Beyond Katrina

Adopt A Hurricane Impacted Family for Christmas

Hello, Margaret Saizan here.  I am the publisher of Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane & Disaster Recovery. Since 2005 I have sponsored  a Christmas wish fulfillment/Adopt a Family program to help match donors to hurricane survivors. The program has  become very popular and I am especially pleased that the donors love it so much!   Unfortunately, I wasn't able to host the program  last year  for personal reasons. However, much to my surprise (and delight) I received many emails from  donors who were really disappointed about this. The Adopt-a-Family program has been an enormously  rewarding experience for both givers and receivers alike.    

Inasmuch as the gulf coast is still not fully recovered from the storms of 2005 and its citizens are now dealing with the aftermath of two additional hurricanes - Gustav and Ike - I am considering reinstating the program this year. Please let me know if you are interested in participating either by adopting a family, being a co-sponsor,  or otherwise.  At this point I am seeding ideas and  I welcome dialogue and input from readers and stakeholders in gulf coast hurricane recovery.

In times past the program has been wildly successful as an organic, self creating initiative and this seems to be congruent with the viral way in which  new media/social media moves. However, this year I am getting a little bit earlier start than usual and plan to be more intentional in my promotional efforts. Inasmuch as the deeper motivation for most who participate lies in  the satisfaction of a job well done, I would like to create a way to cross promote the businesses and initiatives of participating donors and sponsors.  In this way the benefits to all are multiple.

Please email inquiries, ideas, pledges to donate or sponsor, etc. to Margaret Saizan at  beyondkatrina@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

Margaret Saizan
Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane & Disaster Recovery
www.hurricane-katrina.org

Why The NHC Will Continue to Improve on Forecasting Accuracy this Season

Dr. Jeff Masters has an excellent post today outlining why the National Hurricane Center  will "put out their best hurricane forecasts ever this season". In a nutshell:

• Dr. Rappaport, the acting director, is a highly respected and talented hurricane scientist

• the availability of a new hurricane tracking, intensity, and storm surge model called the HWRF--Hurricane Weather and Research Forecast Model.

• the reliable GFS and GFDL forecasting modelas have had upgrades since last hurricane season.

• Hurricane Hunters will be carrying SFMR instrument for the first time, which can measure winds speeds at the ocean surface everywhere the aircraft fly.

Closing the Gap - Reducing the Margin of Error:

Masters reports, The National Hurricane Center made their best track forecasts ever for storms in the Atlantic in 2006. Here are some stats for the analytical types:

• The mean track errors for 12 to 72 hour forecasts were 15% - 20% lower than during 2001-2005.

• Track errors for Atlantic storms have improved about 50% in the past 15 years (Figure 1) ---(This equates to saved lives and hundreds of millions of dollars).

• The track error in 2006 for a 24 hour forecast was 58 miles; 112 miles for a 48 hour forecast; and 171 miles for a 72 hour forecast. Track errors for 96 and 120 hour forecasts were 236 miles and 305 miles--the second best on record (2003 set the record).

• NHC's long-range 120 hour forecasts had a significant bias to the west of 94 miles--about double the bias of what the computer models were forecasting. Thus, when the models correctly called for systems to recurve out to sea, NHC human forecasters tended to resist following what the models were saying.

More stats and graphs at Dr. Masters Blog Post, here.

Transcript of this mornings NHC press conference

(Indebted to the good Doc Jeff Master's for making this available)

Senior Hurricane Specialist James Franklin
We have been a family here, we are a small group of about 50 people. When things are really happening, we've got a Katrina out there or a Rita type of storms, everybody needs to stop what they're doing and pull together and make sure our message gets out and that we're doing the best job that we can to make the best forecast. We've got a lot of people pulling together to do that. That takes a certain amount of teamwork and appreciation of sense of family and he's destroying that, he's destroying that.

He's divided the staff, and it's hard to know how we're going to be able to come together with him here. One thing that happened yesterday when the staff met, and talked about these issues and a lot of people learned for the first time about some of the issues going on yesterday, and that brought a lot of the staff together. You saw a number of people speaking out both in terms of 3 to 23 yesterday. We found out what was really going on here. and I think you're going to see more later on.

I was very very gratified, we had a wonderful meeting with staff, including those who have been prior supporters of Bill. And we're learning a lot of things for the very first time. There we're a number of people who agreed with us, didn't like the idea of going to the press, but felt he needed to go, there are a fair number of people who didn't sign the letter for that reason. They wanted to keep it in house, and I certainly understand that. About 70-percent of the people who were in the discussion yesterday, put their names on the paper.

