That’s not really useful. The cost is largely a factor of where it’s going to hit, not just its destructiveness. If you want people to be able to judge if they need to get out of the way, knowing it won’t destroy an expensive town doesn’t help them.
The Saffir Simpson scale isn’t great, but let’s replace it with something better.
It was all over the local news tonight. What. Is wrong. With people?!? Apparently these idiots can’t see past their own nose to realize how much this hurts everyone there who badly, badly need help.
I was sorta kidding but sorta not.
If you live within 5 miles of shore, or you live in steep terrain no matter how far inland, all you really need to know is: “Does the center of the cone pass with 75 miles of my house? If so, leave for a week or more starting 4 days before it gets to you.” That will prevent loss of life.
Preventing destruction of property requires not building fragile shit where hurricanes and storm surge and floods (and wildfires and earthquakes and tornadoes) are common occurrences. Which is not a mission for hurricane warnings & severity scales to solve, but instead is a general function of urban planning everywhere. Design honestly for your structures to survive the threat(s) you honestly face now, and will face in the decades ahead, or suffer the consequences alone, unrescued, and uninsured.
Americans’ behavior writ large will not change until they are personally and uninsurably liable for 100% of the consequences of their decisions on what to build where and how crappily / smartly to build it. We are collectively that pig-headedly stupid.
Even if the insurance industry’s number isn’t useful, I do agree with your general idea here. The current situation seems to be that a lot of people get hung up on the Saffir-Simpson number, and the center of the forecast cone, and may not understand the threats that those don’t capture.
Compare the Saffir-Simpson scale to the Enhanced Fujuta scale, which is used to classify the intensity of tornadoes. While the EF scale does feature wind speed numbers, it is fundamentally a scale of the degree of damage that the tornado did to things on the ground. Unfortunately, this means that the final determination of a tornado’s EF rating can only be done afterwards, when trained meterologists survey the tonado’s path, and the damage inflicted.
I think that a revised, more complete hurricane threat rating would need to incorporate all of the different aspects of what makes such storms so dangerous. Each dimension probably needs its own scale, which could then get rolled up into one weighted rating number (because it’s clear that our monkey brains want to have a single number):
Agreed, but …
I’d recast that slightly as
(because it’s clear that our
monkey brains>media overlords want to have a single number):
Well, yes, that, too. 
But, seriously, I’d like to see a forecast map that says “This area is looking at Threat Level 5, the surrounding area is Threat Level 4, etc.”
Accuweather has a RealImpact scale:
The AccuWeather RealImpact Scale (AccuWeather RI™) for Hurricanes categorizes hurricanes and tropical storms on a six-point scale. Like the Saffir-Simpson scale, the AccuWeather RealImpact Scale for Hurricanes uses the 1 to 5 rating, but also adds an additional rating of “Less than 1.” The “Less than 1” score provides insight on hurricanes and tropical storms that don’t rise to a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Storms designated with this rating may still cause substantial destruction, injury or loss of life.
The new AccuWeather RealImpact Scale for Hurricanes is based on a variety of contributing factors, such as flooding, rain, high winds, and storm surge, as well as the total damage and economic impact from the storm, rather than simply wind. As a result, the unique, new scale will communicate a more comprehensive representation of the potential impact of a storm on lives and livelihoods.
I’d not heard of this before; the article to which you’d linked is dated 2019, which would suggest that they’ve been using it for five hurricane seasons now. It seems like the kind of thing I was suggesting above, but as it also seems to be proprietary to AccuWeather (the name has a trademark), it’d mean that only they would be able to use it, making it somewhat less effective. Ideally, such a system would be championed by the NHC, and be something that all news and weather outlets could use.
Let me help you out here:
Accuweather has a RealImpact ™ scale:
And great that they already trademarked it.
A serious challenge with any impact scale, Real™ or not, is that the architecture of a strong hurricane includes a small area of severe to extreme damage and a vast area of semi-damage. And the path of the storm is highly variable relative to the size of the high impact area even up to waaay past time for folks to prepare for personal catastrophe as opposed to personal inconvenience and expense.
Taking Milton as an example, even 24 hours prior there were scenarios where millions of people either would be in the catastrophe zone or not. Where the storm would cost $5B or $50B to build back from. It happens that great big Tampa got off real easy, while teeny Venice took it in the face.
