Hurricane Helen: The Impact of Climate Change on Intense Storms

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Hurricane Helen has come through the United States and

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it's had a lot of damage. Not only property damage, but

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it's taken 52 lives in the U.S.

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Not just in Florida, but in Georgia, North Carolina, and

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other places. And it's caused flash flooding in a lot of

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those places. Homes were floating around. It's

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not good. And it doesn't look like it's going to

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get better with storms. And I had a question from an audience member

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saying, hey, Andrew, can you start talking about how climate change is

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affecting these hurricanes? And we're going to talk about that on today's episode of

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the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

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you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by

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taking action. And on today's episode, we're not talking about

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something that's fun to talk about, in my opinion. Hurricane Helen just went

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through Florida, Georgia, North Carolinas, and

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other places, taking 52 lives. causing

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so much damage and we need to

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talk about it. We need to talk about these storms. Interesting

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in a lot of different ways, in that it was a lot bigger,

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larger in space. When you look at the radius

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and the diameter of this storm, it really

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increased rapidly from a Hurricane 1, Category

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1, to a Hurricane 4. We're going to talk about these categories. And

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we're going to talk about what scientists are now thinking in terms of maybe adding

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another category. So we're going to talk about that today. But we're going to talk about

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why you know climate change is actually helping

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these storms become more intense and more frequent and

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even a lot more flooding, a lot more rain is being

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had in these hurricanes and

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that's a danger to a lot of places. So we're going

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to talk about that a number of times and we're also going to talk about

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ways that people can get better access, you

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know ways that you know past storms may have

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had an influence on the decision of how people or

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when people will evacuate if they will evacuate and we're gonna we're

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gonna talk about that as well so lots to get into before

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we do that though I just want to remind people if you want to know more about what's

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happening in the ocean, you can get access to

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our newsletter. If you go to speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter,

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you can get access to three articles a day, Monday to Friday. You can also

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get access to our latest videos, our latest podcasts, because

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we're doing video podcasts now, or I'm doing video podcasts now. You can also get

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access to job openings and things like that around the world. All

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you have to do is click on the link in

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the show notes or go to www.speakupforblue.com. That's

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www.speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. And

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we can get into it. We can get find find out more about this information There's

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a lot of times we get you know We I just accumulate all these stories

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that I see that I find interesting that I think you would be interested in as well And

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I think this is what we do right we provide a resource of where you can get information On

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on the ocean, so that's what we do so speak up for blue comm forward slash Newsletter

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is where you would go for that sign up for free. I don't

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charge anything And I never share your email with anybody else

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But anyway, let's get into the episode. This is not

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a fun episode to talk about. Like I said, people lost their lives, people

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lost their homes. Insurance is really difficult to come by, especially when

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it comes to flash flooding or any kind of hurricanes, especially

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in Florida. I watched a lot of videos that

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were covering it. A lot of people were live streaming during the time. A lot

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more people didn't evacuate, and that's a scary

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thought. And I think a lot of it was because it

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started off as a category one. It hit the Yucatan Peninsula,

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so in Mexico. And it was like a Category 3. And once it goes

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over land a little bit, it kind of dissipates. And it went down to a Category 1. But

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it rapidly increased. And the size, the

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sheer size of the hurricane, not the intensity, but the size

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in terms of how the hurricane clouds, how much area

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it covered, was a lot bigger, probably one of the biggest ones we've seen

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in a long time. And you can see there were videos

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of people being rescued on sailboats and people being rescued

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from flooding, but even before the hurricane came in. And

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obviously, that's a danger. But I went from a Category 1 to a Category

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4. And I want to just talk a little bit about the category.

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So the Saphir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale

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is what categorizes these hurricanes. So

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it's categories right now currently 1 to 5. And

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it basically goes by wind. So Category 1 is a 74 to 95 mile an hour

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winds. Category 2 is 96 to 110 miles an hour. three

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attack at the hurricane category three which is a major hurricane is

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considered the beginning of the major hurricanes is a hundred eleven two hundred nine

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hundred twenty nine miles an hour winds category four

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which was what hurricane helen was was a hundred and thirty two hundred and fifty

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six mile per hour winds percent against big wins here and

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category five which hurricane barrel was earlier this year earlier this

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summer was a hundred and fifty seven mile an hour winds or

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higher The types of damage for Category 1, if

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you just think about that, is very dangerous winds will produce some damage. Well-constructed

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frame homes could have damage to roofs, shingles, vinyl siding,

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and gutters. Large branches of trees will snap and shallow

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rooted trees will be toppled. Extensive damage to power

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lines and poles likely will result in power outages that

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could last a few to several days. So that's just a Category 1. I'm

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not going to read all of them because I'll put a link in the show notes

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of where You can get access to this. This is on the NOAA website. But

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a major hurricane, Category 3, is devastating

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damage will occur. Well-built framed homes may incur major

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damage or removal of roof, decking, and gable ends.

