Ike Forces Shutdown of 19% of U.S. Refining Capacity

Ike Forces Shutdown of 19% of U.S. Refining Capacity

By Jordan Burke

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Ike, which made landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast today, caused more than 19 percent of the nation's refining capacity to close and may limit fuel deliveries across the country.

At least 13 refineries in Texas shut down as Ike approached. Gulf Coast refineries and ports are the source of about 50 percent of the fuel and crude used in the eastern half of the U.S. Plants operated by Exxon Mobil Corp., Valero Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc were affected.

Gasoline shortages may occur across the southern U.S. up to Washington because of the closures caused by Hurricane Gustav and now Ike, Kevin Kolevar, assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability at the U.S. Department of Energy, said on a conference call yesterday.

``We expect to see constrained supplies of refined products,'' he said. ``The administration will utilize every tool at our disposal to lessen the likelihood of limited fuel supplies,'' including tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Ike smashed into the Texas coast as a category 2 storm with wind speeds of almost 110 miles per hour (175 kph), making landfall in Galveston at 2:10 a.m. local time today. Ike's path toward Houston makes it the first storm to hit a major U.S. metropolitan area since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Curving Northeast

With winds decreasing to about 100 mph, the center of the storm steered away from the Houston area as of 6 a.m. local time, its eye located 15 miles east-northeast of Houston Intercontinental Airport, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Ike is likely to remain a hurricane through the afternoon as it weakens on its inland path curving toward the northeast toward western Arkansas, the center said.

The storm idled about 98 percent of oil production and 94 percent of natural-gas output in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said yesterday. Gulf fields produce 1.3 million barrels oil a day, about a quarter of U.S. output, and 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas, 14 percent of the total, government data show.

``This is more of a refinery issue than an oil and gas issue,'' said Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist at Planalytics Inc. in Wayne, Pennsylvania. ``A storm as massive as Ike has the capacity to generate massive storm surge.''

Gasoline for October delivery rose 2.08 cents, or 0.8 percent, to settle at $2.7696 a gallon yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange as the refineries closed. Prices rose 3.1 percent this week.

Calls for Conservation

Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. energy company, urged U.S. consumers outside the Gulf Coast region to conserve gasoline and other fuels to help avert shortages.

The company, in a statement on its Web site, said it's concerned about ``the potential impact of Hurricane Ike and the additional pressure it could have on an already stressed petroleum-distribution system.''

Exxon Mobil shut down its Baytown, Texas, refinery, the biggest in the U.S, with processing capacity of 590,500 barrels of oil a day, and its Beaumont plant, which can process 363,100 barrels a day, according to the company's Web site. Exxon is the world's largest oil company.

Valero, the largest U.S. refiner, closed three Texas oil refineries with a combined capacity of 589,000 barrels a day. They are the 294,000-barrel-a-day Port Arthur refinery, a Texas City plant with a capacity of 210,000 barrels and a Houston facility that can process 85,000 barrels, spokesman Bill Day said in an e-mail.

Port Arthur

The company closed 64 company-operated retail stores out of almost 200 in the Houston region, Day said.

Motiva Enterprises LLC, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Arabia's state oil company, started shutting down its 300,000-barrel-a-day plant in Port Arthur yesterday, Shell said on its Web site. Shell is also closing its Deer Park plant, which can process 340,000 barrels per day.

Motiva's Beaumont, Pasadena and North Houston terminals are also closed and refined product supplies at those terminals remain at ``safety levels,'' Shell said in a statement. Tank drivers earlier picked up their last loads and are making final deliveries in the region to refuel Shell-branded stations before Hurricane Ike makes landfall.

Citgo Petroleum Corp., owned by Venezuela's state oil company, declined to comment on the status of its refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana.

``We do not comment on operations,'' spokeswoman Shawn Trahan said in an e-mail.

Memories of Alicia

Planalytics' Rouiller said Ike is similar to Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

``It took them over a year to get their feet on the ground again,'' he said. ``The refineries were down for months. Basically, the whole infrastructure around the Houston metropolitan area was devastated.''

Gasoline supplies across the southern and eastern U.S. may be disrupted by the storm, Rouiller said.

``We could have this capability lost for a long period of time,'' he said.

The U.S. Coast Guard closed the port of Houston, the nation's largest petroleum port. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the biggest U.S. oil-import terminal, stopped unloading vessels.

Texas City, Pasadena

BP is closing its 475,000-barrel-a-day Texas City, Texas, refinery. ConocoPhillips, the second-largest U.S. refiner, said its 260,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Sweeny, Texas, is closing. LyondellBasell Industries is shutting its 299,300-barrel-a-day Houston Refining LP plant.

Conoco's Pasadena, Texas, refined products terminal and Clifton Ridge Marine terminal near Lake Charles also closed earlier today, and all company-operated pipelines in the region are shut down.

LyondellBasell Industries is shutting its 299,300-barrel-a- day Houston Refining LP plant.

Marathon Oil Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, began to shut its Texas City refinery, which can process about 81,500 barrels of oil a day.

Total SA, Europe's third-largest oil company, is shutting down its Port Arthur refinery, which can process about 240,000 barrels a day.

``Ike is headed into the heart of the refining industry,'' Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said in an interview. ``The damage is likely to come in flooding, a lack of power for an extended period of time.''

Hurricane Ike hits Texas causing floods, power outages

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hurricane Ike made landfall in southeast Texas around 2:10 a.m. local time Saturday near Galveston, packing winds of 110 miles per hour, just shy of Category 3 strength, shuttering essential oil facilities and threatening to devastate towns along the Gulf of Mexico. The storm was forecast to move northwest at 13 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. Newswires reported thousands of homes and government buildings were flooded, roads made impassable by washouts, and widespread power outages affecting about 1.3 million customers. Authorities were reportedly concerned for the safety of an estimated 140,000 people in four counties near where the storm made landfall who had ignored mandatory evacuation orders and opted to stay in their homes. The weather agency warned coastal regions were still being battered by the back end of the storm, with hurricane-force winds and the threat of storm surge still activ

IKE TRACK!

