Couple of articles on the aftermath of Hurricane Micheal and the oft told story of food and water shortages after a major disaster.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/ar...ate-for-food-3/

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/13/us/hurricane-michael-wxc/index.html

I must admit I am puzzled. There was ample warning and accurate prediction of Mike days before landfall - and people didn't prepare? - buy a bit of canned food and fill containers with water, check conditions around the house, etc.

I was intrigued by the comment that food in the fridge had spoiled two days after the event. Food might not be really cold, but certainly should be edible, with a bit of preparation.

Frankly, my impulse would be to drive about two hundred miles and get out of the way of the coming storm - inconvenient, to be sure, but way better than staying. Of course, individual circumstances vary, and this may not be feasible for all, but still...

Hurricane Michael was extraordinary and there was not nearly as much time as usual to prepare. Hurricane Florence, which caused so much havoc in the Carolinas, began its march toward the U.S. two weeks prior to landfall. Michael popped up very quick and much closer to the U.S.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2...m=.b3d25f740d10

73 hours: That’s the time from when Michael was named as a tropical storm with 40 mph winds until it made landfall as one of the most powerful hurricanes in U.S. history. Initially, many expected a landfall along the lines of usual in October in the northern Gulf of Mexico, something like a Category 1 or 2. Michael had different plans.

1 mph: That’s how far Michael was from Category 5 at landfall. Highly unusual, especially in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Michael enters the books as the fourth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States based on wind speeds. Only three infamous Category 5s — Labor Day (1935), Camille (1969) and Andrew (1992) — rank higher.


.

Dagny... please continue to contribute, I really enjoy your comments, especially considering where your reside...

73 advance notice rates as ample time on my scale, and it was pretty clear that it would be a category 4 when it arrived on the coast.Of course, Florence was indeed much slower. We get much less advance notification for earthquakes, or even fires, for that matter.

It seems to me that too much emphasis is placed on the 1-5 wind velocity scale is predicting the consequences of a storm. It is a pretty technical distinction when a storm has velocities all of one mile per hour below cat 5, and is thus "only" a cat 4. The amount of rain fall and flooding potential seems to be at least as significant as wind velocity. Evidently, most hurricane related fatalities are due to flooding and storm surge, not wind velocity (at least on land).

I have experienced 80 mph on one occasion and that was bad enough. I can't imagine what twice that velocity would be....

Here in California, work is progressing on a system that will give advance notification of an earthquake, with advance warning times ranging from a few seconds to perhaps 15-20 minutes, depending upon distance from the epicenter. Still experimental and expected to be full of glitches, but a big improvement on the current situation.

Hikermor, I think Dagney's point is that they really didn't have 73 hours notice. When the storm was 73 hours from landfall, it was only a tropical storm. Not trivial, to be sure, but certainly not rising to anywhere the same level of concern as the Cat 4 (almost Cat 5) storm it was at landfall. The intensification happened very fast, and even the meteorologists were very surprised: Hurricane Michael Intensified Quickly, Taking Many by Surprise

Here in Anchorage, winds of 40 knots (Tropical Storm level), are fairly common, especially in neighborhoods on the upper hillside. These are downslope Chinook Winds, and happen multiple times a year. No one would even consider "driving 200 miles" to get out of the way if 40 knot Chinooks were in the forecast. I suspect the same is true with tropical storms for folks on the Gulf Coast.

My impression is that people down there had at most perhaps 36 hours of warning that it was going to be a hurricane. More than for an earthquake, to be sure, but not nearly as much as is typical for hurricanes.

This is rather puzzling; I was following the forecasts rather vicariously, since it didn't affect my situation directly and Mike's intensification to a cat 4 was known to me, sitting snug in SoCal well in advance of landfall - I really didn't note the precise time, but the growth of the storm beyond tropical storm status was stated well in advance. How much advance notification do you need, if a serious event is headed your way (fire, hurricane, tornado - take your pick)?

These days I am free and footloose with few obligations to tie me in one spot and certainly everyone does not have that freedom. I would think that in hurricane country, bugging out in advance of a storm would be an acceptable excuse for almost anyone, but circumstances vary, quite enormously. Driving a couple of hundred miles to an uncertain destination isn't a big deal for me (been there, done that) but that may not be the case for everyone.

