A category 5 cyclone, more severe than Cyclone Tracy or Hurricane Katrina, lashes Far North Queensland and there is not a single fatality.
It perhaps says something about Australia, modern economies and democracies and their potential capacity to adapt and to survive?
Congratulations Far North Queensland!
When we were less technologically advance, that is on 10th March 1918 and a severe cyclone hit Innisfail, over 80 people died.
Following is the note in the Bureau of Meterology records for that event:
“This cyclone is widely regarded as the worst cyclone to hit a populated area of Queensland. It crossed the coast and passed directly over Innisfail. Pen on Post Office barograph was prevented from registering below 948 hPa by flange on bottom of drum. 926 hPa read at the Mourilyan Sugar mill at 7 pm 10 Mar. The eye wall reached Innisfail at 9 pm. In Innisfail, then a town of 3,500 residents, only around 12 houses remained intact the rest being blown flat or unroofed. A report from the Harbours and Marine Engineer indicated that at Maria Creek the sea rose to a height of about 3m above high water (If this refers to HAT the water was 4.65m above the tide for that day). Around 4.40pm 10 Mar at Bingil Bay a tidal wave was seen surging in from the east into Bingil Bay taking the bridge over the creek 400 m inland. Mission Beach was covered by 3.6 m water for hundreds of metres inland, the debris reached a height of 7m in the trees. All buildings and structures were destroyed by the storm surge in the Bingil Bay Mission beach area. The surge was 2.6m at Flying Fish Point. Babinda also had many buildings destroyed and some reports suggest that not one building was left standing. There was widespread damage at Cairns and on the Atherton Tablelands. Recent reports suggest that 37 people died in Innisfail while 40 to 60 (mostly aborigines) lost their lives in nearby areas.”
—————-
My aunt and brother who live in Cairns and Smithfield, respectively, are fine. They both said there was a bit of wind last night, but otherwise OK.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Oh come now – wasn’t the case with Katrina.
Larry was a very severe in strength, but a system moving quickly across the region as Jim Davis, Head of the Brisbane Bureau of Meteorology Regional Office, said tonight in comparison to tropical cyclone Tracy. He said the systems were not really comparable and that Tracy was very strong but slow moving and pounded Darwin for hours. Storm surge from Larry was reported as modest.
If you look at the damage that Ingrid recently did to Croker Island and the remote Kimberley resort when it crossed the coast, you would have to wonder what would have happened with Ingrid impacting on a major centre. Every tree on Croker Island was stipped bare.
Lessons have been learned from Tracy, Winifred and Althea – building codes upgraded. Communities constantly reminded about preparedness and tropical cyclone safety. This event affected a relatively small population in a town with little geographic width so less collateral damage from houses cascading into each other that occurred in Darwin.
There is major building damage in Innisfail and $350 million in crop losses reported. Bananas and the sugar crop devastated. I wouldn’t call it a walk in the park.
And we’re not even near double CO2 yet. If you wanted to be improper we could add that system to Emmanuel’s power index which has doubled in the last 10 years.
With the climate change research that has been conducted and on the theme of society’s adaptability – it would be prudent to revise north Queensland building codes and storm surge inundation areas. Just think the Cairns hospital is right on the esplanade – with some change of fate one might have watched Larry come through the hospital’s beside windows – I wonder if the generator is in the basement ?
Good luck and best wishes to all those coping with the aftermath of Cyclone Larry.
Jennifer, your key point remains unchallenged by the post above (the one who has to invent the term “walk in the park” as straw man). Jennifer said “When we were less technologically advance, that is on 10th March 1918 and a severe cyclone hit Innisfail, over 80 people died.” A category 5 cyclone hits Innisfail in 2006 and there were no deaths. Think about that for a moment. And according to the radio news I listened to this evening, there were no injuries. Remarkable!
Thought one reason effects weren’t worse was that Larry had a narrow core, plus it became cat 3, didn’t stay cat 5, hence mainly only lashed Innisfail, not all of far Nth Qld as Dr Marohasy’s first line suggests.
On building codes: are they strict enough in the areas at risk? In some of the areas where they initially thought Larry might dally, building code requirements are for cat 3. Good enough for most events, but if intensity will increase due to GW, are these standards tough enough for those less frequent cyclones? (I appreciate the costs and building limitations increase dramatically for more cyclone proofing – but so are insurance costs, and the costs to those who put their lives and property at risk by trusting that regulatory requirements are sufficient).
Now let’s see what happens from the next cyclone (Watti’s called?) and let’s see if insurance coughs up, unlike those many whose houses were blown apart by Katrina and were told their houses didn’t suffer wind damage.
No injuries?
silstone are you saying that we have better detection and communications technologies in 2006 and more transport for people to evacuate?
While I am very happy that this cyclone did not kill alot of people, I find the conclusion of this post rather like the thinking of a teenager. “Well, I drove home drunk last night and nothing happened so…”
So what?
How do you deconstruct a post modern cyclone?
