Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Hurricane Awareness Poll (Part II) The hurricane awareness poll had a few questions that quizzed people's meteorlogical knowledge of the storms . The first such question was Hurricane forecasting experts generally agree that: A - The active 2004 Hurricane Season was a fluke that will not be repeated anytime soon B - We have entered an era of declining hurricane activity C - Hurricane activity has remained fairly consistent for more than a century D - We have entered an era of increasing hurricane activity 68% had the 'correct answer' - D. 23% went with C. I don't care for the wording of the answers. I would have replaced 'increasing' with either 'above average'. Increasing implies that the next year is expected to be stronger than the previous year. A is kind of vague. Some people would tend to say that last year was a 'fluke' because of four storms making landfall in Florida. In terms of overall activity (without regard to where and how many storms made landfall at it was not expecially unusual). Next meteorological one was QUESTION: Most tornadoes associated with land-falling hurricanes are spawned: A - In rain bands that can occur hundreds of miles from the eye of the storm B - In the eye wall C - Within 1 mile of the eye of the storm D - Within 3 miles of the eye of the storm 29% chose the correct answer: A. 37% went with D, 22%, went with C, and 12%, went with B. Again, not the best selection of answers as D logically covers C and B. I suspect a fair amount mentally dropped the word 'can' in choice A. This was one of the few questions where there was a noticable difference in the percentage of people in a region who got the answer correct. 38% of those in Gulf coast states got the answer correct while only 21% living in the northeast did so. The southeast and mid-Atlantic states fell in between (28 and 29%). Next was Although forecasting has improved greatly in recent years, the projection you can rely least on is: A – Direction of the storm B - Intensity at landfall C – Duration of the storm D - Forward speed 39% went with A, 18% went with B, 22% said C, and 21% chose D. This is one where I would definitely expect a split in the reality (that meteorologists know) and the public perception. Ask a meteorologist in Florida what the forecasting failures were last year and they will say the unexpected strengthening of Charley in the final hours before landfall and the unexpected weakening of Frances. The average person would probably cite the 'incorrect' forecast track for Charley (at one point it was forecast to landfall in the Tampa Bay area). I am a bit surprised with how many people went with C and D. While ideally you would like to see the public have the correct knowledge on this, I can understand why NHC people and such wouldn't necessarily work hard to correct the misperception. It could be counterproductive to have people 'knowing' that the intensity forecast is the least accurate because then it could cause skepticsm in the day or two before a storm makes landfall (i.e. some people would treat the case of Frances as the norm, which would be a bad thing). Two other questions that would be of interest to National Weather Service types were ones that the public did well on. Approximately two thirds of the people surveyed were familiar with the definitions of hurricane watch and hurricane warning. Weather comment []5:31:03 PM   trackback []

Hurricane Awareness Poll (Part I) A poll recently conducted by Mason-Dixon on hurricane awareness is reported to show that coastal residents do not know enough about hurricanes and do not have preparation plans to mitigate the risk of damage or injury. I have a fair bit to say about this Hurricane Awareness Poll (PDF file) on two unrelated subjects: the reporting of it and some meteorologyical comments on its contents and results. As such I'll break my commentary into separate posts. This one will focus on the reporting of it. I have seen two articles on it so far. The Florida Times-Union offers its own piece entitled Coastal residents unready for storms and the Tallahasse Democrat carries an Associated Press story entitled Poll: Florida not ready for hurricanes. While I am not entirely happy with either of them, the Times-Union account is the better of the two. The worst problem specific to the AP story is the headline. Despite what it title implies, there was nothing in the poll that was specific to Florida. The poll was of residents in coastal states from Maine to Texas (as noted in the 12th paragraph of the story). Since only 27% of respondents came from the Southeast (FL to NC), it is reasonable to approximate that no more than 10% of the respondents were from Florida. The second paragraph alarmingly states that 56% of those felt "not too" or "not at all vulnerable" to hurricane related hazards. Since 81% of the respondents live more than ten miles away from the coast and 47% live north of North Carolina, that is actually a reasonable response. The AP story has a sentence that was taken from the National Hurricane Survival Initiative press kit. The original is "Residents polled were disturbingly ill-informed about the time needed to evacuate with one in four believing they could drive out of flood-prone areas merely 30 minutes to an hour before a hurricane made landfall." The document of the poll itself does not have anything resembing that question. Also, the response is not that unreasonable because it depends on the situation. For coastal related storm surge flooding, yes, residents need to evacuate well before landfall. But for the type of flooding assoicated with storms like Hurricane Floyd (inland flooding caused by heavy rains) or Camille, (which flooded parts of Virginia despite having made landfall on the gulf coast), that is not necessarily the case. The poll does show that meteorologists and disaster managment agencies have some work to do in certain aspects of educating the public, but the situation is not as dire as these stories indicate. LATER: Walked by a newspaper rack earlier and noticed that the Tallahassee Democrat put its story on the front page. Sigh. LATER YET:  While re-reading the poll for my part II post, I came across the question that was the basis for the statement that 25% of people surveyed think they could evacuate within an hour of landfall.  The question and answers are not worded in the way that they are described in the press release.  To writ: During an approaching major hurricane, low-lying escape routes are usually cut off: A - At landfall    B - Near the eye of the storm C - 30 minutes to one hour before landfall D – At least three hours before landfall and much earlier than that in vulnerable areas It is quite a stretch to get from the answer C to the statement that the press release makes. Weather comment []1:22:54 PM   trackback []