HLN – 2011: The year in extreme weather
By Bonnie Schneider
updated 2:15 PM EST, Mon December 26, 2011

- 12 disasters in 2011 each caused more than $1 billion in damage
- Rare events include EF5 tornadoes hitting Missouri and Alabama and Hurricane Irene threatening New York City

Extreme weather came in fast and furious in 2011, with unwavering intensity for all twelve months of the year.

From snowstorms to drought, hurricanes to wildfires, epic floods to heat waves — 2011 shattered records with “a total of twelve weather and climate disasters,” according to The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with “each causing $1 billion or more in damages — and most regrettably, loss of human lives and property.”

The New Year started off with a bang as an unusually intense — and poorly timed — January 2011 snowstorm in the Washington DC area left some motorists stranded in their cars for more than 10 hours during an evening commute.

The following month, an even larger, monster winter storm brought Chicago to an utter standstill. The Groundhog Day Blizzard brought two feet of snow to the area, while wind gusts as high as 60 mph piled snow drifts in some spots 10 feet high! Cars were left abandoned on major thoroughfares like Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue. This wallop of a storm didn’t just impact Illinois, but many central, eastern, and northeastern states. According to the National Climatic Data Center, it brought insured losses greater than $1 billion and total losses greater than $1.8 billion and unfortunately 36 deaths.

Record-shattering tornadoes

The spring thaw that followed did not evoke calmer conditions to the U.S. In both April and May, devastating record-shattering tornado outbreaks slammed the South, Midwest and other regions. In late April, an outbreak of 343 tornadoes in central and southern states caused 321 deaths. Of those fatalities, 240 occurred in Alabama alone. The deadliest tornado of the outbreak, an EF-5, hit northern Alabama on April 27, killing 78 people.

On May 22, an EF-5 (winds over 200 mph+) tornado struck Joplin, Missouri. It was one mile wide and traveled for 22 miles on the ground. According to NOAA, the Joplin tornado was the deadliest single tornado to strike the U.S. since modern tornado record-keeping began in 1950. 158 people lost their lives in this weather event.

Scorching summer

Hot and dry would be two good words to describe the summer of 2011: It was a season plagued by drought and extreme heat. Temperatures not only soared, but stayed unbearably scorching for weeks! Dallas, Texas saw 71 total days of 100+ plus temperatures. That’s the highest total number of 100 degree + days the city has ever seen. The Northeast wasn’t spared from triple digit temps either. Newark, New Jersey set a new all-time record high of 108 on July 22, shattering the old record of 105 degrees, set on August 9, 2001.

The combination of hot temperatures and lack of rainfall caused Texas to see “its most severe one-year drought on record,” according to John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist and professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. “Twelve month rainfall was the driest on record across much of Western, Central and Southern Texas,” he concluded. Many areas saw less than 25% of their annual precipitation.

Raging wildfires and rainfalls

The heat and drought led to a record wildfire season in many states. This occurred in the summer of 2011 and into the fall. Fires that ignited in states like Arizona and Texas were not only enormous in size, but also incredibly destructive. For example, the Bastrop Fire in Texas destroyed more than 1,500 homes and in Arizona. The Wallow Fire consumed more than 500,000 acres, making it the largest on record in the state.

While some areas didn’t receive enough water, others were inundated. In the Ohio Valley, rainfall totals increased by around 300%. This, combined with melting snowpack, caused catastrophic flooding along the Mississippi River. Further north, according to the National Climatic Data Center, “an estimated 11,000 people were forced to evacuate Minot, North Dakota due to the record high water level of the Souris River, where 4,000 homes were flooded.”

Mandatory evacuation for New Yorkers

Fast forward to the start of the Atlantic hurricane season on June 1. An “above average” season was predicted by forecasters at Colorado State University, and it lived up to that prediction. There were 19 tropical storms in the Atlantic this year, making 2011 the 3rd busiest season since record keeping began in 1851. One hurricane that developed in August grabbed the headlines with ferocity. That’s because this hurricane’s forecast track was headed directly towards a major metropolitan city that hadn’t seen a hurricane make landfall since 1985: New York City. For several days in late August, Hurricane Irene had the entire east coast on alert.

