Scituate Hurricane Special

The tropics are stirring up a bit, so why not drop the Hurricane Special for Scituate?

Scituate, like her neighbors in Duxbury and Marshfield, is more of a nor'easter town than a hurricane town. That's actually a worse fate in Massachusetts, as we don't get hurricanes all that much, and the ones we do get break on the South Coast or Rhode Island first.

That matters very little when the waves are breaking on your house, but it matters a lot with these maps we'll be looking at today.

The map above is a Hurricane Inundation Map. It is brought to you today by an amalgamation of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and NHC. It will be analyzed by ME, for U.

Inundation relates to storm surge, which is the water pushed ashore by a large storm like a hurricane. You can call it the Deathflood or Liquid Doom if that gets your people moving faster. Flooding is the big killer with hurricanes, and it would be an issue in Scituate.

You can use this map to determine what's what in your neighborhood when the flooding starts. It depicts a direct hit hurricane arriving at mean high tide. It does not depict freshwater flooding. They are developed by using the zany-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge inundation. They also show which intensity (on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale) of storm would be needed to soak a particular region.

A direct-hit hurricane would be near impossible for Scituate, as it would have to loop around the Cape and drop back in on you. It's not impossible, according to Bistromath, it's just highly improbable. What is more likely is a Category X storm hitting the South Coast, then moving into Cape Cod Bay to hit Sit Chew It with X-Y. If you see Category 1 for Scituate, you know that Fairhaven probably got Category 2.

Here's how the colors work on the Inundation Map above:

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. The Blizzard of '78 and the Halloween Gale are good examples of Category 1 storm damage, although neither was directly a hurricane.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was a weak Category 2, and yes we do realize that "weak" and "Category 2 hurricane" are odd words to chain together.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five storms of this strength hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded history, in 1635.

Flesh = 100 Year FEMA Flood Zone. This is the "hundred year storm" you hear about, although you have to go pre-Colombian to find them. New England was hit by storms greater than Category 4 in roughly 1100 AD, 1300 AD and 1400 AD. They can tell by checking layers of sand on salt marsh muck.

Sorry about "flesh," my knowledge of colors was greatly dictated by the people at Crayola in the 1970s.

You can check these maps in far greater detail by going here and zooming a bit. It's disaster porn, styled to your very home!

Remember, you don't have to get flooded with seawater to die in a hurricane. You can get hit by lightning, sucked into a river, mashed in a road accident, have a tree fall on you, step on power lines, stumble into a sharknado or be killed by looters.

This leads to our second map, the Evacuation Map,

This is the map the authorities use when determining which neighborhoods will be evacuated. You don't HAVE to leave when the police tell you, but you also want to remember that the cop you were reading the Constitution to before the storm might very well be the one who has to make a decision as to whether or not to dive in to the maelstrom after you and your family.

I'm not chastising you. I watched the Halloween Gale from a waterfront home, with the police on a nearby hill blasting a searchlight on us the whole time.

Of course, that was a stupid move, so we'll work the other side now, and tell you about Beating Feet, Hightailing It, and Running Like A Scaled Dog.

This map is easier to follow. It has two colors:

Pink = They have to evacuate.

Yellow = You do, too.

Here's the map:

As you can see, Scituate is pretty much Get To Steppin' City if a storm is coming. She's low-lying, and is one of the first towns on the South Shore who get no barrier beach protection from Cape Cod. Much like how they vote in Chicago, Scituate will flood early and often.

Cranberry County Magazine is very much pro-Ask Old People Stuff. If you have some codger on your street who was here for Hurricane Carol, get a few drinks in him and pump him for storm information. Never let the Old School be an unutilized resource, player.

Grandpa may not work for FEMA, but FEMA most likely didn't have someone living on Oceanside Drive during Hurricane Donna. Find out what happened.

No one is going to tell you that Scituate is more dangerous than, say, Lynn.... but if the barometer drops, Scituate is about as bad as it gets. You want to have a rough idea of what danger your house faces, and you want to know if people who study weather for a living would evacuate if they owned your house.

Bone up on some local hurricane knowledge, oh people of Scituate!

Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

List of all hurricanes to hit New England

FEMA

MEMA

NOAA

NHC

Cranberry County Magazine wants you alive for several reasons:

- I love showing non-Massachusetts people the written word "Scituate," and seeing if they can pronounce it properly. If Scituate gets wiped off the map, the default towns are Billerica, Gloucester, and Worcester.

- Professional Pride. "If they followed my advice, they're alive."

- Economics. Cranberry County Magazine can not afford to lose one person who opened this page, even if they did so by accident.

- Regular, nice people reasons.

Cranberry County Magazine's Fantasy Football Team

We did an ESPN league for you to follow and root for!

We have the #4 pick out of a ten team snake draft.

Here's who we get:

#4) Jamaal Charles RB, Kansas City

It never hurts to have an Islam-friendly guy on the team, just in case the western world is wrong about that whole Christianity thing. Religion plays a role in my fantasy drafting... I almost took Gronk here, as I sometimes think he is God.


#17) Andrew Luck, QB, Indianapolis

If I don't get a QB early, the ADHD kicks in (Look! A rabbit!), I forget to draft one, and I end up with Alex Smith and Johnny Football. It also never hurts to have Luck, especially if he throws 40 TDs again.


#24) A.J. Green, WR, Cincinnati

I almost took Shady McCoy here, but I like to get a good Q/R/W haul from my top 3 picks. I watch a lot of WWE, and sometimes refer to him as "A.J. Lee," especially when he has a bad game.


#37) Alfred Morris, RB, Washington

I honestly don't know what else they can do with the goddamned ball other than give it to this guy.


#44) Carlos Hyde, RB, San Francisco

If steroids were legal, it'd be cool if, for 6 days a week, Carlos was actually known as mild-mannered chemist Carlos Jekyll or however they spell that... but, on gameday, he takes this very special potion and runs for 3 TDs, piles up two centuries of yardage, and carries off the head cheerleader.



#57) Andre Johnson, WR, Indianapolis

Andre is either on the downside of his career,or is about to be rejuvenated by playing with Andrew Luck. Perhaps he can have breakfast with Mr. Hyde (see pick #44) on gameday. "If we don't throw to him, he starts tackling defenders for no reason."


# 64) DaVante Adams, WR, Green Bay

I almost took him at #57, but he has the same Bye week as AJ Lee Green. I don't mind that risk if  have Andre Johnson between them. Adams plays on a team that throws everywhere, but a team with injuries at WR. He should pile up scores, and may jump over Dre to be my WR2.


#77) LeGarrette Blount, RB, New England

I like getting a pot guy, it leads to a more mellow team than drafting one of those make-it-rain nightclub guys.


#84) Brandon Marshall, WR, NY Jets

He'd probably be drafted lower if his nominal starting QB didn't get his jaw broken, a rare thing to see in the NFL.


#97, Denver Broncos, D/ST

Defenses are odd ducks. Aside from the Seahwaks D, this is the only high-ranked defense who I expect to see winning most or even half of their games.


#104) Duane Allen, TE, Indianapolis

I'm not saying that Duane is fragile, but historians tell me that the Greek warrior Achilles referred to the tendon in his heel as his "Duane Allen Heel."


#117) Alfred Blue, RB, Houston

It never hurts to have the guy who plays if Arian Foster is injured. Also fills the valuable role of "guy I cut during the D/ST bye week."


#124) Matthew Stafford, QB, Detroit

He's sort of like the Vice President, in that he's only starting if there is a great tragedy.


#137) Brandon McManus, K, Denver

If this guy gets cut in midseason (and Denver does that), this is a bad pick, but I like high-altitude kickers.


#144) Josh Hill, TE, New Orleans

You need to have a white guy for the QB to hang around with, or else he starts hanging around with the kicker and gets all wimmpy.


#157) DeVante Parker, WR, Miami

You need a DeVante for DaVante to hang around with, or else everyone makes fun of him for his goofy name.


WEEK ONE:

QB Andrew Luck
RB Jamaal Charles
RB Alfred Morris
WR AJ Green
WR Andre Johnson
WR DaVante Adams
TE Duane Allen
D/ST Denver
K Brandon McManus

We had some trouble deciding between Morris and Hyde at RB2, and between Hyde/Adams/Johnson at the Flex.


