Bad Memories are Sometimes Good...

Most weather events are usually teaching events.  In the case of Hurricane Camille making landfall on this date back in 1969, I’ll always remember Dr. Neil Frank showing before & after pictures of the Richelieu apartments.  It was a 3 story brick structure that wasn’t right on the beach, yet all that was left was the foundation.    I knew then the power of moving water was enormous.  Fast forward to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina.  We now know if the levees had been constructed correctly, Katrina’s impacts would have been less deadly & far less expensive.  Yet it was the force of water that blew breaches in the levees.  We have learned a lot about reducing the risk of water from a hurricane, but the fact remains you can hide from the wind, but you must flee from the water.  Of course, Andrew showed us the power of Cat. 5 winds.  Fortunately, during modern times, there have only been 3 Cat. 5 intensity at landfall hurricanes ( 1935 Labor Day storm, Camille 1969 & Andrew 1992) to cross our coastlines.   They are rare events, but they can and will happen again.   People should not only fear the major storms, but respect their power too.  We all too often believe, since we have the protection levees, we are safe from rising waters.   Katrina showed us we are not.  As a past Director of the Army Corps of Engineers once told me,…”there are 2 kinds of levees, those that have failed and those that will fail.  Our protection is not absolute.  When a major (Cat 3,4 or 5) storm comes, many of you must leave.  I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

 

Tropical storm Harvey was named this afternoon and I expect Irma to be named tomorrow.  Harvey is about to cross the Windward Islands tonight and will enter the eastern Caribbean on Friday.  All models keep Harvey at a low latitude and bring him across the Yucatan early next week.  He should not be our problem.  Irma to be could be a different story as she is at a higher latitude and some models do bring her into the Gulf early next week.  It’s far too soon to know if we need to get nervous, but if we are to have a threat, it will come from Irma.  The disturbance farther out could also become a named storm (Jose) but models track him farther to the north recurving him away from the SE U.S. coast line.  It’s pay attention time for the next 7-10 days.  Stay tuned!

 

In the short term, Friday should again see below normal storm coverage allowing highs back into the mid-90s.  As an upper low approaches this weekend, rain chances go back up and that should mean temps less hot.