Phil Done’s disappointment is palpable; Cairns Hospital was not hit by giant storm surge caused by global warming.
Despite surviving a Category 5 storm (wind speeds 290 kilometers per hour) directly hitting a densely populated area Innisfail must now suffer being downgraded by desktop pundits.
Stick to chasing taxis Phil!
Preparation time seems to be the key. The forecast for Larry seemed impossibly ambitious given its distance from Australia and its early inactivity, but the Tropical Cyclone Centre’s modelling indicated the development of a cyclone and westerly tracking and this is precisely what prevailed.
Criticising bad weather predictions is almost a national pastime, but in the case of Tropical Cyclone Larry the forecast was spot-on and the metereologists deserve congratulation. How many lives were saved because of this technology?
And while we consider the burden of responsibility, whatever happended to the Theory of Chaos and its part in extreme weather event prediction? I wondered particularly when I recently read: Benoit Mandelbrot’s Theory of Roughness , which (to me at least) seemed to want to explain the randomness of weather in ways that reminded me of Chaos Theory.
Rog,
You really are having yourself on aren’t you – what “special technology” did Innisfail employ as an “advanced technological society” – zero ! Really what a try-on. Did you notice how the technologically advanced sugar, bananas and tree crops rebuffed the storm and are still standing. Have you seen the age of most of the buildings. About the same as was in 1970 except some better warning of the approach.
Thanks heavens you’re not in charge of any town planning. Go back to potting plants and contributing to our source of weeds.
Disappointed – far from it – I was on the edge of my seat.
And from memory – what was Rog’s last contribution – oh yea – Katrina – parroting the George Bush sycophant lines he’d learned at Tim Blair – (where George is close to beatification) whereas in the final analysis, George’s Feds were found wanting and couldn’t organise a chook raffle. Was interesting was it not, to see how the world’s superpower used it’s man-on-the moon vast technological ability to resist the hurricane. Actual impact = zero.
And Indian Ocean tsunami showed us how expert we are at resisting sea level inundation that can also occur with major hurricanes and tropical cyclones – Wiki says: The highest storm surge ever recorded was produced by the 1899 Cyclone Mahina, which caused a 13 metres storm surge at Bathurst Bay, north Queensland. 400 deaths.
In the United States, the greatest recorded storm surge was generated by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, which produced a storm surge 9 metres high in the town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The worst storm surge, in terms of loss of life, was the 1970 Bhola cyclone and in general the Bay of Bengal is particularly prone to tidal surges.
Nine out of ten people who die in hurricanes are killed by storm surge.
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, a category 4 hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas on 8 September, drove a devastating surge ashore; 6,000-12,000 lives were lost, making it the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States (Hebert, 1990). The second deadliest natural disaster in the U.S. was the storm surge from Lake Okeechobee in the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane which swept across the Florida Peninsula during the night on September 16. The lake surged over its southern bank, virtually wiping out the settlements on its south shore. The estimated death toll was over 2500; many of the bodies were never found. Only two years earlier, storm surge from the Great Miami Hurricane of September 1926 broke through the small earthen dike rimming the lake’s western shore, killing 150 people at Moore Haven (Will, 1978).
These tragedies in the United States, grim as they are, are hugely overshadowed by the tremendous losses of life suffered in other regions of the world. In the Bay of Bengal area, the “storm surge capital of the world”, 142 moderate to severe storm surge events are on record from 1582 to 1991. These surges, some in excess of eight metres, have annihilated hundreds of thousands of people, primarily in Bangladesh (Murty and Flather, 1994). The Caribbean Islands have endured many devastating surges as well.
Less record breaking but still significant. A storm surge in Mackay during the 1918 cyclone inundated the town around 5am. One witness reported seeing large waves – up to 2.7 metres – breaking in the centre of Mackay. Of 19 cyclone-related deaths in Mackay, most drowned in the storm surge.
Other tropical cyclone related deaths in Queesnland are less – 10 in cyclone Wanda (Brisbane 1974 floods), Winifred – 3 deaths 90% homes on Magnetic Island destroyed. Cyclone Ada – Whitsundays – 14 deaths.
We’re clearly now better at being warned about tropical cyclones and evacuating (sometimes). But the wrong system, misbehaving in the wrong place at the wrong time – do you seriously think we’ve advanced that much ?
George Santayana:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Taxis ?
Phil Done.
Phil, Corby,
I appreciate your concerns, but can’t we acknowledge that richer societies are better able to survive natural diasters.
This is relevant to the mitigation versus adaptation debate on global warming.
This doesn’t mean we aren’t learning from history, or that we aren’t worried about category 5 cyclones.
It means we make sure building codes are really good and enforced, we move the Cairns hospital away from the esplanade, we support more and bettter research into advanced warming systems and the list goes on.
Last time I looked Phil New Orleans is in the State of Louisiana – any idea who the Govenor is?
