Special Announcement: Remembering Hurricane Sandy One Year Later
Hello to all..
One year ago today, Hurricane Sandy affected much of the US East Coast from the Mid-Atlantic and Delmarva region into the New York City and Long Island New York area and into Southern New England. The hardest hit areas were in the New York City, Long Island and New Jersey areas but Southern New England, particularly Southern Connecticut, Southern Rhode Island and into Eastern Massachusetts also had significant impact from Hurricane Sandy. This is a time to reflect and provide as a reminder, Hurricane Sandy’s impacts to our region and provide some valuable links on the response and recovery efforts that are still ongoing in the New Jersey, New York City and Long Island New York areas. It is also a reminder that if such a system tracked closer to Southern New England, the impacts felt across New York City, Long Island and New Jersey would’ve been felt right here in our region and it would have been far worse than most storms seen in recent memory. This is why it is so important to remain prepared and vigilant whenever a situation such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, the Blizzard of 2013 and other similar systems affect our region. The impact could be worse case or a scenario you haven’t seen before so being prepared ahead of time is key to making a difficult situation easier to handle and if the storm doesn’t materialize as severely as expected in your area for that specific situation, you increase your preparedness the next time such a situation may occur and its not a wasted effort for you and your family. Reporting in real-time or near real-time is very critical to give the National Weather Service, Emergency Management, media and other entities situational awareness and disaster intelligence information that can be very critical during a disaster response and any reporting post storm whenever possible also can assist in those efforts and during Hurricane Sandy, area Amateur Radio Operators and SKYWARN Spotters rose to the task once again.
Starting in Southern New England, previous data sets such as the Public Information Statement Storm Summary on Hurricane Sandy from November 8th, 2012, a complete storm reports summary from the desk at WX1BOX has been provided which also includes reports from various automated non-ASOS/NWS weather station sites of wind gusts of 45 MPH or greater over the region. In addition, NWS Taunton Local Storm Report and Public Information Statements issued near and at the end of the storm event are provided in this message. This includes the Severe Thunderstorm that affected the Wareham/Onset Massachusetts area on October 30th, 2012 which was associated with the circulation of Hurricane Sandy. Also, a Hurricane Sandy video as shown at the 2013 National Hurricane Conference put together with SKYWARN Spotter and Amateur Radio Operator pictures is available online and a link is listed in this message as well and includes photos from the New York City/New Jersey area from Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters in that area and an Amateur Radio Operator who works for New Jersey DHS. The video also includes a small portion of many of the Amateur Radio transmissions of reports during Hurricane Sandy’s impact in the region.
As stated previously, while Hurricane Sandy caused hurricane force wind gusts across portions of Southern New England, some of the most significant storm surge flooding particularly in Rhode Island and Marthas Vineyard that rivaled Hurricane Bob, over 1.1 Million power outages over Massachusetts (approx. 390K), Rhode Island (approx. 122K) and Connecticut (approx 600+K), the impact was even worse across New York City, Long Island and New Jersey. Power Outages in this area totaled over 3 Million people with an additional 525,000 without power in Pennsylvania. Storm Surge flooding was historic across New Jersey, New York City and Long Island New York causing severe structural damage and reshaping the coastline due to severe beach erosion. Power Outages in some areas lasted well over a week to 2 weeks. Many areas along the coastline are still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Sandy even though we are 1 year removed from this historic weather event.
WX4NHC, the Amateur Radio Station at the National Hurricane Center, provided support to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States region for the entire duration of Hurricane Sandy’s impact up to and including landfall. Several hundred reports were shared with the Amateur Radio Operators at the National Hurricane Center and two of the wind measurement reports were utilized in the Hurricane Sandy Advisory issued on Monday October 29th, 2012 at 500 PM EDT. These reports would not have been utilized if not for the dedication of SKYWARN Spotters and Amateur Radio Operators in the region and the efforts of Amateur Radio Operators from WX4NHC. As folks may recall, it wasn’t clear whether Hurricane Sandy would impact the region as a tropical or non-tropical system but several days prior to Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the region, WX4NHC Amateur Radio Coordinators, WD4R-Julio Ripoll and K4AG-John McHugh declared that their team would be active regardless of the status of Sandy as a tropical system due to the historically severe impact expected from the system and coordinated ahead of time with Amateur Radio Coordinators in the mid-atlantic and Northeast US regions impacted by Sandy. Reports from the region were shared with WX4NHC through the efforts of the VoIP Hurricane Net which combined its operations with the New England Reflector based Echolink and IRLP SKYWARN Operations and the Hurricane Watch net via HF.
Summary Information specific to the Mid-Atlantic Region can be seen via the following links and can be checked for updates as some of the storm summary information is still being updated:
NWS Brookhaven New York Hurricane Sandy Storm Summary Link:
http://www.weather.gov/okx/HurricaneSandy
NWS Philadelphia PA/Mount Holly NJ Hurricane Sandy Storm Summary Link:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/phi/storms/10292012.html
New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services – Hurricane Sandy Information:
http://www.dhses.ny.gov/oem/event/sandy/sandy-info.cfm
New Jersey Governor’s Office Link:
http://www.nj.gov/governor/index.shtml
FEMA Information on Hurricane Sandy:
http://www.fema.gov/sandy
Hurricane Sandy Wikipedia Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy
Below are links to the Hurricane Sandy Information specific to Southern New England including links to PR generated by the efforts of Amateur Radio Operators in Southern New England in response to Hurricane Sandy as well as the Hurricane Sandy Recap video:
Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) E-Letter Story:
http://www.arrl.org/ares-el?issue=2012-11-21
Taunton Daily Gazette News Article on NWS Taunton and Amateur Radio SKYWARN efforts:
http://www.tauntongazette.com/bigstorm/x1292885439/National-Weather-Service-works-overtime-in-Taunton-office-to-keep-public-informed?zc_p=0&img=3
VoIP Hurricane Net Hurricane Sandy Amateur Radio Newsline Story from the November 9th, 2012 Edition:
http://www.voipwx.net/node/438
Hurricane Sandy SKYWARN Video:
http://www.nsradio.org/video/features/recap/HurricaneSandy/index.html
Complete and updated report compilation including many additional wind measurement and damage reports:
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/hurricane_sandy_reports_10_29_12.txt
Last Hurricane Sandy Local Storm Report and Public Information Statement from 10/30/12:
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/10_30_12_LSR_Sandy.txt
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/pns_10_30_12_sandy.txt
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/pns_10_29_12.txt
NWS Taunton Hurricane Sandy Public Information Statement Summary:
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/pns_11_8_12_hurricane_sandy.txt
NWS Taunton Local Storm Report from Severe Thunderstorms/Flash Flood incident associated with Post-Tropical Storm Sandy well after landfall (Tuesday Evening 10/30/12) including Wareham/Onset Microburst data and Public Information Statement on the microburst:
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/pns_10_31_12_wareham_microburst.txt
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/lsr_10_31_12_svr_tstorms_10_30.txt
Respectfully Submitted,
Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: 508-346-2929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://ares.ema.arrl.org
http://beta.wx1box.org
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