By E.B. Furgson III
The Maryland Gazette
Copyright 2007 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
LINTHICUM, Md. — First responders and emergency planners preparing for 2007’s tropical storm season in Maryland are being warned to brace their communities despite chancy predictions for the upcoming hurricane season.
More than 250 officials from across the state listened last week in Linthicum as leading weather experts laid out details about storm threats and how to ready people for whatever Mother Nature might have in store this year.
“Don’t make decisions based on seasonal forecasts,” the Weather Channel’s Steve Lyons said at the Maryland Emergency Management Agency’s 22nd annual Severe Storm Awareness Conference. “Always be prepared.”
Even when a storm is approaching, especially toward the Eastern Seaboard, he warned against early landfall predictions.
A shift of just a few degrees in a storm’s track,"makes a huge difference as to where it goes,” Dr. Lyons said. “Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, they are a charlatan.”
Early season predictions run from a high of 17 named storms to a low of 7.
Last year’s forecast called for a high number of storms, with several likely to hit the U.S. coast and some headed for the Atlantic coastline. But none did, even though surface temperatures in the Atlantic - a prime indicator of storm activity - were the warmest since 1930.
Two Atlantic tropical storms hit the eastern U.S., but most of the storms headed up into the Atlantic Ocean well away from land.
“No one knows whether or not you’re going to get hit on the East Coast,” Dr. Lyons said. “So what you want to do is be prepared equally as well this year as last year or the year before.”
He was the “star” of the conference, giving two presentations during Thursday’s event. He talked about the challenges of dealing with a public influenced by media - mostly TV - coverage hyping approaching storms and the difference between hurricane season forecasts and what really happens.
All presenters looked at the increasing potential for damage to people and property as more people move nearer to the nation’s shores.
Some 53 percent of the nation’s population lives within 50 miles of our coastlines.
“You have to educate people. Citizens have a job to do, too,” FEMA Region III Director Jonathan Sarubbi said during opening remarks. He said it was about creating “a culture of preparation.”
“It’s a shared mission,” National Weather Service Director David L. Johnson added.
Other speakers led sessions on severe thunderstorms, aiding the elderly and disabled during emergencies, lessons learned from the 2006 floods in
Richmond and individual emergency preparedness.
Anne Arundel county officials from the fire department, the police, emergency management and public works were on hand and took away information they can use.
“This is all stuff we can put in the toolbox,” said Lt. Thomas Wilson, the county’s emergency management director. “It was good to get some of these nuts and bolts. Hopefully we will take it and put together a message for citizens for the summer season.”
Emergency managers repeat the mantra to “make a plan, get a kit, be informed” to stress the basic elements of preparedness.
“Don’t get scared, be prepared,” Dr. Lyons said.