Natural Disasters: Hurricanes

Human Health & the Environment

Dr. Alicia M. Rich

Thu Sep 11, 2025

Human Health & the Environment
Thu Sep 11, 2025

Natural Disasters: Hurricanes

What a hurricane is (and isn’t)

Warm-core, low-pressure tropical cyclones with organized rotation

Hurricane Hazards

Wind

Storm surge

Rain

Tornadoes

Podcast: “warm core” due to latent heat release; strongest winds near surface. Frame risk as Hazard × Exposure × Vulnerability.

Weakening ≠ safe

A weakening hurricane can expand → bigger wind/surge footprint

Public messaging risk: people anchor to the number, not the footprint. Previews Katrina dynamics at landfall.

Rapid Intensification (RI)

• More frequent near landfall
  
• Compressed decision windows for evacuation & hospitals

Prompt: If you run a coastal hospital, which actions move from T-48h to T-72h under higher RI risk? (Dialysis scheduling, O2 logistics, early discharges, staff lodging.)

Image: anatomy of a cyclone

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Narrate inflow/outflow, eyewall, rainbands, and where hazards concentrate relative to track.

Case study: Hurricane Katrina (2005)

What made this a particularly devestating disaster?

• Get into groups of 2-4 and create a list of the top 3 contributing factors.
  • Be prepared to explain the spatial/temporal and the social/economic context mediating each factor.
• Return to discuss as a group

Stress that many deaths were from post-landfall flooding, not peak winds. Infrastructure failure + social vulnerability → health catastrophe.

Katrina & environmental justice

How did the legacy of redlining contribute to the impacts?

Low-elevation, levee-adjacent neighborhoods, Car access & evacuation ability, Disproportionate impact in Lower Ninth/St. Bernard

Connect to previous class: how historical housing policy maps onto present-day disaster risk and health inequities.

Film

Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time - Ep2 Worst Case Scenario