Storm surge warning system for P.E.I. expanding

The UPEI climate lab is expanding its storm surge warning system to include more tide gauges around the Island's shoreline, with at least two more to come.

The P.E.I. Storm Surge Early Warning System now includes information from monitoring stations in harbours at Tignish, Summerside, Souris and North Lake and has just added North Rustico.

Anyone can subscribe to the system, which sends an email when the water level reaches within 50 centimetres of the top of the wharf.

"I think it's very important for people to get instant warning messages so that they can take actionbefore some serious damages," said the system's creator, assistant Prof.Xander Wang, of the UPEI climate research lab.

"Before, I think people can only check some news or websites, but now they can receive their message automatically. So I think it makes a big difference for people and it makes it convenient for people to get well-prepared for a serious storm."

Frequent warnings for Tignish

Wang said subscribers can select which sites they want to receive a warning message for, if they want to monitor a particular location.

He said Tignish, in particular, has frequent warnings, while others have very few.

"In Tignish, the water level is so close to the wharf, but for other locations, such as Summerside and North Lake, you probably will not receive a warning message very often, depending on their location."

Wang said the monitoring stations were chosen because they are close to open water and have seen coastal flooding.

The information, he said, will also allow for more historical observation of sea levels in those locations.

"When we collect enough data, let's say 10 years or 30 years, then we are able to check if the sea level is rising or not, so this is our long-term objective for monitoring the water level," Wang said.

"We want to look into year by year and the seasonal variation but most importantly, we can look at the average change for the sea level."

North Shore monitoring

The Mi'kmaq Confederacy has also purchased two tidal gauges that will be added to the monitoring system when they are installed, at Lennox Island and Red Head Harbour, or Naufrage.

"The last number of years, it's only been one tide gaugein Charlottetown Harbour," said Randy Angus, who's with the Mi'kmaq Confederacy of Prince Edward Island.

"We're concerned about our First Nations' use of the wharfs in the North Shore of Prince Edward Island, for example Lennox Island and Milligan's Wharf or Naufrage, so we're interested in getting tidal information from the North Shore of P.E.I."

Angus said it's important not only to predict storm surge, but also to understand how the tide is changing.

"It first came to our attention in December 2010 when we had a major storm surge at Lennox Island, and that one actually took out half of the causeway and flooded out the wharf," Angus said.

"We realized that we didn't have any information on what was actually changing with the tides as the climate is changing."

Wang saidthe P.E.I. Emergency Measures Organization also receives warning messages from the climate lab's system.

EMO paid for the installation of the program's first four tide gauges.

More P.E.I. news