In Episode 227 of Mother Earth News and Friends, we chat with Ed Brotak, meteorologist and long-time contributor to Grit magazine, about how to stay safe and prepared for when the weather takes a turn. Understand your area and its weather threats, learn some severe-weather safety tips for the home, keep your property well-stocked, learn how to respond in an emergency, and more.
Scroll down for our episode transcript, and scroll to the bottom for our show-note resources!
Preparing for Extreme Weather Events Transcript
Kenny Coogan: [00:00:00] Do you have other tips about when the power goes out? Not just in a hurricane, but overall speaking, I know a couple years ago, Texas, it was winter and their power went out.
Ed Brotak: There are many weather events will knock out your power. It’s fairly common. You talked about in Texas, you had ice storm, which of course was followed by freezing cold weather, anything is going to produce strong winds. You think about hurricanes and all, but even just thunderstorms, you can have local power outages.
If you want to and have the finances to do this, you can have a generator at home to provide your electricity and all. In terms of keeping perishable stuff, if you have any way of keeping it cold for a while, certainly do that. In terms of your car, keep in mind, if the power’s out, your gas pumps are not going to work.
Jessica Anderson: Welcome to the Mother Earth News and Friends podcast. At Mother Earth News for 50 years and counting, we’ve been dedicated to conserving the planet’s natural resources while helping you conserve your financial resources. In this [00:01:00] podcast, we host conversations with experts in the fields of sustainability, homesteading, natural health, and more to share all about how you can live well wherever you are in a way that values both people and our Mother Earth.
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Kenny Coogan: Good day, everyone. I’m Kenny Coogan and joining me today is Ed Brotak. Ed has taught thousands of college students about the weather and helped hundreds of them pursue a career in meteorology. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, who is also a meteorologist. Ed is also a contributor for Grit Magazine, our sister publication. Today, we are going to be talking about severe weather preparedness.
Welcome to the podcast, Ed.
Ed Brotak: Thank you, sir.
[00:02:30] What is Extreme Weather?
Kenny Coogan: What is an extreme weather event?
Ed Brotak: Extreme weather event is basically, it’s an unusual weather event. In terms of “unusual,” we mean “unusual” either in where it occurred, when it occurred, like time of year, or in terms of severity. So basically we’re talking about events which can be extreme compared to what you normally would expect.
Kenny Coogan: Are we having more extreme weather events? Are we having more in the past 100 years, in the [00:03:00] past 10 years? What’s the time scale?
Ed Brotak: Yes, we are having more extreme events. One thing the government does, they keep track of what they call “billion dollar weather disasters.” These are weather events that’s caused at least a billion dollars in damage in some locations. And looking at the data, let’s see, last year, 2023, they set a record. In the United States, they have 28 billion dollar damage situations from just from the weather. And that was a all time record. So, yes, things are getting worse.
[00:03:32] Are Extreme Weather Events Increasing?
Kenny Coogan: Why are we having more extreme weather events?
Ed Brotak: Because the climate is changing. If you want to think about it simply in terms of physics, as the Earth is getting warmer, which it is, there’s just more energy, and the atmosphere moves energy around. If you’re putting more energy into the atmosphere, then you can expect to have more things like this happening.
[00:03:52] Severe Weather Safety Tips for the Home
Kenny Coogan: So you’re in the Carolinas. We have a lot of readers in the middle of the country, and I’m in Florida. [00:04:00] So we have all of the extreme weather events. We have tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires. Are there general severe weather safety tips for the home? Is there something that we should be doing to the inside of the home to prepare ourselves and protect ourselves?
Ed Brotak: You need to be aware of what kind of severe weather events you can get because the preparations will be different for different events, such as floods or strong winds and all. So basically get a knowledge of what your weather situation is going to be. And as I always say, when you’re getting close to when you’re going to have one of these weather events, check your weather forecast, especially the National Weather Service will send out warnings when they expect any kind of severe weather. So always do that.
