Harvey, Irma, Disaster Plans And You

No disaster near your house at the moment? Good.
Now's the time to calmly formulate a plan for
the day a disaster DOES hit.

It's a rainy Sunday here in Vermont as the remnants of Harvey lumber through.

We're still watching powerful Hurricane Irma, which is out in the middle of the Atlantic and still definitely poses a potentially very big danger to the United States.

Though we still might get lucky and it could curve out to sea. We'll have to wait until later forecasts to figure this one out.

What will help with the Irma forecasts is the National Hurricane Center is planning on sending hurricane hunter flights into the storm Monday.

The added data, and the more dense data those flights will gather will help take some, but not all of the uncertainty out of Irma's future track.

That would be helpful, since there are still some computer models that are really off the rails with Irma's predicted track. One GFS model brings Irma ashore in the Carolinas, which seems plausible, but then takes it westward to Indiana. Umm........

Today's rainy weather, at least locally, and the threat of Irma makes today a great time to plan for a disaster.

The chances your house will get hit by a huge disaster anytime soon is slim. However, in the off chance you get caught in a disaster, it'll almos surely surprise you, which is bad.  Even if a nasty spell is forecast, we don't think it will be us. Until it is. And then we don't think clearly when we're surprised and scared.

That's why it's good to have a handy dandy disaster plan. Basically a checklist of what you can do when something bad hits. It'll focus you in an emegency.

You can't plan for everything, there are always surprises in every event. But start by thinking about what emergency is most likely to hit near you, and design your plan a fair amount around that.

Are you in a coastal area prone to hurricanes and nor'easter? Is flooding your nightmare? Or maybe you live somewhere prone to wildfires. Or chemical plants that might blow up.

Online, you'll find a instructions and templates on how to plan for a disaster from outfits like the Red Cross and Ready.gov.

Another good resource is the book "The Extreme Weather Survival Manual" by Dennis Mersereau and the editors of Outdoor Life.

Here are some things to think about when making a plan.

You don't have to get elaborate like this video of the Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper conducting a disaster drill.

Instead formulate an outline, and even that will be complex enough.

I would divide it into three scenarios: If you have to evacuate at a drop of a hat;  if you have time to gather things before you leave, or if you're told to shelter in place.

Think about the things you'll really need: Non-perishable food, water, prescription medications, battery operated lights and candles, extra batteries, pet food and supplies, baby supplies if you have a little one, that kind of thing.

It actually wouldn't hurt to head down to the Piggly Wiggly or the place with the helpful hardware folks and buy some of this stuff now. There's no emergency, the stores are fully stocked and nobody's in a panic. Which means the shopping trip would be pretty easy.

Also, have a plan in place to contact loved ones outside the disaster zone, either to let them know you're OK, or HOLY CHRIST I NEED HELP NOW!!!!!

The next tip is emotionally draining, but do it anyway. Read news stories about how people handled being in the middle of the Harvey floods or some other disaster. They'll always tell you what they should have thought of, and those ideas could be good tips for you.

For instance, one woman said that while evacuating from the Harvey flood, the cell phone in her pocket got wet and died. She wished she'd put the phone in a sealable plastic bag. Great tip!

Also, take pictures now of the outside and inside of your house and store those in a safe place. (In the Cloud, maybe if you're careful not to clue in hackers and criminals to what's inside your house.)

This will help later if you need to make an insurance claim.

And here's something you probably can't do this weekend but ought to do soon. Have a nice sit-down with your insurance guy or gal. Are you adequately covered? What other insurance precautions should you take? Is it worth it to buy flood insurance?

I confess I don't have much of an emergency plan, but Harvey has scared me into starting one this weekend. I don't live in a particularly dangerous area. Flooding risk is relatively low, except for the driveway, which could wash out.

My house is not in a place that's super hurricane or wildfire prone. However, you never know what might come along. I guess I should start drawing plans now.

