June 2017

Hurricane SeaSon
Hurricane Season is Here
Are You Ready?
by Andrew Ryan
If you haven’t followed Benjamin Franklin’s advice “Don’t put off until
tomorrow what you can do today,” and begun preparing for Hurricane
Season 2017, let this serve as your wake-up call: Tomorrow is already here.
“It only takes one storm to change your life and
community,” warned the National Weather Service
(NWS) during its annual Hurricane Preparedness
Week campaign in May. “Tropical cyclones are
among nature’s most powerful and destructive
phenomena. If you live in an area prone to tropical
cyclones, you need to be prepared.”
in fact, the season that is technically supposed to begin on
June 1 and run through november 30 got underway early this
year. Tropical Storm arlene formed on april 20, becoming
only the sixth tropical system to emerge in the atlantic in april
since satellite monitoring began in the 1960s, according to the
national Hurricane center.
Yet arlene’s early arrival is not a harbinger of what may (or may
not) come this year. When april tropical systems emerged in
1973 and 1992, storm activity was below average. in 1981 and
2003, it was above normal.
The nWS has released its annual hurricane season forecast,
which can be viewed on its website: www.nhc.noaa.gov. The
forecast may change throughout the season, and robert Molleda,
the Warning coordination Meteorologist at the national Weather
Service’s Weather Forecast office in Miami, warns all South
Florida residents to still prepare for a severe hurricane to hit.
adequate homeowner’s and flood insurance,” Molleda advises.
“Take pictures or videos of items around your house in case you
do need to file a claim. Most importantly, know whether you live
in an evacuation zone, because there’s a better chance you’ll
have to leave, and know where you will be going. That’s not
something to try to figure out at the last-minute.”
Molleda adds that’s a lesson many Florida residents learned
the hard way with Hurricane charley in 2004. The category 4
storm made landfall on the southwest coast of Florida near cayo
costa, just west of Ft. Myers, with maximum sustained surface
winds near 150 mph. residents up and down the west coast
were ordered to evacuate, and many headed to the central part
of the state. But charley changed course and moved northnortheastward
causing significant damage across that region,
including orlando. Thousands of people who evacuated their
homes ended up heading right into the storm’s path.
“Remember that if you live in an evacuation zone,
you may only have to find safe harbor tens of miles
away, not hundreds,” Molleda said. “You may not even
have to leave town, so have local and long-distance
destinations in mind, and determine multiple options
for each scenario. Most importantly, come up with a
hurricane plan now, when you’re not rushed.” P
after all, there were only seven tropical storms and hurricanes in
1992. of course, one of those was Hurricane andrew.
“it really doesn’t matter what the seasonal outlook predicts, it’s
not a local forecast, it’s a very general description of what storms
might form in the atlantic basin over a six-month time period,”
Modella said. “no matter how many storms are forming, we still
have to be ready in South Florida because we are one of the
most hurricane-prone areas of the country. We have to be ready
every year.”
Preparing your family and property requires more than confirming
whether the flashlights have working batteries and that your
pantry is stocked with non-perishable food and bottled water.
“check your insurance coverage to make sure you have
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JUNE 2017