By Rachel Sawicki

As Severe Weather Awareness Week in Delaware comes to a close, state officials and climate specialists are recalling the Storm of 1962, an early-March nor’easter that wreaked havoc on coastal communities here and in neighboring states.

A virtual workshop hosted by Delaware Sea Grant on Thursday outlined the unique meteorological patterns and impacts of the event 60 years ago. More importantly, it gave viewers knowledge to create an effective storm-preparedness plan.

Jeff Sands, spokesman for the Delaware Emergency Management Agency, said that floods in Wilmington in early September 2021 caught residents by surprise and serves as an excellent example of why being prepared for severe weather is important no matter where someone lives.

“Make a plan, make an emergency kit and stay informed,” he said. “Have a plan for what you would do if you get stuck in your home and you have to shelter in place. Having a plan for where you could go or what you would do if you had to leave is important, too. Emergency shelters are great but should always be a last resort.”

Mr. Sands added that, in extremely severe situations — like 2018’s Hurricane Florence, which left North Carolinians without power for nearly 30 days — people should have supplies readily available, so it doesn’t take hours to pack.

“The wildfires out west are a great example of this, that people are being forced to leave with just minutes’ notice in some cases,” he said. “So if you haven’t thought ahead, you haven’t prepared, you don’t have a kit with essentials, important documentation, some basic supplies, you’re really going to be scrambling.”

Matt Marcela, the captain of safety and training for the Wilmington Fire Department, was the North Division commander for the floods from Hurricane Ida in September. On Thursday, he explained how resources from all over the state were sent to the area to rescue over 250 people, operating nonstop for nearly 15 hours.

“We had 13 Wilmington Fire Department resources on scene. New Castle County brought six units of their county surface water team. Kent County had four stations and their own surface water team that they brought up, and Sussex County, even as far as Rehoboth Beach, responded,” he said. “We actually utilized Bowers Beach’s ginormous airboat that we were able to load a lot of people on. ... St. Francis Hospital, which is our primary transport hospital, had 10 units, eight of which were ambulances that we constantly rotated in and out with people.

“We even utilized the Delaware National Guard and their troop transport, a 2 1/2-ton truck that’s about 10 feet tall, and the tires are about 6 feet high, so we could get through some high water.”

He added that most residents had no idea the storm was coming and were thus unprepared to evacuate. Most were rescued with no more than the clothes on their backs.

Prepare now for relief later

To avoid being caught off guard in that way, Joe Thomas, director of emergency management for Sussex County, reiterated the need for crisis preparedness.

An emergency kit should be a three-day supply of essential things an individual would need to survive, he said. This includes a battery-powered radio, a flashlight with batteries, canned food, bottled water, essential paperwork like insurance documents and photos of belongings in the home to make claims easier. He also considers cash an essential.

“We all live on credit cards, but let’s face it, there’s not going to be any power, so you’re not going to be able to hit the ATM,” Mr. Thomas said.

Dr. Daniel Leathers, the state climatologist and University of Delaware meteorology and climatology director, said coastal storms are Delaware’s most important weather-related hazard because they can have such a large impact on the state, which sits at sea level.

“Coastal storms give us coastal flooding,” he said. “They can also have very high winds associated with them and cause wind damage. Very often, these coastal storms can put down huge amounts of rainfall, causing not just flooding along the coast from storm surge but inland flooding. And if these coastal storms occur during the winter months, they are very often the storms that bring us our heaviest snowfall.”

Since 1945, the average number of coastal storms per year has remained at about 33, showing no significant trend upward or downward, Dr. Leathers said. The peak month for these weather events is March, and 1962 was one of the more active years for them in the state’s history.

He explained that one distinctive feature of the Storm of ‘62 was its duration.

“If I look from March 6 to March 7, this storm (didn’t) move,” he noted. “You go to March 8, and it’s finally starting to move away, but you still have onshore flow along the mid-Atlantic. And even as late as March 9, when the low had moved significantly out into the Atlantic, there was still flow from the east towards the west along the Atlantic coast of the United States.”

Dr. Leathers added that storms coming from the south and moving north cause Delaware the biggest problems because of the counterclockwise flow of the wind around low-pressure systems. He said these systems are associated with poor weather, while high-pressure ones lead to fair skies.

In 1962, both low and high pressure came together to create a monster of a storm. On March 5, counterclockwise winds from the south began to move off the coast to the east, as they usually do, Dr. Leathers said, but strong, high pressure from the north blocked the path and drove winds back inland.

Though Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was a comparable situation to the 1962 nor’easter, Dr. Leathers said the key difference was precipitation.

“During the ‘62 storm, there was not a lot of precipitation,” he said. “But one of the big things about Sandy was its extreme precipitation, which caused significant flooding across the state. And it also caused significant coastal flooding.”

Similarly, 2016’s Winter Storm Jonas brought significant snowfall and broke numerous records in eastern regions.

Proactivity urged

Emphasizing the need to be proactive, Danielle Swallow, a Delaware Sea Grant coastal hazards specialist, said that portions of Delaware’s evacuation routes are susceptible to flooding. But elevating roads come with challenging and pricey costs.

“We certainly are seeing record levels of construction up and down the state, particularly at the coast,” she said. “Delaware is one of the leading states that is issuing building permits, and Sussex County ranks third among all coastal communities in the U.S. in terms of new homes built in risk zones that have a 10% annual chance of flooding.”

Continuous construction in already vulnerable places will only snowball the issue, she said. Adding fill and impervious surfaces within the natural flood plain changes the way water is managed by runoff and storage, ultimately disrupting the plain’s beneficial functions.

“It’s basically there to absorb inundation periodically,” Ms. Swallow said. “It’s there to store the water and to convey the water and to channel and to stabilize streams and riverbanks. That ... is being disrupted by development.”

Furthermore, Ms. Swallow said that nationwide, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is reporting greater frequency and intensity in storms, some of which can be attributed to climate change.

“Factors including warming oceans and more moisture in the atmosphere tend to help storms intensify more quickly,” she said. “Another reason that storms can be more intense and impactful is having more people in the path of storms because of population growth and more infrastructure in the built environment.”

Since 1960, Delaware’s population has grown 121.8%, with Sussex County alone increasing 224%, Ms. Swallow said. Another significant number is the rate of sea level rise in Delaware, twice the global average, at 14-16 inches in the last 100 years. That level is expected to rise another 16 inches in the next 30 years.

Ms. Swallow noted, however, that being in the path of a storm doesn’t guarantee an impact but vulnerability does. The poverty rate in 2020 was 11%, and communities statewide are diversifying in age and race, particularly in Sussex County coastal areas, where a greater concentration of older adults are moving into the path of potentially dangerous storms.

“Yesterday’s storms are not necessarily a reliable predictor of tomorrow’s weather or their impacts,” she said. “We need to take a forward-looking approach in order to build resilience in our communities.”