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Texas and surrounding areas

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IKE!

Hurricane Ike Aims at Houston; Evacuations Called

By Brian K. Sullivan

Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Ike tripled in size in the central Gulf of Mexico on a weekend collision course with the 5.6 million residents of the Houston area.

Traffic jammed highways as Texas coastal communities evacuated.

The system's strongest winds extend as far as 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the eye, up from 35 miles yesterday, the Miami- based National Hurricane Center said today. Ike's wind field is now larger than that of Katrina, the storm that devastated New Orleans in 2005, said Jeff Masters, the director of meteorology at private forecaster Weather Underground Inc.

``The total amount of energy is more powerful than Katrina, so we could be seeing a storm surge that could rival Katrina,'' Masters said. The storm is so large ``the location doesn't matter much; it is going to inundate a huge part of the Texas coast.''

Three houses away from Galveston Bay in LaPorte, Jamie and April Ybarra packed their two children, two dogs and cat into a Chevy sports utility vehicle and prepared to leave.

``I think the call for evacuation came a little late,'' Jamie Ybarra, a 32-year-old safety coordinator, said. ``You hear the roads are crowded; you hear people are losing their cool.''

This is the third time the family has evacuated in three years, April Ybarra said. And ``we may not be coming back here for awhile.''

Galveston, parts of southern Houston and areas south of the city and near the Texas coast were under a mandatory evacuation order that started at noon today. Hurricane Ike is following a track similar to the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 8,000 people, the deadliest storm in U.S. history.

Felt Before Landfall

Ike was a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 100 mph, up from 80 mph yesterday, the center said in an advisory at 4 p.m. Houston time. Its central pressure is more like that associated with a Category 3 or 4 storm, Masters said.

``It is a massive storm; it is impacting in terms of its scope 40 percent of the Gulf,'' said Michael Chertoff, U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, in a conference call from Washington. ``The most important message I can send is, do not take this storm lightly. This is not a storm to gamble with. It is large and powerful and carries a lot of water with it.''

The storm is 400 miles east-southeast of Galveston and moving west-northwest at 10 mph, with landfall south of Galveston forecast for early Sept. 13. Because of its size, Ike will be felt along the Texas coast long before its eye makes landfall.

Strengthening Likely

The center's forecasters said Ike may strengthen to at least a major hurricane with Category 3 intensity, meaning sustained winds of at least 111 mph, before landfall. Other forecasters predict Ike may become a Category 4 storm, the second-strongest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, packing winds from 131 to 155 mph.

The storm is forecast to sweep through the center of the Gulf, missing the offshore Louisiana oil and natural gas fields. The Gulf is home to about a quarter of U.S. oil production.

Even so, about 96 percent of all oil production in the Gulf has been shut in along with 73.1 percent of natural gas facilities, according to the Minerals Management Service, a bureau of the Interior Department. Some facilities have been closed since Hurricane Gustav struck Louisiana last week.

Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown facility, 17 miles east of Houston, is the country's biggest, with a capacity of 586,000 barrels a day. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which is the largest U.S. oil-import terminal and handles 13 percent of imports, said it closed marine operations because of Ike.

Chemical Plants Closed

Dow Chemical Co., the largest U.S. chemical maker, and competitors such as DuPont Co., LyondellBassell Industries and Texas Petrochemicals Inc. are closing plants in the Houston area. The Texas Gulf Coast produces two-thirds of the nation's ethylene, used in products from plastic bags to auto parts.

President George W. Bush declared an emergency for Texas, his home state, and Governor Rick Perry readied 1,350 buses to evacuate residents in preparation for Ike's landfall. As many as 7,500 Texas National Guard members are on standby.

Houston's population is 2.2 million, making it the fourth- biggest U.S. city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and its metropolitan area, with a population of 5.6 million, is the sixth-largest in the U.S.

Officials in Harris, Brazoria, Chambers, Matagorda and Galveston counties ordered about 564,063 people to leave homes that are now in Ike's path. Television news reports showed miles- long traffic jams in the area.

Governor Urges Prudence

``My message to Texans in the projected impact area is this: finish your preparations because Ike is dangerous and he's on his way,'' Perry said in a statement. ``If your local officials tell you to evacuate, follow their instructions.''

Jim Rouiller, a meteorologist with Planalytics Inc. in Wayne, Pennsylvania, said he's particularly worried about storm surge damage around Galveston Bay, on the coast southeast of Houston, which may be in the top right quadrant of the storm field where rains and winds are most powerful.

Galveston's seawall is 17 feet high and the forecast storm surge is 20 feet high.

``If that's breached, a whole refinery complex goes under water,'' Rouiller said.

Some parts of the Texas-Louisiana coast may get as much as 15 inches of rain, the hurricane center said.

Ike could inflict between $5 billion and $15 billion of insured damage depending on how much it intensifies, said Steve Smith, atmospheric physicist for the Carvill reinsurance broker.

NASA Center Closed

NASA's Johnson Space Center heeded the evacuation order, preparing to shut its 1,600-acre facility in Houston that houses Mission Control and the training ground for astronauts.

In July, Hurricane Dolly, with winds of 100 mph, struck the Texas coast at South Padre Island, about 35 miles northeast of Brownsville.

Crude oil for October delivery fell $1.68, or 1.6 percent, to $100.90 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $100.10, the lowest since April 2. Prices are up 31 percent from a year ago.

Morphed Integrated Microwave Imagery at CIMSS (MIMIC)

IKE TRACK

Eastern Pacific Atlantic

WEATHER NOTE

NOAA Historical Hurricane Tracks Web Site Helps Users Prepare for Big Storms

As the U.S. coastal population continues to grow, so do the hazards when big storms approach. Now, an on-line tool, Historical Hurricane Tracks, helps users get a quick picture of coastal areas with the greatest frequency of hurricanes and tropical storms�and that historical "snapshot" can help community members and local emergency managers develop better plans for storm preparation and recovery.

