Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

By The Erudite Redneck

Three years ago today, right about now, a bunch of us were around a conference table in an office on Connecticut Avenue, just south of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., not far from the Pentagon, listening to some of the most tedious and boring presentations I’ve ever had to endure.

All of us, all working press or TV types, were struggling not to nod off, just after lunch, as someone droned on and on about the incredibly mind-numbing details that go into bean counters at the Insurance Services Office. The office, somewhere in New Jersey, collects claims information and other data and creates the actuarial tables insurance companies use to set rates.

Forgive me while I fluff my chair and get comfortable. Just mentioning it makes me ... want ... to ... take ... a ... snooze. I didn’t even write anything about it for the newspaper. Yuck.

The morning session of the conference, meant to help journalists understand the way the insurance industry deals with disasters, was much more interesting, and the topic is in the news right now: hurricanes.

The guru of hurricane forecasters, Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science, said then, three years ago, that the United States hadn’t seen anything yet when it came to hurricanes and the damage they cause. His long-term forecast seems dead on, considering the havoc that hurricanes Charley, Frances and now "Ivan the Terrible" are causing:

"We will see above-average activity, especially compared with the long-term downturn in activity experienced during the quarter-century period of 1970-1994," Gray said. "These numbers aren’t extreme, but they continue the trend in which hurricane activity appears to be on a multi-decadal upswing."

For the scientifically inclined, he continued: "North-moving Atlantic Ocean currents bring warm, relatively salty water to the far North Atlantic, where larger quantities of this heavier, salt-laden water chill and sink. One effect of the resulting distribution of heat is more frequent storms with the potential to intensify to a major hurricane, perhaps hitting the eastern United States."

More to the precise point of the hurricane news of the past few weeks, he said the following, which should make any Floridians’ ears perk up: "In the next 35 years, Florida should experience about 10 times the economic loss (in 2000 dollars) that it suffered in the last 35 years, and about five times the per-capita economic loss."

Now, Florida is, and will continue to be, a lot more built up the next three decades than it was the past three, so there’s a big part of the increased damage the state can expect. But some of the increased damage will be because of a marked increased in the number of hurricanes heading Florida’s way.

Gray made his long-range forecast three years ago. Does that mean the East Coast has 32 more years of the kind of hurricane activity seen in the past few weeks. We’ll see.

So, three years ago today, while the bean-counting actuarial expert was droning on and on, I was reflecting on what Gray had to say, and how it would affect the country as a whole — emotionally, to see our fellow Americans get hammered time and again by fierce storms, economically, as building supply markets get jerked around every time, and fiscally, since the federal government does spend money for disaster recovery.

After musing on Gray’s presentation, after totally tuning out the bean counter once and for all, I started thinking about supper. Some colleagues and I ate at Famous Luigi’s, 1132 19th St. NW, on the top floor, which was so hot the round window on the front of the restaurant was propped open. Excellent victuals and excellent atmosphere.

And I was looking forward to the next morning’s session, to be led by a couple of guys from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We, and they, expected the session to last until noon Tuesday, Sept. 11. They stayed only for a few minutes, it turned out, when work called them away unexpectedly.

END