U.S. National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield ended his career at the Miami storm center with a warning that the worst was yet to come.
Mayfield said he is convinced that residents in the Southeast are flirting with disaster by developing homes in the tropical storm zone while not developing an escape plan, The Los Angeles Times said.
"We're eventually going to get a strong enough storm in a densely populated area to have a major disaster," he said. "I know people don't want to hear this, and I'm generally a very positive person but we're setting ourselves up for this major disaster."
More than 1,300 deaths were attributed to Hurricane Katrina but Mayfield warned that 10 times as many deaths could result from a huge storm during the highly active hurricane cycle, expected to last another 10 to 20 years.
The technology exists to build high-rises capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds, Mayfield said in the Times' article. What's lacking, he said, is political will to enforce tough building codes and land-use rules.
Mayfield, who ended his 34-year career with the National Weather Service Tuesday, told the Times he would like to become an emergency planning and disaster response consultant.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
Related stories:
Killer storm Fay powers into hurricane mode for Florida landfall (Update)
Florida battened down Monday as Tropical Storm Fay packed on more power on its way to becoming a full-blown hurricane, after claiming as many as 40 lives in the Caribbean.
'Fay' expected to become hurricane over Cuba
Tropical storm Fay dumped heavy rains on the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Saturday, leaving two people dead and four missing, as US weather experts forecast the system will strengthen to hurricane force as it approaches Cuba.
Research supports suggestions that global warming will do little to change hurricane activity
In a study published in the July 2008 issue of
Geophysical Research Letters, Drs. David S. Nolan and Eric D. Rappin from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science describe a new method for evaluating the frequency of hurricane formation in present and future tropical climates. While current thinking about changes in hurricane frequency comes mostly from computer simulations of global climate, the computer models used for these studies can only represent the coarsest features of hurricanes, thus casting doubt in their predictions of hurricane activity.
US experts predict more active hurricane season
US weather experts raised their predictions for this year's Atlantic hurricane season on Tuesday, warning that warmer waters could whip up 17 tropical storms including nine that will grow into hurricanes.
Boston Hurricane Frequency Over Last Millennium Linked To Ocean Surface Temperatures
(PhysOrg.com) -- The frequency of hurricanes striking the Boston area has varied widely over the last millennium, with periods of lowest activity corresponding to cooler surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean, according to newly published research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Timing is everything: How vulnerable to flooding is New York City?
A report just released in the most recent issue of the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society offers hope that a new high-resolution storm surge modeling system developed by scientists at Stony Brook University will better be able to predict flood levels and when flooding will occur in the New York metropolitan area, information crucial to emergency managers when planning for impending storms. The report also warns that flooding is dependent not just upon the intensity of the tropical storm, hurricane, or nor'easter, but also on the local phase of the tide at the time of the storm.
Hurricane preparedness survey: Worries about drinking water and medical care
Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Gulf Coast, a new survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security shows that one-third (34%) of those affected by the storm report they are very prepared if a major hurricane were to strike their communities in the next six months.
Tropical Storm Dolly nears hurricane force
Forecasters issued a hurricane warning Tuesday as Tropical Storm Dolly churned over the Gulf of Mexico and threatened to land the US-Mexican border region.