By The Times Picayune, New Orleans, La.
AP
NEW ORLEANS, La. —
Within weeks of each other, hurricanes Isaac and Sandy caught coastal residents by surprise with deadly levels of storm surge. Without a clear warning otherwise, thousands of people thought they could ride out a Category 1 storm. Some of them drowned in their homes or were swept away by raging water. ...
This simply shouldn’t happen. Officials at the National Hurricane Center have known for years that storm surge is an integral piece of a storm’s level of danger. Yet they have moved at an excruciatingly slow pace to find a way to communicate that risk to people in a storm’s path. For Sandy, the hurricane center handed off the duty of warning residents to the National Weather Service as the storm moved north of North Carolina. But the weather service didn’t convey the serious risk of surge in a way that people could understand.
The hurricane center officially dropped any mention of surge from the Saffir-Simpson numerical categories in 2009, after Hurricane Ike’s surge overwhelmed much of south Louisiana, far from the storm’s landfall in Galveston, Texas. In truth, the deadliness of Katrina’s massive surge in 2005 should have prompted a change in the way advisories are issued.
Isaac and Sandy both were classified as Category 1 hurricanes as they moved toward landfall, as was Irene in 2011. Those numbers indicate wind, though, not the force of the water in the storm. ...
That is why a warning system that includes surge is so vital, and it is mystifying why it doesn’t already exist.
When Isaac struck in September, the National Hurricane Center’s plan was to have a new surge warning system in place by 2015. That was an absurd time frame, and officials now say that some sort of surge warning could be incorporated into advisories next hurricane season. There should be no doubt about it. The hurricane center must get an understandable surge warning system in place before anyone else drowns from lack of understanding that danger. ...
Officials at all levels should have sounded more urgent warnings and been more explicit about the risk from Isaac’s surge, which resembled that of a far stronger storm: Hurricane Katrina. The same should have been done with Sandy. ...
The responsibility for fixing this problem lies with the hurricane center. Katrina, Ike, Isaac and now Sandy have demonstrated how deadly and destructive storm surge is. The warnings need to change before any more unsuspecting storm victims are caught in the tides.
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