Tar balls are already washing ashore Pensacola and Panama City beach, popular Spring Break getaways for UCF and other college students, and next year’s spring break on Florida’s panhandle is already threatening to be ruined by oil. But what will happen when we throw a tropical storm or hurricane in the mix?
Well hurricane season has already started and a storm is brewing in the Atlantic.
It’s only the beginning of the season, but the storm in the Atlantic already had a 60 percent chance of becoming Tropical Storm Alex, according to the National Hurricane Center’s official 8 a.m. prediction.
It appears hurricane season is already threatening to complicate an already difficult process of clean up. The oil spill intersects with other previous hurricane paths, including the infamous Hurricane Katrina that ravaged the Louisiana coastline.
If there were to be a storm that hit the spill, it would most likely cause the polluted oil water to wash further up the coasts and cause devastation on land.
“The high winds may distribute oil over a wider area, but it is difficult to model exactly where the oil may be transported,” a fact sheet released by NOAA states. It also points out that “movement of oil would depend greatly on the track of the hurricane.”
The NOAA fact sheet itself lacks details and seems to say even the experts are uncertain what could happen. NOAA seems fairly certain, however, that oil won’t rain down from a hurricane, because the area the storm draws strength and moisture from is much larger than the area of the spill.
It seems to be that there is a lot of questions to what the damage would end up being if a storm went through the oil spill. One thing is for certain: If a tropical storm heads that way, many fear the disaster in the Gulf could become an even larger catastrophe for beaches along Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana’s coastlines.
President Barack Obama is touring Pensacola Beach this afternoon, and other areas affected. KnightNews.com will continue following the BP oil disaster and update you as new information becomes available.
