The first public advisory on what became Hurricane Polo was issued on September 20th at 3:00 pm Central Time, noting that a new tropical depression had developed and was “expected to produce rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches, with isolated maximum totals up to 12 inches”. 39 hours later, the public advisory issued on September 22nd at 6:00 am declared that the storm had reached Category 5 status. It’s not just a case of rapid intensification, it’s an extreme form of a rapid intensification -- an exception among exceptions -- and it’s a matter to be taken seriously.
■ There are lots of people who are aware of the news less often than once every 48 hours. Someone in those news habits might have missed the hurricane’s emergence altogether. If rapid intensification is here to stay (and it certainly looks like it is), then on top of all the steps that need to be taken for physical mitigation, we also need an upgrade to how we disseminate emergency information to a public that already largely rejects the citizen-responsibilities of classical news cycles.
■ For now, at least, the hurricane is supposed to menace mostly the open waters west of Mexico. But people are going to have to pay attention to this specific event until the storm loses momentum. We’re also going to need ways to harness psychology and other social sciences to zero in on ways to communicate urgent, authority-dependent messages to a public that wants to follow its own pace and not be told to check in every night at 10:00 for an update. If things can turn this far, this fast, then Nature is presenting a fairly new set of challenges that we ignore only at our own peril.