This is the sources. For the actual information about hurricane Irene, please see the older posts.
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| Via "freightcar" at Reddit.com. |
Sources:
onsdag 16. november 2011
What is it like?
What happens during a hurricane?
Well, a hurricane is a natural force with potential for a LOT of destruction.
Hurricanes are extremely strong winds that rip apart and throw around things, often accompanied by strong downpours, they can flood areas with extreme downpour caused by the storms, or the huge amounts of water thrown onto land by the winds, or just by breaking down dams.
Hurricanes rip down structures, flood areas, and generally destroy things instead of walking around it, like a well-mannered person would.
Explaining what happens after a hurricane is not easy to show with words, so I’ve gathered a few pictures of the aftermath of Irene.
There are the areas where there’s "small" flooding…
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| Via: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/08/hurricane_irene.html |
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| By David Shankbone (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
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| Via: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/08/hurricane_irene.html |
And then there are the areas where houses and bridges are ripped apart.
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| Via reddit. By ctpost. |
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| Via reddit. By hometownannapolis. |
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| Via boston.com. |
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| Via boston.com. |
Hurricanes are dangerous.
Effect on the community:
Of course, after the world witnessed the aftermath of hurricanes like Katrina, people are warned of the arrival of a Hurricane. Still, no-one’s really safe.
Hurricane Katrina, for instance, is the third deadliest hurricane in the US, with the death toll somewhere around 1,836. In comparison, the amount of deaths caused by Irene is ”just” somewhere around 52.
This is mostly based on the difference in wind speed, area and preparation, where preparation is the biggest factor.
In cities, hurricanes will result in people getting forced to leave their homes if the hurricane is too close, power outages, some of which could potentially last for more than a month…
Or the hurricane could simply pass right through the city itself, causing massive amounts of damage.
Hurricanes could even lead to poverty, as people lose their homes, their money, and all their personal belongings, because people can’t do anything to stop a hurricane going through their house. This could trap people in a spiral of poverty, not having anything to help them.
After Hurricane Irene, the US suffered large amounts of structural damage.
The “cost” of Irene was huge.
The “cost” of Irene was huge.
First hand experience:
The popular website Reddit.com had a own small section dedicated to Irene, allowing people to post pictures, stories and videos.
Here’s a story, posted two months ago, on August 28.
”This week, I'm supposed to be taking care of some horses at a farm. But I can't. The road that gets to the farm is closed off on both ends due to flooding. The ~10 people at other farms on the road are saying that in their barns, the water is up to the horses stomachs. One barn is under about 7 feet of water, and the horses were evacuated to another barn higher in elevation, where its only about 3 feet deep.
The fire dept lost a truck on the road trying to evacuate people, its still stuck 2 hours later. The 2 horses I'm supposed to be taking care of are being walked down the flooded road, by people with headlamps, to a buffalo farm.
Its still raining, and the water level is still rising.
Our town is only accessable by one road, and several other towns are completely cut off.”(http://www.reddit.com/r/Irene/comments/jxjdf/irene_is_causing_a_huge_flood_in_upstate_new_york/)
I’ve also gathered some videos that might help show the graveness of Hurricane Irene.
These three videos mainly focus on the aftermath, be it the flooding, the damage on structures, or both.
Basically, experiencing a hurricane is not a good thing, but being in the middle of one is even worse.
Hurricane Irene.
Why Hurricane Irene?
Hurricane Irene happened recently, was featured a lot in media, and I thought it would be a interesting topic to research.
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| Satellite image of a hurricane. (More specifically, hurricane Katrina) (Public Domain) |
What is Hurricane Irene?
Hurricane Irene is a hurricane, isn’t that obvious?
As for what a hurricane is…
What is a hurricane?
A hurricane is, basically, a storm.
A storm is, to quote thefreedictionary.com… (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hurricane)
“1. An atmospheric disturbance manifested in strong winds accompanied by rain, snow, or other precipitation and often by thunder and lightning.
2. A wind with a speed from 48 to 55 knots (55 to 63 miles per hour; 89 to 102 kilometers per hour), according to the Beaufort scale. Also called whole gale.”
According to comet.ucar.edu, (http://www.comet.ucar.edu/nsflab/web/hurricane/311.htm,) a hurricane is a storm with speeds surpassing 119 KM/hour per hour.
(That’s not a typo, that actually is 119 kilometers per hour per hour.)
This is according to the Beaufort scale, which you can look more at here: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html
(The measurements are in knots. One knot is roughly 1.85 km/h.)
