Natural Hazards

Early in the morning on April 7th thousands of tonnes and ice blanketed the Gayari army base in Pakistan.  There is no longer any reminisce of the base that had been there since 1988.  The avalanche carried boulders that were 30 meters wide and 20 meters tall.  What remains of the camp and its inhabitant is buried under 200ft of rock and ice.  For the last two weeks the Pakistan army has been working to search for the 129 soldiers and 11 civilians that were there the night of the avalanche.  The site of the base was regarded as low risk area for landslides and avalanches.

Throughout the decades of conflict between India and Pakistan conflicts have been waged high up in the mountains of the Kashmir.  Though this recent development has prompted talk of abandoning such treacherous battlegrounds. Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani believes that in light of recent events it might be time to negotiate with India about the issue.  Whether anything comes from this or not is hard to speculate.  It is very interesting to see how natural hazards can even have an effect on diplomacy between two countries.

http://beta.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/pakistan-avalanche-desolation_2012-04-19

Alex

Here’s an innovative earthquake mitigation. The local government in Mexico City created an app for the Blackberry that alerts people about a minute and a half before an earthquake hits the city. There is generally that much time because the earthquakes usually occur a couple hundred miles away this  They already have a warning system in place, but there are many people that are not close enough to hear the warning. They may try to make this kind of app for other devices as well.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2012/04/earthquake-warnings-mexico-city

A recent poll was released Wednesday by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.  The poll showed that a majority of Americans believe that recent extreme weather events have been made worse by global warming.  Some of the numbers include:

• 82 percent of Americans report that they personally experienced one or more types of extreme weather or a natural disaster in the past year;

• 35 percent of all Americans report that they were personally harmed either a great deal or a moderate amount by one or more of these extreme weather events in the past year;

• By a margin of over 2 to 1 (52% vs. 22%) Americans say the weather in the U.S. has been getting worse — rather than better — over the past several years;

• A large majority of Americans believe that global warming made several high profile extreme weather events worse, including:
  • The unusually warm winter of December 2011 and January 2012 (72%)
  • Record high summer temperatures in the U.S. in 2011 (70%)
  • The drought in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 (69%)
  • Record snowfall in the U.S. in 2010 and 2011 (61%)
  • The Mississippi River floods in the spring of 2011 (63%)
  • Hurricane Irene (59%)
• Only 36 percent of Americans have a disaster emergency plan that all members of their family know about or an emergency supply kit in their home (37%).

These numbers really jump out to me.  The fact they are so high, especially 82% who say they have been affected in the last year is incredible.  Although the poll does raise some questions.  When answering what did the people polled consider extreme weather?  Just a snow storm or was there some sort of scale that indicated weather an event was or wasn’t extreme.  It would also be interesting to see how they took this poll to see if there are any biases.  Even so it’s feedback is quite convincing.  Global warming and its possible effects are certainly on the populations mind.

http://beta.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/global-warming-poll_2012-04-18

Alex

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/cardboard-cathedral-new-zealand-city

In New Zealand, at the site of a cathedral that was torn down after it sustained serious earthquake damage, plans are in place to build a temporary structure.  It will be a cathedral made of cardboard that will last about 70 years.  The area, as the article says, is increasingly a place for temporary structures.  It seems that it mostly makes sense to build such structures in places that once had buildings of sentimental or  historical value, but it’s certainly an interesting concept.

There was a story on the news tonight about the flood that occurred in Georgetown, D.C. on  this day last year, April 18th, 2011. I was interested in this story because of how the waterfront area has been affected since the flood. The particular area where floodgates had not been activated has not yet reopened and there are now new owners of the area hoping to do something with the space that will bring back popular business.

It was shocking to hear that the flood gates where not up to prevent flooding. For that reason the whole place was ruined and has not been the same since. The water in the Potomac River had been high due to heavy rain during the weekend. If the owners had been aware of this forecast one would assume that this hazard could have been avoided. It was reported that some parking garages, streets, and restaurants had been  flooded.

