Harricane can spawn tornadoes, create storm surges along the coast and cause extensive damage from heavy rainfall. When returning to damaged homes, apartments or businesses, you must take extra precautions to avoid accidents and injury. Structural damage may have made the house unsafe, electricity and gas may pose a threat, and snakes, animals and insects may have taken up residence. Disaster recovery experts recommend a careful and systematic approach when returning to any area after a storm or flood.

• Stay tuned to local radio/television for information.
• The NOAA Weather radio (NWR) also broadcasts hazard information 24 hours a day.
• Dress for safety. Consider wearing a specialized mask with changeable filters to filter mold spores, asbestos, lead or other contaminants. Wear safety glasses, leather or rubber gloves, and protective shoes; avoid rubber-soled athletic shoes when walking in or around debris. Hard hats, long sleeves and pants are also encouraged to guard against bumps and scrapes.
• Beware of water on the road; it could hide potholes or washed-away sections of road. Never drive around barriers; cars are buoyant and can begin to float in less than 24 inches of water.
• Stay away from debris in the water. It may pose a safety hazard to boats and people.
• Enter the building carefully. If the door sticks at the top as it opens, it could mean the ceiling is ready to cave in. Do not walk under a sagging ceiling until it has been checked.
• Do not strike a match or use an open flame unless you know the gas has been turned off and the area has been ventilated. Use a flashlight when entering damaged buildings.
• Take pictures of the damage, both to the house and its contents, for insurance purposes.

• Be aware of water borne health hazards. Floodwaters pick up sewage and chemicals from roads, farms, factories and storage buildings. Throw out flooded items, such as wallboard, mattresses, spoiled food, cosmetics and medicine.
• Have tap water tested by the local health department before drinking or using it.
• Shovel as much mud and debris as possible out of the house, then hose it down inside and out. The walls, floors, closets, shelves, contents and any other parts of your home that have been flooded should also be thoroughly washed and disinfected.
• Groundwater creates enormous pressure on basement walls and floors. Drain the basement no more than one foot per day to minimize further damage.
• Within days of being waterlogged, dry wall, upholstered furniture and wooden fixtures may develop mold or mildew, which can be health hazards. Ask your local health authorities for information on removing mold.
• Avoid carbon monoxide exhaust. Do not use generators, gasoline-powered machines, camp stoves or charcoal grills indoors.

Gov. Rick Perry has developed a group to assist Texas communities with recovery efforts following natural disasters.

The group for Disaster Recovery and Renewel is an advisory panel of public and private sector experts.

Former Harris County Judge Robert Eckels has been appointed chair of the commission, it will consist of 31 members to be appointed by the governor in the coming weeks, including representatives from the private sector, foundations, and local and state government. County judges from Aransas,San Patricio,Kleberg, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron,Hidalgo, Chambers, Harris, Jackson, Jefferson, Kenedy, Liberty, Matagorda, Nueces, Orange, Refugio, Starr,Galveston, Victoria and Willacy counties will serve as ex-officio members.

“Two months after Ike’s landfall, Texans are still sleeping in cars or tents outside of padlocked trailers,” told by Perry in a statement. “Mounds of debris are piled up in coastal communities, creating health hazards while Washington remains mum about whether it will provide the same level of resources it did for Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

“These situations clearly shows that the federal government’s recovery system is completely broken. I am confident this new group will find solutions to all these challenges as well as create new plan to speed recovery and accelerate economic development.”

The group’s first project will be to search temporary housing alternatives for those left homeless after Hurricane Ike. It will help the state in seeking full federal reimbursemenbt for recovery, including debris removal.

The group will also be in charge of developing a report for communities to learn how to recover after a disaster and preplan for future disasters.

The group’s final report to the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is till June 30, 2009.

The governor also announced that he has directed the Texas Department of Transportation to immediately start assisting with debris removal in Southeast Texas.

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. They are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. The original name lists featured only women’s names. In 1979, men’s names were introduced and they alternate with the women’s names. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2008 list will be used again in 2014. Here is more information about the history of naming hurricanes.

The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.

Several names have been changed since the lists were created. For example, on the 2007 list (which will be used again in 2013), Dorian has replaced Dean, Fernand has replaced Felix, and Nestor has replaced Noel. Here is more information about retired hurricane names.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on. If a storm forms in the off-season, it will take the next name in the list based on the current calendar date. For example, if a tropical cyclone formed on December 28th, it would take the name from the previous season’s list of names. If a storm formed in February, it would be named from the subsequent season’s list of names.

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older, more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

The use of easily remembered names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. For example, one hurricane can be moving slowly westward in the Gulf of Mexico, while at exactly the same time another hurricane can be moving rapidly northward along the Atlantic coast. In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen when storm advisories broadcast from radio stations were mistaken for warnings concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles away.

History of Hurricane Names

For several hundred years many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint’s day on which the hurricane occurred. Ivan R. Tannehill describes in his book “Hurricanes” the major tropical storms of recorded history and mentions many hurricanes named after saints. For example, there was “Hurricane Santa Ana” which struck Puerto Rico with exceptional violence on July 26, 1825, and “San Felipe” (the first) and “San Felipe” (the second) which hit Puerto Rico on September 13 in both 1876 and 1928.

Tannehill also tells of Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist who began giving women’s names to tropical storms before the end of the l9th century.

An early example of the use of a woman’s name for a storm was in the novel “Storm” by George R. Stewart, published by Random House in 1941, and since filmed by Walt Disney. During World War II this practice became widespread in weather map discussions among forecasters, especially Air Force and Navy meteorologists who plotted the movements of storms over the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1953, the United States abandoned a confusing two-year old plan to name storms by a phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie) when a new, international phonetic alphabet was introduced. That year, the United States began using female names for storms.

The practice of naming hurricanes solely after women came to an end in 1978 when men’s and women’s names were included in the Eastern North Pacific storm lists. In 1979, male and female names were included in lists for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Andrew was a small but powerful storm that caused massive destruction along a path through southern Florida and south-central Louisiana in late August 1992. Rainfall associated with Andrew was light for a hurricane because of the small size and rapid forward movement of the storm. However, rainfall totals of more than 7 inches were recorded for the storm period in southeastern Florida and Louisiana; a high of 11.9 inches was recorded in Hammond, La. (Rappaport, 1992). Maximum sustained windspeeds of 141 mph (miles per hour), with gusts of 169 mph, were recorded on August 24, just before landfall in Florida (Rappaport, 1992). A storm surge of about 17 feet above sea level was recorded at Biscayne Bay, Fla.and about 9 feet near Terrebonne Bay in south-central Louisiana.

Hurricane Andrew originated in the North Atlantic Ocean,moved westward over the Bahamas, and made landfall near the southern tip of Florida on the morning of August 24. After passing over the Florida Everglades, the storm proceeded in a northwesterly direction across the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall in south-central Louisiana at Point Chevreuil on the morning of August 26. Andrew deteriorated rapidly after landfall in Louisiana and was downgraded to a tropical depression on August 27. The remnants of Andrew proceeded on a northeasterly path, producing severe weather throughout the Southeastern States (Rappaport, 1992).

Hurricane Andrew moved across southern Florida at an average forward speed of 18 mph (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1992). As it crossed southern Florida, Andrew left a path of destruction 25 miles wide and 60 miles long (Gore, 1993).For detailed information: water.usgs.gov/nwsum/WSP2425/andrew.html