Posted on 09/04/2005 6:57:45 PM PDT by Brian328i
The dead and the desperate of New Orleans now join the farmers of Aceh and the fishermen of Trincomalee, villagers in Iran and the slum dwellers of Haiti in a world being dealt ever more punishing blows by natural disasters.
It's a world where Americans can learn from even the poorest nations, experts say, and where they should learn not to build future settlements like the drowned old metropolis on the Mississippi.
The levees in New Orleans inspired a false sense of security, says Dennis S. Miletti, a leading scholar on disaster prevention.
"We rely on technology and we end up thinking as human beings that we're totally safe, and we're not," said Miletti, of the University of Colorado. "The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet."
By one critical measure, the impact on populations, statistics show the planet to be increasingly unsafe. More than 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003, a 60 percent increase over the previous two 10-year periods, U.N. officials reported at a conference on disaster prevention in January.
Those numbers don't include millions displaced by last December's tsunami, which killed an estimated 180,000 people as its monstrous waves swept over coastlines from Indonesia's Aceh province to Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, and beyond.
By another measure - property damage - 2004 was the costliest year on record for global insurers, who paid out more than $40 billion on natural disasters, reports German insurance giant Munich Re. Florida's quartet of 2004 hurricanes was the big factor.
But generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way, said Thomas Loster, a Munich Re expert. "More and more people are being hit," he said.
In the 1970s, only 11 percent of earthquakes affected human settlements, researchers at Belgium's University of Louvain report. That soared to 31 percent in 1993-2003, including a quake in 2003 that killed 26,000 people in Iran, whose population has doubled since the '70s.
The expanding U.S. population "has migrated to hazard-prone areas - to Florida, the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, particularly barrier islands, to California," noted retired U.S. government seismologist Robert M. Hamilton, a disaster-prevention specialist. "Several decades ago we didn't have wall-to-wall houses down the coast as we do now."
The way America builds too often invites disasters, experts say - by draining Florida swampland and bulldozing California hillsides, for example, disrupting natural runoff and magnifying flood hazards.
"We're building our communities in ways that aren't compatible with the natural perils we have," Miletti said.
The more advanced the nations, the bigger the blow may be.
Terry Jeggle, a U.N. disaster-reduction planner, cites the New Orleans levee system - dependent on pumps that run on electricity produced by fuel that must be transported in. One failure will lead to another along that chain.
"Complex systems invite compounding of complexity in consequences, too," said the Geneva-based Jeggle.
Experts fear more is to come.
The scientific consensus expects global warming to intensify storms, floods, heat waves and drought. Climatologists are still researching whether climate change has already strengthened hurricanes, whose energy is drawn from warm ocean waters, or whether the Atlantic Basin and Gulf are witnessing only a cyclical upsurge in intense storms. Computer models of climate change in the decades to come point to more devastating Category 5 storms.
The prospect of more vulnerable populations on a more turbulent Earth has U.N. officials and other advocates pressuring governments to plan and prepare. They cite examples of poorer nations that in ways do a better job than the rich:
_No one was reported killed when Ivan struck Cuba in 2004, its worst hurricane in 50 years and a storm that, after weakening, killed 25 people in the United States. Cuba's warning-evacuation system is minutely planned, even down to neighborhood workers keeping updated charts on which residents need help during evacuations.
_Along Bangladesh's cyclone coast, 33,000 well-organized volunteers stand ready to shepherd neighbors to raised concrete shelters at the approach of one of the Bay of Bengal's vicious storms.
_In 2002, Jamaica conducted a full-scale evacuation rehearsal in a low-lying suburb of coastal Kingston, and fine-tuned plans afterward. When Ivan's 20-foot surge destroyed hundreds of homes two years later, only eight people died. Ordinary Jamaicans also are taught search-and-rescue methods and towns at risk have trained flood-alert teams.
Like many around the world, Barbara Carby, Jamaica's disaster coordinator, watched in disbelief as catastrophe unfolded on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"We always have resource constraints," she said. "That's not a problem the U.S. has. But because they have the resources, they may not pay enough attention to preparedness and awareness, and to educating the public how to help themselves."
I don't doubt that Cuba has a better evacuation system, and does not rely on levees to stay above sea level. N.O. was always living on borrowed times. I hope as a result of this mess that N.O. brings in 10-12 feet of fill before rebuilding the city. Additionally the City needs a protective "barrier" to absorbe the energy of the storm surge several miles from the city. Picture a major sea wall out in Lake Ponchartrain. (A bonus would be that all the infrastructure would be new and inspected, and the pumps would no longer be needed.) Then like Cuba, N.O. would be up to the task of weathering storms.
I do doubt the gratuitous insinuation that global warming will bring more storms or more intense storms. Both these "facts" are not borne out even by environmental "scientists". The truth is that hurricanes do tend to come in cycles, but we have had terrible storms born over relatively cool water. (I know it does take warm water to get them started, but the sea temperature this year is not so different from last year, and last year was a cool summer with a record number of storms. Credible scientists still question the global warming scam and weather scientists deny the correlation between severe storms and global warming.
Commerce throughout the country depends on having a port facility at the mouth of the Mississipi, which is the only efficient way to transport grain and other bulk goods as well as oil. If you have a port that size (it is the largest port in the world) then you need housing for the workers. Probably New Orleans could have been better designed, but some sort of city is necessary in that area.
It's called the why Cuba is better than us story. If the MSM thinks Cuba is SO great, perhaps they should all go down there.
