Mobile County Gets Early Warning Hurricane System

Posted on: Jun 2nd, 2010 | News and Announcements

Mobile County residents will get early warnings of any hurricane storm surge because of a new, $600,000 warning system that will be in place by the end of the year. The system is funded through a federal appropriation for the Mobile County Commission. ?We see the need to get as much advance notice as possible to our residents in the event of an emergency,? said Mobile County Commissioner Mike Dean. Dean had asked the county?s Environmental Engineer to pursue an early-warning system for the county during the height of the Hurricane Katrina storm in 2005. ?Preparedness is the key to surviving these deadly storms,? he said. The county?s appropriation will be used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which will do the engineering and on-site installations. The new system will provide critical data for the areas of Dog River, East Fowl River, West Fowl River, Bayou La Batre, Bayou Sara and, if funding allows, the Mobile River near the Cochran-Africatown Bridge. The storm surge data will be available for viewing in real time on the Internet, where the data will indicate surge levels and locations. ?The new monitoring system gives us some real time data that was unavailable to us,? said Mobile County Commission president Merceria Ludgood. ?This will be an important complement to our experts on the ground.? ###