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Sunday, October 10, 2010

A Perfect Storm …Indeed!





A Perfect Storm is a Killer!

I wrote about what it is like to live in a hurricane path, and before I was able to publish the piece, my island of Bermuda found itself being lashed by Hurricane Igor. I followed that up with the end result, but now I am taking a more in-depth look at what happened because it was so out of the ordinary.

Hurricane Igor, or Ogre was, in the experience of Bermuda (I borrow the name) “The Perfect Storm” from a number of points of view. A Perfect Storm is one where several elements that are dangerous in themselves all come together to make a killer event.

Firstly we start with the fact that Bermuda is a land mass only 35 kilometres long, and three kilometres wide. On the world map it only warrants a dot to show where it is, but the mass is so small that no outline is given.

Hurricane Igor made up off the coast of Africa and came across the Atlantic, and in its journey through the West Indies it left two persons dead in its wake. Then it got its act together as it moved due north and straight for Bermuda. It travelled as a Category Three hurricane, with sustained winds at its centre of in excess of 200 kilometres per hour. It moved in an achingly slow speed, meaning that it would spend lots of time over land to do the maximum damage. No matter how strong you build your house, if a storm of this magnitude sits on top of you for as much as a week, it will bring the building down.

Such a storm often spawns tornados within it that act as chain saws that cut down anything still standing. It would also create storm surges that would put all low lying areas under water, and it would dump even more water from the skies to add to the flooding. The final element was its size. It was 800 kilometres wide so that even a shift in its direction would not mean escape. Bermuda was facing an end of world scenario.

Many people simply locked up their homes and got off the island. Private estimates were that property damage would likely be total, with homes valued at upwards of 50 million dollars being wrecked and drawn into the sea. Casualties could have been in the thousands. News media became excited by the prospect and committed suicidal teams to go to collect what pictures they could of a country that is as elegant and manicured as Bermuda as it went to its death.

My wife and I had been in Bermuda barely a month before where we joined in a family reunion that saw 600 of my daughters and grandchildren; my brothers and sisters; cousins and friends gathered together in joyful comradeship, but now they were in harm’s way. Hurricane Igor was making Hurricane Katrina look like a tropical breeze.

I presume that the people of New Orleans must have anticipated the arrival of Katrina a few years ago with equal dread, and with good reason. We so seldom take a direct hit because our land mass is so small, but this time Hurricane Igor came ashore scoring a bulls-eye with its 80 kilometre centre.

No one credited “The Bermuda High” with the power to affect a Category Three storm in any meaningful way, but, the facts are that once the storm collided with the High it lost two-thirds of its strength, and it picked up speed. It did not include tornados, and was only felt for three days instead of one week. At the end there was no loss of life, nor even injuries, and property damage was minimal.

However, the stress levels of which I wrote in my first piece will be felt even more intensely as storms seem to be growing stronger and bigger. If there were a real Bermuda Triangle it would be nice if it would just swallow up the hurricanes.

Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael