Studying Storms: When God Plays Dice
By Paroma Basu
Includes “Being Prepared,” “The Cost,” and “Aftermath,” all by Mary Makarushka MA’06.
Are there more hurricanes than ever before? And when will the next big one strike? UW scientists are working to understand nature’s most powerful storms — but the answers are still blowing in the wind.
Includes “Being Prepared,” “The Cost,” and “Aftermath,” all by Mary Makarushka MA’06.
Are there more hurricanes than ever before? And when will the next big one strike? UW scientists are working to understand nature’s most powerful storms — but the answers are still blowing in the wind.
One day in the fall of 2005, meteorologist Greg Tripoli buckled up for the most thrilling weather experience of his life. He was about to fly straight into the heart of a hurricane. Tripoli, a professor of atmospheric science at UW-Madison, was a guest aboard one of the famous “hurricane hunter” airplanes operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The planes’ sole purpose is to fly into raging storms so that scientists can gather real-time information.
That day’s destination was Rita, a storm that was starting to heat up in the Gulf of Mexico. Emerging less than a month after Hurricane Katrina, Rita was looking meaner and meaner by the hour. By the time it hit the coast of Texas three days later, the National Hurricane Center would call it the fourth-most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean.
That day’s destination was Rita, a storm that was starting to heat up in the Gulf of Mexico. Emerging less than a month after Hurricane Katrina, Rita was looking meaner and meaner by the hour. By the time it hit the coast of Texas three days later, the National Hurricane Center would call it the fourth-most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean.
Tripoli boarded a plane nicknamed Miss Piggy — the government also operates one called Kermit — at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, and cruised west over the Gulf. He gazed in awe as they approached a towering mass of dark, swirling clouds in the distance. Slicing through the outer wall of the storm, the plane was enveloped by clouds and they were inside it. Pounded by howling winds and sheeting rain and rocking violently on intense updrafts and downdrafts, Miss Piggy and her passengers lifted and dropped repeatedly.
But then, miraculously, total calm. Tripoli was sitting in the eye of the storm.
“It was like a religious experience — they call it the stadium of the gods,” Tripoli recalls. “The wall of the hurricane is like ten miles high. And there I was, sitting in the stadium with a hurricane spinning around me at 150 miles an hour.
“It was the most awesome, spectacular thing I’ve ever seen.”
But then, miraculously, total calm. Tripoli was sitting in the eye of the storm.
“It was like a religious experience — they call it the stadium of the gods,” Tripoli recalls. “The wall of the hurricane is like ten miles high. And there I was, sitting in the stadium with a hurricane spinning around me at 150 miles an hour.
“It was the most awesome, spectacular thing I’ve ever seen.”
Hurricanes are terrifying phenomena, capable of massively destructive power. Yet to those who study them, they are also undeniably astounding. Like perfect engines, they gather and spin across oceans with breathtaking force — and they have done so for thousands and thousands of years. Yet as much as scientists have learned, mysteries persist. Why, for example, do some hurricanes become so intense while others sputter out and die? What dictates their movement, which — despite huge technological advances in the ability to predict storm paths — can still elude our best guesses? And why, especially, does it seem like more hurricanes are barreling through the oceans than ever before?
Plenty is riding on scientists’ ability to answer these questions. Last year, an unprecedented fifteen hurricanes pummeled the Atlantic, including four that reached category five, the highest classification on the scale of storm intensity. Among them were Katrina, which took at least 1,300 lives and left much of New Orleans in rubble, and Wilma, which briefly ranked as the strongest hurricane ever recorded before it made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.
With official predictions calling for up to ten hurricanes during this year’s North American storm season, scientists around the continent are keeping all eyes on the Atlantic for signs of the next big one. That includes a group of researchers at UW-Madison that, despite being well out of the hurricane danger zone, has attracted some of the nation’s leading hurricane experts. With the help of satellites and a constant stream of data on atmospheric conditions, Tripoli and others are trying to get inside storms — both physically and metaphorically.
Plenty is riding on scientists’ ability to answer these questions. Last year, an unprecedented fifteen hurricanes pummeled the Atlantic, including four that reached category five, the highest classification on the scale of storm intensity. Among them were Katrina, which took at least 1,300 lives and left much of New Orleans in rubble, and Wilma, which briefly ranked as the strongest hurricane ever recorded before it made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.
With official predictions calling for up to ten hurricanes during this year’s North American storm season, scientists around the continent are keeping all eyes on the Atlantic for signs of the next big one. That includes a group of researchers at UW-Madison that, despite being well out of the hurricane danger zone, has attracted some of the nation’s leading hurricane experts. With the help of satellites and a constant stream of data on atmospheric conditions, Tripoli and others are trying to get inside storms — both physically and metaphorically.
The more they learn about hurricanes, the better they will be at forecasting them, which will give communities in the path of storms more time to prepare and can potentially save lives and millions of dollars in damage. But it is also a matter of intense curiosity to make sense of what seems so senseless — this powerful and alluring force of nature that can as easily rip a house to shreds as fizzle out into a gentle squall.
“Just as you can’t really predict which way the smoke of a cigarette will swirl, making predictions about hurricanes is sort of the same thing,” says Tripoli. “It’s so exciting and challenging.”