On August 26, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made this memorable announcement from City Hall:

“The sun is shining, but don’t be misled. There is a very dangerous storm headed in our direction, and it could go slightly to the east or slightly to the west. It could speed up, it could close down, it could grow or diminish in intensity, but there is no question that we are going to get hit with some wind and high water that is very dangerous … We are today issuing a mandatory — I repeat the word mandatory — evacuation order for all New Yorkers who live in the low-lying Zone A coastal areas in all five boroughs that are at greatest risk of damage relating to Irene.”

It was the first mandatory evacuation the city had ever seen. It was also the first time the New York City transit system was ever shut down in advance of a storm.

Hurricane Irene initially struck the U.S. as a Category 1 hurricane in eastern North Carolina on Saturday, August 26, and then moved northward along the Mid-Atlantic Coast. According to NOAA, “wind damage in coastal North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland was moderate, with considerable damage resulting from falling trees and power lines.” Luckily, the worst case scenario did not occur when Irene made its final landfall as a tropical storm in the New York City area. However, Irene did dump excessive rainfall in the Northeast that caused widespread flooding.

More than 7 million homes and businesses lost power during the storm, and Irene caused at least 45 deaths and more than $7.3 billion in damages.

And winter begins…

Finally, the last month of the 2011 brought a life-threatening early start to winter for residents of the Plains states. In the week before Christmas, a paralyzing blizzard struck the region. White-out conditions caused road closures of highways in Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado on December 19th and 20th. That’s two days before the official start of winter on December 22.

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Filed under: News by William on December 26, 2011
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*Given at UW-Madison, Sunday December 18th, 2011 for the December graduates of the Class of 2011.  Wood was a 2005 graduate of the University.

Click here for video of the address.

Thank you Chancellor Ward, deans and distinguished professors, friends and family, Bucky Badger, and of course the graduating class of 2011.  It is an honor to be here today, and to be allowed to share with you this incredible milestone in your life.

I remember my own graduation, just six short years ago.  In the weeks and months leading up to it, I ignored the repeated emails asking me to reserve my gown with the University bookstore.  When, one week before the ceremony, I finally decided to go in and purchase one, I sauntered up to the counter, chest full of pride, and said “I need a graduation gown.”  Without even looking up from his Daily Cardinal, the guy behind the counter asked, “Name?”  Not knowing why needing my name was necessary I responded, “Jacob Wood.”  He typed it into the computer, and, in between obnoxious sips of Starbucks coffee, stated, “you didn’t reserve one.”  I soon learned the hard way that the bookstore doesn’t keep gowns stocked for six-foot-six, two hundred and forty pound men, and that as far as gowns were concerned, I was out of luck.  Running out of options, I quickly called a couple of guys on the football team that had graduated the previous December; after a few calls, I finally found a gown that would fit.  Disaster averted!  On the day of the ceremony I showed up here, to the Kohl Center, with my family in tow…only to find out that the gowns had changed.  You see, my gown was a shimmering sateen black, standing amid an ocean of dark, dull matte cloth.  My mother, who knew the level of procrastination I was capable of, was mortified.  When asked by my peers what the deal was with my gown, I simply responded, “It’s an honors robe.”  And thus began my glorious transition to Wisconsin Alum.

I am sure that many of you were hoping for a more distinguished speaker to come here today and deliver this charge.  Unfortunately, Aaron Rodgers, President Obama, Lady Gaga and that dude on the show Happy Endings who wears the Wisconsin hat, all had other things going on.  The Badger Herald Editorial Staff shed light on this issue in a recent article; and I quote, “Although the efforts of current class officers are appreciated, the university’s inconsistent organizing of commencement events from year to year ensures the absence of top-tier speakers.”  Well, I may not be top-tier, but I’m certainly happy to be here.

So why am I here?  I’m a graduate, but only made the Dean’s List one semester and have nothing to do with stem-cell research.  I played football, but was an under-performing scholarship athlete and never even sniffed the NFL.