I think we've learned an awful lot about Bill here, during the last six months that maybe we didn't know.

We would have liked to have seen Bill realize that he didn't have the support of the staff and step down. That's not going to happen apparently. The process, the Dept. of Commerce process, I imagine needs to go forward. I think it would be nice if they could take him out of the office while that process goes on, those are not decisions we can make.

Lixion Avila-Senior Hurricane Forecaster
-Been here longer than any other forecaster
-Worked for 5-hurricane directors

I was Bill's stronger supporter, I went with him to the Caribbean with the hurricane hunter plane. To develop the hurricane hunter plan, like I did with all the directors. And I'm very upset (loud truck drives by) that he's been misrepresenting the views of the National Hurricane Center, and the hurricane plan. That plan was developed by the previous five hurricane directors, it's a jewel, it's the best in the world and it's been something that Neil Frank, Bob Sheets and Jerry Jarrel and developed for 20-years in six months he wants to destroy that plan.

For example he, I'm a scientist not a manager, and I don't know anything about management, but I can tell you that he came to my office telling me that he wants my advice, that he can not work here if he doesn't hear my advice.. very helpful with the previous directors, and he asked me, and I said the first thing you need to do is quit talking about that QuikSCAT and tell him that is out of line, will help all the problems. And he says he will do that, instead he goes back to the media, and you don't publish that you only publish the good things he said.

He said that we don't want to work with him, because he brings many good ideas, and we don't want to do that. I want you to know that he has not made a hurricane forecast since 1964.

That satellite, I gave that example to many people here. There are many things more important than that satellite. Of course I want that someone to have that satellite. The example I gave everybody is like having a BMW with leather seats. If you don't have leather seats that BMW is going to ruin, and we are going to make a very damn good forecast this year, with Bill or without Bill, and I think. I'm being very emotional, because I was his strongest supporter and I feel betrayed.

I was the last forecaster to join the group. They were smarter than me, I was giving him one more chance. Two day's ago when he came to my office and said please, what should I do to solve this problem? And I was very naive and I told him you need to stop fighting, pretending you're David against Goliath, and all those things with NOAA. The public thinks you're a hero, but you're not. You just need to develop your time and saving the hurricane program that your predecessor developed so nicely, this castle that has been done here. and he went back and said he was going to do that, he went to the media and said the opposite, and that's the end, thank you.

James Franklin
I want to say something about the QuikSCAT issue because, because that's important. The QuikSCAT satellite, is important to us, it does a lot of good things for us. We want a next generation advanced instrument, however there are a lot of things that current instrument cannot do, and by misrepresenting the case for that satellite, he has made it seem so urgent and so important. That what we're afraid of, that we'll get a quick fix, a copy of the kind of thing with existing technology. And within a couple of years we'll be in exactly the same position same situation. QuikSCAT is not a tool to help us improve track forecasts, that's how it's been misrepresented. Bill waves this NOAA report that some of my colleagues worked on and said look this is it. That report did not address track forecast accuracy, that is another one of the misrepresentations.

QuikSCAT is important to help us understand the size of the wind field, the strength, the current instrument has a lot of trouble with rain, a lot of rain in tropical cyclones. We need to move forward if we take the time develop the technology further and in a few more years get at the technology that really helps us get at the intensity problem, that's where our forecast problem really is. We've made great strides with track, as you know we're having a lot more problems with intensity, and doing the QuikSCAT problem correctly, taking our time, developing new technology is one of the tools that we need to help solve the intensity problem. But because of the way it's been portrayed we're afraid that there's going to be a quick fix that's not going to address the track problem, and it doesn't address the track problem and it isn't going to end up helping us with what the forecasters really know will help us.

We've see members of the Congress talking about how the information from the recognizance aircraft are inferior to QuikSCAT, we're afraid that somebody might get it in their heads to fund a stopgap QuikSCAT to take funds from recon aircraft. There is no comparison, there is not a forecaster here who believes QuikSCAT is more important than recon aircraft or other tools we have. But because this issue has been misreported we're afraid we might lose what we have.

We've got forecasters still back at there desks doing their jobs and they'll continue doing that. But there's a lot of people losing sleep over this, and as we get into august September, October, I don't think you want a bunch of tired sick, forecasters working the forecast desk. I think it takes a full effort. It's not just about doing our jobs, we need to go over and beyond when those storms are coming, and that's becoming harder to do.

I think when things get busy, it's going to be harder for us to work effectively with the situation we have here.

