Hurricane Rita in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005. (Photo courtesy of
Jeff Schmaltz, NASA/GSFC )
Hurricane season starts soon. Experts predict an active season with four “major” hurricanes. What happens if a storm hits while there’s still an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Tanya Ott reports.
Transcript
Hurricane season starts soon. Experts predict an active season with four “major” hurricanes. What happens if a storm hits while there’s still an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Tanya Ott reports.
If a tropical storm hits while there’s still oil in the water, it could disastrous for the coastline and several miles inland. Mark Wysocki is a Cornell University climatologist.
“All that oil would get into the marshlands and some of the homeowners’ properties and so forth and that would make it very difficult then to remove that oil from those types of locations.”
When Katrina hit Louisiana it destroyed some of the oil distributor piping, and they’re still cleaning up in some of the wetland areas.
Wysocki says the one upside is that oil makes it harder for water to evaporate. Tropical storms need evaporation to build strength. So an oil spill might actually keep storms smaller.
Some scientists blame global warming for larger and more intense hurricanes.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
When it comes to hurricanes,
apparently size does matter.
New research suggests the bigger
the storm, the more tornadoes it
spawns. Tanya Ott reports:
Transcript
When it comes to hurricanes,
apparently size does matter.
New research suggests the bigger
the storm, the more tornadoes it
spawns. Tanya Ott reports:
Last year, Hurricane Ike ripped through Texas and the Midwest. It was a
relatively weak Category 2 storm. But it spun off a lot of tornadoes and
caused 32 billion dollars in damage.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of
Technology say they have a new model for predicting how many tornadoes a
hurricane will cause. Dr. Judith Curry says storm size – not intensity –
is the key.
“A lot of time people just think, oh it’s Category 5 or
it’s a Category 2, and they immediately calculate the risk to damage in
their head and the 5 is bad ande 2 isn’t so bad.”
But, Curry says, sometimes a 5 can be small and tight, and a 2,
especially one like Ike, can be big and produce a lot of tornadoes.
The study is published in this month’s Geophysical Research Letters.
Some scientists blame global warming for larger and more intense hurricanes.
Pam Dashiell is with the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. The Lower 9th Ward is in the background. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
There are various green houses and developments in the 9th being constructed by several different groups - including GoGreen and the Make it Right Foundation. Note the solar panels, raised houses, and odd roof lines. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina
hit New Orleans. The city still
hasn’t figured out how to protect
itself. Most of the conversation
focuses on rebuilding the city’s
levees. But some people in New
Orleans are starting to think beyond
levees. They call their strategy
resilience planning. And they think
New Orleans can become America’s
leader in it. Samara Freemark reports:
Transcript
Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina
hit New Orleans. The city still
hasn’t figured out how to protect
itself. Most of the conversation
focuses on rebuilding the city’s
levees. But some people in New
Orleans are starting to think beyond
levees. They call their strategy
resilience planning. And they think
New Orleans can become America’s
leader in it. Samara Freemark reports:
When Pam Dashiell moved back to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, she couldn’t believe what people were saying about her neighborhood.
“People were saying, well, the 9th Ward should be a drainage ditch. There’s no way it can possibly come back.”
Dashiell is the co-director of the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. And after the storm, she became one of the leaders demanding the city be built back exactly as it had been before. New houses put up wherever old ones had been knocked down. Social services restored to all neighborhoods. And most importantly, levees. Levees big enough and strong enough to protect the city from anything a hurricane could throw at it.
“That was the fundamental argument and discussion back then. That was the battle.”
But Dashiell’s thinking has changed over the past couple of years. The levees that were promised after Katrina still haven’t been completed. Dashiell says eventually she gave up on them and started looking for other solutions.
“You’ve got to move. You’ve got to go forward. At this point we are not protected. So we gotta act like that and deal accordingly.”
“Levees and stuff like that are great, but they’re not going to be the salvation of this area.”
That’s Marco Cocito-Manoc. He’s with the Greater New Orleans Foundation. They’re one of the groups involved in rebuilding the city.
“We can’t just lobby for bigger walls, higher walls. The truth is that New Orleans can never be sufficiently protected from flooding. So everyone has to adopt what in this area is a brand new mindset.”