Henry Ford:
History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
I’m simply saying at this stage – it’s more about very good early warning and education, and removal of one’s self from harms way. Still lots of crop and building damage. And without wishing to downgrade the storm – it traversed fairly quickly and storm surge minimal. So I’m saying let’s not be too cocky and think we’ve got it licked in an engineering sense. I have seen quite a few homes at Mission Beach – some new ones in the 1990s built to very strong standards but still many 1950s style dwellings too.
And these are the solid sensible lessons learned from climate change simulations – what engineering standards are required – how can we affect this at minimal cost. What areas of indundation might we expect from more intense events – do we really have to build there? What is our probability of exceedance on drains, storm water and bridge heights. All good engineering x modelling studies. We need good GIS maps of resources, good evacuation plans and emergency response plans, community education and state of the art cyclone modellig systems for realtime advice.
As infrastructure gets renewed – let’s learn some lessons and do it better for least cost next time around. For example how many new houses have cyclone bolts in southern areas of coastal Queensland – very inexpensive to fit when houses are built – expensive to retrofit later.
One such study on storm surge which won a Commonwealth safety award:
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/ClimateChanges/pub/OceanHazardsStage3.html
The frequency of storm surge plus tide during tropical cyclones was determined for 50 open coast locations along the east coast of Queensland, Australia. The goal was to produce return period curves for storm surge plus astronomical tide for return periods between 10 and 1000 years.
For those interested RC has just posted a sober revisit to SSTs and tropical storms .
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=273#more-273
End of the world? Nope. Hysteria? Nope.
Neil – yes the seemingly chaotic meanderings of tropical cyclone are notorious. But sophisticated climate modelling at high resolution can give the people in harms way an advantage. (But the knockers here on blog think they’re all highly paid time wasters and it’s all rubbish).
One major difference between Tracy and Larry was the fact that Innisfail didn’t have a thousand spaced out hippies living in tree houses on the beach waiting for the storm surge.
But apart from that, this is clearly a big win for local knowledge on what to do in a cyclone, a big win for building codes, and a big win for technology.
And the less said about thinksy’s suggestion of declining intensity from 5 to 3 the better. It was full on 5 when it hit the beach and that is all that matters.
Rog – come in spinner. George boy stuffed the Katrina response and you know it, and the whole world knows it. A text book case in how not to do it. Stop whinging (as usual). Rog the unhappy right-wing whinger.
Ian – a 1000 spaced out hippes in Darwin !!Probably explains all the house stumps I say in Darwin in 1976 ! Where did the deaths occur in Darwin? In tree houses?
How much of Innisfail is new building codes. Didn’t look much different to me on last visit. Not saying it’s zero but how much is new?
Anyone got any facts?
Phil’s got a bee in his bonnet! Good posts Phil, v informative. I recommend you wash rog’s blood off the taxi bumper otherwise there’ll be a surcharge on your fare.
Although it might not be directly applicable to this case, Dr Marohasy is right to say that generally, rich societies cope better with natural disasters. The poor suckers in those foreign parts will be the ones to suffer (A)GW’s worst effects, not us.
I’m curious about building codes too. My source in a nearby areas reckons people have grown complacent (some wizened locals dismissed the idea of a bad cyclone), many buildings probably couldn’t take cat 3, and despite being warned that Larry’s winds could have reached them, most people failed to take basic precautionary measures.
Katrina did not hit New Orleans directly, other towns like Biloxi and Gulfport took the full force and left most structures damaged if not totally demolished. Gulfport is in the State of Mississippi and, funnily enough, there has been little press coverage of their plight.
Might be something to do with politics, NO is in a democrat welfare dependant State whilst Mississippi is republican. Govenor Bianco of Louisiana was warned 1 week prior but did nothing and failed to respond to GWB request for evacuation and her failure to execute the state’s emergency plan has put her under increasing criticism.
In contrast “Haley Barbour’s response was characterized by a concerted effort at evacuation, tough-minded talk on looters and an unwillingness to blame the federal government. His actions have earned him praise, even among former critics; his response has been compared, favorably, to that of Rudy Giuliani in the wake of the September 11 attacks.”
Yes Rog – spin de spin de spin – and how long did the response from Feds take. How long did the bodies float around in the water before being fished out ! And the classic differentiation between blacks looting and whites “gathering” supplies.
You are a funny man Phil, bogged down in ideology.
Just a few key dates;
National Hurricane Center called NO Mayor Nagin on the night of August 27 to express extreme concern over Katrina, and then had a video call with President Bush about the severity of the storm on the 28th.
Nagin first called for a voluntary evacuation of the city on August 27 and subsequently ordered a citywide mandatory evacuation on August 28
GWB made a televised appeal for residents to heed the evacuation orders, warning, “We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities.”
Katrina hits NO August 29
on August 31, Governor Blanco ordered that all of New Orleans, including the Superdome, be evacuated.
Governor Blanco issued a voluntary evacuation order and acknowledged that she received a call from the President on August 27 urging her to make it mandatory in order to get as many people as possible out of the path of the storm.
On August 27 Governor Blanco did request that GWB “declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina.”
