hurricane Irma

• preparing for a tropical storm:

  • sandbags on doors
  • board windows
  • putting important documents in the dishwasher
  • stock up on fuel
  • stock up on bottled water
  • stock up on canned foods
  • puts things upstairs
  • go to evacuation centres
  • battery radios
• impacts on the environment:

  • 8,000 turtle nets were destroyed
  • people had to rescue the turtles
  • 95% of Florida's reefs were destroyed
• formation of a tropical storm

  the ocean temperature reaches 26 degrees. this causes water on the ocean surface to evaporate into the sky and creates a zone of low pressure at the ocean surface. the low pressure zone acts like a hoover and absorbs warm, moist air from the surrounding area, which too rises into the sky. as the warm, moist air rises into the sky it cools and condenses to form a thunderstorm.
• formation of a tropical storm

  the thunderstorm starts to spin in an anticlockwise direction as a result of the Coriolis Effect. as the storm spins faster and faster an eye forms in the middle and the storm starts to travel westwards. when the storm travels at a speed of 38 mph it becomes a tropical storm. once the storm has reached a speed of 74 mph it is classified as a hurricane. hurricanes start to die out when they hit landfall. this is because they need warm ocean waters as a source of fuel.
• Puerto Rico preparing for hurricane Irma

  Puerto Rico declared a state of emergency on the 4th of September 2017. this means people needed to stop what they were doing and prepare for the hurricane. Government buildings were boarded up. local residents of Puerto Rico also boarded up their homes. this was to reduce the risk of damage and in case anything got damaged it would reduce the cost. people used battery radios to track updates, this was essential because it allowed people to know what was going on.
• Florida preparing for hurricane Irma

  officials told people to stock up on hurricane kits. items that would be included in them were things such as:

  • extra fuel - in case you needed to travel
  • canned foods - they wont go out of date
  • battery radio - to access updates. road tolls were suspended because it was quicker to get from point A to B, and it reduces the risk of traffic. evacuation centres were also set up in places such as leisure centres. evacuation centres were essential so, people had a safe place to stay.