SEARCH HINT OF THE MONTH

June 2007

Hurricane Preparedness

NOAA Hurricanes

Hurricane Preparedness Week 2007 took place last month (May 20-26) - like sands of the hourglass, so are the days leading to the next tropical storm. Recent history has confirmed what we already knew about hurricanes: that hurricane hazards do come in many forms - storm, high winds, tornadoes, and flooding. Do you have an adequate plan that includes all of these hazards?

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) teamed up with the U.S. Department of Commerce to bring you timely, accurate storm information, forecasting, as well as images, a history of previous hurricanes, dangers during a hurricane, and how a prepare. Let's try a couple of searches:

Search #1

• Logon to the 'Hurricanes' website at http://hurricanes.noaa.gov.
• Click Search on the top menu bar.
• Type your search term - "hurricane preparedness"; click Search.
• You'll retrieve many results; to shorten this list, click Hurricane Preparedness Week on the left-hand menu.
• Click the result - Hurricane Preparedness Week on the right-hand list.
• Voila! - feast your eyes on how you can secure your home, create a family disaster plan, pet plan, and compile a disaster supply kit.

Search #2 - En Español

• On the 'NOAA' search page (URL: http://www.noaa.gov/search.html), click Advanced Search.
• To find information in Spanish on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, type the phrase "saffir-simpson" under 'This exact phrase'; choose Spanish from the language drop-down menu; click Search.
• Click the result - La Escala Saffir/Simpson para Huracanes to read the description of a categoria cinco.

Note, to a specific phrase, use quotation marks around the phrase. For example: "atlantic hurricane tracking chart". Notice also that NOAA search ignores capital letters. Saffir-Simpson produces the same result as saffir-simpson or SafFir-SimpSOn.

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