NOAA's Historical Hurricane Tracks Web site, http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/, includes data on storm strikes through 2007. Current hurricane activity can be followed at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov.

"When you know the history of hurricane landfalls in your community, you are better prepared to protect yourself from these potentially devastating storms," says Margaret Davidson, director of the NOAA Coastal Services Center. "Historical Hurricane Tracks is part of a suite of products developed by the center to help coastal residents, planners, and emergency managers prepare for�and reduce�the affects of coastal storms."

The website allows users to generate customized maps showing the path of storms that have made landfall in the United States in years past. Users can search by U.S. ZIP code, state or county, latitude and longitude, or a storm's name or year. Searches can be narrowed to specific storm categories.

Developed by NOAA's Coastal Services Center in partnership with NOAA's National Hurricane Center, the site contains more than 150 years of Atlantic hurricane data and nearly 60 years of eastern north Pacific Ocean data, which may be downloaded for use in geographic information system applications. The site also links to detailed reports on the life history and effects of U.S. tropical cyclones since 1958.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. Visit www.noaa.gov.

On the Web:

NOAA Coastal Services Center: http://www.csc.noaa.gov
NOAA National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Tornado Occurs on September 4 2008

During the afternoon hours of Thursday September 4, the remnants of what was once Hurricane Gustav continued to move northeast passing over far southern Lake Michigan during the evening hours on September 4th. Several bands of rain moved through northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana with one band eventually producing small areas of convective cells that moved through northern Jasper County Indiana.

One of these convective cells produced a tornado approximately 5 miles northwest of Wheatfield, IN near the Oak Heritage Estates. This torando caused structural damage to one mobile home, damage to multiple trees and corn fields. The damage track began southwest of the Heritage Estates near the intersection of north 450 West and Hawthorn Rd. where a 10 yard diameter wide area of corn stalks were completely flattened in a convergent manner. Damage continued northeast from there where a roof was lifted off a mobile home and thrown into the yard. Also at this residence were two large trees that were completely uprooted. These were two or four trees that were uprooted by this tornado, with many trees having branches from their tops sheared off. Also, there was other debris scattered about, including kids toys and trach bins.

The tornado was on the ground for approximately 1/4 mile wth a maximum path width of 20 yards. The maximum winds with this tornado were estimated to be around 90 mph, which is consistent with EF-1 damage on the Enhanced Fujita scale.

Tornado Location

MARITIME NOTE

Crew error blamed for grounded ship

A report has blamed crew error and management principles for the grounding of a bulk carrier in Gladstone Harbour, off central Queensland, last year.

The Endeavour River ran aground at the entrance to Auckland Channel on December 7 last year while trying to berth at South Trees Wharf on a flood tide.

The master of the ship was battling a tail wind and even with the use of two attending tugs, was unable to counteract the tidal influence.

Five days later, the ship was eventually refloated and manoeuvred to the wharf by tugs.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau report has stated bridge resource management principles were not practised by the bridge team and that no monitoring of the passage took place.

The report has also identified a number of safety issues which are being addressed by ASP Ship Management and Maritime Safety Queensland.

STAY SAFE

RS

Fewer buoys means less storm-tracking data

Fewer buoys means less storm-tracking data

As Tropical Storm Hanna menaces the Southeast, federal funding cuts mean fewer buoys and other instrument platforms are in place to track the storm’s strength and local impacts as it moves closer to shore.

Ground-zero for the reduction in marine observing assets is the nearly 250 miles of shoreline stretching from Sunset Beach to Hilton Head, S.C., – close to Hanna’s projected path, according to forecast late Wednesday from the National Hurricane Center.

Three of the program’s five buoys and all three water-level/weather stations operated by the Carolinas Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction System (Caro-COOPS) were pulled or decommissioned earlier this year because of “reductions in funding,” according to program’s Web site.

That list includes two buoys off Sunset Beach and a weather station at the end of the town’s pier.

The gap won’t keep forecasters from predicting the track and overall intensity of storms such as Hanna. But more precise information such as the magnitude of any storm surge and the heights of waves generated as it approaches or passes will be more difficult to come by.

“We get calls about it every day,” pier manager Marty Allen said of the now-departed weather station. “People want to know what happened to it or if it’s broken because they can’t find the readings.

“We even get calls from people who come down for the same week every year because they’re looking for it, wanting to known what conditions are like here before they set off from home.”

“An erosion of our funding”

So far near-shore monitoring systems in the Cape Fear Region have escaped the financial hatchet. But the disappearance of stations and buoys that monitored the near-shore ocean environment is rippling up and down the Southeast, including off the Outer Banks.

The decision to mothball some instruments and scrap others is largely due to a shift in how federal funding for the regional ocean-observation programs is doled out.

Gone are the earmarks by friendly politicians that funded most of the projects earlier this decades, replaced by a competitive grant program run by a new office in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Federal officials defend the move as a better, more focused way of spending limited financial resources to meet regional and national priorities.

Suzanne Skelley, chief of staff for the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), said centralizing the funding efforts also allows standardization of formats to make the enormous amounts of data generated by the different programs more accessible to researchers and the public.

But the result also has been a substantial cut in overall funding for the nation’s offshore observation programs.

“As this transition has occurred, the amount of money made available at this base-budget approach is not even close to keeping equal to what was provided by the earmarks,” said Rick DeVoe, director of S.C. Sea Grant and chairman of the board that represents programs stretching from Virginia through Florida. “So we have seen an erosion of our funding support during this transition period.”

According to NOAA officials, funding for the nation’s observation programs dropped from $26.3 million in 2006 – when the reduction in political earmarks was already under way – to $20.4 million this federal fiscal year.