The White House responded to Governor Blanco’s request that same day August 27
Shortly before midnight September 2 the Bush admin sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans.
Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request, and doubted that it would provide better management of the crisis.
On September 6, the mayor of New Orleans issued order of forced removal of people refusing to leave the city.
Governor Blanco later acknowledged that she should have called for more troops sooner, and she should have activated a compact with other states that would have allowed her to bypass the requirement to route the request through Washington.
The law prohibits the use of Federal forces for law enforcement unless the Governor of the state formally requests aid, or in times of emergency. Gov. Blanco did dispatch a letter to the White House asking for a state of emergency to be declared on 27 August but did not specifically request the use of the regular military. The Louisiana National Guard remained under her control.
Mayor Nagin has come under criticism for failing to execute the New Orleans disaster plan, which called for the use of the city’s school buses in evacuating residents unable to leave on their own.
On it goes.. ..
“can’t we acknowledge that richer societies are better able to survive natural diasters”
I can acknowledge that it helps in the sense of having more options. But the simplicity of your post’s purpose is a bit undermined by what happened in the US gulf coast and by what happens regularily in Cuba. One rich country that abandoned it’s people and one poor country that organizes and looks after everyone in an emergency is sufficient to demonstrate that wealth is both not required and not sufficient.
Phil
You sound disppointed there were’t more fatalities.
Phil is now politicising a storm!
Where’s Ender? Has he moved to Alice buying up land in the hope he lucks out as it turns into water frontage?
OK Thinksy – I win the bet !
Cyclones is boring.
FEMA Mismanaged Katrina Recovery Effort, GAO Says
Auditor Finds Poor Preparation, Coordination Led to Waste
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031602154.html
Katrina victims sue FEMA over slow response
Class-action lawsuit seeks housing assistance, damages
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9995826/
Ex-FEMA chief: White House contacted, Homeland at fault
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-09-katrina-facts_x.htm
Hurricane Katrina and holocaust: Slow response or deliberate extermination?
As American citizens continued to die, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, member of Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and possibly the next Federal Reserve chairman, declared that Katrina’s impact is “modest” on the “aggregate data.” He has insisted that the effects will only be “temporary,” and “absorbed relatively easily,” and that “even the worst-affected states like Louisiana and Mississippi should see benefits in time.” This statement from the world economy’s next possible leader, in addition to a monumentally grotesque lie, has become the centerpiece of Bush’s “optimistic” forecasts.
While hurricane victims continued to die, Bush ended his vacation. As victims starved, Bush had lunch with his economic advisors and representatives of the major oil companies. In his first press conference, Bush parroted Bernanke line, then passed the humanitarian public relations buck to Poppy and Bush family friend Bill “really good with the blacks” Clinton.
As American citizens continued to die, and faced with mounting international outrage, Bush posed for photo-ops, mouthed non-sequitors, callous one liners (“Don’t buy gas if ya don’t have to”), and boasted of (then non-existent) federal “help,” while warning desperate hurricane victims that their acts of desperation deserved “zero tolerance.”
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s “desperate SOS” was met with Bush administration ears that remained strangely deaf for days. In a now-historic radio interview, Nagin blasted Bush with profanity-laced outrage, accusing the federal government of “feeding the people a line of bullshit.”
“Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too goddamn late. Now get off your asses and let’s do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country,” he demanded.
http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/090505Chin/090505chin.html
So much for George and a technologically advanced society. And so much for any ideology clap-trap.
Phil Done.
Just wondering if Phil, or anybody else had bothered to read this link and the links from it, from the original post above: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000854.html .
While there will always be exceptions to a trend. There is a trend.
And how typical is New Orleans of the US?
You want to take it easier Phil, we all know you work too hard.
You have two cities affected by Katrina, one got on with the job at hand and the other waited for others to do the work.
Well Jen – the real conspiracy guys (on Rog anti-matter sites) would say it’s because George doesn’t like the French. But as they say “C’est la vie!”
Jennifer starts the thread with “A category 5 cyclone, more severe than Cyclone Tracy or Hurricane Katrina”
Pee Done jumps in with “Oh come now – wasn’t the case with Katrina” and for evidence starts bagging GWB.
Conspiracy is too good a word for such perverse narcissism.
“Technologically Advanced, Modern Economy, Survives Category 5 Cyclone With Out Single Fatality” was the title nursery boy !
And that was not the case with Katrina numb nuts. So there is no generality. A sample size of one defeated by a sample size of another one, and some other information.
Obviously Katrina is entirely the fault of GWB.
Phil
Seriously, aren’t you a little obsessed with AGW. You live and “breathe” the suff. Turn on the a/c and pretend everything is back to normal.
Failing that you could always see someone about it as I think the shrinks have figured it for a new disease. They call it, “sudden AGW syndrome”. It is curable and they can talk you into realizing the deserts are different to tropical rain forests.
Rog
Phil’s problem is that he thinks GWB is a typo for AGW. No wonder he hates Bush. I would too if I made that mistake.
