1,000+ People Still Missing More Than Week After Hurricane Michael

A NOAA aerial shot of Bay County, Florida after Hurricane Michael shows
"HELP" spelled out on a lawn. A man created the SOS sign out of fallen
trees. A niece found the aerial photo on line, leading to the rescue of
the uncle, his wife and a friend. 

Where are they?

About 1,100 people are still missing more than a week after Hurricane Michael smashed ashore in the Florida Panhandle, Reuters reports.

Most of those missing live in or near Panama City, and many of them are elderly, disabled, impoverished or live alone.

In other words, those are the very people who are paricularly vulnerable in hurricanes and even more vulnerable in a hurricane aftermath. They are more likely to have a harder time finding food, water, fuel, medicine and medical care after such a terrible storm.

That's why it's imperative to find them. Chances are they survived the hurricane but are at risk of dyin from the aftermath. Assuming they're still alive.

Reuters says:

"Teams made up of hundreds of volunteers with the Houston-based CrowdSource Rescue organization were seaching for more than 1,135 peopel who lost contact with friends or family."

A big part of the problem is a continued lack of cell phone service in the worst of the hurricane zone. Many of the missing people might be fine and are taking shelter with local neighbors or organizations. But worried friends and loved ones can't reach them because the cell phones aren't working.

That's the optimistic look. Who knows what kind of trouble some of them might be in?

So far, at least 27 people are confirmed dead from Hurricane Michael. We probably won't know for weeks the fate of those 1,100 people with whom we've lost contact.

Rural areas in the hurricane zone are still a tangled mess of fallen trees and debris. Roads are still blocked and people who live there can't be reached yet.

In the hardest hit coastal community, Mexico Beach, the number of missing has fallen to 3, down from dozens a few days earlier. Two confirmed deaths were reported in Mexico Beach, which normally has a population of 1,200. Many residents had wisely fled before the storm hit.

One rescue from the aftermath of Hurricane Michael had a very high tech and low tech happy ending. 

Amber Gee was scrolling through NOAA aerial images of the hurricane zone,  hoping to get a hint of how badly damaged homes belonging to friends and family were. She stopped in her tracks when she spotted an image that was clearly her grandmother's house, with the word "HELP" spelled out on the lawn.

The grandmother had fled, but Gee's uncle, his wife and a friend stayed at the house during the hurricane. They were stranded and isolated by fallen trees, so the uncle used some of the fallen trees to spell "HELP" on the lawn.

Gee called county emergency services, who hacked their way through the fallen trees to the house. The uncle, woman and neighbor are all OK.

Hurricane Florence Is As Catastrophic As Expected, More Destruction Today

The first of numerous storm surges with Hurricane Florence
yesterday in North Carolina. 

Unfortunately, Hurricane Florence is playing out as expected, with devastating storm surges and widespread damage as the storm came ashore this morning.

Landfall was near Wrightsville Beach at around 7:15 a.m. This is very close to where forecasts have thought for days Florence would land.

There's a lot going on with this, and I have a lot of thought about Florence, so this post will seem rather random and scattershot, but I hope informative.

Since the storm is crawling along near the coast, torrential rains will continue through tomorrow at least, so inland flooding will now be the issue. The high winds associated with the hurricane will slowly diminish, but that's little comfort to people in the disaster zone. The fact that Florence is moving right along the coast, adjacent to warm seawater will mean it might take quite awhile for the hurricane to diminish.

SNAPSHOTS OF CHAOS

It sure was chaotic overnight and this morning. Many weather stations are obviously out of service due to flooding and wind. I did notice Wilmington, North Carolina had gusts over 100 mph this morning, with widespread damage reported.  .

Few people remain in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so reports out of there are still obviously sketchy at best.

Accuweather reports that 70 people that were holed up in a Jacksonville, North Carolina had to be evacuated as high winds threatened to collapse the building. A storm surge slammed into New Bern, North Carolina, which prompted this very scary tweet from city emergency managers:

Waves from Hurricane Florence batter a North Carolina
pier as the storm approached the state Thursday. 

"Currently - 150 awaiting rescue in New Bern. We have 2 out of state FEMA teams here for swift water rescue. More are on the way to help us. WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU. You may need to move up to the second story or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU."

New Bern had for days been regarded as Ground Zero for some of the worst storm surge flooding. Again, those forecasters were unfortunately accurate.

Among the swift water rescue teams in North Carolina are from the Colchester, Vermont technical rescue team. I obviously wish everybody, rescuers and those to be rescued the best.

Storm surges began Thursday well before the hurricane made it to shore, and continued with last night's high tide cycle and this morning's. More surges will happen over the next day or two as the storm continues to crawl near the coast for the next 24 hours at least.

I've always been among those who wondered why people don't always evacuate when told to ahead of a storm. An opinion piece in Scientific American gave me a new perspective. 

Many people don't have the option to evacuate, even when there's mandatory orders. Says Scientific American:

"It takes money to displace yourself. It takes having somewhere better to go and a way to get there. Having a full tank of gas is a luxury when you live paycheck to paycheck. Spending money up front and then waiting for reimbursement requires that you have the money in the first place, while knowing what expenses are covered and how to file the paperwork, requires knowledge not everyone has or has access to. 

Missing shifts at work is unthinkable when every dollar counts. Some workplaces keep emploees as long as legally possible, more worried about lost profits than lost lives."

Yup, I guess if you are poor you don't deserve to survive a disaster. This situation does not exactly make me proud. We can do better.

"DOWNGRADED?" NOT SO FAST!

 I'm sick and tired of reporters saying the hurricane has been "downgraded" to a weaker storm. I guess part of the problem is the scale hurricanes are judged by is the wind. But there should be a different system that takes into account the severity of storm surges and inland flooding associated with hurricanes.

So called "weak" hurricanes and tropical storms, like Harvey after it came ashore in Texas last year, Irene up here in Vermont seven years ago, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and now Florence, are incredibly destructive and dangerous due to storm surges and inland flooding. By calling storms "downgraded" we in the media lull people into a false sense of security.

Florence will probably be "downgraded" to a tropical storm, probably Saturday if not even a bit earlier than that.   But potentially the most destructive part of this storm will come after it has "weakened." The torrential rains will spread inland across the Carolinas. Incredible flooding is inevitable through the weekend.

Already, we have one unofficial report of 30 inches of rain in coastal North Carolina. These incredible totals will spread inland, especially in a zone between Wilmington and Charlotte, North Carolina. This is obviously not good.

The slow forward pace of Hurricane Florence and its unusual path has me thinking about whether climate change influenced this storm. Maybe, maybe not. I'll have more on that subject in a later post.

VERMONT IMPACTS?

It seems like every time there's a bad hurricane in the southeastern United States, we in Vermont get a spell of spectacular weather. Yesterday and today are no exception. Skies cleared into a deep blue by Thursday afternoon amid warmer than normal, summerlike air. This state of affairs will continue through the weekend, with only the very slightest chance of a shower north Saturday afternoon.

After trashing the Carolinas this weekend, Florence could bring
Vermont some rain next week

Eventually, after Florence meanders around the Carolinas for a few days, the remnants of it will move north, possibly giving us some rain.

The path and intensity of the rain from Florence in Vermont is unknown, but we certainly won't have anything like the disaster that's unfolding further south.

In a worst case scenario, some flooding might happened in the Green Mountain State, especially in southern sections. Overall, though, we still need more rain. Like the remains of Gordon last week, Florence has the potential to do more good than harm in Vermont.

Rains from Florence, if they arrive, won't come until Monday night at the earliers. The details of the forecast will come into better focus later in the weekend.