Category Archives: Natural Catastrophes

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Tropical Storm Michael Upgraded to Hurricane, Approaches Florida

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The National Hurricane Center classified Tropical Storm Michael as a category 3 hurricane Monday morning as it passed through Cuba and approached Florida.

Over the weekend, Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for several counties from the Gulf Coast to Navarre on the Panhandle to the Suwanee River. Gov. Scott also directed the state’s National Guard to activate 500 guardsmen to assist with planning and prepare for response in impacted areas as the state monitors the storm.

Michael is currently located in the Yucatan Channel about 600 miles south of Apalachicola, Florida with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. The storm is moving to the north at 7 mph and is expected to continue strengthening as it accelerates northward across the Gulf of Mexico. It is expected to make landfall as a Category 3, with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, in the Florida Panhandle or Big Bend on Oct 10.
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Storm surges are expected as well, with eight to 12 feet possible. Homeowners and business owners who might be in its path are encouraged to visit floridadisaster.org and FloridaDisaster.biz and register to receive updates as the storm progresses.

Hurricane Irma hit Florida in August 2017, and that category 5 storm caused an estimated $64.76 billion, causing 134 fatalities and affecting several crops and agricultural producers. With Florida still recovering from the damage wrought by Irma, Hurricane Michael may provide major challenges for businesses caught in its path.

Business Continuity Plans
In January, Risk Management Monitor reported that 62% of large U.S. companies with operations in Florida, Texas or Puerto Rico said they were not fully prepared for major storms and hurricanes in 2017.

“These candid admissions drive home a fundamental truth about catastrophe,” Louis Gritzo, vice president and manager of research at FM Global said in a statement in conjunction with the company’s findings. “People routinely fail to understand or acknowledge the magnitude of risk until they’ve experienced a fateful event.”

FEMA’s business disaster continuity plans can be found here, and a Hurricane Ready Business Toolkit can be found here. According to FEMA and the Department of Labor, 40% of small businesses will not reopen immediately after a hurricane hits, 25% more will close about one year later, and 75% of business without a continuity plan will fail within three years. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017, Risk Management Monitor provided critical tips for small businesses preparing for the next natural disaster.

The first step for any small business is to prepare internally. Here are three best practices that small-business owners can adapt to prepare for a future hurricane or any other natural disaster.

  1. Establish a recovery plan: Often, disaster recovery plans fall to the bottom of small-business owners’ to-do lists, especially if their business is located in an area that doesn’t typically experience high-risk weather. However, no business is immune from a harmful storm’s impact. Disaster preparedness starts with a formal plan that’s comprehensive and allows the company to quickly restore its normal operations following an emergency.
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  2. Discuss your plan with all employees: It is crucial for your entire staff to be on the same page when it comes to what your disaster plan involves in order for it to be effective. So once small-business owners have a plan in place, they need to ensure that their employees know what’s included and what their responsibilities are should a natural disaster strike.
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    Owners can share this information by emailing a copy to all employees and discussing the plan in detail at the next all-hands meeting.

  3. Back up your business’s data: Small-business owners should ensure their data is backed up both virtually and physically in a secure location. Doing so can prevent a natural disaster from turning into an even worse data loss debacle.

The last October landfalling hurricane in the Florida Panhandle was Hurricane Opal in 1995. Throughout the storm’s path from Central America into the Ohio Valley, 63 people died in storm-related events. Losses attributed to Opal exceeded $4.7 billion, much of which took place in the United States.

First Nationwide Wireless Emergency Alert Tested

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For many mobile users in America, yesterday’s afternoon coffee break may have been met with an additional buzz.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials sent a test of the first-ever presidential alert at 2:18 P.M. (EST) to nearly 225 million mobile devices in the United States.

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The alert would be used in the event of a major national emergency and the test assesses the president’s ability to send a message to the American people within 10 minutes of a disaster.

The message sounded like an Amber Alert with a message that read:

Presidential Alert.

THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System.

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No action is needed.

During yesterday’s White House press briefing just an hour before the message was sent, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the overall test would “assess the operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of a national message and determine whether technological improvements are needed.”

FEMA officials had previously said the test was expected to last about a half-hour so some people may have received it at different times, with about 75 percent of all wireless users projected to receive the alert.

FEMA is required to conduct a nationwide test of its public alert systems no less than once every three years under the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act of 2015 (IPAWS). Yesterday was the backup day for the test, which was originally scheduled for Sept. 20 but delayed due to ongoing Hurricane Florence recovery efforts.

