New Orleans seen top US target for '06 hurricanes

Source: Reuters

In Orlando, Fla., story headlined "New Orleans seen top US target for '06 hurricanes" in sixth paragraph please read ... by 278 million barrels over the next few years ... instead of ... by 278 million barrels this year (correcting time frame)

A corrected story follows.

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla., May 24 (Reuters) - New Orleans, still down and out from last year's assault by Hurricane Katrina, is the U.S. city most likely to be struck by hurricane force winds during the 2006 storm season, a researcher said on Wednesday.

The forecast gives New Orleans a nearly 30 percent chance of being hit by a hurricane and a one in 10 chance the storm will be a Category 3 or stronger, meaning sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour (178 km per hour), said Chuck Watson of Kinetic Analysis Corp., Savannah, Georgia a risk assessment firm.

"Given the state of the infrastructure down there and the levees, gosh, that's just not good news. But that's what the climate signals look like," Watson said.

Watson, who has partnered with University of Central Florida statistics professor Mark Johnson, also predicted that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico will be disrupted for a minimum of a week at a cost of 7-8 million barrels of oil.

Up to 25 percent of U.S. oil production in the Gulf was shut down last year and 20 percent is still out.

Watson gave a one in 10 chance that oil rigs will sustain enough damage to reduce production by 278 million barrels over the next few years, further escalating prices for gasoline.

The forecasters, who have worked with the oil and gas industry and with state insurance regulators, base their forecast in part on the paths of storms over the past 155 years and expected global climate conditions this year.

Watson and Johnson said a weak La Nina weather condition and warmer-than-normal Gulf of Mexico water temperatures were contributing factors. U.S. government weather experts say the La Nina phenomenon in place earlier this year has dissipated and should not be a factor during the hurricane season.

On Tuesday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the 2006 hurricane season was expected to produce 13 to 16 named storms, including four to six "major" hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher. No leading forecasters came close to predicting what happened in 2005, when 28 tropical storms spawned a record 15 hurricanes.

The 2006 forecast for News Orleans was worse than Watson's prediction for the city last year, he said. But for now, he considers the 2005 season an aberration rather than a trend or a definitive sign of effects from global warming.

"If it happens again this year or next year, then we're in a different climate world than we were in the last 100 years or so," Watson said.

Of 28 coastal cities evaluated under the forecast model, New Orleans ranked top with a 29.3 percent chance of experiencing hurricane-force winds in the storm season that begins officially on June 1.

Other top candidates include Mobile, Alabama, with a 22 percent chance of being buffeted by hurricane-force winds, and the Florida cities of Key West and Pensacola, which both have a 20 percent chance.

West Palm Beach, Florida, which suffered severe damage during last year's Hurricane Wilma, came in just after Key West and Pensacola with a 19 percent chance of being struck yet again by hurricane-force winds.

Watson and Johnson have published a number of research papers on storm and wind damage modeling.

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NYT: Levees Rebuilt Just in Time, but Doubts Remain

NEW ORLEANS, May 22 — In a breathless finale that has been called one of this generation's greatest adventures in civil engineering, the Army Corps of Engineers has all but completed its repairs to this city's ruined levee system.

With just days to go before the beginning of the hurricane season, the corps' $800 million effort has even improved the system in many ways, engineering experts say, with tougher concrete flood walls, brawny new canal gates and more than 150 miles of new or repaired levees.

But even though all sides agree that the corps has largely achieved its goal, independent engineers say it is the goal that is the real problem. New Orleans is still very much at risk, they say, because the level of protection the corps has reached is still not as strong as the city needs.

Many experts view this hurricane season, which begins on June 1, with trepidation, and hope that the system is not put to a test like Hurricane Katrina before further improvements can be made.

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