Phil stop asking Thicksy for moral support. One of these days someone’s pet rabbit will get boiled alive and you never know where it will end.
Damn it Thinsky that’s the second $50. They were on cue.
So far as we know Larry has not resulted in any deaths or serious injury so far and that is a good thing. But how many lives have been totally ruined due to destuction of homes, businesses and crops? How many marriages and families will be broken in the aftermath? How many suicides will follow?
And there is supposed to be another cyclone coming shortly.
it is far too early to be crowing about how well the infrastructure coed with Larry. Don’t overlook the human cost.
Jennifer,
I looked at the other article you linked to. I don’t see how you can pretend to draw conclusions about climate related deaths from a graph that includes WWII and 50 million flu pandemic deaths. I also don’t understand how you derived a trend line that starts below 0, dips below 0 and ends higher than the data it is supposed to be smoothing.
Regardless, it is too early to see a climate related extreme event trend in fatalities, climate change itself has only just recently risen above the statistical noise. This is a complex subject and the dire predictions are about what is coming, you can’t look to the past and conclude there is no danger. This is like jumping out of a 20 story building and saying, “gee, not so bad so far” as you pass the 4th floor.
Regarding disaster mitigation and wealth, even granting your point that wealthier societies automatically cope better, there is no reason, in fact the contrary, to believe that increased world wealth will be equitably distributed. We in the west will enrich ourselves as we increase global pollution, now China will be doing the same (based on Western consumption, btw), and the poor countries will be paying the human costs, as always.
Coby, would you say that projects (in particular the Three Gorges dam project) which mitigate flooding in China would increase or decrease fatalities caused by the effects of annual storms? It seems every year we read of mass evacuations and deaths caused by flooding.
China could be classed as a poor country that pays the human cost, but not forever.
The absence of fatalities was indeed remarkable and while good warnings and sound buildings undoubtedly had something to do with it good luck and land elevation were also important. When the sea comes over, building codes become irrelevant and fatalities occur.
The northern beach suburbs of Cairns and the Port Douglas beach areas are subject to inudation by storm surges and are disasters waiting to happen.
Though third world countries are vulnerable to natural disasters their ability to recover is also greater in some respects. Residents simply pick up the pieces and rebuild. We have to wait for insurance adjusters, then truck the debris to some distant disposal area, go through a lengthy process of having plans drawn up and obtaining approval and permits from a bureaucracy overwhelmed by a tenfold or even hunderdfold burden of applications. Most of our population is also incapable of doing any of the actual work themselves but must wait for overwhelmed tradesmen to get to their job.
All this is just in the private sector. On top of it comes all the public infastructure. The cost is horrendous and exacerbated by shortages of supply, most especially of the skilled labour required.
This is the situation right now in the area devastated by Katrina and similar problems will be faced in the recovery from Larry. Before we engage in too much self congratulations it might be prudent to wait six months and have another look.
“Though third world countries are vulnerable to natural disasters their ability to recover is also greater in some respects. Residents simply pick up the pieces and rebuild.”
Like the Tsunami, Kashmir quake and Bangladesh flood victims have all done so successfully. Wonder what their secret is, other than desperate poverty?
Interesting piece in The Australian about Sydney University and Central Queensland University study: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18554131%255E12332,00.html
Hurricane experts remain skeptical;
“Chris Landsea, science officer for the National Hurricane Center, praises the Tech researchers for “careful” work, but warns that inconsistencies in the 35 years of worldwide data on hurricane intensity makes their conclusions shaky.”
“A panel of hurricane experts convened by the World Meteorological Organization in February to assess the effects of climate change formally concluded that no single severe tropical storm in the past two years can be “directly attributed to global warming.”
“The estimates are flakey,” said Hugh Willoughby, head of the International Hurricane Center at Florida International University in Miami. “I think the (warming) signal is there, but the data problems are leading us to exaggerate it. . . . No matter how you do the statistics, we really don’t know.”
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0318hurricanes0318.html
Interesting to contrast the likely costs and recovery times between the 1918 cyclone and this one. The average house in 1918 would have been two rooms, a detached kitchen lean-to and a veranda. So the reconstruction phase would have been much shorter.
The average house these days has over 200m2 under roof and this, in a 300km/h wind provides some very impressive lift capacity that appears to have actually negated the cyclone proofing measures.
The main changes to the building codes have been the use of tie-downs, and roofing screws. The tie-downs are the long pieces of threaded bar that go from the roof trusses, down through the walls and into the floor bearers. These are augmented by steel strapping of the roof trusses to the top rail (of the walls) and, when combined with screwed down metal sheeting and superior sheet ply bracing, binds the whole structure together far better than in the past.
In most winds on most roofs, the passage of air over the roof exerts downward pressure on the structure but if the wind does get under it then the whole house becomes a giant wing.
This was less likely in the past where roofs were lost but walls tended to remain in place. Modern house designs now have wider spans and therefore fewer walls to attach roof trusses to and this is combined with much larger roof areas.
