Senate disaster thread. Realities and Responses to the Force of Nature

Discuss the various realities that nature forces upon humanity, and how does modern soicety try and cope with them.

 

EDIT: Not worth it

 

So I suppose we should also fault everyone that lives in the midwest and tornado alley because tornadoes are frequent, so they're idiots for living there.

Same for California. It's right on a fault line. What sort of idiots would live there?

And in Egypt. It's all desert. Who'd want to live in a place like that?

 

You think innocent people deserve to die or be left homeless?

 

Tornado's occur more randomly.

With living below sea level/on a perenial flood plain (think all the 25-500 yr flood plains on the missisippi) you KNOW it WILL happen due to the laws of physics. Just not when.

EDIT: Not innocent, foolhardy.

 

If your house burns down it's your own fault for owning a toaster. You knew how dangerous it was and you still used it, didn't you?

In fact, you lived in a house too! You knew that houses can burn down, and you expected nothing to happen? Clearly you deserved it.

Edit: But just to clarify, people live in dangerous places all the time. In fact, try to think of an area in the world that's not prone to any kind of natural disaster or danger.

 

Im sure they didnt " deserve " it but you are 100 % correct that many people in New Orleans lived a life knowing full well that a flood ( or a fire in the French Quarter ) was much more of a case of " when " and not " if ". My aunt and uncle own a house on Royal St. in the Quarter and they were quite aware of it for over thirty years. My uncle actually told me a couple of years ago that it was quite frankly a miracle that New Orleans was not yet affected in a major way by a natural disaster. But to me its a shining example of not living in fear of what could happen but just living they wanted to, period. New Orleans is a great town and Im sure it will rebound.

 

Theres a differnce between could and would.


It could be lightning would strike me dead right now.
But if I live below sea level, it WOULD happen that eventualy something happend to balance out the water level.

edit

severian28, nice post. I just find stuff like this amusing, like whenever the missisippi floods and people act suprised, when in fact their area is a flood plain weather a 25 year one or a 500 year one

that means it WILL flood every so often there.

 

You should retitle the thread because there is actually a relevant and thoughtful argument in it and the title does not reflect it at all and will probably get the thread locked.

 

Again, it eventually will happen that there's a major earthquake in California. But is the chance that it will happen in the time you're living there enough that you shouldn't live there?

 

I might get hit by a car while walking on the sidewalk outside my house. Doesn't mean I should stay inside.

 

Louisiana to a very large extent is full of people who were born there. The original settlers came for the convenience of the location as a port city and commerce hub - easy access to the Gulf and all trade coming down the Mississippi river.

And once the city came into existence, there was no easy way of turning off the switch. Not even a catastrophe like the great Chicago fire can erase a city. Now that the catastrophe has happened, you can bet people will be eager to return and rebuild. Most people will see this catastrophe in the irrational way they view playing roulette. The ball landed on double green, so there's no way the ball will land on double green again anytime soon.

Probability doesn't work that way, but people hear the phrase "storm of the century" and they'll think: Katrina happened. Now we're safe for another century. So they'll come back and rebuild and it's not impossible that another category 5 hurricane could come along next year and hit New Orleans again.

By the way, I propose a new tourist slogan for the city:

Come for the Hurricanes. Stay for the looting.

 

My thoughts exactly , KnightWriter. Death is coming for you one way or another and I cant think of too many better ways to go then slammin down a hand grenade in Tropical Isle on Bourbon.


By the way, I propose a new tourist slogan for the city:

Come for the Hurricanes. Stay for the looting.


Im fairly certain that such activity would happen in any city in the world if such a calamity struck it.

 

It is somewhat of a gamble moving somewhere like that. I mean, I'd never voluntarily move to Florida because of all the hurricanes that happen. But sometimes people don't have a choice. They get sent there for work or grow up there and haven't moved.

This was a "foreseeable" disaster, but some people don't have the option of not living there to avoid it.

 

Nearly all aspects of life are calculated risks, it doesn't make it any less of a tragedy when the odds finally catch up with you.

Millions of people live below sea level in many parts of the world so of course they accept the risk that one day the sea will engulf them, and so they take the appropriate precautions, such as building levies (as they did in New Orleans).

We live and build and settle ourselves within a natural environment that is prone to environmental calamities, so unless you wish to live within a bubble or on the moon, you just have to accept those risks as the price of living.

 

It would probably be best to abandon Japan, India and the surrounding areas. After all, they have natural disasters there on a regular basis (far worse than anything we've dealt with).

 

Maybe we should just build a super dome with an artificial sun and all that stuff and all live inside that

 

Maybe that's why the Leader was ----ing around for so long before doing anything. They deserve it....

 

I vote that we jus all move off planet earth to another planet that does not have these problems. Now it's just finding said planet.

 

Although there are a few examples of how this thread could progress (LOH and Jabba's posts are good examples) I don't really think it looks like there is enough for a Senate thread here.

If there is enough interest, do you want to refocus this thread into a discussion about population centers and the impact that the environment has on them?

 

Disaster Zones
West Coast--Earthquakes galore
Midwest, South--Tornado Alley
Southeast--Hurricanes, Tornados
Northeast--Blizzards


That's what I love about living in southern New England, we never get anything!

 

West Coast--Earthquakes galore

I think "galore" is too strong a word. We get tremors pretty often, but the Big One, like Loma Prieta, happens every few decades.

 

Well it is kind of a mixed bag.

New Orleans' location is due to the Mississippi, and it's continued existence is thanks solely to the diligent work of the US Army Core of Engineers, who have pretty much been waging a war against Ma Nature for more than 50 years. Yet as diligent as the Engineers have been, Nature is a persistent mother. When they are just barely holding her back to begin with, a hurricane tips the scale further still. Unless they could repair and improve the entire levy system there's maybe one more flood before New Orleans is a loss.

If it weren't for all the chemical, petrochemical, metal, and shipping industry as well as infrastructure we'd have abandoned New Orleans and the surrounding parishes decades ago, but the loss of those investments is more than the US economy can comfortably swallow.

But considering that it's not 'if', but 'when' it might be wise to start establishing growth elsewhere. Calculated risk implies there is a chance something might not happen. What they are doing in New Orleans is betting that it won't happen until it's no longer their problem.