The Y2k lesson from Mitch

The destruction in Honduras (pop. 9M) and other Caribbean areas due to hurricane Mitch is considered 'the worst disaster in this hemisphere.' The casualties are over 10,000 and the minister of Honduras says 60% of the infrastructure has been destroyed. Video clips are given of ruined bridges, roads, phone poles, buildings, and other massive earth, wind, fire, and water damage. He also says they are set back by 50 years.

This type of physical damage is significantly different than Y2k-problem generated damage. It is a more direct hit. It is the difference between someone teasing you and someone smashing you against concrete and steel.

The y2k problem can also generate physical damage, but via a different route, not directly. The software problem is expected to impair the operation of the utilities such as electricity, phone, water, gas, as well as transportation and shipping. The impaired utility and commerce leads to economic downturn, financial ruin, and failure of the monetary system. This state of system failures does not necessarily lead to social chaos, anarchy and raging crime (although the Russian mafia problem is a counter-example). The mass media tend to have a field day with disaster stories, and can serve to help people get through their emotional reactions to crisis. The human part of the y2k problem has always been the primary concern, with the practical consequences of the lack of resources a close second.

However, Y2k is not going to generate the kind of wholesale mass destruction of people and infrastructure experienced from Mitch. Y2k may ruin bank accounts and convenience levels, but it is not going to tear out the bridges and wires. This type of physical damage, with the infrastructure physically down by 60%, will be more expensive and time-consuming to replace or correct than faulty software logic.

As a man-made problem, y2k is nowhere near as devastating as the earth forces (presupposing the nuclear systems are safe from y2k).

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 06, 1998

Answers

Great!!! Someone else has finally seen the light!!! There is a real and basic difference between Y2K and the type of destruction experienced in war or natural disaster - and Y2K is inherently much less damaging!!!

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), November 06, 1998.

I think electricity is the key. If we have widespread and lengthy power-outages, then we may see physical damage caused by social unrest.

-- Buddy Y. (DC) (buddy@bellatlantic.net), November 06, 1998.

Although the PHYSICAL damage will obviously less with Y2K, the totality of Y2K impact will be potentially just as effectively damaging. In fact, it may actually be WORSE, because the Honduras disaster, bad as it is, is LOCALIZED, and the rest of the world can help its recovery. With Y2K, the impact will be GLOBAL and all pervasive.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), November 06, 1998.

Paul,

>There is a real and basic difference between Y2K and the type of destruction experienced in war or natural disaster

Yes, there are _several_ differences ...

> - and Y2K is inherently much less damaging!!!

in a _direct physical_ sense.

But what about the OTHER differences, Paul???

>Someone else has finally seen the light!!!

Paul and Jon, do you see the light in regard to the _other_ dimensions of Y2K damage ???

A hurricane won't scramble your IRS records, but Y2K might. A tornado in Texas won't turn out the lights in Montana, but Y2K might.

When there was a big ice storm in NE U.S. and Quebec last winter, it took weeks to restore electricity to everyone affected ...

_with the assistance of a lot of aid from unaffected areas_.

Y2K can affect a _much_ greater percentage of the population than any hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or blizzard can.

Quit hiding your heads in the sand.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), November 06, 1998.

Jon,

With a hurricane, one can see the damage right afterwards and know what needs fixing.

With Y2K, much of the damage could be invisible to the usual human inspection. Data scrambling may not be evident until months or years after the damage has begun.

Y2K is a DIFFERENT type of disaster, NOT a LESSER one.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), November 06, 1998.

No Spam, the other dimensions you give are government tax records and electricity. There are many other more important dimensions, including political, economic, infrastructure, health, and civil.

I would prefer to go through an economic setback (such as bank failure) than have property damage, and I would take the property damage over injury or illness. Natural disaster incidents as well as the longer term serious ecological problems of the world include all three. In the long run, the ruination of the Earth's ecology over the last 100 years or so of industrialization looks like a more menacing threat than the y2k bug ruining the global economy (and let's face it: what everybody wants is a comfortable life).

