Hurricane Season Dos and Don’ts in Baldwin County, Ala.

Read Time:6 Minute, 33 Second

(TNS) – Here on the Gulf Coast, we’re no stranger to hurricanes. From June 1 to Nov. 30 of every year, we’re on edge, awaiting the forecast of a hurricane barreling toward the shore.

County emergency management agencies are often the first line of defense in a hurricane. We spoke with Tom Tyler, interim director of the Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency, to discuss how to be prepared for a hurricane and what he’s worried about, headed into the peak of the season in August.

Questions and answers have been edited for clarity.

What are some of the [Baldwin County] EMA’s biggest concerns, heading into the peak of hurricane season?

If there’s not a particular storm that we’re looking at, or anything else, then it’s public awareness. Having the public hear the message, be ready to accept and comply with the message. Our community preparedness and awareness prior to any event is always our biggest concern. One of the things that we talk about very much is we would like all of our residents to go to alertbaldwin.com and sign up for free emergency alerts. They can tailor those alerts to be only just the tornado warnings, the hurricane warnings, the flash flood warnings, they don’t have to get every little thing, it’s tailorable to what they want to see, but that is one of the best ways to go about getting information regarding severe weather.

Another concern I have is the internet, pretend meteorologists that unfortunately have a large following, and people pay attention to what they say. We really would ask our residents and guests to get their information from local sources. Start with the National Weather Service, and our TV meteorologists are also a very good source. National weather programming and national weather type of websites are very useful, they can help provide context. But those types of outlets don’t know our neighborhoods the way our local people do, and so we would ask that people get the information locally.

Obviously, trying to reach vulnerable populations, that’s always going to be a challenge, and we work very closely with our partners to help reach those, our volunteer agencies. And so we rely heavily on them to help us spread our word and inform those communities. So those are pretty much my top three, before anything is actually occurring.

So, when and if there’s a hurricane bearing down on us, what would be your biggest concerns then?

Interpreting the information from the National Weather Service and seeing the public use that information properly and know how it applies to them. We have the county divided into hurricane evacuation zones. But how well do all of our residents and guests know which zone they’re in? That’s something that we would very much like the public to be informed about, so that if we were to have to call for an evacuation of Zone One, hopefully everybody south of the [Intracoastal] Canal understands that means they need to go. But some guests may or may not know that. So that’s another thing we’re looking at.

So just making sure that people are aware of the risk, are conscientious of the steps that are needed to prepare for a hurricane, that kind of thing?

Yes, exactly. And that’s before a storm becomes something that people are watching. But after a storm has formed, and it’s threatening our coast, another thing we would really like to amplify from our partners with the weather service, let’s not pay too much attention to the cone [of uncertainty]. Because the cone depicts nothing more than where they think the center of the storm is likely to go, and they’re only claiming to be right 2/3 of the time. The bigger problem is, we’re talking about a storm that could be 300 miles wide, with impacts reaching 100-150 miles away from the center of the storm. And if you’re in Baldwin County, but the cone only extends into Mississippi, somebody can be lulled into thinking, “Well we’ve got no problem, because we’re not in the cone.” Well, no, because the cone doesn’t depict the impacts. We’re going to get the worst of the storm surge from a landfalling hurricane going into southeastern Mississippi.

The National Hurricane Center continues to push out new products each year to try to inform the public of the impacts, rather than just the spaghetti models and the plots and all that kind of stuff. The public generally does not have as much need to consume that as, where is the storm surge going to be? How are the winds going to impact me? What is the calculated rainfall? What is the expected rainfall from this event? We have a lot of low-lying areas in Baldwin County, a lot of rivers, and you get 20, 30 inches of rain in a 24- to 48-hour period of time, that creates lots and lots and lots of problems.

In the latest figures I’ve seen, during tropical events, water is a killer 88% of the time. It’s not wind. The public wants to focus on, “what category is the storm?” Well, wind speed is important, but also rainfall calculations are important, and storm surge is important because storm surge and freshwater flooding, as I said, constitute nearly 88% of all the deaths in the last five years from tropical cyclones.

How can families, how can residents be prepared for hurricane season?

Well, I’ve already told you one and that is, know your zone. Know where your house is located on a map and how that corresponds to where those zone boundaries are. A second thing is having a plan. Be sure that everybody in your family understands what that plan is. And if we were to have a hurricane, what would we do, and where would we go if we had to evacuate, and our pets? Make sure you have cash on hand, the power may be out and ATMs may not work, and maybe credit card machines won’t work for a period of time. If you do not evacuate, you should have a plan to be self-sufficient for up to a week. We would hope it wouldn’t take a week, but if we had a very large event, and first responders were overwhelmed, those who are able need to be on their own for a particular period of time.

Another thing I’ve already mentioned, get your weather information locally. And once again, I would like to reiterate that alertbaldwin.com, a very valuable resource for staying informed, not only for hurricanes, not only for weather, then it can be for any kind of disaster or any kind of emergency situation. So those will be my top. Evacuation planning, I mentioned that a minute ago. If you are required to evacuate, or if you choose to evacuate, have a plan for that. We have shelters of last resort that would be likely to be stood up if we were to have an evacuation. But that’s the shelter of last resort. It’s certainly nothing compared to going to a relative’s house in Montgomery or staying in a hotel in Birmingham. So having a plan for evacuation would be another.