For the 2009 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, The House has proposed $19.5 million for the IOOS program and the Senate $30 million.

The final amount will be split among 11 regional groups that monitor the waters around all U.S. states and territories ranging from Alaska and America’s Pacific Islands to the Florida Keys and New England.

The Coastal Ocean Research and Monitoring Program (CORMP) manages a series of buoys and pier stations in Southeastern North Carolina.

Based at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, CORMP received nearly $2.4 million in federal funding in 2004-05 as it expanded its programs and installed new buoys.

But this year ocean-observing programs from Virginia to Florida received a total of $3.25 million in competitive grant awards.

“We achieved pretty good coverage for a period of years, and now it looks like all of that is going to be lost,” said Harvey Seim, a marine scientist with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Lynn Leonard, a UNCW geologist, is director of CORMP. She said the program, one of the few to win federal funding this year, hasn’t had to decommission assets like many of its sister programs.

But unless something dramatic happens on the financial front, she’ll have to look at pulling some buoys or decommissioning pier stations next year.

“This year we’re treading water,” Leonard said. “But next year we’ll have to start cutting back. I don’t see any way to avoid that.”

Used by forecasters and fishermen

The buoys do more than help gauge storm impacts. The National Weather Service have found the proliferation of ocean-observing platforms useful in helping fine tune its maritime forecasts. The buoys fit in nicely between NOAA’s deep-sea buoys and shore-based monitoring stations and have helped improve rip-tide forecasting, storm tracking and storm surge modeling.

“As sparse as our marine observation platforms were, it was a big plus to have them out there,” said Steve Pfaff, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, ticking off their numerous uses, including validating and improving forecast model performance.

Surfers and fishermen also are regular users of the ocean-observing programs, many of which offer real-time weather conditions like CORMP’s buoys off Wrightsville Beach and Camp Lejeune.

“I check it all the time,” Bart Bradshaw said Tuesday on Wrightsville Beach as he prepared to head back into the surf churned up by Hanna. “It’s my marine ‘Weather Channel.’ ”

So far this year through July, the CORMP Web site had recorded nearly 2.5 million page views.

Officials locally and in Washington stressed that other agencies have monitoring instruments along the Carolina coast. Even so, they admitted, the removal of the marine platforms leaves a hole in the region’s observation coverage.

Finding ways to fill gap

Some states have stepped up to keep their observation programs going. Florida last fiscal year contributed $1.25 million to keep some systems operating.

But that was a one-time financial injection, something the cash-strapped state is unlikely to repeat.

“It’s a shame because we’re not holding the line,” said Jyotika Virmani, executive director of the Florida Coastal Ocean Observing Systems consortium. “We’re going backwards.”

Like most Southern states, North Carolina historically hasn’t provided funding for ocean research or monitoring projects. A new multi-state initiative called the South Atlantic Alliance, however, could change that.

“These are shared problems and we really should look at developing shared solutions,” said Jim Leutze, former UNCW chancellor and a proponent of the new initiative.

But whether the alliance will produce any additional state dollars for ocean monitoring is still to be determined.

In the meantime, the region’s ocean-observing programs are treading water, looking at developing new partnerships and merging with each other to keep assets afloat.

“We’ll do our best,” said CORMP’s Leonard. “But it’s getting harder and harder.”

WEATHER NOTE

Storm chaser gives lecture at NIU

By GILES BRUCE

When tornado sirens begin to sound, most people seek shelter or go to a basement. But not Paul Sirvatka - he heads straight to the storm.

“I know this tornado really well because we drove through it,” Sirvatka said while pointing at a picture of a tornado. He gave a lecture entitled “Tornadogenesis and the Nature of Tornadoes”
Friday at Davis Hall.

Besides being a professor of meteorology at College of DuPage, Sirvatka is a storm chaser. When conditions are right for a tornado, he is off on the road finding out how tornadoes come to
be.

Among his conquests is the 1990 Plainfield tornado, the only F5 tornado to ever hit the Chicago area. The storm killed 29, injured 350 and caused $165 million in damage along a 16 mile path through Plainfield, Crest Hill and Joliet, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

“It was intense,” Sirvatka said. “It was intense to be in.”

He remembered 80 to 90 mph winds at the Aurora airport and driving through DeKalb, which was battered by hail as kids ran for shelter, to I-88, where he was forced to blow the toll.

“They didn’t have I-Pass then,” he joked.

One quote summed up a major theme of the lecture.

“I don’t know why there was a tornado in the first place,” he said of the Plainfield tornado.

The theme: There are still many unknowns surrounding tornadoes. To make this point, Sirvatka began his lecture with a famous quote from Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of defense:

“[T]here are known knowns ... there are known unknowns ... there are also unknown unknowns,” Rumsfeld said at the time.

“Can we know the unknowable unknowns?” Sirvatka asked the group of about 45, consisting mainly of graduate students majoring in geography.

While pointing out that most tornado outbreaks are well-forecasted, Sirvatka criticized the “groupthink” used at many organizations, including the NWS.

“We need to be cynical about tornado reports,” he warned, which freshman meteorology major Robert Niesen heard loud and clear.

“I learned that you can’t always rely on the radar,” Niesen said, who is studying to be a weather forecaster at NWS.

Graduate biogeography major Matt Kwit was required to attend the lecture but enjoys the diversity in topics of these graduate lectures, which take place weekly, he said.

Storm chasing has really taken off in the 20 years since he started, Sirvatka said, but there is one thing he has that many of the newbies don’t: experience.

“I’ve done it so often, I can look at a storm and say, ‘This is what’s going to happen,’” he said.

NWS Media and Emerg Mgmt Workshops

Every fall the Seattle Office of the National Weather Service hosts briefings for the local news media and emergency managers.

This year's invitation provides the details and how to register. Please note that these are not open to the general public, but only professionals from the media and all levels of emergency management. I'm sure they would like to have private sector business continuity professionals also attend if you are interested.