Every y2k-related problem incident, by definition, traces back to a logic error. The problems can be divided into the computer problem and the people problem. Most of the y2k problems are in economics and the energy-communication-transportation infrastructure..The people problem is much more threatening, but it depends on how people treat each other in times of stress. The biggest part of the y2k problem is human relations factor, and yes it could trigger crime, violence, terrorism, and chaos. This is the same problem that has been the rate- limiting factor in development of civilization. The human problem will be assisted with the media programming.

p.s. no sand around here, but on that subject I would avoid the coastline and desert altogether.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 06, 1998.

"Paul and Jon, do you see the light in regard to the _other_ dimensions of Y2K damage ???

A hurricane won't scramble your IRS records, but Y2K might."

Then you keep records of your finances which you should anyway. The IRS knows this is coming, you know it's coming, then you are both aware and that is a trivial thing compared to what else could happen.

"A tornado in Texas won't turn out the lights in Montana, but Y2K might."

Let's stress that word "MIGHT". Again, the utilites are fully aware this is coming and they are working on it. We have had quite a bit of warning, and yes tehy got started late, but they are actively working on it. How much warning did Honduras have? A day or two?

"When there was a big ice storm in NE U.S. and Quebec last winter, it took weeks to restore electricity to everyone affected ... _with the assistance of a lot of aid from unaffected areas_. "

There is a big difference between physical line work and some code that may be broken. The chi[p problems will be rough, but compared to code, the lines are a nightmare.

"Y2K can affect a _much_ greater percentage of the population than any hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or blizzard can. Quit hiding your heads in the sand. "

Oh I guess I missed the part where they said there said there would be no affects from Y2K.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), November 06, 1998.

Jon,

My apologies for erring in addressing part of a preceding message to Paul and you jointly. What I wrote there was not applicable to your message.

>There are many other more important dimensions,

Yes, I agree. My statements did not exclude them. I was pointing out ways in which Y2K can damage more than a natural disaster can.

>I would prefer to go through an economic setback (such as bank failure) than have property damage,

Property damage and economic damage are each capable of being more serious than the other, depending on specifics. I know someone who lost a five-bedroom house in a nice suburban setting because of economic setback. For him, it's just as gone as if a hurricane had taken it.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), November 06, 1998.

Rick,

First, note my preceding correction: I was mistaken in addressing my "Paul and Jon" comments to both of them.

>There is a big difference between physical line work and some code that may be broken. The chi[p problems will be rough, but compared to code, the lines are a nightmare.

Fixing the code first requires knowing that there is a problem to fix. This is sometimes a lot less obvious than a broken electric wire. Compared to finding a downed power line, detecting and diagnosing a code problem can be a nightmare, time- and expense-wise.

>Oh I guess I missed the part where they said there said there would be no affects from Y2K.

Did you miss the part where Jon wrote "y2k is nowhere near as devastating as the earth forces", or the part where Paul wrote "Y2K is inherently much less damaging!!!"

Those are the core of what I disagree with -- the idea that Y2K damage will definitely be less than that of natural disasters. Belief in this idea will lead to underestimation of the Y2K threat and underpreparation for it.

Can we agree that Y2K and natural disasters are different, but Y2K is not the inferior in terms of potential damage, considering that we have lots of experience in handling natural disasters and have developed extensive networks of resources to deal with them, but this is our first time through the Y2K disaster, so we are likely not to handle its problems as effectively and efficiently as those of natural disasters?

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), November 06, 1998.

Whether Y2K is more devastating than earth forces all boils down to one question,

"Are the core infrastructures irrepairable?"

IF they are irrepairable, then the current concentrations of population cannot be sustained, and there will be mass dislocations, hunger, famine, etc.