Vivian Jorge, Administrative Officer
As far as myself in the administration, since Bill got here, is the turmoil in the administration, because in my sense, bill(sat breakup) likes controversy. And I myself have been asked to do things that I know are not procedure but have been asked to do because that's the way he wants things done, and I've worked at hurricane center since 1985.

Unfortunately I think a director needs to unite his staff and he needs to be a calming person. It doesn't need to be a no new ideas. All the directors have different ideas.. from Neil on down to Max, they were different, they were not the same, their management styles were not the same, but they united the staff, the listened to the staff, especially the folks who have been here for so many years. .. and I think in the case of bill he doesn't feel that's necessary, he always feels he knows best. And that again in our case, there's never been so many closed doors, so much intrigue at the hurricane center as now and that's really unfortunate. I can't tell you how proud I am to work here.

--End of Press Conference

Tropical Outlook for June 26, 2007

Lots of African dust happening and the pattern will remain for a while longer...so don't look for any tropical storm activity any time soon. The 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season seems to be following along the same course as last year's quiet season. Hope things remain that way.

The failure of preseason predictions for the hurricane season of 2006

According to Dr. Jeff Masters chief meteorologist at Weather Underground "The preseason predictions of an extremely active hurricane season were spectacularly wrong. Only nine named storms and five hurricanes formed in the Atlantic, one below the average of ten named storms and six hurricanes. We ended up with the quietest hurricane season since 1997, much to the relief of regions ravaged by the unprecedented activity of 2004 and 2005". Master's asks, "What happened to make the prognostications such a abysmal failure? " - Find out the answer here.

It's Official! The 2006 Hurricane Season is Over

Whew! Now we can all breathe easy. The 2006 Hurricane Season is now a thing of the past - Thought I'd post a few links to articles celebrating its demise...

Hurricane Season Goes Out With A Wimper: Not a single hurricane strikes U.S. soil in 2006

A Year Without Hurricanes: Storms Avoid La. for whole season

I'll continue to post links as I run across them - be sure to bookmark the permalink to this post so you can  check back!

Extra-Terrestial Hurricanes?

The following is an article from NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/University of Arizona - For another interesting look at hurricanes on Saturn, see Dr. Jeff Master's blogpost,  Hurricanes on other planets? at Weather Underground.

Saturn's Surprisingly Stormy South

These images of Saturn's south pole, taken by two different instruments on Cassini, show the hurricane-like storm swirling there and features in the clouds at various depths surrounding the pole. Different wavelengths reveal the height of the clouds, which span tens of kilometers in altitude.

The four monochrome images displayed here were acquired by the imaging science subsystem; the blue and red images in the bottom row were taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.

The images are arranged in order of increasing wavelength in nanometers as follows: (top row) 460 nm, 752 nm, 728 nm; (bottom row) 890 nm, 2,800 nm, 5,000 nm.

At the center of the cauldron of storms spinning around the south pole is the south pole itself, which literally appears to be the eye of this vast polar storm system. As in a hurricane on Earth, the south polar "eye" is relatively clear of clouds and is surrounded by a wall of towering clouds that cast shadows into the center. However, while morphologically similar, it is not clear if this vortex operates in the same fashion as a terrestrial hurricane.

In most of the images, the center of the polar storm is quite dark, indicating an unusually cloud-free atmosphere in the upper skies, which are otherwise typically inhabited by bright ammonia clouds. This polar hole in the ammonia cloud layer represents the eye of the hurricane-like storm. Unusually dark clouds likely exist at the bottom of this deep hole, enhancing the murkiness there.

The first image in this montage (at upper left) shows a muted eye, due to the enhanced scattering of light from the atmosphere itself at this blue wavelength (460 nanometers), just as in the blue skies of Earth. In the last image at bottom right, the eye appears relatively bright. This image is taken at a wavelength of 5,000 nanometers, where the dominant source of light is the thermal glow of the planet itself. The bright thermal glow seen in this polar hole again shows that the eye is relatively cloud-free to unusual depths.

In the imaging science subsystem images, the eye looks dark at wavelengths where methane gas absorbs the light (728 nanometers and 890 nanometers, at upper right and lower left) and only the highest clouds are visible, confirming that the clouds within the eye are deeper than their surroundings. This effect is also seen in visual and infrared mapping spectrometer images that show gas absorption.

In the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer image taken at 2,800 nanometers, four times the wavelength of light visible to the human eye, this cloud clearing appears dark, which is consistent with the idea that the atmosphere above any distinct clouds is unusually deep there. The eye is some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) across, and is surrounded by a distinct ring of clouds some 300 kilometers (185 miles) across.