Source:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-Flooding-on-Georgetown-Waterfront-120062719.html

Last week the midwest was hit hard with an above average amount of tornadoes. Many states such as, Oklahoma,  Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas were issued with warnings for severe and highly dangerous tornadoes by The National Weather Service. These types of warnings proved to be exactly what was needed based on the low numbers in deaths and injuries.

The biggest concern for forecasters and state workers was the idea that people who were not affected by the storms would not react to any future warnings of tornadoes that could be as or even more severe. This is an issue we have discussed in class and it is an accurate concept that could potentially be very problematic. The recent high risk warning that was issued seemed to have been very successful, this may be due to the fact that a warning of this severity had not been issued for over 5 years.

People should always be prepared to utilize any and all measures of safety in the case of a tornado. This is especially true if you live in areas that are prone to these types of natural disasters. Ignorance to these types of events should be non-existent considering our high level of communication and hopefully proper education.

Source:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/could-better-tornado-warnings-cause-complacency_2012-04-17

“When lightning struck Osceola National Forest’s Pinhook Swamp on April 5, 2012, it hit vegetation primed for wildfire”

In Florida this month there is a massive wildfire that came to be know as the County Line Fire. Code Red and Code Purple air quality alerts were reportedly sent out to residents closest to the blaze. Jacksonville has been affected the most.

“The County Line Fire has proven difficult to contain because it is burning vegetation below the surface. On April 13th, authorities considered the fire 50 percent contained; they expect it will be completely contained by April 16th.”

As of April 12th the fire destroyed 34,936 acres of land.

As of April 18 I can’t find any information telling me if the projected containment date was successful.

You can read the articles here and here

Over the past week there have been flash floods in several locations in Saudi Arabia. A total of 18 people died. The authorities released an advisory to let the public know about the dangers of flooding. They told the public to avoid crossing flooded areas with vehicles. They also mentioned that they would not be able to do helicopter rescues during heavy rainfall or high wind conditions.

There is not a whole lot to the article, but there are several pictures of the floods on this website. Two pictures in particular caught my eye. One of them was a picture of piled cars after the water receded. The other was a picture of a road that was eroded during the flood.

Here’s the website

http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/saudi-arabia-flash-floods-kills-18-in-different-parts-of-the

https://naturalhazardsnews.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/un-60-of-urban-areas-exposed-to-natural-disasters/

This article caught my eye because it is about a topic that I hadn’t given a lot of thought to until we talked about it in class.  The problem it discusses is the difficulties associated with natural disasters happening in urban areas and the unique kind of vulnerability of such populations. An interesting fact from the article that I noticed is that the five most populated global cities: Tokyo, Delhi, Mexico City , New York and Shanghai are all at risk for serious flooding.  Also, it mentions that half of humanity lives in cities, which is something that I was surprised to learn, and also something to take into account when we assess population vulnerability.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/researchers-shake-five-story-building-to-find-ways-to-shore-up-quake-hit-hospitals/2012/04/17/gIQApuR5OT_story.html

Ever wanted to know what happens to a five story medical building during an earthquake? Well structural Engineers of the University of California in San Diego are currently running tests to find out. In the article posted above talks about the 5 million dollar experiment to see just what happens if a 80ft high building with intensive care unit, operating room, and elevator is shaken by an earthquake. The researchers are interested not just in the structure of the building and its ability to withstand a quake, but also what happens to the materials on the inside of the building. The researchers built a mock facility and for the first test shook the building as if it where in a 6.7 magnitude earthquake.  When that did not create very much destruction, they simulated an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, like the one experienced in Chile. While the building moved greatly on the outside, the inside of the building remained relatively calm, not shaking the medical materials placed inside. The reason that the building was surviving the 8.8 magnitude quake fairly well was because they had built the mock building on base isolators, which are like “giant shock absorbers.”  The next tests will consist of shaking a mock building which is not built upon base isolators. The researchers expect to see more damage in the building without base isolators.  The purpose of this test is to see the impact isolators have upon mitigating destruction caused by earthquakes.

It will be very interesting to see just how much installing base isolators impact the mitigation of destruction caused by earthquakes. I wounder that if the isolators provide great safety from earthquake damage, would large buildings, especially medical buildings and other emergency service buildings, be required to have base isolators in the state of California due to their high susceptibility to earthquakes.