The area of pavement has also increased and this means the effective root area of trees is reduced. And often the runoff from the paved areas flows onto the smaller root base of trees to produce a larger than normal leaf area. And when this is combined with Local Council restrictions on tree lopping etc, we get over sized trees with smaller root systems that are incapable of withstanding even low intensity storm events.
So instead of a partially cantilevered tree fall where a large root system is up-ended as the branch system falls, we now get a quick snap in the root system and a high velocity tree fall, often onto the enlarged roof area.
And once the integrity of the enlarged roof area is breached, (usually by only a flying branch) the whole house goes with it.
The lessons of this cyclone will be discussed for quite some time.
Jen – your reference suggests that with the move to the coast and increased coastal development that it is timely to revisit our building codes, development on flood prone or storm surge land, and emergency response. With our current experience in the last 120 years there is enough to be concerned. (without any global warming additions).
The latest paper in science is adding to the stir caused by Kerry Emanuel on a similar theme.
RC did a take on it – interesting but still not enough data.
“Since the SST changes are global, and almost certainly tied to greenhouse gas driven global warming, there are the beginnings of a corroborated link between increases in hurricane intensity and GW – however, so far there are only a couple of ducks in a row. ”
However we do have a reasonable theoretical basis for linking warmer SSTs to more intense systems, so although it may not have nailed it definitively one should not think the alternative hypothesis is true either. And really with most of this type of effect – what would you expect if global warming was having an effect – it would take some time for a signal to “get clear” of the existing noise of variability and decadal oscillations (some debatable themselves from statistics). Only problem is that once it has become definitive and we have cincher statistics – you’re stuck with it for hundreds of years !!!
So for relatively infrequent events like cyclones and droughts – the numbers should slowly start to emerge form the fog of current variation. Difficult problem. Rog’s link is interesting – I see Landsea saying – interesting – but still not enough for definitive proof. That’s OK. However Michaels would deny it up to the point its proven and then claim it doesn’t matter (the theme of this thread, if he’s around to worry. IMHO of course.
Latest paper in Science Express:
Accepted on March 7, 2006
Deconvolution of the Factors Contributing to the Increase in Global Hurricane Intensity
Carlos D. Hoyos 1*, Paula A. Agudelo 1, Peter J. Webster 1, Judith A. Curry 1
1 School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Carlos D. Hoyos , E-mail: choyos@eas.gatech.edu.
To better understand the change in global hurricane intensity since 1970, we examine the joint distribution of hurricane intensity with variables identified in the literature as contributing to the intensification of hurricanes. We use a methodology based on information theory, isolating the trend from the shorter term natural modes of variability. Results show that the increasing trend in number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes for the period 1970-2004 is directly linked to the trend in SST; other aspects of the tropical environment, while influencing shorter term variations in hurricane intensity, do not contribute substantially to the observed global trend.
We do not appear to get the storm surges predicted with most of our cyclones.
I have been in a few, where the predicted surge did not happen.
Can anyone explain what it is that appears to protect us from the huge surge, that is such a factor in the damage in other parts oh the globe.
Is the reef a factor in diminishing them in our waters?
The Bureau have a section on surges and factors involved (may be of some help).
http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/pubs/tcguide/ch4/ch4_2.htm
Cycline Mahina causes a 13m surge at Bathurst Bay, FNQ in 1899
Larry did claim one life – a poor fellow died of a heart attack in a caravan during the storm.
Just filing this link here http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/03/21/more-to-come/ . Quiggin appears to be the first to blame Larry on AWG?
Ouch !
La Nina years have more cyclones crossing the Queensland coast. In El Nino years they’re out in the more central Pacific away from Queensland(in general).
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/climatology/tropical_cyclones/tropical_cycl.shtml
Since 1878, tropical cyclones have caused an impact in eastern Australia at least 173 times. Records show the numbers of impact cyclones during the La Nina phase was about double those which had occurred during the El Nino phase.
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/991126.shtml
Cyclone tracks are shown on page 8 of:
http://www.bml.csiro.au/susnetnl/netwl42E.pdf
La Nina is only usually a one year phenomenon – so years plural??
Greenhouse theory only says more intense storms not more storms.
While you could add Larry to the number of recent fast storms, as documented by Kerry Emanuel, not a good thing to be calling AGW on a single event.
It well may prove to be true in 20 years time but we don’t yet have it nailed.
Dr Quiggin did not “blame Larry on AWG”. He didn’t even mention AGW. Another incidence of wilful misinterpretion.
Saying that due to an ENSO shift AND GW, “we can expect more severe cyclones for at least the next few years, and a general increase in the severity of storms and similar events..” does NOT amount to saying that GW (or AGW) caused Larry. Quiggin hasn’t said anything inconsistent with the BOM, the IPCC, or the CSIRO (or international scientific consensus). But then the mission is to undermine all of those bodies isn’t it? That will require something more substantial than baseless spin.
Yeah but…..
World Meteorological Organisation said that there was no evidence that hurricane intensity and frequency are linked with global warming.
