St. Andrews Subdivision

Strategic Preparation for a Storm

Preparations (updated 1/05/11)

Community Actions:
1. Connecting with Fire Department for situation reports to the website
2. Coordinating with HAM Radio operators to post on the St Andrews Website, situation reports to benefit people moving about the county and evacuees in planning their returns.
3. MEMA deflected a request or information on telephone restoration plans.
4. Pending review of Road Dept Recovery Priorities for clearing roads

5. Improve our flood insurance rating which may be currently an 8 or 10. Residents in a community with an 8 rating receive a 10% discount on the annual premium. Residents in an area with a 10 rating receive no discount. Ocean Springs and Gautier have 8 ratings. The best discount is 45% for a rating of 1.

6. Review www.redcross.org/disasterguide.

7. Meet with your neighbors to plan how the neighborhood could work together after a disaster until help arrives. Working with neighbors can save lives and property. If you’re a member of a neighborhood organization, such as a homeowner’s association or crime watch group, introduce disaster preparedness as a new activity. Check with your local fire department to find out if they offer Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training.

Know your neighbors’ special skills (for example, medical, technical) and consider how you could help neighbors who have special needs, such as disabled and elderly persons.
Identify elderly and disabled people in the neighborhood. Ask them how you can help if a disaster threatens (transportation, securing the home, getting medications, etc.).

Individual Actions:
1. Inventory assets
2. Prepare a hurricane plan, and stockpile needed supplies.
3. Consider buying flood insurance, an electric generator for power outages, a gas powered tree saw, and a battery powered variable speed drill.
4. Remove diseased trees, tree limbs, and trees that may fall on your house. Tree debris is likely to start the destruction of a home by breaking windows.
5. Brace garage doors
6. Plant low center of gravity hedges and/or trees that will deflect the wind upward and away from homes.
7. Secure yard objects that can become projectiles
8. Install hurricane shutters or have plywood available for covering windows. Metal hurricane shutters are a bargain in view of the protection they provide the house and its contents. Also, they are much easier to work with than heavy 3/4” plywood.
9. Brace and tied down rafters per FEMA and Red Cross suggestions, and glue sheeting to rafters.
10. When shingling, follow FEMA suggestions for nailing and quality of shingles.
11. When an emergency is declared for the county, filled sand bags will be available at fire stations located at: Elm Street, Beach Street and East Simmons Bayou Drive in Gulf Park Estates if you need them.

Expectations (Updated 9/26/04)

These are unofficial expectations of storm impact. They are not based on expert opinion. They are based on one resident’s experiences since 1986, consideration of data regarding previous storms that affected us, and observation of television coverage of storm damage in the 2004 Florida hurricanes. Since 1995 we have entered into a cycle of more frequent and severe storms that is expected to last until 2030 or so.

The severity of impact depends on how close we are to the eyewall and whether we are on the eastward or westward side of the eye. The eyewall and eastern side have heavy rain, tornadoes, and surge. To estimate our distance from the eyewall you can use our latitude and longtitude coordinates with other websites. Our latitude and longtitude coordinates are approximately Latitude 30:20:50 N (30.347255 N) and Longitude -88:42:38W ( -88.710688W). When calculating distances into website distance calculators enter storm longtitute as a negative number (for example –88.7W).

Community resources:

Sandbags will be available at the Gulfpark Estates-St Andrews and Fountainbleu fire stations to any resident to protect against flooding.

Emergency Services (Fire, Ambulance, Medical): During the storm, the county road department is not available for clearing roadways. Maybe the volunteer fire department will brave the storm depending on the conditions and urgency.

Radio Communication:
Citizen band channel 1 is designated as the neighborhood family radio (walky-talky) channel. Range is about 1.5 miles and they are available at Wallmart, Radioshak and other places for about $30 a pair. Be sure to turn off CTCSS (Continuous Tone Controlled Squelch System).

General expectations:

SAFFIR/SIMPSON HURRICANE CATEGORY DAMAGE SCALE
Category 1. Winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour. Damage primarily to shrubbery,
trees, foliage, and mobile homes. No real wind damage to other structures. Some damage to poorly constructed signs. Low-lying coastal roads inundated, minor pier damage, some small craft in exposed anchorage torn from moorings.

