(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

Hurricane Ian pounded Florida last week, hitting land just north of Fort Myers and ripping across the peninsular. It was just the fourth storm of the 2022 hurricane season, which started June 1 and lasts until to Nov. 30, but it was one of the three worst storms to ever make landfall in the state. There wasn’t a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean this year until September…the first time that’s happened for 25 years.

I am not a meteorologist, but I am a bit of an expert on hurricanes. Now, to be clear, my expertise stems not from formal education but from experience, much like a professional boxer becomes an expert on concussions.

If you ask, “Why do hurricanes even exist?” The short and simple - but absolutely true - answer is that hurricanes are nature’s way of balancing the books. They dissipate heat from equatorial areas to polar areas in Summer. And during Winter, hurricanes’ first cousins - blizzards and nor’easters - spread the cold toward the equator. You really have to marvel at Mother Nature.
 
Growing up in Florida, hurricanes - like sunshine, palm trees and white sand beaches - were more or less a fact of life. I have witnessed firsthand the devastation and sheer terror that define hurricanes, as a child and as an adult. It turns out that I have been in or arrived to help just after four of the ten worst hurricanes to ever hit the United States.

I can’t tell you exactly how many hurricanes I lived through in the 1950s and 1960s but I remember names like Donna, Alma, Debbie, Ginny and Camille, among others. It used to be that all hurricanes were given women’s names, but in 1978 men’s names were added to Pacific storms and a year later to Atlantic storms.

Today, the World Meteorological Organization names the storms, alternating male and female names on a rolling six-year rotation. Severe storm names - like Katrina and Harvey - are never used again in sensitivity to loss of life and property.

Honestly, a typical Summer thunderstorm in Florida - complete with four-inch-per-hour rainfalls and gale-force winds (32-63 mph) can be just as scary, with many of these “cow-drowners” spawning deadly tornadoes.

Seventeen years ago, I drove to New Orleans from Florida three days after Hurricane Katrina. It was - and anyone who has been in a natural disaster understands this - the best and worst of times. You bond with people on an elemental level. You know you’re doing good, the right thing, but it’s exhausting and emotionally draining.

Like the movie, “Groundhog Day,” every day looks and feels the same. You work hard but everything, everything, is an uphill battle. Still, somehow you smile and even find reasons to laugh.

Hurricanes have changed a lot during the last 60 years. Generally, global warming has increased the average number of hurricanes per year, though you still see a slow season like this year every couple of decades. Just like with cancer, you can have remissions with hurricanes.

Another way hurricanes have changed is they build faster, often from relatively weak and diffused tropical storms and depressions, and they get stronger faster. Hurricane Ian jumped from a tropical storm to a Category 3 hurricane in just 24 hours, 2 hours later a Category 4, and at landfall it was just shy of a Category 5 storm.

Hurricane wind speed is categorized on five levels on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, developed in 1971 by Herb Saffir, a structural engineer, and Bob Simpson, a meteorologist who then headed the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

A Category 1 storm has winds between 74 and 95 m.p.h., Category 2 between 96 and 110 m.p.h., Category 3 between 111 and 129 m.p.h., Category 4 between 130 and 156 m.p.h., and Category 5 is anything 157 m.p.h. or higher.

More than 90 percent of the heat from human-caused global warming over the past half century has been absorbed by the oceans, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since 1901, the surface temperatures of oceans have risen an average of 0.14 degrees F per decade, about 1.68 degrees F total.

Warmer waters mean stronger hurricanes, and more of them. Hurricanes today are about 33 percent more likely to become Category 3 or higher than in 1980, all because of warmer waters.

Also, there’s something called vertical wind shear - a measure of how the wind changes in speed and direction at different atmospheric levels - that can slow the development of hurricanes. Strong wind shears can dump cool, dry air into a hurricane’s core, and lessen the storm’s threat. However, one study of the U.S. East Coast weather found warmer ocean waters have weakened wind shears and reduced their number.

While the high winds of hurricanes grab headlines, storm surge - the abnormal rise in ocean levels during a hurricane - can cause more damage. Coastal areas of Florida can realize a 6-foot to 9-foot increase in sea levels with hurricanes like Ian. Consider that the average elevation of Florida is 6 feet, with most coastal areas not more than 3 feet above normal sea level, a 9-foot storm surge in Tampa Bay could have caused billions of dollars in damage.

One of the problems with bigger, faster developing and stronger hurricanes is that meteorologists - even with the latest technological advances - don’t have as long to warn the public.

When I see some meteorologist trying to stand up in hurricane force winds - I guess to demonstrate how terrible the winds are? - I know they haven’t seen what I’ve seen, a simple straw embedded in a metal pole.., construction re-bar bent to the ground and stripped of concrete.

There are just two Interstate Highways leading people from coastal areas of Florida to points north. More than half of Florida’s 22 million people live in evacuation zones in the event of a Category 3 or higher hurricane. Even with all lanes dedicated to north-only traffic, it can take days to evacuate that many people. Of course, staying in place is no bargain either.

Standing in line for gas for your vehicle, standing in line at grocery stores for water and canned foods you can eat without cooking, living in what might remain of your house, if it’s not under water, with no air conditioning and refrigeration is - trust me - not something you’d ever want to do twice.

I’ve seen the worst from hurricanes, entire communities flattened, not even a road sign standing to find the structure someone once called home. I’ve seen eight-foot two-by-fours driven through cement block walls, water stains on second-story walls, and, of course, the worst, dead bodies.

As I said, I’m a bit of an expert when it comes to hurricanes, a mostly involuntary education borne from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know that the threat of more frequent and powerful hurricanes is not good news, whether you live in Florida or not.

— 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.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor.

News from © iNFOnews, 2022