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I'm not sure what gable ends are, but many trees will be

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snapped or uprooted, blocking numerous roads. Electricity and

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water will be unavailable for several days to weeks after the storm passes.

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I was involved in a Hurricane 3. when I

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lived in Halifax back in 2003, 2004. It was Hurricane

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Juan. It rapidly intensified. We thought it was going to

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be a tropical storm. It ended up being a Category 3. Those

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winds were no joke. We were lucky in terms of

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where my wife and I were living, but the downtown areas where

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there was lots of huge trees that were upended put the city, just

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disabled the city for like three weeks in a state of emergency. And

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that is obviously not good. Category 4, which is Hurricane Helen,

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has catastrophic damage will occur. Well-built framed houses

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can sustain severe damage with loss of most of

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the roof structure and or some exterior walls. Most

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trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles downed.

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Fallen trees and power poles will

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isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to

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possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks

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or months. I

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think the Tampa Bay area and the panhandle of Florida.

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And they're saying, hey, you know what? Earlier in the day, it's a category one.

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You might want to think about evacuating. But because the

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ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, is so warm, that this could rapidly

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increase into something like category 2, 3, or

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4. It ended up being 4. But a day is not

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a lot of time to get a lot of people out of a city or a lot

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of people out of the area. It's not just Tampa Bay. You've got surrounding areas.

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We knew the storm surge was going to be heavy. And storm surge essentially

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is what water comes to the land from a storm, right?

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Surging water that comes through, storm surge. They were predicting maybe

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about eight feet high. That's, you know, above

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most people's height, right? It'd be very, I would say everybody's

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height. It's safe to say, unless you're a basketball player and you're eight feet, that

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doesn't exist as far as I know. But, you know, so that's up

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above most houses, first floor houses. So that

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could be very dangerous in terms of flooding roads, you can't get out

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if you can't leave. There were videos that I saw of

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older people who were saying, look, I just

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don't have the means to leave. I'm going to ride it out. There was

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another gentleman who made CNN. During

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the storm, he was actually live streaming from his house. in

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a kayak, and he was on the kayak in probably about

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five or six feet of water, it looked like, and he was live

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streaming. He was fine, but he basically lost everything in

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his home. I think he tried to put stuff in storage. I don't know the full story on

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this, but he was just sitting on a kayak throughout the whole time, but

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that water could have gone higher, right? We don't

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know exactly what that was gonna do, depending on that

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surge. And when you have a surge, you have rapidly,

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We have water coming in rapidly, and it could

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have a current to it. And that could be dangerous if you're out of the house or

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you're not. Even on boats, boats were being flown all over the place.

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The next day, you saw boats all over the land. These

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are some 20, 30 footers, 40 footers that were just everywhere

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because the waves were coming in so high, the storm surge was coming in so high.

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The winds were crazy. Just as

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I read for the Category 4 hurricanes, catastrophic

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damage to houses. Homes were actually floating away. If

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it's not properly framed homes or not, what do they call

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it, well-built framed homes, your home

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has had a risk of just floating

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away. That's dangerous in and of itself, and you

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don't want to see that happen to anybody. The guy in the kayak was saying

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to CNN, he doesn't have insurance on his home. He

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said, we'll just have to start over, and we're just going to have to continue to do this. This

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is why I tell people, you may not want to live in Florida. You

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may not want to live in Florida. A lot of people still say, hey, I want to

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go to Florida because it's so nice. There are some times you may not want

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to live there full year round or have an own property because one,

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you may not get insurance for flooding. And it's not necessarily just

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these major hurricanes. There's an article in The Hill. And

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I'll put that link in this show notes in the description. They

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start talking about how because the Gulf

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of Mexico and the ocean is getting hotter, then that

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means the clouds are holding more water

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because there's more evaporation of water, goes into the

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clouds, and the clouds are holding, so these hurricane clouds are holding more water. It doesn't matter

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if it's a hurricane one, four, or five. It matters how

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much water this is holding. There's more water that's coming down, and

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that means more flooding. You know, when you add that to the

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storm surge, you add that to sea level rise, there are a lot of

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vulnerable areas along those coastlines and maybe even inland more

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because they're not ready for this type of rain, the

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amount of rain that we're willing to have. The infrastructure was not built

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that way. And so even if you have a Category 1, people

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didn't leave when it was a Category 4 because they couldn't because they thought it was a Category 1 or

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2 when it first started to come. They think, hey, you know what, I can survive

