Hurricane Disaster Buzzword Explainer Released by the Global Language Monitor

San Diego, Calif. MetaNewswire. The Global Language Monitor (http://www.LanguageMonitor.com) in response to worldwide demand, has created this Hurricane Disaster Buzzword Explainer to help readers “understand the many buzzwords, acronyms, and odd turns of phrase that are being employed in relation to the Hurricane Katrina disaster as it unfolds,” said Paul JJ Payack, president of GLM.

GLM’s List is an ongoing compilation, updated daily; we welcome contributions from around the globe.

The current list with associated commentary follows:

·Acadians – French-speaking people who were expelled from Nova Scotia exactly 250 years ago and settled in the bayou. Subject of the epic poem, Evangeline, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. See Cajun.

·Army Corps of Engineers – The USACE is responsible for investigating, developing and maintaining the nation's water and related environmental resources.

·Astrodome – The first enclosed stadium in the US; refugees from the Superdome will be transported 350 miles to the Astrodome.

·Bayou – The area of swamp and marshlands surrounding New Orleans; home of Cajun Culture.

·Big Easy – The nickname for the city of New Orleans, from the laidback lifestyle one finds there.

·Breach – Sudden overpowering of a levee, or a floodwall, that allows water to seep or rush in.

·Cajun – Literally, Louisianan who descends from French-speaking Acadians, who in 1755 were expelled from Nova Scotia.

·Category – The intensity of a hurricane using various measurements including velocity of sustained wind. Category ranged from 1 (weakest) to 5 (strongest). Katrina peaked at Category 4+.

·Climate Change – The warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to natural cycles (politically sensitive; believed to be primarily outside the control of man.) See Global Warming.

·Creole – Derives from the Latin creare, meaning "to create." By the nineteenth century, black, white, and mixed-race Louisianans used the term to distinguish themselves from foreign-born and Anglo-American settlers.

·Cyclone – A developing tropical storm, rotating counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Often
confused with but NOT a tornado.

·Eye – The center of the hurricane where the skies are clear and the wind is nearly calm.

·FEMA – Federal Emergency Management Agency, branch of the US Homeland Security Department. FEMA coordinates the US Federal government’s response to national disasters.

·Floating casinos – Casinos located along the Mississippi coast bringing an annual average revenue of $2.7 billion a year to that state.

·Flood control –The building of levees, pumping stations, sea walls, etc. to keep a city safe from flooding.

·Flood Stage – The point at which a rising a river or tide becomes a flood.

·Flood Wall – Narrow, steel and concrete barrier erected to keep the Mississippi River out of New Orleans.

·French Quarter – The original living area of the city, now known for Jazz, Cajun cuisine, and Carnival. Located at the highest point of the city.

·Global Warming – In theory, the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere caused primarily by human use of fossil fuels (Politically sensitive; believed to be primarily in the control of man.) See Climate Change.

·Hurricane – A tropical cyclone with a sustained surface wind is 74 mph (118 kmh) or more. A hurricane is called a ‘typhoon’ in the Pacific Ocean.

·Hurricane names – Hurricanes have been named since 1953. Currently, the World Meteorological Organization maintains the alphabetically sorted list of alternating men’s and women’s names. The list was exclusively female until 1979. Names are recycled every 6 years. Influential hurricanes have their names retired.

·Hurricane Scale – See Categories.

·Hurricane Season – The hurricane season in the Atlantic runs from June 1 to November 30; in the Eastern Pacific, the season begins on May 15 and ends on November 30.

·Isobar – Isobars around a cyclone are lines on a map that signify the same barometric pressure.

·Katrina – The 11th tropical storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.

·Knot – Wind speed equal to 1.15 Miles Per Hour (MPH) or 1.9 Kilometers Per Hour (KM/HR).

·Lake Pontchatrain – Actually, an arm of the sea that borders on New Orleans. Lake Pontchatrain is half the size of the state of Rhode Island.

·Levee – Colossal earthen barriers erected to keep water out of the city. Once breached, levees hinder relief efforts by holding the water inside the city. New Orleans has 350 miles of hurricane levees; they were built to withstand a fast-moving Category 3 storm. Katrina was a Category 4+ storm.

·National Guard – Military units organized at the state level to protect the citizens of an individual state.

·Norlins – Local pronunciation of the name of the city of New Orleans.

·Public Health Emergency – Cholera and typhoid are among the concerns caused by contaminated water.

·Pumping Stations – Massive, old and efficient pump houses that would keep any seepage out of New Orleans.

·Recovery – To recover the dead after search and rescue operations are complete.

·Relief and Response Effort – To provide food, medical supplies and shelter to refuges of a disaster.

·Saffir-Simpson Scale – Used to give an estimate of potential damage and flooding along the coast. Wind speed is the determining factor in the scale. See Category.

·Sandbag –Three- to twenty-thousand thousand pound burlap-type containers dropped from Chinook helicopters to plug breaches in levee.

·Search and Rescue – To search for survivors.

·Storm Surge – Sudden rising of the sea over its usual level, preceding the arrival of a hurricane. The thirty-foot surge on the Mississippi coastline was the highest ever recorded for North America.

·Superdome – Home to the New Orleans Saints football team, the Sugar Bowl and numerous professional football championships (Super Bowls).

·Tropical Depression – An area of intense thunderstorms becomes organized into a cyclone. Maximum sustained winds reach 34 knots. There is at least one 'closed' isobar with a decrease in barometric pressure in the center of the storm.

·Tropical Storm – Sustained wind speeds increase to up to 64 knots and the storm begins to look like a hurricane.

·Vertical evac – Vertical evacuation, taking refuge in the top floors of a high-rise building. In this case, this type of evacuation often proved fatal.

To contribute to the List and for more information, go to www.LanguageMonitor.com or call 1.925.367.7557.

About the Global Language Monitor

California-based Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture. A worldwide assemblage of linguists, professional wordsmiths and bibliophiles, supports the GLM to help monitor the latest trends in the evolution (and demise) of language, word usage and word choices.

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