Hurricane Preparedness - Why You Should Focus on Impacts, Not the Category of the Storm

okay let's get started everybody ready okay I'm Mike Shaker the president of the Carolina Nature Coalition and I want to thank a few people and organizations I want to thank public radio East for publicizing it I want to thank the Unitarian un Universalist Fellowship in Newburn for providing this wonderful venue here um I want to thank Tom shup who is our CNC secretary and also our technical Guru and I want to thank Connie Casey our director of external Communications and the brownie Baker I also want to thank the uh n National Weather Service in Newport for giving us a fantastic tour of their weather state we had the tour it was fantastic all right and I want to thank everybody here and everybody on Zoom um if you like what we do please donate either here there's a donation J or on our website because we only get funding from you we don't get any grants now I met Eric Hayden um over a year ago and we tried to uh you know several times to uh get together and have a presentation so I'm very excited that we finally succeeded Eric Hayden is the warning coordin coordinate I can say it warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in moead City well actually Newport um which covers eastern North Carolina including the Outer Banks in this position he is the liaison between the national weather service and the community all right uh working closely with emergency managers television broadcasters and the general public Eric has been in the National Weather Service for 16 years working previously at local weather service offices in Bingington New York and Wilmington North Carolina prior to his career with the Weather Service Eric was a broadcast meteorologist for five years at various cities in Upstate New York Eric received his degree in meteorology from Sunni asigo in Upstate New York York I know that because I'm originally from New York I can say all these things Eric and his wife Rebecca reside in Cape curet North Carolina and have three kids outside of weather and family life Eric is an avid Rose grower and competes in Rose shows and even has his own YouTube channel for growing roses also found out that he is a thesbian oh my playing the part in a local production of Fiddler on the Roof so I give you Eric Hayden and his accompanied Morgan that's uh quite the uh introduction I should preface the Fiddler on the Roof part I had not done anything since fifth grade but my three kids and my wife convinced me to do it it's aisan players down toward Morehead City and for Fiddler you need large families and you need representation from the whole community so they needed a lot of papas so um that's how I got involved in that and if you had seen me about three weeks ago I had a full beard and the hair was going kind of crazy but that I've been trimmed up since then uh because we're all done with the show really appreciate you joining us this evening I appreciate the uh group having us U I know we have folks from outside the group as well we are recording this presentation for YouTube so if you have to duck out if I went too fast at any part if a neighbor could not attend share this information with them it'll be NWS Morehead City you're lucky you won't just hear me blabbing the whole time we have Miss Lauren from uh Duke Energy she's going to talk about some issues we have after the storms and some resources they provide as an organization so we are in the middle of hurricane season we're not quite to the peak don't let our guard down I know it hasn't been a super busy year yet we certainly had tropical storm Debbie but after tonight we want you to do one thing to get prepared those things that you've put off you know you should probably have that case of water the canned goods that you keep thinking about doing we want you to take that step tomorrow this weekend to actually accomplish that focus on the impacts if we do have a storm never ever focus on just the category of the storm that's probably the biggest misconception a lot of us focus on what is the category rating it's part of the puzzle it's not the whole thing and last but not least water is what kills people it is not um wind or other factors that can occur in the storm so please focus on all aspects uh hurricane Outlook uh takes uh one storm to make a difference um and if we could uh maybe switch uh you you got my lovely fa there we go uh so as I was saying we really don't want people to focus on just the category of the storm we want you to focus on all impacts the other thing this hurricane Outlook gets a lot of notoriety it's important it's an accurate forecast this year it's been updated early August a 90% chance above normal year they could all stay out in the ocean and it would be an accurate forecast or they could we could have multiple storms this fall until we can tell you whether they're going to hit hit us or not this storm this forecast doesn't have a lot of utility it only takes one storm to make a difference next year I could say it's the wimpiest hurricane season on record and as a scientist Morgan and I could be right we get just one storm all of next year but if it's a Florence and it hits us it's a big deal so we really stress each and every year you should be prepared no matter what the forecast says one of the single best resources you can um look at locally is our National Weather Service website a show of hands how many are familiar with this site not talking weather.com or ACU weather so a fair amount of people for those that are not familiar with it you can scan the QR code Mr Morgan can go around at some point if you have any questions afterwards we'll show you what that means or you can just use the website weather.gov Newport if you just remember weather.gov that's used anywhere in the country you go on vacation this summer to Alaska weather.gov click on the part of the state you're interested in you'll get a forecast from Juno or Anchorage just depending on where you are uh and our joke with that if it's a weather you love it's weather.gov so that that allows you to uh remember what it is but honestly it is $4 per person to fund us each year we're part of the federal government we fall under the Department of Commerce and Noah so anytime you see Channel 12 or NCT any of your local news The Weather Channel showing a radar showing a satellite and in a lot of cases forecast that information is coming from us not me not just Morgan us we all pay taxes in this room so this is your information so please use the local website forecast warnings radar information also briefings on the tropics really really good information if you just want one spot to bookmark tonight this is your resource another good website what you can get from our page so again you don't need to write all of these down is the Hurricane Center they're part of the Weather Service uh if you want to bookmark it separately it's hurricanes with an s.gov really good information on this uh page including uh forecast um storm names um storm surge information and a bunch of things but one thing I want to highlight is the tropical weather outlook how many of you are familiar with this or have kind of seen this before so pretty pretty uh um you know up group on on what we do it varies this is something you also may see through the local news it doesn't just have to be from our website four times a day the Hurricane Center will Outlook where there is a potential risk over the next seven days for something to form and we'll color it yellow