The images also indicate the prevalence of smaller but vertically well-developed storms across the entire south polar region, indicating the extent to which convection characterizes the area.

Literally hundreds of storm clouds encircle the pole, appearing as dark spots in the infrared spectrometer thermal image (red image) and as both bright and dark spots in images taken in sunlight (blue image). Each of these spots represents a storm. These pictures reveal that Saturn's south pole is a cauldron of storm activity, unlike anything ever seen on any planet.

The individual storms surrounding the pole are seen as dark "leopard spots" in the thermal image (red) taken at a wavelength of 5,000 nanometers, some seven times the wavelength of light visible to the human eye. Here, these spots are blocking the thermal light, or heat, from the interior of Saturn. The storm clouds are thus seen in silhouette against Saturn's thermal glow. The effectiveness of these clouds in blocking Saturn's interior thermal glow indicates that the storm clouds are unusually thick, extending deep down into Saturn's atmosphere, and are comprised of relatively large cloud particles, likely condensates formed in upwelling air currents.

The large number of dark, circular leopard spots at the south pole seen at 5,000 nanometer wavelength, and their correlation with the features seen in sunlight at 2,800 nanometer wavelength, indicates that convective activity extending over dozens of kilometers in altitude is surprisingly rampant in the south polar region. Why such unusual dynamics exist there is perhaps linked to Saturn's southern summer, which is the season Saturn is in now. Observations taken over the next few years, as the south pole season changes from summer to fall, will help scientists understand the role seasons play in driving the dramatic meteorology at the south pole of Saturn.

The images in this montage were acquired on Oct. 11, 2006, when Cassini was approximately 340,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn. The original imaging science subsystem images have a scale of about 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The visual and infrared spectrometer images have a scale of about 174 kilometers (108 miles) per pixel. The images have been resized to approximately the same scale for presentation here.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona where this image was produced.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/University of Arizona - Originally published, here.

Katrina Recovery Overshadows the Election

msnbc.com's excellent Katrina feature "Rising from Ruin" has some good coverage on the state of the union along the gulf coast as citizens here focus on election day. You can catch it here. Be sure to check out the excellent video interviews of gulf coast citizens sharing their views. If you're not sure how things are going in "Katrinaville", this will surely bring you up to speed. 

Nationally Acclaimed Levee Expert Concludes Continued Use of Landfill Puts Levee at Risk

LOUISIANA ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION NETWORK ("LEAN") -- Dr. Robert Bea, director of the Berkeley Center for Catastrophic Risk Management and an engineer nationally known for his work as leader of the Independent Levee Investigation team that examined the causes of New Orleans' levee failures post-Katrina, has concluded that placing billions of pounds of debris at the Gentilly Landfill in Eastern New Orleans puts the adjacent ICWW/MRGO hurricane protection levee at an unacceptably high risk of failure, even in the absence of storm surge.

According to Bea, "the resulting probability of failure", from the weight of the landfill alone (no surge), "is in the range of 25% to 37%", "one chance in three that the adjacent flood protection levee will be seriously impaired when the proposed landfill is completed." Bea concludes: "given... the potential damaging and life- threatening effects of significant flooding from such breaches in such conditions, it is clear that [this risk] is excessive and should not be accepted."

The report notes that LDEQ's seemingly acceptable "factor of safety" is below the design standard by which New Orleans' pre- Katrina failed levee system was constructed. This "factor of safety" degrades the ICWW/MRGO levee to about Category One protection. Given the catastrophic loss of life and property from that failed system during Katrina, Bea notes that LDEQ's decision to heap Category One risk on its own levees is inconsistent with the desires of the citizens of New Orleans' to develop Category Five protection.

Dr. Robert Bea also notes that the LDEQ analysis is fraught with uncertainty. "Given the range of factors of safety cited, total uncertainties range from 60 to 70%. Further analyses are required to provide "additional information that will indicate the probabilities of failure [used by LDEQ] have been underestimated and that these probabilities of failure are even more unacceptable" than first estimated.

Finally, Bea notes that while the levee was overtopped at the Gentilly Landfill during Hurricane Katrina, LDEQ's study did not consider the potential effect of a future storm surge. "The lateral force of a surge pushing against the levee above ground, coupled with the lateral force of the surge pushing in the opposite direction below ground, raise very serious concerns about a shearing effect upon the levee itself. These effects have not been included in the analyses."

Dr. Bea believes that "we at least should give the people of New Orleans the same level of safety we give our oil infrastructure."

