INTRODUCTION The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) implemented an active mortality surveillance system to enumerate and characterize hurricane-related deaths during Hurricane Ike in 2008. This surveillance system used established guidelines and case definitions to categorize deaths as directly, indirectly, and possibly related to Hurricane Ike. OBJECTIVE The objective of this s...

Statistical models can replicate annual North Atlantic hurricane activity from large-scale environmental field data for August and September, the months of peak hurricane activity. We assess how well the six environmental fields used most often in contemporary statistical modeling of seasonal hurricane activity replicate North Atlantic hurricane numbers and Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) over...

National Weather Service, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Hurricane Center, Miami, Florida; MuRiLLo— Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Hurricane Research Division, Miami, Florida CoRREsPonDinG AUtHoR: Edward N. Rappaport, National Hurricane Center, 11691 SW 17th Street, Miami, FL 33165-2149 E-mail: edward.n....

iments the profile of the tangential wind for Hurricane Gloria at 1200 UTC 22 September, 1985 (just after the storm was first upgraded to a hurricane) was used as the initial condition of the hurricane. Following the procedure outlined in Bender et al., 1993, the obtained symmetric vortex was placed onto the environmental fields at 18°N, with each experiment integrated to 72h.

As an environmental phenomenon, hurricanes cause significant property damage and loss of life in coastal areas almost every year. Research concerning hurricanes and their aftermath is gaining more and more attentions nowadays. The potential changeability of hurricane data and hurricane models requires robust, maintainable and easily extensible software system for hurricane simulation. With focu...

OBJECTIVE This study seeks to identify factors associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following Hurricane Ivan among a cohort of tertiary-level students in Jamaica. METHODS A 22-item, self-administered questionnaire was administered to a non-random sample. Using parametric and non-parametric analyses, the relationship between PTSD symptoms and several variables was examined. ...

OBJECTIVES Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to environmental exposures and their respiratory effects. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, residents experienced multiple adverse environmental exposures. We characterized the association between upper respiratory symptoms (URS) and lower respiratory symptoms (LRS) and environmental exposures among children and adolescents affect...

The purpose of this study was to document changes in mental and physical health among 392 low-income parents exposed to Hurricane Katrina and to explore how hurricane-related stressors and loss relate to post-Katrina well-being. The prevalence of probable serious mental illness doubled, and nearly half of the respondents exhibited probable posttraumatic stress disorder. Higher levels of hurrica...

The objective of this study was to determine the impact of Hurricane Ivan on the operations of the Emergency Department (ED) at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI). Hurricane Ivan,--a category four Hurricane--traversed the south coast of the island of Jamaica on September 10, 2004, causing damage to several parishes. The study design is a descriptive retrospective record-based inc...

Hurricane Gilbert struck the northeastern portion of the Yucatan Peninsula in an area where we have been conducting studies of the vegetation and avifauna in a dry tropical forest since 1984. All trees in our study area were completely defoliated and most suffered heavy structural damage. Although few trees were killed outright, many died over the next 17 months, especially those that had been ...