I have experienced exactly one hurricane - during an extended training assignment in southern Georgia in 1978. As it turned out, we were on the westerly side of the storm and, although classes were suspended for a day, we had little or no effects, other than a good rain. I remember passing the time by going for a six mile run (wet but fun).

I have read somewhere that many folks experience hurricanes, while on the periphery, and develop complacency as a result, only to be rudely surprised when the storm scores a bullseye.

You make a good point about Chinook winds - here we have Santa Ana winds of about the same velocity, but these are just winds, without accompanying rainfall. In SoCal, when fires are flamed by Santa Ana winds, a prudent person will move, as many of us did about a year ago during the Thomas fire, one of many recently that were fanned by significant wind.

I’ve given up on trying to figure out why people stay when they should leave. Maybe it’s because many people in Fla. have seen so many tropical storms that will soon be a Cat.4 hurricane and then aren’t, that they routinely stay when they should run; some people are addicted to gambling and then they go all-in on a bad hand.

As for keeping food and water on hand — I really don’t understand not having at least a weeks worth of non-perishable food on hand always, let alone during hurricane season. I’ve got at least three weeks worth of freeze dried Mountain House plus a lot more in cans. Personally I much prefer fresh so the non-perishable items stay on the shelf a loong time, but they’re always there. So I just don’t get not having food for an emergency, especially living in Fla.

I think the reasons are much more complicated then it seems. In any natural or man made disaster there are many socioeconomic and demographic factors as to why many people won't or can't leave and conversely, cannot be prepared for any disaster that may befall them.

I agree with you entirely, Russ. My first real job, I was living 45 miles away from any grocery store which was in Flagstaff, AZ. It was definitely a good idea to have a supply of food on hand. There were times when my living room floor was an impromptu dormitory for up to five people who had this habit of eating.

Along with my climbing and hiking excursions, during which it was always a good idea to have just a bit extra on hand to cover the unexpected, I have always kept a reasonable supply of subsistence goods on hand. Ir isn't hard to do (stock up during sales, etc). I don't have to worry about hurricanes (usually), but I would check stores at the beginning of the season, avoiding last minute shopping and all that.

Having lived in that area where the hurricane hit the hardest, I also find it difficult to understand any lack of preparation. That includes basic knowledge. They would not have needed to go 200 miles to reach a safer area, 20-50 miles inland would increase their safety dramatically. It was an unusually strong and fast storm, but preparation is (or should be) done before they even identify a storm.

I experienced a strong hurricane in that area when I was a teenager, and my parents made bad decisions and were not prepared. We barely made it out alive. I know how many people think (or do not think), and there is little excuse for not getting off of the beach and inland a few miles. Not to mention having basic necessities like water and non-perishable food.

I stand by my assertion - and not that I am defending people who actually are able to prepare or leave, but choose not to, then run into trouble.

However there are a lot of people who simply do not have the financial nor perhaps the logistical means to prepare or get out of harms way. This includes the elderly, those with health problems, the disabled etc.

This has studied and proven many times over and is nothing new to this century nor the USA.

Teslin, this is where the community works together and helps those who can't take care of themselves. This is something I do every year and every storm (hurricane, ice, snow, tornadoes). Whether it is a neighborhood, a church, a Scout troop; someone knows these people and should help them. These people should be provided information on where they can reach out to when in need of assistance.

We check on these people and help with information, education and resources. We ensure they have what they need or a place to go if it becomes necessary. They are still responsible for themselves, but they have help when it is needed. We take it upon ourselves to take on the responsibility and make sure it happens. And we do work with shelters who take care of the homeless. There are many reasons for someone to fall through the cracks and not get help, but no excuses for it.

There is never a GOOD reason for someone to not get to safety or the basic necessities.

Thanks for the much better summation of a very complex issue - which arises in just about every disaster. Unfortunately not every one gets the help they need - especially those whom I mentioned in my last post and that was the point I was trying (not so clearly) to make.

I suppose lots of folks there live pretty close to the bone. In communities where poverty is rampant (eg some parts of Louisiana) there might not be resources available to everyone who needs it. Certainly this is one reason humans invented civilization but it doesn't always work as well as it should.

...A week of food and water is often for after the event...

In addition to the short timeframe from tropical storm to impact, keep in mind the news just got finished hyping Florence up significantly only to have it end up petering out near the end, as well as the fire they came under for (apparently) exaggerating the effects of what did make landfall.