Hurricane Irene’s highest recorded wind speeds were 195 km/h, classifying it as category 3 hurricane. (The summary of a Category 3 hurricane is “Devastating damage will occur.”) (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/sshws_table.shtml)
Hurricane Irene is one of the most recent hurricanes, officially becoming a hurricane in August 20, 2011, and had a huge effect on parts of America.
Not just direct destruction, something hurricanes are prone to do, but also because of the economic results. The people living where the hurricane struck, such as the East Coast of the US, were warned in beforehand, and had prepared and learned from earlier hurricanes, such as hurricane Katrina. Therefore, people managed to evacuate safely, and “only” 56 people were presumed dead as a result of Irene, (most of these were caused by indirect deaths, such as a result of the flooding) as opposed to Katrina’s 1,836 deaths.
Hurricanes usually occur in the warmer parts of the world. The seven most common places for a hurricane to appear are the oceans, such as the North Atlantic Ocean, the Eastern North Pacific Ocean, the Northwest Pacific Ocean, the Bay of Bengal /Arabian Sea, Southwest Pacific Ocean, Southeast Indian Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ocean. (http://www.tropicalweather.net/where_do_hurricanes_occur.htm)
Hurricanes generally cause destruction, once they get on land. I will go more in depth about this "later" in the blog.
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| Satellite image of Irene. (Photo in Public Domain, taken by NASA.) |
Hurricane Irene was a Category 1 hurricane when it formed, and eventually was classified as a Category 3 hurricane when it reached the Bahamas. It was eventually renamed to a Category 1 hurricane during the end of the hurricane’s life, when the wind speeds decreased, before it dissipated.
Some random facts:
It formed in August 20, 2011, and dissipated in August 29, lasting nine days.
Estimated 56 fatalities in total, making it the third most dangerous hurricane in the US as of the time it occurred, although that is barely around four percent of the death toll of hurricane Katrina.
The reason it’s called hurricane Irene is because of the current method of naming hurricanes, a six-year cycle of names in alphabetic order, alternating between female and male.
(In fact, there was a hurricane named Irene in 2005 as well, though it never came ashore.)
Hurricane Irene (from 2011) is presumed to have caused over $10 billion (!) American dollars in damages.
It was the first hurricane to have made landfall (reached land) in New Jersey since 1903.
One of the biggest impacts it made, especially in parts of New York and Vermont, was flooding.
Mainly, the fatalities caused by Irene were indirect. Most fatalities were caused by drowning in the most flooded areas, and at least two people were killed by fires caused by power lines or wires downed by the high winds.
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| Irene was not well received. Image: By David Shankbone (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons |
Hurricane Irene was tenth on the list of “Atlantic Hurricanes Receiving Most Media Coverage Since 1980”, where hurricane Ivan was on the top of list, having been the most covered, according to this blog: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/how-irene-lived-up-to-the-hype/
According to said evaluation, Irene received more coverage than hurricane Katrina.
(Obviously, as this is a hurricane, it was mostly negative publicity.)
Where and When?
Hurricane Irene appeared on August 20, 2011, North of Hispaniola, and started moving towards the Bahamas. In August 22, it made landfall as a category 1 hurricane in Puerto Rico, causing flooding and general damage. It eventually reached the Bahamas as a category 3 hurricane, and on August 27 it reached landfall in the eastern parts of North Carolina, having returned to a category 1 hurricane.
On August 28, it reached New Jersey, and was then downgraded to a tropical storm when it reached New York. It eventually dissipated above the North Atlantic Ocean, in August 29.
Welcome to my blog...
Welcome to my blog.
This is a blog dedicated to a assessment task that I received in school.
I was to make a blog surrounding a natural phenomenon, in one of four spheres.
These four spheres are the Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Lithosphere and Biosphere.
Air, water, earth and life, respectively, with the Atmosphere having phenomenon like tropical storms, the Hydrosphere having floods, the Lithosphere having rockslides and the Biosphere having endangered species, for example.
Air, water, earth and life, respectively, with the Atmosphere having phenomenon like tropical storms, the Hydrosphere having floods, the Lithosphere having rockslides and the Biosphere having endangered species, for example.
During this task, I’ve chosen the atmosphere as my sphere. The biggest forces in the atmosphere are the storms, and one of these storms is the hurricane. A hurricane is one of the natural phenomenons that are pretty widely known.
I eventually decided upon one specific hurricane, which is why this is a blog dedicated to Hurricane Irene.
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