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a category one. Well, one, you have the risk of it increasing because of

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rapidly increasing because it's getting hotter and hotter in the ocean, more

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evaporation is coming. Apparently, this is how the winds increase

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is when it gets hotter and hotter. And so that energy transfer from

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the ocean to the clouds gets

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faster. And so that means it increases not only the size of

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the storm, but it increases the wind speeds. Hence why we had such

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a rapidly increasing category 1 to 4. It increased that wind speed

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super, super fast. So you have that risk of it actually increasing as

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it comes closer to land. But then you also have the risk of just the flooding

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that comes. Even if it's a category 1, you risk people saying,

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hey, you know what? It's only a category 1. I live in Florida. I've lived my

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entire life here. And I've gone through hurricanes. And there have been some

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where we've evacuated. But category ones, that's just like a

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big storm. And you kind of get that toughness to it because you're like, yeah, we got some damage, maybe

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a couple of broken windows. We'll put the protectors on the windows. And

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we'll make sure we reinforce some sandbags and things like that to make sure

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the water doesn't come in. But we'll be fine. But then you get more water than expected.

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That's dangerous, right? That's dangerous to your infrastructure that's not

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used to that much water, right? At that amount of time. Case in

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point, Burlington, Ontario, where I live, we had the

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remnants of Hurricane Beryl came right up the Midwest, and

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it took a little right turn, it came right into Ontario. And we

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had massively rapid rains. We had squalls. It

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was like, you know, rain squalls, which we don't normally have. We were in squall warnings

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for a long time. And not only did we get so much water, we had so

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much water that a lot of the infrastructure couldn't hold. People were flooded out

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of their homes, in their basements, even in the first level. Though not only

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their basements filled up all the way, but the first level filled up about five

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or six feet in certain areas. That infrastructure gets tested

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during these storms. We just can't continue to

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have this. That infrastructure is going to have to change. We're going to have to adapt. We're going to have to put more money

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in the system and really start to look at our politicians to

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make sure that they are protecting us for that adaptation. Because

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until we do something to reduce climate change, which we're not doing fast

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enough, We are going to have these storms. They are going to

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increase in intensity. They are going to increase in number. There are

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two more storms apparently right behind Hurricane Ellen, and the

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ocean hasn't really cooled down from these storms, so it's just going to

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get hotter and hotter, and we're just going to find, like, we're late September

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up here in Ontario, and it's 23 degrees. Celsius.

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That's really hot for this time of year. We are not used to

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seeing this on a regular basis. We barely had a winter last

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year. I don't know what this winter is going to be like, if we're going to get more snow, less

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snow, cold, or even just mild temperatures as we did before. A

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lot of it's up in the air. And the thing is, no matter what, it's

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going to test our infrastructure. Not only in Ontario, but

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across the Midwest, and across the United States, across

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Canada, down into the southern United States, especially where they

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get these hurricanes, there's going to be more and more damage. and people are

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not necessarily leaving their homes. There are a lot of videos of people staying

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on boats and things like that, and that boat's going to get capsized at

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one point. At one point before the

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hurricane even came in during the day, there was a rescue for

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an emergency that a man and his dog were in the actual water. They

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had to abandon their sailboat because they're in these massive waves. and

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their boat was basically just couldn't go anywhere, it was just stuck,

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it was isolated and they just couldn't move and they were afraid, they couldn't get

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out of the, they couldn't get to shore and they had to, you know, there's video,

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harrowing videos of these rescuers, you know, saving

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the person and the dog. And to be honest, like what are they doing out there in

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the first place? I don't know how they got out there or if they did that

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on purpose, but that's a danger, right? You know, I'm a dog lover. Nobody

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wants to see dog die. Nobody wants to see their owner die either. They

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put themselves at risk just by being out there, whether it was on purpose or not,

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I don't know. So I don't want to make assumptions, but that's, that's, that's taking

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resources away to save those people because they have, They

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have to save that person, excuse me. But also, that's

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taking time away from going elsewhere and saving anybody else,

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right? So things move fast. And case

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in point, there was a video on Fox News. The guy was on live, the

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reporter. There was water behind him. Classic shot

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in a hurricane. There was a car that was almost submerged.

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You can almost just see the top of the window and the

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roof. And then you hear someone saying, help me, help me, help me. And

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the reporter said, we've called 911. should be here any minute,

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told the reporter that he was talking to, the anchor that he was

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talking to, that they've called 911. But then he finally just said, you know what, I

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gotta do something. And he hurriedly walked into the

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water. You don't know what the current is like. Walked into the water, got

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the woman out, carried the woman all the way to safety, thank

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God, and then went back and did his reporting. Emergency

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services can't get everywhere all the time. And by staying in

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those areas, which is risky, you want to have a

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service or something that can actually try and predict these things faster,

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that people can tune into. It's going to be extremely important in

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the future when you have you know, rapidly growing hurricanes.