The word hurricane descends from Hurakan, the ancient Mayan god of winds and storms. The story is that Hurakan created the land by drying water with his breath. When he and other gods grew angry with Earth’s first humans, Hurakan unleashed a flood that destroyed them.
Scientists more commonly refer to hurricanes as “tropical cyclones,” which form in all the world’s oceans but are called different names, depending on a storm’s strength and geographical location. Tropical cyclones in western portions of the Pacific Ocean are called typhoons, for example, while those in the Atlantic are known as hurricanes. In some oceans, cyclones can form yearround, but in the Atlantic, the heaviest activity is during the months between June and November.
Roughly eighty tropical cyclones form around the world each year. That number doesn’t vary much from year to year, but different oceans can have particularly heavy or light storm seasons. While the Atlantic was experiencing its record year in 2005, for example, the Pacific was relatively, well, pacific.
“Just as you can’t really predict which way the smoke of a cigarette will swirl, making predictions about hurricanes is sort of the same thing,” says Tripoli. “It’s so exciting and challenging.”
The word hurricane descends from Hurakan, the ancient Mayan god of winds and storms. The story is that Hurakan created the land by drying water with his breath. When he and other gods grew angry with Earth’s first humans, Hurakan unleashed a flood that destroyed them.
Scientists more commonly refer to hurricanes as “tropical cyclones,” which form in all the world’s oceans but are called different names, depending on a storm’s strength and geographical location. Tropical cyclones in western portions of the Pacific Ocean are called typhoons, for example, while those in the Atlantic are known as hurricanes. In some oceans, cyclones can form yearround, but in the Atlantic, the heaviest activity is during the months between June and November.
Roughly eighty tropical cyclones form around the world each year. That number doesn’t vary much from year to year, but different oceans can have particularly heavy or light storm seasons. While the Atlantic was experiencing its record year in 2005, for example, the Pacific was relatively, well, pacific.
Tropical cyclones are basically ocean-based engines that run on heat. In the Atlantic, they form when trade winds start blowing warm waters around the coast of Africa westward. As it flows, that water begins heating air above the surface, which in turn begins to rise, as warm air is lighter than cooler air. Floating higher into the atmosphere, the warm air cools back down and condenses into water drops, forming clouds and releasing more energy into the atmosphere. Eventually, the clouds create a pillar-like structure of storm clouds that stretches up from the ocean surface, sometimes extending miles into the sky.
In this interplay of warm and cool air, winds begin to blow, and if all this is happening more than four degrees north or south of the equator, a phenomenon known as the Coriolis force causes the winds to spin — much like water going down a drain. Sometimes, nothing more happens and a storm will die out. But in other cases, a number of atmospheric conditions perfectly align and feed into a brewing storm.
As the storm strengthens, a column-shaped eye may form at its center. Winds spin around the eye, gradually picking up speed. Once wind speeds reach thirty-nine miles an hour, the system is called a tropical storm. At seventy-four miles an hour, it’s a hurricane.
These storms can move across great spans of water, gathering strength as they go. Which path they take depends on many factors, but most important is the direction of surrounding winds. Prevailing trade winds push most Atlantic storms north and west, toward the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
In this interplay of warm and cool air, winds begin to blow, and if all this is happening more than four degrees north or south of the equator, a phenomenon known as the Coriolis force causes the winds to spin — much like water going down a drain. Sometimes, nothing more happens and a storm will die out. But in other cases, a number of atmospheric conditions perfectly align and feed into a brewing storm.
As the storm strengthens, a column-shaped eye may form at its center. Winds spin around the eye, gradually picking up speed. Once wind speeds reach thirty-nine miles an hour, the system is called a tropical storm. At seventy-four miles an hour, it’s a hurricane.
These storms can move across great spans of water, gathering strength as they go. Which path they take depends on many factors, but most important is the direction of surrounding winds. Prevailing trade winds push most Atlantic storms north and west, toward the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
Because warm water is a hurricane’s equivalent of high-octane gasoline, hotter oceans set the stage for bigger storms. As Katrina moved toward New Orleans, for example, it moved across water that was warm to a depth of more than one hundred meters, which allowed it to strengthen and eventually attain wind speeds of 150 miles per hour. As it moved north, it encountered cooler water and, eventually, land, which caused the storm to weaken. By the time it hit the Gulf Coast, Katrina was only a category three storm, with winds exceeding 111 miles per hour. Still, any hurricane in category three or above is considered extremely dangerous and has the potential to cause serious damage.
The reason is energy. Scientists say that a typical hurricane can release more than 130 quadrillion joules of wind energy a day — the equivalent of more than 3 million tons of the explosive TNT, or more than one hundred Hiroshima bombs. Ultimately, this is what makes hurricane prediction a high-stakes game: lives depend on correctly foreseeing where such power will be exerted.
“Hurricanes are a marvel of nature,” says Christopher Velden MS’82, a research scientist with the UW’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, or CIMSS. “And even though we are powerless to stop them, it becomes an intellectual challenge to try and analyze them, and ultimately predict their behavior. The emotional reward when we are successful, and lives are saved, is as the saying goes, ‘priceless.’”
The reason is energy. Scientists say that a typical hurricane can release more than 130 quadrillion joules of wind energy a day — the equivalent of more than 3 million tons of the explosive TNT, or more than one hundred Hiroshima bombs. Ultimately, this is what makes hurricane prediction a high-stakes game: lives depend on correctly foreseeing where such power will be exerted.