for a low chance Orange orange for a medium chance and red for a high chance and if there's happens to be a storm out there we'll we'll put that on there as well this is what you should look at each day 30 seconds either watch the local news or get it from our website do I need to be especially concerned in the next seven days if not you move on with life you don't have to check this every minute but it's something I would kind of encourage you to check out just a little special uh you know update for you nothing you know to too imminent but this is our official one from this afternoon the one prior I showed you was uh hey this is what it looks like if it gets kind of crazy this is today this afternoon the next seven days we have about a 20% chance for something forming in that yellow hatched area it's not a track doesn't tell us if it's going to hit eastern North Carolina doesn't doesn't give us any more information then you know I should probably start paying attention a little bit more over the next seven days that would still probably be another seven days out from our area but it's it's a little reminder that we should start paying attention to what's going on out in the tropics yes so it will come on for us into the gentleman's point I get paid the same tonight I had nice dinner at Morgan downtown I love talking to you especially when there's not a storm I get paid the same today as I do during Florence so it doesn't benefit me to Hype anything up and we're going to talk about that in the social media part we will hype it up when we think we're uh especially concerned with your lives in the community and I'll talk about that for social media one of the most prominent things on the Hurricane Center website is this tracking map you should be familiar with this again you may get it many different resources most people show the offici track um don't look at what we call the spaghetti models has anybody seen that that it looks like Morgan and I were in kindergarten and we drew all these crazy tracks it drives me crazy because it it is um useful information if you know how it's used when they're all spread out going every which way we're not confident those are all possible scenarios and what good does that do you if one hits North Carolina and everything else is going all over the place does you no good they're only useful when they're kind of tightly clustered and showing the same area um I I would I wouldn't waste my worry on that we will give you plenty of heads up uh when there's an official track this is what you should be paying attention to with that said there is some misconceptions about this graphic this shows you the most probable path for the center of the storm and last time I checked when Michael read that bio was beautiful uh I'm not a lawyer I'm a meteorologist however that was written very specifically probable path of the center of the storm that does not show you who will be impacted and who won't it doesn't show you how much rain you're going to get what's the storm surge it only shows where that little dot on the map is going to go and we know for those that been in the room for a long time that wherever the hurricane hits um there's impacts felt hundreds of miles away Hurricane's not a DOT on the map so this is not an in or out scenario this is not a who I'm in it I need to be concerned it's going to Myrtle Beach Wilmington I don't have to worry about it anymore no no no it's drawn based on statistical error so it's not drawn really wide because it's a wide storm it has nothing to do with the current storm in terms of the width um the other thing as Florence approached we were not in the path the cone map of the storm here in Newburn it's because we accurately predicted the center was not going to hit here in Newburn it was going to hit down toward rville Beach uh so again that if you're in or out of it no if it's anywhere near you from Florida through Delaware you should be paying attention so it's useful but please don't just focus on if you're in the path or not a little more useful is the graphic on the um leftand side this is time of arrival of winds you'll notice the probability of who's going to see the strong winds that's a little more useful map because there's bright colors where we're most confident where the strong winds will be and then those lighter greens where it's probably less likely uh to occur these Graphics are on the Hurricane Center site if you choose to evacuate if you board up your home if you want to complete your plans that's your graphic when do I have to get everything done um this will be a reasonable um arrival time of the tropical storm force winds so in the bio mentioned I'm a big Gardener so while everybody was PL preparing for Florence I was pretty prepared so I was cutting my roses down and I knew I had until a certain time to be done um because I was in town for work on the lower right I'm going to really really hone in on this because of where you live storm surge map what the height of the storm surge will be because that's what we need to talk about uh since we're here we're here today or this evening in Newburn to the gentleman's point in the back there is not a lack of information prior to a storm in fact two weeks out I'm sure you're hearing about stuff do not waste your time or energy on anything that's not official it's not because we get every single thing right or every aspect of the storm right it's because we're very consistent with how we message we're messaging it this way and when things change we slowly shift that way we're not here and there and here and there we're very um direct with how we message a good way to stay on top of it in addition to our website is social media if you just search NWS for National Weather Service Morehead City uh Instagram Twitter Facebook X as they call it now YouTube we're all all on there uh so a lot of good information and I challenge you if you're social media you're going to see stuff floating out there unless it's from the Hurricane Center or a trusted local Source or us you should not be sharing it you have a lot of power in this room by what you share if you share good information that spreads good information to the community and this goes through everything in life if you share stuff that's not true um it that's not good for the community uh to that point the tweet in the upper left is uh one I did on the morning of Florence we got calls from people wanting to come back to the area because instead of it being a four it was now just a one and I used the word catastrophic our our impacts with storm surge and Rain have not changed again I I don't I don't get any benefit out of doing that I see your faces I remember you from the talks I care about you that's why I use the word catastrophic we don't just float words around when we use something like that we really mean business uh and we do that via social media so that first little part is how you get information recap weather.gov click on eastern North Carolina I really encourage you to save that site or be familiar with our social media channels and you'll be well ahead of anything that's going to come our way the next part of the presentation is going to talk about how you can prepare if you wrote down our website you are good to go all you need to add is a slh hurricane prep or you can scan the QR code and if you're a slow writer you're okay too because the next four slides are going to have the same website at the top so hurricane preparedness anything you need is on this page how to make your