Re: Storm Surge Unit looking for ideas and comments
Posted by
Chris in Tampa on 1/9/2012, 7:42 pm
I took a look at the storm surge map for my county:
http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/realestate/geomatics/resources/pulications/sheltersMap.pdf
They have both the wind speed and surge. The surge values might be higher than they used to be. I thought they used to have a range. Perhaps they have worked a little to improve it over time. At least the zones are letters and not numbers. (If you had a category 1 hurricane with a surge more typical of a category 3 hurricane, you would have a category 1 hurricane with a level C evacuation rather than a category 1 with a category 3 surge, which would be more confusing.) These maps though have always been about the water rise. I guess they need to completely remove the wind from it. If you had a category 5 hurricane but you lived just outside the level E area, but lived one or two miles from the coast, you would want to get the heck out of there unless you lived in a bunker. (Would everyone know that?) The problem of course is how could you have an evacuation map based on wind speed? It depends on storm speed and size as to how high the winds will be inland, not just the headline wind number. Perhaps that is why they tied it to surge initially, which I assume is probably based everywhere on elevation alone. I've been trying to think about how they could improve surge information. Do they need a scale or is it always best to try to emphasize the specifics of each individual storm rather than forcing a scale? The range of effects in a localized area can be massive for surge and I'm not sure how good a scale would be. The level would always be highest to represent the highest point expected in the region, which is like the wind scale too, so perhaps it could help some. But then you have two scales and that just gets complicated.
I wish they had a good, highly reliable product that someone could use to determine their elevation. Current products are lacking in my opinion in that regard. (I don't trust them enough to have the correct elevation to show the potential water rise.) But that still means people have to work to get that information for themselves, which I guess would always be the case. A neighbor selling their house was trying to determine there elevation and they could not find it. I couldn't find mine either, not even on the original survey. That information should be available online for each parcel. (Like the lowest point on the property.) It was not on my county property appraiser's site. |
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