The hardcore doomers seem to think the infrastructure cannot be fixed. Why?

-- Donna Mittelstedt (dmittels@csuhayward.edu), November 06, 1998.

Spam, I think you can see we were posting at the same time so that part was just confusion:)

"Did you miss the part where Jon wrote "y2k is nowhere near as devastating as the earth forces", or the part where Paul wrote "Y2K is inherently much less damaging!!!"

No I sure didn't

"Those are the core of what I disagree with -- the idea that Y2K damage will definitely be less than that of natural disasters. Belief in this idea will lead to underestimation of the Y2K threat and underpreparation for it."

From tha point of view I can see your point and agree if you think it will make people under appreciate the magnitude. I still don't think Paul has his head int he sand though.

"Can we agree that Y2K and natural disasters are different, but Y2K is not the inferior in terms of potential damage, considering that we have lots of experience in handling natural disasters and have developed extensive networks of resources to deal with them, but this is our first time through the Y2K disaster, so we are likely not to handle its problems as effectively and efficiently as those of natural disasters? " Yes, we can agree on that:)

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), November 06, 1998.

"A hurricane won't scramble your IRS records, but Y2K might."

Wow! Do you really think??? If it does, can we all meet outside IRS headquarters and sing 'Ding Dong the witch is dead'?

Since Steve Forbes probably won't be elected president, maybe Y2K will take care of the IRS for us.

I guess, some damage may not be so bad afterall. I know, I know . . . they'll just pull out a back-up of their files and keep going, but let me dream a little first.

Hey, I just thought of something. Do you suppose that some cyperhacks could be planning a little sabotage and use Y2K as a cover? Just think, entire mortgage loan portfolios, IRS records, credit card balances, erased and the easy scapegoat of Y2K to frame for it. Probably not possible, but it crossed my mind.

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), November 06, 1998.

Your gub'mint is very worried about that very possibility, and I think with good reason.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), November 06, 1998.

>Can we agree that Y2K and natural disasters are different... [yes]

This was the main point of the posted discussion topic. It is instructive to consider the differences in the damage, as well as how the damage takes place and how it is remediated. The qualitative differences are analogous to having some wires crossed vs. having a sledgehammer come down and smash the hardware into a pile of twisted rubbish, like the difference between the car not starting and the car getting washed into a ravine and exploding. It's also like the difference between a virus or cancer and a physical injury. Damage from the elements is inflicted physically, the y2k problem is systemic, insidious, occult, and difficult to assess or predict. Cancer is sometimes likened to a time bomb, since it takes years to manifest in clinical symptoms, and some viruses operate this way as well. The y2k problems do not happen all at once at the millenium rollover, they are spread out over at least the next two years, with most of them in 1/2000. Not all systems will fail, and few if any failures are permanent, but there is obviously a justifiable concern about the wheels of technology slowing down and/or grinding to a halt for an unknown period of time.

>[Can we agree that] Y2K is not the inferior in terms of potential damage... [no]

I'm not convinced. Natural disasters create major setbacks. Yes, storms and fires are localized and unaffected areas can lend assistance. But there are many other ecological disasters that have been many years in the making, are just as (or more) difficult to assess, and are even more insidious and destructive. They can also be much harder to solve and lead to a much higher body count than y2k. To a large extent, technology (with special reference to the petrochemical industry) has been developed at the expense of the well- being of earth and the biosphere occupying it. The biosphere, including just about every person is contaminated with lead and other heavy metals that do not leave the body easily (known as the 'heavy metal miasma'). There are areas and people contaminated with radiation poisoning (the 'radiation miasma'), both by nuclear accidents and nuclear medicine, and as mentioned, the 'petrochemical miasm' has been 100 years in the making, with carcinogens based on the aromatic benzene rings found on just about every grocery store shelf. Let's not forget the huge and rapidly expanding ozone holes, the greenhouse effect from hydrocarbon emissions and other pollutants, the groundwater contamination, and the daily man-made destruction of the rainforest, which is being cut down to grow animals so people can eat drug-laced cow and chicken cadaver sections, while other people make money advertising and selling mickey-d's in South America.

