It was great to see so many members come to the May 4th meeting at Carey Hilliard's! President Ben Brewer gave a recap of the District Conference in Jekyll Island. RCSE received a Citation Award and Best Club Website Award!! Ben also announced that the club received a check for $5400 from the district. This money is a reimbursement from the International Conference in Atlanta. Ben is going to send a survey to the club asking for feedback as to how members would like to see the money allocated. Please respond to the survey as this will help the Board decide the best way to handle the funds. Once all announcements were made, Chelsea Sawyer spoke about Hurricane Season 2018.
Chelsea works for CEMA - Chatham Emergency Management Agency. Some hurricane basics are that the season runs June 1 - November 30, there are five categories of hurricanes, they form over warm waters, and the upper right hand quadrant is the most deadly. They are predicting 14 named storms in 2018 (7 will be Category 1-2, 3 will be Category 3-5) which is slightly higher than last year. Primary threats from hurricanes are storm surge, lightening, wind damage and tornadoes.
Chelsea said that if a true Category 3 storm hit Savannah, the majority of the county would be underwater. To put this into perspective, Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Irma were only tropical storms when they impacted Chatham County. When a storm is coming, CEMA will no longer use the term voluntary evacuation and instead will use the term mandatory evacuation. She reminded everyone that there is NO help during a storm.
She then explained the Cone of Uncertainty which is used when predicting the path of a storm. Two-thirds of the time the eye will fall within the cone. There is no size, impact, or intensity data in the Cone of Uncertainty meaning the impact of the storm can lie far outside the cone. A question was asked about which hurricane model is the best since there are multiple ones used during the season. Chelsea recommends using the National Hurricane Center model as it incorporates all of the models.
Finally, she wants everyone to have a plan during hurricane season. You need to make sure you have emergency supplies with you and at your house. You need to review your home owners insurance annually. And finally, you need to be prepared for what you could experience in your community and your house upon re-entry after a storm.