In terms of inside your house, especially, if you’re in an area where you can have tornadoes or very strong hurricanes, you may want to consider having a safe room in your house. This is a room basically that’s very solidly [00:05:00] constructed and can withstand even the strongest tornado winds. And this is where you want to go if you have, say, like, a tornado warning, or if you have a situation where you have a very strong hurricane and you have not evacuated, which you probably should have, you have some place to go inside your house.
That would be like, in terms of inside the house, because your lines of defense would be outside of your house.
[00:05:20] Stocking Up on Supplies
Kenny Coogan: And then what about stocking up on supplies? When should people start thinking about stocking up? Because I moved to Florida 12 years ago, and the week before the hurricane comes, I know that my grocery store shelves are empty.
Ed Brotak: If you live in an area where you’re prone to have, like, hurricanes and all, non-perishable goods, you need to stock up on them where you can get to them easily and all. And medical supplies are critical, especially if people in the house have any kind of medical conditions, you wanna make sure you have whatever you would need for them.
And then as you get closer to it, then you can worry about more about the perishable things. Keep in mind though, of course, when you’re gonna have, say, like a [00:06:00] strong hurricane, you may well lose your electricity. So whether or not you can keep things refrigerated or not, it’d be a question.
So that’s why I said non-perishable things are good. Water supplies are critical .
Kenny Coogan: Is there any severe weather safety tips for protecting the home on the inside from wildfires? Or should people just be evacuating?
Ed Brotak: Not so much you can do. If the fire gets inside, you basically already have lost.
So not a whole lot you can do about inside for wildfires. It’s all basically all out there. A lot of things you can do outside to make sure to try to protect your house.
Kenny Coogan: So for hurricanes, I know that they recommend boarding up the windows.
Ed Brotak: Or have shutters for windows.
Kenny Coogan: But nothing really for wildfires?
Ed Brotak: No, for wildfires , the goal has got to be to keep the fire away from the house. It’s going to be all on the outside. Fire needs fuel. And you want to make sure nothing on your house on the outside or around the house is flammable.
Kenny Coogan: All right, let’s [00:07:00] go back to the pantry for severe weather events or the medical supplies. Do you think people are stocking up for the year? Is there a good calendar, like every January you get enough supplies that will last a year? Or would it be better for people to go through those supplies and then just get new supplies the month before the hurricane season starts?
Ed Brotak: If you’re talking about non perishable items and all, basically, just look at your expiration dates and see how long things are good for. As long as you have these supplies and all, as long as the food is going to be good, then you can keep it for a while. Just make sure if you use any of this, then make sure it’s been restocked.
[00:07:41] What to Do When the Power Goes Out
Kenny Coogan: Do you have any other tips about when the power goes out? Not, not just in a hurricane, but overall speaking. I know a couple years ago, Texas, it was winter and their power went out. What can people do to prepare themselves for situations like that?
Ed Brotak: There are many weather [00:08:00] events will knock out your power. That’s why it’s fairly common. And we’re talking about, you talked about in Texas, you had ice storm, which of course was followed by freezing cold weather, which didn’t help. Again, anything is going to produce strong winds. You think about hurricanes and all, but even just thunderstorms, you can have local power outages and all.
If you want to and have the finances to do this, you can have a generator at home to provide your electricity and all. In terms of keeping perishable stuff, if you have any way of like keeping it cold for a while, certainly do that. In terms of your car, keep in mind, if the power’s out, your gas pumps are not going to work.
Normally they say before you expect any kind of severe weather, make sure your car is filled up with gas. Hopefully it wouldn’t last that long, especially on a large scale. If you’re talking about a hurricane, you will be asked to evacuate, which case, that’s what you need to do. In a situation like that, if it’s going to be a life threatening situation, then you just don’t worry about your house. You’ve just got to get out and save yourself. The house can be rebuilt. We’ve seen in the past people [00:09:00] don’t want to leave their house. They’re more afraid of people coming and looting their house, then they are like, “Oh, I got to stay in my house and protect it.” No, don’t worry about it. You can always rebuild a house.