For comic relief, here's that clip of the Big Bang Theory disaster drill:

Frost And Harvey In Vermont; Watching Irma

Just some of the computer model forecast tracks
for Hurricane Irma. The takeaway on this image
is that nobody has any idea yet as to whether
Irma will be a threat to the United States, and
if so, where. 

Feels like fall out there, doesn't it, as we open the month of September.

That sharp cold front that went through yesterday meant business and it's chilly. Most places were in the 40s this morning, with a few upper 30s. Expect a very cool day today, with temperatures in many spots not getting past 60 degrees.

Which leads us to the first real frost threat of the fall season. Most of us in northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire will probably escape any frost tonight just fine, but not all of us.

There is a frost advisory for tonight and early Saturday morning in the Adirondacks and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, places where I'm sure some towns will get down near the freezing point overnight. I think there might be spots of frost in the colder, deeper valleys elsewhere in Vermont, too.

There's also frost advisories up for northern New Hampshire and parts of western Maine. 

Again, most of us, especially those in the Champlain Valley, will not get frost.  But it will be cutting it close with lows in the mid to upper 30s most places, and in the low 40s as you get a little nearer to Lake Champlain.  The record low for Saturday in Burlington is 38 degrees, so we won't be far off. i

The good news, if you're not a cold weather fan, is the temperature will rapidly warm up Saturday to around 70 degrees, which is just a little cooler than average for this time of year.

Saturday will be the nicest day of the Labor Day weekend, if you're a sunshine fan. Sunday is looking pretty wet in the North Country.

HARVEY INFLUENCE

A cold front from the west will lift some of the remnants of Harvey up into the region, so we'll get a pretty showery day. We could get a half inch to an inch of rain out of this.

Here's the irony:  It's gotten dry across Vermont and we could use the rain. After causing so much death and catastrophe in the nation over the past week, the remains of Harvey might actually do more good than harm in Vermont by giving us a needed rain storm.

More showers should arrive by Tuesday to give us more needed rain.

WATCHING IRMA

Hurricane Irma spun up pretty quickly in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on Thursday and it's turning into a monster. It will be a major hurricane as it heads generally westbound in the Atlantic.

It's too soon to say where in the United States Irma will hit, if it hits at all. It's at least a week away from being any kind of U.S. threat.  The last thing we need after Harvey is another huge hurricane, so I understand why people are already nervous about Irma.  But it's way too soon to hit the panic button.

At this stage of the game, anyone along the entire Atlantic shoreline from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to New England should sort of monitor Irma, just in case.   Computer models have a zillion scenarios for Irma.

I think I can speak for everyone and say my favorite model is the one that curves Irma sharply north, missing any coastlines then brings Irma way up into the chilly North Atlantic where Irma would die a cold, lonely death.

But that's just one model.

From a historical perspective, the majority but certainly not all the hurricanes that formed in the general region Irma did ended up missing the United States. But that doesn't mean much either way for Irma.

Plus some of the most notorious hurricanes in history have formed about where Irma did, including Ike, which trashed Texas in 2008. They sure don't need another hurricane there.

Another hurricane that formed in the general area that Irma did was the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, known as the deadliest and most destructive hurricane in New England history.

I guess we'll just have to wait until next week to get a better picture as to what, if anything, Irma will do.

Harvey's Misery Keeps On Spreading, Keeps On Getting Worse

An exhausted woman tries to sleep as floodwaters
rise around her in a Port Arthur evacuation center.

The news about the Harvey flooding in Texas and Louisiana continues to be pretty much all bad, and it's spreading to new areas, and the news is hitting new depths.

The latest cities to fall under the worst of Harvey's viciousness are Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas.

As of early this morning, water had poured into an evacuation center in Port Arthur, and hundreds of people retreated to bleachers above the floor awaiting rescue. And that's going to take awhile.

Nobody can get into Port Arthur to help. They want to take the hundreds of people stranded in the evacuation center to another one that's above water five miles south of town, says the Weather Channel.

