A flight hangar at the south end of Norfolk International Airport was abuzz Wednesday morning with weather scientists and emergency managers from Hampton Roads and beyond.
They all had a strong message: Now is the time to prepare for disaster.
“Remember it only takes one hurricane to cause an issue in Virginia,” said Shawn Talmadge, state coordinator of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.
The Norfolk airport was one of five stops along the East Coast this week during the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Hurricane Awareness Tour.
The tour is meant to emphasize the importance of preparing before disaster strikes, said MaryAnn Tierney, administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Region 3, which includes Virginia.
She said Hampton Roads residents need to remember their risk.
“The area has not experienced a significant storm in quite some time,” Tierney said. “So I think that complacency is to be expected, but has to be overcome.”
To drive home their message this week, federal officials brought in so-called “hurricane hunters” – NOAA and Air Force planes that fly straight into storms while they’re still brewing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The planes gather data about the cyclone’s temperature, pressure, windfield and so on.
That information is critical to forecasters, said Robbie Berg, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center.
“We can't know what it's going to do over the next five days if we don't have a good idea what it's doing right now,” he said. “The brave men and women that fly these planes are risking their lives to go into the storm.”
Hurricane season starts June 1 and stretches through November. Scientists expect this year to be very active because of warmer-than-ever ocean temperatures that fuel storms, as well as a climate pattern called La Niña that can cause a more severe hurricane season.
But people should always be prepared regardless of specific hurricane outlooks, Berg said.
He said it’s easy to get fixated on a hurricane’s dramatic elements – its name, numeric category or exact landfall location.
But Virginia can be affected by storms that land hundreds of miles away, dropping devastating amounts of rain even as it’s slowed to a tropical depression. That also happens inland, not just by the coast. (Hurricane Camille in 1969, for example, killed more people as a tropical depression in Virginia than when it landed in Mississippi as a Category 5, officials noted.)
“If a storm is even in your vicinity, you're probably at risk,” Berg said.
Here’s emergency officials’ advice to prepare.
- Know your evacuation zone: Virginia’s coastal areas are divided into four tiered evacuation zones labeled A through D, A being the most vulnerable to catastrophic storm surge. Officials ask Virginians to “Know Your Zone” so you can heed evacuation orders. You can look up your zone on VDEM’s website. Once you know your zone, start planning how and where you’d evacuate if needed.
- Start planning today – even if slowly: Berg said he knows it can be hard to think about disaster when busy with daily concerns. But he recommends factoring it in, like stocking up on nonperishable foods by adding an item or two during regular grocery trips. Also consider any special accommodations needed in your family, such as eyeglasses, medication or pet supplies.
- Check your insurance coverage: Many homes that would likely flood during a severe storm – including inland areas – do not require flood insurance, but you can opt to buy a policy voluntarily. Traditional homeowner’s insurance does not cover flooding. Berg said to keep in mind that there’s often a waiting period to start coverage, so the sooner the better. “You can’t get insurance when there’s a storm actually threatening you,” he said. Renters can also get policies to insure property within a home.