[00:09:08] Can a Thunderstorm be an Extreme Weather Event?
Kenny Coogan: You mentioned thunderstorms. Could a thunderstorm be considered a extreme weather event?
Ed Brotak: Yes. Depending on the severity of the storm and its impact and all. Again, when we’re talking about severe weather events, we’re implying the fact that they can and do produce damage. Common by the way.
Kenny Coogan: Thunderstorms causing damage?
Ed Brotak: You’re in Florida?
Kenny Coogan: Yes, I’m in maybe the top 5 cities for thunderstorms, I believe.
Ed Brotak: I could also mention that of course, you went back just last week. I don’t know where exactly you are in Florida. Of course, we had the tremendous rain event. Some places getting over two feet of rain in a couple of days.
Kenny Coogan: I’m in Tampa, so we have sports teams dedicated to thunderstorms.
Ed Brotak: Yes, yes.
Kenny Coogan: Now, in your bio, you kind of make a joke that says you still go outside when you hear thunder. First off, is it a joke? And second, how can people be [00:10:00] safe? What are some safety tips for thunderstorms?
Ed Brotak: Don’t go out like I do. There’s one. It’s interesting with thunderstorms. I always say, thunder is nature’s warning of lightning. Thunder is not going to hurt you. People are afraid of thunder. No, thunder is not going to hurt you. It’s the lightning that’s going to hurt you and all. So if you hear a thunderstorm’s going to close, just stay inside. If you’re inside your house, if you’re in a car, you’re safe.
Don’t run out like I do and say, “Oh, look at this.” Even though it’s interesting that of course, being in Florida, say like in Disney, there are pretty much thunderstorms every day around there in the summer. But they can’t close the park all the time, you know, they would be going out of business. Just try to get inside if you can during the storm and then you’ll be reasonably safe.
Kenny Coogan: We’re going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor.
And when we return, we’re going to talk about severe weather safety tips regarding landscaping for the homestead.
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Kenny Coogan: We’re back with Ed Brotak, meteorologist and Grit contributor. Now I’ve heard of examples of houses that landscaped properly, and they were “saved” from both erupting volcanoes and [00:12:00] wildfires.
[00:12:00] Severe Weather Safety Tips Regarding Landscaping for the Homestead
Kenny Coogan: Ed what are some severe weather safety tips regarding landscaping for the home?
Ed Brotak: One of the things, for a number of different severe weather events, trees do tremendous amounts of damage and, of course, can even fall and kill people. So you want to make sure, especially for your house, that if possible, I know people love to have trees close to the house and it’s nice and shady and all, but if the tree falls, it can do tremendous damage. So basically, you want to make sure you don’t have any good sized trees where if they do fall, they are going to hit the house.
Certainly in terms of wildfires, you don’t want flammable vegetation anywhere near your house. This is one of the problems out west is that people say, “Oh, isn’t it pretty? We’re going to have all these bushes and shrubs, natural landscape right up to the house.” Well like, in California, vegetation is designed to burn. That’s how it reproduces, but you don’t want it next to your house because that will burn your house down. In places like that, you just want to be sure you don’t have flammable vegetation close to your house. Keep the [00:13:00] trees away from the house. Always trim your your trees, any dead branches or anything, which could easily fall with they kind of wind and all. Make sure they’re gone. If you have trees around your house, make sure, especially if you’re in a fire prone area, that your gutters are clean, because houses are burned down because burning ash and debris falls from the sky and will set the, the leaves and the gutters on fire, and that burns a house down.
Kenny Coogan: With proper landscaping, could somebody save their home from the volcano?
Ed Brotak: I’m assuming we’re talking about like fire. Obviously, if you’ve got a boulder coming down out of the sky, which could happen if you got a major explosion, you have lava flow, or even again, you’re going to have a lot of embers and all being blown out of a erupting volcano. Just make sure you don’t have flammable materials -plants- outside. If you want to be worried about landscape, making it look good and all, you can do that without all the vegetation. You can make it look really nice. You can have rocks and sand and gravel and that kind of stuff around your house. Just as long as you don’t have anything that [00:14:00] can burn close to your house.
