Florida Researchers Still Weighing Hurricane Losses

Two months after Andrew unleashed its devastating fury, scientists continue to assess the damage the storm caused to their lives and laboratory endeavors Eight weeks have passed since Hurricane Andrew cut its devastating swath across South Florida, and public officials are still in the process of assessing the damage its winds and waves wrought in terms of fatalities, property loss, and shattered human lives. Scientists working and living in Andrew's path were by no means spared, for the ravaging storm, which struck in the early hours of August 24, played no favorites. Current estimates are that Andrew--with gusts in excess of 175 miles per hour welling up against a backdrop of sustained winds of 145 mph--left behind 350,000 newly homeless people and at least $30 billion in damage. Perhaps most tragic to scientific researchers was the damage sustained by South Florida's fragile ecosystems, such as Everglades National Park and coral reefs in Biscayne National Park, considered by life scientists to be among the greatest natural laboratories in the world. Fairchild Tropical Garden, a large facility growing tropical plants, also was dealt a severe blow. The garden's location between Miami and Homestead placed the palms and cycads, many of them endangered species, directly in the storm's path. Teams of botanists from throughout the United States have flown in to try to mend injured plants. Damage to scientific and medical research facilities was hit-or- miss. The University of Miami estimates losses of scientific equipment at $1 million to $2 million, and Florida International University in Miami estimates losses at $5 million. Even though laboratories and equipment fared relatively well overall, many scientific staffers had to temporarily place their research on the back burner. The cost of the work stoppage won't be known for months. Some researchers have needed time to put their personal lives back on track before redirecting their attention to their careers and investigations; indeed, in20the wake of the storm, many scientists immediately put all projects on hold, concentrating instead on their work as volunteers in the network of medical clinics that were set up throughout the devastated area. At press time, some continued to work in the clinics, treating injuries and illnesses, distributing supplies, and, most important, teaching basic hygiene skills vital to preventing epidemics of enteric disease. In recognition of the sudden shift in priorities in the South Florida scientific community, major granting agencies are adjusting their timetables (see story on page 9). As life slowly returns to normal for scientists in storm-ravaged South Florida, grant deadlines approach. National Institutes of Health grant applications from hurricane victims that were due October 1 may be submitted late, preferably by November 1. Applicants affected by the hurricane are requested to include a cover letter with the application, explaining why it is late. For more information, call Patricia Straat at (301) 496-7447. At the National Science Foundation, Michael Fluharty says that the agency will delay application deadlines and will speed requests for replacement of supplies destroyed by the storm "to get equipment and labs up and running." He adds: "We will also fund some research on what has happened to the environment because of the hurricane, but it will take a while before we have any definite programs on this." For more information, call Fluharty at (202) 357-9838. --R.L. While some researchers still must shuttle between working in the lab and overseeing reconstruction of their homes, others are resuming their prehurricane routines. But for many of them, memories of Hurricane Andrew linger painfully. Bill Keppler, dean of the College of Health at Florida International University, is still shaken by his ordeal. In addition to being an administrator, Keppler is a teacher and a genetic counselor. His research at present is bibliographical; he's compiling thousands of references resulting from the Human Genome Project. On August 24, he would normally have been preparing for the semester's onslaught of students. Instead, he spent the day in a bathroom, crouching over his 81-year-old mother as the world outside fell apart. A survivor of an Alaskan earthquake and a close observer of Mount St. Helens, Keppler calls himself a "graduate" of Hurricane Andrew. "My mother and I thought we would die," Keppler recalls. "I will never forget peeking out from underneath the bathroom shutters and seeing a dog fly by, 15 feet in the air." Fortunately, the house he rode out the storm in lost only its roof. Keppler's own digs didn't fare as well. "The next day I rode my bike back to my apartment--you couldn't drive because of the downed power lines. I upchucked when I saw my apartment," he says of his eastern-exposure, top-floor abode. "The windows blew in, the roof went, and the wall between my bedroom and that of my neighbor, a retired law professor, caved in. The professor survived in his bathtub." Keppler thinks he managed to save his files on the Human Genome Project by wrapping and anchoring his computer and disks, but he hasn't had a chance yet to sort through it all. Keppler