Category 2. Winds of 96 to 110 miles per hour. Considerable damage occurs to
shrubbery and tree foliage; some trees blown down. Major damage to exposed
mobile homes. Extensive damage too poorly constructed signs. Some damage to
roofing materials of buildings; some window and door damage. No major wind
damage to buildings. Considerable damage could occur to piers. Marinas flooded. Small craft may be torn from moorings.

Category 3. Winds of 111 to 130 miles per hour. Foliage would be torn from trees & large trees blown down. Practically all poorly constructed signs blown down. Some damage to roofing materials of buildings; some window and door damage. Some structural damage to buildings occurs & mobile homes destroyed. Serious flooding at coast and many smaller structures near coast destroyed; larger structures near coast damaged by battering waves and floating debris.

Category 4. Winds of 131 to 155 miles per hour. Many shrubs and trees are blown down and most street signs are damaged. Extensive damage occurs to roofing materials, windows, and doors. Complete failure of roofs occurs on many small residences & complete destruction of mobile homes. Major damage to lower floors of structures near shore occurs due to flooding and battering by waves and floating debris along with major erosion of beaches.

Category 5. Winds greater than 155 miles per hour. Shrubs and trees are blown down; considerable damage to roofs of buildings and all signs are damaged or destroyed. There would be very severe and extensive damage to windows and doors. Complete failure of roofs occurs on many residences and industrial buildings. Extensive shattering of glass in windows and doors would occur. Some complete building failures. Small buildings can be overturned or blown away & complete destruction of mobile homes is likely.

According to the Mississippi Hazards Analysis And Slosh Documentation in Chapter 2 of The Technical Data Report (http://www.sam.usace.army.mil/hesdata/Miss/msreportpage.htm),
the average error in the official 24-hour hurricane track forecast is about 100 statute miles left or right of the forecast track. The average error in the official 24-hour wind speed forecast is 15 miles per hour (mph), and the average error in the 12-hour official forecast is about 10 mph. Hurricanes within 15 mph of a higher category minimum at 24 hours prior to landfall should be treated as higher category hurricane. Hurricanes within 10 mph of a minimum wind speed for a higher category hurricane at 12 hours prior to landfall should be treated as a higher category hurricane.

The study also indicates evacuation in the Bell Fountain Beach area should be completed by the earlier arrival of rains and gale force winds or escape route inundatation. This is expected to occur when an eyewall is approximately 25 to 26 miles away.

Expected Surge Elevation in Feet NGVD

Hurricane Belle Graveline
Categories Fountaine Bayou
Point

CAT 1 8.1’ 7.1’
CAT 2 13.7’ 13.6’
CAT 3 18.7’ 18.4’
CAT 4 22.8’ 22.3’
CAT 5 26.8’ 26.2’

It appears that the new causeway bridge will be inundated by a category 2 hurricane surge if the maximum winds of the right quadrant winds hit our area.

Expected worst impact in our area for different categories of storms:

Tropical Storm:

Water may pond on the low area of St. Andrews Drive and obstruct traffic in and out of our neighborhood. The alternate escape route through Gulfpark Estates will probably be blocked by ponding on the roadways. Along West Belle Fountaine Drive the roadway may be obstructed by flooding. Leaves will fall. No power outage expected.

Category 1 Hurricane:

Near the beach to our south along East and West Belle Fountaine Drive some homes outside our neighborhood will experience flooding. Tornado damage is possible. Tree debris will break unprotected windows.

Road clearing - A review of the county road Department's recovery plan may be enlightening. Until then, it is expected to give priority to clearing main roads to the hospital emergency rooms, then access to police, then access to fire departments (possibly unstaffed volunteer fire departments will not have the same priority as paid fire departments). So we should expect it will not clear our roads and streets within the first three days of the storm recovery.