As if the abuse of the Earth were not bad enough, much worse is how people abuse, murder, and rob other people every day. Man's inhumanity to man is more insidious and epidemic than y2k will ever be. We have a 2000 year history of wars fought mostly over belief differences and boundary conflicts, with similar behavior taking place for countless millennia prior to this. It is the same short- sighted, selfish, and ignorant behavior of the profit-minded, egocentric, and inconsiderate humans inflicting violence on each other from way before recorded history that has more recently (in a cosmic eye-blink) been inflicted on Earth. We have been fouling our nest since before anyone remembers, and with the last century of technology, the fouling has been done with power tools.

The origin of the y2k problem can also be traced to the same human shortcomings (along with laziness and irrationality), as can the bigger fears of social chaos and people robbing and shooting each other if there is not enough food (the 'human' part of the y2k problem). It's well-known that this component exceeds the hardware component in terms of damage potential. But this damage potential derives not from the number scale transition per se, or even the programming errors, but from the apparent and forecasted lack of consciousness (ethics and civility) among many members of humanity as they have their technology-supported comfort level taken away. Fear, and the response it may lead to, is the source of most of the forecasted adverse effect of the y2k problem.

We do not need to repeat the errors of the past. This time we have the internet and other media to use in broadcasting enlightened knowledge and attitudes and for preparing people on earth for a cooperative approach to living together in harmony. If you have a problem with these words or feel inclined towards ridicule, then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 06, 1998.

Jon, go team go!

Not to minimize the Mitch aftermath, but my little ole mother was asking me "Would the devastation there, from the water and mudslides, etc. have been any different if they hadn't cut down so many trees?" I couldnt answer her.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 07, 1998.

Lesson learned from Mitch (Here in FL) Just when you think you dont have to worry about it...

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), November 07, 1998.

EVENTUALLY, If the entire system goes down on Jan 1, 2000 the computer problems could have been fixed, but recovery will have required the very social stability that the problem itself precluded. Thus those who speak about recovery have not examined the problem in its context of societal upheaval and have placed their confidence in a microanalysis and repair of the trigger (Y2K) while disregarding its effect. It is probably a deliberatly myopic hope. Such a course is like a man lost in a forest who decides to start chopping down trees in order to find his way out.

-- Ann Fisher (zyax55b@prodigy.com), November 07, 1998.

Ann, your answer raises further questions, perhaps you could elaborate.

1. 'the entire system goes down...' What exactly are you referring to with 'the entire system', and 'goes down' meaning what and for how long? Let's be precise.

2. 'recovery will have required the very social stability that the problem itself precluded...' What is meant by 'recovery'? If you mean post-y2k remediation, you can assume it will go on. Most codeheads don't need a big social life, so how does 'social stability' relate to data processing staff showing up at work. What is the exact chain of events that you imagine where the y2k problem is precluding social stability, the lack of which precluding 'recovery'?

3. 'those who speak about recovery have not examined the problem in its context of societal upheaval...' This is a very broad statement...you are asserting that anyone who discusses 'recovery' (post-y2k remediation?) has not considered the 'people' part of the y2k effect. I have to question 1. If you read the original post, 2. where you get this idea, and/or 3. who you are in discussion with that leads to such an inference. And what is this 'upheaval' referring to.

4. 'like a man lost in a forest who decides to start chopping down trees in order to find his way out' I've never heard of this metaphor and do not understand 1. what does the forest represent, 2. what do the trees represent, 3. what does the state of being lost represent, and 4. how does cutting trees down help to find a way out?