Kenny Coogan: So I have a little more than an acre, and I do have hurricanes and I have a lot of trees on the perimeter of my house, which act as a wind break. And I saw in a Mother Earth News article many years ago that was kind of a recommended landscaping style for strong winds. Is there any landscaping that we should do or should we avoid for tornadoes? Or is a tornado just gonna not care what you do?
Ed Brotak: No, wind breaks will not stop tornado winds. No. And then again, you got to worry about the, the trees themselves actually falling down. Even minimal tornadoes can have winds getting close to a hundred miles an hour. So that’s going to take out any tree. And certainly stronger tornadoes, you may have seen videos of actually large trees just being uprooted and taken way up into the air by a tornado. So you’re not going to stop tornado with a windbreak. A regular wind event, even like a winter [00:15:00] storm when it’s probably 40, 50 miles an hour, you don’t want the trees that close to the house. If they do fall, they’re going to hit it. You can have a ways away from the house and all.
Kenny Coogan: I know this is not an extreme weather event, but I got a very cheap greenhouse, like a thousand dollar greenhouse, twelve years ago, and it’s still standing, and it’s doing great. And then a friend got a similar greenhouse ten miles away, and they don’t have any trees or fences, and it blew away the first season, not from a hurricane, but just from normal winds.
Ed Brotak: I would imagine though when they got the greenhouse, some way to anchor it. That’s the main thing. You should be anchored to the ground. And this is true of any structure. It has to be able to withstand certain amount of winds. Basically, it sounds like you’re describing sort of a normal wind event. And whatever you have outside should be able to withstand a normal wind event also. There should be ways of anchoring things down. And we talk a lot about that in terms of, say, hurricanes, having structures outside that are anchored down so they [00:16:00] don’t go flying away.
Just keep in mind, once these things fly in the air, they are missiles, and they can hit something and do damage.
[00:16:08] Landscape Resources for Extreme Weather Events
Kenny Coogan: Is there a resource for people to go to see the species of bushes or trees or plants that root better into the ground or won’t turn into giant projectiles?
Ed Brotak: Your local government agencies. You can go to them and check out, because they will tell you what kind of plants you can use. You just go to whatever horticultural practices you have around there. The government agencies should know best of what you should be planting and what you shouldn’t be planting.
Kenny Coogan: Other than landscaping, is there anything else that we should be doing to the outside of the homes for these different severe weather events?
Ed Brotak: Depending on what kind of event you’re talking about. If you’re talking about wildfires, you want to make sure nothing on the outside of your house is flammable. One of the problems we’ve had is places where they had all, “look at these nice decorative roofs. Aren’t they pretty? [00:17:00] These wooden shingles.” And of course, if you have these burning embers falling from above, then the roof catches fire and the house burns down. Your roofs certainly need to be something that is fireproof.
And people don’t realize that when you’re talking about wildfires, it’s not so much the fire that’s on the ground that’s going to get you, it’s what’s going to be in the air. That can go out long distances ahead of the main fire. The same thing, the siding of a house needs to be not flammable. And keep your vegetation away from that.
For wind damage, there are things you can do. It’s interesting you’re in Florida, with hurricanes. A lot of times building codes will have things that you have to do. Basically the roof of the house has to be connected to the structure into the ground. So you may have seen videos of roofs being blown off houses. You don’t want that. Then the outside, say, you can have shutters for your windows. You can have basically almost like unbreakable glass there. But yeah, there are different things you can do on the outside of the house to make, to help make it windproof and all.
If you’re in a hurricane prone area, there are things [00:18:00] going to be mandated. If you talk about an area where you could get a storm surge from a hurricane, normally local codes basically say your living area of the house has to be at least above the normal 100 year flood. And so that’s why you see the houses raised up. So just in case there is a flood that you don’t take out the main living area. And of course the bottom has to be able to withstand floodwaters and not like just be destroyed.
