National Hurricane Conference 2002
09:29 AM EDT - 04 April 2002
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The National Hurricane Conference is going on this week here in Orlando, and one of the things to come out of it was the expectation of a rather average year (storm count wise), which I agree with.
It's been a while since a Major Hurricane has hit Florida now, it'll be 10 years since Andrew this season. Complacency may have set in among many, and I fear this may be the case again.
September 11th gave extra focus to Emergency Management, and I think they are about as reasonably prepared as the could be. The evacuation routes from the coastline are still very poor, and the road system in Central Florida can't handle normal work traffic well, much less a massive evacuation. They've talked about one-waying the main roads (I4/Turnpike/Beeline etc) during emergencies. But that requires a lot of manpower to make sure no "oopses" happen at the entrance on/off ramps.
I expect a different hurricane season this year... This doesn't mean more or even more landfalls, just storms in different places than we have seen in the last two years. I actually expect fewer this year.
Preperations for the new season are progressing slowly, but we'll get there. :)
- [mac]