The 2010 tropical hurricane season ends today, and despite dire early forecasts and fears that the area was due for a major storm, the Grand Strand emerged unscathed.
That's good news, of course, for emergency personnel, but it doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of activity despite no need for sandbags.
"Not having a system impact us in any way allowed us to continue to work on the rest of our plans," Horry County Emergency Management Director Randy Webster said Monday via telephone from Emmitsburg, Md., where members of Horry County's emergency management division are attending training.
Since the season's start on June 1, there were 19 tropical storms, 12 of which became hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
Before the start of the season, experts predicted that 2010 would be busy, with early predictions calling for as many as 23 tropical storms. They cited record warm waters in the tropics, light winds and the arrival of La Nina, the atmospheric force that promotes hurricane formation. Yet thanks largely to an expansive dome of high pressure settling over the eastern Atlantic, numerous storms were guided north into the Atlantic before they reached the East Coast.
Among them were hurricanes Danielle, Earl, Igor, Julia, Lisa, Otto and Shary. Earl came closest, passing about 80 miles east of North Carolina's Outer Banks in early September.
"It did meet expectations in the amount of storms because we had a lot of storms, but no real impact to land especially on the East Coast," Webster said. "It feels like we didn't have anything whatsoever, and that does concern me about complacency. If we don't have a direct threat the complacency continues to grow."
The same high-pressure area that redirected this year's storms, commonly called the Bermuda High, helped push several storms toward the U.S. coastline in 2005.
"In 2005, just about all the hurricane activity developed fairly far west, and close to the U.S. mainland," said Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University climatologist. "Fortunately, in 2010 almost all of the hurricane activity occurred much farther east and avoided the U.S."
Whether the high pressure will remain in the same place next season is unknown but unlikely, forecasters said. The position and strength of the Bermuda High can't be predicted much more than two weeks in advance.
Either way, Webster said he and his staff will train and review all their plans for the county to be prepared for the 2011 hurricane season.
"We'll take this time once again to go through to see if there are any changes we need to make," Webster said. "We talk about a lot of preparation, and if you are prepared for hurricane season you are prepared for any disaster year-round."
For American Red Cross volunteers, the lack of an active hurricane season gave them time to focus on other activities, including a large number of home fires in the area, said Angela Nicholas, chief executive officer of the Coastal South Carolina Chapter of the Red Cross.
"We look forward to Nov. 30 and having a quiet season. It's always a blessing because everybody stays safe," Nicholas said. "We continue to do our education and preparations all year long - just because hurricane season passed doesn't mean we don't have threats from hazards."
A group of volunteers were dispatched to North Carolina during Hurricane Earl, but otherwise the season was uneventful, Nicholas said.
"We really are encouraging people to be careful during the holidays," she said. "It's been quiet everywhere."
The Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel contributed to this report.
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