Free Republic

Explaining disasters While the loss of life stemming from tragedies is heartbreaking, we can’t fully understand God’s plan Msgr. Charles Pope May 29, 2016 Question: Given God’s mercy, how do we explain devastating earthquakes and other natural disasters? It certainly tests our faith!— Gerald Olesen, Fortuna, California Answer: Part of the answer we must accept is that we cannot really know the full answer since there is so much we don’t see or understand. This was the basic answer God gave Job, who asked the meaning of suffering in his own life. In effect, God challenged Job to explain...

Ten years ago, for the 40th anniversary of the Dec. 14, 1963 Baldwin Hills Dam collapse, Los Angeles Times staff writer Bob Pool reported: The Baldwin Hills Dam collapsed with the fury of a thousand cloudbursts, sending a 50-foot wall of water down Cloverdale Avenue and slamming into homes and cars on Dec. 14, 1963. Five people were killed. Sixty-five hillside houses were ripped apart, and 210 homes and apartments were damaged. The flood swept northward in a V-shaped path roughly bounded by La Brea Avenue and Jefferson and La Cienega boulevards. The earthen dam that created a 19-acre reservoir...

Warning: readers are advised to hide the sharp objects before viewing the clip of Morning Joe's review of the Middle East today. The picture painted is one of the utter failure of US foreign policy, leaving a devastated, deadly region in its woeful wake. We open with President Obama's "mission accomplished" moment from last year in which he called US policy in Yemen "successful." Cut to Jim Miklaszewski saying that the White House had to order US special forces out of the country, leaving us with absolutely no leverage. Then to Iraq, where two experts say Iraq as a country...

On the fourth anniversary of the tsunami that resulted in the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Reactors we pause to take stock of the ruins and mark how the Earth reclaims the remains. Before the tsumani on March 11, 2011, this land was farmland. After three years of pumping, this lake was drained, but it is unlikely to ever be fertile again because of the brackish water. While the tsunami was caused by seismic activity, rising global sea levels will make future disasters like tsumanis and hurricanes all the more dangerous.

Below, we demonstrate that the U.S. keeps “losing” war after war. There are 3 potential reasons this might be happening: •Is this chaos an intentional way to implement regime change and grab resources? •Or is this a sign of the decline of the American empire … and we just can’t win a war anymore? •Or do those in charge just not really give a damn about winning … and are they just focusing on one short-term goal after another?

President Obama is doing his victory dance, telling us how his health care plan has become a success because his more than his targeted number (8 million) clicked their desire to have health insurance on a website. We will soon see how many are real policyholders, and later we will see their real costs as everything shakes out with co-pays and renewals next year. What we do know is that Medicaid is a pending disaster waiting to happen. When the Obamacare registration period started we were regularly hearing about all those new Medicaid sign-ups. Then we did not hear about...

All of a sudden, the Ring of Fire is starting to tremble violently. Last month, we had a whole bunch of major earthquakes along the Ring of Fire, and this month volcanoes all over the Ring of Fire are erupting. Of course, there has always been seismic activity within this giant band that stretches around the Pacific Ocean. After all, approximately 75 percent of all volcanoes are located in the Ring of Fire and approximately 90 percent of all global earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire. But what is alarming is that the level of activity appears to be...

Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, has analyzed the disaster potential for 616 of the world’s largest cities (PDF). Each city is ranked according to its potential for earthquakes, storms, storm surges, tsunamis, and river floods. For each type of disaster, Swiss Re devised an extreme weather scenario in which defenses fail and the human and economic toll can be enormous. Further, each city was ranked based on the effect each scenario would have on its residents by combining population-distribution data and vulnerability estimates for each disaster. The scenarios consider fatalities, injuries, evacuations, those whose homes would be damaged or destroyed, and those who...

Everyone is focusing on Obamacare because it is such an obvious disaster, but in fact, it is but a microcosm of Barack Obama's entire presidency. Obamacare is Obama unmasked. Aren't some of you tired of making lame excuses for him that only serve to make things worse? He has made a mess of nearly everything his policies have touched, and he's mostly avoided the blame; but he owns Obamacare, and he has nowhere to hide. When someone with the influence Obama enjoyed upon first taking office sets out to fundamentally transform the nation -- and he has the unqualified support...

