Plan on a hurricane

The 62nd Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference, held in Charleston last week, delivered valuable new information to coastal residents. But the annual meeting of federal officials charged with producing effective hurricane plans also delivered some old reliable advice to coastal residents: Develop an effective hurricane plan of your own that includes a timely exit strategy — and when that time comes, follow it.

Among the advances presented at the conference: color-coded warnings that will make it easier to see how much threat a tropical disturbance poses, improved projections of which areas would be flooded in the event of different levels of hurricanes, and forecasting advances that should enhance the public's awareness of approaching storms.

The new color-coded probabilities that will be assigned to tropical disturbances by the National Hurricane Center are designed to provide earlier notification of storm danger. The graphics circling disturbances on the tropical map were introduced in black and white last year and issued twice a day on the center's Web site. This year, they'll be in yellow (low), orange (medium) and red (high) in terms of probability for future development — and they'll be issued four times a day.

The center is shifting its forecast schedule, too. Though still coming four times a day at six hours apart, forecasts now will start at 8 a.m. Eastern Time instead of the previous 11:30 a.m.

The center also has generated new maps, from a computer model known as SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes), projecting the amount of flooding that would likely result in specific areas from different levels of hurricanes. Those projections are not reassuring for folks who live here.

The conference featured experts describing new forecasting methods that will utilize unmanned aircraft and merge computer systems to maximize predicting power. The goal is to better pinpoint landfall and storm strength early enough to make a possibly life-saving difference.

Yet Jack Hayes, weather services administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, correctly told the conferees that despite continuing technological progress in forecasting, "You have to realize we still have a long way to go."

Coastal residents should realize that while new and better methods of forecasting and issuing warnings are welcome steps forward by the authorities, old-fashioned common sense by the public remains an indispensable defense against potentially killer storms. As Mary Glackin, NOAA deputy undersecretary, put it: "The prime message is, be prepared for a hurricane."

So if you don't have a hurricane plan, make one. If you do, review it. And while you should be encouraged by advances in hurricane forecasting, warning systems and evacuation procedures, don't expect perfection from those human endeavors — and don't take unnecessary chances when a hurricane threatens our coast.