kit Insurance tips hey you should have lots of cash on hand you should make sure your gas tank is full anything you can think of is on this website Graphics in Spanish videos for the death and heart of hearing we continue to try to put more information on this website so it's a One-Stop shop this is a beautiful evening out right now I know it's getting a little hotter uh our stress level is pretty low unless you have kids going back to school I've got three that started yesterday so but you know things are pretty uh stress less at this point of the year if we have a storm on the horizon your stress level is going to increase think about life when you've had to make some tough decisions if you had time to plan you had time to breathe and think about it you probably made a pretty good decision those times that you had to react really quickly sometimes you made good decisions sometimes you did not make good decisions planning is key tonight when nothing's going on so try to prepare today tomorrow this weekend while it's still quiet and it's really a step a three-step process people like to jump to the kit and they want to jump to evacuation all very important but it starts at your home who is in your home who are you responsible for what is your vulnerability so vulnerability is weather do you live in a low-lying area did you have flooding in Florence do you live along the Trent River noose River any area that's susceptible to flooding do you know know that you've had issues do you know your elevation I forgot to add this to this presentation but if you Google NC flood maps again NC for North Carolina flood maps there's a program called Fineman in uh North Carolina it's you can see gauges but it's very useful to show the 100-year flood plane 500-year flood plane 100-year flood means a one in a 100 chance any year a one in 500 or a 500y year flood is a one in 500 chance any year it's not a oh I had the hundred I don't need to worry about it for my lifetime just like our lottery tickets we could buy two scratch offs and win in a row and then the next 20 we're losers with it um so that education you know you're much more vulnerable if you're in a 100e flood plane uh less vulnerable in a 500 but it still could happen and if you're near those areas you are at risk just because you're not in that flood plane doesn't mean that the mapping can't be off by a little bit um so NC flood maps is very useful if you're trying to if you're new to the area you're trying to determine uh what my vulnerability is and if you really want to get experience knowing your elevation and Mr Morgan and I that's a conversation after this that we can help you but if you use Google Earth or on your phone there's various ways um if you know your elevation and you're at 25 feet uh in a lot of cases you're going to be okay if you're at 5 feet or S feet then we need to have a conversation that you you you are more vulnerable uh gravity always wins and so does elevation so the higher you are the better that's all weather we're meteorologists your risk includes more than weather who lives with you I've got three young kids that are not so young anymore 16 13 and 10 so my family leaves so my vulnerability that's who I need to be concerned with I grew up in Maryland even though we talked about going into school in in New York state I grew up in Baltimore Maryland my mom lives in Swansboro now so my vulnerability is higher cuz I get to evacuate two families now instead of just one my mom's almost 80 that's a whole another thing I need to concern myself with uh young kids pets if I lose electricity I'm uncomfortable but as of now I do not need electricity to survive if you have somebody on the home in the home that needs oxygen they're on dialysis uh they have a CPAP anything that needs electricity that's a consideration that's things you should be thinking about so think about who lives in your home for vulnerability based on that is how you make your kit at least 3 days of everything you need to be completely on your own no wall greens strips no CVS trips Harris Teeter food line I'm with the government so I can't favor anybody so I'm mentioning all of them Piggly Wiggly your best store leadle you're not just going to be able to go out to the store just like that so bare minimum food water medicine nonp perishable Goods but notice I didn't just mention food you need contact lenses if you're getting low on that make sure you're stocked up your prescriptions if they're getting toward the end get them refilled anything you need to be on your own at least three days if you can stretch it out to seven days that is what we would suggest it's not that you um it it might be because you can't get to the store but it might be that the store is not ready for you power's been out they need to restock the trucks can't get in with the F food trucks can't get in with the fuel it's not a scare tactic it's the reality up to a week is kind of common in some areas sometimes it's two or three days sometimes it's 10 just depends on how the storm hits I understand that not all of us can just go out this weekend and get everything and that's why we're talking about it today so spread it out pick what is most needed in your house if it's bottled water get that first and then next weekend get the canned goods if you spread it out it's like installment payments it's going to spread out the pain of finances and it's going to ensure that you get it done so please please spread it out uh supplies will run out um contrary to popular belief we do not own stock and bread or milk or any the things everybody runs out to get um but it is going to run out I just went to Walmart the other day and my son was remarking gosh they have a lot of water are they stocking up for hurricane season I said probably but I said look at how much they have there's plenty of water to go around right now I promise you if we get a storm in the next couple weeks uh that will be depleted just the way it goes so what's your vulner ability have a kit 3 days minimum seven if you can and last step is please have a plan to evacuate how many of you um that were here in Florence chose to evacuate so decent amount uh how many of those that did not evacuate wish they had done so maybe some were happy they stayed all right so down our way I still uh people are still come up to me saying they wish they had it's a personal decision depends on where you live your vulnerability you got a generator you're up high and you don't have anybody else in your home then maybe you stay it's it's up to you but even if you would never ever leave I want you to have at least one or two places to go so when the storm is upon us and it's worse than you've ever seen and you need to make that last second decision on where to go you don't have to research it you know where to go and we try to say at least two places it's not you know it's not just Raleigh it's not just Kinston or Goldsboro sometimes those places are worse than we are just depends on where the storm goes uh so I like to say a northern and southern route so my plan a used to be Baltimore Maryland that's off the table with with family moving uh so plan B for us is uh South Carolina could be the mountains it's just completely opposite of where the storm is um it just depends on where you're going sometimes going to Raleigh is perfectly fine if it's with Hurricane Fran and Floyd even Florence they had it bad too so just cuz you're Inland doesn't mean you're safe uh try to have a plan to go somewhere else a lot of folks that say I will