(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

Hurricanes - an annual phenomenon - form in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. The season lasts just five months, from June 1 through November 30, but the effects can last a lifetime.

I am neither a meteorologist, nor an expert you’ll see interviewed on The Weather Channel as storms approach. Even so, I’ve studied hurricanes - officially known as tropical cyclones - for decades. I’d call it a hobby, but that might make it seem, well, not serious.

So, I’m an “expert” much like someone who survives an airline crash becomes an expert, or someone who is stricken with cancer multiple times becomes an expert. I know hurricanes from my own research, and from first-hand experience.

I was born and raised in Florida. The Sunshine State is like a huge nose of the United States…and just like in a fist fight between two people where the nose usually catches some pretty damaging hits…so does Florida. Indeed, 312 hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. since 1851…173 years…and more than 42 per cent - 131- hit Florida…often squarely on the nose.

But Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia fall prey to these storms, too. Surprising to many folks, hurricanes have wreaked havoc on New York and Massachusetts more than a dozen times each, as well.

Hurricanes are rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with one representing the least sustained wind and five being the highest sustained winds. It’s called the Safir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, named after a civil engineer, Herbert Safir, and a meteorologist, Robert Simpson, who developed the measurements, and after introduction in 1971, it became widely used in 1974.

A Category 1 has winds from 119 to 153 km/h, a Category 2 from 154 to 177 km/h, a Category 3 from 178 to 208 km/h, a Category 4 from 209 to 251 km/h, and a Category 5 is anything from 252 km/h and up. Instruments dropped from aircraft flying through hurricanes measure the pressure, wind direction and speed before falling into water.

The problem with the Safir-Simpson scale is wind per se is not the biggest threat to human life in a hurricane. The scale - while it gives us an idea of intensity - doesn’t take into account things like storm surge, heavy rainfall and flooding. These non-wind events kill nearly 90 per cent of people in a hurricane.

Ironically, wind speed has little to do with storm surge. Wind stress - the horizontal distribution of winds on the water surface - causes storm surge. So, a Category 3 hurricane could cause a bigger storm surge than a Category 4 hurricane.

I’ve been in or around or had property damaged by 15 hurricanes, including some of the most powerful to make landfall in North America. Hurricane Camille in 1969 hit Biloxi, MS with wind gusts of 330 km/h, according to wind instruments at Kessler Air Force Base, where I was stationed. Also, I was in New Orleans for two and a half months immediately after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused $125 billion in damage and claimed 1,833 lives.

Hurricanes are changing…because our climate is changing. Waters are staying warmer longer, which provides energy to developing hurricanes. And while it used to be that hurricanes primarily affected coastal areas, now stronger storms are pushing inland…like Hurricane Helene’s drenching rains hitting the mountainous Asheville, NC area…with flooding killing more than 100 people…mostly from drowning.

Florida has been hit with two catastrophic hurricanes in as many weeks. As I wrote this, Hurricane Milton made landfall just south of Sarasota, between Lido Key and Siesta Key…two barrier islands with gorgeous white sugar-sand beaches. Had the storm hit an hour north in the mouth of Tampa Bay - something that hasn’t happened in more than a century - the property damage would have likely exceeded $150 billion.

In the years ahead, we can expect hurricanes that will, indeed, have stronger winds, but they will move slower and dump heavier rains than what we’ve experienced historically, according to National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration meteorologists.

Scientists are already working on new and different metrics that will be used in concert with the Safir-Simpson scale. While building codes in some hurricane areas have strengthened…most areas where hurricanes hit have beach homes that can’t stand up to wind and water.

Governments need to insist that homes be built on better pilings- ideally concrete - with living areas 12- to 15-feet above the ground to better counter storm surges.

Like any other topic today, there’s more misinformation out there than you’d like to believe…so myths start to become facts for those who aren’t careful. There are now two types of misinformation…one about what hurricanes can or cannot do…and the political disinformation we saw after Hurricane Helene and before Hurricane Milton hit Florida.

An example of the first: you hear folks in Florida say if you’re in a beach condo…go to a higher floor. This is not true…and it’s more dangerous. Evacuate and seek shelter away from the coast.

An example of the political disinformation: Trump lying to people impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton that money is going to illegal immigrants rather than storm victims. That’s false, of course, but people often believe it…especially a few weeks before the election.

Everywhere hurricanes hit - a dozen states…Canadian provinces…Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Prince Edward Island - need governments to change the ways people prepare for the inevitably worse storms ahead. Millions more people and billions more dollars are at risk.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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