Related: Globe Says Come On Down to the New Jersey Shore
"Jersey shore reopens with post-Sandy brio" by Wayne Parry | Associated Press, May 25, 2013
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. — New Jersey rolled out some of its big guns Friday to proclaim that the shore is back following Hurricane Sandy, using Governor Chris Christie and the cast of MTV’s ‘‘Jersey Shore’’ to tell a national audience the state is ready for summer fun.
In fact, they even hired fun. — the rock band whose anthem ‘‘We Are Young’’ captures the spirit of this blue-collar oceanfront playground that was devastated by the Oct. 29 storm. The band played a free concert on the beach....
Christie, who has been racing up and down the shore opening boardwalks and talking up shore tourism all week as the summer kickoff approached, appeared on the ‘‘Today’’ show Friday, giving him a national pulpit to preach his message of recovery....
When he hasn't been answering for what went on at Rutgers.
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"Obama, Christie reunite on the Jersey Shore" May 29, 2013
POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. — There may have been no better way to demonstrate that New Jersey’s shore is rebounding from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy than a visit from President Obama and Chris Christie, the Republican governor, and their attempts at a football toss at a booth along one of the state’s iconic boardwalks.
Is it? Has it?
After four throws, Obama had yet to land a fuzzy teddy bear when Christie lobbed his first ball at “Touchdown Fever” — and scored. The bipartisan high-five that followed was symbolic of the day’s effort to highlight the cooperation between state and federal governments after last year’s disaster....
The jovial reunion Tuesday stood in stark contrast to the grim scene six months ago when Obama and Christie walked through the wreckage of property and lives.
In a light rain Tuesday, the president and the governor worked a rope line along the boardwalk, which had been damaged by the storm.
Related: Christie's Secret Surgery
I thought he looked thinner.
Later, at an outside event on the Asbury Park boardwalk, Obama and Christie urged Americans to flock to the repaired beaches of the state’s coastline even as they acknowledged that for many homeowners, the devastation lingers.
Yes, but there is nothing to see there.
On one level, the visit is nothing extraordinary: a president and a governor touting the success of their cooperation. Billions of state and federal dollars have aided the rebuilding of homes and businesses along New Jersey’s coast.
We were told the same about Katrina, Ike, Rita, Irene.... sigh.
But the Obama-Christie romance is about so much more than that. For the president, last year’s post-hurricane images of the stroll with Christie were political gold. They demonstrated the president’s willingness to be bipartisan at just the right moment. They made him look presidential.
I so sick of being played.
For Christie — a tough-as-nails Republican in a union-loving, Democratic state — being seen standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Democratic president helped lift his approval ratings before his reelection campaign this year.
After their appearance last fall, both men took heat from their parties. Some Republicans quietly bashed Christie for making life tougher on Mitt Romney, the president’s Republican rival in the election. And Obama’s praise of Christie has not helped Democrats in the state find a way to knock the governor off his pedestal.
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Related: Good grades for Boston-area beaches, but concerns linger
I wouldn't go swimming in the ocean.
Also see:
No Day at the Boston Globe Beach
Sunday Globe Special: The Schifting Sands of Chappaquiddick
Sunday Globe Special: No Day at the Beach
"Much of Red Cross fund for Sandy unspent" by David B. Caruso and Jennifer Peltz | Associated Press, May 29, 2013
NEW YORK — Seven months after Hurricane Sandy, the Red Cross still hasn’t spent more than a third of the $303 million it raised to assist victims of the storm, a strategy the organization says will help address needs that weren’t immediately apparent in the disaster’s wake.
Some disaster relief specialists say that’s smart planning. But others question whether the Red Cross, an organization best known for rushing into disasters to distribute food and get people into shelter, should have acted with more urgency in the weeks after the storm and left long-haul recovery tasks to someone else.
‘‘The Red Cross has never been a recovery operation. Their responsibility has always been mass care,’’ said Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that monitors aid groups. ‘‘Stick with what you’re good at.’’
Storm victims could have used more help this past winter, said Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York.
‘‘People were cold. Homes mildewed. There wasn’t enough decent housing,’’ she said. ‘‘Given the lingering despair, it’s hard to understand the argument that ‘We are setting that money aside.’ ’’
As Americans open their wallets to assist tornado victims in Oklahoma, the Red Cross is again emerging as one of the most important relief organizations on the ground and also one of the most prodigious fund-raisers for victims. As of Thursday, it had raised approximately $15 million in donations and pledges for the tornado response, including a $1 million gift from NBA star Kevin Durant and numerous $10 donations, pledged via text.
The Red Cross was also the number one recipient of donations after Sandy.
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And when you insure that new home?
"Insurance is becoming a burden for homeowners in coastal states" by JEFF AMY | Associated Press, June 01, 2013
GULF SHORES, Ala. — From Cape Cod to the southern tip of Texas, rates for homeowner coverage have risen sharply since 2003, pinching homeowners financially, forcing them to take greater risk by accepting higher deductibles and sparking outrage as insurance companies report profits that are higher in many coastal states than inland....
No matter which way you turn in AmeriKa you run into an institution that wants a piece of you.
Insurers say the increases are necessary to offset the risk they take in insuring millions of homeowners in harm’s way, but their increasingly angry customers question how they calculate rates and whether state officials in charge of balancing public and corporate interest are being too favorable toward the companies....
Is that last part a shock to anyone?
Rate increases have leveled off in recent years, and some homeowners have even found cheaper policies.