I've attended in other years and it provides an opportunity to see what their projections are for the "wet season" here in the NW (it never ended this year in the NW), plus better understand their weather products.

IKE TRACK

Eastern Pacific Atlantic

DENVER DEM TWISTER



RS

Global Sea-Rise Levels By 2100 May Be Lower Than Some Predict

Global Sea-Rise Levels By 2100 May Be Lower Than Some Predict

Despite projections by some scientists of global seas rising by 20 feet or more by the end of this century as a result of warming, a new University of Colorado at Boulder study concludes that global sea rise of much more than 6 feet is a near physical impossibility.

Tad Pfeffer, a fellow of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and his colleagues made calculations using conservative, medium and extreme glaciological assumptions for sea rise expected from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps -- the three primary contributors to sea rise. The team concluded the most plausible scenario, when factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, will lead to a total sea level rise of roughly 3 to 6 feet by 2100.

A paper on the subject was published in the Sept. 5 issue of Science. Co-authors of the study were of the University of Montana's Joel Harper and Shad O'Neel of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and a University of Colorado Faculty Fellowship.

"We consider glaciological conditions required for large sea level rise to occur by 2100 and conclude increases of 2 meters are physically untenable," the team wrote in Science. "We find that a total sea level rise of about 2 meters by 2100 could occur under physically possible glaciological conditions but only if all variables are quickly accelerated to extremely high limits."

"The gist of the study is that very simple, physical considerations show that some of the very large predictions of sea level rise are unlikely, because there is simply no way to move the ice or the water into the ocean that fast," said Pfeffer.

The team began the study by postulating future sea level rise at about 2 meters by 2100 produced only by Greenland, said Pfeffer. Since rapid, unstable ice discharge into the ocean is restricted to Greenland glacier beds based below sea level, they identified and mapped all of the so-called outlet glacier "gates" on Greenland's perimeter -- bedrock bottlenecks most tightly constraining ice and water discharge.

"For Greenland alone to raise sea level by two meters by 2100, all of the outlet glaciers involved would need to move more than three times faster than the fastest outlet glaciers ever observed, or more than 70 times faster than they presently move," said Pfeffer. "And they would have to start moving that fast today, not 10 years from now. It is a simple argument with no fancy physics."

In Antarctica, the majority of ice entering the ocean comes from the Antarctic Peninsula and the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, said Pfeffer. Most of the marine-based ice in West Antarctica is held behind the Ross and Filcher-Ronne ice shelves, which Pfeffer's team believes are unlikely to be removed by climate or oceanographic processes during the next century. The researchers used varying glacier velocities to calculate sea-rise contribution estimates from the Antarctic Peninsula, Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers.

The team also used assessments of the world's small glacier and ice cap contributions to sea level rise calculated by a CU-Boulder team and published in Science in July 2007. That study indicated small glaciers and ice caps contribute about 60 percent of the world's ice to oceans at present, a percentage that is accelerating.

Considering all major sources of sea level rise, including Greenland, Antarctica, smaller glaciers and ice caps and the thermal expansion of water, the team's most likely estimate of roughly 3 to 6 feet by 2100 is still potentially devastating to huge areas of the world in low-lying coastal areas, said Pfeffer.

Some scientists have theorized that continuing warming trends in Greenland and Antarctica could warm the Earth by 4 degrees F over the present by 2100. The last time that happened, roughly 125,000 years ago during the last interglacial period, glacier changes raised sea level by 12 to 20 feet or more. But the time scale is poorly constrained and may have required millennia, Pfeffer said.

"In my opinion, some of the research out there calling for 20 or 30 feet of sea rise by the end of the century is not backed up by solid glaciological evidence," said Pfeffer.

Policymakers need to be able to predict sea level accurately if communities, cities and countries around the world are going to be able to plan effectively, Pfeffer said. "If we plan for 6 feet and only get 2 feet, for example, or visa versa, we could spend billions of dollars of resources solving the wrong problems."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the University of Colorado at Boulder

IKE TRACK

Eastern Pacific Atlantic

Emergency personnel offer advice on preparing for disasters

Barrow County Fire and Emergency Services have joined with the Department of Homeland Security in marking September as National Preparedness Month.

If every family in Barrow County looks at becoming better prepared, the damages and loss of life from a disaster can be reduced, according to local officials.

“Being prepared is very important in a disaster no matter how big or small,” said Lt. Scott Dakin, public information officer. “The better prepared a citizen is the more they increase their chances of surviving a disaster. It also will help in recovering from such an event.”

One way that Barrow County Fire and Emergency Services prepares for disasters is by participating with the Barrow County Emergency Management Agency (EMA).

There are two personnel that serve as officers with the EMA. Assistant chief Mark Melvin is the deputy director and Lt. Ernest Weant is the operations officer. Both personnel have taken extensive training to become certified emergency managers.

The Barrow County Emergency Management Agency is a local organization that serves to prepare and assist in the protection of life and property in the event of a natural or man made disaster. This is accomplished through the process of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation.

Another group that the department participates in is the Barrow County Citizens Corp Council.

Assistant chief Mark Melvin serves as the head of the council, and Lt. Ernest Weant and Lt. Scott Dakin also serve on the council.

The Citizen Corps Council works with the EMA and other public safety departments to establish volunteers to assist with disaster mitigation. One of the volunteer organizations that falls under the Citizens Corp is the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).

CERT is a group of trained volunteers that can assist in different ways to mitigate disasters and other ways to assist public safety. The current CERT classes will have seven different personnel from fire and emergency Services participating as instructors for the class.

One type of natural disaster that citizens of Barrow County need to prepare for is tornados. Jackson and Hall counties were recently hit by tornadoes from the effects of Tropical Storm Faye. With this in mind, it is important for citizens to be prepared and alert for tornadoes. It is also important to know the terms used by the Weather Service.