Cocito-Manoc calls that new mindset “resilience planning”. That’s making small, local changes to help the city manage flood water, rather than trying to hold it back at all costs.
It’s a strategy that’s being implemented in the Lower 9th Ward by Pam Dashiell’s group and others. A lot of these groups have moved away from pushing for more levees. Instead, they’re building raised houses on higher ground, and making sure they’re properly weatherized. They’re perfecting evacuation plans, so when evacuations do happen, they’re quick and orderly. And they’re installing permeable surfaces and rain gardens to reduce surface water. These kinds of changes won’t prevent flooding, but they’ll limit the devastation that sometimes goes along with it.
Cocito-Manoc says measures like these could actually set an example for other cities that will face rising sea levels in the next century. Think New York, or Miami, or Boston.
“I know that it’s difficult to see New Orleans as leading in much. But I think this is really our opportunity to become a global center for learning how to cope with water, and use water as an asset rather than as something that threatens our existence.”
As for Pam Dashiell, her focus right now is on the Lower 9th Ward. I asked her how she imagined the future of her neighborhood.
“I would see rain gardens. Strong green infrastructure. I see a new sewer system. I see the lower 9th ward recognized as a community that helped lead the way to a more sustainable future. (Laughs) I got good dreams.”
New Orleans on September 9, 2005. Crews worked on areas where there had been breaks in the levee in order to avoid additional flooding. (Photo by Jocelyn Augustino, courtesy of FEMA)
Four years after Katrina, the
levees around New Orleans are
still being constructed. But
a report by the National Academy
of Sciences says the city shouldn’t
think of the levees as a cure-all.
Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Four years after Katrina, the
levees around New Orleans are
still being constructed. But
a report by the National Academy
of Sciences says the city shouldn’t
think of the levees as a cure-all.
Mark Brush has more:
Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. A big reason it was so bad is because the levees holding back the water crumbled.
There’s a big effort to build up the levee system, but the National Academy of Sciences says the city should not solely rely on levees to protect it.
Jeff Jacobs headed up the report for the National Academy.
“There is no levee system that can provide absolute protection. There’s always the danger of over-topping. And there’s always a possibility of levee failure. And that holds true for the best maintained and the best inspected levee systems in the world.”
The New Orleans area has a particular problem. The ground can sink over time. That’s not good for levees.
The Academy recommends that people relocate to safer areas. Or, if people are going to stay, that homes be elevated – so that the first floor of a home is higher than the floodwater.
Monday, June 1 is the official start day of hurricane season (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Today is the first day of the Hurricane season,
but we’ve already seen a tropical depression off
the Atlantic coast. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Today is the first day of the Hurricane season, but we’ve already seen a tropical depression off the Atlantic coast. Lester Graham reports:
The Weather Channel noted that tropical depression was farther North earlier than any potential hurricane in the 159 years of storm records.
You can’t help but wonder whether climate change is having an effect here.
Jeff Masters is a former hurricane hunter, now with Weather Underground.
He says that’s not what’s happening. He says this storm was getting stronger by following the the gulf stream.
“There just happened to be a little blip of warm water associated with the gulf stream that this storm took advantage of. It was a very small storm so it was very lucky. It was able to stay over the warmest part of the gulf stream.”
Masters says it’ll be decades before we’ll be able to tell if climate change is actually affecting hurricanes.
Forecasts this year call for a pretty average hurricane season.
Masters says an El Niño event could occur later. That’s important, since the number and intensity of Atlantic storms are usually reduced during an El Niño year.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
A recent study showed climate change was resulting in
stronger hurricanes, and some years, Florida, with all of its
orange groves, has been devastated by those storms. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Florida’s orange producers have
escaped any devastating hurricanes so far
this season. But in recent years, the big
storms have been worse. They’ve contributed
to a 40% decline in orange crops
in the last five years. Julie Grant reports
that has some companies looking elsewhere
for oranges:
Transcript
Florida’s orange producers have
escaped any devastating hurricanes so far
this season. But in recent years, the big
storms have been worse. They’ve contributed
to a 40% decline in orange crops
in the last five years. Julie Grant reports
that has some companies looking elsewhere
for oranges:
Matthias Guentert is president of Symrise. The company
makes flavorings for beverages and processed foods.
