As Tropical Storm Marco is expected to make landfall today on the coast of Louisiana, reports indicate Tropical Storm Laura is expected to strengthen to a hurricane before it makes landfall on the Gulf Coast late Wednesday or early Thursday.
These unprecedented back-to-back storms are forcing evacuations, and may cause widespread damage, business interruption, and travel disruption for a large part of the region for days and weeks to come. “There's never been anything like this before where you could have possibly two hurricanes hitting within miles of each other over a 48-hour period,” one meteorologist says.
At the same time, Northern California is dealing with deadly wildfires that have already burned more than one million acres with no end in sight. The LNU Lightning Complex Fire in the northern Bay Area and Central Valley, and the SCU Lightning Complex Fire largely east of San Jose, are among the state’s three largest wildfires in recorded history.
Blank Rome’s interdisciplinary Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Team (“SWERT”) has developed the following resources for those in the path of the storms and the wildfires, or with business interests in the affected regions, which we encourage you to share with your contacts via e-mail and/or social media:
