Hurricane Mitch over Central America, Nov. 1998 devastated Honduras and Nicaragua, destroying villages and cities and killing nearly 10,000 people. In the aftermath, relief efforts were stalled because the storm had wiped out countless bridges, crippling the region's infrastructure. (UNEP photo)
Hurricanes: Reporting environmental disasters  By Bill Kovarik	Bill Kovarik is a professor of journalism at Radford University in Virginia. He is also a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.    Email wkovarik@radford.edu  Website: http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik Also see: A tale of two city dailies: How Charlston and New Orleans cover hurricane preparedness

Hurricanes are environmental events, and reporters are usually prepared to cover events. It’s what we trained for, and in many cases, news coverage on the ground is excellent. 

However, reporters are not usually prepared to cover the environmental factors that contribute to disasters and tend to make them much worse. 

We need to understand the less obvious but no less important problems that are making hurricanes more devastating.

Coastal development, the loss of buffering wetlands and barrier islands, the placement of oil and chemical facilities, and the long-term safety of bridges, dams and levees – these  are among the more difficult environmental issues that need to be explored, especially   following Hurricane Katrina. 

There are also broader long term environmental questions that also need to be asked. One obvious one involves how much global warming and sea level rise are contributing to hurricane intensity. New efforts towards energy conservation and the development of renewable resources in your community is another.   

In each of these areas, briefing yourself with national level sources before seeking out local and state officials is a sound approach. 

The basics:  Helping readers and viewers prepare and cope 

The National Hurricane Center is the place to start. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ 

Alerts about current storms are available, but also historical data and preparedness information is also handy. 

Useful resources are found at the Centers for Disease Control http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/hurricanes/index.asp and the Red Cross  http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/  Both can give you information about how to handle food and water contamination and electrical hazards in a hurricane or disaster situation. Such advice may be invaluable to readers or audiences.   

Hurricanes or floods may displace wild animals and bring the risk of rabies, snake bite or infection. A CDC  web site discusses displaced wildlife  at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/floods/animals.asp  

Coping with traumatic events can be difficult, and the CDC also has advice there.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/hurricanes/index.asp 

Insect pressures can be high after hurricanes and other environmental disasters. West Nile Virus is a particular worry. State by state statistics on West Nile are available at  http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/surv&control05Maps.htm

and also at   http://westnilemaps.usgs.gov/

Chemicals:  Prepare for the worst

Floodwaters from chemical alley – the concentration of refining and chemical industries on the Mississippi river – pose a particular hazard for New Orleans.   Thousands of tons of hazardous waste in facilities known for haphazard regulation were released into the environment following Katrina, EPA officials said.   It is a complex picture, but one made clearer by maps and lists of refining and chemical processing facilities such as this one: http://www.pannexresearch.com/katrina/LAOil.gif 

Your community may have similar problems, Make sure your library is up to date. Some of the publications that should be available on paper   (as well as online or in a portable laptop) include: 

•  NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards, Publication No. 97-140
 has Exposure limits and descriptions of hazardous and toxic chemicals. The guide   is available in print or online at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npg.html

•  Department of Transportation Emergency Response guidebook

http://hazmat.dot.gov/pubs/erg/gydebook.htm Especially important are Department of Transportation ID numbers for chemicals (Everyone has seen gasoline tankers, for example, with the diamond shaped DOT number 1203 pinned to the back).

•  Your  community most likely has a Local Emergency Planning Commission which issued a report and assessment of emergency hazards and plans to deal with them. An EPA list of LEPC offices is found at:  http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/lepclist.htm  If petroleum refineries and chemical plants are not mentioned or are kept confidential, you may find oil industry trade publications have printed maps of various regions. Also the Right to Know environmental database  www.rtknet.org/new/tri/  has specific local information about sources of toxic waste. And the Scorecard web site has information about pollution sources in your community which may become factors in a hurricane or other environmental disaster.  http://www.scorecard.org/

Water and air pollution

Problems with drinking water and wastewater following a flood or hurricane are the most common environmental issues. In Louisiana and Mississippi, hundreds of small community drinking water systems needed to be cleaned, disinfected  and tested following hurricane Katrina. Many of these were vulnerable to hurricane and other flooding and had no way to protect water supplies. 

You may want to find out about whether your water and sewer systems are vulnerable and what can be done to protect them.  Visit with your publicly owned treatment works (POTW) officials and get to know their issues.  Your state public health service is another contact point for stories here.  Many states also have Water Resources Research Institutes that can be helpful.  There are also state water pollution associations which have annual conferences where the problems are discussed in detail.  These associations can be found through the national Water Environment Federation  http://www.wef.org   

Typical problems include underfunding of  water systems, overflowing sewage in storms, leaking pipes and other contamination issues.  Viral and bacterial contamination may lead to serious sickness or; in the worst cases, the spread of diseases such as typhoid and cholera.

Development follows sewer lines, so the advent of a sewer system on a barrier island is especially noteworthy. Also noteworthy is the frequent diversion of infrastructure support for low-income areas to help developers.   

In an emergency, the EPA can send a flying spectrometry lab (called Aspect) to gauge water pollution on a broad scale http://www.epa.gov/naturalevents/flyinglab.htm For a range of other EPA responses to Katrina see:   http://www.epa.gov/katrina/index.html

On the other end of the spectrum, citizens in “bucket brigade” groups are taking their own air and water samples and comparing them to industry’s reports to state environmental agencies.  http://www.bucketbrigade.net/  These groups are having an impact. News groups are also beginning to take their own air and water quality samples and question the samples that have been submitted by industries.  The Houston Chronicle’s series In Harm’s Way is an example. http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/04/toxic/index.html 

Basic Infrastructure

The 2004 funding cuts for the US Army Corps of Engineers efforts to maintain and rebuild levees and hold back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain are now legendary.  You may want to ask some questions in your own community. Who builds, inspects and maintains your community’s bridges, dams and levees? Many engineers with state highway departments will tell you that we are not keeping up with maintenance on existing infrastructure, much less expanding it to accommodate population growth. 

Many of the canal, dredging and levee projects on the coasts and inland waterways are Corps projects.  Their main page is http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/hqhome/ but to get a better idea of the Corp’s impacts on wetlands and projects in your area, check the map at the National Wildlife Federation pages:  http://www.taxpayer.net/corpswatch/crossroads/ For example, the map has description of the Corp’s work on the New Orleans Industrial Canal since 2000, projected to cost over $600 million but which received only a tenth of that in the past five years.   

Other nations have tidal and ocean barriers which are standing the test of time.  The Netherlands, for example, depends heavily on its system of dikes, and it would be interesting to compare the Dutch Oosterscheldedam or other civil engineering works with American engineering problems.  

Hydroelectric dams are also vulnerable to hurricanes and extreme weather events. They are inspected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This web site keeps track of some activities.  http://www.ferc.gov/industries/hydropower/safety.asp

FERC also has a role in some natural gas pipeline regulation, but pipeline safety is handled by the Dept. of Transportation Office of Pipeline Safety which keeps reports and statistics: http://ops.dot.gov/index.htm  The  Dept. of Energy also has a list of useful reports on pipelines, refineries and energy infrastructure. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/security/Oil/

Wetlands and barrier islands

A basic rule of thumb is that it takes four miles of wetlands to absorb about a foot of storm surge. A few decades ago, New Orleans had somewhere between 140 to 200 miles of bayou and buffers.  But due to sea level rise, coastal erosion, channelization of the river and its estuaries, and other factors, the barrier was reduced to 30 miles or less in recent years. 

Individual estuary programs, like the Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP) in Thibodaux LA, http://www.btnep.org/home.asp or the Mobile Bay estuary program.  http://www.gulfbase.org/organization/view.php?oid=mbnep can be good sources for estuary information, Both are part of the National Estuary Program. http://www.epa.gov/owow/estuaries/ 

Development is proceeding on many barrier islands and coastal areas as if they were  safe places to live and build.  A recent US Geological Survey project mapped coastal vulnerabilities and declining wetlands:   http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/mappingchange/vulnerability.html Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in New England is also involved in the assessments: http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/cvi/

USGS has studied the damage barrier islands receive from  hurricanes while buffering the mainland:  http://www.usgs.gov/hurricanes.html and http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/, Hurricane impacts on the coastal zone environment  http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/hurricane-impacts/index.html USGS photo collections of hurricane impacts on various coastal areas http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/oblique.html

Most states with oceanfront have some kind of coastal commission that is an extension of the federal Coastal Zone management programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  http://coastalmanagement.noaa.gov/czm/national.html These commissions hold hearings and make decisions about development. 