Historically la Nina lasts one or two years.
Not that it matters much, people will believe what the want to believe, the scare campaign has just cranked up a notch;
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/14162490.htm
No – they said the science was unclear and that the climatologists are divided on the issue. Read the report in detail. Please !! And perhaps what you’d expect as a trend comes out of the fog of variability and the quality of the hurricane record database (MHO last bit).
http://www.bom.gov.au/info/CAS-statement.pdf
the WMO acknowledge the debate but it is not clear enough.
Read the report in detail please!!!!
“No single high impact tropical cyclone event of 2004 and 2005 can be directly attributed to global warming,” it says in a report submitted to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Commission for Atmospheric Sciences, which is meeting in South Africa .
http://www.bom.gov.au/info/CAS-statement.pdf
Dr John McBride is a principal research scientist at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology and reports to the WMO on the effects of climate change on tropical weather.
He is also chair of the international WMO committee that produced the report.
McBride says the report came as an attempt to separate fact from fiction in relation to recent controversy about the role of climate change in producing tropical cyclones.
McBride says there’s no doubt that the latest season was the most ferocious in recent times, with a series of vicious cyclones including Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans.
“These last two years were probably the most severe … since the satellite era began [about 40 years ago],” he says.
But he says evidence linking this to climate change is inconclusive or lacking.. ..
Rog – you are game playing and you know it. We do know by now that we can’t rely on you to put a fair case. I’d hate to see you on the IPCC team – there’d be a lot of information not reported. But I know you like simple one liners and things to be just black and white, right and left (errr sorry wrong) in your existence.
Yep John McBride’s a good bloke. The report says in concluding sections “This is a hotly debated area for which we can provide no definitive conclusion”
Report also says in part:
The IPCC Third Assessment Report concluded that “most of the observed warming
over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations.” There is now additional supporting evidence for this conclusion.
There is strong and growing evidence that a warming signal has penetrated into
global oceans over the past 40 years and was likely caused primarily by
anthropogenic forcing. At the regional scale, sea surface temperatures in the major
tropical ocean basins have warmed, with a likely substantial contribution from
anthropogenic forcing indicated in several of the basins. Further, two scientific
appeared during 2005 in highly visible journals (Nature and Science) providing
evidence for an increase in the number of the intense cyclones.
This combination of events has led to statements in the world press that the recent
hurricane disasters can be directly attributed to the impact of global warming.
and further
The IPCC Third Assessment Report concluded that “most of the observed warming
over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations.” There is now additional supporting evidence for this conclusion.
There is strong and growing evidence that a warming signal has penetrated into
global oceans over the past 40 years and was likely caused primarily by
anthropogenic forcing. At the regional scale, sea surface temperatures in the major
tropical ocean basins have warmed, with a likely substantial contribution from
anthropogenic forcing indicated in several of the basins. Further, two scientific
appeared during 2005 in highly visible journals (Nature and Science) providing
evidence for an increase in the number of the intense cyclones.
This combination of events has led to statements in the world press that the recent
hurricane disasters can be directly attributed to the impact of global warming.
and
The division in the community on the Webster et al and on the Emanuel
papers is not as to whether Global Warming can cause a trend in tropical
cyclone intensities. Rather it is on whether such a signal can be detected in the
historical data base. Also it can be difficult to isolate the forced response of
the climate system in the presence of substantial decadal and multi-decadal
natural variability, such as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation.
• Whilst the existence of a large multi-decadal oscillation in Atlantic tropical
cyclones is still generally accepted, some scientists believe that a trend
towards more intense cyclones is emerging. This is a hotly debated area for
which we can provide no definitive conclusion.
NO DEFINITIVE CONCLUSION !
Since we have had another paper in Science Express (which doesn’t change things but still makes a case for plausibile causation.
Accepted on March 7, 2006
Deconvolution of the Factors Contributing to the Increase in Global Hurricane Intensity
Carlos D. Hoyos 1*, Paula A. Agudelo 1, Peter J. Webster 1, Judith A. Curry 1
1 School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA USA.
To better understand the change in global hurricane intensity since 1970, we examine the joint distribution of hurricane intensity with variables identified in the literature as contributing to the intensification of hurricanes. We use a methodology based on information theory, isolating the trend from the shorter term natural modes of variability. Results show that the increasing trend in number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes for the period 1970-2004 is directly linked to the trend in SST; other aspects of the tropical environment, while influencing shorter term variations in hurricane intensity, do not contribute substantially to the observed global trend.
Cherry picking again Phil, interesting what the BOM have to say about cyclones, records and stuff;
DR JOHN McBRIDE, PRINCIPAL RESEARCH SCIENTIST, BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY: Our ability to actually observe the state of a cyclone out there right now is quite extraordinary and to actually look at the records and say how intense is this cyclone and is it more intense than the cyclone of 30 years ago, it’s quite difficult because we did not have that same level of instrumentation for the cyclone of 30 years ago.