I don't mean to shred your response with microanalysis, but vague and sweeping assertions need to be looked at very critically and refined into a more precise statement. In the process you might end up with a better understanding of the situation. Are you saying that the y2k problem is hopeless and nobody in their right mind should even 'speak' about repair/recovery? This is a very poor and self-defeating attitude and serves no purpose. Best wishes for you to find your way out of the fog of gloom.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 07, 1998.

Ann, I think I understand what you were trying to say. It reminded me of an article I read back in the summer. I will print it here:

Routine that became a meltdown

By SUE ASHTON DAVIES

30jun98

A ROUTINE Friday afternoon batch job turned into disaster when a computer meltdown brought a manufacturing system to its knees.

The computer room was humming, and all systems were go for one of Australia's largest manufacturers.

Then Jeff Steel, project manager of Infact Consultants, reset the system clock to January 7, 2000, and waited to see what would happen.

The routine batch job, which involved 800 custom-built Cobol and PL-1 programs in a manufacturing mainframe environment, was expected to take six hours to run.

Close by, a terminal in the control room was set up to track the programs as they went through the batch run.

Although he anticipated some problems, Steel was not prepared for anything coming out of left field.

His team of 12 programmers had worked methodically for nine months, manually sifting through millions of lines of code, rectifying the double digit issue to take account of the year 2000.

Great care had been taken to keep the crew motivated and focused on the their tasks to ensure time was spent productively and any reworking was kept to a minimum.

At worst, he expected to make some specific changes that could be easily spotted.

Operations had hardly begun before the first programs started to run slowly.

By the time the sixth program started, the system began to falter. Then, one after another, programs fell over.

By the time the 10th program failed, Steel decided to let the job run to the end, because in all likelihood, it would be all over in half an hour anyway.

Within minutes, 750 programs had fallen over. One of the few programs to continue running was invoicing, but it was producing invoices for the 43rd day of the 14th month.

As the job finally ground to a halt, a silence hung over the room as everyone stared vacantly into the terminal.

Steel stood frozen to the floor in shock, as did his team, which had been contracted to fulfil a $3 million contract.

Twelve people stared at the terminal where a complete suite of programs had died instantly.

Fortunately the meltdown had taken place in a test environment.

The search was now on to diagnose the problem. One of the team tracked down the problem to an obscure mainframe program.

The culprit was a non-Y2K compliant link editor on a PL1 program that last ran in 1987.

A link editor takes different modules of a program and puts them together in the right place at the right time.

With the problem identified and a Y2K compliant link editor installed, the 30 programs were rerun and the problem was solved.

Steel says the use of the test environment saved the company from bankruptcy.

"The consequences in a live environment would have been devastating," he says. As well as bringing the business to a standstill, it would have rendered it unable to operate for six months  and possibly taken suppliers and customers down with it.

Situations like this are typical of what's happening and testify to the truth of rumours about large companies not yet meeting Y2K compliancy requirements, Steel says.

The post-mortem meeting found that the collective time required to diagnose such an obscure problem in a live environment would been about a month, and a fix would have taken six months.

"The problem was so unusual, you wouldn't have known if it was hardware, software or system utilities," Steel says. "The horrible thing about it was that it was such an obscure component that nobody even thought that it could fail."

Even with hindsight, the problem could never have been spotted before testing because it was too obscure.

"In nine months of remediation, no-one had ever got near this problem," he says.

Steel says the meltdown was so catastrophic that even a contingency plan wouldn't have saved the day.

The only way to find the Y2K bugs in a system is to manually trawl the program code line by line to find the date fields, some of which are very obscure, he says.

One area for dates was embedded deep in a job control language, where a sort of 30 characters revealed six characters making up a date.

Even though the testing is complete, Steel cannot say definitely that the system is now 100 per cent Y2K compliant.

As part of the strategy to protect himself and the company from any legal recourse, he operated with an auditor looking over his shoulder at every stage concurring that the way he was progressing was the best available method.

"All I can say to the client is that I can't guarantee that there will not be any problems after the year 2000," he says.