Our Opponent, Suzette Perry, and I don't feel badly about playing a girl because Stacey is on our fantasy football staff:

QB Matt Ryan, Atl QB
Phi
Mon 6:55 --
RB Adrian Peterson, Min RB
@SF
Mon 10:15 --
RB Justin Forsett, Bal RB
@Den
Sun 4:25 --
WR Demaryius Thomas, Den WR
Bal
Sun 4:25 --
WR Julio Jones, Atl WR
Phi
Mon 6:55 --
TE Travis Kelce, KC TE  P
@Hou
Sun 1:00 --
FLEX Jordan Matthews, Phi WR
@Atl
Mon 6:55 --
D/ST Patriots D/ST D/ST
Pit
W 28-21 0
K Matt Bryant, Atl K
Phi
Mon 6:55 --


Our pics against the odds, and you know we took the Pats last Thursday:

Date & Time Favorite Line Underdog Total
9/13 1:00 ET Green Bay -6.5 At Chicago 48.5

Green Bay, 38-14

9/13 1:00 ET Kansas City -1 At Houston 41

KC, 17-14

9/13 1:00 ET At NY Jets -3.5 Cleveland 39

NYJ, 13-10

9/13 1:00 ET Indianapolis -1.5 At Buffalo 44.5

Indianapolis, 37-24

9/13 1:00 ET Miami -3.5 At Washington 45.5

Miami, 20-14

9/13 1:00 ET Carolina -3 At Jacksonville 40.5

Carolina, 20-10

9/13 1:00 ET Seattle -3.5 At St. Louis 41

Seattle, 28-7

9/13 4:05 ET At Arizona -2.5 New Orleans 48

New Orleans, 28-24

9/13 4:05 ET At San Diego -3.5 Detroit 45.5

Detroit, 28-27


9/13 4:25 ET At Tampa Bay -3 Tennessee 41

Tampa Bay, 21-14

9/13 4:25 ET Cincinnati -3 At Oakland 43

Cincy, 24-3

9/13 4:25 ET At Denver -4.5 Baltimore  47

Denver, 37-17


9/13 8:30 ET At Dallas -6.5 NY Giants 52

Dallas, 35-28


Monday Night Football Line
9/14 7:10 ET Philadelphia -3 At Atlanta 55

Philadelphia, 41-21

9/14 10:20 ET Minnesota -2.5 At San Francisco 41.5

San Francisco, 17-14

Fisher Cats In Bourne

I nearly ran over a Fisher Cat on Head of the Bay Road in Bourne last night (right around where it meets Bournedale Road),so I dug up this article from our 2014 archives at the old rag:

I forget where I got this picture, may be MassWildlife.gov

You thought they were gone, but you were incorrect. Fishers are alive and well on the Upper Cape... except, of course, for the one that was run over in Sandwich on February 22nd.

The fisher (also known as a Fisher Cat, though it is not a feline) is a member of the Mustelid family that also gives us weasels, otters, badgers, and wolverines. They are mammals, omnivores (they are carnivores, but eat enough Other to get the omni tag). They can grow to 4 feet, although Cape Cod is far south for them and the larger versions of many creatures tend to be the more northern ones. We can get a 3 footer here. A lot of that distance is Tail. It looks like an angry ferret.

They live on the forest floor, although they are skilled tree-climbers. They eat small rodents like mice and bunnies, but are not above killing a wild turkey now and then. They eat carrion, and yet they have a berry-nut-mushroom vegan section of their diet. They have been reported to have killed bobcats, which also live on Cape Cod. They are crepuscular, dawn and dusk operators.

Fishers are rare in that they are one of the few predators to hunt porcupines (they make repeated bites to the face), no mean feat. They love chicken coops. While they can do it, it is rare for a fisher to actually catch and eat fish. The name comes from the French word fichet, which refers to the pelt of a polecat.

Fishers once ran free on Cape Cod in large numbers, before we chopped down all of our trees for farmland, heat and industry. Cape Cod was importing firewood from Maine long before the Civil War. The fishers vanished as their natural habitat did, and they were also the victim of large-scale trapping for their valuable pelts. By the mid-1800s, the fisher no longer lived on Cape Cod.

As farming and industry left the region, the forest began to claim back some of the land. Fishers began to inhabit central Massachusetts in the 1950s, and diffused eastward over the decades. There is also talk that they were introduced along the Canal as mousers about a century ago, when canal-digging displaced the region's rascally rodents.

