hurricane

As hurricane protection goes, so goes New Orleans' future

NEW ORLEANS--When I wrote Wednesday that large parts of this city are still severely damaged from Hurricane Katrina and, in some cases, potentially beyond recovery, I didn't want to leave the impression that nothing is being done to protect against the next big hurricane.

In fact, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is putting large sums of money and significant effort into helping to reduce the risk that a future storm of Katrina's magnitude will inundate New Orleans.

All told, the Corps of Engineers here are working to fix and/or replace 220 miles of levees and … Read more

Latest MIT study sees stronger links between climate change, hurricanes

In 2005, MIT professor Kerry Emanuel wrote a research paper that described historical links between climate change and an increasing intensity of hurricanes.

Three weeks later, Hurricane Katrina hit.

A new study out of MIT further strengthens the connection between climate change and the intensity and duration of hurricanes, although many unanswered questions remain.

The study, by postdoctoral fellow Ragoth Sundararajan and graduate student John Williams, uses a new technique that adds finer detail to computer simulations of global weather patterns. Emanuel's original study analyzed records of tropical cyclones--commonly called hurricanes or typhoons--from the middle of the 20th century … Read more

'Burn on the Bayou' showcases Burning Man participants' post-Katrina relief efforts

Until a few months after Hurricane Katrina flattened it, the little Mississippi hamlet of Pearlington had never been graced with a nice, big welcome sign.

But that was before, as Pearlington was being completely ignored by every official relief agency in the Gulf region, a bunch of strangers, all of them Burning Man attendees who had formed a group called Burners without Borders, suddenly descended to help.

This was no ragtag group of 10 or 20 hopeless do-gooders showing up without a plan. This was more than 150 people, toting heavy equipment, supplies of food and water, years of experience … Read more

AT&T's spring lineup leaked?

Ah spring time; when romance, flowers, and new cell phone rumors bloom. A leaked "confirmation" to Engadget reveals a slew of upcoming phones to AT&T's lineup, and the lineup is a doozy. Not only do we get even further information that the LG Vu with MediaFLO is in the works, but we also hear that the Sony Ericsson Z750, the Motorola W760 Hurricane, a new Pantech Breeze flip phone, the Motorola Z9 slider, and last but certainly not least, the Nokia N95 for the North American market may finally be in AT&T's … Read more

Hurricane hunters plan expanded use of drones

WASHINGTON--For decades, U.S. government scientists have sliced specially equipped planes through hurricanes and other severe weather on a quest for crucial data to fuel weather forecasts. But in the future, drones are expected to do more and more of that work.

In the coming years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration envisions acquiring and leasing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a senior official said Friday at a conference here put on by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles International. They'll be tasked with monitoring everything from weather conditions and fires to ice melting in the Arctic and endangered marine mammals … Read more

Hurricane Chris podcast

There's a new king of ringtones, and he's only 18 years old. Riding the success of his summer smash single "A Bay Bay," Shreveport, Louisiana rapper Hurricane Chris has gone on to sell an astounding 3 million ringtones. Oh, and he also recently released his debut album, 51/50 Ratchet, on Polo Grounds Music/J Records. Luckily for us, his newfound success didn't deter him from joining us for a podcast interview inside our renowned Studio C.

Power Downloader tracks the weather

When Power Downloader gets a download request in an e-mail from a friend, he always searches for the perfect software for his friend's quandary. Recently, when a friend who lived in a hurricane-prone area asked if there was a way to track storms, Power Downloader knew exactly what type of program she needed.

Nobody likes to hear there is a storm brewing if they live in a place where hurricanes ravage the coast frequently. That's why Power Downloader knows that a simple storm-tracking program can put a person's mind at ease, or in a worst-case scenario, give them more time to plan for a possible evacuation.… Read more

The science of New Orleans: Getting out of town alive

Escape from New Orleans, a topic for scientific inquiry--and who better to study the problem than a scientist at Louisiana State University? Now Brian Wolshon has gotten a federal grant to continue his research. In an emergency, how do you get people out of town?

Even back before Katrina hit, the folks at LSU were thinking about disasters and the incumbent evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.

Computer modeling developed at Los Alamos National Lab will be used in a new effort to understand, plan and predict evacuation. And the variables are daunting. Just try predicting the kind of … Read more

Hurricane watch: blow by blow

Climate change predictions have included warnings that hurricanes and other tropical storms could become more extreme. So this may be coming at just the right time to save at least some of you who live along the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines.

Scientists now have a system that uses data from twenty Doppler radar stations along the eastern and southern seaboard of the U.S. When a hurricane's within 120 miles of landfall, the radar data is aggregated. Using a computerized system meteorologists now can get three-dimensional views of the hurricane that are updated every six minutes. This is far … Read more