From: Nigel.Allen@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Nigel Allen)
Subject: NOVA Captures Hurricane Andrew in Progress
Organization: Echo Beach
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 11:10:19 GMT

Here is a press release from WGBH-TV.

 NOVA Captures Hurricane Andrew in Progress
 To: National Desk, Television Writer
 Contact:  Angela Lifsey, 617-492-2777 ext. 4367,
           or Johanna Baker, 212-708-3022
           both for WGBH-TV

   BOSTON, Sept. 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Dramatic new footage of
Hurricane Andrew's path of destruction through Homestead, Fla.,
provides a timely update to NOVA's encore broadcast of "Hurricane!"
airing Tuesday, Sept., 15 at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).
   Defying the evacuation order, hurricane hunters Emmett Williams
and Guinevere Ross of Asheville, N.C., checked themselves
into a Homestead motel of concrete construction to capture the storm
with their home video equipment for NOVA.
   Their footage gives an eyewitness account of the fury of Andrew as
it hit Florida and grew in intensity which was contrary to the
National Hurricane Center's prediction (that) the winds would
diminish with landfall.
   Over 130 miles an hour winds caused transformers to explode,
houses to crumble and eventually forced Williams and Ross to seek
refuge in their motel bathroom as the storm passed through Homestead.
As the program will show, their camera also recorded the terrible
devastation created by Hurricane Andrew which left most people with
little choice but begin to rebuild their homes and their lives.
   NOVA then accompanies scientist Hugh Willoughby on a September
1988 data-gathering flight into the eye of Hurricane Gilbert to
pinpoint the center of the storm and measure winds and other
conditions -- something satellites cannot do.  NOVA obtained
spectacular footage of Gilbert's center -- a canyon of clear blue sky
surrounded by a wall of clouds 10 miles high.
   Gilbert was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the
Atlantic region, with winds approaching 200 miles per hour.  The
storm caused an estimated $5 billion in damage and killed more than
300 people.
   The information gathered on flights like Willoughby's is fed to
the National Hurricane Center in Miami, where forecasts are made of
the hurricane's intensity and probable path.
   Although forecasting has improved greatly since the days when
hurricanes hit land with almost no warning, the storms remain
notoriously unpredictable.  Because of the expense of an evacuation
-- not to mention the danger of crying wolf too often -- scientists
would like to sharpen their predictions.
   But forecasting is not all.  "Even if we could issue the perfect
forecast," says Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane
Center, "it does no good unless you motivate people to take the right
action." Unfortunately, some people never will.  NOVA interviews
survivors of Hurricane Camille, the most devastating storm ever to
strike the United States, which blasted the Gulf Coast of Mississippi
in 1969.  One woman tells of ignoring warnings to evacuate in
order to attend a "hurricane party." Of the 25 people at the party,
only she survived.
   In the United States, coastal populations are more vulnerable than
ever to a hurricane disaster.  Communities are rapidly expanding onto
beaches and barrier islands, in spite of the danger.
  Many places, such as Key West, are accessible only along a single
causeway that easily could be flooded, cutting off evacuation routes
in an emergency.
   NOVA, the award-winning weekly science documentary series, is
produced for PBS by the WGBH Science Unit and is made possible by
grants from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, Lockheed, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.
NOVA is closed captioned at WGBH by The Caption Center.
   "Hurricane!" producers Thomas Lucas and Larry Engel of Cineworks
Inc. chased another type of storm for "Tornado!," which aired on NOVA
in 1985.
   The director of the WGBH Science Unit and executive producer of
NOVA is Paula Apsell.
 -30-

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Newsgroups: alt.hurricane.andrew