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You have more water in these hurricanes, so more flooding available

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in these hurricanes, lack of infrastructure, right? And then lack

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of action. Florida has a governor who's not taking any

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action against climate change and has removed the word climate change from all

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of their policies. They've gone in the opposite direction and

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the people are paying for it. The people are paying for it. The people who vote them

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in are paying for it, but also the people who didn't vote for them, they're paying for it as well. And

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Florida is predicted by the IPCC to go underwater, half

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of it to go underwater at some point in the future, whether it's 2050 or

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not. And people aren't believing it. The IPCC was right when they said, hey,

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clouds are going to hold more water. It's science, folks. This is what's

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happening. And we're fighting against governors and

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politicians who are denying this. They're getting paid by fossil fuel

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companies and super PACs that are funded by

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these fossil fuel companies to say, hey, you know what? There's nothing we can really

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do. But people are losing their lives. People are losing their homes, their

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livelihoods. It's going to take a long time to recover from this.

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And the amount of money that has to go into the recovery and

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cleanup of this mess, it's insane. It's

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an insane amount. And I'm working on a story now to look at the

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actual coverages of like the amount of money that it takes to do

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this. But this is insane to see this

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on a, you know, this is going to be regular happenings from now on, these

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intensified storms, right? And whether they're category one

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or category four, you're still going to get the same amount of rain. Right? And

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so that's the concern. And with climate change

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continuing to affect and influence our weather systems, we

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are going to see these storms continue to happen. And that is

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scary in itself. Right? But I

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don't want you to think that we're done, for this is going to

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be it. This is going to be it. There is hope. There is optimism. There are people out

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there, there are politicians out there who want to do something about climate change. It's

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a matter of can we vote them in? At some

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point, The work for climate adaptation, the

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work for reducing the emissions that will affect climate change will

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come into play because it's going to affect our economy. I know politicians normally

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focus more on economy versus the environment, so

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we have to fund to maintain the economy, but that means a lot of times

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that we don't fund environmental practice. At some point, those

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two are going to come together and the environment is going to affect the economy as it's

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doing in Florida, as it did in Georgia, as it did in North Carolina.

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By these major floods, it takes money to clean

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this stuff up. It takes money to adapt. And eventually, that

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money is going to affect our economy. It could be already. That's

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the story I'm working on. So hopefully, I'll be able to have something for you soon. But

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this is a huge, huge problem. And it's not something that

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we need to turn a blind eye to. So

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sorry for this Monday episode being a little bit pessimistic, but

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sometimes we have to talk about these things. And the hope that I have is

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that we can actually take care of this. We can actually help the people

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in Florida, help the people in Georgia, help people in North Carolina and elsewhere,

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so that we don't have to go through this in the future. All we have to do is just reduce

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emissions. Just reduce emissions. As complex as

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it is, it's not difficult to do. We just need to have the people

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in power to actually do that. And that's up to us to vote. There are major

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elections coming up in the US, and there's going to be some major elections coming up

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in Canada. And it's up to us here in North America to

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help make sure these politicians get into power.

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So ask people about their climate change policies if they come around to your door. They

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should be answering. If they don't have an answer, they don't have a plan, they

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should not be in power. They should

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not get your vote, in my opinion. For this audience, climate change is

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a big deal, and I think we need to hold our

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politicians accountable for that. We need to act faster, because we're

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not only seeing these problems happen, now it's starting

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to get regular occurrence, and we can't get used to this. There's just too much

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money involved, the livelihoods of people, people's lives involved,

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and we just don't want to see this happen again. So let's

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get on it. Let's get out and vote. You know, register to vote if you

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if you're able to register to vote and vote wherever you can and

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however you can. All right. Only once, of course, but vote. That's

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it for today's episode. If you have any questions or comments on this episode or if

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you've been in the areas or you know of any crowdfunding

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ways to help some people out, please let me know. I'll post them, I'll add

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them to the list in our show notes. But let

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me know. You can get a hold of me just by commenting on the Spotify

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video or audio, however you're listening to this, or You can

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go to YouTube where you can see the video of me talking about this

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stuff. And of course, you can just hit me up on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean.

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That's at HowToProtectTheOcean. DM me, feel free to do so.

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Because this is the starting of a conversation, and I want to hear your opinions on

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this. Let me know what you think. And I want to thank Nicole for

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suggesting this episode. Thank you so much. It

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was great to get your email and your interaction. If you have a suggestion or

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a comment, feel free to get a hold of me. I just told you how. And I want to thank you

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so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have