With only hours until hurricane Milton’s estimated arrival, people are calling for the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to be revised. The revision calls come after fears that this hurricane could be as devastating as hurricane Katrina was back in 2005.
Milton is quickly ramped up from a Cat 2 to a Cat 5 within 36 hours. When it makes landfall, Milton is predicted to drop down to a Cat 3 hurricane – which is still extremely powerful. The tropical storm radius has nearly doubled in size, with all residents in the Florida Peninsula warned to prepare for damaging winds and life-threatening storm surge.
This hurricane is so fearsome that meteorologist John Morales became emotional discussing it on NBC6.
With hurricane Helene’s devastation still fresh to see, Milton will only cause more damage using loose leftover debris in its sweep through Florida.
It’s no doubt that this storm will be a big one. Locals have ended up in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to evacuate the area, knowing what is on the way. When hurricane-hardened Floridians are evacuating, it’s not a good sign for what’s to come. Hopefully evacuees make it out safely and can ride out this storm sheltered.
So, people are calling for a revision to the hurricane category scale as Cat 5 seems to underplay some of the bigger storms in this rating – Katrina included. Also, the current scale only measures wind speeds, leaving out some dangerous factors such as storm surge, rainfall flooding, and tornadoes.
Current Scale
Currently, there are five categories on the hurricane scale, these go from one through five. As mentioned, the Saffir-Simpson scale only measures sustained wind speeds of a hurricane.
Cat 1: between 74 and 95 miles per hour winds. Can cause damage to tree branches, power lines, and roof shingles.
Cat 2: between 96 and 110 miles per hour winds. Can cause major damage to roofs and sides of houses, trees can be uprooted, power outages can last as long as weeks.
Cat 3: between 111 and 129 miles per hour winds. Major damage to houses can occur, trees can be uprooted and block roads, water and electric outages can last up to weeks.
Cat 4: between 130 and 156 miles per hour winds. Sever damage to houses including walls being blown down or destroyed, uprooted trees will block roads. Power outages and water being unavailable could last as long as months.
Cat 5: 157 miles per hour or more. High rate of houses will be destroyed, power and water outages can last months, debris will isolate some areas. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks to months.
With Cat 5 having no top speed limit on wind speeds, and with Milton reaching top speeds of 180 miles per hour, the calls for a sixth category to be added seem reasonable.
Featured Image Credit: Met Office
Fourth year student journalist studying Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Journalism Studies.
Words at Brig, The Daily Evergreen, Alloa Advertiser, Discovery Music Scotland, and The Mourning Paper.
