Atlantic hurricanes: US prepares for frequent and devastating cyclones

With one day left until a new season of hurricanes Experts in the United States and authorities asked the population this Friday to be prepared for the increasingly powerful and frequent cyclones, which hit vulnerable areas of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico with special virulence. Mexico.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted an active and above-average season in the Atlantic this year, with between 17 and 25 storms with name and from 8 to 13 hurricanesof them between 4 and 7 of higher category.

However, and as the director of the US National Hurricane CenterMichael Brennan, it does not take a major hurricane to generate devastating impacts and gave as an example the floods caused by the rains that load the cycloneswhich in the last ten years have been “the deadliest danger”.

“They have been responsible for more than half of the deaths” and has almost no relationship to the strength of a cyclone, Brennan stressed. “It doesn’t matter the category, or if it is a tropical storm or depression. What matters is how much it rains and how heavy the rain is in a given location.”, he delved.

The director stated that other water-related hazards, such as storm surge or rip currents, are responsible for between 85 and 90% of the deaths caused by each storm or hurricane that impacts USA

More powerful and more destructive

The cyclones Not only are they more powerful and intensify faster, but also, as recent studies reveal, they are “Rapid intensification occurs with increasing frequency the closer they get to land“The Nature Conservancy’s chief scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, said today.

During a teleconference, the expert stressed that currently, cyclones load “much more water vapor” than 50 or 100 years ago, and also their weakening process, even when they are already on land and far from their source of power (the warm waters of the ocean), is slower and therefore they impact more.

Hayhoe said that to measure the degree of disaster that a hurricane or storm The latent danger must be taken into account, as well as the level of exposure, that is, the number of structures and people that may be at the mercy of the hazards. cyclones.

And a third element is vulnerability, which has to do with how prepared and resilient the populations are, a component that is reflected in the different impacts caused by the powerful Hurricane Matthew in Haiti in 2016, where it unleashed an outbreak of cholera, and in the Carolinas, US states

The deputy director of the organization’s Caribbean program, Shenique Albury-Smith, recalled this Friday that the Hurricane Dorian of 2019, which reached category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale (the maximum), has been the most powerful to have impacted the Bahamas, where 70 people died and generated losses of more than US$3.4 billion.

“People lost homes, cars, boats, businesses; assets that took a lifetime to build and that were basically lost in a day, in a few hours“said Albury-Smith, who also highlighted the psychological impacts that this hurricane unleashed on the affected populations.

The human footprint

“The hurricanes They provide a very strong fingerprint of how human activity, specifically greenhouse gas emissions, are overloading our extreme climates, making them much more dangerous in a warming world.Hayhoe stated.

The scientist was questioned about the recent law signed by the governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, which eliminates most references to climate crisis of state legislation and even ceases to be one of the priorities of the Government’s agenda.

“I can say that I don’t believe in gravity, but the truth is that if I jump off the cliff I will fall.“said the expert.

He added that not reacting to the information provided by science is an option. “But it is an option that increases our vulnerability instead of reducing it”, he stressed.