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Could a Major U.S. City Potentially Face Monster Hurricane?

Aired July 20, 2001 - 07:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Scientists say that changing weather cycles are making it more likely that we'll be seeing monster hurricanes in the next 10 to 40 years. Those hurricanes could cause $50 billion in damage, hundreds of thousands of deaths in the next decade -- two factors making monster hurricanes more likely: warmer ocean temperatures and less wind shear to inhibit the storms.

Well, let's go a little deeper into this and get a little more on this now with Pete Davies. He's a journalist and an author of "Inside the Hurricane." He joins us from London with a little bit more on this.

Mr. Davies, what is it about the warmer ocean temperatures that affect the cycle of hurricanes?

PETE DAVIES, AUTHOR, "INSIDE THE HURRICANE": Good morning, Colleen.

It's very clear from the historical record now that we have a pattern of quiet and then busy periods, with intense hurricane activity in the North Atlantic. We appear from '95 to have entered a new busy period. From 1970 to 1994, there was an average of 1.5 intense hurricanes per year.

We are now looking at the more scarier and alarming prospect of three major hurricanes every year on average. And looking at the historical record, you can be pretty certain that that mode in the Atlantic is going to go on for at least 20 and possibly 40 years, because that's what it has done in the past.

MCEDWARDS: And what causes it, though? I mean, we just heard warmer ocean temperatures, less wind shear.

DAVIES: Well, in very...

MCEDWARDS: What's that about?

DAVIES: In very -- yes -- in very crude terms, there's a switch in the ocean. It is to do with how ocean currents circulate. And we can see, looking at the pattern of sea surface temperatures over the past 100 years, that this switch appears to get flicked every 20 to 40 years, and the sea either heats up or cools down.

It doesn't have to change by a whole large amount. If the Atlantic sea surface temperatures increase by about 0.5 of a degree centigrade -- it sounds tiny, but in a big body of water, that's a lot of energy to power up hurricanes -- a lot of extra energy. And we can see from the record that, every couple of decades, the Atlantic either heats up or cools down. And in '95, it heated up again.

MCEDWARDS: And is that an...

DAVIES: So we can really, you know...

MCEDWARDS: Is that just about the...

DAVIES: I'm sorry. Carry on.

MCEDWARDS: Is that just about the weather cycles? Or do human contributions have anything to do with this global warming, that kind of thing?

DAVIES: This appears to be a natural event.

I mean, global warming is certainly happening. And it would certainly be prudent to do a great deal more about it than we are presently doing. But as far as the specific issues of hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin are concerned, we don't need to worry about what global warming may mean 10 or 20 or 50 years down the road. We need to worry about what is happening right here, right now.

This pattern already exists in the Atlantic. It exists in the historical record. Good and credible science foretells that there are going to be more major hurricanes, as we have seen since 1995, which has been the busiest period on record. And this is where we need to look at right now, not what may be happening down the road with global warming.

For the 40 million Americans that live on hurricane-prone shoreline, this is a problem that really needs to be addressed right now.

MCEDWARDS: Yes. And we're actually looking at some pictures of past hurricanes while you talk.

Are there good predictions right now for 2001, which regions could be hit, that kind of thing?

DAVIES: Well, 2001 looks like an average year, which would mean nine or 10 named storms, six of them becoming hurricanes, two of them becoming bad ones. But we don't want to get hung up about numbers and storms. We want to be much more precisely aware of what each given storm is doing, because it only takes one hurricane.

If we look at a storm like the Labor Day storm of 1935 in the Florida Keys, that storm was so bad that some of the bodies afterwards could not be identified because they had no faces left. The sands had blasted the skin of those people. Now a lot of people are unaware, unfortunately, of what may be coming their way soon, because of this 25-year quiet period from 1970 to '94 when a lot of people have gone to live by the beach. A lot of people are sensible. They do have their preparedness plan in place. But, unfortunately, a lot of people don't. And people have to be aware just how truly horrendous a major hurricane impact is going to be.

MCEDWARDS: And is there anything...

DAVIES: In 1926, the storm...

MCEDWARDS: Sorry, can I just interrupt -- is there anything more that people should do to prepare for a more active season?

DAVIES: Well, obviously, the National Hurricane Center and the emergency management people work very, very hard, indeed, to try and get people to put preparedness plans in place.

But people need to be conscious that when a major storm comes -- as in 1926, when Miami was completely pulverized -- if that happens again, it's going to be a $80 billion damage bill. And you're going to find people blown back into the Stone Age, possibly across a 50- mile width of shoreline.

There will be no gas, no food, no water, no power, no lights, no air conditioning. It is a major catastrophic event when a Cat. 4 or 5 hurricane comes on shore in a crowded urban area. If you look at the storm tracked through Florida in the 1940's, it's horrific. It looks like a nest of vipers has been flown across the state.

Now, there's a basic theory in meteorology core persistence -- i.e.: What has happened will happen again. It is as statistically certain as the sun coming up in the morning that major hurricanes will impact major urban areas in the United States...

MCEDWARDS: Right.

DAVIES: ... Of which South Florida is the most likely, but only -- if only one, it could be Houston; it could be New Orleans. And people really need to start thinking about how to prepare for this properly, because it is going to happen.

MCEDWARDS: A lot to digest there, a lot to think about.

Pete Davies, thanks very much -- appreciate it.

DAVIES: It was my pleasure, Colleen.

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