[meteorite-list] OT: New Orleans blamestorming

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Sep 2 12:57:16 2005
Message-ID: <43188442.B39282CB_at_bhil.com>

Hi, All,

    No, "the smart thing" would be to go on enjoying
the life available to those who live on a gorgeous tropical
coast, which is what people will do.
    Despite the present severe event, the truth is that
of all "natural" disasters, when averaged out over the years,
the biggest killer is lightening, far exceeding the deaths
caused by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis,
airplane crashes, and other dramatic events.
    The estimation of risk in the human mind is unduely
influenced by the clustering of losses in time. Lightening
deaths are well distributed in a random low level of
events, while a hurricane's victims are all affected at one
time, however infrequent the event.
    A Chicxulub impactor striking the Earth and killing
6 billion people after a lapse of 60 million years since
the last one would amount to an average of 100 deaths
per year, but nowhere near world wide lightening deaths!
    The first flaw in the above example is that there haven't
been humans around for 60 million years, of course. The
second flaw is that there are consequences to the sheer
scale of the disaster.
    What happened at New Orleans was entirely preventable
by human means, namely the system of levees that protected,
or should have protected, the city from flooding. For over a
decade, their maintenance, repair, and expansion have been
de-funded progressively every year -- "We don't have the
money right now." The present budget proposal before
Congress calls for a 71 million dollar cut in funding for those
levees next year! Having "saved" about 250 million dollars
over the last decade, we are now faced with many tens of
billions of costs for their reconstruction.
    As any good engineer would tell you, what should have
been done was to floodgate Lake Pontchartrain so that it
could be closed to ocean water, which ocean overfilling of
the Lake was what flooded New Orleans. Like so many
fundamental problems, this disaster could have been totally
prevented by the application of centuries old technologies
that are well understood and require only the intelligence
and willingness to do so. The Sumerians would have done
a better job of water management than we have over the
last decade.
    With or without global warming, there will always be
storms on the ocean sea, whatever their frequency, and
people will always live on the edge of the water -- 70%
of humanity always has and will continue to do so. And
lightening will continue to kill more people than storms,
oceanic or continental, ever do.


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------
Pete Pete wrote:

> From: "Chris Peterson" <clp_at_alumni.caltech.edu>
> To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: New Orleans blamestorming
> Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 08:48:24 -0600
>
> >>Of course, the folly of New Orleans is that it is a coastal city built
> >>below sea level. Much of the damage caused by Katrina was unrelated to the
> >>wind directly, and was produced by flooding. It doesn't much matter what
> >>your construction material is when the water rises. The smart thing to do
> >>would be simply to abandon the city. With sea levels rising for the next
> >>century or longer, large sections of the Gulf Coast and Florida are
> >>essentially doomed.<<
>
> Excellent point - this is just the beginning for all ocean coasts.
>
> On that note,
>
> CHEERS!
> Pete
Received on Fri 02 Sep 2005 12:56:34 PM PDT