This, IMO, contributed to what I can only describe as a mild burnout phenomenon where they're hesitant to jump right into another, similar, story.

Meanwhile, Maria was one of the deadliest, worst handled natural disasters in recent history, rivaling Katrina, and the media coverage is incredibly thin.

Florida's residents have generally experienced these things before -- the storm ended up being unexpectedly strong this time.

The important thing is that lessons are learned (sometimes the hard way) and hopefully it will remain fresh enough in the minds of the future generation that they don't have to relearn it over again.

One problem is that people sometimes learn the wrong lessons, or draw the wrong conclusions after a storm. Normalcy bias also leads people to discount the possibility of a bad storm, but patterns of not so bad ones make them expect that and not consider what is possible.

Burncycle, while Florence became weaker as it crossed the coast in terms of wind speed, the slow forward progress and copious rainfall brought the bad flooding that a faster storm would not have. I think they need a new paradigm for classifying hurricanes that includes all possible effects, not just wind speed.

https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/news/hurricanes-tropical-storms-us-deaths-surge-flooding

Most deaths attributed to hurricanes are due to flooding and storm surge, not the effects of wind...

It is simplistic to evaluate solely on the basis of wind velocity. Total rainfall and related flooding are more important.

It strikes me as a relative outsider that the US needs another metric to describe the power of a hurricane describing the possible future outcome not the current windspeed.

Perhaps its current energy impulse measured in Terawatts, although that is a bit opaque for many people. I doubt the US would warm to the use of 'Hiroshimas' as used in the UK to describe lots of energy.

I notice the news uses Katrina as a yardstick on occasion i.e. 'this hurricane will be less powerful than hurricane Katrina but will last longer' so perhaps that could be used as a reference 'the hurricane will make landfall tomorrow with 70% the destruction of a "Kat".

Perhaps not.

Isn't that what I said?

As did hikermor.

There have been attempts to come up with a new metric which better describes the overall potential destructiveness of a hurricane. See for example Scientists Develop New Way of Classifying Hurricanes

The probelem is that even with a better scale, there are still many variables which won't be captured. For example, will the hurricane stall in place and dump huge rainfall in one area? Will the storm surge come at high tide or low tide?

In my humble opinion, what is really needed is the public and news media needs to have a better understanding and appreciation of statistical variation, and the inherrant uncertainty in ANY forecast. In my experience, most people are pretty clueless about this.

For one thing, categorization of hurricanes as cat 5, cat 4, etc. is rather gross. If Michael had measured about two mph faster, it would have been a cat 5. We need decimal gradations, much as climbers accomplished by characterizing climbing difficulties by designating fifth class climbs (those in which the leader places some sort of protection in the rock) as 5.1 (minimal) to 5.9 (really hard, at least in the old days).

Similarly, one could talk about a 4.1 hurricane, as opposed to a 4.9, which Michael would have been. Again, it is really much more than wind, and many of these variables (velocity of the storm, path taken by the storm)) are rather hard to predict. One would be prudent to be somewhat pessimistic and plan for the worst while hoping for the best.

That is one factor that deters many people from evacuating. It’s one thing to have a largish expense bill for evacuating if the storm actually rolls thru and destroys your home — money well spent.

It’s totally another thing if you leave work to evacuate and then find a much larger credit card bill and a lower paycheck, and find that not a blade of grass has been disturbed. Do that often enough and you stop evacuating — human nature ... and then your home gets wiped with you in it. That’s why all the hype and exaggeration is dangerous. After one-too-many times of the people in charge crying wolf — just to cover their ass so they can say you were warned, people stop responding to the warnings — human nature.

Costs related to evacuation are certainly one reason that evacuation centers are established by the Red Cross and others. You don't have to incur large motel bills.

I had the option of utilizing a local shelter and decided not to, primarily because it was getting heavy smoke from the fire that triggered evacuations. There are lots of options - friends and relatives will certainly offer shelter; you may have campgrounds available for a nominal fee, etc. Best to plan ahead and weigh these alternatives before crunch time arrives.

Don't know what to say about an employer who would fire an evacuating worker. I would seriously recommend looking for another job - obviously, easier said than done.

This might be another instance where the speed this storm developed was an issue? I don't know how long it takes the Red Cross to set up shelters? Given that this went from a 'no big deal' tropical storm to a near Cat 5 hurricane in 48 hours or so, it might have taken the Red Cross some time to get geared up. I don't know?