never ever leave in the back of their mind they say I'm just going to go to a shelter as a last resort that is a safe place and that is a possible option it is not a comfortable option it's a safe place it's a cot with a lot of other people in the gym you will be safe but it's not like a hotel room a better option would be raise your hand if you have family visiting often Newburn is awesome you have relatives visit right they're coming down to your home go visit them go go return the favor it would be much more comfortable to visit them than at a shelter a shelter is a safe place but that is really the last resort that you want to be you want to be at a hotel family friend somewhere out of town if you choose to evacuate the reason why I'm stressing this I know some of you did not leave in Florence we get the most frequent we have the most frequency of storms in in the entire country north eastern North Carolina is the most frequently impacted stretch of coastline in the entire country again eastern North Carolina most frequently impacted the whole country this graph shows return period on average where we see a hurricane and we're roughly 5 to seven years um that's a little lower than what they are down in the southeast part of Florida so most frequently impacted uh stretch of Coastline we stick out with the Outer Banks we're Coast to the Gulf Stream um we you we can get storms that come up our Coast or they can cross Florida and come out of the Gulf of Mexico we can get them many many different ways so if you were not aware uh yes we get a lot of storms where we live and you may have heard names like this that make you um you know Old-Timers or experienced folks will will'll talk about this the 1913 storm was kind of a benchmark for flooding and Newburn um then that was eclipsed in 1933 and then from a literature I've read I own U which I don't have on here in 55 was a little higher than that and Florence was probably a little higher than that so when you went through Florence for some of you and say that's a once- in a-lifetime storm maybe not cuz we had it with ion we had storms um in the 30s in 1913 so that that was not a one onetime thing it was probably one of the highest surges we've had uh but we've had comparable ones at least four times um you know in the last century so a lot a lot of uh storms in our area and these are some pictures um this is uh downtown this is Newburn Johnson Street with the 1913 hurricane my point of emphasis is is not to scare you it's just to show you reality when you see pictures of our community I want to go back more than Florence I want to go back more than Irene just to give you history because history will repeat itself maybe not this summer maybe not next summer but at some point we're going to see another storm uh similar to that the time to prepare is now we are near the peak of the Season uh this graphic shows right here as we get into August especially September that Peak goes way up this is frequency of hurricanes and um tropical storms we've had storms as early as May so really at any point during the summer we can be hit um but they have lasted well into the month of October Hurricane Matthew and 2016 was in October so the peak is September 10th after Labor Day the kids are already back in school we are not even halfway uh who's ready for NFL football anybody so a few people we're not even at halftime we're not even at halftime with the football season or hurricane season so we have a long way to go uh so don't let your guard down season is long there's some messaging challenges we've gotten more accurate with the forecast um back in when Hugo hit um we would maybe issue warnings from Florida all the way up through the coastline of North Carolina now we're much more specific but we're still losing lives we're still having challenges in our community specifically with the category I'm not going to leave unless it's a two or three or four too much focus on the category and just remind yourself we've had a lot of for those that raised their hand that have been here for a while you remember Irene was a one Florence was just a one even herine or last fall with uh opilia that those were just tropical storms so almost $200 billion dollars in damage and 200 deaths between 20110 and 2020 and that's the hotel right on the Noose River um or I think that's on the Trent get them confused but that is a boat up into the uh the um side of a hotel that's downtown Newburn in Florence so for those that were not here in Florence just shows you some of the magnitude of the water um that was in our community off the new and Trent Rivers Water is traditionally what kills 85% of people that die it's water related that could be surge it could be flooding it could be rip currents this this is Newburn this is our downtown in Florence um that's out east um on Highway 55 during Irene in 2011 that's bridon Fairfield Harbor um that that garage that's dented in that's not somebody driving bad that's the force of the water and you can see all the junk in their driveway that's uh storm surge debris uh so water water water is what kills so it's not to say that wind can't knock a tree down and fall on your car or house certainly can knock out power but water traditionally is what does it 11 of our 15 deaths in Florence were flooding all 11 were in vehicles again all 11 were in vehicles water can come up quick here along the news uh because of surge but traditionally it's people driving through flood roads where that happens past experience is a good thing but not all storms are likee they're never the same just cuz you're okay in Irene and Florence doesn't mean the next one you'll be okay and also the flip side just because you had it bad in Florence maybe it won't be as bad next time it just every storm is unique just like we have different personalities so do the storms how big how small how quick does it hit at high tide or low tide did you have 10 inches of rain last week each one is unique how it forms and hits our area uh so sometimes people take let their guard down that's Iona mentioned in 55 prior to Florence um it looked to be about a 10 or 11 foot storm surge that's what we had during Florence so it was just a little lower than that and like Miss Lauren and I were chatting earlier that's what the level of the water is that doesn't take into account the breaking waves on top of it so I love basketball you know basketball hoops about 10t high that's higher than the height of a basketball hoop uh pretty pretty bad stuff and then I um was a bad storm here in 2011 this is a loop of Floyd everybody knows that's the eye of the hurricane but the reason why I'm pointing this out notice the bright colored tops of the clouds the brighter colors that indicates showers and thunderstorms we're going to let this Loop through again but I just want you to realize how large these storms are everybody wants to know where's the eye where is it going to hit what's the category it's important but all the way down here off the coast of Florida we're starting to see The Fringe impacts of Floyd hours and hours and hours and days sometimes and finally the eye gets up here a lot of times that's just halfway through the storm so if if I convey anything to you about you know not focusing on the category the other one is too much focus on exact landfall obviously it's important if it stays out the sea we don't have to worry about it as much if it if we're on the right side of the storm it's worse so it's important uh but just don't let your guard down and just focus