While we watch Mother Nature assault the Gulf Coast, we must
remember a number of facts:
- Hurricane Season ends after Thanksgiving. There's still 2 months left.
- The East Coast north of the Outer Banks has been largely lucky.
This is the most densely populated portion of the United States and yes, it too lies in the sights of Hurricanes.
If you live in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York including NYC, CT, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, you must be prepared. Here's why.
As other posters such as Darksyde and Stirling Newberry among others have pointed out(who are doing a very excellent job), we have
entered an active cycle in the Atlantic basin that may last for decades. In addition, sea surface temperatures have also risen one
degree in the last 50 years and are projected to keep rising.
he most recent brush with a Hurricane was 2003's Isabel, and it was a profound wake up call.
Isabel, larger in size than the state of Texas, unleashed its fury over a wide region from South Carolina to central Ontario and between the eastern Ohio Valley and the Hudson Valley. In total, over 4.3 million people were reported to be without power. This included 525,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina, 78,000 in the District of Columbia, 160,000 in New Jersey, 500,000 in Pennsylvania, 50,000 in Delaware, 40,000 in New York, 21,000 in West Virginia and 40,000 in Ontario. Maryland suffered tremendous damage to its power infrastructure with power lost to nearly half of the state: around 1,250,000 customers. Virginia was the hardest hit, though, with more than 1.6 million customers without power on the night of September 18 and damage in the billions.
Isabel, which followed the Northeast Blackout, showed that even though Isabel struck at Category 2 status which generally was confined to the coast and Category 1 to tropical storm force winds inland, millions lost power. The electrical grid, already overloaded and old, was shown to be old. Indeed, I recall the lights going out again at Thanksgiving during our dinner in Suburban DC, several times, during a minor rain storm.
Isabel took a path that sent a surge of water between 6 and 7 feet above normal up the Chesapeake Bay, causing major flooding in Annapolis and Baltimore, and another one into the Potomac up to Washington D.C. A smaller surge entered Delaware Bay and traveled up the western shore of the Bay to Philadelphia.
Floyd in 1999 also battered the East Coast, causing major flooding around the Philadelphia region. Nearly a foot of rain fell in Delaware County including my home town of Upper Darby. While much of Upper Darby sits out of local flood plains, areas downstream such as Darby were severely flooded. I was in high school and it was the first and only "hurricane day" that I can recall, ever.
Other Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Hurricanes include:
1991's Hurricane
Bob, which struck New England after giving New Jersey and the Carolina Outer Banks a glancing blow. Major damage occurred at Cape Cod, but as the storm passed east of Boston, major flooding was avoided. Again, the storm drove major surges up the bays along the New England coast.
1985's
Hurricane Gloria, which gave the East Coast a major scare but weakened to Category 1 status.
Another storm includes 1977's Hurricane Belle, another storm that weakened. 1972 bought Pennsylvania's benchmark catastrophe: Hurricane Agnes.
In the 1950s, three hurricanes, Carol, (a Cape Cod strike), Edna (which struck Maine) and then Hazel, (which bought Cat. 2 conditions inland past New York City and Category 1 conditions inland all the way to TORONTO from its landfall point near Wilmington, NC) all in 1954, struck New England and the East Coast.
Despite all the strikes, two storms have not had their repeats along the East Coast, and that is Hurricane Donna of 1960, and the Great 1938 Hurricanethat struck Long Island.
Hurricane Donna bought hurricane force conditions to every state along the East Coast from Florida to Maine (and presumably caused considerable effects well inland.) The Great 1938 storm bought a massive storm surge into Providence, Rhode Island and submerged large sections of Long Island. 600 died. Unofficial sustained gusts exceeded 125 mph.
There is also some research that suggests that major hurricanes of Category 3 and higher are possible in this region. Indeed one in 1821 may have been just that---a high end three or maybe even a 4. All of the storms mentioned above were high-end twos and low-end threes.
This isn't to scare residents of the Megalopolis. It is to inform them of their hurricane history. Learn your coastal evacuation routes. If your state does not have contraflow (a plan that works in some places and really needs work in others), demand your local DOT get on the ball. Make sure the poor in flood prone areas are to be looked after. Rita and Katrina should make all East Coast residents wary of the sea that we view as so beautiful.