[StBernard] FINAL PREDICTION: Outgoing hurricane chief warns about 'big one'

[Westley Annis]

Thursday, January 04, 2007
 
Frustrated with people and politicians who refuse to listen or learn,
National Hurricane Center chief Max Mayfield ended his 34-year government
career Wednesday in search of a new platform for getting his unwelcome
message: Hurricane Katrina was nothing compared with The Big One yet to
come.
 
Mayfield, 58, leaves his high-profile job with the National Weather Service
more convinced than ever that U.S. residents of the Southeast are risking
unprecedented tragedy by continuing to build vulnerable homes in the
tropical storm zone and failing to plan escape routes.
 
He pointed to the 7 million coastal residents of southern Florida.
 
"We're eventually going to get a strong enough storm in a densely populated
area to have a major disaster," he said. "I know people don't want to hear
this, and I'm generally a very positive person, but we're setting ourselves
up for this major disaster."

 
More than 1,300 deaths across the Gulf Coast were attributed to Hurricane
Katrina, the worst human toll from a weather event in the United States
since the 1920s.
 
But Mayfield warns that 10 times as many fatalities could occur in what he
sees as an inevitable killer storm strike during this highly active
hurricane cycle, which is expected to last another 10 to 20 years.
 
His apocalyptic vision of tens of thousands dead and millions homeless is a
different side of the persona he established as head of the hurricane
center.
 
Mayfield attained national celebrity during the tempestuous 2004 and 2005
seasons, appearing on network television with hourly updates as Charley,
Ivan, Frances, Jeanne and Wilma bore down on the Caribbean and Florida. His
calm demeanor and avuncular sincerity endeared him to millions of TV viewers
seeking survival guidance.
 
He argues that his own dire predictions don't have to become reality.
 
Technology exists to build high-rise buildings capable of withstanding
hurricane-force winds and tropical storm surges more powerful than
experienced in the past few years. Much of Hong Kong's architecture has been
built to survive typhoons, and hotels and apartments built in Kobe, Japan,
after a 1995 earthquake devastated the city are touted as indestructible, he
said.
 
What is lacking in the U.S. is the political will to make and impose hard
decisions on building codes and land use in the face of resistance from the
influential building industry and a public still willing to gamble that the
big one will never hit, he said.
 
"It's good for the tax base" to allow developers to put up buildings on the
coastline, Mayfield said in explaining politicians' reluctance to deter
housing projects that expose residents to storm risks.
 
"I don't want the builders to get mad at me," he said, "but the building
industry strongly opposes improvement in building codes."
 
Consumers also don't demand sturdier construction, Mayfield said. A builder
gets a better investment return for upgraded carpet and appliances than for
safety features beyond most states' minimal requirements, he said.
 
As a senior civil servant, Mayfield was prohibited from making job inquiries
in the private sector while still in the government's employ. But he said
Tuesday, his last day in office, that he hopes to launch a second career as
a consultant in emergency planning and disaster response. He has particular
interest in a potential public-private initiative to mine natural disaster
scenes for their educational value.
 
He envisions a natural disaster assessment service equivalent to the
National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates the causes and
consequences of aviation and other transport accidents.
 
Mayfield said he is also pondering working with advocates of tougher
building standards and land-use rules.
 
One particularly disturbing statistic he cites is that even after the
devastating hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, fewer than 50 percent of
those living in storm-prone areas make plans for evacuating in the event of
an approaching hurricane.
 
Although he has been critical of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in
its response to Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, he warns against
depending too heavily on the federal government after natural disasters.
 
"You don't want the federal government to be your first-responders," he
said. "The government can't do everything for people and it shouldn't or
else you create a culture of dependence."
 
Mayfield praises the Florida state government for a well-oiled disaster
response program and steps toward improving building safety, in contrast to
other states along the Gulf of Mexico that he says still have no statewide
building standards.
 
At the hurricane center on the Florida International University campus west
of Miami, Mayfield will be succeeded by Bill Proenza, the National Weather
Service's southern regional director.