on landfall um you know category things like that there's just so much and so many hours and days they can impact our our community after the storm is important as well how many of you uh own generators so a decent amount we lose people to carbon monoxide poisoning every year um generators in garages or inclosed spaces so know how to use your generator make sure it's well ventilated and outside um people falling off of ladders electrocutions there's D down lines the community um the water is nasty you don't need to be traing through it so if you decide to stay home stay inside there's power lines down the water you know there's septic in our community it's not something you want to be in and we have lost people because of that if you have any wounds or cuts on you um we've lost people due to infection um if you're not usually doing yard work you don't need to be the first yard cleaned up let that younger neighbor help take your time heart attacks carbon monoxide poisoning electrocut all things that have happened in fact 50% of our deaths now are After the Storm part of that is because we're doing more of these talks and a lot of you are prepared prior to it you have your kit you've left the area uh you don't drive through a flooded Road uh now we just got to make sure we see it all the way to the glove and all the way home so that's how we're going to end and then we're going to turn it over to Miss Lauren to talk a little bit about uh what Duke does in in the community I want you to focus on these five things not the category you don't need a meteorology degree you could can watch Donnie on channel 12 or Jerry on NCT or um who's the younger guy Zack holder ITN you can watch any of those folks they'll tell you this we'll tell you this you'll have this information just don't pay attention to the category itself the five things are rainfall flooding storm surge rip currents wind and tornadoes and we're going to start with probably one of the biggest issues where we stand um it's kind of a tie between um rainfall and and storm surge but I put storm surge is the number one risk where I stand today because how quick that water can come up uh for the Noose if you ever look at the Noose River it's like an arrowhead it's real narrow at the one end and it gets wider down toward havlock um the pamco sound is extremely shallow if we get a Northeast wind East Wind any easterly component it can push it up the Noose River and our our water rises we don't typically see rainfall flooding down where we are they do in Kinston and in up River places like that but um that water can back up um via storm surge and can cause tremendous water level rises I mentioned about 10 to 11 feet downtown Newburn along the Trent and noose Rivers during Florence that's an um image of a house and you can see that water's extremely powerful you've probably seen pictures along the beach where it can just clear structures away very very strong and that last bullet a storm does not have to make landfall in our area to cause an issue Florence hit in rville Beach an hour and a half away and we we had really bad flooding and again wave action can add more damage on top so if we're forecasting 10 feet you can add a couple uh feet to that based on the waves I'm going to go through a series of Graphics um these are worst case scenarios these are reasonable worst case scenarios and I'm going to um I know you probably can't see the towns on there but I can and I'll Point them out with a with a laser pointer but what I want you to visualize is this is a category three uh this is a Fran um we've had some in the 50s like we don't get a ton of threes but this is not some out out of the realm possibility this is a reasonable worst case we could even have a four but this is like hey a three is not out of the realm of possibilities and as you look at this map the blue is uh less than three but as you get into the yellow it's more than three the orange more than six and the red greater than nine feet uh above ground level and I'll I'll use my cursor to point out yeah that does show up pretty well the reason why I showed this zoomed out one and I know you can't see the cities but this is this is Newburn as I'm hovering this is a noose River this is a Trent River so this is riverband and all the way up to Trenton so any of these little low areas or little Creeks off of the Trent River the water goes backwards backwards so as The Surge comes up and it's a smaller um tributary so it's like um you take a hose when you squeeze it um the velocity the water increases the same thing as that water goes up the smaller creeks and and Riv Rivers it just has nowhere to go but up so that water goes backwards the second thing the water usually drains down to those areas but if they're at a certain level they back up so it's that combination of the surge coming back up the rivers and then not allowing um the water to run off really causes an issue and I started wide because I want to show you you know if you live in Riverbend not picking on folks there or even Trent Woods or any of these areas if I was new to the area and I'm 45 minutes from the beach I would probably think I'm pretty safe even though I've got water around me yeah I've got canals and I've got the Trent River and the Noose River I know there's water around me I'm not surprised by that but I would probably be surprised to hear that I can get storm surge 50 minutes Inland from the coast so that's why I'm re-emphasizing this is zoomed in again this is Riverbend a lot of these areas are marshy and they're not developed so it's not not everybody but there are houses in these developments Trent Woods um this is Bryce's Creek toward the airport here's the airport here uh so again greater than um 3 ft is yellow but you can see some oranges and reds at 6 to 9 ft above dry ground so um your question yes uh see Ahad is familiar so you said Trent Woods yes here's Trent Woods and then the newburn's up here here's the uh here's 17 right here so probably in here somewhere it just depends what what your elevation is they're designed um I can give you the link after this is Public Access if you Google uh storm search maps you you can all look at this by Design when you zoom into street level it will kind of disappear but if you go back and forth you can tell where you are but looking at your elevation is is super important if you're just a few feet or less than 10 um you you could have some issues um so they probably be okay but um and then I'll I'll kind of move the map East this is downtown Newburn we have some high points that would be where the blue is but then obviously along the Waterfront north side of the city it is low it might might not seem like it but it is um and then here's um the bridge scen area across the river and then right on the edge I was able to sneak fil Fairfield Harbor in there as well they had some pretty pretty impacts uh in Florence so none of this is to scare you it's just to show you the reality because again if if I just moved here uh obviously I could see the water out there but I would not think the water could be 10 ft high from storm surge off the P pamco sound it's just hard to wrap my head around but again just it hasn't has happened before and again just imagine that water's really high those Creeks can't drain so then everything gets backed up um that's one of the reasons they flood bad back to pollocksville it is it is rainfall flooding there as well but it's a combination of the The Surge and the rainfall um The Surge actually goes all the