No quoting the significant body of the text – and the report says what is says. As above.
Cherry-picking – mate you invented it.
So don’t try to precis something and change the meaning. The climate community is not united on the issue as the report says. In the mean time one should not blame Katrina or Larry on AGW. However it’s not possible to say whether there is no involvement either. We just don’t know. I’ll bet you though in 20 years the link will have been made.
So this gives us an interesting problem – if we as humans are as we are now, with imperfect records and a fog of existing variability – how would we tell statistically that cyclone intensification was happening. You would be in the position where we are now with imperfect knowledge and not enough data. And rememeber CO2 is no where near doubled yet. You’re only 380 ppm from 280ppm. Early days relatively speaking.
So if you’re the major of Cairns looking at Innisfail down the road do you accept the Bureau’s work on storm surge inundation looking at more intense future tropical cyclone systems. You probably won’t be office – you’ll be dead or retired. The builders are pushing you to develop these low lying areas that are just out of the current inundation limits, but not future modelled limits with more intense systems. There’s big money from down south in it. Come on they say – there’s this bloke in a well known blog that says there’s no link – quoted some WMO report from South Africa. But the future council, state and Commonwealth will have to pick up any relief bill.
The old right wing game of capitalising gains and socialising losses. What do you do Rog ?? This is a real issue from Hervey Bay to Cooktown.
http://www.deh.gov.au/minister/ps/2005/psmr22may05.html
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/ClimateChanges/pub/OceanHazardsMenu.html
P.S. BoM also did the cyclone work in the above report !
Its unfortunate that the public have allowed themselves to rely on govt to pick up the tab, whether it is health, education, housing, whatever – people expect that it should be provided by the State.
“The govt will pay for it, they’ve got plenty of money”
Govts dont have any money, only taxpayers have money.
People should be allowed to make their own decisions and be responsible for those decisions and if they want to live in a flood prone area they should wear the risk. When people realise they cant shift the risk onto someone else they will apply more thought to their situation.
Its called ‘accountability’. People expect Enron, Exxon and Monsanto to be totally accountable for their actions but they are reluctant to apply the same criteria to their own actions.
We recently had a case where a Council was sued because they did not advise future landholders that they would be subjected to aircraft noise from the adjacent airfield. Council appealed but the judgement was upheld. I was gobsmacked – has the collective public intelligence sunk so low?
Of course council had insurance for such things so a bulk of the costs will be spread within the industry whuch means we will all pick up the tab. The balance will be paid by ratepayers.
Unfortunately what you say is too true. Much land in Brisbane and Ipswich which was inundated in the 1974 flood has now been built on (housing). When the inevitable big flood comes again I’m sure these people will get government assistance (paid from the pockets of all ratepayers and taxpayers). The estate developers meanwhile have made a tidy profit and decamped.
It’s not like here is no other land – out of flood – but people want to be close in to the centre of town and “near the water”. Also a feeling that the Wivenhoe Dam built since 1974 will save the day. We’ll see !
but it’s zoned (approved) for housing, and if those people don’t know the history or think about it (esp. if they listen to contrarians, then they know there’s no increased chance of severe events), then who’s responsible? the muscle-armed developers? The house owners aren’t building illegally
Zoning laws preclude construction in areas of ‘known’ inundation eg below 100 year flood levels – developers dont have the ‘muscle’ its the State that sets the criteria which the local government applies to development applications. Its the State that determines what is a 100 year flood level not the developer. Its the State that controls planning, developers try to second guess their moves and acquire land (land bank) prior to rezoning.
By coincidence, an essay on zoning on Mises – “Zoning is Theft”
“Zoning is typically defined along the lines of a government regulated system of land usage imposed in order to ensure orderly development. Zoning is usually a component of the larger conceptual ideal called regional planning. Of course, planned development is really the name of the road toward planned chaos.”
http://www.mises.org/story/2077
Some interesting comments, both Houston and Nagoya have no zoning laws.
“As victims starved, Bush had lunch with his economic advisors”
People starved in under a week? They must have had really fast metabolisms.
I’m enjoying the commentary on this thread. Having worked in disaster management in developing countries, the concept of resilience, livelihoods and coping are all essential for a community to survive. I haven’t read much about this yet… but it is what we talk about when we think of tsunami’s or earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia. In Australia, we talk about who’s gonna pay. So how resilient are we?
I’m interested in the recovery of the local community in Northern Queensland after Cyclone Larry. So I put up a blog dedicated to all news and commentary about Larry. I am particularly interested in the revitalisation of the local economy, how the local people feel about Federal decisions that affect their livelihoods, attitudes and reflections to the reconstruction effort, and the stories, anecdotes and narratives that make up life after Larry.
I’d really like the blog to become a space for local people to chat about the Cyclone and how it’s impacted on their lives.
http://cyclone-larry.blogspot.com
Please tell me what me think!
Good one wei. Perhaps it should be called recovering from Larry? It would help if you have some representative participants in Innisfail who have internet access.
this is an amazing website