Please see the information and graphics below from American National Red Cross Vice President of Disaster Operations, Brad Kieserman.

This offers a glimpse into the effort it takes to prepare a response to the potential impact of a storm. Locally, we have volunteers on standby to travel this weekend to assist in shelter operations.

Whether you are a board member, donor, or you share our story with the community, you have all supported this work and our team. Thanks so much for that continued support. Let’s all hope for the absolute best case scenario this holiday weekend.

Kathy Ferrell

Executive Director
American Red Cross, Heart of Tennessee Chapter

There’s a proverb that goes: “From small beginnings come great things.”  Hurricane Dorian, which is now about 80 miles north-northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, began as a small bit of low air pressure with a few clouds and thunderstorms in East Africa about a week ago. It emerged in the Atlantic as a small tropical depression and battled with dry air, wind shear, and relatively cool water—it seemed unlikely to survive its interaction with the Caribbean islands of the Lesser Antilles a few nights ago. And, yet.. as I write this, we are planning for Hurricane Dorian to make landfall in the Continental United States on Labor Day Monday, Sept. 2 as a Category 3 Hurricane (Cat 3), which would make it the worst storm to hit Central Florida in three decades.  A Category 3 is considered a “major” hurricane and has maximum sustained winds of from 111mph to 129 mph, which is generally devastating. In addition to wind, major hurricanes like Dorian bring storm surge and heavy rain—that’s why water – whether through surging ocean waves or driving rain – is often the most destructive part of a hurricane. 

“From small beginnings….”

Here’s the good news: Dorian is now moving away from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands into the Western Atlantic: 

While heavy rain continues to fall in St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas, conditions are improving.   Flash flooding and mudslides will be a risk on the Islands for the next few days, however initial reports suggest no immediate widespread damage.  As you can see from the RC View screenshot below, a few hours ago, about 265 people were in 70 shelters across Puerto Rico and USVI—I expect many shelter residents will head home over the next 24 hours.

On Friday, our teams will begin conducting damage assessments and providing emergency supplies, financial assistance, and other mass care services as needed across the Islands. 

Here’s the not so good news: Just in the past few hours, Dorian has intensified and become better organized.  Over the next few days, Dorian will make likely make his way to the east and north of the Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas.  By Friday or Saturday, we expect Dorian to bend toward the west-northwest and then strike the east coast of Florida.  To be clear, the meteorology around Dorian is complicated and we’re not only planning for the Florida scenario, but also for tracks farther north toward the southeastern Georgia coast, or one trudging across the Florida Peninsula, then emerging into the Gulf of Mexico and potentially threatening parts of the northern Gulf Coast—places devastated last year by Hurricane Michael—next week.  Those scenarios look like this: 

Currently, our planning assumption looks like this (by, the way, this is an incredible planning tool designed in RC View by our Senior Geospatial Expert, Greg Tune): 

As you can see, four Red Cross Regions (North Florida, Central Florida, South Florida, and Georgia), over 19 million people and over 9 million homes are in the “threat cone,” and at least 3 other Regions (Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina) remain actively “in play” due to the forecast variables. 

While there is considerable uncertainty about the specifics of landfall, the National Hurricane Center said earlier today, “All indications are that by this Labor Day weekend, a powerful hurricane will be near or over the Florida Peninsula.”  Based on the best data available to us this evening, this is what we’re planning for on Labor Day (Monday, September 2, 2019): 

To offer a bit of context, since 1851, only 13 major hurricanes have made landfall along the east coast of Florida.  The most recent was Hurricane Jeanne in 2004, which made landfall on Hutchinson Island, just east of Sewall's Point, Florida, Stuart, Florida and Port Saint Lucie, Florida, as a Category 3.  Jeanne killed 28 people and caused $10.3 billion in damage.

We hope that Dorian weakens or turns out to sea.  But, hope is not a plan. 

We have initiated five Disaster Relief Operations (DROs) under coordination from National Headquarters to prepare for and respond to Hurricane Dorian: 

• DR 115-20 – Puerto Rico
• DR 122-20 – USVI
• DR 123-20 – Florida
• DR 124-20 – Georgia
• DR 126-20 – South Carolina

We are deploying resources now in anticipation of potentially 50,000 people in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina seeking shelter due to evacuations driven by Dorian—I expect we’ll open evacuation shelters in Florida this weekend with others to follow depending on the forecast.  Over the next few days, we’re moving over 30 tractor-trailer loads of shelter supplies into Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina—we began those movements this morning.  We’re also assigning about 300 volunteers over the next 48 hours to initiate sheltering operations—we will follow those deployments with another 450 responders staged to deploy post landfall.  This evening, our Resource Mobilization Support Team posted over 200 positions for deployment to supplement our very strong teams already in the impact area.  We’re working closely with county and State governments, and our FEMA colleagues to ensure our collective readiness to delivery mass care services wherever and whenever Dorian strikes. 

As we wrap up tonight, I’ll share 3 points:

1. Dorian’s forecast will likely change about every 6 hours for the next few days—that’s normal, and we’ll prudently adjust our response, as necessary. And, Dorian may fizzle out sometime over the next few days—no one would be happier than me to see that happen. 

1. Over 60% of all Level 3 and above Hurricane DROs for the Red Cross happen after August 25 of any given year—this is just the beginning of peak Atlantic Hurricane Season; indeed, the mid-term forecast indicates a high probability of new systems in the Atlantic for the next few weeks.

1. We continue to face above average wildfire risk in California and parts of the west, and that will continue through September and October.

Are we ready for all this?  We’ve prioritized on our Readiness Initiative and development of our National Readiness Target over the past several years.  We’ve been deliberate in building capability and capacity in each of the four elements of Readiness: trained people available, necessary supplies available, accessible infrastructure, and supportive communities.  With RC View and analytic tools like Power BI and Azure, we have greater insight into our resources and into the needs of the people we serve than ever before.  And, most important: we have a disaster workforce, about whom we care deeply, that has sharpened its skills and experience by responding superbly to a near-continuous onslaught of major disasters (a new one on average every 26 days for each of the past 3 years). 

So, yes: We are ready.