Irma, Jose, Katia and the Next
Hurricanes: Part II
I’m sure by now everyone is just about saturated with information in regards to Hurricane Irma which has devastated several Caribbean islands with such ferocity that it will take years to recover. Irma will more than likely turn that ferocity towards the United States over the weekend and bring a crushing blow to Florida before it makes its dying run up the I-75 corridor. One question I’m sure many of you have is why? Why all these storms so closely packed one right after another? Well, according to the National Hurricane Center, the peak time for storms to roll off the coast of North Africa into the Atlantic Ocean is early September…right now. The conditions are at their prime right now for these storms from Africa to pick up energy from the ocean and speed across the Atlantic to disperse that energy here in the western Atlantic.
The current conditions as I write this stands as such. Irma should slam into Florida in the early hours of Sunday morning and run up the middle of the state then on into Georgia then the Tennessee valley by midweek…if the course predictions hold steady. Jose has been upgraded to a category 4 hurricane with the probability of reaching category 5 status before it slams into the same islands that Irma just destroyed a few days ago. The silver lining of all this is that due to the energy of Irma, Jose is predicted to curl out to the Atlantic…for now. Katia has also been upgraded and is expected to make landfall on the shore of Eastern Mexico Saturday. It’s the first time in seven years that the Atlantic basin has had three active hurricanes at once and if one looks at the satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean, there is the next storm off the coast of North Africa working to take shape.
What have we learned and what will we learn from these events? It will take months to fully evaluate the devastation from Hurricane Harvey and who knows how long it will take Florida to recover from Irma but there are always lessons to be learned. I am part of the Emergency Preparedness Team here at Best Homes Care Services, we have a plan in place that is in coordination with state and local authorities for emergencies of types. On paper, it seems solid, but until that event occurs, there will always be variables of an unknown nature that we can learn from for the next event. Each emergency event is unique in its nature and can be a challenge to prepare for but with repetition, agencies become better prepared for the next event. But with such destruction predicted, how will Florida respond? I am sure that the various agencies in Florida are drawing upon years of knowledge of dealing with storms which should mitigate loss of life and aide in the return to normalcy. But what will the average John Doe learn from this? I hope that one thing we all can learn from this is the importance of being prepared. I know I’ve been harping on this topic a lot over the past several months but time and time again there have been reasons to do so. In the case of those in the storm’s path, a person could grab their Bug-out Bag (a minimum of three-day supply of food and water) and hit the road towards safety. As it stands now, the store shelves are empty and there is a critical shortage of gas as the residence try desperately to move out of the storm’s path.
Irma, itself, is currently wider than the Florida peninsula from the gulf coast to the Atlantic coast with the eye of the storm somewhere between 25 to 30 miles wide. Even though there is a clam in the middle of the eye of the storm, the sustained winds are at their strongest surrounding the eye. Currently, as a downgraded category 4 hurricane, Irma is still packing sustained winds of at least 130 to 156 mph. That is like a tornado that is at least 50 miles wide moving along at a slow pace for hours on end…just frightening. I hope everyone has a good weekend and enjoy our fall like weather but please continue to keep the storm victims in your thoughts and prayers, remember, we’re all in this together. If you have it in your means to do so, there are literally dozens of ways of reaching out to those effected by the hurricanes, I encourage you to do so and be prepared as more storms head our way.
Wm Reid
Best Home Care Services
325 N Eastern Ave
Connersville, IN 47331
765-827-9833
wmreid@bhcshealth.com