I suppose I am here because six years ago I made a choice.  Six years ago I chose to take my double major from this incredible, world-class institution and trade it in for a rifle and a pair of dusty boots.  I enlisted into the United States Marine Corps infantry, as a private, and was shipped out to Southern California to begin my training.  A year later I was in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle with the Second Battalion of the Seventh Marine Regiment.  Two weeks after arriving, my squad of thirteen men was attacked; I lost a friend, Blake Howey, in the explosion and my squad leader Sergeant Rosenberger was wounded and evacuated.  I am proud to say that today, at this very moment in Pennsylvania, Kyle Rosenberger is being commissioned a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, and our nation’s military will be in good hands for years to come.  After that night I was promoted to corporal, and for the next seven months I helped lead that squad through more explosions, ambushes and firefights.  We lost more men, more limbs and more innocence, and at the end of 2007 we returned home different men than when we had left.

The next year I joined the prestigious Scout-Sniper platoon.  I went to sniper school, where for three months everyday was an excruciating test of mental and physical willpower.  Sniper school is one of the most difficult schools the military offers, with a selection process that begins way in advance of the first day; of the 34 men that started my class, less than half would graduate.  Only three weeks after graduating I found myself in Afghanistan, working on a six man team in the Helmand Valley.  For seven months our little team ran reconnaissance missions in the most dangerous city, in the most dangerous province, in the most dangerous country, on earth.  Every night we would leave the wire and walk into a countryside controlled by the Taliban, trying to wrestle back control for the Afghan government.

I want to share with you a lesson I learned while on those nightly missions in Afghanistan.  I was the point man in my team, which simply means that when we walked on patrol, I walked in front.  More simply put, if there was a land mine or booby trap laid on our path, I was going to be the man to step on it.  For the first few months I would walk our routes in perpetual fear, afraid every step I took would be my last—it caused me to miss checkpoints and lose my footing and make more noise than we could afford to make.  It wasn’t until I learned to let go of my fear, to walk those nights with confidence and cool, that I became an effective point man.  There were still intersections I had to cross that required me to close my eyes and clench my teeth, but I never stopped pressing on.  As you leave here today, you embark on a similar journey—you’ll have fewer landmines, but you’ll perhaps have more uncertainty. You enter adult life with a downtrodden economy, an uncertain labor market, foreign markets in shambles, and two political parties unwilling to create solutions.  You will begin jobs, relationships and endeavors and come to intersections in life that will make you cringe.  You will be tempted to tread cautiously, to hunker down and wait; but I challenge you to move forward boldly, to live life fully and to never look back.

After Afghanistan I left the Marine Corps in October of 2009 and began applying to graduate school; like every young adult my age, when you have no plan for your professional life, you go get an MBA.  I finished my applications in early 2010; only days later I woke up, much like I had on 9/11, and turned on the news.  Unbeknownst to me, an earthquake had ripped through Port Au Prince only hours before. The images that greeted me on the screen were ones of utter destruction; I sat and watched, transfixed, for hours, before finally deciding that I needed to go and help.  In the following hours I scrambled to assemble a team.  I called numerous friends who had numerous excuses not to go, until I called my former Wisconsin roommate, Jeff Lang.  I posed the question to him, “Jeff, will you go to Haiti with me?”  His response was simple: “Sure dude.”  We started raising money and awareness on Facebook, and within minutes I received a call from my friend and fellow Marine, William McNulty.  I picked up the phone and he immediately stated, “Jake, It’s McNulty.  I want in.”

Team Rubicon was born, and within 96 hours we were in Port Au Prince, surrounded on all sides by sights of destruction, smells of burning debris, and the screams of thousands of injured.  For the next two weeks we worked in small, fast moving teams, we went into parts of the city other response organizations wouldn’t go because of security concerns and conducted medical triage clinics.  In that brief period of time we treated thousands of patients, and saved hundreds of lives.  There in Haiti we discovered the first of two problems that Team Rubicon seeks to address; that problem is that the current disaster response system is inadequate; it’s slow, inefficient, lacks transparency, and isn’t engaging the best talent.  Military veterans, however, have spent 10 years honing the skills needed to provide life saving medical care, logistical support and risk mitigation in situations similar to those found in disaster zones.