However, that second evacuation center has no supplies yet. And it's going to be hard to move people and supplies there until the water goes down.

Overnight, Twitter and Facebook were filled with pleas from Port Arthur residents begging to be rescued from flooded homes. The people crying for help included the elderly, children and pregnant women.

Port Arthur received 26 inches of rain in 24 hours, more than double the old record for the city. The storm total there is up past 42 inches.

The whole city is under water. Several houses are on fire, apparently sparked by electrical shorts in the flooding. Nobody can get to the burning houses, so they will burn down completely to the water line.

The world's largest oil refinery in Port Arthur is at least partially shut down. Many other refineries and chemical plants are also down across the western Gulf of Mexico.

With 12 percent of the nation's refining capacity off line due to Harvey, expect fuel shortages and spiraling gas prices nationwide. 

Between the higher gas prices we're all going to pay, and such a broad area of the nation's economy centered around Houston, I wouldn't be surprised if United States economic growth temporarily stalls due to Harvey.

You can see a time lapse of the flooding in Houston at the bottom of this post.

This is not a storm-tossed lake. It is the middle of Interstate 10
just west of Beaumont, Texas.

The misery is going to keep spreading. Flash flooding from Harvey, now finally inland, could extend as far north as southern Ohio in the coming days. The lower Missisissippi River all the way through western Tennessee is especially under the gun.

Harvey has produced the heaviest rainfall in continental U.S. history.

A weather station near Cedar Bayou, Texas recorded 51.88 inches of rain in the storm beating the old record of 48 inches for the continental United States. I'm still guessing we'll see localized totals topping 50 inches.

The death toll from Harvey is uncertain, as it's still hard to get to flooded areas for inspections. It does  appear that so far at least two dozen people have died, including a Houston Police officer caught in flood waters on his way to work during the emergency.

I'm going to have a lot more to say about Harvey in the coming days, including what people do once the water recedes.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Irma has just formed far out over the eastern Atlantic.  It will will likely turn into another hurricane and is heading west. And there's a chance, just a chance, this would-be hurricane could end up in the Gulf of Mexico in less than two weeks.

I'll also wade into the question of whether climate change had anything to do with Harvey's destruction. Some people are saying we shouldn't talk about that while we are still trying to rescue people and recover from the damage.

But the nation can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can help all those people affected by Harvey, and we can also look at the science of Harvey so we can learn and prepare for the inevitable  next time.  

Iconic Photos Of Catastrophes Like Houston Flood Break Your Heart

A terrified boy inside his flooded Texas
house clings to his toy stuffed monkey
as he awaits rescue. 

Every time there is a huge disaster, like the epic ongoing Hurricane Harvey flood in and around Houston, certain photos, images or videos make you stop in your tracks.

That's when your heart really hurts for the people affected.

I'm sure that's the reaction everybody has. A lot of people were horrified by the elderly people at an assisted care facility who were waist or even neck deep in water because nobody was available to come rescue them.

They were eventually rescued.

The photo that did it for me popped up on my Twitter feed Sunday afternoon. It showed a little boy, maybe three or four years old, sitting on a kitchen counter as water rose to halfway up the cupboards below him.

He clung desperately to a toy stuffed monkey as he looked down, seemingly in horror at the water just below him.

I'm told the boy and his family were rescued and are now safe. I hope he still has his stuffed monkey, which I know must be a comfort to him.

The image of the boy in the flooded house crystallized for me how terrifying this catastrophe must be for thousands upon thousands of people.

And it goes on. The firehose of torrential downpours had moved east of Houston, at least temporarily this morning, so places like Beaumont, Texas and southwestern Louisiana are now living through the disaster.

Or at least I hope they're living through the disaster.

Images from past disasters float back into my mind when I see photos like the boy with the stuffed monkey.

