MY EXPERIENCE WITH HURRICANES

Day 113, or the beginning of week 17, of the Lower Puna Eruption, and the USGS has not yet said that activity here has ceased.

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How many of you have been in a real hurricane/typhoon/cyclone?  Here is my experience:

• I was born and grew up in Hawaii.  Nothing in my youth.
• Went to Stanford and spent most of the next four years in California.  Nothing.
• Came back home to work in the sugar industry for six years.  Nothing.
• Went on to LSU in Baton Rouge for four years.  Nothing.
• Came back home for seven years.  Nothing.
• Went on to DC to work in the U.S. Senate for three years.  Nothing.

• Finally, in October of 1989 I took a memorable trip (indicating why I am now heading for 3 million miles on Star Alliance):
• I was chairman of the Energy Committee for the American Society of Civil Engineers, and participated in a national conference in New Orleans.  However, Hurricane Jerry began to approach Louisiana and Texas, so I left early and flew to Tokyo for another meeting.
• While in Tokyo my bed was jarred by an earthquake.

• My next event was to testify at a hearing in the U.S. Congress, so I flew from Tokyo to San Francisco, and spent a night at the AMFAC Hotel at the airport.  
• Left the next morning for Washington, D.C., where I sat next to my old physics professor at Stanford, Wolfgang Panofsky.  He told me what he could about what he was doing, which was negotiating with the Soviet Union on what to do with nuclear warheads when the Cold War ended.

• Arrived at my hotel in DC, turned on the TV set and the first scene was of the AMFAC Hotel, where the structure had caved in at the elevator.  My room was next to that elevator.  That hotel never opened again.  This was the Loma Prieta Earthquake which postponed the World Series being held in San Francisco.
• Thus, still, I had not personally experienced a hurricane, and I was then 49 years of age.

• My next encounter was around 1990 when, in Japan, I had to catch a train from Tokyo to Izu Peninsula.  A typhoon was coming, but the train left on schedule.  The eye went right over my train, and nothing bad happened. So that was my first hurricane.  A lot of anxiety, for nothing.

• In 1992 Pearl and I found our way to Eugene, Oregon, where we met up with my brother and his wife, who had driven from Las Vegas.  We won 24-21, and on the way to the next game against the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, we stopped for the night in Salt Lake City.  Turned on the TV and there was Hurricane Iniki heading what looked like straight to Honolulu.  Could not reach anyone on the phone.  Iniki devastated Kauai, but I missed it all.

• In August of 2009, to celebrate Pearl's life on the Big Island, after her ash scattering on the slopes of Mauna Kea, I was unsure about continuing on to the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Four Seasons Hualalai and Volcano House, to also lay her ashes, because Hurricane Felicia was bearing down on the island.  I thought it would be best to be at home if Felicia hit Oahu.  Turned out that she weakened, but the eye went right over my apartment in Honolulu.

So we come to Hurricane Lane, who I thought was a male, but TV newscasters a couple of times referred to the storm as she.  Anyway, note the current projected track.  How comfortable would you be if that arrow pointed straight at you, with a computer projection showing a left turn just before getting to you?  

That best guess is just the average of various computer models which considerably vary.  Hurricanes are supposed to move along a fairly straight path.  Here in Hawaii we have wind shear and high mountains that both protect us and make things complicated.  Here are the factors affecting the path of Lane:

• Tradewinds and other weather patterns push hurricanes in the Pacific mostly west.
• However, high level winds, this shear, come from the southwest.
• This is good because the hurricane is sheared and weakened.  As expected, Lane has dropped from Category 5 to now 4 status with a 3 rating soon expected, I hope.
• However, the counter-clockwise twist, when faced with this shear, means that the storm begins to shift north.  Yet, if the storm is really strong, as is Lane, this northern direction continues to prevail.  THE KEY QUESTION IS:  WILL THIS SHEAR, SAID TO BE AT 50 MPH, DOMINATE OVER THE HURRICANE, WITH WINDS OF 130 MPH???

My Manoa Campus office at the University of Hawaii is in the adjacent building to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration office of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.  All the information you see on TV comes from here. If not in Hawaii, watch the Weather Channel, which has been around since 1982.  Just about 90 million households in the USA can access this station.

So what will happen?  This is a photo I just took.  24 hours from now, that left turn will need to occur over that horizon, else Hurricane Lane will continue on right over my apartment.  If Category 3 status dominated and continues, Honolulu will be in really big trouble.

Well, heck, all is not gloom and doom in Purgatory.  The Honolulu Little League team yesterday torched New York 10-0, and will play the winner of either Georgia or New York, on ESPN at 1:30PM Hawaii time today, on Saturday for the national championship.  South Korea will take-on the winner of Japan-Puerto Rico, then the final two victors will vie on Sunday for the world little league championship.  It's becoming clear that those teams with their best pitchers still available will most probably win.

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