Fishers were spotted on Cape Cod around the turn of the century, although wildlife officials generally laughed off reports. A 2005 fisher roadkill in Sandwich ended the debate. Wildlife officials are slow to accept change. For instance, not a decade before a bear was seen wandering all over Cape Cod, Thomas French (assistant director of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife) said "It's going to be... decades and maybe never.... before.... a bear crosses the Canal."

Fishers seem to have established at least a ten-year foothold in Sandwich, and they can be seen scampering around the Canal in Bourne during evening hours. They seem to be in the Massachusetts Military Reservation grounds, as well as the Shawme-Crowell State Forest.

Although they can and will kill a pet (a fisher was discovered with cat fur in his tummy up in New Hampshire), it isn't their normal modus operandi. Even a small dog would give a fisher a terrible fight, let alone a big Rotty or something of that ilk. A study of fishers in New Hampshire showed that 1% of their diet was cat.

Bobcats and coyote, which also inhabit Cape Cod, are a far greater threat to the local pet population.

Properly motivated, a fisher could do terrible damage to a small child (there is at least one report of a fisher attacking a 6 year old in Hopkinton), but attacks are beyond rare. An angry soccer mom can kick one away. One also attacked a kid in Rehoboth recently.

If you are kicking one away and happen to kill it, skin it and make a hat out of it. Fisher hats are going for between $195 and $500 on EBay. I may be incorrect, but fisher fur is more costly than mink.

There's no need to panic, and the fisher is actually pretty cool in his own way. He is a sign that wildlife which we thought was lost forever is instead returning to the region. "Moose" and "beaver" are the next wild animals to wish for on Cape Cod.

Note: Mountain Lion tracks found in Winchester?

A fisher in Carver, photo from Donna Paulin

Duxbury vs. Bridgewater-Raynham Is FOX Game Of The Week

A quick note to let you know, the football game between Bridgewater-Raynham and Duxbury High School is FOX's Game Of The Week this week.

FOX-25 will feature the Duxbury/B-R game on the 6 PM news, and will show extensive highlights of the game on their 10 PM news broadcast.

Duxbury, the host team, is favored by 3.

Mo' info can be found here.

Green Dragons Go!

High School Football Predictions, 9/11-9/12 2015

We are reviving a few facets of our old column at the old site, and one of them is High School Football.

Due to us now bearing the legal responsibility for this column, we will no longer be using Point Spreads for high school games.

Let's get to the Pigskin Prognostication!

Yes, that's a college field, sorry.

Brockton at Fitchburg, 7 PM Friday

Fitchburg always has a good team, but I'm going with 30 Brock!

Brockton, 20-18


Pembroke at Norwell, 7 PM Friday

I have the visiting teams going 2-0 so far.

Pembroke, 24-21


Marshfiled at Ridgewood, NJ, 7 PM Friday

A natural geographic rivalry continues....

Marshfield, 30-27


Barnstable at Dennis-Yarmouth, 7 PM Friday

The rivalry has favored Barney recently... but if you were going to make a longshot bet, why not D-Y at home, on a mushy field? Oh yeah, because they're playing Barnstable.

Barnstable, 34-14


Sharon at Falmouth, 6:30 PM Friday

Hopefully, Sharon will be worn down by bridge traffic.

Falmouth, 14-10


Hingham at Sandwich, 7 PM Friday

Hingham is the northeasternmost Ham in our reading area.

Sammich, 17-14


East Longmeadow at Nauset, 7 PM, Friday

Lucky it wasn't West Longmeadow, that would be a bit far to travel for a high school game.

Nauset, 41-17


New Bedford at Taunton, 6 PM Friday

New Beffuh gets an early Dub in conference play, whipping up on Silver City.

NB, 30-20


Somerset-Berkley at Durfee, 5 PM Friday

It must be tough to lose to a pair of itty-bitty towns when you're a bigger entity like Fall River, which is why I'm going in with both feet.

S-B, 20-19


Old Rochester at Cardinal Spellman, 7 PM Friday

OR is a good team, but not this good.