“Hurricanes are a marvel of nature,” says Christopher Velden MS’82, a research scientist with the UW’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, or CIMSS. “And even though we are powerless to stop them, it becomes an intellectual challenge to try and analyze them, and ultimately predict their behavior. The emotional reward when we are successful, and lives are saved, is as the saying goes, ‘priceless.’”
The only way early meteorologists were able to track hurricane activity was by relying on records of hurricane sightings maintained by sailors at sea. Technology has sped the field forward by leaps and bounds since then. Most significant was the development of weather satellites in the 1950s and 1960s, which gave forecasters a bird’s eye view of the world’s oceans and allowed them for the first time to gaze at storms from high above. Today, there are a variety of satellites peering down at our weather. One type sits at a point over the equator, capturing images of the planet as it orbits.
Another patrols at lower altitudes, enabling more detailed pictures of specific weather systems.
Back in Madison, huge dishes mounted on the roof of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences building on Dayton Street collect data from those satellites. From there, information spills onto the computer monitors of CIMSS researchers, who specialize in turning that raw satellite data into a variety of maps and other graphics that help forecasters read what’s going on with particular storms. Among the institute’s notable advances has been the computerization of a long-standing manual technique that forecasters use to gauge hurricane intensity. Automating the technique has helped rule out the problem of different forecasters interpreting satellite data just a little bit differently.
Another patrols at lower altitudes, enabling more detailed pictures of specific weather systems.
Back in Madison, huge dishes mounted on the roof of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences building on Dayton Street collect data from those satellites. From there, information spills onto the computer monitors of CIMSS researchers, who specialize in turning that raw satellite data into a variety of maps and other graphics that help forecasters read what’s going on with particular storms. Among the institute’s notable advances has been the computerization of a long-standing manual technique that forecasters use to gauge hurricane intensity. Automating the technique has helped rule out the problem of different forecasters interpreting satellite data just a little bit differently.
Aided greatly by such advances, researchers now have a decent idea of how different variables such as sea surface temperature, pressure, and wind shear — the difference in wind speeds with height — help to weaken or strengthen a storm. Those insights have, in turn, enabled vastly more-educated predictions about where a hurricane is forming, which way it is likely to go, and roughly where it is likely to hit land. In recent years, predictions have often been spot on. But sometimes, nature still throws science for a loop. That was certainly the case with last year’s Hurricane Wilma, which grew from a run-of-the-mill category two storm to a category five monster in twelve hours.
“Wilma confounded everybody,” says Velden. “There was simply no indication in the numerical models. And ultimately that’s what we don’t really understand — how a hurricane all of a sudden goes nuts.”
“It’s outliers like Wilma that drive us to do what we do, because there are so many influences we don’t understand,” says Tim Olander MS’93, a fellow CIMSS scientist and longtime colleague of Velden.
As a boy growing up in Deerfield, Illinois, Olander used to run onto the front porch with a video camera whenever there was a big storm. “I was scared,” he recalls, “but fascinated. I had a strong desire to be a part of it, feel it, and experience it.”
“Wilma confounded everybody,” says Velden. “There was simply no indication in the numerical models. And ultimately that’s what we don’t really understand — how a hurricane all of a sudden goes nuts.”
“It’s outliers like Wilma that drive us to do what we do, because there are so many influences we don’t understand,” says Tim Olander MS’93, a fellow CIMSS scientist and longtime colleague of Velden.
As a boy growing up in Deerfield, Illinois, Olander used to run onto the front porch with a video camera whenever there was a big storm. “I was scared,” he recalls, “but fascinated. I had a strong desire to be a part of it, feel it, and experience it.”
That sense of wonder runs deep in a lot of people who study meteorology. “I think they call us the weather weenies,” says Olander. Yet there’s nothing wimpy about the way that hurricane scientists have pushed the boundaries of their equipment — and themselves — to get better measurements of powerful storms. They float buoys on the oceans, put weather balloons in the sky, and drop airborne sensors that continuously radio back readings of pressure, humidity, temperature, wind direction, and speed as they plummet toward the sea. Keeping close track of such atmospheric variables allows scientists to paint a detailed picture of both a storm’s structure and intensity at a given time.
“Everything in the weather is so chaotic, it’s a real joy when you finally do find something that works,” says Olander.
To some extent, scientists are still in the wind when it comes to hurricane behavior. They might nail their predictions on three storms in a row and then watch in frustration as a fourth spins off in a wholly unpredictable way.
“Einstein once said, ‘God doesn’t play dice with the universe.’ But we in hurricane science think that in fact he does,” says Tripoli. “We’re the equivalent of physicists back in the 1950s.”
Perhaps no issue is more pressing — and contentious — than the question of whether storm season is in fact getting bigger. The short answer is yes — there has been an unprecedented surge in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. The problem is that nobody can agree why.
According to conventional thinking, the latest upswing is part of a natural cycle, in which sea surface temperatures and wind patterns shift about every fifteen to forty years. By this theory, hurricanes increase for a few decades, and then ease into a lull before heating up again with a new cycle.
“Everything in the weather is so chaotic, it’s a real joy when you finally do find something that works,” says Olander.
To some extent, scientists are still in the wind when it comes to hurricane behavior. They might nail their predictions on three storms in a row and then watch in frustration as a fourth spins off in a wholly unpredictable way.
