By Fred Seely
Editorial Director
Beware the Ides of September, says TV-12/25 weatherman Tim Deegan.
“Don’t scheduled a closing for that date,” Deegan said at last month’s Sales and Marketing Council meeting. “Sept. 15 is the peak of hurricane season.
“And don’t fall for the myth that a hurricane can’t hit North Florida. It can. You need to think ‘This is the year’ and get ready. All it will take is one big blow and it’s life-changing. Just ask anyone from Louisiana or Mississippi.”
Deegan spent his 15 minutes filling the audience of about 225 with hurricane facts and figures. He said that this year’s forecasts will have an important addition.
“In the past, we’ve talked about the probability of a hurricane hitting but we really haven’t gotten into the probability of the wind speed.
“With all these trees around here, we can take a beating even if the hurricane doesn’t hit. So, you’ll hear forecasters telling you that there’s a certain percent chance of being hit by a hurricane but also you’ll get the percentage of being hit by 70 miles per hour winds and 50 mph winds.”
He defended his profession, admitting “that weather forecasting is an inexact science but it’s betting better. We take advantage of the new technology.
“When I got into the business in 1982, we had a margin of 125 miles when we were trying to predict the path of a hurricane in the next 24 hours. It was 450 miles for a three-day forecast and we didn’t even try a five-day forecast.
“Now, we can predict within 60 miles in a 24-hour period and under 200 for three days. We now do five days: under 300 miles.
“That still may seem like a lot but remember that a hurricane can cover 250-300 miles.”
He passed on good news, too.
“If you take the area likely to be hit - that’s from Brownsville, Tex. To Cape Cod, Mass. - and cut it into segments, the piece that we’re in, between Daytona and Brunswick - has the lowest frequency of being hit,” he said.
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SMC has a goal of 225 new members by September and sales teams are in place. All will be led by brokers with Watson’s team leader to be named. Mary Ann Eldreth will head the Coldwell Banker Walter Williams team, Amanda Dandy gets the Prudential Network Realty team and Linda McMorrow and Selby Kaiser will head the team made up of all other offices.
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The annual night at the Suns’ baseball game will be Aug. 22.