“LARGE HURRICANE EARL CONTINUES RELENTLESSLY TOWARD THE NORTHWEST…POSES A THREAT TO THE MID ATLANTIC COAST…” This statement tops the National Hurricane Center’s section on Hurricane Earl, the latest tropical storm to hit the U.S. Hurricane Earl is expected to make landfall on the East Coast within the next 48 hours, promoting thousands of residents and tourists in the coastal areas North Carolina and the surrounding states, such as Virginia, to evacuate.
“Earl’s effect on the East Coast will depend on when it makes its expected turn to the northeast.
“A later-than-expected turn could mean the storm’s eye makes landfall on the extreme eastern tip of North Carolina as a Category 3 storm late Thursday or early Friday.
“If that happens, hurricane-force winds also could reach New York’s Long Island and Cape Cod in Massachusetts.”
The National Hurricane Center recommends you take the following actions when a hurricane is predicted for your area:
BEFORE a Hurricane:
Put your emergency disaster kit together. Make sure they are in one location in your home.
Write out your emergency disaster plan. Discuss the plan with your family, nominate an out-of-town family contact, and decide on an evacuation area and meet-up spot should you get separated.
During a Hurricane WATCH:
Double-check your emergency disaster kit. Replenish anything in it that may be low, such as water, medications and batteries for flashlights and radios.
Take protective and preventative measures that may take extra time. Such measures may include filling your car with gas, securing your boat or boarding up the windows of your home or place of business.
During a Hurricane WARNING:
Have your emergency disaster kit ready to grab and go.
Put your emergency disaster plan into action. Decide on the safest location to wait-out the hurricane.
A look at the weather map shows three storms swirling in the Atlantic Ocean today: Danielle, Earl and the latest, Fiona. Danielle, once just a tropical storm, is now a category 4 hurricane—the first major one of the season. Hurricane Danielle is reported to have 135 mph winds and a path that leads it east of Bermuda at the moment. Tropical Storm Earl only has 45 mph winds, but MSNBC reports its path looks a little more problematic and is worth watching closely. Tropical Storm Fiona just developed off the east coast of Africa and few details are known about it right now.
Prepare Your Home against Hurricane Water Damage
With storms starting late in the hurricane season, home and business owners need to keep back-to-school preparations and hurricane preparations in the back of their minds. A common misconception about hurricanes is that their winds cause the most damage. However, the truth is that water is a hurricane’s most damaging factor. Two-inches of water flooding a home can cost up to $8,000 in repairs.
‘Tis the season for hurricanes, and it’s up to you to be prepared:
Know the most vulnerable places in your building or home. Find cracks and seal them ASAP, even if the weather forecast is nice. Make sure you focus on cracks around windows and doors since those can make a little bit of water turn into a big problem.
Have sandbags ready. Even if you are not technically in a flood zone, it’s always smart to place sandbags in the areas under the doors of your home and business when the weather is nasty.
Place important items and items you do not want getting wet on the second story of a business or home. If you have heavy furniture, raise it onto cinderblocks.
Cover your belongings with a plastic tarp; your electronic equipment will thank you. Though a room may not flood, there is always the potential for a leak in the roof.
Call a professional ASPAP if there is any water damage after a storm. The longer water damaged items and wet documents sit around, the more damage they will experience. Additionally, bacteria and mold thrive in and on wet or damp items, which could put your family’s health at risk.
It only takes a couple hours of work to protect your belongings from water damage and save you thousands of dollars. Make an emergency preparedness checklist today.
With fears of impending large-scale natural disasters, top climate scientists from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), UK Met Office and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will meet in Boulder, Colorado during the week for the first full session of ACE, the Attribution of Climate-related Events. The meeting is not a brainstorming session to try to prevent catastrophic events. Rather, My Fox Atlanta reports the professionals will put their heads together in an attempt to create a warning system to help predict meteorological disasters.
With the recent deadly flood in Pakistan, Moscow heat waves, Atlantic Ocean storms and severe winter weather, which some are saying is a result of “global weirding,” are trepidations about more frequent and deadlier natural disasters. The goal is to create a reliable warning system that would have the ability to identify the location and indicate the severity of future extreme weather events in a timely manner and, thus, save thousands of lives.
“These are the sorts of things we need to understand. We need to be able to forecast events weeks or months ahead of their occurrence so people can mitigate their worst impacts. We also need to consider the longer-term context and see if we need to build better sea defenses at a particular location and assess how high dykes or walls need to be. Certainly, one thing is clear: there is no time to waste. The effects of global warming are already upon us.”
In addition to the 50 Iowa counties that have already received a Presidential disaster declaration, 29 more were added on August 15, 2010. This order will support more state and local recovery efforts that are helping residents clean-up after the aftermath of the severe summer weather that began on June 1, 2010. Iowa residents have had to endure tornadoes, severe storms and floods, and this recent declaration will bring much-needed relief.
FEMA states that individuals, families and businesses are eligible to receive federal funding. Also available are grants to provide temporary housing, home-repair aid and low-cost loans to assist those who are dealing with uninsured property losses.
The 29 latest areas added to the disaster declaration include the Black Hawk, Cherokee, Clayton, Decatur, Delaware, Dubuque, Fayette, Franklin, Hamilton, Howard, Humboldt, Ida, Jackson, Jones, Kossuth, Lee, Lucas, Lyon, Marion, O’Brien, Osceola, Ringgold, Sioux, Story, Taylor, Union, Warren, Webster, and Wright counties.
“Residents and business owners who sustained losses in the designated counties may immediately begin registering for assistance online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 1-800-621-FEMA(3362) or 1-800-462-7585 (TTY) for the hearing and speech impaired. The toll-free telephone numbers will operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (local time). Those registering for aid should be prepared to provide basic information about themselves, details on insurance coverage, and any other information to help substantiate losses.”
Flooding, extending from the Midwestern states to the east coast of the U.S., has caused unforeseen devastation and cleanup costs. States affected by floodwaters include Iowa, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and more. The causes of the floods are due to severe thunderstorms in the north and along the Atlantic Coast that filled rivers and lakes, and Tropical Depression Bonnie, which brewed in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Reuters.
Clean-Up Tips
Now that the storms are gone, residents in the flood-damaged states are left to clean the devastation in extreme heat. To those cleaning up after the aftermath of the natural disasters, consider the following tips:
Take pictures of all the damage to your property and write notes about it on a piece of paper. When individuals are stressed-out important information can easily slip their memory, and this type of documentation is helpful when making a claim with an insurance company or are seeking remediation assistance.
Use water cautiously. While water from wells may be okay for bathing in, only drink bottled water or water you boiled.
Start cleaning flood-damaged items as soon as you know it is safe to do so. Heat and moisture are the perfect breeding grounds for mold. Mold can grow in as little as three days, so it is to one’s advantage to act quickly, especially when it comes to wet documents, wet books and photographs. This is something business owners need to act quickly on so they can get back in business ASAP.
See if FEMA has declared a disaster in your area. Checkout their mobile site, m.fema.gov, and apply for disaster aid on your Smartphone.
Call in the experts. The assistance of a disaster restoration company can help you make sure your wet items are completely dry and mold-free so you do not have reoccurring mold problems and damage in the future.
While storms are scary and the aftermath is stressful, you have the power get your life back to normal quickly when you clean the water damage correctly. Learn more about what to do after a flood.