“Einstein once said, ‘God doesn’t play dice with the universe.’ But we in hurricane science think that in fact he does,” says Tripoli. “We’re the equivalent of physicists back in the 1950s.”
Perhaps no issue is more pressing — and contentious — than the question of whether storm season is in fact getting bigger. The short answer is yes — there has been an unprecedented surge in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. The problem is that nobody can agree why.
According to conventional thinking, the latest upswing is part of a natural cycle, in which sea surface temperatures and wind patterns shift about every fifteen to forty years. By this theory, hurricanes increase for a few decades, and then ease into a lull before heating up again with a new cycle.
But in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some experts have started to argue that the natural cycle cannot be the sole explanation for the recent rash of hurricanes. They say something more — such as human-induced global warming — must be lending a hand.
On the face of it, global warming could certainly explain a lot. The initial pillar of humid air that forms during a hurricane generally needs surface water temperatures to exceed 26 degrees Celsius, or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere — and in turn raising ocean temperatures — larger areas of the planet would be ripe for the onset of hurricanes.
Two academic papers published last fall claim that rising sea surface temperatures have helped trigger more intense hurricanes. In the first study, climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pored over global records of hurricane intensity for the past half-century and concluded that storms seem to be lasting 60 percent longer, with winds speeds up to 15 percent higher. Researchers at Georgia Tech followed with findings that suggest the number of category four and five storms jumped dramatically during the latter half of a thirty-five-year period between 1970 and 2004.
The papers stirred up a great deal of debate — and skepticism — within the scientific community. Then, scientists at Purdue University came out with an independent analysis in May that backed Emanuel’s work, finding that hurricanes have indeed worsened during the last forty years, at least partially due to rising sea surface temperatures. In August, another paper, this one from a Florida State University researcher, connected hurricane intensity and global warming.
On the face of it, global warming could certainly explain a lot. The initial pillar of humid air that forms during a hurricane generally needs surface water temperatures to exceed 26 degrees Celsius, or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere — and in turn raising ocean temperatures — larger areas of the planet would be ripe for the onset of hurricanes.
Two academic papers published last fall claim that rising sea surface temperatures have helped trigger more intense hurricanes. In the first study, climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pored over global records of hurricane intensity for the past half-century and concluded that storms seem to be lasting 60 percent longer, with winds speeds up to 15 percent higher. Researchers at Georgia Tech followed with findings that suggest the number of category four and five storms jumped dramatically during the latter half of a thirty-five-year period between 1970 and 2004.
The papers stirred up a great deal of debate — and skepticism — within the scientific community. Then, scientists at Purdue University came out with an independent analysis in May that backed Emanuel’s work, finding that hurricanes have indeed worsened during the last forty years, at least partially due to rising sea surface temperatures. In August, another paper, this one from a Florida State University researcher, connected hurricane intensity and global warming.
But not everyone is convinced. “Most scientists, including me, agree that global warming is a problem,” says Jason Dunion MS’99, director of the field program at the NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “What I don’t think we’re in a position to know is whether the global warming we’ve seen is responsible for causing more hurricanes — and how much is due to global warming and how much is due to a natural cycle.”
At its heart, the controversy boils down to data. Or actually, the lack of it, as scientists say the hurricane record is incredibly inconsistent. Satellite measurements go back only three or four decades. Those seeking a longer view typically rely on a rather spotty record known as the North Atlantic Best Track, a compilation of tropical cyclone direction and intensity estimates going back to 1886. Scientists are cautious about the Best Track — and particularly the older parts of it — because researchers recorded estimates in wholly inconsistent ways, often going by memory, for example, or taking hurricane-related measurements in wildly different places.
CIMSS researcher James Kossin is among those trying to reconcile those numbers. Applying different statistical tools to existing hurricane records, Kossin worked with researchers at the National Climatic Data Center to stitch together a uniform dataset that outlines twenty-two years of tropical cyclone activity.
When Kossin analyzed the new data for evidence of stronger or more frequent storms, he found hurricane activity in the Atlantic is not only higher than ever before, but it is reacting to climate change in a different way than other oceans.
“Something different is going on in the Atlantic,” says Kossin. “It seems to be beating to a local drum.”
At its heart, the controversy boils down to data. Or actually, the lack of it, as scientists say the hurricane record is incredibly inconsistent. Satellite measurements go back only three or four decades. Those seeking a longer view typically rely on a rather spotty record known as the North Atlantic Best Track, a compilation of tropical cyclone direction and intensity estimates going back to 1886. Scientists are cautious about the Best Track — and particularly the older parts of it — because researchers recorded estimates in wholly inconsistent ways, often going by memory, for example, or taking hurricane-related measurements in wildly different places.
CIMSS researcher James Kossin is among those trying to reconcile those numbers. Applying different statistical tools to existing hurricane records, Kossin worked with researchers at the National Climatic Data Center to stitch together a uniform dataset that outlines twenty-two years of tropical cyclone activity.
When Kossin analyzed the new data for evidence of stronger or more frequent storms, he found hurricane activity in the Atlantic is not only higher than ever before, but it is reacting to climate change in a different way than other oceans.
“Something different is going on in the Atlantic,” says Kossin. “It seems to be beating to a local drum.”
