Ready or Not - 2010 Hurricane Workshop

[Texas SpeedDiva]

Just a reminder - The Houston/Galveston National Weather Service's 2010 Hurricane Workshop is coming up this Saturday, June 19 from 10-3 at the GRB. It looks like Bill Read will be doing a couple of sessions this year.

http://hurricaneworkshop.com/default.asp

here is a link for the agenda - http://hurricaneworkshop.com/2010_HW%20Agenda.pdf

Also if you are a baseball fan there is an offer for a discount on tickets to the Astros game later that afternoon.

[ticka1]

Are you going to it TSD? This will be the first year I am missing in years. My hubby has to work and I just don't like parking downtown at the GRB so I'm passing this year on the workshop.

I was going to try to make Pasadena's but just got busy with work and family that I forgot about it.

If you do go - let us know how it went.

[Texas SpeedDiva]

I am planning on going. and I'll report back on what they say. I always enjoy hearing what Bill Read has to say.

I understand about the parking downtown deal, but I'll just park in my work garage and walk over.

[BaytownWeatherWatcher]

I'll be watching for your report. Thanks for going, TSD!

[Texas SpeedDiva]

Ok, I typed up a nice long summary of the workshop last night only to discover it didn't post. So I'll try again.

I was somewhat surprised by the turn out at the workshop. It seemed to be much better attended than last years event. The event must have really been advertised to the Hispanic community and the special needs community, because there was a really large turnout by both groups. Also most of the literature this year was in both English and Spanish. Or in some instances Spanish only. There was a large group in front of me at one of the session who had an interpretor with them. And they had signers for a large group of hearing impaired persons.

CenterPoint Energy has worked really hard to update their outage tracker. It can show an area, street or even specific address now (which could be a little disconcerting) If there is another storm and major outage, they plan to show the expected restore date on-line, much like they did after Ike. you can check it out online at CenterPointEnergy.com/outagetracker. They have also gone social networking and said that if you evacuate and want to find out about power restoration or outages you can check them out on twitter at twitter.com/CNPstorm or on Facebook at facebook.com/CenterPointEnergy.

One thing I'd forgotten is that if the weatherhead on your home is damaged it is your responsibility to have it reapaired. The electric company will not restore power to your home until it has been repaired by a licensed electrician.

The theme of the Emergency Managers was "we've taken what we learned from Ike and tried to improve on it." One topic that was questioned by several people at both sessions were the Pods set up after the storm. We were told that this was an area that they had paid close attention to and have attempted to make some significant changes to. IF the need arises again, they said that people should not be turned away if they are in need of ice, water or food. Apparently this was a big complaint post-Ike. Also they are working very hard to streamline the system of access since another major complaint was people being told they couldn't enter at point X but needed to go to point y only to be told to go back to point x and then sent to point z. Also many of the city managers said they have or are considering going to social networking as an additional way to notify people of information after a storm or any type of disaster.

There have been some tweaks made to the evacuation areas. A few zip codes have been added or moved on the 2010 map. So make sure to re-check your zip code. I know one area that was mentioned as having changed was Friendswood. Here is a link to the "new" map http://www.hcoem.org/documents/EvacuationMap.pdf

[BaytownWeatherWatcher]

Thanks for the report. What's a weatherhead? Sounds like us at WOW :)

[Texas SpeedDiva]

Ok, for the rest of my summary

As always Bill Read was informative. He said that despite the fact they have gotten better at forecasting the path of storms over the past 20 year, they still have some difficulty with GOM storms. He explained the way they predict landfall in a method that many in the audience could relate to - the NCAA bracket. Instead of starting with 64 teams you start with 64 locations and work your way down to 1 "winner" only in the case of storms you really don't want your city to be the last one standing in the bracket.

He said they tend to forecast them a little slow and to the left. Meaning the storms move faster than they expect them too and they tend to forecast them slightly more to the left or east than where they actually make landfall. Unfortunatly they haven't made much progress in the past 20 years in forecasting the intensity of storms. And the models still have no skill at forecasting rapid intensification of storms.

There is still significant uncertainty in forecasting storm surge. There are so many factors that affect the surge from track, intensity and size to the angle the storm approaches. He explained the storm surge in the following manner. IF Ike had come in 20 miles further to the east of where it came in and the winds had been ~15-20 mph higher, Johnson Space Center would have been under about 8 ft of water. And where his house was in South Shore Harbor instead of having about 6 inches of water standing in the street from rain, would have had about 8-9 feet of standing water from storm surge. So you should always be aware of the potential danger from surge. Sorry when he said 8-9 ft at S. Shore (which is just a couple miles from me) nI didn't even hear what he said about levels further up the ship channel.

Also new for this year will be a slight change in the timing of watches and warnings. Since they have been able to improve the forecast path they have been able to increase (by 12 hours) the watch and warning times. Now watches will be issued within 36-48 hours of landfall (which is about the time needed to call for and evacuate the coastal counties and low areas of surrounding counties). Warnings will be issued within 24-36 hours of landfall. While this doesn't seem like a big change as he said with the increase in population in this area and all along the GOM coastal areas, that additional time can be vital.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's all I can think of now.

[Texas SpeedDiva]

Thanks for the report. What's a weatherhead? Sounds like us at WOW :)

LOL it does doesn't it. The weatherhead in "technical terms" is the thingie on your roof or house where the electrical line from the pole attaches to your house. Or in laymans terms The weatherhead is usually mounted on the top of a piece of pipe or conduit and the wires then run down the piping into the service panel mounted on the house.

[HarvestMoon]

What the electric companies consider to be a weather head is the Service Entrance Cap


http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/productImages/300/d2/d2b148b8-077d-4433-9072-35e297982c3b_300.jpg

and the conduit leading down into the meterbox. If the conduit is bent or disconnected from either the cap or box, then they won't turn your power on.

[ticka1]

great information TSD - sounds like I missed a good workshop. I just detest parking downtown and refused to do it this year. Appreciate you coming on here and giving us an update.

One thing I noticed is there was much information online about the show as far as reviews.

[BaytownWeatherWatcher]

LOL it does doesn't it. The weatherhead in "technical terms" is the thingie on your roof or house where the electrical line from the pole attaches to your house. Or in laymans terms The weatherhead is usually mounted on the top of a piece of pipe or conduit and the wires then run down the piping into the service panel mounted on the house.
Thanks, TSD!

[Texas SpeedDiva]

I knew I was forgetting stuff. Got to see inside the Ch 26 StormTracker Vehicle. That thing is so cool and tricked out it's unreal. Got to chat with John Dawson and he said that their on-line hurricane briefings had been so well received that they are now doing then on their 5 pm news cast(?) not home at that time so not positive on the time. And the interviews will be done on the Mon & Thurs newscast version as opposed to on-line now.

[BaytownWeatherWatcher]

Now is the time to get our hurricane supplies in order.