Spellman, 18-14


Silver Lake at Malden Catholic, 7 PM Friday

I used to do a Monponsett-to-Charlestown commute, and that sucked. This is a longer, worse ride.

Malden Catholic 20-13


Mystic Valley at Diman, 7 PM Friday

I always thought Mystic was either a River or a Connecticut harbor.

MV, 20-7


Lincon Sudbury at Dighton-Rehoboth, 7 PM

Why not go relatively local when betting on the Battle-of-the-Hyphens?

D-R, 9-7


Carver at Martha's Vineyard, 6:30 PM

Seasick mainlanders are a nice way to start the season.

Martha, 20-19


Hanover at Oliver Ames, 7 PM Friday

OA will have a Hanover Hangover the morning after this game!

Hanover 14-10


Canton at Rockland, 7 PM Friday

Rockland can try to steal signals, but they are useless if they cant read Cantonese.

Canton, 20-16


King Phillip at East Bridgewater, 7 PM Friday

KP didn't win many wars, but he sure does kick a lot of football ass.

KP, 30-20


Southeastern at West Bridgewater, 7 PM Friday

I gave EB a 10 point loss, why not give WB a 10 point win to balance everything out?

30-20


Mashpee at Britsol-Plymouth, 7 PM Friday

Mashpee is always tough and BP isn't.

Mashpee, 10-7


Hull at Blue Hills, 4 PM Friday

Is Blue Hills actually blue anywhere? No? 20 point loss!

Hull, 34-14


Bridgewater-Raynham at Duxbury, 7 PM Friday

Duxbury owned the state for a few years, but the wheels sort of fell off the dragon last year. This game is a huge test of whether the D will be active in the playoff season.

Duxbury 21-20


Middleboro at Dartmouth, 7 PM Friday

If you were coaching Datmouth and the season started poorly, would you be above sneaking a few guys onto the squad from UMass-Dartmouth? It'd be fun winning a high school Super Bowl with a 23 year old QB.

Dartmouth, 23-17


Plymouth South at Whitman Hanson, 7 PM Friday

P-Sow made a great leap forward last year,so we'll see if it carries over to this season.

PS, 20-13


Scituate at Cohasset 7 PM Friday

"Scituate" and "Billerica" go 1-2 and 2-1 in "Massachusetts town names that people from outside of Massachusetts can't pronounce."

Cohasset, 37-30


Apponequet at Plymouth North, 7 PM Friday

PN players, befuddled as they try to guess where Apponequet is, let this one slip away.

Appo, 13-12


Fairhaven at Wareham, 7 PM Friday

Fairhaven is the South Coast office of CCM, and we will only bet against them if they play Duxbury and maybe Bourne.

Fairhaven, 24-22


Greater New Bedford at Bishop Stang, 7 PM

Much like Bruce Willis and Mister Glass, the presence of a Greater New Bedford means that there must be a Lesser New Bedford out there somewhere. It might be in England, I'm not sure...

Stang, 20-19


Bourne at Monomoy, 7 PM Friday

Bourne is trying out the new spread offense, so why not bet on a 70+ point over/under?

Bourne, 41-37


Westfield at Abington, 7 PM Friday

My people tell me that Abby is taking no shorts this year, and certainly not from Westfield.

Abington, 31-14


St. John Paul II at St. Clement, Saturday, 1 PM

I hope that the current Pope gets a high school soon, he seems pretty cool.

STJP2, 30-10


Nantucket at Upper Cape, Saturday, 1 PM

I may actuallycheck this game out, I have the day ooff and I need some football pictures so every subsequent article isn't as picture-barren as this one.

UCT, 17-10


South Shore Voke Tech at Sacred Heart, 1 PM

Our own Stacey, who has yet to kick in to this column, is a Sacred Heart girl. Hence, we bet for them, sight unseen.

Sacred Heart, 17-14


Bishop Connolly at Cape Cod Tech, Saturday 1 PM

CCT is tough, but not tough enough to beat the Bishop.

BC, 20-10

New Bedford Hurricane Special

New Bedford is about as salty as it gets, and they get that salting by being exposed to the ocean, both as a profession and as residents.

This puts them in the path of some potentially serious storms.