I remember a photo of New Orleans after Katrina in 2005. It showed a woman on a bridge, watching as a dead body floated by. I wonder if the woman who witnessed that horror is OK now. Did someone recover the body, so the person's family at least knows what happened and can properly mourn the loss?

As if there is a proper way to mourn.

Sometimes even static images of disaster without people or even any real apparent emotion stir the soul and make you hurt for the victims.

Even static images without people pull at your heartstrings.
Here's a beautiful 19th-century farmhouse destroyed
in Vermont during Tropical Storm Irene floods in 2011.

After the devastating floods from Irene here in Vermont back in 2011, I and a bunch of other photographers captured an image of a flood-ruined house in Pittsfield, Vermont.

Judging from the architecture, the house was probably built in the 1800s. The flood picked up the house and threw it into a rocky ditch, leaving  it tilted at a crazy angle.

Whoever owned the house before the flood clearly took care of it. There it sat, with a smart green standing seam roof, and other evidence it was well-kept before disaster struck.

I wonder what happened to the people who lived there. Are the OK? Is the pain of that flood experience easing?

The images and videos that tear our hearts apart, like what we're seeing coming out of Houston and much of the rest of Texas, is actually good in one respect.

These horrifying pictures spur us to act. Houston and other parts of Texas are going to need a lot of help from all of us.

The boy stranded in his house with his toy monkey is a call to arms. Will you help in whatever way you can? The boy and his monkey, and millions of people in the Hurricane Harvey disaster zone pray that you do.

Houston's Nightmare: As Bad As Katrina

Overnight, the Houston metro area went beyond the worst case scenario.

Dawn in Houston Sunday revealed a city reeling
from catastrophic, historic flooding. 

We knew catastrophic flooding was coming to eastern Texas due to stalled ex-Hurricane Harvey.

What's happening in Houston now is the beyond description.   

A feeder band of intense rains on the east flank of Harvey has been pushing into the Houston area since late Saturday afternoon and shows no signs of stopping. 

Extreme flooding is happening in and around Houston. 

I'll cherry pick some facts to give you just a partial illustration: 

-- Emergency responders and the National Weather Service office in Houston are warning people not to go into their attics to escape floodwaters. They'll be trapped and drown there, just as many Katrina victims were in 2005 New Orleans. 

People should head for their roofs instead. (Where of course people will be subject to the torrential rain, lightning and possible tornadoes.)

-- Water is entering the second floors of numerous homes in the Houston metro area.

-- 911 is so overwhelmed that people are not getting through to ask for help. Houston police are asking people to call 911 only if their life is in immediate danger.  Anyone trapped in their house but there's only several inches to a foot of of water inside should ride it out and not call 911.

--- There have been well over 1,000 water rescues so far. The number of reported deaths around Houston as of early this morning is either three or five, depending upon who you ask, but that toll will surely rise exponentially.

I-610 in Houston this morning. 

---Since people can't get through to 911, they're taking to Twitter to plead for help. Television station KHOU, which is still on the air despite the fact it is taking on water, reported Tweets like the following: 

"I have 2 children with me and the water is swallowing us up. Please send help. 11115 Sageview, Houston, Tx. 911 is not responding!!!!!"

 (The woman and her children were later rescued.)

Another Tweet:

"@houstonpolice my sister lives on sulphur 77034. She is on her roof with 3 kids please send help!!!!"

Houston police tweeted back to the man that they would tell dispatch about the situation. 

Personnel at KHOU early this morning were moving into a makeshift broadcast studio in a conference room on the second floor of their building since the studio on the main floor was flooding. 

Coast Guard helicopters have been called in to rescue people trapped in flooded urban areas.

The torrential rain in Houston showed no sign of stopping as of 8 a.m. EDT. Forecasts called for the feeder band to continue dumping downpours on Houston all day. 

Several of the storms yesterday also produced tornadoes. Some of Houston's storms today could easily do the same.  

One to two feet of rain fell on the Houston metro area overnight, and they could get another one to two feet during the day today.

