Hurricane Season Begins… Are We Ready?

• Today marks the official start of hurricane season, even as Tropical Storm Alberto already did a number on the Florida Panhandle and the Southeast.
• Part of North Carolina instituted mandatory evacuations earlier this week when a dam threatened to break as Alberto brought heavy rains and flooding.

Are things getting worse?

• Forecasts for this season vary, with some calling for a normal to slightly above-average season, and others predicting this year will be worse than others.
• We haven’t finished cleaning up from the last hurricane season, and a recent study found Hurricane Maria killed more than 4,600 people in Puerto Rico, not 64 as the government had estimated.
• Last May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an above-normal year for hurricanes, but nobody anticipated the back-to-back pattern of storms that would become one of the 10 most intense hurricane seasons on record.
• New research has found that warming global temperatures will make hurricanes on average slower, stronger, and a lot wetter in the coming decades, although it is not clear if that trend has already taken hold. Notably, it was exactly those attributes that made Hurricane Harvey so devastating last year.
• Meanwhile, developers across the country continue to build in disaster-prone areas, including some that took a direct hit from Harvey.

What do you think?

Are you prepared for hurricane season? Are you concerned that climate change may be making things worse? What role do you think our government should play in hurricane preparedness? Hit Take Action, then share your thoughts below.

—Sara E. Murphy

(Photo Credit: Mike Trenchard, Earth Sciences & Image Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center)