spent the first hours after the storm with his mother. Meanwhile, a bizarre hurricane-inflicted decorating change was occurring at his demolished apartment. Keppler, who leads Audubon Society tours through the Everglades park, had kept in his apartment a great deal of birdseed, which he put out in feeders. "When my apartment roof flew off and walls collapsed, 25 pounds of birdseed were scattered," Keppler says. "Then it rained. The birdseed germinated all over my apartment." But Keppler considers himself lucky when compared to the chairman of the physics department. After his house collapsed, he and his family sought refuge in the car. Just as they backed out of the garage, that structure also fell apart. In the wake of the storm, researchers became humanitarians first, scientists second. "The hurricane didn't disturb the medical school, but many, many faculty, nurses, students, and residents are in the clinics," where they are treating whatever medical problems arise, says University of Miami School of Medicine spokesman Todd Simmons. "The hurricane has disturbed research in that most researchers are doing volunteer work here. A 40- square-mile region has been completely wiped away." Volunteer medical staff will be needed through 1993, Simmons estimates. At Florida International University, the disaster has been integrated into the curriculum. "The College of Health has recommended that every student do a research project related to the hurricane, and give 45 hours of required service," Keppler says. Enter Epidemiologists While temporarily sidelining some research, the hurricane has created opportunities for others. "The only kind of epidemic we have is of researchers. We are inundated--mental health workers, structural engineers, people working on disaster research," says Robert Tomchick, an adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Miami and epidemiologist for Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale. His research concerns the impact of natural disasters on health care systems. There haven't been any real epidemics, Tomchick says, for two reasons--the rivers were not previously contaminated with raw sewage, and safe drinking water was available quickly. "Now our major concern is disease transmission under crowded conditions," Tomchick says. But minor health problems arose from the day or two it took fresh water to be delivered. "There was no water immediately afterwards, so people were bathing in outdoor canals. They developed inner ear infections and skin reactions, such as impetigo. Now, as we move into the recovery phase, we are seeing chainsaw lacerations, eye injuries, and puncture wounds from stepping on nails," adds Simmons. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the first people to die were those who refused to evacuate; these deaths were mostly due to asphyxiation and blunt trauma. Looking ahead, the medical school quickly assembled a bilingual "squadron of experts" to prepare for the anticipated outbreak of post- traumatic stress syndrome, Simmons says. Many found they had something to learn from the visiting infectious disease specialists. "I spoke with the CDC, because there was a lot I didn't know. For example, a dishwasher does not get the temperature high enough, or for long enough, to destroy coliform bacteria," says Keppler. One fast-food chain was shut down by the health department for serving inadequately heated coffee. CDC sent in emergency response coordinators, public health advisers, epidemiologists, veterinarians, entomologists, and a sanitarian, according to agency spokesman Tom Skinner. Most valuable, says Skinner, was a "rapid health needs assessment," considered by CDC to be the most important first step in the emergency response, which was conducted on the third and 10th days after the storm. Hurricane Andrew provided the perfect opportunity to test CDC's established assessment plan, which was developed in 1982 to track vaccine coverage in the Third World. Many health researchers were comparing conditions in immediate post-hurricane Dade County to everyday life in a Third World nation. In the CDC study, 30 groups of homes were randomly selected from grid maps and census data, and on-site, extensive interviews conducted with seven individuals in each group. With 100 percent cooperation from citizens, results were given to state health authorities within four hours. They used the findings to set immediate health priorities, such as determining which types of health care professionals were most needed. The results were published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (41[37]:685, 1992). Learning From Andrew Epidemiologists stand to learn a great deal from Andrew because many of their observations have come after the action. Not so for tropical storm experts, who at first feared that Andrew's sheer intensity would confound their attempts to study it--and subsequent storms Iniki, which hit the Hawaiian island of Kauai on September 11, and Omar, which tore into Guam just five days after Andrew hit Florida. "With Andrew's eye over the National Hurricane Center [near Homestead] and Omar's eye over the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Guam, these two storms scored direct hits on the forecast centers and