So what is really happening? People have suggested all types of theories, but the truth is, nobody really has a clue. It’s likely that a number of different environmental factors work simultaneously to influence Atlantic storm activity. Some factors might help to worsen storms, while others could be slowing them down. For example, scientists think that El Niño — the periodic warming of eastern Pacific waters — may actually be working to weaken hurricanes. Dunion and Velden, along with other scientists, are also exploring the intriguing idea that massive dust storms from the Sahara desert are helping to dampen Atlantic storms. As bad as storm season is now, some environmental factors may be keeping it from being even worse.
All of this says that, for the great progress science has made in understanding hurricanes, it is in many ways still chasing the storm. “In the scheme of Mother Nature, we’ve only really been studying hurricanes for a blink of an eye,” says the NOAA’s Dunion. “We have a whole lot to learn yet.”
All of this says that, for the great progress science has made in understanding hurricanes, it is in many ways still chasing the storm. “In the scheme of Mother Nature, we’ve only really been studying hurricanes for a blink of an eye,” says the NOAA’s Dunion. “We have a whole lot to learn yet.”
Paroma Basu is a science writer for UW-Madison’s University Communications office. Her work has appeared in Nature, Discover, the Boston Globe, and the Village Voice.
Being Prepared
Experts Say It Will Take More than Government Aid to Weather our Storms
In June, as another hurricane season got under way, torrential rains caused devastating floods in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, killing at least sixteen people and straining levees in heavily populated areas. Weeks later, a severe windstorm carpeted the St. Louis area with downed trees and broken glass, leaving hundreds of thousands without power or water for days during a heat wave that saw temperatures reach 100 degrees.
Every one of us is at risk from violent weather and technological catastrophes; it’s not just a problem of low-lying cities, or flood plains, or places where hurricanes strike. And the enduring lesson of last year’s record storm season should be that household-level preparation for the unthinkable — the ax in the attic — saves lives.
Filled with compassion for the people of the Gulf Coast, Americans volunteered their sweat and tears and poured billions of dollars into relief organizations. But how many of us turned that same energy on our own homes — stocking up on food and water, training ourselves to keep the gas tank half full, or demanding area evacuation plans from our local officials?
People can’t expect the federal government to protect them from every hazard, says Marvin Birnbaum ’57, MD’60, PhD’71, a UW emeritus professor of physiology and medicine: “They have to be protecting themselves, preparing themselves, being responsible for themselves and for their families.”
In June, as another hurricane season got under way, torrential rains caused devastating floods in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, killing at least sixteen people and straining levees in heavily populated areas. Weeks later, a severe windstorm carpeted the St. Louis area with downed trees and broken glass, leaving hundreds of thousands without power or water for days during a heat wave that saw temperatures reach 100 degrees.
Every one of us is at risk from violent weather and technological catastrophes; it’s not just a problem of low-lying cities, or flood plains, or places where hurricanes strike. And the enduring lesson of last year’s record storm season should be that household-level preparation for the unthinkable — the ax in the attic — saves lives.
Filled with compassion for the people of the Gulf Coast, Americans volunteered their sweat and tears and poured billions of dollars into relief organizations. But how many of us turned that same energy on our own homes — stocking up on food and water, training ourselves to keep the gas tank half full, or demanding area evacuation plans from our local officials?
People can’t expect the federal government to protect them from every hazard, says Marvin Birnbaum ’57, MD’60, PhD’71, a UW emeritus professor of physiology and medicine: “They have to be protecting themselves, preparing themselves, being responsible for themselves and for their families.”
As medical director for the UW Athletics program, Birnbaum must plan for scenarios such as a tornado warning being issued during a game at Camp Randall. And as president of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, he works with hundreds of medical colleagues around the world to develop scientific standards and practices for disaster preparation and response.
In a wide-ranging, sudden event in the United States, he says, research suggests it will take an average of three days for federal help to reach an area. “No one’s going to be there to help you,” he warns. “If they are, great — but don’t let your life depend on that.”
People have to “get realistic about their hazards,” Birnbaum advises, and start now to gather the supplies they would need to shelter in their homes for that length of time. In a survey he directed in August 2005, 80 percent of respondents in Madison did not have a supply of water sufficient for three days, and only 11 percent had practiced a plan for handling an emergency in the home.
Unlike earthquakes or chemical spills, hurricanes can be forecast in time to evacuate large areas. But there, too, the need for planning and practice were made starkly apparent during Katrina and Rita.
In September 2004, when it looked like New Orleans was in the path of Hurricane Ivan, Louisiana attempted a notoriously congested and slow highway evacuation of 1 million people. By the time Katrina was boiling in the Gulf, the plan had been changed to a phased evacuation, in which the outer areas were directed to leave first, followed by the city. While the plan still failed to provide transportation for those without private cars, the Katrina evacuation undoubtedly saved lives by removing 1.7 million people from harm’s way during the two days before the storm arrived.
In a wide-ranging, sudden event in the United States, he says, research suggests it will take an average of three days for federal help to reach an area. “No one’s going to be there to help you,” he warns. “If they are, great — but don’t let your life depend on that.”
People have to “get realistic about their hazards,” Birnbaum advises, and start now to gather the supplies they would need to shelter in their homes for that length of time. In a survey he directed in August 2005, 80 percent of respondents in Madison did not have a supply of water sufficient for three days, and only 11 percent had practiced a plan for handling an emergency in the home.