Another major factor in development is insurance, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency runs the National Flood Insurance program.  http://www.fema.gov/nfip/ According to its web site, “everyone in a participating community” is eligible for flood insurance except communities in the Coastal Barrier Resources System.  Links from the main page connect you to local information to see if your community is in the barrier system.  The “participating community” clause is also interesting, and you might want to check to see if your own community is one of those.   Residents of a suburb of New Orleans discovered last year that previous floods were not covered by flood insurance simply because the local government did not participate.  In such cases, attempts to convince residents that they are covered, and to steer them towards certain contractors, may be fraudulent. 

Concerned analysts and scientists have often said that development pressures on coastal areas would be greatly reduced if insurance risks were more accurately reflected in the marketplace. Market mechanisms may be working in some areas.  In the summer of 2005, some home insurance companies, for example Allstate and Nationwide, said they were pulling back from some coastal Florida markets.   On the other hand, the South Carolina state Department of Insurance has actively tried to convince  insurance carriers to sell policies in hurricane-prone areas.

Hurricanes and Climate

The probability of a storm like Hurricane Katrina hitting the New Orleans area was high, according to  historical and paleohistory records studied by  paleotempestologist Kam-biu Liu, (a distinguished Professor of Geography and Anthropology Paleotempestology at LSU).  Dr. Liu’s  discipline involves the use of fossils to study hurricane activity on a millennial scale. Contact at LSU (225) 578 – 6136 Or kliu1@lsu.edu   A variety of other experts on various hurricane subjects can be found at the LSU Hurricane Center under personnel: http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/

The Environment Writer newsletter says Prof. William M. Gray at Colorado State University  is the "unofficial guru of Atlantic seasonal hurricane prediction,"  Dr. Gray  has posted forecasts a  at http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/.  “Our seasonal analogs continue to point toward a very active season,” Gray said in early August, 2005. 

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center also issues a hurricane forecast which said 2005 was shaping up to be “hyperactive.”  It is at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.html

One obvious question is whether Katrina was fierce because of global warming or because other factors predominated.   “The evidence strongly suggests more intense storms and risk of greater flooding events,” said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. http://www.ucar.edu/news/record/#hurricanes   But global warming is only one of many factors.  

The effects of global warming on hurricanes are minor at most, say Chris Landsea, new director of science for the National Hurricane Center and Roger Pielke, atmospheric science prof at Colorado State. (Contact information: for Landsea--  Frank LePore at 305-229-4404 or Frank.C.Lepore@noaa.govand for Roger Pielke: Phone: (970) 491-8293  Fax: (970) 491-3314 Email: pielke@atmos.colostate.edu  Also see:  http://blue.atmos.colostate.edu/

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change notes that scientists have found a multi-decade cycle of storm activity that is not directly related to global warming.  “We see periods of high hurricane activity that last for several decades followed by periods of low hurricane activity,” the Pew report said. “Unfortunately, during the mid-1990s it looks like we reentered an active phase that will persist for some time.” http://www.pewclimate.org/hurricanes.cfm Also see http://www.geotimes.org/dec04/geophen.html#hurricane

These studies tended to focus on the number of hurricanes. A scientist who looked at the intensity of hurricanes found they  have grown significantly more powerful and destructive over the last three decades due in part to global warming.

“Future warming may lead to an upward trend in [hurricanes'] destructive potential, and--taking into account an increasing coastal population--a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the 21st century," said Kerry Emanuel http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/home.html in a paper appearing in the July 31 online edition of the journal Nature.

An important blog that lets scientists debate detailed facts and helps inform journalists is http://www.realclimate.org/  The blog was originally put together by Gavin Schmidt  and Michael Mann. One section of Real Climate has a detailed debate on the connections between global warming and hurricanes: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=173 

Most regions have universities with scientists who are part of the international climate science community.  Finding them and interviewing them means taking time to get  briefed first, but the experience is not as exotic or difficult as many reporters believe. One good way to find local scientific experts with real research credentials is the Science Citation Index, a  research tool available in most university libraries. The index can help you find out who is publishing research at your local universities.  

Ongoing information resources

Poynter Institute’s News U    has a short course for professionals in Covering Water Quality  http://www.newsu.org/courses/course_detail.aspx?id=sej_waterquality05  

The Society of Environmental Journalists has posted a web page on environmental coverage of Katrina. http://www.sej.org/resource/index15.htm  The topic will also be on the agenda at its conference in Austin, Texas in late September 2005.  The conference is intended for working journalists and is open to the public.