With the arrival of April, some of the forecasts for the next Hurricane Season begin to be published, Florida expects a more active than normal hurricane season amid the coronavirus crisis.
Florida had recorded around 446 deaths, with over 2,600 people hospitalized for COVID-19 to date, more than 10,000 of them in South Florida, the area with the highest population density and where there is a greater number of people.
The entire State, and particularly the highly affected South Florida, are under an order to stay at homes unless it is an indispensable activity. Social distancing has been implemented throughout the country and, with some exceptions, it is being carried out with great compliance. Although the hope is that in a couple of weeks (or months) more life will return to normal, the authorities are talking that social distancing (especially avoiding physical contact such as handshakes) should be a new rule in our society.
How is this social distancing combined with moments of crisis of another kind? Specifically, with the crisis generated by the passage of a hurricane. Florida is used to dealing with these inclement weather, but never did in times of coronavirus.
The hurricane season officially begins June 1 and lasts until the end of November. But as of May 1 it is considered a pre-season time, where the formation of hurricanes has been seen in the past.
Projections by meteorologists from the University of Colorado indicate that this season will be more active than normal. The formation of 16 named storms is expected (they are those that have such an intensity to be identified and studied due to the risk they represent of becoming major hurricanes), these 8 should become hurricanes of which 4 could be major intensity. To understand how serious the forecast is, it is worth comparing it with the prediction made for last year, where they anticipated three fewer storms and two less intense hurricanes.
Florida has the infrastructure and organization to deal with a hurricane, it has done this dozens of times. The problem is that resources are now mostly destined for the pandemic. FEMA is the national institute that coordinates and funds responses to disasters. Today it is fully committed to COVID 19 and the authorities have said that if another critical situation were added in the coming weeks, they would not be sure of having the capacity to face it.
At the local level, when consulted by Miami Dade County Director of Emergency Management, Frank Rollason, he clarified that the first concern that arises has to do with shelters. Miami Dade has shelters ready to accommodate those who have to evacuate their homes in the face of a hurricane, and on occasions when homes were destroyed by the storm, these shelters have served as homes for hundreds of people for months. This system is absolutely incompatible with the requirement to maintain a social distance.
Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, Senators for Florida, have already submitted a request to the Trump Administration for a contingency plan to be planned in the event of a hurricane under the new conditions.
This simply means that it does not matter that the season is active, or that it is not very active, since a single Hurricane can cause a great disaster and, in addition, you never know so long in advance if a hurricane is going to affect your locality.
So it doesn’t matter if they tell you that it’s going to be active, normal or not very active, YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BE PREPARED. And when there is a near hurricane, within a few days of being able to reach your city, then it is time to be well informed through the media, and also well protected, following the guidelines by your local state officials.