The second problem we address presented itself nine months ago, after Team Rubicon had deployed teams to crises situations in Chile, Burma, Pakistan and Sudan; it manifested when one of Team Rubicon’s original members, and a dear friend of mine whom I had served both my tours alongside, killed himself in Houston, Texas.  His name was Clay Hunt, and he was an incredible human being, and an adopted Badger fan.  Clay didn’t kill himself because of what happened to us in Iraq and Afghanistan, he killed himself because of what he lost when he came home—purpose, self worth and community.  When the dust settled, we reevaluated Team Rubicon’s mission and decided that this second problem—the issue of veteran reintegration—was more important, and we’ve renewed our focus on providing our nation’s veterans with an opportunity to continue their service, only this time they’re using the skills they learned for war to help their neighbors following disasters.  Mother nature has provided plenty of opportunity, with tornadoes ripping through Tuscaloosa and Joplin, and Hurricane Irene beating down the Eastern Seaboard.

So now you are sitting there, and you are asking yourself, “So what? What do Haiti and Clay Hunt have to do with me?”  It’s really quite simple.  You see, many of you sitting here today have the next five years of your life mapped out, you have it all planned—you are going to go work on Wall Street, or Obama’s campaign, or at any number of the corporations headquartered in Minneapolis or Chicago, because the job market will not affect you; you will get married and buy a house, because the credit crisis will be over by then; soon enough your children will go to college, because tuition costs will stop rising.  My friends, I want to let you in on a little secret that only took me five years to learn…life might have other plans.  And here’s another secret…that might not be a bad thing.  You will face obstacles and choices and problems that you will not anticipate.  I ask that when you see an obstacle, that you climb it; a choice, that you make it; and a problem, that you solve it.  And if you do those things, if you clench your teeth and close your eyes and walk forward into that uncertainty, then I will let you in on my final secret…you just might fail.  But failure isn’t always bad—I failed as a football player, and it made me a United States Marine.

I want to leave you with one final story.  While in Afghanistan my sniper team was embedded for a few weeks with an Afghan Army unit. One of the soldiers looked eerily like Ashton Kutcher, since he was a native Pashtun, we naturally called him Pashtun Kutcher.  One day I was sitting around a small fire sharing tea with the soldiers; wearing a camouflaged Wisconsin Badgers hat that I would often don between patrols.  At one point in the gathering Pashtun Kutcher leaned over and tugged on the brim of the hat, he pointed at the Motion-W, and asked through an interpreter what it meant.  Again through the interpreter, I told him that it was my University.  Not understanding me, I quickly explained that it was a place where young men and women gathered to live, learn and of course, party together.  At first, the idea of Western Universities offended Pashtun Kutcher’s conservative moral code; but after a minute of staring off into the sky and nodding to himself intently, he said something to the interpreter, who then turned to me and said in broken English, “Mr. Jake, he said that maybe one day, Kandahar can have such a place.”

I tell you this story, not to shed light on progress in Afghanistan, but to shed light on progress in America.  You see, in a few moments you will walk across this stage and receive a diploma from one of the great public institutions in this country; the University of Wisconsin exists because of the great state of Wisconsin, and the state of Wisconsin exists because of this nation that we live in—and it comes back full circle, because the United States is made possible by people like you.  We are living at a time when Congress has an all-time low approval rating, crooks abound at the tops of industry and scandal permeates our nation’s most respected institutions.  If we choose to focus only on that it is easy to be discouraged, but, if we remember that we have the greatest framework ever created to enact change—freedom to speak, freedom to learn, freedom to decide and elect—then we can make it better.  Other places in this world hope to one day achieve what we have at our fingertips; in the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, let us embrace it.

On, Wisconsin.

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Filed under: In The Media, News, Video by Jake on December 18, 2011
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Well that all depends upon how much the spirit of giving (and the spirits from the bar) has taken you over. Last night the eligible bachelor parade was in full effect on the auction block at Twelve & Highland in Manhattan Beach. Team Rubicon held it’s first annual Auction for Action – a date night to benefit TR and its missions. Besides handsome companions, lucky bidders walked away with prime tickets to the Lakers, Kings, Ducks, LA Philharmonic, ELLEN, a sunset private plane ride with the pilot, and for the crown jewel: a parachute jump followed by a stop at the Wilson Creek Winery with chief TR beefcake sweetheart Air Force Veteran Joshua Webster.  The ladies (ahem, and men) pulled out their wallets and claimed their prizes while making a valuable contribution to Team Rubicon.  We look forward to next year’s auction, although we can’t imagine how it could possibly get much wilder within legal limits!