When Barrow County is under a tornado watch it means that tornadoes are possible. Citizens should watch the sky for approaching storms and monitor the radio or television for updates.

When a tornado warning is issued, it means that a tornado has been spotted or is indicated by weather radar. If Barrow County goes under a tornado warning, citizens should immediately seek shelter. It is important to have a plan in place before a tornado warning is issued.

Every family in Barrow County should have a disaster plan that includes what to do in the event of a tornado or tornado warning.

This tornado plan should include where to go for shelter in a building or if caught outside. As part of your plan, you should also include what family members should do after a tornado has occurred. You should answer questions such as how to contact each other if family members become separated, where you would stay if your home is damaged by a tornado, and many other questions.

“A family disaster plan will help in reducing the damage and stress that a disaster can place on your family,” Dakin said. “It is much better to be prepared before a disaster occurs, than to try to determine what to do when a disaster occurs.”

For more information on developing your family’s disaster plan, visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency at www.fema.gov or www.ready.gov for information about planning from the Department of Homeland Security.

RS

Warmer ocean leads to fiercer hurricanes

Warmer ocean leads to fiercer hurricanes

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Hurricanes have grown more and more powerful over the past 30 years as ocean surface temperatures - probably aided by global warming - have increased, climate scientists said today.

The trend is worldwide, the researcher said, but the evidence is strongest in the North Atlantic, which takes in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, where just days ago Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Louisiana coast, reviving memories of Katrina.

"The fact that Gustav reached Category 4 in the increasingly warm Caribbean is consistent with what we've noted as a trend over the past 30 years," James B. Elsner, leader of a hurricane research team at Florida State University, said Wednesday in an e-mail.

The one-two punch of Gustav and of Katrina, the Category 5 hurricane that devastated New Orleans just three years ago, he said, "might be a harbinger of things to come in a warmer world as the observed and modeled consequence of climate change."

The study is appearing today in the journal Nature just a day after two other published reports concluded that for the past decade temperatures throughout the Northern Hemisphere have been warmer than at any time in the past 1,300 years.

Surface temperatures both on land and sea have been rising for centuries, and when ocean surfaces heat up they provide energy that can whip the circular winds of normal storms over the ocean into full-scale hurricanes.

Using satellite measurements, Elsner and researchers at the University of Wisconsin studied the peak wind speeds of storms over the world's tropic oceans that later grew to become hurricanes.

The result, they said, was consistent with the long-held hypothesis that "as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical winds." More often now than in the past, those winds have speeded up to become hurricanes, Elsner's team has found.

The link between those hurricanes and sea surface temperatures during the past three decades was most clear in the North Atlantic, but it was less significant in other parts of the world, the scientists concluded.

In an earlier review of the links between climate change and hurricane intensity, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Elsner noted that his results "have serious implications for life and property throughout the Caribbean, Mexico and portions of the United States."

The Elsner report follows reports by Peter Webster, Judith Curry and their colleagues at Georgia Institute of Technology who, after studying the increasing intensity of hurricanes and their links to rising sea surface temperatures, concluded in a report published in Science that hurricane intensities worldwide have more than doubled since 1970.

Hurricane intensity is measured on what is called the Saffir-Simpson scale. The weakest are Category 1, in which winds reach from 74 to 95 mph, and the strongest are Category 4, with sustained winds from 131 to 155 mph, and Category 5, such as Katrina, with winds of 156 mph or more.

In the 35 years before 2004, the number of Category 1 hurricanes that reached Category 4 or 5 rose worldwide from 17 percent to 35 percent, they reported. In an e-mail Wednesday, Curry said that some 41 percent of all Category 1 hurricanes have increased to Category 4 or 5 in the past five years.

"This increase is associated with the trend of increasing sea surface temperatures associated with global warming, although the link with sea surface temperature is more complex than originally thought," Curry said.

Referring to Hurricane Gustav, Curry cautioned that "you can't attribute the intensity of any single storm to global warming."

HURRICANE IKE!

Eastern Pacific Atlantic

WEATHER NOTE

My good friend at Freaque Waves has a very interesting story that we ll need to take a look at.

Caused by a freaque set of waves

This news from the Bay of Plenty Times, the newspaper of Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand, entitled "Chopper rescues man after boat tips" by Vicki Waterhouse. Here's the essence of the story:

The skipper of a Coastguard boat nearly drowned yesterday after a rogue set of waves overturned the boat when it suddenly lost power.

And here's what happened:

Waihi Beach Coastguard spokesman Noel Haszard said the skipper was sent out to help with communication difficulties between headquarters and the crew on the beach, which was trying to recover the beacon.

The man was driving a Waihi Beach Coastguard jet boat when he saw the waves approaching.

"Four in a row hit him, the first wave hit the vessel and he went over the top of it and then ... he lost power for some reason."

"With a jet boat once you lose power you're history, so it rolled him, and it was all over from there."

The skipper managed to trigger the boat's EPERB (Emergency Personal Beacon), which he spotted in the water.

"We lost the boat but we didn't lose the skipper and that's the important thing," Mr Haszard said.

Read the rest.....




RS

UPDATE : Hurricane Ike weakens as it batters Cuba

Hurricane Ike weakens as it batters Cuba

Hurricane Ike weakened to a Category 2 storm after making landfall in northeastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported Monday.

The storm churned ashore as a dangerous Category 3 storm but forecasters said the hurricane was losing strength as it moved west across Cuba.

Ike has torn apart houses and knocked over trees along the northern coast of Cuba. More than 770,000 Cubans have been forced to leave their homes.

Forecasters said the storm hit Cuba's Holguin province at 9:45 p.m. ET Sunday and is expected to reach central Cuba later Monday and western Cuba on Tuesday.

The centre said the hurricane is dumping heavy rain on parts of Cuba and causing "large and dangerous battering waves" along the coast.

A hurricane warning was in effect on Monday for Cuba from Guantanamo province westward even though the storm is expected to weaken further.

