With luck, Irene is a name that will be used again

Hurricane Irene, 25 August - click on image to view larger (photo, Nasa/Goes)

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – This is the moment to hope that Irene doesn’t join retirees Katrina, Mitch and Tracy, storms that were so violent their names were taken off the Atlantic hurricanes list, according to Geneva-based WMO (World Meteorological Organization). Irene is currently battering the northern Bahamas as a category 3 hurricane and it is expected to move towards North Carolina by Saturday, after dumping 150-300mm of rain in the Bahamas, says to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm centre is, for now, expected to miss Florida and Georgia.

Irene is the first storm of the season, which is expected to have 7 to 10 hurricanes. Three to five of those, says meteorologists in Geneva, are likely to be major hurricanes.

Irene’s name was selected from one of six lists used to name Atlantic tropical storms. The lists were created in 1953 and are managed by a WMO committee. Only women’s names appeared until 1979, when men’s names were added. The names are used on a rotating basis, unless a storm is so deadly that it must be retired, the case with Katrina, which caused enormous damage in New Orelans in the US in 2005 and killed nearly 2,000 people.

Igor and Thomas were retired in 2010 after they caused deaths and heavy damage. They will be replaced on the official lists by Ian and Tobias, available in 2016.

Nasa called Irene a major storm Thursday 25 August, saying its length is about one-third the length of the US coastline.

The US Army Corp of Engineers lost a court case brought by six plaintiffs over damages from 2005 hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The judge ruled that the Army Corps for 40 years had not maintained a shipping channel between the city and the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in widespread flooding in two areas, Lower 9th Ward and St Bernard Parish. Five of the six were awarded damages from $100,000 to $350,000, but the ruling will now mean compensation for hundreds of others in the two districts.

Links to other sites: CNN, Times-Picayune, New Orleans