Unlike earthquakes or chemical spills, hurricanes can be forecast in time to evacuate large areas. But there, too, the need for planning and practice were made starkly apparent during Katrina and Rita.
In September 2004, when it looked like New Orleans was in the path of Hurricane Ivan, Louisiana attempted a notoriously congested and slow highway evacuation of 1 million people. By the time Katrina was boiling in the Gulf, the plan had been changed to a phased evacuation, in which the outer areas were directed to leave first, followed by the city. While the plan still failed to provide transportation for those without private cars, the Katrina evacuation undoubtedly saved lives by removing 1.7 million people from harm’s way during the two days before the storm arrived.
Weeks later, 2.5 million people attempted to flee Houston, which had no Hurricane Ivan dress rehearsal and did not have a phased plan. Many left without sufficient food, water, medicine, or gas for the long hours their cars would crawl along in the broiling heat. During that evacuation, at least one hundred people died from heart failure, heat stroke, injuries, and other causes.
Although the post-Katrina analyses have understandably focused on the many things that went horribly wrong, Birnbaum says it’s equally important to catalogue and replicate the many things that went right, such as the thousand-bed field hospital that was set up in twenty-four hours in an empty former Kmart in Baton Rouge — an exercise that had been practiced just the week before.
While Birnbaum says that increased preparedness would go much further toward helping people survive disasters than “doubling, or even tripling, the budget for the federal response,” he would like to see more resources invested in helping people prepare, comparing it to government’s role in mandating building codes and smoke detectors.
“The government can pay for rescues, hotels, and shelters, but there’s no aid to people for preparing,” he notes. The same people who are most vulnerable in disasters of every type — the poor, the sick and disabled, the very old, and the very young — are the ones who will need logistical support to shelter or evacuate and subsidies to put together an emergency kit.
Although the post-Katrina analyses have understandably focused on the many things that went horribly wrong, Birnbaum says it’s equally important to catalogue and replicate the many things that went right, such as the thousand-bed field hospital that was set up in twenty-four hours in an empty former Kmart in Baton Rouge — an exercise that had been practiced just the week before.
While Birnbaum says that increased preparedness would go much further toward helping people survive disasters than “doubling, or even tripling, the budget for the federal response,” he would like to see more resources invested in helping people prepare, comparing it to government’s role in mandating building codes and smoke detectors.
“The government can pay for rescues, hotels, and shelters, but there’s no aid to people for preparing,” he notes. The same people who are most vulnerable in disasters of every type — the poor, the sick and disabled, the very old, and the very young — are the ones who will need logistical support to shelter or evacuate and subsidies to put together an emergency kit.
Though it’s one of the poorest countries in the world, Bangladesh is a shining example of the power of preparedness. In 1970, it was the site of the deadliest cyclone in history. With winds of 155 miles per hour pushing a surge of more than twenty feet, the storm drowned half a illion people. Since then, the government has worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society to reduce the cyclone threat to its vast coastal population, including establishing an early-warning system, training thirty thousand volunteers to encourage and assist in evacuation, and building three thousand cyclone shelters. In 1991, a storm of similar destructive force took 140,000 lives; in the massive cyclone of May 1997, more than 1 million people hurried to shelters, and fewer than two hundred died.
The program has raised public awareness of people’s risks and responsibilities through radio, theater, folk songs, leaflets, and evacuation drills — and particularly through the school curriculum. While the United States has never experienced a disaster tragedy on the scale that Bangladesh has faced, it has also not made similar progress in protecting the people on the margins, the ones most vulnerable to any natural disaster.
At the height of the flooding, some journalists compared the conditions in New Orleans to those “in a third-world country.” If the third-world country in question is Bangladesh, perhaps with luck and sufficient commitment, we’ll get there.
— M.M.
The program has raised public awareness of people’s risks and responsibilities through radio, theater, folk songs, leaflets, and evacuation drills — and particularly through the school curriculum. While the United States has never experienced a disaster tragedy on the scale that Bangladesh has faced, it has also not made similar progress in protecting the people on the margins, the ones most vulnerable to any natural disaster.
At the height of the flooding, some journalists compared the conditions in New Orleans to those “in a third-world country.” If the third-world country in question is Bangladesh, perhaps with luck and sufficient commitment, we’ll get there.
— M.M.
The Cost
With Big Storms on the Horizon, Insurance May Come at a Premium
From Houston to Boston, from Miami to Maine, insurance companies are canceling policies in coastal areas, hiking premiums substantially, and raising deductibles — in some cases, to as high as 5 percent of the value of a house.
It’s not that the industry wants to gouge policyholders, says Dan Anderson MBA’67, PhD’70, a professor of risk management and insurance in the UW-Madison business school. It’s that storms like Hurricane Katrina are changing the rules.
From an insurance perspective, Katrina was by far the most expensive storm in U.S. history. With an estimated $60 billion in privately insured property losses, it tripled the inflation-adjusted cost of Hurricane Andrew, which struck southern Florida in 1992. Katrina either ties or edges out the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as the priciest American natural disaster ever, and given the failure of the levees, it also ranks as the country’s most expensive technological, or human-caused, disaster, surpassing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
From Houston to Boston, from Miami to Maine, insurance companies are canceling policies in coastal areas, hiking premiums substantially, and raising deductibles — in some cases, to as high as 5 percent of the value of a house.