Steel says most organisations don't understand Y2K.

"Until something like this happens, they don't understand what Y2K can do to them," he says.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/extras/007/4051126.htm

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), November 07, 1998.

Gayla, good report! Thank you for posting, this one is a keeper. Looks like more evidence companies will go belly-up in 1/2000, and thereabouts. The economy is going to be in rough shape prior to that anyway as I've speculated in another discussion The Impact of Y2k. But I still think that life will go on, and technical problems (many but not all) will be solved. The world is not ending.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 07, 1998.

Rick,

OK.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), November 07, 1998.

Analogy: y2k is to a hurricane as a neutron bomb is to a groundburst. There's still lots of damage, but the roads, bridges, buldings etc. are still there.

nemo...

-- nemo (nemo@deepsix.com), November 07, 1998.

And now for another side of the story....

Conspiracy theory from The Rumor Mill News:
Mitch as a deliberate man-made tactic for global depopulation.

"The Great Dying"

Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 12 Num. 48
("Quid coniuratio est?")
"Ru Mills": The "Great Dying" Begins In Central America?
ftp://ftp.shout.net/pub/users/bigred/vol12/cn12-48

"Ru Mills" (pseudonym) indicates that long-planned global depopulation efforts for Central and South America may be being implemented. Means to be used by global planners and masters: bacteriological genocide masked behind massive floods. Floods mask Genocide

From:
Hot Off The Presses - Latest Issues Of Conspiracy Nation
http://www.shout.net/~big red/cn0.html

p.s. I'm tossing this out here for entertainment and imagination- stretching purposes. While deferring judgment on its validity, I do know that many groups have been trying to manipulate weather for both positive and negative purposes for decades, and maybe now they are getting the hang of it. Maybe this one was supposed to erase Cuba and it overshot.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 10, 1998.

Excerpts of this book from: http://www.nodoom.com/

No Such Thing as Doomsday
How to prepare for Y2K, Earth Changes, Terrorism, War, and Other Threats

By Philip L. Hoag
http://www.nodoom.com/aboutauthor.html

"This book is a must for all serious survival-minded people."
-- Scott Stoddard, American Survival Guide

Chapter 5
Weather Modification

Weather modification technology is in use today by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Both the U.S. and Soviet projects involve the manipulation of the ionosphere and the alteration of the earth's magnetic fields. This technology seems to have both localized and global capabilities. Evidence indicates that this technology also has the capability of manipulating human behavior and mood patterns.

Other Subjects Covered in this Chapter

• Nikola Tesla
• Western Power Elite's Interest in Weather Modification
• Joint Soviet-U.S. Weather Modification Projects
• Soviet Woodpecker System
• Long-term Weather Blocking
• GWEN
• Tesla-Scalar Electromagnetic Weapons
• H.A.R.P.

Chapter 6
Earth Changes

Beyond the threat of man-made disaster is the concern about large scale natural disasters or cataclysm. The recent buzzword for this category of threat is called earth changes. The concept of earth changes is a threat which is difficult to support in the parameters of modern logic, but when consideration is based on the full spectrum of earth's geological history, radical changes have been and will continue to be an inevitable part of life on this planet. Many of the earth-change scenarios seem to suggest radical conditions on the surface of the earth for a period of time. These conditions include dangers in coastal areas, unusual temperatures, severe earthquakes, volcanic ash and extreme surface winds. The impact of such earth change activity could possibly be a 2/3 to 3/4 reduction of earth's population.

Other Subjects Covered in this Chapter

• Cataclysm
• Apocalypse
• Cosmic Events
• Asteroids
• Earthquakes
• Earthquake Threat in California
• Pole Shift
• Three Days Darkness

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 12, 1998.

I saw a human interest news report from Hurricane Mitch, that will stay with me the rest of my life. A missionary couple living down there for the past 28 years had a small plane, that the husband flew out of harms way, then brought back after the winds died down. The wife remained and would wade through chest-high waters to get food from a local store for the people of their village.