New Betty had a 5.8 foot storm surge during Hurricane Bob, and one of her fishing boats off of Cuttyhunk reported a peak gust of 182 mph. NB had wind gusts over 90 mph during Hurricane Gloria, 110 mph during Hurricane Donna, and a 20 foot storm surge from Hurricane Carol.

Yup, you can get messed up pretty smooth in New Bedford, really get your hat handed to you. They also have bad hurricanes.

You have to be ready to deal with the sea if you're even thinking of living in New Bedford. The town does their best, throwing up a hurricane barrier to protect most of the city from anything but the worst hurricanes. You can see it up in the lead photo. It protects the Acushnet River, and, therefore most of New Bedford.

What you see below is a Hurricane Inundation Map for New Bedford. It shows what areas of New Bedford would be flooded in a direct-hit hurricane. The map comes from FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and NHC.

It also shows what strength of hurricane (strength measured by the Safford-Simpson hurricane intensity scale) would be needed to inundate certain areas. It does not depict freshwater flooding.

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane... Hurricane Gloria was a weak Category 1 hurricane. Yes, "weak" and "hurricane." are tough words to use in the same sentence, but this is how we Do.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane... Hurricane Bob was a Category 2, and he beat up New Beddy like she stole something while concurrently saying something awful about Bob's mother.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane... only 5 of these have hit New England since the Other White Meat arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane... we've only had one in our recorded history, in 1635.

Flesh = 100 Year FEMA Flood Zone. This is the hundred year storm you hear people speaking of, although you have to go pre-Colombian to find some in New England history. They (people who study this stuff) use salt marsh soil analysis techniques to study prehistoric hurricane histories, and New England was hit by storms above Category 3 in the 1100s, 1300s, and 1400s. Only the Native Americans saw them.

I don't have a better Art term for the 100 year storm color than Flesh. Blame whoever was running Crayola in 1973.

Here are a few things of note:

- FEMA and company developed these estimates based on the zany weatherman titled SLOSH model of storm surge inundation.

- I'll leave neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis to you. I'm from friggin' Duxbury, what do I know?

- Once that hurricane wall goes, things get ugly fast in New Bedford. It's funny when the seawall gets topped over on Duxbury Beach, and 50 rich people have to drive the Land Rover up the hill. It's not so funny when 20 feet of water is rushing at 100,000 poor people.

- Just about anything south of the hurricane barrier faces a serious threat from even minor storms.

- Parts of Route 195 will be under Buzzards Bay in a bad enough storm.

- Clark's Cove didn't get a 20 foot boulder wall to protect her people.... so, uhm, have fun out there, folks.

- Cranberry County Magazine strongly advocates seeking out a local old-timer who was in your neighborhood for a major storm like Hurricane Carol. Find out whatever he/she can tell you about what happened to your neighborhood. The folks from the Old School watched hurricanes hit your neighborhood, and most of the FEMA kids haven't.

- New Bedford lost 2/3 of her fishing fleet in the 1938 hurricane.

With all of this stuff we're kicking around, it might make sense to flee New Beige if a hurricane is coming. Which parts of town will the authorities be evacuating?

The map below is an Evacuation map, and it is what The Man will be using as a template when issuing evacuation orders.

The differing colors are for differing intensities of storms, with Pink meaning "Get Out," and Yellow meaning "Get the **** out, now!"

The hurricane barrier pays off here, as only the areas to either side of it would be evacuating in a milder hurricane. Once the barrier is topped, however, it's every man for himself.

Notice that Route 195 and Route 6 get cut off by seawater in several spots, so plan to be Audi early.

New Bedford doesn't evacuate for just any storm, but when they do evacuate, they evacuate several miles inland.

That's pretty much what we have for you today. You should learn it/know it/live it.

If you disagree with something in here, let me know in the comments section. I had some disagreement with FEMA on my own beach.

Check the maps for yourself:

Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Come Hull or High Water: One Hull Of A Hurricane Preparation Article

"If I owned Hull and Texas, I would live in Hull and rent out Texas."

Hull sticks way out into the ocean, which is never a good thing in a coastal flooding scenario. It is very low-lying in spots, also a bad. It is also very densely populated, which complicates things further.

That map above is a Hurricane Inundation Map, from FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and NHC. The analysis is by ME, a lowly NWS volunteer spotter who happens to be Boss Hogg here at Cranberry County Magazine. The map is based on the zany-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge inundation.