way back to Kinston not to the level that we have it here at Newburn but in terms of the water U backing up so so pretty pretty big deal is storm surge so that we picked that as number one number two in our area would be flash flooding uh we don't have the topography they do just Inland toward like uh snowhill or Greenville but we have an urban area here in Newburn anything paved it's not going to soak in the water as much so that is Newburn uh this is credit abc1 out of Raleigh we will issue flash flood warnings for those the message with that is it only takes about 2 feet to float a car so all the people you see driving through the water do not want to do that most of our deaths occur in vehicles and it's nothing to do with category again Florence was a one we had 20 to 30 inches of rain we could have tropical storm Morgan and if it's 30 inches of rain you know it's going to be a big deal so uh flooding can occur with any uh excessive amount of rainfall we always show this picture to drive home the point this is near hookerton this is up in Snow Hill water is extremely powerful again up to you know 18 in 24 in carry your car way what you don't realize is this does the road even exist how deep is the water you might say well you know Mr Eric I would never drive through that well you don't know that is under the water especially driving at night so turn around don't drown easy message to remember the take-home point for you is you decide to stay stay you decided to evacuate stay away it can take a while to get back do not be in a rush um don't drive around um barricaded roads um things of that nature um can be really you know detrimental uh to your life we do have River flooding like I said The Noose River down in our area it's more storm surge but just Upstream in Kinston Highway 70 can get closed if it gets above about 25 ft uh so getting around our area uh can be a challenge for many days sometimes weeks um we're at the end of the the rivers you they start in the mountains they come down toward the coast so those those Rivers remain elev for quite some time and that's one take-home point I want you to remember about evacuation I don't tell you to evacuate or not but it's not just about where you are you've got your generator you're at 20 feet I'm never going to leave I live in a great spot you're you're probably okay where you live but you might be an island so if you have a medical issue they're not going to just get an ambulance and come get you they might have to get a boat to come get you so your 911 response may be nonexistent if it's in the uh height of the storm they're not responding if the winds are really strong or it may be delayed so does that kind of make sense I me you might have everything you might be good to go but it's the community around you might not be in good shape um things are not going to be the same uh in terms of response rounding home rip currents are another danger in storms um well before storm well after storm it creates swell as a storm um takes shape in the ocean it generates large waves that come crashing on our Shores unfortunately a couple couple weekends ago with Ernesto it was toward Bermuda we lost a young person in Surf City we lost four people at our beaches in 2019 with Lorenzo it's 2,000 miles away we didn't lose anybody with Dorian all the flooding on ochre Coke didn't lose anybody Sunny weekend day in October we lost four people it's you don't hear the thunder you don't see lightning uh so the thing to remember with that is rip currents pull you away they do not pull you under so if you swim left or right or par they're very narrow you can easily get out of them try to swim at a lifeguarded beach now we're getting at past that season they're not as protected uh so they will still have the flag system respect that if it's a red flag day you shouldn't be in the water um they nothing to be afraid of but you do need to know how to get out of them the biggest issue is people fight them and then they come in to trouble U one more point before I talk about the wind you're going to want to save your grandkids your kids somebody that's in the water instead of going in after them a lot of people that die are those that respond direct them where to go instead of going in after them say go this way or go that way and this seems like a pretty Advanced group The Next Level step is I was just with my kids you know when they're always at the beach they always end up one way down the shore or down the other way whatever that way is that's the way they should go for a rip current so we say left or right just for Simplicity because it will work they'll eventually get out of it but if this is the rip current and all day they've been carried down this way it's much easier if they went that way to get out of the rip current if that makes sense we say left or right so it's quick easy um but if if you know which way the current is going that day you should go with it second to last is when how many remember Arthur in 2014 couple how many of you remember Irene so if you weren't looking around more people raised their hand for Irene than Arthur H Arthur was a category two Irene was a one are you sure you got that right didn't flip-flop that you remember Irene Moore it's it's a trick question they hit at the same spot round Cape Lookout Arthur was a compact two fast moving Irene was large slower moving just a category one reemphasizing it's not all about category do I pay attention to it yes was I scared when um Florence was a four yes but it's only part of the puzzle it's not the whole thing so look at all the impacts last but not least tornadoes we had a lot of tornado warnings we lost um somebody up toward Raleigh with an ef3 we had an ef2 in our area that's pretty strong on the tornado scale it's rotating already so whether it's a hurricane or tropical storm we will probably get tornadoes they can occur and often occur the first bands of rain that come on Shore if you decide to stay that's fine just make sure this is powered up it's not turned on do not disturb have a Noah weather radio that will work when the power goes out be paying attention you're probably not out shopping um but at the snap of the fingers you may have to quickly seek shelter uh from one of these spin-up tornadoes and unfortunately they can produce more damage than the storm itself Dorian was a good example most of us ho hum with wind uh but s that to some spots in Emerald aisle that had an ef2 uh tornado so I'm going to turn over to Miss Lauren but as we transition what can you do now share this information we couldn't all be here tonight so share this with folks via the YouTube link or through the Coalition the beautiful Zoom link that they're going to share um do something tomorrow this weekend for your hurricane kit don't make your decisions just based on the category and do not forget about um After the Storm I will mention a program it's called weather ready Nation ambassadors I would love for the coalition to sign up it's free it's it's again in my price range it's for anybody to um participate in it's got to be an organization we have hospitals schools HOAs it's a way that we give information out to the community so whether you need rores or talks um we're just encouraging people to sign up in the old Weather Service we would have you come to us now we're waving our hands and saying hey we really could use help getting out to the community so uh we've got some paper forms up front uh you can certainly fill that out or you can scan uh the QR code there and we