Some are already saying this could become the most catastrophic flood in United States history, or at least close to it. 

This is as bad as it can possibly get, folks.

Media Says Worst Of Harvey Is Over. That's So Not True

Devastation in Rockport, Texas from Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey, always seeming to be worse than expected, crashed ashore in Texas last night as a Category 4 monster with winds of 130 mph. 

The Associated Press said it was the 18th strongest hurricane to strike the United States since 1851.

Early this afternoon, the mayor of devastated Rockport, Texas confirmed at least eight deaths there.

It's hard to get a bead on how severe  the wind destruction is in the communities just north of Corpus Christi, but early indications are it's bad. Very bad.

As of 7 a.m., Harvey was "downgraded" to a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 90 mph and will continue weakening today. At least its winds will.

Don't pay attention, though, to any media reports that suggest that things are getting better because winds aren't so strong.

As I and countless meteorologists have been telling us for days, the real disaster is only just beginning right now.

You think the wind damage in Texas is bad? That's the least of their problems. The flooding is going to be absolutely catastrophic.

Harvey is still expected to sit over eastern Texas for the next five days or so. Winds will continue to diminish, but Harvey's proximity to the coast means it won't fade away and it will continue to draw incredible amounts of moisture in and dump it on Texas, and probably southwestern Louisiana.

Already, rainfall totals in some spots are past 15 inches.  Forecasters are now saying that 40 inches or more of rain will fall on some areas.

(Here in Vermont, it normally takes about 12 to 15 months to accumulate 40 inches of rain. Texas is going to do it in a week.)

This Texas flood will be unprecedented I think. Worse, the very heavy rain is spreading north into Houston, the nation's fourth largest city.

Already  this morning, a training line of torrential rain on Harvey's east flank was entering Houston, and it looks like that heavy rain will continue there all day, at least. At one point late this morning, the Houston Intercontinental Airport got 1.9 inches of rain in just one hour.

They're going to have trouble getting aid in to wind blasted and flooded areas. The region that will be flooded is so immense that people, rescue vehicles and such won't be able to get near victims for days.

This will even disrupt the national economy somewhat.  As I noted yesterday, the extensive flooding will be centered on the prime oil and gas refining region of the nation.

Plus, paralyzing a region as populous and busy as the Houston metro area will have ripple effects around the United States.

There's nowhere for the water to go. Expect continued water surging toward the coast from the persistent onshore winds from Harvey. That storm surge will prevent flood waters from inland from escaping to the sea.

Soon-To-Be Hurricane Harvey Will Trash Texas Within A Couple Days

Tropical Storm Harvey showing signs of
strengthening fast southeast of Texas this morning.

Texas is bracing for catastrophic flooding and storm surges as Tropical Storm Harvey rapidly strengthens as it heads for the central Texas coast.

Harvey is a particularly dangerous storm. For one, it has the potentially to strengthen explosively before landfall because conditions are right for that kind of thing to happen.

Even worse, Harvey is forecast to slow down or even stall somewhere near the coast of Texas, setting up a prolonged downpour that could bring incredible flooding. Already, some forecasts call for 15 to 20 inches of rain.

If this happens, it could easily turn into a major disaster. Think Baton Rouge last August.

Tropical Storm Harvey briefly formed in the Caribbean last week and promptly died out. Its remnants found favorable conditions for redevelopment in the western Gulf of Mexico and now you have the situation we've got here.

Harvey is expected to make landfall somewhere along the central Texas coast kind of near Corpus Christi Friday night or Saturday morning.

The Texas coast is flat and low lying, so the storm surge that will accompany Harvey will probably be terribly destructive.

Once Harvey gets to the coast, or just inland, it could get trapped between two ridges of high pressure. So there it would sit, all the while dumping heavy rain. The torrential rain could spread inland to Austin or San Antonio, and also northeastward to Louisiana.

Stay tuned on this one. It's going to be a wild one