Remember that Red Cross shelters generaly use other buildings, such as schools. When a storm develops this fast, I presume the RC needs to talk to the school district (or other agencies), verify that school is canceled, get permission to use the building, get staff there to manage the the shelter, and move in cots, blankets, etc from wherever they are stored. I would be curious to know how long all that takes. I'm sure much depends on prior planning.

Even with prior planning, much depends on the storm's track. The RC shelters themselves might be impacted by the storm. Note that in the article I linked, one person evacuated to a hotel they thought was in a safe zone, only to have to evacuate the hotel when it was damaged by the storm!

Good question. I can only state that locally the county fairgrounds and buildings are used routinely, so there must be some sort of SOP involved - the typical local problem is some sort of fire, so promptness is critical. There are routines established for both large and small animals, as well.

Montanero was involved on running a shelter recently (Florence). He should have valuable insight.

As far as I am aware, sites are surveyed in advance and go through an approval process with the Red Cross to ensure they are suitable and have the necessary space and facilities. I would guess that there are many buildings on a list, and when the need arises they choose the most appropriate ones for the situation.

I would defer to anyone who actually works for the Red cross on this though.

a comment... the school I worked at for 28 years was built in the early 1970s, and during the first years of my employment (prior to Hurricane Andrew) was a designated county shelter...it provided relative wind and water protection, large dining capacity, sleeping capacity, parking, and toilet facilities...

after the building code change post Andrew, the facility did not meet the wind speed requirement to which newer schools were constructed... our parking lot was a staging area for about 100 power line trucks pre staged for Irma

Not sure about the US, but shelters here are generally owned by the local council (mostly school gyms) and there are pre-made agreements for emergencies. That part isn't the issue.

In some countries, the government will just ban people from going to work. This takes the paycheck issue out of the discussion. Unless you are part of the emergency or recovery crews, you are not going to work. This works better in places where most have fulltime employment and the employer will just pay full wages, with or without deduction of vacation days.

My family moved to SW Florida a little over two years ago now, so this is our third hurricane season. One thing I have learned is that along the Gulf coast there is a wide range of social and economic conditions that the residents are in: very wealthy, dirt-poor, and everywhere in between. I am sure that there are some who refused to prepare because of crisis fatigue from the news media, or even those who are plain irresponsible people. But in many cases, people did what they could and it was not enough.

We who follow forums like this also need to remember that we are not the average person. Just having a preparedness mindset makes us atypical, but that is something we can, as a society, work to change. Even for those of limited means a case or two of canned food from a discount grocer and plastic jugs to store water when a storm is coming is achievable; but only when one knows what to do and when to do it.

Spreading the word and helping achieve a culture of preparedness and self-sufficiency in a disaster is a task we should all assume as we can. My particular venue is Scouting; the more youth I can get involved in thinking about preparedness, the more current and future families I can influence.

Scouting is a good way to involve and educate others in preparedness. The Emergency Preparedness merit badge is an Eagle required merit badge and the pamphlet is very good. If all you know is what comes from that pamphlet, you will be well prepared. That merit badge also requires that the family be involved in the preparing. I like to teach it rather than have individual scouts work on it, and I like to have the parents and siblings there if possible. It is difficult in a large troop though.

I also like to do that merit badge in conjunction with the First Aid and Wilderness Survival merit badges. I think of these three as the three legs of a tripod as they are mutually supporting.

One aspect of SAR that I enjoyed was pubic outreach. We presented to quite a few school groups, especially. You can't go too deeply in an hour, but you can cover important basics.

It came to pass that we were called out for a night time search for a young boy. At some point I was told that the young man we were searching for had been in attendance at one of my presentations.

He must have been paying attention, because as night came on, he stopped wandering aimlessly and snuggled down to get some shut eye. In fact, he was sound asleep when the first searchers came by. With the dawn,he arose and was quickly located.

This seemed to be a recurring pattern - often discovery came with dawn or within an hour or so of sunrise.

Prevention isn't as dramatic as responding to an emergency and it may be hard to quantify the results (How many people didn't get lost or injured as a result of your gabbing??) but it undoubtedly is effective.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/...;et_cid=2438366

An article detailing the difficulties involved in predicting the eventual intensity of Michael...