According to BBC News on Monday, a number of homes along Cuba's northern coast have been destroyed by the storm.

Ike is expected to skirt the Florida Keys on Tuesday as it heads into the Gulf of Mexico.

A tropical storm warning was issued for the Florida Keys as of early Monday. The centre reported that the storm had maximum sustained winds close to 165 kilometres per hour at 5 a.m. ET.

Authorities are blaming Hurricane Ike for at least 58 deaths in Haiti.

The hurricane slammed into the Turks and Caicos Islands Saturday night as an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm.

It reportedly damaged about 80 per cent of homes on Grand Turk, the main island in the Turks and Caicos, said Premier Michael Misick.

Authorities are warning residents who live along the Gulf from Florida to Mexico to monitor Ike's progress.

LATEST TRACK

Click to zoom in – GIS Users click here

Click image to zoom in – GIS Users click here






























RS

Hurricane Ike heads for Cuba

Hurricane Ike heads for Cuba

HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike killed at least 37 people in Haiti and ripped off rooftops in the southern Bahamas on Sunday as Cuba scrambled to get hundreds of thousands out of the path of a storm headed toward the U.S. Gulf oil patch and possibly New Orleans.

Despite weakening slightly, Ike was still a dangerous Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph (195 kph) winds and a possible 12-foot (3.6-metre) storm surge.

It bore down on Cuba's coast after dumping more heavy rain on Haiti and raging through Britain's Turks and Caicos, and Great Inagua, the Bahamas' southernmost island.

"This one is quite severe," said Inagua resident Shanie Roker. "There is a lot of wind and rain. Roofs in Matthew Town are being damaged and trees are coming down."

Residents of the Florida Keys, a 110-mile (177-km) island chain connected by bridges with only one road out, were told to evacuate as a precaution.

Ike could follow a path similar to Hurricane Gustav through the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana and Texas. It may threaten New Orleans, the city swamped by Hurricane Katrina three years ago, and the Gulf energy rigs that account for a quarter of U.S. oil output and 15 percent of natural gas output.

The hurricane rained new misery on Haiti. Authorities said at least 37 people, including 13 children, were killed by floods triggered by Ike in Cabaret, a town north of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

"The whole village is flooded," civil protection official Moise Jean-Pierre said. "The death toll could go higher."

Flooding from Tropical Storm Hanna last week was believed to have killed at least 500 people around the port city of Gonaives.

On Sunday, rain from Ike was causing the La Quinte river to rise again and floodwaters were seeping back into Gonaives, Mayor Stephen Moise said. All of the bridges linking the city to the rest of the country had collapsed.

"Gonaives is really a devastated and isolated city," he said. "We cannot bear another hurricane."

PATH ACROSS CUBA

In the neighbouring Dominican Republic, a 60-year-old man was killed by a falling palm tree and some 41,000 people were driven from their homes by rain and gusty winds.

Many of Cuba's 11 million people could be affected by Ike, which was expected to hit land north of Guantanamo Bay -- home to the controversial U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects -- and spend nearly two days over the long, narrow island.

By 5 p.m. EDT (10:00 p.m. British time), the centre of Ike was 75 miles (120 km) north-northeast of Guantanamo.

Authorities used buses, trucks and other transportation to move thousands of tourists inland from Cuba's prime resorts along the northern coast. Ranchers herded cattle in grazing areas of eastern Las Tunas and Camaguey to higher ground.

Ike was set to come ashore in Holguin, home of the nickel industry, Cuba's most important export, then move westward over the heart of the sugar industry. Holguin's mines and three processing plants in the mountains were shut down.

Holguin and neighbouring provinces have not been hit by a storm of Ike's power in more than 50 years.

"I've never seen a hurricane pass over this city and I'm terribly frightened," university student Yaneisy Betancourt said by telephone from the port city of Nuevitas.

The storm hit the eastern islands of the Turks and Caicos as a Category 4 storm with 135 mph (215 kph) winds, damaging 80 percent of the houses on Grand Turk, home to about 2,500 of the islands' 22,000 residents, government spokesman Courtney Robinson said.

"There's a lot of flooding. Power lines are down. Communications lines are out," he said.

In the Florida Keys, a steady stream of traffic moved along the Overseas Highway as some people evacuated even though Ike was expected to pass at least 100 miles (160 km) to the south.

Ike was forecast to curve into the Gulf in the wake of Gustav, which went ashore just west of New Orleans last week, sparing the city traumatized by Katrina in 2005.

Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused about $80 billion damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Ike's most likely track had it aimed at the Texas-Louisiana border. But long-range forecasts have a large margin of error and any deviation could take it toward New Orleans.

Forecasters expected Ike to weaken to a Category 1 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale over Cuba but to regain Category 3 strength as it nears the U.S. Gulf coast.

Oil companies had begun returning workers to the offshore platforms that were evacuated before Gustav hit but began preparing for the arrival of Ike.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince, Michael Haskins in Key West, John Marquis in Nassau and Manuel Jimenez in the Dominican Republic; Writing by Jim Loney; Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan.

Ike Dangerous Hurricane; Hanna Extratropical

James Wilson & Mark Avery, Meteorologists, The Weather Channel

5:29 a.m. ET 9/7/2008

Category 4 Hurricane Ike (135 mph) is a potentially deadly hurricane. It is slamming the southern Bahamas.

Tropical Storm Hanna has traveled from Myrtle Beach to Boston producing locally flooding rains and occasionally damaging tropical storm-force winds during its trek up the East Coast. Hanna has now lost tropical characteristics, and the National Hurricane Center has issued its last advisory on Hanna.

Map of current winds and gusts.

Watch the latest hurricane forecast.

Hurricane Ike

Northerly shear and some slight dry air entrainment enabled Ike to weaken just a touch on Saturday morning. Maximum sustained winds near the center lowered to 110 mph early Saturday, but reintensified quickly by Saturday afternoon and evening. Maximum sustained winds are back up to 135 mph; a dangerous Category 4 hurricane.