Bea's report was included in comments submitted by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network ("LEAN") and the Delta Chapter of the Sierra Club on October 25, 2006, to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ), in response to LDEQ's recent decision to allow more waste to enter the Gentilly landfill. The public comment period was provided as a condition of the settlement of an earlier lawsuit between LEAN and LDEQ over the environmental suitability of the landfill. LEAN won severe restrictions on the amount of waste that could be deposited at Gentilly, and an agreement that LDEQ analyze the costs and benefits of using the landfill, including an analysis of the effect of the landfill on the levee. That condition was inserted after an engineering report written by NISTAC for FEMA raised concerns about the integrity of the levee.

LDEQ justified the August 2006 Gentilly Order in large part based on conclusions from a report authored by Soil Testing Engineers, Inc. (STE), contracted by LDEQ. In preparing public comments in response to the Order, Dr. Bea sought permission from LDEQ to discuss his conclusions with STE. A letter was submitted to LDEQ on October 18th requesting that LDEQ grant permission to the engineers at STE who had worked on the Gentilly report to speak freely about their investigation and conclusions. This request was not granted and, though received, not formally addressed. Last week, LEAN and the Delta Chapter of the Sierra Club submitted a second request to speak with STE to LDEQ, and again, LDEQ did not respond. LDEQ repeatedly fails to grant permission to LEAN, and Dr. Bea, to speak with LDEQ's hired engineers at STE and fails to acknowledge the high levels of risk to which they are subjecting the citizens of New Orleans East.

As stated by Marylee Orr, director of LEAN: "If we had not sued LDEQ, and if Dr. Bea had not graciously volunteered his time, this ticking time bomb would never have been discovered. LDEQ's refusal to test, and to challenge its analysis and assumptions, without regard to the potential effects, is should send a chill up spine of every New Orleanian."

Attorney Joel Waltzer who, together with Robert Wiygul and the Columbia Environmental Law Clinic, represents the groups, explained the impending catastrophe as follows: "In football, when you get sandwiched high and low, you are going down. That LDEQ is even considering, let alone sanctioning, such a risk is . . . unfathomable. We need smart policy, and smart policy makers, especially when Louisiana is asking Congress to pay for full protection of our citizenry."

LEAN and the Sierra Club also submitted a report from Dr. John H. Pardue of LSU's Civil and Environmental Engineering department. Dr. Pardue analyzed the environmental issues at Gentilly. Dr. Pardue concludes that the same concerns present at the Chef Menteur landfill are present at this site. Specifically, the generation of hydrogen sulfide gas from decomposing drywall will create both a fire hazard (Gentilly has caught on fire at least eight times) and a health hazard (the gas is a poisonous neurotoxin). Also, arsenic impregnated furniture and household chemicals laden in hurricane debris can cause groundwater and surface water contamination.

Edward Lloyd, director of the Columbia Environmental Law Clinic, stated: "Given all of these concerns, LDEQ's Order to continue to use Gentilly should be rescinded."

For more information: Marylee Orr (225) 928-1315 or Joel Waltzer, Waltzer & Associates (504) 430-0844, joel@waltzerlaw.com; .for additional documents related to this topic, please visit www.leanweb.org/gentilly

DSCEJ

The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice was developed in 1992, in collaboration with community environmental groups and area universities within the Gulf Coast Region. The DSCEJ provides opportunities for communities, scientific researchers, and decision makers to collaborate on programs and projects that promote the rights of all people to be free from environmental harm as it impacts health, jobs, housing, education, and a general quality of life.

DSCEJ like many other programs at colleges and universities in New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, while physically destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, recognize an even greater need for their services. It is imperative that our current programs are continued, but it is also necessary that we shift our major attention to the destruction caused by this devastating hurricane. The DSCEJ has set up a temporary office at 440 N. Foster Drive in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

"Democracy required an educated populous; the survival of the earth will require an environmentally conscious citizenry. It is our job as educators to make this a reality." --- Beverly Wright, Ph.D., Executive Director, DSCEJ

Website: http://www.dscej.org

Deep South Center for Environmental Justice Mary Williams Program Manager for Community Outreach email: mail@policamp.com Phone: (225) 201-1662

Late Season GOM Hurricane? not likely, but....

A tropical wave (93L) moving through the Lesser Antilles Islands has become better organized today and is favorable to slow development as it is moving over low wind shear in the eastern Carribean.  The track takes the system near the Dominican Republic and Hispaniola around Sunday. When the forecasts start mentioning Hispaniola, admittedly I get a little nervous as it hints of a possible Gulf of Mexico storm.  There is no reason to think this disturbance will intensify into a tropical depression but it certain bears watching.  Check out the preliminary model tracks for what is now Tropical Invest 93L, below: