Happy New Year!
With the arrival of January 1, we officially close the book on 2008. Let’s take a look at the major weather events of the year:
- January 3: A strong cold front plowed through west central Florida, sending temperatures plummeting to near freezing, with wind chill values in the low 20s.
- April 5: Heavy rains and high winds from a passing cold front lashed Pinellas County. An air conditioner unit was torn from the roof of an American Legion hall in Madeira Beach.
- Spring: While the dry season’s rainfall was close to normal (7.04" vs. the average 7.49"), it was not nearly enough to help erase the rainfall deficit from the past few years.
- June: A persistent high pressure area built in north of Florida, producing numerous severe thunderstorms from the 6th through the 14th.
- August 15 – 19: Tropical Storm Fay meandered through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico before making landfall a record four times in Florida. The Tampa Bay area was spared major damage, but Fay unleashed torrential rains throughout the state.
- September 10 – 11: Strengthening Hurricane Ike brought minor surge flooding to low-lying areas of Pinellas County, even though it was moving rapidly away from Florida’s west coast.
- October 28: An early cold front passed through the Tampa Bay area, lowering temperatures 15 degrees below average, giving an early taste of autumn.
- November: A series of cold fronts made this November the 18th coldest month on record since 1890.
- December 11: A strong low pressure brought heavy rains, high wind and much cooler temperatures to the Tampa Bay area, with snow as far south as New Orleans.
Records show the highest temperature recorded at Tampa International Airport was 98 degrees on June 6 and the lowest was 29 degrees on January 3. Rainfall was 43.77 inches, one inch less than the average of 44.77 inches for the Tampa Bay area.
It’s not just nature
Living so close to the Gulf of Mexico, it’s only natural that emergency managers consider hurricane preparation a top priority. While weather is a major issue in emergency preparedness, it’s not the only emergency for which Pinellas County prepares. A number of man-made dangers do exist, and they have the potential to do a great deal of damage.
• Hazardous materials, also known as HazMat, are used every day to purify our water (chlorine), to power our cars (gasoline) and to manufacture thousands of products at businesses throughout the county. Trucks and trains carrying these chemicals also make deliveries to local businesses each day. While the chance of an incident is small, HazMat accidents have occurred in the past. The most notable Pinellas County example was the fire at the Jones Chemicals plant on August 6, 1986. More than 6,000 residents were evacuated from the burning structure as a cloud of dangerous chlorine gas emission spread.
• In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, increased preparation occurred across the country to deal with the potential of another strike. While the probability for an attack in Pinellas County is low, federal, state, regional, county and municipal officials are hard at work creating plans to deal with the unthinkable – nuclear, biological or chemical attacks on our population.
• Service outages, while not as dramatic as HazMat or terrorist incidents, can still cause trouble in our highly urbanized community. “Rolling blackouts” may be necessary in times of extreme electrical power demand, and local outages may happen after violent storms. A major water outage, such as when a major water main broke on March 20, 2003, can leave the water faucets dry and frustration high.
Fortunately, preparing for these man-made hazards is very similar to gearing up for hurricane season. The same basic supplies (drinking water, nonperishable food, flashlights, etc.) should be handy, and some additional items can transform your hurricane survival kit into a perfect all-hazards kit. Consider adding a dust mask to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape so you can shelter-in-place at your home.
Visit Emergency Management’s website at www.pinellascounty.org/emergency for more information on these and other potential dangers.
Swinging from the rafters
In last month’s E-Lert, we described roof coverings and how they stand up to hurricane winds. Just as important is what holds the roofing materials to the house – your rafters or roof trusses. If you poke your head into your attic, you will see either triangular trusses – which typically look like a web made of 2 x 4 pieces of wood joined with metal mending plates – or rafters, which are larger pieces of wood that run relatively uninterrupted from the outside walls of your home to the roof’s ridge. When the winds blow, these timbers have to withstand a tremendous amount of force trying to rip them from the top of your home.
What are some things you can do to reinforce trusses or rafters to keep them stay firmly anchored to your home? First, you have to see if the ends of these framing pieces are tied with hurricane clips to the outside walls. You may need to hire an inspector to take a closer look at these critical connections. These can be retrofitted by a contractor to help keep the roof tied to the structure.
Another thing you can do is add bridging to your home’s trusses or rafters. By gluing and screwing 2 x 4s from rafter to rafter along the length of the attic, each of these framing members can draw strength from one another.
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hip roof |
gable roof |
And, take a look outside of your home. Do the end walls have a sloped roofline, or does the wall rise in the shape of an A? The sloped roofline is called a hip roof, and it has tremendous resistance to wind lift. The A-shaped ends are called gables. They frequently fail in high wind conditions because they act like a sail, catching the full brunt of the storm’s fury. Bracing the gable ends is relatively easy for the handy homeowner, involving some 2 x 4s, screws and metal hurricane ties. Specific information about gable end bracing can be found at www.floridadisaster.org/mitigation/rcmp/HRG/downloads/gable_end_retrofit_guide_S9.pdf
Remember to leave the difficult code-specific work to a licensed contractor, and work in your attic now during the cooler months. Temperatures in attics can rise to well over 160 degrees Fahrenheit during the hot summer months.
For more information on how to prepare your home to withstand hurricane-force winds, visit the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes’ website at www.flash.org.
Now that The Holiday Season is over…
It’s a great time to review the gifts you received to see if you need to change your insurance policy. Some items, such as jewelry, irreplaceable heirlooms, expensive electronics and other unique and valuable items may require additional insurance riders, allowing for a full reimbursement.
This is also a good time to check with your insurance agent to ensure you have the proper levels of coverage and check too that your policy includes such important coverage items as law-and-ordinance coverage. This coverage pays the additional amount between what it would cost to replace your home’s elements as is and important improvements, which are now required by law. Should your home be damaged, this can be a very costly out-of-pocket expense.
For more insurance tips and suggestions, read the Consumer Guide to Homeowner Insurance produced by the Florida Department of Financial Services. The guide may be obtained by downloading it from the website at www.myfloridacfo.com or by calling the toll free Florida Department of Financial Services Consumer Helpline at 877-MyFLCFO (1-877-693-5236) and asking for a free copy to be mailed to your home.
Storms in History
The Great Florida Snowstorm of 1977
So, it never snows in Florida, eh? Oh sure, there have been flurries reported from time to time in isolated cold spots, but never a statewide significant dusting...
Not so fast! On January 17, 1977, the air pressure difference between a strong arctic high pressure ridge and a strong low pressure nor’easter off the Atlantic Seaboard funneled frigid air deep into the south. As the cold weather plunged into the state, it ran into the warmer, moist air from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
Suddenly, weather stations in the panhandle started reporting snow. Then north Florida stations and, by nightfall of the 18th, snow was reported falling in Tampa, Orlando, Winter Haven and points along the I-4 corridor.
The wintry blast wasn’t finished. It pushed as far south as the outskirts of Homestead and brought cold temperatures and mixed frozen precipitation to Freeport, Bahamas. Accumulations ran from .2 inches in Tampa to two inches of fluffy white snow on the ground at Plant City.
While this was an exciting time for Floridians unaccustomed to seeing snow, it was a devastating blow to the state’s agricultural industry. Crop damage exceeded $100 million in Dade County alone, and the entire state was plunged to near or below freezing temperatures. President Carter declared 35 Florida counties disaster areas.
What does THAT mean?
Sometimes in hurricane preparedness, big words are used to describe simple concepts. One of them is mitigation. Mitigation is an umbrella term that describes what you do to lessen the impact of some event. As you can imagine, hurricane mitigation is a critical task that must be accomplished to help each of us survive a storm’s impact.
There are many ways to help mitigate the effect of hurricanes. For instance, did you know by reinforcing the garage door and shuttering windows, you increase your home’s resistance to hurricane winds by one Saffir Simpson category of intensity? While there may still be damage to your home, it will be considerably less than if you had done nothing to get ready for the winds.
Other less obvious ways you can mitigate the effect a hurricane can have on you, your family and your property include:
- Properly pruning trees to reduce the likelihood that they will shed dead limbs or topple over
- Keeping your important papers in a waterproof container someplace handy will help speed up the recovery process
- Replacing rock mulch with shredded bark to reduce the number of missiles that can be blown at your windows
To learn more mitigation tips, visit Pinellas County’s Emergency Management website at www.pinellascounty.org/emergency.
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