What the local affected public wants is a “What will happen at my address?” readout. And with high reliability at least 2 days before it happens while there’s still time to do something about it. What the non-local voyeuristic populace wants is a “How much expensive wreckage will I get to see on TV?” index.
Both are hard to deliver, but the former is orders of magnitude harder AKA impossible.
Which doesn’t mean that we need to stick with the woefully useless Saffir-Simpson scale for public warning.
Thing is there were sources here in Western North Carolina telling us we were going to be seeing catastrophic flooding. There were warnings telling us that this type of flood warning had NEVER BEEN ISSUED BEFORE in these mountains. But these warnings still did not penetrate through to the majority of people. I have heard over and over from shell-shocked folks that they had no idea it would be this bad. But there were officials beforehand out there telling people it would indeed be this bad. I sent my wife and sister away ahead of time because I was scared for their safety. (Why do I keep seeing this whole horrible storm as a metaphor for the upcoming election?)
The difficulty is getting reliable emergency information through the massive amount of media clogged with less-important drivel. No matter how we rate or describe storms, there ultimately has to be a way to cut through the BS and shake people awake to true impending disaster, no matter how they get their news. I just don’t know how to do that.
And part of the problem is a lot of people have become conditioned to thinking the weatherman and the state emergency manager are always sensationalizing, it wasn’t that bad the last 5 times it won’t be that bad now, it’s just the people living in a trailer at the edge of the water that need to run.
Right. So there needs to be something more. But what?
Weather is unpredictable. The next time a hurricane threatens Tampa, will people say that Milton was overblown, so they are not going to evacuate this time? I don’t know.
Weather is complicated and in trying to make it easy to reach the masses invariably dilutes the message. Also the weather can turn worse unexpectedly. Hurricane Otis last year rapidly intensified just before landfall last year, stunning experts.
There are no easy answers. But the current system is not working.
Nope. That’s not even remotely the problem.
The problem is the public in general does not want to be inconvenienced. And they are sloppy lazy thinkers who suck at accurate risks / rewards / consequences analysis.
Which means when they are told to expend effort and money immediately that may or may not prove to be be necessary, their inherent inertia will always settle on “Eh, it won’t be that bad for me. My whole county might be devastated, but my house will be fine.”
Untrained humans are amazing at rationalizing away inconvenience.
And often that inertia is reinforced in minds when possible forecast disaster does not happen.
I think the media has a role in getting through the lazy mindset. We need to be educated but all we often want to be is entertained. Unfortunately giving people what they need instead of what they want is a losing media formula.
I admit, I was one of those people. I didn’t realize how bad the storm was going to be even after seeing how far up the road the high water sign was placed when the bridge near my house flooded on Thursday before the storm hit. In my defense, though, I was diagnosed with cancer earlier in September and I’ve been pretty upset/depressed since. (The storm trauma is not helping.)
What I can’t forgive myself for is not going into Ingles instead of driving past it on Thursday. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
I filled my car with gas Tuesday night assuming a short-term shortage. I was off work Wednesday and the store was putting me up in a hotel downtown Wednesday night onward so I could work during the storm. I was surprised to see how much bottled water and batteries were still on the shelf Tuesday night. That was the time to shop. Most of it had disappeared in our store by Thursday when the shit really hit the fan. Poor Ingles has their distribution warehouse in Swannanoa, which flooded terribly. I don’t know how they are even functioning right now, or how many of their employees there lost everything.
You expect people to believe what politicians and their minions are saying?
Not to get overly political here, but I wonder if there is any data regarding people who decide to stay and “ride the storm out” rather than acknowledge the risk and take appropriate action (leaving aside people who cannot, for a variety of reasons, take flight from danger)? Are they more conservative or liberal or a mixed bag?
Governor DeSantis did tell people the storm (Milton) was dangerous and most people moved out of the way - I wonder if that’s because he’s a Republican in a Republican state. If it were a Democrat giving the same message, would that have affected the response by the populace? I mean, some people you just can’t reach, but is the message acknowledged and acted-upon better if it is provided by someone with an aligned political persuasion?
I think a larger issue is are they healthy and with cars and money to spare for motel rooms, ir are they poor? Many people don’t have the money to travel for a few days “just in case”, and may not even own a car. Many may be unhealthy or taking care of unhealthy relatives. This was, I believe, the case of many who didn’t leave the path of Katrina. Saying that everyone should leave a few days before a projected storm is coming from a place of unexamined privilege.