Hurricane Forecasters Worry About Protecting Growing Coastal Populations
Forecasters preparing for Thursday's opening of the Atlantic hurricane season wish they could predict the arrival of new technological help they say may be crucial to ever-growing coastal populations. The Air Force has agreed to fly hurricane reconnaissance flights for two more years, but has made it clear it plans to phase out the missions. And only one satellite is available for tracking hurricanes. ``We just have nothing right now to lean on,'' says Ken McKinnon, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Lewis of North Palm Beach, Fla., who has introduced a bill in Congress to keep hurricane hunters flying at least another five years. ``We've got one satellite and they're telling us it'll do the job. If it blinks, how do you track weather?'' The Air Force doesn't want to be involved. ``We have in the last few years examined our need for manned weather reconnaissance and feel there's no real compelling military reason,'' said spokesman Lt. Col. Darrell Hayes. ``We're not disputing that the hurricane center and the weather service need the data. We're just saying there may be more appropriate agencies to provide the information,'' he said, adding that the service had approached the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about taking over the flights. Besides the flights, forecasters depend on radar and satellite data. The single working weather satellite wasn't intended to be alone. A second satellite failed, and a replacement for the failed craft was blown up in a mishap on the launch pad, forcing forecasters to make do. There are new satellites on the horizon, says Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center. But they've been due for a long time and aren't expected before late 1990. ``It is a major concern for us,'' Sheets said. Forecasters also are worried about a shift in the pattern of hurricane activity in recent years. Since 1985, Sheets said, there seem to be more hurricanes and they're more likely to hit the United States. ``We may be in an upswing,'' he said, ``possibly back to the pattern of the '40s, '50s and '60s when we had a tremendous number of landfall hurricanes.'' Max Mayfield, hurricane specialist at the National Weather Service in Miami, said experts don't known enough yet about hurricanes to tell if this is just a peak in activity, or a return to the 50s and 60s. ``Now we can see past the Antilles out into the Atlantic, and over toward Hawaii on the west,'' said forecaster Hal Gerrish. ``We'd like to be able to see all the way to Africa,'' which is where Atlantic hurricanes develop, he said. The need for improved tracking systems is important because more and more people are moving to coastal locations likely to be affected by storms. ``I spoke to about 5,000 people on the west coast of Florida,'' Sheets said. ``Ninety-plus percent of them were from the Midwest or Northeast and had just come to Florida. They really have very little concept of what a hurricane is.'' During the average Atlantic hurricane season, which stretches from June through the end of November, six tropical storms will grow into hurricanes, with heavy rains and winds of 74 mph. Donna, in 1960, struck the Florida Keys at Marathon, then raked across Naples and Fort Myers before weakening inland. Last season, 505 people died in Atlantic hurricanes, including Gilbert and Joan. Gilbert killed more than 300 people and did heavy damage in Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic as it blasted across the the western Caribbean and part of the Gulf of Mexico _ including the Florida Keys, the Florida Straits and Cuba. Joan hovered off the coast of Central America for days before howling in with top winds of 135 mph. The storm caused mudslides, floods and other damage in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia and Panama.
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