CREST HAVEN – The emergency preparedness people agree, “We got lucky with Hurricane Irene.”
Representatives of state agencies ranging from state police to the department of transportation spoke at the county’s annual Emergency Preparedness Conference, Tue., Sept 20
Jim Eberwine, retired after 38 years with the National Weather Service, said the county ran a hurricane preparedness exercise in July, one month to the day before Hurricane Irene struck. The imaginary hurricane was named “Jessica” with the eye passing over Cape May producing a 5 to 6 foot storm surge over the high tide.
“Jessica” was programmed as a Category One hurricane producing a 13-foot tide, something Hurricane Irene could have produced, said Eberwine.
“In the exercise there were thousands of buildings destroyed, thousands of lives lost, you could have had 200,000 vehicles flooded from either fresh or saltwater,” he said.
He asked the audience to imagine visitors stuck in Cape May County for three to four weeks without power and without vehicles to get home. Eberwine said the call to evacuate for Hurricane Irene was “very prudent.”
Forecasts for Hurricane Irene called for as much as 15 inches of rain but fortunately the county received 5 to 6 inches, he said. Eberwine asked the audience to imagine 15 inches of rain with sustained hurricane force winds “and you’ll see exactly how lucky we were.”
Irene’s storm surge could have reached 7.5 feet on top of a 6 foot high tide totaling 13 feet. Eberwine said the highest storm surge on record in the county was 9 feet.
He said Bethany Beach, Del. and Ocean City, Md. had 12 foot waves breaking on the beach from Irene. The eye of Irene came to Cape May County a few hours before high tide.
“You missed it by three-and-a-half hours, of seeing a disaster in Cape May,” said Eberwine. “If it hit like it was forecast, we’ll still be without power I’m sure today.”
Freeholder Ralph Sheets asked Eberwine if he had a crystal ball noting the “Hurricane Jessica” exercise was nearly identical to Hurricane Irene.
Channel 40 Meteorologist Dan Skeldon said he believed the job of emergency management and the media getting people to evacuate would become more difficult after Hurricane Irene.
“I think the evacuation orders were absolutely right on, done early enough, done so efficiently,” said Skeldon.
He said he never thought Cape May County could be evacuated as easily as it was.
Skeldon posted a question on Facebook and Twitter asking, “Given what happened in Irene, would you evacuate again?” He said with over 2,000 responses, 66 percent said they were glad they evacuated and would do so in the future while 13 percent they would “ride out” every storm.
A total of 8 percent did not evacuate but said they may do so with the next hurricane. Skeldon said 15 percent said they did evacuate and found conditions worse where they relocated, so they may not leave next time.
He said Channel 40 lost power during the hurricane which made other forms of communication necessary such as Facebook and Twitter. During the height of the storm, Skeldon said he was in a radio station powered by a generator posting to social networks with his iPhone.
He suggested emergency management use social networking as a communications tool since cell phones may operate when power is out. Skeldon said the biggest job for meteorologists and emergency management is to “debunk the myth now that we are going to get lucky with every storm like we did with Hurricane Irene.”
Sen. Jeff Van Drew called the evacuation of the county “nothing short of amazing.” He said additional and higher quality shelters were needed throughout the state. He spoke of Senate Bill S-264 which would require all new schools built in the state to be adequate as shelters.
Much of what is in S-264 has been implemented in this county and state but it should be law, said Van Drew. The bill is in committee in the state assembly, he said.
Van Drew said the proposed legislation notes when winds reach a certain speed and traffic becomes heavy, boat owners will not be permitted to trailer their boats out of the county. He advised removing boats early in the evacuation process.
Some of the places where evacuees were sent were hit harder than Cape May County such as western Cumberland County, he said.
County Emergency Management Director Frank McCall said he’d much rather be at the conference to share that the county was prepared than to make “some lame excuse” because emergency management “didn’t think anything was going to happen.” He said improvements needed to be made in regional sheltering, care of pets, care of special needs populations and communications with the state.
Charles McKenna, director of the state office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, said he has been questioned by the public as to what post Sept. 11 federal funding given to the state has produced. He said Hurricane Irene showed a return on that investment because the state and county were better equipped and trained, communicated better and were “better able to handle the immediate catastrophe that faced us.”
More than 1.5 million persons were moved statewide away from the shore with 10,000 residents using shelters, said McKenna. He said the state needed to make sure sheltering needs were met including pets and that shelters had enough food, cots and water for extended periods of time.
McKenna said because this state is so densely populated, there are not a lot of interim housing for those whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged, something that needs to be in future plans.
Major Dennis McNulty, deputy state director of the state police office of emergency management, said more than $247 million of damage was done to infrastructure in the state from Hurricane Irene with $76 million of assistance to individuals through FEMA. He said situational awareness software known as “E-Team,” was “not doing its job.”
McNulty said a new version of the software would be available to emergency managers by December.
