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STORY: GENEVA / HURRICANE HARVEY
TRT: 2:58
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATTS
DATELINE: 29 AUGUST 2017 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. Wide shot, press briefing room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO):
“From the perspective of the World Meteorological Organisation, what we can say is, it truly is a nightmare scenario, it has been unfolding for the past few days and it will continue to unfold for the next few days. Nightmare is as I said the word that we would use. The area affected is huge, just to give you some sort of context, it’s roughly the size of Spain, so we are talking about a very big area of the United States.”
5. Med shot, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO):
“What is particularly unusual and has had the biggest impact is, it is very slow moving, it is basically just sat on the coast, so it is not moving away as most tropical storms do. It is just sitting there, so the impact of rainfall is even greater.”
7. Wide shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO):
“What I think we can say is that the fact that we do have climate change, our atmosphere is warmer, it contains more moisture, it means that when we do have a hurricane, a tropical cyclone like this, then when an event does occur, then you know climate change does very likely increase the associated rainfall. But climate change per say does not cause tropical cyclones.”
9. Close up, cameraman
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO):
“It is certainly aggravating it that Houston is in a flood plain like many other areas. It is the reality of modern day development, there are more of us. We tend to live in urban areas on the coast, we do tend, we are all building in flood plains”.
11. Med shot, journalists
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Clare Nullis, Spokesperson, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO):
“Just the amount of urban development in the past few years have been phenomenal, so that means you have got roads, you have got pavements, the water cannot get away, you have got a lot of humans living there in that area. So there is those many many many different factors involved”.
13. Med shot, journalists
14. Wide shot, journalists
15. Med shot, journalists
16. Wide shot, journalists
17. Med shot, journalists
18. Close up, journalist
Catastrophic and life-threatening flooding continues in south-eastern Texas, due to unprecedented rainfall from tropical cyclone Harvey that hit Texas late Friday (25 Aug), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said today (29 Aug) in Geneva.
Speaking to journalists in the Swiss city, WMO’s spokesperson Clare Nullis said that the hurricane is truly a “nightmare scenario”, as it has been unfolding for the past few days and will continue to unfold for the next few days. She added that the area affected is as huge as roughly the size of Spain.
Additional heavy rainfall overnight is expected to worsen the flood situation in southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana, according to the US National Hurricane Centre.
Nullis said that Harvey is particularly unusual and has had the biggest impact because it is very slow moving. She added that the impact of the rainfall is greater because Harvey is not moving away as most tropical storms do.
Large parts of southeast Texas saw more than half a meter of rain since August 24. At least five people have lost their lives according to reports, many areas still remain inaccessible.
When an event like this occurs, it is likely that climate change significantly increases the associated rainfall. Nullis said “what I think we can say is that the fact that we do have climate change, our atmosphere is warmer, it contains more moisture, it means that when we do have a hurricane, a tropical cyclone like this, then when an event does occur, then you know climate change does very likely increase the associated rainfall. But climate change per say does not cause tropical cyclones.”
The category 4 cyclone Harvey is expected to be one of the costliest natural disasters in US history. Houston is the fourth largest city in the USA and a major transport, communications and industrial hub.
Nullis said “it is certainly aggravating that Houston is in a flood plain like many other areas. It is the reality of modern day development, there are more of us. We tend to live in urban areas on the coast, we do tend, we are all building in flood plains.”
She added “just the amount of urban development in the past few years have been phenomenal, so that means you have got roads, you have got pavements, the water cannot get away, you have got a lot of humans living there in that area. So there is those many many many different factors involved.”
Since 2005, three major storms and flooding events occurred in the US. They are Katrina in 2005, Sandy in 2012, and Harvey in 2017.