"Storm surge" is the water pushed onshore in a storm. If you're standing at the high tide mark and a ten foot storm surge comes ashore, you'll be under ten feet of water. You can call it a Deathflow or Liquid Doom if it gets your people moving more quickly.

These maps depict the estimated storm surge for Hull in the event of a direct-hit hurricane arriving at mean high tide. They also show what sort of storm would e required to flood certain areas. They do not depict freshwater inundation that could result from heavy rain, sewer backups, and river/stream overflow.

The maps work like this:

Light Green = Category 1 storm. The Halloween Gale is a good-although-offshore example of a Category 1 hurricane, while the Blizzard of '78, though not a hurricane, is also a good model for estimating this sort of damage/risk.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was a weak Category 2 hurricane. Yes, "weak" and "Category 2 hurricane" are funny words to string together.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We have only had five Category 3 hurricanes since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the last one being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Red = Category 4 storm. We've had one in recorded history, in 1635.

Flesh = 100 Year FEMA Flood Estimates. This is the "hundred year storm" you hear people speak of, although you have to go pre-Colombian to find evidence (marsh mud samples are analyzed for otherwise unexplainable sand layering to determine prehistoric hurricane histories for areas with dunes in front of marshes) of storms of this power striking New England. According to my research, we got tuned up on to this extent in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

As we were saying before, you people are in a Hull of a spot.

"We're surrounded!" "We're supposed to be surrounded, we're paratroopers Hull."

Yes, you are surrounded... by water, and you don't live on mountains. When the water rises, it likes to come and visit coastal communities. That is going to make things very sketchy in H-you-double hockey sticks.

Hull could go from peninsula to island very quickly if a hurricane came to town. These maps help give you an idea of what sort of risk you face.

Hull does catch a break, in that a hurricane is almost never going to land a direct hit on Hull. It will come ashore on the South Coast, Cape Cod or Rhode Island before reaching Hull, and that will blunt the effects somewhat.

Hull will also benefit from the fact that hurricanes historically have a tendency to right-hook just before hitting Cape Cod, thus keeping Chatham and Wellfleet between the hurricane and Hull. That effect is erased when the storm plows through Cape Cod Bay, of course.

You can analyze the map for yourself, although I do feel obliged to note that Hull High will be underwater in even minor storms. The roads out will be blocked as well.

Talk to old-timers who were on Hull for Hurricane Carol or even the 1938 hurricane. Locals know stuff that FEMA doesn't, as odd as that sounds. I disagree with FEMA on my own neighborhood (Duxbury Beach), and my hurricane pedigree only runs back to Hurricane Belle. Keepers of the Old School actually watched hurricanes hit Hull, something most FEMA kids can't say.

Hull does have some high ground (World's End is safe from most storms, I was somewhat disappointed to discover), and you should both 1) know where it is and 2) befriend people who live on it.

We can now move on to the Evacuation Map.

"Oh Baby, Please Don't Leave Me!"

This one is easier to read. Red means "They'd better leave," and Yellow means "You'd better leave, too."

Hull, in a hurricane, is a French word for "Flee." Pretty much everyone in town should give serious thought to a good Skedaddle. A good run is better than a bad stand. That water will be coming ashore angry.

You don't HAVE to go. However, the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm will also be the one who may have to pull you out of the floodwaters, so use your best discretion and stuff.

Hull will be a nightmare to evacuate. As anyone who drives home from a bar knows, there's really only one road out. Hull also enjoys the distinction of being the 4th smallest town by land area in the state, yet having one of the longer coastlines... while also being top 30 in population density.

Also note that you can be killed by a hurricane very far back from shore, even in areas not demarcated by either map. A river could overflow, power lines could fall, the winds could decapitate you with a pizza box, and you could very easily end up in a sharknado.

We want you alive. We want you alive for monetary reasons, as this site depends on you dropping by now and then. We want you alive for reasons of professional pride, i.e. "If they listened to me, they got out in time." We also want you alive for regular, nice-people reasons.

"I advocate hanging on as long as possible."

Check out MEMA Hurricane Inundation Maps for yourself... laugh at those less fortunate than yourself, while planning defense strategies for people trying to get into your house to seek refuge.