Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition

Hurricane myths versus reality

- By David Fleshler

Like many catastroph­ic phenomena, hurricanes­havebecome­encrusted withmythol­ogy.

Frombad advice on howto protect your home, to erroneous ideas about the most dangerous regions within a hurricane, meteorolog­ists hear all sorts of lore fromthe public. Some are harmless baloney, others are genucordin­g inely dangerous.

“There are a lot of hurricanem­yths out there. Many contain a grain of truth. That’s how they got started,” said Steve Letro, a retired meteorolog­ist with the National Weather Service inJacksonv­ille. “Ourchallen­geis to convince the public that official informatio­n is actually going to be more correct thanwhatth­ey heardfromt­he guy standing in line atWalmart.”

Here are some of the myths, ac- to Letro and Chris Landsea, science and operations officer of the National Hurricane Center. They spoke last week at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference in Fort Lauderdale.

To prepare for a hurricane, tape up your windows with masking tape. This idea actually appeared in publicatio­ns of the old U.S. Weather

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