can chat at the end that is my email if you have questions I'll take a couple questions and I want to transition to Miss Lauren who's going to come up and talk a little bit from Duke Energy but uh at this time do I have any questions from the audience before we transition before you do that yes the people on uh the zoom won't be able to hear you unless I use that I give you this all right all right questions so there you go I was going to say there should be a number six which is the duration I mean just like cat is a nice number but it should be an oh sign how long how slowest moving yes uh so the question do I need to um do that one Michael for the for the zoom audience no yeah they they already oh there they can hear you I got you um and then so for our virtual audience through ours the question was you know we definitely need to talk about duration 100% that you know in addition to how much rain and what the surge is going to be duration is huge like we saw with Florence you know three or four days of way rain and wind is a much bigger deal than 12 hours um just like it's a big deal if we had a storm last week there's so many variables but you're 100% right duration is a huge issue uh Debbie wasn't a huge storm but for some of our community we had over a foot of rain because it was such a long live storm so duration is a huge part as well um we tried to stress that prior I thought thought we did a better job with Debbie than we did Florence because of Florence uh the very first onepage slide we sent out actually talked about this is going to be a long long live storm so you're 100% right duration is a big key anything else yeah is is sea level rise going to affect storm surge it will in terms of if your water's already starting off higher then you're going to have more issues so it does it does come into play um but more week to week and month-to-month factors also come into play how are the tides um are they one of those higher than normal tides that we get throughout the year or not so those are other factors as well lots of factors Qui comment Eric um another place to go to if you really want to learn more about how tropical storms are formed and what the makeup is is go to Jetstream online school for weather by Noah it was put together by the Southern Regional headquarters of Noah jet stream as a gentleman in the audience had um mentioned jet stream if you Google Google it it's through the Noah website The Weather Service many topics you can be your own meteorologist uh learning through jet stream a lot of good educational information not just students but if you're uh a weather Enthusiast jet stream is a great website appreciate that so I don't see anything else so we're going to transition I'm going to close out of mine and we're going to transition uh to Miss Lauren and she's from Duke Energy he's got some stuff to share for you okay is that okay okay well I'm really excited to be with all of you today and Eric is a wonderful resource for this community I've been with him him at a couple of these talks um here in eastern North Carolina and there's no one that really does it better than you I have to say um but I wanted to introduce myself my name is Lauren Wargo I the government and community relations manager with Duke Energy I cover an 11 County District here in eastern North Carolina and um I actually live here in Newburn which is great makes me excited to be with you today um I know a lot of you probably aren't Duke Energy customers you might be city of Newburn customers um so I want to keep the information I give you today fairly General um our highest priority at Duke Energy is safety and that includes your safety so just a reminder when you guys see down power lines after storms it is so important that you stay away from the power lines keep kids and pets away from power lines as well and Report those down lines to um an Emergency Management number and the electric provider whether it be Duke Energy or the city of Newburn I think that probably covers everybody in this room for the most part um so after your safety our safety is also important the safety of our line workers and a lot of times that means that when there are outages associated with weather we might not be out immediately to restore your power so you have to be prepared to last through the store storm and after the storm depending on the duration of the event um our line workers stop getting up in um their bucket trucks when winds are sustained about 35 miles an hour and that's for their safety um there are a lot of things that you can do to help us during a hurricane and one of the things is reporting your outages um city of Newburn has an outage reporting line and Duke Energy does as well if you're Duke Energy customer I've got some handouts that you can take with you that show the ways that you can report those outages um either by text message website or phone um so Duke Energy is doing a lot of things on the front end to prevent outages before a storm hits and a couple of those things involve bringing the power grid to what we call a coastal standard and that's bringing our polls closer together which means they're more stable they can hold lines up better um especially if a tree falls there'll be less damage um another thing we're doing is replacing susceptible wooden poles with steel poles um especially in some of the swampy areas I don't know if any of you have Duke Energy back by Hunters Ridge um that's an area that's just prone to outages it's the end of the line it's a long span but we're doing what we can to build resilience in those areas provide back feed and um AI self-healing technology for our power system when it's in a grid pattern um after Florence we had several floods um substations flooded here in eastern North Carolina and since Florence all those um substations have had flood walls installed around them and these are 8 to 10 foot high structures that are permanent structures and before a hurricane or flooding event approaches eastern North Carolina we'll go in and put that final piece in seal it off make sure the pumps are working and it takes our crews um about a week to do that so we're always watching um what our meteorologists are saying and the National Weather Service is a huge asset as well that they definitely take into account but I'm really happy to be here with you today I've been here once before and really enjoyed the community so I'll turn it back to um Eric and I'm happy to take questions if you guys have any yeah um I am from the I do have a question is um I'm originally from the Pacific Northwest we've moved uh down here to North Carolina um what a lot of pound energy is doing right now is they are replacing their their lines on poles and putting them underground because the Northwest is susceptible to Hurricane Forest winds uh in all Essence they are hurricanes they're just called mid latitude Cyclones up there um and so we have some really uh strong winds up there that do knock our power lines down and in these areas that are more and more susceptible to these power lines coming down they're beginning to put them underground what's uh Duke Energy uh stance on that so a lot of the new subdivisions are choosing to put the Power underground from a distribution standpoint so you've got distribution and transmission lines we're talking distribution here in a neighborhood a lot of the new developers have chosen to pay the cost of putting those lines underground um we do have several programs at Duke Energy for communities to reach out and um us