It’s not that the industry wants to gouge policyholders, says Dan Anderson MBA’67, PhD’70, a professor of risk management and insurance in the UW-Madison business school. It’s that storms like Hurricane Katrina are changing the rules.
From an insurance perspective, Katrina was by far the most expensive storm in U.S. history. With an estimated $60 billion in privately insured property losses, it tripled the inflation-adjusted cost of Hurricane Andrew, which struck southern Florida in 1992. Katrina either ties or edges out the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as the priciest American natural disaster ever, and given the failure of the levees, it also ranks as the country’s most expensive technological, or human-caused, disaster, surpassing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
But rising premiums aren’t based only on those costs. Insurance companies are recalculating risk estimates based on predictions that we’re entering an era of more frequent and more intense hurricanes.
“We’ve had these natural periods where you had low hurricane activity and higher hurricane activity,” says Anderson. “But that was all before global warming, and the potential effects of global warming, have kicked in.”
Despite Katrina, the insurance industry managed a fifteen-year-high profit of $43 billion in 2005, according to the Insurance Information Institute — a trend that bumped up the stock prices of the major players. Moreover, thanks to reinsurance — the insurance that insurance companies take out against their own possible losses — insurers will recoup billions of those Katrina payouts.
“We’ve had these natural periods where you had low hurricane activity and higher hurricane activity,” says Anderson. “But that was all before global warming, and the potential effects of global warming, have kicked in.”
Despite Katrina, the insurance industry managed a fifteen-year-high profit of $43 billion in 2005, according to the Insurance Information Institute — a trend that bumped up the stock prices of the major players. Moreover, thanks to reinsurance — the insurance that insurance companies take out against their own possible losses — insurers will recoup billions of those Katrina payouts.
But the Gulf Coast will look like a bargain compared with a hit on glamorous Miami, for instance, where predictions for privately insured losses start at $100 billion, or if warmer water temperatures lead to fiercer storms in the real-estate-rich Northeast, where cooler water has historically sapped hurricanes of some of their strength. Insurance companies regard such models as “deadly serious,” Anderson says. “They want to position themselves so they don’t have a knockout blow.”
Eventually, insuring a home in coastal areas may become so prohibitively expensive that developers may give up on those areas entirely. But that may be a necessary direction, says the business school’s Anderson, who also has an appointment in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. “From an overall global standpoint, I think that’s a positive development, because ... there’s a lot of environmentally sensitive areas right on the coast, and those coastal areas serve as a barrier when the hurricane hits.”
— M.M.
Eventually, insuring a home in coastal areas may become so prohibitively expensive that developers may give up on those areas entirely. But that may be a necessary direction, says the business school’s Anderson, who also has an appointment in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. “From an overall global standpoint, I think that’s a positive development, because ... there’s a lot of environmentally sensitive areas right on the coast, and those coastal areas serve as a barrier when the hurricane hits.”
— M.M.
Aftermath
A Hard Rebirth for the Big Easy
Nearly a year later, Katrina is still inundating New Orleans. People are swamped with information, wading through the logistics of everyday life, and deluged by decisions to be made. It’s still the front page of every Times-Picayune and the first half-dozen stories on the local news. It’s the buildings that are burning because the damaged water mains can’t generate enough pressure for fire hoses to snuff the flames. And it’s the fatigue of continuing to live without landline phones, or nearby ATMs, or home mail delivery, or a restaurant or grocery store for miles.
Nearly a year later, Katrina is still inundating New Orleans. People are swamped with information, wading through the logistics of everyday life, and deluged by decisions to be made. It’s still the front page of every Times-Picayune and the first half-dozen stories on the local news. It’s the buildings that are burning because the damaged water mains can’t generate enough pressure for fire hoses to snuff the flames. And it’s the fatigue of continuing to live without landline phones, or nearby ATMs, or home mail delivery, or a restaurant or grocery store for miles.
Most of the traffic lights are on at last, which means that a ten-mile drive no longer takes forty-five perilous minutes, with drivers stopping at every intersection and trying not to be broadsided. But if you’re spending your days trying to clear the debris — formerly known as your cherished possessions — from your home and stripping out the mold-devoured Sheetrock, and you lived in an area where every house was ruined, it may well be a ten-mile drive just to the nearest public bathroom.
“It takes a lot of courage to live here now,” a woman in the city’s Eighth Ward tells me. “A lot of courage and a lot of resilience.
Like thousands of others, the woman and her husband, both senior citizens, have been commuting to their longtime home, which they’re bringing back to life bit by bit.
Throughout much of the city, you can still see the water line, a scummy yellow scar where the water started to settle. It is halfway up this house. It’s just below the eaves of that one. I’m looking up at it on a bus stop sign several feet above my head. And this is where the water settled — in many places, it ran three to four feet higher at its peak.
“It takes a lot of courage to live here now,” a woman in the city’s Eighth Ward tells me. “A lot of courage and a lot of resilience.
Like thousands of others, the woman and her husband, both senior citizens, have been commuting to their longtime home, which they’re bringing back to life bit by bit.
Throughout much of the city, you can still see the water line, a scummy yellow scar where the water started to settle. It is halfway up this house. It’s just below the eaves of that one. I’m looking up at it on a bus stop sign several feet above my head. And this is where the water settled — in many places, it ran three to four feet higher at its peak.