Part of his help now is to fly over the outlying village playing music and telling the villagers to have hope, hang in the and help is on its way. From the plane, the reporters camera is showing the devastated areas. As the pilot flies over populated, isolated areas, he asked people on the ground if they wanted him to pray for them. And if they did, to use mirrors to flash a yes to him. Suddenly what you see is twinkles of light form all parts of the town. What a sight!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 15, 1998.

Jon, we certainly miss you.
There were many instructional threads re: Hurricane Mitch and apropo Y2K related issues. See archives. Also, recently there have been horror follow-up articles detailing the continued misery and abandonment of Mitch refugees -- literally millions of desperate, ill displaced victims who have no home or job, still, as a result of the Storm's onslaught.

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ts/story.html?s=v/nm/19990523/ts/ weather_hurricanes_1.html

'Mitch'-Like Deaths Possible In U.S. -Forecaster

Sunday May 23 2:18 PM ET

'Mitch'-Like Deaths Possible In U.S. -Forecaster

By Patricia Zengerle
MIAMI (Reuters) - Many who tracked Hurricane Mitch, the vicious 1998 storm that killed 9,000 people in Central America, may have comforted themselves that such a catastrophe could only occur in undeveloped mountainside villages.

But forecasters who prepared Sunday for the June 1 start of what is expected to be another intense six-month Atlantic storm season urged coastal residents to reconsider the chances of a major storm-related loss of life outside the Third World.

Colorado State University Professor William Gray, a respected hurricane forecaster, has predicted that this year's season will see 14 tropical storms, nine of which will grow to hurricane strength, four of them becoming intense hurricanes with top winds of at least 111 mph (179 kph).

``Could we have a catastrophe like Mitch in this country,'' asked Jerry Jarrell, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center. ``I think the answer is probably not that way, but there are other ways that it could happen.''

Weather experts have changed their focus on the potential for storm damage in recent years from the threat from high winds and coastal ``storm surge'' flooding -- the wall of seawater that hurricanes carry on shore -- to that of inland flooding.

Last year's Hurricane Mitch, which dumped up to six feet (two meters) of rain in Honduras and Nicaragua, and Hurricane Georges, which killed more than 500 people on its march through the Dominican Republic and Haiti, both did their worst damage through flooding away from shore.

The storms' heavy rains generated flash floods and mudslides that engulfed entire villages, then left survivors isolated as they battled diseases that claimed more lives.

Such horror is unlikely in the United States and in island areas with fewer people and better communications -- Jarrell noted that Hurricane Hortense led to major flooding in Puerto Rico but was blamed for just 22 deaths in 1996.

But he said heavily populated U.S. coastal areas could be vulnerable if there were a large, mass evacuation and a resulting traffic tie up as a storm neared.

``We think (there) could be ... gridlock because of too many people trying to evacuate and then some sort of an incident on the highway, either a fire or an accident or a bridge stuck up, something like that,'' he said.

``And then we have a hurricane come and catch a whole bunch of people, perhaps thousands in their automobiles.''

A highway construction project snarled traffic and left 10,000 people on roadways near Pensacola, Florida, in 1995, when powerful Hurricane Opal made landfall and caused $3 billion in damages.

If the storm had not taken a turn away from the traffic jam, thousands of people could have been killed, Jarrell said.

Forecasters and emergency managers throughout the Atlantic hurricane basin, which includes the United States, Caribbean islands and the Central and South American Caribbean coasts, are fighting the risk this season by improving communications, encouraging governments to provide shelters, and urging residents to heed evacuation orders, but not to evacuate if they are not told to do so.

In low-lying areas, like the Florida Keys, where forecasters were dismayed when some 50 percent of residents opted to ignore an evacuation order ride out Hurricane Georges last summer, everyone should still escape, Jarrell said.