work with them on getting those lines underground there's a cost associated associated with putting the lines underground and since the cost of doing that infrastructure work is conveyed to the customer we have to be really careful about those programs because I tell you that's probably the question I get asked the most in these communities local governments everybody wants their lines underground because they're less prone to um outages caused by vegetation but they are also difficult to repair occasionally and um just the expense of getting them underground when they're they're already above ground is an additional expense to the customer and we're really trying to make these upgrades to provide a reliable and a resilient um service to the customer while keeping it affordable so but we always take input um and a lot of those older communities I know they they definitely could benefit from it I know Riverbend is one of them um they've got a lot of underground lines but the only lines above ground are going down that first main road with all the trees so pay attention other questions I actually I uh uh I have Duke eny out in the country here yeah and I report my outages but I also look at the map yes which is really good and just like Duke Energy city of Newburn has an outage map and when you do have an outage it doesn't take long for those maps to populate to show you what the estimated restoration time is during a nonstorm event our processes are a little bit different so if you go if you have an outage on a blue sky day and log into our outage site you'll see an estimated restoration time almost immediately because there's a crew on site quickly they have an idea of what the problem is um but if you go onto our site during a storm event a lot of times we don't immediately have those restoration times predicted and that's because there might not be a team on site immediately and we don't want to autogenerate those restoration times if we can't keep that commitment to you so um it's important to go on and track the restoration times but I can tell you during Florence it you probably would have been happy with um what you saw up there and um we just take take our time to provide accurate information to the customer and that's the most important important commitment we have to you does Duke Energy have a lot of um hired Crews or do they when an emergency or do they rely on Outsourcing because I was from Connecticut and the big utility company scaled down their Crews to save money outsourced it only in an emergency and let's put it this way the state of Connecticut find them big time and the public from then on had no um wish to be positive to the Energy company Y and local Staffing is definitely we're regulated utility at Duke Energy so we're required to have a certain number of um line workers here locally and the great news for you guys being here in Newburn is that we have an OP center right here in Newburn which is where our line workers sit every day so these are people that live and work in this community and I think in a hurricane situation a lot of times they're the unsung heroes they're the people who have really had to prioritize evacuating their families because they know that they're not going to be able to take care of things at home their house um these people make a lot of sacrifices for our community and a lot of times they're on the end of frustration I guess because everybody wants their power restored quickly and they are really are good people people and the fact that they live and work in our community I think is even more important to recognize so we have that op Center here we do rely on contractors um especially during storm events and there's a whole team um that's cordinated throughout this region that stages contractors brings them in there's a system for feeding them work and um we're very thankful for their help during storms um they come from all over the country and at Duke Energy we do the same um we've sent Crews down to Florida and Texas this year um we're all working together to restore power as quickly as possible after the these events yeah anybody else thanks Eric all right I think we're going to transition so we're done the Hurrican talk and uh questions for the Weather Service U Miss Lauren so Karen we're going to call you up there's uh we're going to try to bring you good weather it looks like October 19th you you put in a you can you can do that at the weather service if you call us and you give us the date well in advance we can give you good weather so miss Karen's gonna come up and uh talk about an event over in uh Jones County or you want yeah thank you you're welcome I just like to look at who I'm talking to and I found out my husband texted and said he was behind me so he got here too um I'm Karen plaster and I live in Jones County so I have Joe e m whatever Jones enow Electric Cooperative so they are a great uh organization too but uh all the information is really good um I am on the board or was on the board but I'm still very active with the filling station in pollocksville which is the community resource and food pantry and we have an um event on October 19th that is very nature oriented Jones County is a very rural County and um the event is just to celebrate Rural Life there's all kinds of activities from farm animals to hay rides to things like that it's free we ask people to do what they can and donate what they can but the part that I think it be really interesting for us here is um husband and I have 45 Acres of a tree farm and I'm really excited we've opened our tree farm every every year for this event and this year we have Brian hulka who is uh in charge of the down e prescribed burning Association he's going to be on hand with his trailer of all the information all the equipment used in a prescribed burn and hopefully if the weather works here we go again um we will he will conduct even show you how we conduct a control burn how you prepare the lines how you have to make sure the weather the humidity the heat the wind all of these things are involved in a control burn so I think it'd be really interesting to this group also on hand we have a woman Karen mahe who has a um native plants and she will be on hand to um talk about we have a lot of native plants on our land because we do the burning so um it's pretty exciting um we did last year I discovered a pine bear in Gin which is not rare and endangered but it's certainly not a common can't guarantee I'll find it again this year but um Anyway come on out I do have a few Flyers here and Allan has a couple back there as well so um if you can join us uh on October 19th it's in Jones County and it's located on 10m Fork Road and there's about five different properties and you just go where you want to go and do what you want to do and uh join us that way are there any questions what's it called it's uh the event is called Jones County a perfect 10 because it takes place along 10 Mile Fork Road all right thank you thank you for your time and I I just want to let you know that uh nature Coalition we'll be participating we will be sending stuff out about it to everybody on our mailing list and I want to thank everybody uh that has presented today it was wonderful and very informative I'll tell you and uh the last thing I have to say is if you enjoy what we do if you think it's important please donate and if you're here there's a donate uh um jar over there uh and if you're online you can donate on our website Carolin coalition.org all right have a great night