Hurricanes

With the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season less than a month away, the time to start preparing is now. The Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30 each year. As the nation's premier science agency for oceans and coasts, we at NOAA understand that preparedness is not a one-time effort. When a disaster threatens, the National Ocean Service (NOS) must be prepared to provide a broad range of scientific, technical, and policy expertise to support response activities and to inform recovery. 

As the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean continue to warm under the global threat of climate change, the future of coral reefs looks bleaker than ever before. With rising temperatures comes an increase in mass coral bleaching events, infectious disease outbreaks, and the process known as ocean acidification. Climate change not only affects the overall health of corals, it also impacts their resiliency. Changes to the frequency and intensity of tropical storms — another side effect of climate change — lead to storm seasons that do a massive amount of damage to coral reefs.

When a natural disaster strikes that is so severe that local and state governments together cannot provide the necessary resources, it’s declared a national disaster. During these disasters, the federal government steps in to provide resources — through both response support, the use of federal programs, and supplies. When a national disaster is declared, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the official advisor to the U.S. president — coordinating the activation and implementation of the Federal Response Plan.

During the first week of September, Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 hurricane still located hundreds of miles offshore, was setting its sights to make landfall somewhere along the North Carolina-South Carolina coast. While some residents waited to see exactly where its path would lead, others decided to heed warnings issued by the governor of North Carolina to evacuate their low-lying coastal homes. As impact became imminent, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) began tracking the storm’s path and intensity. 

By the second half of this century, more than half of the world’s population will live within 100 kilometers of a coastline. Maybe that’s not a startling fact for some, but when you stop to consider this in light of sea level rise, the predicted increased storm intensity and frequency, and other coastal hazards associated with heavy development, that’s putting nearly 4 billion people at risk. In the U.S. alone, approximately 163 million people could be impacted!

Hurricane Matthew caused death and destruction from North Carolina to the Caribbean. From Oct. 7-10, 2016, the National Geodetic Survey collected aerial photos from more than 1,200 square miles of flooding and damage in the hurricane’s aftermath. The photos were taken in specific areas of the nation identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service. National Ocean Services has more information on how the photos were collected.

Hurricane Matthew is the latest storm to wreak havoc on our nation’s shores. Being involved in disaster response, we at NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration know what can go wrong when a hurricane hits the coast—after all, we’ve seen it firsthand ...