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National Situation Update: Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED).

Weather Hazards

• Minor flooding along the Red River of the North will continue until early May.
  
• River and small stream flooding is expected for parts of the Great Basin, intermountain West, and California.
  
• Severe drought exists across the Southwest, southern Plains, Gulf Coast, and Carolinas; some relief is anticipated.   (NWS, Media sources)
  

National Weather

Midwest:  Showers are forecast across the Great Lakes and scattered thunderstorms in the Ohio Valley. None of them are expected to become severe. Parts of the southern Plains may see some scattered severe thunderstorms on Tuesday as the storm front moves out of the Rockies.

South:  Isolated thunderstorms from the western Carolinas back to the Mississippi River and scattered strong to severe thunderstorms across parts of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.

Northeast:  Rain will spread westward from Maine into New Hampshire and Vermont. Rain should continue into Wednesday before the storm lifts northeast into Canada. The rest of the region will see some sunshine and mild temperatures.

West:  Windy conditions with areas of light rain and higher elevation snow across the northern Rockies. The central Rockies will see some isolated thunderstorms. A few thunderstorms could be severe with large hail and gusty winds. The remainder of the western third of the country should remain dry through Wednesday.  (NWS, Media sources)

Pacific Basin Countries Try Tsunami Drill

In 1960, a powerful earthquake off Chile triggered a tsunami that hit Hawaii in just 15 hours. Traveling at 500 mph, the monster wave kept building in size before striking Japan seven hours later.

Now, on May 16-17, almost 50 years since hundreds died in that disaster, scientists will use the scenario in an international drill involving up to 28 Pacific Basin countries. The exercise, the first ever of its kind, is aimed at motivating countries to test and review their abilities to detect and prepare for a similar catastrophe.
(Media sources)

May is "Tornado Month".

Of all of the months in the year, May has the highest frequency of tornadoes, just beating out June. The highest threat of tornadic activity runs from northern Texas to the heart of the central Plains. A broad medium threat area encompasses this region and spreads eastward into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. This is the time of year when heat and moisture build up over the South and flow northward into the nation's midsection, while at the same time there is still enough cool air to the north for storms to tap into and form unstable air masses.

When it comes to tornado frequency, May takes first place with an average of 196 tornadoes each May. However, June is not far behind with an average of 175 tornadoes, while April takes third place with an average of 111 tornadoes. The most tornadoes recorded in a single month happened in May of 2003 when an incredible 543 twisters touched down. The most in a single year occurred just two years ago in 2004 when 1,819 tornadoes were reported. In that year, August, September and November all set new monthly tornado records.(Media sources)

Home Insurers are Pulling Back from some U.S. Coastal Markets.

The eight hurricanes that struck Florida since August 2004 not only caused about $29-billion in insured losses, they played havoc with the insurance industry. Then 2005 saw Hurricane Katrina, whose mounting toll of destruction along the Gulf Coast has crystallized a growing industry debate about the combined effect of climate trends and population growth in coastal areas. Analysts note that seven of the 12 costliest insured disasters in U.S. history occurred in the past two years. At $57.7 billion, private insured losses in 2005 were more than double those of 2004, according to the Insurance Services Office.

Allstate Corporation has ceased writing homeowners policies in Louisiana, Florida and coastal parts of Texas and New York State. Other firms have pulled back from the Gulf Coast to Cape Cod, notifying Florida of plans to cancel 500,000 policies. Allstate and other insurance companies have also began apply the lessons learned in catastrophic disasters to other high risk scenarios and stopped underwriting earthquake coverage in California and elsewhere.

Industry observers predict that if the 2006 Hurricane season brings a third year of high losses, the number of disengaging insurance companies will grow significantly. Hurricane forecasters predict five major storms of Category 3 or higher in the 2006 Atlantic season, with a chance of U.S. landfall at 81 percent, compared with a 100-year average of 52 percent. In March, catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions Inc. raised its estimate of insurance losses this year by nearly 50 percent above pre-2004 baselines for the East and Gulf coasts.

When companies stop offering homeowners policies, citizens resort to taxpayer-funded state insurance plans, leaving the government and taxpayers holding the tab for the next disaster. Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corp., for example, has 815,000 policyholders and is adding 40,000 a month. Last week, Poe Financial Group collapsed, and many of its 316,000 policyholders probably will move to Citizens, which already faces a $1.7 billion deficit. Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state's last-resort insurer, expects to reach 200,000 policies this year; it had none in 2004. Texas's insurer of last resort says it is down to $1.3 billion in reserves and wants to raise rates by at least 22 percent.

However, taxpayer-funded state insurance plans aren't cheap. Florida law requires Citizens to charge rates that are higher than the top 20 private insurers to levy an assessment if any of its accounts has a deficit. As a result, Citizens has already assessed all Florida homeowners, regardless of their insurance companies, for $515.5-million in 2004 losses. Another Citizens assessment is expected to cover a $1.73-billion deficit from last year's storms.

Taxpayers not in the effected areas are also paying the bill. While Katrina caused an estimated $38 billion to $50 billion in private insured losses, it also helped put the federal flood insurance program $23 billion in the red and prompted federal relief spending of more than $100 billion.

As companies raise premiums, shed customers, and battle homeowner claims in hurricane-damaged states, an overhaul of the industry is being promoted by an unusual coalition. It includes Allstate and State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. as well as a bipartisan group of state regulators, academic experts and former homeland security officials. Allstate has poured more than $1 million into a lobbying campaign it calls ProtectingAmerica.org, enlisting State Farm and retaining former Federal Emergency Management Agency director James Lee Witt and former Homeland Security deputy secretary James M. Loy.

They propose establishing a greater role for the federal government in backing up new state catastrophe funds or private insurance firms when losses exceed a certain level, toughening state and local building codes and increasing premiums to accurately price risks. Some also want to potentially pool the high costs of covering perils such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and even floods into regional or national groups to ease consumer cost, and to use some money to help improve first responders and local preparedness.

Supporters argue that the insurance industry has a "breaking point" above which the government must step in to ensure solvency. What's more, they say, the cost of disasters is already affecting consumers by pricing premiums too high and discouraging participation in insurance programs against floods and earthquakes. For example, 14 percent of Californians have earthquake insurance and about 20 percent of coastal Mississippians had federal flood insurance.

Opponents note that insurance companies showed a record profit of $44.8 billion in 2005 and contend the companies have the resources to continue providing homeowners insurance at reasonable rates. (Media sources)

Remember: Hurricane Season Begins June 1st.

Make sure you and your family is prepared by: 1) drafting a family disaster plan; 2) stockpiling food and water for at least 72 hours and; 3) preparing for special family members such as the elderly and those with disabilities.

The "Getting Ready for Disaster" DVD is available by calling the FEMA Distribution Center at 800-480-2520, or is available for viewing on the Web at www.fema.gov. The DVD is only available in English, but in coming months, Spanish captions will be available along with English captions and the English soundtrack, all on a single DVD.(FEMA HQ)

Tropical Activity

No new activity (FEMA HQ)

Earthquake Activity

No new activity (FEMA HQ)

Preliminary Damage Assessments

Public Assistance PDA for 13 counties and one Tribal entity in North Dakota is scheduled to begin on May 2, 2006, as a result of severe storms and flooding. (FEMA HQ)

Wildfire Update

Initial attack activity was light nationally with 47 new fires reported Sunday.  Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.(NIFC, NICC)

Disaster Declaration Activity

FEMA-1624-DR for the state of Texas has been amended to include the following:  One county (Kerr) has been added for Individual Assistance.  (FEMA HQ)