No matter what you have read or seen on television, you cannot imagine the scope of the destruction here. You can drive for days and still not see every ruined street, every neighborhood of homes that were brined and slimed in the brackish water. Wood, brick, cottage, mansion, apartment complex, reclaimed marsh, and ground that had never gotten any water before — as many types of damage as there are ways of living in a city. And then you reach the Lower Ninth Ward, where the water bursting the levee rippled the asphalt of the first road it hit, punched cars as flat as beer cans, and roared into houses, schools, and churches with a force as unstoppable as history. There is no water line when your house is a pile of kindling.
If you could look inside the people of New Orleans, you might see a water line there, too. The mark where all the grief and guilt and gratitude, the insecurity and loss and anger, are starting to settle.
At work, you can see that people aren’t sleeping well. That they’re exhausted from working on their houses every night after leaving the job. That the stress of being permanent house guests is taking a toll. That those with no cooking facilities are gaining weight from having to live on fast food, or losing weight, from having no appetite.
There are holes in everyone’s memory, even those whose homes and jobs survived relatively intact. Ginger Berrigan ’69, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, has lived in the city since 1984. The front door of her sunny yellow house, built in 1890, is ten feet off the ground and six feet above the water line, so she was spared the worst of it — unlike her neighbors, whose ground-level homes were all flooded. Taking a walk while in Princeton, New Jersey, for a conference, she recently caught herself thinking, Boy, they’ve really fixed up this neighborhood. It must not have gotten much water.
If you could look inside the people of New Orleans, you might see a water line there, too. The mark where all the grief and guilt and gratitude, the insecurity and loss and anger, are starting to settle.
At work, you can see that people aren’t sleeping well. That they’re exhausted from working on their houses every night after leaving the job. That the stress of being permanent house guests is taking a toll. That those with no cooking facilities are gaining weight from having to live on fast food, or losing weight, from having no appetite.
There are holes in everyone’s memory, even those whose homes and jobs survived relatively intact. Ginger Berrigan ’69, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, has lived in the city since 1984. The front door of her sunny yellow house, built in 1890, is ten feet off the ground and six feet above the water line, so she was spared the worst of it — unlike her neighbors, whose ground-level homes were all flooded. Taking a walk while in Princeton, New Jersey, for a conference, she recently caught herself thinking, Boy, they’ve really fixed up this neighborhood. It must not have gotten much water.
A determined optimist who plays Christmas carols in her car in July, Berrigan admits that progress in the city is slow and that a true rebirth may take five or ten years, but she insists on focusing on the positive. The French Quarter and the Garden District are as ready as ever to inspire architectural and horticultural envy. The gray sludge that once turned the city into a colorless moonscape is gone, and the parks and cemeteries are refreshingly green once again.
“We’re coming back!” promise signs on shuttered businesses from the Superdome to the local po’ boy stand. “We will reopen!”
In June, the librarians arrived — the American Library Association, more than sixteen thousand strong, became the first large meeting to convene in New Orleans since the storm. In addition to plumping up the hotels and restaurants, they offered their help to damaged libraries, and they filled the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center — so recently the site of much suffering — with new energy, with a vote for the city’s future.
With the Judicial Hammers, a group of volunteers from the federal district court, Berrigan has been helping Habitat for Humanity build the Musicians’ Village in the Upper Ninth Ward, most recently siding the home of salsa’s Freddy Omar. Since the storm, she has joined St. Augustine’s church and the neighborhood association in her part of Hollygrove. “I’d like to just take a leave of absence from the job,” she says, “and just try to get the city back on its feet.”
“We’re coming back!” promise signs on shuttered businesses from the Superdome to the local po’ boy stand. “We will reopen!”
In June, the librarians arrived — the American Library Association, more than sixteen thousand strong, became the first large meeting to convene in New Orleans since the storm. In addition to plumping up the hotels and restaurants, they offered their help to damaged libraries, and they filled the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center — so recently the site of much suffering — with new energy, with a vote for the city’s future.
With the Judicial Hammers, a group of volunteers from the federal district court, Berrigan has been helping Habitat for Humanity build the Musicians’ Village in the Upper Ninth Ward, most recently siding the home of salsa’s Freddy Omar. Since the storm, she has joined St. Augustine’s church and the neighborhood association in her part of Hollygrove. “I’d like to just take a leave of absence from the job,” she says, “and just try to get the city back on its feet.”
Berrigan and her native New Orleanian husband, Joe, left the city for Katrina, the first time either had ever evacuated. If another hurricane heads their way this season, she’s not certain what they’ll do. But she will definitely close the courthouse more quickly than she would have in the past. Too many judges, lawyers, and staff are living in FEMA trailers; they are vulnerable and must evacuate, she says. And too many are still emotionally fragile from the losses of the past year. They should be worrying about their safety rather than trying to meet a filing deadline.
Mostly, like everyone else, she’s just hoping the city will get through this storm season without another hit.
“I tell my friends we’re off life support now,” says Berrigan, “but we’re still in intensive care.”
Mary Makarushka MA’06 is a journalist specializing in public health and disasters. She spent a week in New Orleans this summer as part of her research.
Mostly, like everyone else, she’s just hoping the city will get through this storm season without another hit.
“I tell my friends we’re off life support now,” says Berrigan, “but we’re still in intensive care.”
Mary Makarushka MA’06 is a journalist specializing in public health and disasters. She spent a week in New Orleans this summer as part of her research.
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