OBJECTIVES To evaluate the "lessons learned" by Louisiana Nursing Home (NH) administrative directors (ADs) forced to make decisions relating to resident evacuation before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and determine how emergency planning has changed in those NHs. DESIGN Twenty in-depth telephone interviews followed by a focus group conducted in New Orleans. SETTING Louisiana NHs in parishes a...

Bayesian statistical models were developed for the number of tropical cyclones and the rate at which these cyclones became hurricanes in the North Atlantic, North and South Indian, and East and West Pacific Oceans. We find that there is small probability that the number of cyclones has increased in the past thirty years. The rate at which these storms become hurricanes appears to be constant. T...

OBJECTIVE To examine the differential morbidity/mortality associated with evacuation versus sheltering in place for nursing home (NH) residents exposed to the 4 most recent Gulf hurricanes. METHODS Observational study using Medicare claims and NH data sources. We compared the differential mortality/morbidity for long-stay residents exposed to 4 recent hurricanes (Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ik...

The interaction between multiple stressors on Caribbean coral reefs, namely, fishing effort and hurricane impacts, is a key element in the future sustainability of reefs. We develop an analytic model of coral-algal interactions and explicitly consider grazing by herbivorous reef fish. Further, we consider changes in structural complexity, or rugosity, in addition to the direct impacts of hurric...

Studying infrequent phenomena (e.g. hurricanes) and slow processes (e.g. forest regeneration) greatly challenges the ecological techniques of real-time studies. By combining the two relatively new approaches of paleotempestology and fine-resolution palynology, this study provides insight into the impacts of hurricanes and the post-hurricane regeneration of forests. I analyzed a 5-m sediment cor...

Ecosystem-level impacts of two hurricane seasons were compared several years after the storms in the largest lagoonal estuary in the U.S., the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine System. A segmented linear regression flow model was developed to compare mass-water transport and nutrient loadings to a major artery, the Neuse River Estuary (NRE), and to estimate mean annual versus storm-related volume del...

Overall health status after a disaster may be associated with long-term physical morbidity and mortality. Little is known about factors associated with overall health status in the aftermath of disasters. We examined self-rated health in relation to disaster characteristics, social resources, and post-disaster outcomes in a sample of adults who experienced the 2004 Florida hurricanes. We interv...

Hurricane risk characteristics are examined across the U. S. Gulf of Mexico coastline using a hexagonal tessellation. Using an extreme value model, parameters are collected representing the rate or λ (frequency), the scale or σ (range), and the shape or ξ (intensity) of the extreme wind distribution. These latent parameters and the 30-year return level are visualized across the grid. The greate...

Previous studies have found that idealized hurricanes, simulated under warmer, high-CO 2 conditions, are more intense and have higher precipitation rates than under present-day conditions. The present study explores the sensitivity of this result to the choice of climate model used to define the CO2-warmed environment and to the choice of convective parameterization used in the nested regional ...

Since 1980, over 2,000 local governments in US Atlantic states have been hit by a hurricane. We study government fiscal dynamics the aftermath of hurricanes. These shocks reduce tax revenues, public expenditures, and debt financing decade following Hurricanes create collateral damage for increasing cost at critical moments after strike. Municipalities with 1 standard deviation-above-average rac...