But it’s clear prices aren’t going back to where they were before the sharp rise following the expensive hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005....
The Atlantic hurricane season officially starts Saturday and runs through Nov. 30. Forecasters project 13 to 20 named storms.
Why should we believe anything they say?
Worsening the situation: premiums for the federally run National Flood Insurance Program — whose policies many coastal homeowners also must buy — are scheduled to shoot up Oct. 1. A homeowners’ policy typically covers wind, but not flood damage.
With the US housing market in a slow revival, it may be too early to say what the skyrocketing insurance rates could do. Some real estate agents in coastal areas say there are warning signs.
Starke Irvine, an agent in Daphne, Ala., said the cost of insurance is driving down the market value of homes there. Homebuyers have only so much to pay toward a mortgage, insurance, and taxes....
Someone finally figured it out.
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About those hurricane forecasts:
"Warnings of storm surges to be clearer" by Jennifer Kay | Associated Press, May 25, 2013
MIAMI — During a hurricane, storm surge is one of the greatest threats to life and land, yet many people don’t understand the dire warnings from forecasters to get out of its way. So this season, they hope to offer easy-to-understand, color-coded maps and change the way they talk to the public.
Another one?
Simply put, storm surge is the abnormal rise of sea water. Predicting it is far more complicated, and so is explaining it, as forecasters at the National Hurricane Center discovered, again, during a review of Hurricane Sandy.
‘‘Scientists by their very nature use very sophisticated language, technical language,’’ said Jamie Rhome, leader of the hurricane center’s storm surge team. ‘‘It turns out that nobody else understands what we’re talking about. So once we figured that out, we started using more plain language.’’
I'm sure the lying didn't help, either.
Forecasts during Sandy were exceptionally accurate, but often confusing, perhaps because so many things contribute to storm surge: intensity, pressure, forward speed, size, where it makes landfall, and other factors.
Most people believe storm surge is a wall of water, similar to a tsunami, but it’s actually just sea water being pushed toward the shore by winds. It can happen quickly and move miles inland, flooding areas not accustomed to being inundated.
Large death tolls have been blamed on storm surge. At least 1,500 people died during Hurricane Katrina either directly or indirectly because of storm surge, the center said.
To better explain the danger, forecasters talked to focus groups consisting of local and state officials, law enforcement, and hospital associations and other people from Maine to New Orleans.
One thing they found out is that when they talk about storm surge, they should say ‘‘height’’ instead of ‘‘depth’’ when explaining how water levels might change.
Forecasters also will try to stress that the storm surge isn’t just from the ocean and can come from other bodies of water such as sounds, bays, and lakes, sometimes well inland.
The hurricane center also plans to show people where to expect storm surge with high-resolution, color-coded maps, much like a radar map on the local news showing rain and severe weather.
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Maybe we should just ask the Europeans:
"US vs. European hurricane model: Which is better?" by Tamara Lush | Associated Press, May 30, 2013
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — When forecasters from the National Weather Service track a hurricane, they use models from several different supercomputers around the world to create their predictions.
They are predictions? Like the football games?
Some of those models are more accurate. During Hurricane Sandy last October, for instance, the model from the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting in the United Kingdom predicted eight days before landfall that the large storm would hit the East Coast, while the American supercomputer model showed Sandy drifting out to sea.
The American model eventually predicted Sandy’s landfall four days before the storm hit — plenty of time for preparation — but revealed a potential weakness in the American computer compared with the European system. It left some meteorologists fuming.
“Let me be blunt: the state of operational US numerical weather prediction is an embarrassment to the nation and it does not have to be this way,” Cliff Maas, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, wrote.
Meteorologists agree that the two US supercomputers that provide storm models are underpowered — which is why the National Weather Service plans to upgrade those computers in the next two years. The two main forecasting computers — one in Orlando and the other in Reston, Va., — will receive $25 million in upgrades as part of the Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill that was recently approved by Congress.
“This will improve weather forecasting across the board,” said Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Certainly one area of concern that has received some attention were these larger high-impact extreme weather events. The European model is able to pick up on those storms earlier than our model.”
And yet we are supposed to believe their statistics when it gomes to global warming, blah, blah, blah.
Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the online forecasting service Weather Underground, said that other than Hurricane Sandy, the US model outperformed the European model during the 2012 hurricane season — but if you look at a three-year period, the European model still comes out on top.
“If the US did invest more money and people into making the model better, then the forecast would be better,” Masters said. “The money we spend on weather forecasts and improving them pays for itself.”
Too bad all our dough goes to wars, banks, well-connected corporations, Israel, and lavish political lifestyles.
Still, with hurricane season starting Saturday, forecasters say the average person living in a coastal area shouldn’t worry about the capability gap between the computers.
“I really could care less which is the better model because we have access to them both,” said James Franklin, branch chief of the hurricane specialist unit.
And forecasters say that hurricane modeling and forecasting has become more accurate overall in the last 10 years.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami use both American and European models — and other models — then average them for a storm’s projected path. The computers take data from weather satellites, observations, and weather balloons, then plug the data into complex algorithms.
The fact that the American supercomputer is lacking in processing power does need to be addressed. In the long run, improving its computing power will increase the overall quality of data for scientists drawing from multiple sources.
“You want to have the best information possible when you’re trying to decide what to do,” Masters said. “Having better forecast models is going to improve your chances.”
Specialists also say the quality of a nation’s computer capability is emblematic of its commitment to research, science, and innovation.
Meaning it's been neglected.
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