Hurricane Dorian a tremendously brawny, long-lived and catastrophic tropical cyclone which ruined the northwestern Bahamas and lead to significant damage to the Southwestern US and Atlantic Canada. It is the first major hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season. This hurricane deteriorated the Grand Bahama and Abaco Islands, leaving 70,000 people destitute.
Hurricane Dorian developed from a tropical wave on August 24 in the Central Atlantic which escalated into Category 4 major Hurricane, outstretched to Category 5 intensity, peaking with one-minute sustained winds of 184 mph and a minimum central pressure of 910 millibars. Hurricane made landfall in the Bahamas in the Elbow Cay, just East of Abaco island. This made Hurricane Dorian vigorous known cyclone to impact the northwestern Bahamas.
The National Hurricane Centre envisages up to 7 feet of Storm flooding in Coastal Florida, Georgia, and South Caroline. To protect from flooding, natural Shorelines like Marshes, mangroves, and dunes can engage in buffering some of the flood damage for coastal residents.
Steven Syphers, an assistant professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern University says, “With our work in the Florida Keys after Hurricane Irma, one thing we found was that coastal residents who had shoreline with natural mangroves typically experienced similar or less damage than folly who would transform the shoreline with bulkheads and seawalls.”
These natural barriers like mangroves, marshes, beaches, dunes provide many benefits to coastal residents. In addition to coastal protection, it also provide fisheries, habitat, water quality improvements, carbon sequestration, storage, recreational use to Coastal communities.
These natural barriers can also keep pace with sea-level rise. It may not stop the devastating hurricane but can definitely reduce it. Due to coastal erosion, these natural barriers are in peril and many climate models predict more intense and more rapid hurricane over the next 100 years.
Due to the increase in temperature of the Atlantic the intensity of the hurricane is likely to increase, which can be seen in the recent hurricane Dorian that hit the coastal lines of the US. It was the first time a Category 5 Hurricane generated in four consecutive years in the Atlantic.
Dorian’s wind impacted many lives and infrastructure. The estimated loss of money is around $7 billion. The tragic impacts are scary of this storm and will continue to affect the lives with the increase in the intensity of this hurricane.
Shweta Tripathi