EDITORIAL
Time Is Of The Essence With Tropical Storms
Friday, August 13, 2004
At the time of writing, what was once Tropical Storm Charley, has now
intensified to Hurricane Charley, and is heading right between Grand Cayman
and the Sister Islands.
However, the time leading up to this point has highlighted what we regard
should be the necessity for timeliness in the dissemination of information to
the local population.
On Tuesday evening, there were a flurry of Government advisories informing
the media of the then tropical storm warning and hurricane watch.
On Wednesday morning, an early update was issued, including a hurricane
warning, with the then-current information that the storm would affect the
Sister Islands directly, but was expected to pass by Grand Cayman with no more
than tropical storm force weather.
During the course of Wednesday morning, the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
in Miami issued an update at 10:00 Cayman time, revising the expected track of
the storm to put it much closer to Grand Cayman.
Cayman Net News was aware of this update within minutes of it being
published online and, indeed, the website of our sister publication, Caribbean
Net News, was updated with this latest information just as quickly.
We waited to update the Cayman Net News site until receiving the official
advisory from the Cayman Islands Government but, as this had still not been
received by noon, we decided to use the National Hurricane Center information.
With over a 1,000 hits in just a few hours on the Cayman Net News storm
information page, we felt it necessary to update our readers with the latest
reliable storm information available.
A little more than two hours later, the press release from Government
Information Services (GIS) advising the public of the storm’s southerly shift
closer to Grand Cayman was issued.
Less than an hour after that GIS release, Tropical Storm Charley was
upgraded to Hurricane Charley by the NHC in Miami. Over forty minutes
afterwards, GIS sent out another release saying that Charley was still a
tropical storm, and offered information on what “not to do” during a
hurricane/tropical storm.
The point of all this is that crucial information in relation to a
threatening storm can change within the space of a few hours. Storms
themselves sometimes behave erratically, and new data often emerges from
hurricane hunter planes and the like.
With our ability to have this information viewable by our readers within
minutes of it becoming available, it really should not take two hours to
process and officially republish updates from the National Hurricane Center,
especially since earlier reports had indicated that Grand Cayman was not
likely to be affected as severely as the Sister Islands.
Furthermore, the first official press releases included advisories as to
what to do in the case of a tropical storm. Each subsequent advisory as to the
upgrading of the status to one of a hurricane warning indicated that GIS “will
be (future tense) issuing information on preparations that the public should
now be (present tense) undertaking.”
Again, at the time of writing, none had been issued after the tropical
storm recommendations, except for what not to do.
Perhaps there are no additional recommendations to be made, but at least
let’s have a coherent system for this.
The sudden change in the expected track of the storm also highlights the
dangers of local print media carrying graphics that can be long out of date by
the time of publication.
Though most people are wise enough to follow the course of tropical storm
systems on television or the Internet, such as through the continuing update
of our website at caymannetnews.com, some people could be swayed to dismiss
danger if out-of-date graphics show a path heading away from where they are
living.
A hurricane’s path is always unpredictable, and should never be taken for
granted until the storm has passed, by residents of a place that could be
affected, or by the media serving them.
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