As of 5 a.m. ET, Ike was located about 65 miles east of Great Inagua Island.

View the Ike Tracker here.

Hurricane Ike is currently moving just south of due west at 15 mph. Ike is now moving away from the Turks and Caicos Islands and towards Great Inagua Island with powerful winds and waves and eventually all of the southeastern Bahamas this morning.

Residents and tourists should have already taken the necessary precautions to protect life and property and prepare for the arrival of what will likely be a life-threatening Category 4 hurricane.

You can view the projected path here.

Hurricane warnings are posted for the central and southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, as well as eastern Cuba, while a hurricane watch is posted for central Cuba (the provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, and Sancti Spiritus) and Andros Island in the Bahamas. A tropical storm warning is in place for the the northern coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

After passing through the Bahamas, the next landmasses in front of Ike will be Cuba and possibly the Florida Keys.

Some of the latest model track guidance points to a potential path that would take Ike across Cuba, on a east to west track. Although this is not a good outcome for Cuba, it would be a positive outcome for south Florida and the Florida Keys. The center of Ike would stay south of Florida and the interaction with Cuba would allow Ike to weaken significantly.

Still, there is another possibility that Ike will scrape the northern Cuba coast and move through the Florida Straits; keeping most of its strength.

Residents and tourists alike should pay close attention to the progress and forecast track of Ike. This is a very dangerous and potentially deadly hurricane and bears close watching.

After its passage near Cuba and the Florida Straits, Ike is then forecast to turn into the central or eastern Gulf of Mexico. Interests along the Gulf Coast should pay close attention to Ike's projected path.

Tropical Storm Hanna

At around 3:15 a.m. EDT Saturday morning, Hanna made landfall near the South Carolina/North Carolina border producing tropical storm-force winds gusts (occasional hurricane force) with some locations experiencing sustained tropical storm-force winds.

Here is a short list of some notable gusts:
Kure Beach, NC: 77 mph
Wrightsville Beach, NC: 72 mph
Annapolis, MD: 54 mph
North Myrtle Beach, SC: 53 mph
Wilmington, NC: 54 mph
North Wildwood, NJ: 51 mph
Carolina Beach, NC: 50 mph

After making landfall, Tropical Storm Hanna moved up the East Coast and has now moved off the New England Coast and lost its tropical characteristics.

Hanna's top maximum winds are at 50 miles per hour.

View the Hanna Tracker.

Hanna continues to motor to the northeast at about 33 mph. It has spread heavy rain and windy conditions throughout portions of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. D.C., Philadelphia, and New York have all experienced fairly heavy rain from the midday hours and through the afternoon and early evening on Sunday. Many rainfall amounts over 5 inches have been reported, with a few over 8 inches. There have been numerous reports of local street/highway, urban, apartment, residential flooding in Hanna's wake along the East Coast.

Here's a look at the rolling 24-hour rain totals due to Hanna.

For the latest updates stay tuned to The Weather Channel and click on weather.com.

LATEST TRACK

Mariners' 1-2-3 Rule

Click image to zoom in

5th ANNUAL NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH WASHINGTON -

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced today that more than 1,200 national, regional, state and local businesses and organizations have pledged their support and joined the 2008 National Preparedness Month Coalition. Sponsored by the department's Ready Campaign, National Preparedness Month helps to raise awareness and promote action by Americans, businesses, and communities on emergency preparedness.

"As we approach our fifth National Preparedness Month, I want to thank the hundreds of coalition members who are making a difference in their communities by helping raise the basic level of preparedness in our country," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
"Individual preparedness is the cornerstone of emergency preparedness. Experience shows that if Americans take steps ahead of time, they stand a much better chance of coming through an emergency unharmed and recovering more quickly."

The Ready Campaign and Citizen Corps (www.citizencorps.gov) are specifically encouraging individuals across the nation to take important preparedness steps. These steps include: getting an emergency supply kit, making a family emergency plan, being informed about the different emergencies that may affect them, as well as taking the necessary steps to get trained and become engaged in community preparedness and response efforts.

National Preparedness Month Coalition members have agreed to distribute emergency preparedness information and sponsor activities across the country that will promote emergency preparedness. Membership is open to all public and private sector organizations. Groups and individuals can register to become members by visiting www.ready.gov, and clicking on the National Preparedness Month banner.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman and Ranking Member Susan M. Collins, along with House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson and Ranking Member Peter T. King, will serve as honorary Congressional Co- Chairs of National Preparedness Month 2008. Together, they will lead
the effort to increase public awareness about the importance of emergency preparedness on Capitol Hill and throughout the country.

For more information on the Ready Campaign and National Preparedness Month, please visit www.ready.gov or www.listo.gov. Information is also available by phone at 1-800-BE-READY or 1-888-SE-LISTO.

February 2008 marked the Ready Campaign's fifth year at the Department of Homeland Security. Launched in 2003 in partnership with The Advertising Council, Ready is designed to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to emergencies, including natural disasters and potential terrorist attacks. It has proven to be one of the most successful campaigns in Ad Council's more than 65- year history. Since its launch, the campaign has generated more than $703.2 million in donated media support. Individuals interested in
more information about family, business and community preparedness can visit www.ready.gov or call 1-800-BE-READY to receive free materials.

Linking up with the Ready.gov people and participating in September's National Preparedness Month, is an easy win. The federal people are already doing all the hard work. All you really have to do is sign up. Most clubs and ARES groups are already doing activities which fit into their structure, so why not get credit for your actions? Of course if you do something more with this opportunity, so much the better! But you have to sign your group in and no one can do that for you. There are hundreds of ARES groups and clubs in the country.

Wouldn't it be fun to have even 70% of them sign up and get noticed? Go to www.ready.gov, and click on the National Preparedness Month banner.


RS