Hurricane: The Bright Side

"The danger is that if you say there's a beneficial effect, you come off sounding like a nut.” Sidney Maddock, Environmental Analyst for The Center of Biological Diversity

Today is the start of Hurricane season, but there's more to a storm of this kind than just damage.

Aquifer: We've all been hearing about it due to the state drought. Enough rain and it will be replenished, maybe this year. One hurricane storm could take care of the problem in a matter of days. Frank Marks, research Meteorologist for the hurricane research division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explains: "A hurricane can dump 5 to 15 inches of fresh water on a place that desperately needs it, replenishing the aquifer. It also can clean out clogged-up and polluted bodies of water."It flushes out all the garbage."
Reefs: Hurricanes even help some things they're accused of hurting, such as the coral reefs in Florida's Biscayne Bay. "In Hurricane Andrew, people worried about reef damage," Marks said. "And the reefs were damaged. Pieces of the reefs were broken off. But they looked later and saw that the pieces of the reef that broke off were starting new reefs."
Cute guy in the picture:
The Piping Plover is a seashore bird. It makes its nest in sandy stretches of beach. If too much vegetation grows on the beach, the piping plover can't nest there. If they can't nest, they can't mate. And the piping plover already is classified as a "threatened" species. "A storm like this is so powerful," says Sidney Maddox, "that it will push massive amounts of sand and water across the island and you'll have large areas of open sand without vegetation, and those are the areas where next summer the shore birds will breed."
So as you purchase your supplies, pack your car, learn your routes and hope the house is there when you get back, try to look on the bright side. Maybe one or two eco-system problems were worked out while you were riding out the storm. ~Laurie

Pack, prepare, tune to news, and take an evacuation order seriously.

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/