I'd imagine the % of people living in NO directly working for the port or even working for businesses supporting businesses that support the port is shockingly small.
Agree. One correction though its the largest port in America, 5th largest in the world.
New Orleans, Louisiana, and our Corp of Engineers should consult the Dutch on levee construction. Quite an impressive system they have over there.
An excellent quote from the article:
Like many around the world, Barbara Carby, Jamaica's disaster coordinator, watched in disbelief as catastrophe unfolded on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"We always have resource constraints," she said. "That's not a problem the U.S. has. But because they have the resources, they may not pay enough attention to preparedness and awareness, and to educating the public how to help themselves."
The problem with climatology is that we don't have enough recorded-by-man infomation on hand to determine patterns of climate. Most of the info on climate further back than a couple hundred years is through fossil and geologic records. Sediment can show past floods, tree rings can be used to get a general idea of temperature and precipitation, fossils can show ice ages but there is no way to determine storm tracks. What recorded information there is , is often skecthy because if there is no-one around to record it, there is no way of knowing that an event actually happened. The few years we've been recording this is not enough to establish any patterns. It's hard enogh to predict next weeks weather much less years in advance. After all, it was only 30 short years ago that we were heading into the next ice age.
I won't waste time pointing out all the foolish misinformation in this comment. Suffice it to say the Lake Ponchartrain is on the north side of the city, the Gulf of Mexico is to the south with miles of marsh land in between. Back to the drawing board.
I thought we were decended from apes, and not created. That makes us part of nature.
I wish the left would be consistent.
"Experts fear more is to come.
The scientific consensus expects global warming to intensify storms, floods, heat waves and drought. "
I call BS !
Coast's on & continents and multiple islands.
Coasts along all major rivers.
Fault lines in the ring of fire, San Andreas, New Madrid.
Volcano's on every continent.
Monsoons, Droughts, Tidal Waves, tornado's.
Gee, I guess being alive is a risk.
The earth has room for 7 people in Canada.
Thanks for the enlightnment. It was Lake Ponchartrain that felled the levy with a storm surge was it not? Or did I miss the Mississippi flooding?
Common, point out the other foolish things in my post.
Agreed. I saw that in a recent article, but I should have been more sceptical. A Google search puts Singapore first, Shanghai second.
If you insist but I warned you.
I don't doubt that Cuba has a better evacuation system, and does not rely on levees to stay above sea level.
Do you know what sea level is? Levees don't keep things at or above sea level, they keep the sea out of things that are below sea level. That is why you suggested that landfill be brought in to raise the level of N.O., to bring it up to sea level or more.
N.O. was always living on borrowed times. I hope as a result of this mess that N.O. brings in 10-12 feet of fill before rebuilding the city.
I guess that is possible but it would be a gigantic project that probably would not last very long. Where would you get the landfill? You can't get it from anywhere close by because the water table is too close to the surface. You wouldn't get more than a foot or two and you would hit water. Any where else would mean a long, expensive haul. In addition, everything in N.O. would first have to be leveled and graded smooth before landfill was brought in. What about the historic areas like the French Quarter where the pirate Jean Lafitte supposedly was a regular at The Olde Absinthe House, Jackson Square, the St. Louis Cathedral where some of the oldest structures in the USA are, St. Louis Cemetery, one of the oldest in the country, etc.? Are you going to destroy those?
Additionally the City needs a protective "barrier" to absorbe the energy of the storm surge several miles from the city.
The barrier to absorb the shock of a hurricane would have to be south of N.O. between it and the Gulf. That would be the much talked about reestablishment of the wetlands supposedly destroyed by the canals dredged by the oil companies in order to drill for, find, and produce oil and gas. It is one of the main producers of oil and gas in the country. Are you going to shut all that down?
Picture a major sea wall out in Lake Pontchartrain. (A bonus would be that all the infrastructure would be new and inspected, and the pumps would no longer be needed.) Then like Cuba, N.O. would be up to the task of weathering storms.
A major sea wall in Lake Pontchartrain would do nothing, zero, nada, zilch, except become a boating hazard or large detour for the boating traffic. The lake is to the north of the city, with the city being between it and any storm surge.
The levee separating N.O. and Lake Pontchartrain did breach and it did breach because the surge into Lake Pontchartrain raised the water level, and therefore the pressure, on a levee that was not built to withstand that.
The levee is there because for years N.O. has been sinking, or subsiding, and it is a combination of natural phenomena and the pumping of water from wells to supply the city and industry with the large amounts of water they need. The subsidence is likely to continue.
Some have said it was stupid to build a city below sea level. The stupidity is their lack of knowledge. Who would actually build a city below sea level? In fact in that area, who could build a city below sea level?
The city was officially founded in 1718 by the French. The spot was picked because of its location on high ground in an area that was frequently flooded by the Mississippi. That high ground was above the flood waters. Over the years the land has subsided primarily due to water pumping and that has accelerated since the levees were built in the early 20th century, around 1927 was when they were started. With the levees the river no longer brings in silt to overcome the subsidence. That is the major reason the marshes south of N.O. are disappearing also, equal to or greater than the drainage caused by the oil canals.
I hope this is helpful. If I were to post only about things I knew about I would say little. Don't let me discourage you.
I can think of a couple more:
1. Get FEMA out of the flood insurance business. If it can't be placed privately it can't be placed.
2. Get the government out of the crop insurance business, if it washes away, don't plant there again.
3. Remember that The Good Book advises against building houses on sand.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.