Just a Category 1?

Hurricane Dolly first made landfall over the Yucatán Peninsula on July 21, 2008. In the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it regained strength and intensified into a Category 2 hurricane. Forecast models predicted it was coming straight to Brownsville, so my parents decided they weren’t taking any chances. We took my grandma and evacuated to the city of Reynosa. We had family there, and it is about an hour more inland from Brownsville. Before it reached Brownsville, however, my parents decided it wasn’t going to be so bad (I don’t remember the details on why; it was 12 years ago) and drove back home through some pretty heavy rain. That night the hurricane rolled in.

Hurricane Dolly making landfall.

Government officials were worried that the levees would burst and result in large scale flooding. Thankfully, most of the storm surge did not flow up the rivers, so they did not reach flood stage. Overall, the damage was moderate, relative to other deadly hurricanes (McKinley, 2008). There were isolated incidents of flooding and about 80,000 people lost power for about a week (my family being some of them). No people were directly killed by the hurricane, but it caused $1.3 billion in damage to the entirety of the Rio Grande Valley, becoming the costliest hurricane to hit the area in 41 years (NOAA, 2018).

The area seemed unprepared for the coming storm. Researchers surveyed preparation and risk perception during the hurricane and found that most people took some sort of precaution, but they did not meet the protective guidelines issued by the National Weather Service. Also, several people taped their windows, which is a big no no. Approximately half of the people felt they were in no risk, claiming that the hurricane is “just a Category 1” or “just a Category 2” (I think my parents would qualify for this group). Lastly, most people that made precautions started them the day before the hurricane landed, which was two days after the initial broadcast of the threat (Ruin, et al, 2009).

One incident of flooding in the McAllen area.

While Dolly proved not to be a deadly storm, the social response shows that communicating risk can be a challenge to forecasters. County commissioner John Wood states “In the state of Texas, even if there is a mandatory evacuation, you cannot make people leave” (McKinley, 2008).

References

McKinley, J. (2008). Deluge Rakes Coasts of Texas and Mexico. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/24hurricane.html.

NOAA. (2018). Costliest U.S. tropical cyclones tables updated (Report). Miami, Florida: National Hurricane Center. Retrieved from https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/UpdatedCostliest.pdf.

Ruin, I., League, C., Hayden, M., Goldsmith, B., Estupinan, J., (2009). Differential social vulnerability and Response to hurricane Dolly across the US-Mexico border (Report). Natural Hazards Center.