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One of the largest concerns during a disaster situation is when to leave. Hurricanes, floods, chemical leaks, societal breakdowns and terrorist attacks – all cause major evacuation disruptions in urban areas when too many people are trying to flee at the same time. We have seen this with such disasters as 9-1-1, Hurricane Katrina, and evacuations from mass wildfires. While it is important to listen and keep up to date on the current status of a disaster, as a societal whole, we have placed far too much emphasis on the government telling us when the appropriate time to evacuate is....

In an emergency evacuation, there will always be people who stay behind to protect their personal belongings. People who ignored evacuation warnings had to be rescued and some lost their lives in one of the worst storms in the history of natural disasters in the United States.The biggest challenges were hunger and cold because of electrical outages. More than 8.1 million homes and businesses lost power.In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, city leaders across the country are asking how their city would respond to a similar disaster and examining their preparedness and self-reliance needs. Sandy would have resulted in much...

It’s been two weeks since Hurricane Sandy killed 113 people, wiped out portions of towns, and knocked out power to millions. It has also been two weeks since Barack Obama pledged, “No bureaucracy. No red tape.” However, according to multiple public and private sources, unions and union-related red tape are causing workers from out of state to be turned back, as well as workers contracted by FEMA, as well as tons of supplies, already in New York and New Jersey to sit idle—at a cost of millions to taxpayers. It has already been well publicized though the Daily Caller how...

While three monthsÂ’ worth of preparedness may seem like a long time, history confirms that it takes a combination of only a few emergencies for things like power, water and health services to be overloaded and run-down for weeks on end.For instance, New Orleans is still being rebuilt years later, and Japan was still cleaning up their nuclear meltdown more than six months after the tsunami. Should a severe snowstorm or forest fire cut you off from the grid, it certainly has the potential to last longer than a week. Thus, as you progress in your preparedness lifestyle, you will...

James Yeager: Hurricane Sandy aftermath is ‘medieval’ by Frank Sharpe Fortress Defense Consultants James Yeager of Tactical Response just sent this note out: “I am getting reports from my Alumni in NY. Things are BAD. The news is under-reporting the violence. Shooting and home invasions are rampant. My Law Enforcement Alumni are telling me it is like a 3rd world country… Medieval. They say this will make Katrina look like a day at Disney.” http://theintelhub.com/2012/11/02/shock-72-hours-after-grid-down-starvation-supply-shortages-food-lines-no-clean-water-no-gas-transportation-standstill/ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/02/tensions-boil-over-at-gas-stations-as-pumps-run-dry-in-wake-sandy/ This may or may not be as bad as it sounds. Doesn’t matter as nothing lasts forever. But this should serve as a warning...

Hundreds of evacuees in southern New Mexico on Wednesday stillweren't sure whether their homes were among the 224 destroyed by a wildfire near the town of Ruidoso. Fire officials broke the news to evacuees Tuesday night, but emphasized that while crews had surveyed the destroyed properties they had no exact locations to share just yet.

Scientists at Uppsala University have found that the widespread belief that women and children are saved first in maritime disasters is a myth, unless the men are threatened with physical violence like on the Titanic. “It is expected that the crew should rescue passengers, but our results show that captains and crew are more likely to survive than passengers,” said Mikael Elinder at the Department of Economics, Uppsala University and at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in a statement. “We also found that women and children were more inclined to die than men.” This, the scientists think, indicates...

You may have seen headlines like this scary one in USA Today: “Experts say global warming is causing stronger hurricanes” What’s the science behind that? Not much, it turns out. In fact, . . .

GENEVA (AP) -- A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment. NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for "potentially devastating effects." Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits. Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that "it...

Tornadoes continue to be in the news.  Two headlines screamed from the printed version of the Des Moines Register two weeks ago, after a huge swath of tornadoes devastated the town of Mapleton and surrounding area, without a soul being killed.  One gave credit to “being lucky”, the other cited “somebody” looking out for the townsfolk during the twister.  Monona County Sheriff was able to give credit to both in one sentence: "I believe in the good Lord, and he saved this town," Pratt said. "We were very lucky."  Pratt also rightly gave glory to the grace of God:  "Last...