Professor Jonathan Martin chairs the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UW Madison. He’s closely watching the development of Hurricane Irene. “This storm seems destined to affect areas of the eastern United States that, though historically they’ve been subject to visitations by severe hurricanes, it’s been a long while since that’s happened,” said Martin. His best advice is for everyone to monitor the situation closely, something that technology has made much simpler since the last major hurricane struck the region some twenty years ago. And with major population centers including Virginia Beach, Atlantic City, New York, Boston and Providence in the path of Irene, Martin says damage could conceivably be in the tens of billions of dollars.