Kenny Coogan: I was in Utah or Montana a couple of years ago. And I was just ignorant to the fact of how much flooding occurs there and how frequently it was. So other than the house being raised for that hundred year flood, almost all of our readers have livestock or poultry, and I imagine they should do the same thing with their barns and their coops when designing them. You got to think about the floods, but also the wildfires.
Ed Brotak: Check with your local authorities and they will give you an idea about what your [00:19:00] flood risk is. If you’re talking about along the river, and the further away you get from a river or stream, the safer you’re going to be. It is amazing though, sometimes you will see floods, which again, people have never seen before. There was one case in Tennessee a couple of years ago, where this stream, which was basically a couple feet deep, it got up to like 30 feet deep in a flood and just took out all the houses that were along it and all and killed a number of people.
This is we’re talking about severe weather in unusual events. These are things people have never seen before, and this is what we’re beginning to deal with. I was reading about this last night, the climate of the planet is getting to a point where people, humans, as we know them, have never seen this before.
Kenny Coogan: For people who have livestock and poultry, they should probably come up with contingency plans. I had a very small flock of ducks, and all of them were living in my bathroom for 24 hours, but I cannot [00:20:00] imagine somebody doing that with 25 birds or 100 birds.
Ed Brotak: Right. If you’re talking about other livestock and all, if you can move them to higher ground, if you have cattle, if you have horses, if you have some place. Contingency plans. If something is coming, just do it, and get it done because you don’t want to have, like, situations, I’ve heard of situations down in Florida where people are looking at their cows swimming. You don’t want to get into that kind of situation.
[00:20:25] Forecasting Extreme Weather Events
Kenny Coogan: All right, so Ed, we, we’re good friends now, but can you tell me about the forecast? How good are meteorologists now at predicting certain extreme weather events? The hurricanes, I feel pretty good. I do know that they’re going to be close enough for me to do something. But then for my 7 day normal weather, it says it’s going to rain every day. And then it doesn’t rain for 6 out of the 7 days. So, can you tell me the difference between predicting the weather and extreme weather events?
Ed Brotak: One thing is when you talk [00:21:00] about extreme weather events, you’re talking about normally situations, which will, as soon as you see these things, meteorologists will see these things developing. It’ll be like red lights blinking and everything else. You can tell them a lot of times in advance. So they will get out warnings as soon as they can. They will normally get out some sort of a information, like a maybe a couple of days in advance to just keep track of the weather. And then the closer you are to the event, they normally are pretty good about getting out the warnings and all.
And you said for hurricanes, we can watch them and normally for days in advance say, “okay this is what we think is going to happen.” It normally works that way. Same thing, other severe weather events. In terms of fires, you normally forecast when you’re going to have situations where it’s going to be dry and windy. The forecast for severe weather events is normally pretty good. It is the question, are the people taking care of themselves?. Are the, your government officials making sure they can do everything possible to keep people safe?
[00:21:53] Preparing for Earthquakes
Kenny Coogan: One event we haven’t talked about are earthquakes. And I know that there’s probably a lot of building codes [00:22:00] for people who live near earthquakes. Do you have any other recommendations on how to keep the homestead safe from an earthquake or how to prepare for one?
Ed Brotak: Depends on the magnitude. Normally, most people, I mean, even here in Western North Carolina, we’ve had minor earthquakes that didn’t really do much in a way of damage and all. Certainly if you live, like, in California and earthquake prone area, building codes is supposed to be your structure will withstand that kind of thing .
Basically know your area. In that case, local government geologists will tell you what kind of a risk you have . If you get a really bad earthquake, that’s like any severe environmental disaster, not a whole lot you can do about it.
[00:22:39] Are Meteorologists Good at Predicting Hurricanes?
Kenny Coogan: Are meteorologists really good at predicting hurricanes?
Ed Brotak: If you think about the time scale, hurricanes will last for days. A tornado will maybe last for an hour or so. So that’ll give you an idea of the forecasting. You can basically say when you’re getting thunderstorms developing, they could produce tornadoes. And that’s what we send out the information on the warnings. And then when the tornado [00:23:00] actually occurring, you can normally pick it up on the radar and then give warnings what direction it’s moving. But obviously the time scale is going to be much shorter. Like, you can, you may have an hour.
Kenny Coogan: And then floods, you can also just be watching the radar to see if it’s accumulating or, or the intensity.
Ed Brotak: Basically the two kinds of floods, the flash floods, which occur very quickly, you can sort of look at a situation say, yeah, we could get flash flood developing. Let people know it could happen. The major river floods normally take longer to develop, and you can see those coming. You can get the warnings out. The flash floods are the ones that do most of the damage and cause loss of life. The major river floods do a lot of damage, but normally you can warn people and stay away from these areas and all.
[00:23:41] Extreme Weather Events: Where to Go From Here
Kenny Coogan: All right, Ed, do you have any positive remarks to close out the podcast? Be prepared, be prepared and know where you live. Choose where you live, maybe.
Ed Brotak: Yeah, know what’s your risk are, the different types of severe weather, and keep track from the National Weather Service. They [00:24:00] will keep you informed as to what’s going on. Go out there today. You can look at stuff from the National Hurricane Center talking about the one system developing in the Bay of Campeche, and there’s another one maybe developing off the Southeast coast. Yeah, just keep track, just to see what’s going on. So try to prevent the death and destruction.
Certainly, you don’t want casualties, that’s the main thing. The destruction is going to occur. You can’t move houses, buildings and all. But people, yes, get them out of the way. And we normally, thanks to meteorologists, we have certainly cut the death rate on many of these kind of storms. And we really are getting into an area we’ve never seen before.
I was reading stuff about the carbon dioxide and the atmosphere. And they’re trying to think when was the last time we’ve had carbon dioxide levels this high. And it was interesting. I think they said like the last ice age, when we had glaciers in the mid latitudes, carbon dioxide was 200 parts per million, okay? At the start of the Industrial Revolution, probably the late 1800s, it was [00:25:00] 270. Right now, it is over 400. And scientists are trying to figure out, when was the last time we had that much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? And I think they’ve already gone past hundreds of thousands of years and gone into millions of years.
And if you think about what the earth was like back then, if this is going to be a forecast for the future, ocean levels were much, much higher. Basically, almost all the major cities on the planet will be underwater. It’s something we’d never seen before.
We’re talking about cutting carbon dioxide levels and doing that. The other thing you really have to do is you’ve got to allow for the fact that what’s happening is happening. And we may not be able to stop it. No matter what we do. So, we have to actually plan for these worst case scenario and allow for that. If we do that, then at least we can minimize some of the damage.
Kenny Coogan: All right, well, thank you.
Ed Brotak: Was that optimistic enough?
Kenny Coogan: It’s the state we are living in. So thank you, Ed, for our conversation today.
Ed Brotak: You’re quite welcome.
[00:25:57] Podcast Credits
Jessica Anderson: Thanks for joining us for this [00:26:00] episode of Mother Earth News and Friends. To listen to more podcasts and get connected on our social media, visit www.MotherEarthNews.com/Podcast. You can also email us at Podcast@OgdenPubs.Com with any questions or suggestions. Our podcast production team includes Jessica Anderson, Kenny Coogan, and Alyssa Warner.
Music for this episode is “Hustle” by Kevin MacLeod.
The Mother Earth News and Friends podcast is a production of Ogden Publications.
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Until next time, don’t forget to love your Mother.
About Ed Brotak
Ed Brotak taught college students about weather for more than 30 years and led many of them to pursue careers in meteorology. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife (who’s also a meteorologist).
Additional Resources
Thanks to Soaper’s Choice for sponsoring this episode.
Read Ed’s many articles on weather and preparedness on our sister publication, Grit magazine.
Our Podcast Team:
Jessica Anderson, Kenny Coogan, and Alyssa Warner
Music: “Hustle” by Kevin MacLeod
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The Mother Earth News and Friends podcasts are a production of Ogden Publications.
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