Pete Myers, 46, of Summerland Key, 24 miles (38.62 km) north of Key West, said he was glad he had fled to a motel in central Florida when Georges approached last September, and that he would leave again.

The storm destroyed his fishing boat, leaving his lift mangled and dock gone. It swept trees away and tore part of the roof and a porch off his house, then left the low-lying area where he lives an isolated, powerless mess for days.

``There was no trash pickup, electricity,'' he said. ``And there's so much to be done. You can't order a pizza, you can't get a cab. Cars were destroyed, so people were without transportation. Streets were filled with filth and litter. It was horrible.''

The average Atlantic hurricane season produces 9.3 tropical storms and 5.8 hurricanes, 2.1 of them intense hurricanes. Tropical storms have maximum sustained winds of 39 to 74 miles per hour (62-118 kph). They become hurricanes when those winds exceed 74 mph (118 km).

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Prepare for multiple simultaneous Winter Storms. No communication. Fuel shortages. Mother of all traffic jams. And the real Mother Nature will dump real storms during the Glitch Blizzard.

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), May 23, 1999.

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

Hurricane forecasters predict unusually active season

Hurricane forecasters predict unusually active season
Copyright ) 1999 Nando Media, Copyright ) 1999 Agence France-Press
By MICHAEL LANGAN

MIAMI (May 22, 1999 1:54 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Meteorologists are urging residents of the Caribbean, Central America and the southern U.S. coast to brace for an unusually large number of hurricanes in the coming months.

"It's going to be a much more active season than usual," said Eric Willingford, research meteorologist at Florida State University in Tallahasee.

In the typical hurricane season, there are 10 "named" storms -- either tropical storms or hurricanes. But this year there may be 50 percent more than ususal, according to some forecasts.

William Gray, meteorologist with Colorado State University, has forecast 14 such storms in the coming season -- including nine hurricanes.

"We are all feeling that due to the statistical indicators, that the conditions are going to be conducive" to a greater than usual number of storms, Williford said.

Tiruvalam Krishnamurti, an expert in computer modeling of tropical storms at Florida State University in Tallahassee, said the unusual amount of activity was fueled by the La Nina weather phenomenon, which has brought with it cooler water temperatures in the central Pacific and shifting atmospheric patterns over the Atlantic and Caribbean.

But some experts forecast that the full impact of the hyperactive hurricane season could be delayed for a while because waters in the eastern Atlantic are not sufficiently warm to sustain tropical storms.

By late July, Krishnamurti predicted, the season should be in full swing, and "September will be quite active, I think," he added.

Meteorologists said that the delay in severe storms could be bad news for the region because "more damaging storms are likely to occur later in the year," Willingford said.

Experts said it's best to prepare as far in advance as possible of the hurricane season's June 1 start.

"We need to be on guard this year. That's the bottom line," he said.
"We do need to take these storms very seriously in terms of evacuation plans, and building stronger buildings," Willingford said.

Early vigilance can save lives. Still fresh in everyone's mind is Central America's devastating encounter with Hurricane Mitch last autumn, which left 26,000 dead and affected 2.3 million of the region's 30 million inhabitants. Economic losses from Mitch totaled $7 billion -- a staggering sum for a region wracked by poverty.

Experts say the Caribbean and Central America still lack building codes and land use rules that would help reduce damage in a future storm.

One decade before Mitch, Willingford noted that Hurricane Gilbert -- a storm of comparable force -- visited destruction on Central America.

It would be foolhardy to infer, however, that cataclysmic storms come at lengthy intervals, experts say.

"There's always a statistical chance they will be hit by a major storm," Willingford warned, and "during an active year, it's always a dangerous area."

"We want everyone in hurricane-prone areas to be prepared and have a plan - every individual, business and community," added Max Mayfield, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

"Don't wait for the hurricane to get here," Mayfield cautioned.
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), May 23, 1999.