Our generous bachelor volunteers

TR veteran volunteer Matthew Runyon is smooth in the spotlight.

The bidding heats up!

The lucky winner with her newly bought property, TR veteran Joshua Webster.

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Filed under: Fundraisers by Kirk Jackson on December 16, 2011
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Google Foundation awards grant to support Team Rubicon

LOS ANGELES (12/15/11) – Google.org – the philanthropic arm of search company Google – has awarded Team Rubicon (TR) a one-time grant worth $150,000.

“We are extremely grateful that Google has decided to invest in TR. It’s reassuring when a prestigious organization such as Google shares our vision of veteran reintegration through disaster relief projects.” said TR’s President Jake Wood.

Google provided the grant to support TR’s operations, advertising and marketing activities. Thanks to the grant, TR will be able to scale its infrastructure to support communication, collaboration and training for a distributed network of veterans. Through this new infrastructure, Team Rubicon will be better able to respond to natural disasters and engage veterans for continued service.

TR is one of several dozen organizations receiving grants from Google.org at the end of 2011. The grant is part of over $100M in total charitable giving from Google in 2011.

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About Team Rubicon Team Rubicon unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with medical professionals to deploy vanguard teams that bridge the time gap between disaster and conventional aid response. For more information about Team Rubicon visit teamrubiconusa.org

Media Inquiries
Kristin Robinson
1-888-831-0841 ext. 3
robinson@teamrubiconusa.org

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Filed under: News, Press Release by William on December 14, 2011
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KMBC: Vets Group That Helps In Disasters Opens KC Office

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Filed under: In The Media, Region 7, Video by William on December 6, 2011
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Vice President of Team Rubicon William McNulty addresses a crowd of media and supporters outside the new office. Behind him stands Region VII Director Ford Sypher, Director of Domestic Operations Matt Pelak, and other volunteers and supporters. Photo: Thomas Hudson

Ford Sypher, Region VII Director, chainsaws the ribbon for Team Rubicon’s new Kansas City office. Photo: Thomas Hudson

The thumb of the beast that smudged the face of earth in southern Missouri this May was thorough.

I drove through Joplin yesterday on the way to Kansas City, where Team Rubicon is opening their first brick and mortar office to coordinate domestic disaster response. What was once a mile-wide sea of splintered lives in Joplin is now a green meadow. New construction on the edges shows the resilience of a town that renews its lease from Mother Nature. The light of recovery grows, but Joplin is forever changed. As far as tornadoes go, this one was jawdropping and brutal.

In past years I have responded to hurricanes, tornadoes, and an earthquake, with a variety of groups. Some of the combat vets I met during Operation Janice, my first deployment with Team Rubicon, had not worked a tornado, but that scoured earth proved fertile for showcasing the critical skillsets this group is amassing.

The unique vision that defines Team Rubicon, that I first saw in Joplin, is what inspired me to drive seven hours from Little Rock for a simple “ribbon cutting.” Not disaster cowboys, but creative, collaborative, highly organized crisis managers with the clarity that perhaps only combat experience can impart, Team Rubicon makes a significant move in establishing its Region VII office in Kansas City.

First, they situated themselves in that volatile strip of tornado alley where the big storms accelerating across the Great Plains slam into more densely populated areas of the Midwest. Second, Kansas City hosts the headquarters of FEMA’s Region VII, for which the new office gets its name. Team Rubicon is now set to compliment and coordinate with the country’s federal emergency system, which is a critical but giant and sometimes slow answer to disaster. In contrast, Team Rubicon is quite nimble. The “athleticism” of Team Rubicon bridges the gap in domestic disaster response, starting in Kansas City. – Thomas Hudson

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Filed under: News, Photos, Region 7, Veterans by William on December 6, 2011
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