FEMA recently listed some “need-to-know” information about wireless emergency alerts that businesses can pass on to employees:

  • WEAs can be sent by state and local public safety officials, the National Weather Service, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the President of the United States
  • WEAs can be issued for three alert categories – imminent threat, AMBER, and presidential
  • WEAs look like text messages but are designed to get your attention and alert you with a unique sound and vibration, both repeated twice
  • WEAs are no more than 90 characters, and will include the type and time of the alert, any action you should take, as well as the agency issuing the alert
  • WEAs are not affected by network congestion and will not disrupt texts, calls, or data sessions that are in progress
  • Mobile users are not charged for receiving WEAs and there is no need to subscribe

Inadequate Emergency System Contributes to Indonesia’s Rising Death Toll Following Earthquake and Tsunami

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The death toll on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi has risen to 1,200 as of this morning, in the aftermath of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake on Friday and the tsunami that followed. As emergency crews still lead efforts to locate and save victims and clear debris, officials warn that the number of casualties could rise further.

The current warning system is comprised of tidal gauge stations augmented by land-based seismographs, sirens in about 55 locations and a system to disseminate warnings by text message. Time reported that the country had not updated its emergency notification systems (ENS) following the 2004 tsunami that devastated the region, due in part to lack of funding. According to Time:

The high-tech system of seafloor sensors, data-laden sound waves and fiber-optic cable was meant to replace a system set up after an earthquake and tsunami killed nearly 250,000 people in the region in 2004. But inter-agency wrangling and delays in getting just 1 billion rupiah ($69,000) to complete the project mean the system hasn’t moved beyond a prototype developed with $3 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Analysts say that a proper ENS would have provided earlier warnings of the disasters and may have prevented some of the casualties.

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At the time of impact, the country was already dealing with the fallout of major seismic activity in the region. Within the span of about a week in late July and early August, the Indonesian resort island of Lombok was the site of intense earthquakes that killed hundreds, displaced hundreds of thousands and destroyed more than 13,000 houses.

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of the country’s location in the “Ring of Fire,” the arc of volcanoes and active fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

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Sutopo Purow Nugroho, a National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman, said communications with the earthquake-stricken region were disrupted.

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“Our early estimation, based on experience, is that it caused widespread damage, beginning from Palu northward to Donggala,” he told MetroTV.

It seems as though social media will have to play a more central role in alerting the public of new disasters. This morning, Indonesia’s Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) tweeted a new alert of a 5.0 magnitude quake near the North Central Timor Regency in East Nusa Tengarra – an Indonesian province – that could potentially lead to a tsunami.

Hurricane Florence Losses Estimated at $2.5 Billion

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Now a tropical depression, Florence hovered primarily over North and South Carolina over the weekend, dumping record-breaking rainfall in those states and killing at least 17 people. Remnants of the system are heading north, bringing rain through Tuesday.

The storm made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, N.C. on Sept. 14, causing more than one million power failures and at least 16 deaths over the weekend, according to the New York Times. Tropical Depression Florence slowly flooded cities, endangering communities from the coastline to the mountains, and requiring more than 1,000 rescues.

Karen Clark & Company (KCC) estimates that insured losses from Hurricane Florence will be $2.5 billion, which includes the privately insured wind, storm surge, and inland flooding damage to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles, but does not include National Flood Insurance Program losses.

KCC reports:

On Sept. 14, Florence made landfall in North Carolina with maximum sustained wind speeds around 90 mph. As the storm slowly passed southwest over South Carolina on Sept. 15, the hurricane weakened to a tropical storm and made a wide turn to the north. By Sept. 16, Florence had become a tropical depression in northeastern South Carolina.

Peak surge from Hurricane Florence reached 10 feet in New Bern, North Carolina, and other areas of the state including Beaufort and Wilmington had significant storm surge impacts. Locations at the heads of shallow bays, where the water is more easily pushed ashore by a hurricane’s high wind speeds, experienced the most coastal inundation.

Although this storm is winding down, there may be more to come. “We’re now in the peak of hurricane season, and the season still has a long way to go,” Dr. Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told the Times. He added, “There will be more storms—that’s a definite. Where exactly they track, and when or if they’ll make landfall—that’s what’s not predictable this far in advance.”

Florence Highlights
▪Made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, with Category 1 wind speeds

▪Reached peak intensity of 140 mph on Sept. 10, but weakened before impacting the U.S. coast and spared the Carolinas from major hurricane impacts

▪Expected intensification to a Category 5 hurricane did not occur

▪Slow forward speed decreased to 6 mph prior to landfall and reached as low as 2 mph once inland

▪Brought heavy precipitation in excess of 30 inches to parts of North Carolina

▪Peak storm surge reached 10 feet in New Bern, North Carolina