When Symrise was deciding where to open its new citrus
headquarters – Guentert says they considered Florida – but
then chose to open in Brazil instead. One reason: Florida’s
increasingly unpredictable weather.
“Weather has been affecting people in Florida and in the
south of the US in the last years. And when it comes to
making a decision like this, it does play into it.”
A recent study showed climate change was resulting in
stronger hurricanes, and some years, Florida, with all of its
orange groves, has been devastated by those storms.
becoming more intense. Lester Graham reports the authors
speculate it might be because of climate change:
Transcript
A new study finds the worst hurricanes are becoming more intense. Lester Graham reports the authors speculate it might be because of climate change:
James Elsner is a climatologist at Florida State University. He and his team have been studying wind speeds in hurricanes…
“Well, we found the strongest tropical cyclones, globally, are increasing in intensity.”
Elsner says this is exactly what computer models suggested should happen as the oceans warmed due to climate change. The theory goes that warmer water gives the storms more energy…
“There’s a clean connection with the theory that I think allows us some speculation that as the seas continue to warm, the strongest storms should get stronger.”
And that could mean more damage to coastal areas, put more people at risk, and cause more damage and oil spills at offshore drilling platforms.
Insurance companies are being urged to face the risks associated with climate change. The world’s oldest insurance market says recent natural disasters have shown the need for new pricing and underwriting models for insurers. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
Insurance companies are being urged to face the risks associated with climate change.
The world’s oldest insurance market says recent natural disasters have shown the need
for new pricing and underwriting models for insurers. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports.
Lloyd’s of London’s new report says the costs of climate change could put insurers out of
business if they don’t make some changes. The report says insurance companies have
been slow to manage the financial risks of emerging threats, such as rising sea levels and
the build-up of greenhouse gases. Rolf Tolle is with Lloyd’s of London.
“You will have maybe certain changes in coverage which is available. You will see
changes in pricing. And you may have for certain, very exposed risks, a situation
that insurance is flatly no longer available.”
Tolle says insurers should take climate change predictions into account when setting
rates, rather than simply relying on historical weather patterns. Last year was the costliest
year ever for the insurance industry – mainly because of hurricanes that hit the U.S.
An email is spreading across the Internet warning about termites in mulch stockpiles from the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast. As the GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports, the email is more rumor than fact:
Transcript
An email is spreading across the Internet warning about termites in
mulch stockpiles from the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast. As the GLRC’s
Tana Weingartner reports, the email is more rumor than fact:
The email says Formosa termite infested trees downed by Hurricane
Katrina are being mulched and sold off by the state of Louisiana. The
writer warns the infected mulch could end up at your local big box
hardware store.
The Mulch and Soil Council’s Executive Director says that’s just “not
true.” Robert LaGasse says the well-monitored clean up operation and a
preexisting quarantine banning wood products from being shipped out of
the area are part of what keeps the termites from spreading.
“We’ve never had an infestation issue with termites in mulch, in bagged
product.”
LaGasse adds even if the mulch was shipped out of the region, the
chipping and grinding process along with the heat generated by the
mulch would be enough to kill any termite.
The Formosa termite has been a problem for parts of the South since it
was first brought into the country after World War II.
Hurricane Katrina may be able to do what years of squabbling, negotiations and trade panel rulings have failed to do…lift the duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk explains:
Transcript
Hurricane Katrina may be able to do what years of squabbling, negotiations, and trade panel rulings have failed to do: lift the duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk explains:
There are concerns in the U.S. that the huge job of rebuilding New Orleans in the wake of the hurricane could lead to spikes in the cost of construction materials.
The U.S. Treasury Department says it will monitor the situation, and if it’s in the best public interest, then it could drop the tariffs on Canadian lumber. Jamie Lim is with the Ontario Forest Industries Association. Lim says it would be the best move for all.
“Katrina was a natural disaster, but the illegal tariffs that have been put on lumber over the last twenty years is a man-made disaster, and it’s U.S. consumers who’ve been paying the price.”
Canada provides up to a third of the softwood lumber used in construction in the U.S., but for the past four years, Canadian producers have been paying more than twenty-five percent in tariffs and punitive duties.
That’s estimated to have increased the average cost of a house by about a thousand dollars.
Hurricane Rita in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Schmaltz, NASA/GSFC )
