On a visit to New Orleans several months after Katrina, while the high-ground parts of the city and suburbs had returned to life, the devastation downtown and in the lower lying areas was stunning. Debris still lined and blocked some roads. Along one street, a city bus was abandoned and stripped, seemingly parked for a last time after a last-ditch effort to move people out of harm’s way. A dark black waterline shows the depth of flooding at this home. Mitch Traphagen photos.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS … PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE-HALF OF WELL-CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL … THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON-FUNCTIONAL … HIGH-RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY … A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD … AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS … PETS … AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET … DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!
The above is a summary of a National Weather Service statement issued by meteorologist Robert Ricks of the New Orleans / Baton Rouge NWS office at 10:11 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005, ahead of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. Ricks later stated that he hoped he would be wrong. Months later, a Congressional committee assigned to investigate the response to Hurricane Katrina determined that the statement had likely saved lives.
A Department of Commerce service assessment went on to say:
“This statement became a significant moment for the NWS during Katrina. The language helped reinforce the message from emergency management officials for residents in southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi to heed evacuation orders from local officials. The unprecedented, explicitly foreboding detail was also used by emergency managers, local officials and the media to prepare the public for Katrina’s impact and aftermath.”
The review also stated that this type of report, using highly explicit language, was based on a template created in the 1990s by the NWS office in Ruskin.
Under the clouds of the remnants of Tropical Storm Erika, a sign on 19th Ave., east of U.S. 41, illustrates the danger of a major hurricane striking South Hillsborough. The storm surge alone could devastate the entire area.
Exactly 10 years to the day later, on Aug. 28, 2015, Florida Governor Rick Scott ordered a state of emergency for the entire state as then-Tropical Storm Erika wreaked havoc through the Caribbean, killing 20 people on the island of Dominica. On that day, nearly the entire Florida peninsula was within the National Hurricane Center’s “cone of doom,” an area the agency defines as within a range of possibility for tropical storm conditions.
The NHC had reservations about the storm and whether or not it would hold together to reach Florida, but the agency was taking no chances, and neither were state emergency officials. In a state with the potential for storms that turn small vehicles into projectiles, Gov. Scott does not have the luxury of taking chances.
The big concern, however, was flooding, particularly in the Tampa Bay area, already saturated by record rainfall amounts in August.
By the evening of the 28th, the “cone of doom” included nearly all of Florida, with the storm track heading straight into Tampa Bay, although again with reservations on the part of the NHC about the viability of the storm.
Paul Dellegatto, meteorologist with Fox 13 TV in Tampa, took to Facebook, saying:
“I know the new track from the National Hurricane Center may concern you, and yes it bears watching, but I have little confidence that this new track will verify. The end result of all of this is that a huge area of deep tropical moisture over the Caribbean has to go somewhere — and that somewhere may be over us or near us next week. If that plays out, we end up with above-normal rain chances for a few days. I will keep you posted.”
While the sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is high, providing fuel for tropical storms, other environmental conditions, such as wind shear, made for hostile conditions for such storms. Dellegatto, however, wasn’t telling people not to worry. By the next morning, he wrote:
“Here is my biggest concern. There probably won’t be much left of Erika as it moves away from Cuba, but its leftover moisture has to go somewhere, and that somewhere will be in the general direction of Florida.”
Only hours later, the NHC confirmed his prediction. Erika had dissipated.
Images from New Orleans several months after Hurricane Katrina. The black lines of water that inundated the city tell a story, as do the markings of rescue workers on homes in the area that were most devastated.
It has been a decade since a hurricane has made landfall in Florida, with Hurricane Wilma striking South Florida in October 2005. The storm was named directly responsible for five deaths in Florida, and 26 deaths caused indirectly. In all, after making several landfalls, the storm was blamed for 62 deaths and nearly $30 billion in damage. At one point, it was the most intense storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.
And despite Wilma being a “W” storm on the alphabetical listing of named storms, the season was far from over.
Before the end of the 2005 hurricane season, the NHC had run out of alphabetical letters and had resorted to using Greek letter names.
In all, there were 28 storms, 15 hurricanes with seven major hurricanes, all record highs. More than 3,900 people had lost their lives. Katrina alone was responsible for at least 1,245 of those deaths.
September and October have traditionally been the peak months for tropical systems forming in or traversing the Gulf of Mexico, where the water remains warm after the far eastern Atlantic has begun to cool and more hostile conditions move in, generally preventing storms from building in intensity and making the long track across the Atlantic. Although forecasters now say that there is a 90 percent chance of a less-active-than-normal season, it only takes one storm to wreak havoc and cause death.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew, an “A” storm — meaning the season’s first named storm — formed in mid-August and did not dissipate until Aug. 28 that year. It was a quiet season until Andrew, which at one point was packing 175-mile-per-hour winds, devastated South Florida, causing 26 fatalities.
There are no due dates with hurricanes. Although the last hurricane to directly strike Tampa was in 1921, that doesn’t mean the bay area is overdue, nor does it mean that this area is somehow magically immune. The chances of a hurricane rolling up Tampa Bay remain as high today as they did in the past — and will tomorrow. Clouds forming in the Bay of Campeche could end in destruction on an epic scale should the conditions allow it — and someday they likely will. A Category 5 hurricane hitting the bay area could make Katrina seem relatively small in comparison. The potential for “human suffering incredible by modern standards” happening in South Hillsborough actually exists.
But it won’t be from the remnants of Erika, although with much of the southeastern U.S. under flood and storm warnings, the once-named storm still has the potential to cause death and destruction.
And tomorrow is another day in the 2015 hurricane season. It only takes one storm — and the template for explicitly warning the public about dangers to come was created right here in South Hillsborough.
Fox 13 meteorologist Paul Dellegatto is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/paul.dellegattofox.
The National Hurricane Center is located at www.nhc.noaa.gov.
Hurricane season runs through Nov. 30. For information on how to be prepared, visit flgetaplan.com/family.aspx.
