letters of the alphabet and started calling the named storms by Greek letters (Alpha, Beta, etc.).

So now we have the blobs. Yellow blobs are areas that could develop but probably won't. Orange areas have a better than 30% chance of turning into a depression or worse. Red areas are very likely to become something stronger.

I look at this map and I see storms extending across the Florida peninsula. A good portion of the storm is over land, so it's not going to develop unless it moves out to sea. The NHC says it's moving east-northeast, so it'll go into the Atlantic and if it develops there, it probably won't cause much trouble for anyone. The yellow blob in the upper Atlantic won't develop; the waters are cooler up there. The orange blob -- there's a troublemaker. Unless there are wind shears or something to break it down, well, 'tis the season and the worst part of the season at that. It'll develop. It's little sister, tagging behind, will most likely develop, too.

I went over to Weather Underground, where sure enough they're showing computer models for those two blobs. That means the forecasters consider them a serious enough threat to consider potential tracks. Sometimes I hate being right.

Could they still break up? Absolutely. Look at Emily -- a full-fledged tropical storm, one day expected to become a hurricane, the next day fizzled out to nothing. Sometimes we get lucky.

All the hurricane forecasters were anticipating a "busier than usual" year, and we haven't had that much activity yet. Still, August through the first couple of weeks of October are typically the busiest times for hurricanes.

And that gives those of us on the coast plenty to be disturbed about.