Florida, N.C. Counties Among Top 20 At Risk For Storms And Hurricanes

Much of the nation’s Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines face substantially higher-than-normal risks for hurricanes in 2007, according to an analysis by a University of Central Florida researcher and his Georgia colleague.

Nationally, Carteret County on the North Carolina coastline has the highest probability of hurricane-force winds in 2007 at 22.4 percent, according to the analysis by UCF statistics professor Mark Johnson and Chuck Watson, a Georgia researcher who founded the Kinetic Analysis Corp. of Silver Spring, Md.



Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish is second at 21.2 percent. St. Lucie and Martin counties in Florida rank third and fourth, respectively, at 20.8 percent and 20.7 percent. Charleston County, S.C., and Indian River County, Fla., tied for fifth at 20.1 percent.

They collaborate on a Web site, http://hurricane.methaz.org, that tracks storms worldwide with hourly updates, shows estimates of disruptions to oil and gas production and projects property damage along the storms’ anticipated paths.

Science Daily