Frankenstorm

I want to share a recipe with you this week. It’s a very simple recipe that requires only three ingredients, and unlike a food blog, I’m not going to make you scroll through endless photos before I spill the beans.

            Warm Water (at least 80 degrees)

            Extreme Humidity

            Wind

From June to November the Atlantic Ocean serves as a giant mixing bowl, full of those three ingredients. Trade winds slowly mix the ingredients, while the high air temperatures serve to cook them until the final product is unleashed.

As our understanding of how hurricanes form has grown, so too has our ability to predict them. Computer models can see them beginning to form weeks before they happen and can predict the path they will travel before they ever make landfall. In October of 2012, the computers at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts noticed something strange. A hurricane was forming off the southern coast of Jamaica. That was nothing new. It was hurricane season after all. Most hurricanes form in the Caribbean and make their way north before heading northeast over the Atlantic Ocean. This storm, however, was going to turn northwest, and head directly for the eastern United States.

As Hurricane Sandy traveled north Jamaica issued lockdowns and storm warnings to protect its people. Cuba did the same, followed by the Bahamas and Bermuda. Protective orders are nothing new for these areas. As the storm continued north it merged with an existing stormfront and morphed into what the media would dub a “Frankenstorm”. That existing storm front is also what nudged it directly toward the most populated area of the US. An area which unlike the Caribbean islands first hit by the storm, had no experience preparing for hurricanes.

The Carolinas, Virginia, DC, Maryland declared a state of emergency. Washington DC suspended all public transit service and closed federal offices. Maryland evacuated coastal islands. New Jersey ordered Atlantic City Casinos to close. Air traffic in NYC was halted, surgeries were cancelled, and national guard troops were activated. Utility workers from around the country arrived in droves to be on site to begin repairs as soon as the storm passed. Even the New York Stock Exchange declared a two day pause on trading to ride out the storm.

Thanks to these measures, and thanks to the advance warning that preceded them, the death toll of the storm was minimized to 71 people, less than 10% of the death toll inflicted by Katrina.

Hurricane Sandy was the second weather event in history to cause a closure of the Stock Exchange. The other was the great blizzard of 1888. The blizzard hit roughly the same area as hurricane sandy, but unlike Sandy, because it was 1888, the blizzard came with no advance warning.

Prior to March 12th the weather had been unseasonably warm. Then between 5 PM and 1AM the temperature in New York City dropped from 33 to 8 degrees, rain changed to snow, and all hell broke loose. Snow fell unabated for a day and a half, dumping a 50 inches in Boston and 40 in New York. An area from Washington DC to Canada was covered in anywhere from 20 to 60 inches of snow. All the while, the temperature kept dropping. On March 13th the high in New York topped out as 12 degrees.

Things turned from bad to worse as winds picked up and formed snow drifts as high as 50 feet, burying railways, sinking ships, and crushing buildings. Overhead powerlines snapped under the weight. Roads were completely blocked. Fire stations were immobilized. Telegraph lines were wiped out isolating cities from DC to Montreal.

Being caught off guard, and unprepared, life ground to a halt for upwards of a week on the east coast. Businesses, both large and small sustained losses from which many would never recover. Flooding from the snowmelt left entire towns in ruin.

In the aftermath of the blizzard, society took notes. The importance of being prepared for such calamities was realized. Urban planning would be forever changed. Stricter building codes were enforced. Telegraph lines were buried. Even the subway system was first conceived of because of the storm. Society took the hard lessons learned from the storm and vowed never to be caught completely unprepared again.

As shown by hurricane Sandy, modern computers can do a marvelous job of predicting storms. They can predict when they will come, where they will go, and how severe they will be. But what modern computers can’t do is model if and when you will get laid off. They can’t predict when you won’t be able to work because of a mountain biking accident. They are unable to forecast untimely deaths, unexpected medical diagnoses, and untimely Air conditioner replacements.

Since we have no way of predicting these events, all we can do is prepare for them. Emergency funds, term life insurance, and disability insurance are some of the least sexy elements of personal finance. Hopefully you never need any of them. But if you do, you’ll be grateful you took the time to be prepared.