obliterated the wind equipment," says John Sanders, deputy public affairs officer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. But things weren't as bad as they initially seemed. "Fortunately, the Doppler radar was operational, and that data will be of great use for researchers in studying the intensity of land-falling storms," says Russell Elsberry, a professor at the naval facility and technical director of Tropical Cyclone Motion-90, a two-month field experiment conducted in the north Pacific in 1990, whose results are expected to improve hurricane forecasting accuracy. Elsberry and others are excited by 900 photos of Andrew taken from helicopters and the ground by Tetsuya Fujita, a professor, emeritus, of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, who discussed them at a hurricane conference held at the Monterey facility September 22 to 24. "The photos have allowed him to look closely at the extremely damaged area, which was a narrow swatch, 100 feet wide. The adjacent areas had more of the damage you'd expect from such a storm," Elsberry says. The information will be used to revamp area building codes, which in southern Florida currently require structures to withstand 130-mph winds, a poor defense against Andrew's sustained forces of 145 to 165 mph. Back To Business Recovery is slow but steady for scientists in the area. At press time, the Perrine Primate Center, run by the National Institutes of Health on the University of Miami South Campus, had recaptured all but two dozen of its 363 primate escapees, according to Joseph Wagner, head of the division of veterinary resources. Some of the animals on the lam are virus-free, slated for AIDS research, and, thus, especially valuable. "We don't think there will be a major impact [of the primate loss] on the research community, but it will be about six months before we know exactly," Wagner says. The current situation is considerably more settled than the first half-hour following the animals' escape on August 24, when an erroneous radio report that the roaming beasts harbored HIV led to a short-lived shooting spree. In the biochemistry department at the University of Miami's school of medicine, things are back to normal; some, however, have suffered severe losses. "It's almost as if the facility was closed for a two- to three-week vacation, although, of course, it was hardly a vacation," says William Whelan, a professor of biochemistry who studies polysaccharides. Although Whelan's lab lost power for only a few minutes thanks to emergency back-up services, people could not get to work, and many had to remain at their storm-ravaged homes to oversee rebuilding. Whelan spent the day and night of the hurricane in his lab, expecting the worst. "If the storm had kept on its course, we would have been directly in its path, because it was headed straight for downtown Miami," he adds. The storm struck land at 4:45 A.M. at Homestead, 35 miles south of Miami. Those outside the path of Andrew's wrath say their close call has significantly affected their lives. Stephen G. Lane is president of South Florida Test Service in Miami. Lane refers to his business as a "funny niche market," but a "Florida testing" company such as his is a key step in materials research. A "Florida testing" company exposes samples of materials on racks to the elements, to assess durability upon weathering in the region's notorious constant high temperature and humidity. Automotive components must bear a sticker stating that they have passed "Florida testing." "We have about 800,000 samples," Lane says. "Some pieces have been exposed for decades, others for hours. Some are the size of cigarette butts, others the size of automobiles." Clients include automotive companies, firms that supply their materials, academic scientists, and even high school science students. Lane calls the 100-mph winds they experienced a "mild breeze" compared to the gusts of more than 200 mph in Homestead. "We were able to take care of many very sensitive samples on Sunday before the storm. Actual damage to the racks totaled five of the over 3,000 we have in place," he says. Lane feels there is a lesson to be learned about how science is done--duplicates are key. "I have clients who submit one piece of paint for a car to be produced in 1996. That is bad planning and poor science," he says. "Other companies have back-ups--an identical piece held for a control, or an accelerated test going on in the lab. Parallel programs are in place on which to base decisions. This storm is a warning to take a new look at the way we prepare for disasters in terms of outdoor testing." The warning of Hurricane Andrew extends beyond Lane's "funny niche market," prompting many people to appreciate anew life's comforts. As Bill Keppler, still in shock from losing so many personal items, puts it: "Here we are, a high-tech society, with VCRs, microwave ovens, computers and printers--all the wonderful things we take for granted. Then comes along a natural event like this. Suddenly, we become a Third World nation." Ricki Lewis is the author of Life, a college biology text (Dubuque, Iowa, Wm. C. Brown, 1992).

Florida Researchers Still Weighing Hurricane Losses

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of