PART V — SEVERE STORMS 



many more "improvements" that de- 

 stroy or upset natural conditions. In- 

 tervening rural areas are left rela- 

 tively untouched, particularly if their 

 coastal sand dunes have been left in- 

 tact. 



It is difficult to convince people 

 that hurricanes bring most disastrous 

 results to places near disturbed 

 beaches and sand dunes, and that 

 substantial buildings reduce losses of 

 life immensely. Hurricane Camille 

 evidenced tremendous contrasts be- 

 tween the minor damage to substan- 

 tial buildings and the destruction of 

 shoddy structures, however nicely 

 adorned. Great loss of life occurred 

 in hotels and motels with inadequate 

 framework, the buildings being held 

 together mainly by wallboard or in- 

 sufficiently bonded partitions of thin 

 concrete blocks. Surges up to twenty 

 feet high did relatively little damage, 

 however, to buildings with adequate 

 frames, whether of wood or steel. 

 Trailer courts were wiped out, even 

 several blocks back from the shore, 

 while old homes with good construc- 

 tion withstood the surge much better 

 even where they were located on or 

 near the Gulf of Mexico. 



While the number of seashore 

 buildings anchored on effective pil- 

 ings often increases for some years 

 after a hurricane, this is not always 

 true. After Hurricane Audrey, nearly 

 all new houses were built on concrete 

 slabs at ground level, following the 

 dictates of a current style rather than 

 in anticipation that the buildings will 

 probably be flooded by several feet 

 of seawater within a decade or two. 

 People appeared to assume that Au- 

 drey would be the last hurricane to 

 strike the coast of southwestern 

 Louisiana. 



The National Weather Service per- 

 forms an invaluable service in pro- 

 viding hurricane watches, alerts, and 

 warnings, each of which becomes 

 progressively more specific about 

 time of arrival and width of danger- 

 ous impact as the storm nears the 



mainland coast. But to what extent 

 has public confidence been created? 

 For some reason the people in a small 

 but active community on Breton Is- 

 land (east of the Mississippi River 

 Delta) heeded a hurricane warning in 

 1915. The buildings in the commu- 

 nity were totally destroyed, and have 

 not been rebuilt, but every inhabitant 

 was evacuated before the storm 

 struck, without the loss of a single 

 life. In 1957, on the other hand, few 

 people heeded timely, adequate warn- 

 ings of the approach of Hurricane 

 Audrey toward the Louisiana coast. 

 Many hurricanes had brought storm 

 surges to the area, but all had been 

 lower than the elevation of the higher 

 land in the vicinity (about 10 feet). 

 Hurricanes were an old story. Most 

 of the people remained at home and 

 were totally unprepared for vigorous 

 surges that swept as much as three 

 feet across the highest land in the 

 vicinity, causing tremendous loss of 

 life and property. On several occa- 

 sions during the past thirteen years 

 people have evacuated the region 

 as soon as early warnings have been 

 issued, but in no case did a dangerous 

 surge occur. Will these experiences 

 result in destroying confidence in 

 warnings by the time that the next 

 potential disaster appears? 



Awareness of danger is almost im- 

 possible to maintain for disasters that 

 recur a generation or more apart. 

 Probably the most effective hurri- 

 cane-protection measures result from 

 legal actions, at state and local levels, 

 such as the formulation and enforce- 

 ment of adequate building codes, pro- 

 vision for rapid evacuation, mainte- 

 nance of reserve supplies of fresh 

 water for domestic use, well-con- 

 structed sanitary systems, and the 

 availability of carefully planned 

 health and emergency facilities. 



Needed Scientific Activity 



In their pristine condition, factors 

 associated with the destructive effects 

 of hurricanes are in reasonable equi- 



librium with those that resist geo- 

 morphic change. Scientific knowledge 

 about hurricane origins, mechanics, 

 physics, and behavior slowly in- 

 creases, as does knowledge concern- 

 ing the destruction or alteration of 

 shoreline landforms and the accumu- 

 lation and transport of near shore 

 sediment. The effects of upsetting 

 natural environmental conditions may 

 be forecast with considerable qualita- 

 tive precision. 



In order to understand more com- 

 pletely the relations between hurri- 

 canes and their physical effects on 

 coastal lands, the following suggested 

 activities appear to be pertinent: 



1. Accelerating the Weather Serv- 

 ice's program of hurricane 

 tracking and its ability to fore- 

 cast the intensity and time of 

 arrival of individual storms and 

 to designate the coastal areas 

 most likely to suffer. 



2. Encouragement of studies by 

 coastal morphologists to iden- 

 tify areas where physical 

 changes are imminent, with em- 

 phasis on man-induced causes, 

 in the hope that they may be- 

 come expert in assessing the 

 results of undesirable practices. 



3. Creation, on a national level, 

 of a group charged with moni- 

 toring proposed activities of 

 U.S. Army and other coastal 

 engineers from the standpoint 

 of assessing probable long-term 

 changes that designs of de- 

 fenses against the sea are likely 

 to induce. This should be a 

 cooperative, rather than strictly 

 policing, activity. There is tre- 

 mendous need for better com- 

 munication between scientists 

 and engineers. Scientists need 

 to be better informed about en- 

 gineering design practices, and 

 engineers need better under- 

 standing of the conclusions of 

 basic scientific research. 



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