Electricity restoration - We live in an area that is likely to benefit from the high priority of the Fire Department and the relative closeness of the Electric Substation on Hamil Farm Road. Power will be restored promptly depending on road clearance to the damage sites. Our greatest electrical vulnerability is from the wooden power poles along Main Street and behind the subdivision which bring power into the neighborhood. Debris from nearby trees can cause short circuits and pop circuit breakers.

Emergency Services - These services depend on electricity and roadway access to function timely. Have a fire extinguisher and first aid kit to take care of your needs until help can arrive. If you have a medical condition that may require ambulance services, definitely do not stay through a storm.

Telephone restoration – Land-line telephones do not require household electric power to operate and the system are even more reliable that electric service. Radio telephones require household power to operate. Cellular phones will require household or automobile battery power to recharge. The closest cellular tower to St Andrews is at the intersection of Fountainbleau Rd. and Mary Mahoney Rd and it is built to withstand at least 90 to 100 mph sustained winds. It has a hardened shelter and a permanent generator. For greater reliabililty it is networked to the switch by both microwave and land-line links.

Water & Sewer - St Andrews Water and Sewer does not have emergency generator capability for its water pumps and has no plans to provide it while Singing River Power is down. Expect to take care of your own water needs for the first 3 days. Beyond that, bottled drinking water should be available if the roads are sufficiently cleared to truck water in.

Water for flushing commodes can be obtained from the golf course water hazards. It would be better to have your own 55 gallon barrel of water on hand. The County Wastewater authority assumes control of the wastewater generated in St. Andrews/Pinehurst at its pump station located on Biddix-Evans Rd. (behind the fire station).

It is the responsibility of the St. Andrews Utility Co. to deliver the wastewater collected from the homes and businesses to this pump station. The Authority’s system from St. Andrews to its treatment plant located on Seaman Rd. consists of a series of pump stations (including auxiliary pump) at each station and force mains. All of these pump stations are equipped with automatic emergency generators powered by diesel engines with on-site 3 days supply of fuel and they are tested weekly. Additionally, the pump stations automatically telephone key people when something goes wrong.

We do not know yet whether St Andrews W&S’s delivery of wastewater to the local pump station requires electrical power. If it requires electrical power, wastewater lines may tend to fill up over time during an extended power outage and overflow at manholes with the lowest elevations. Greg Williams has been asked to provide manhole elevations for homeowners to monitor during a power outage and information about power needed to move wastewater to the pumpstation. If someone’s home is at risk of flooding with backed up wastewater, we will probably need to stop using the sewer system until the backup can be eliminated.

Routine debris and trash removal – A county front-end loader, backhoe, and two dump trucks are expected to load and haul away piles of debris 7 days after a storm. Their progress is slowed by having to work with piles next to objects such as fire hydrants and mail boxes. Plans for resumption of household trash pickup are unknown at this time.

A tropical storm or hurricane can increase in strength to the next higher category at the last moment when it is too late to evacuate. So treat a tropical storm like a category 1, and a category 1 like a category 2, and everybody should evacuate for a category 3.

Category 2 Hurricane:

Same as Category 1 hurricane plus power will be lost for two or three days and weak trees will fall. St Andrews Drive will be blocked by fallen pine trees. Water services will be lost as long as the power is out. Sewer will continue function until electricity is restored.

Category 3 Hurricane:

Same as Category 2 hurricane plus destruction of trees with high centers of gravity, Homes with weak roofs will lose shingles and sheeting and their contents will be soaked with rain water. Electricity will be lost for a week or so depending on how extensive the damage is in the Singing River Electric service area and whether its source power lines are downed. Homes in the 100 year flood plane will experience surge flooding. All streets in the neighborhood will require debris removal before traffic can pass. Water system will not be available until electricity is restored, and sewer system may begin to back up into homes after of several days of use without power. It depends on whether the sewer provides waste water and sludge to the County Wastewater Authority by gravity or machinery.

Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes:

All homes will be damaged extensively or destroyed by wind, rain, and surge. Electricity will be lost for a longer period of time.

Neighborhood Coordination (updated 9/26/04)

Neighbors are invited to share information about resources, conditions, and needs by radio and by this website. It will make everything easier for those who participate.

Email us
alpettigrw@aol.com