Too Many People in Nature's Way

Ant writes "Wired News report that 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... ... "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 2004'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..." I'd also like to point out a project here to find housing for Katrina's victims; it tries to combine lists of sites offering housing, and do a meta-search.

Comments

But then again

[Anonymous Coward]

The population is growing. It can't be that unsafe.

From the captain-obvious department

[slughead]

Perhaps we shouldn't rebuild on the lands that keep getting destroyed... I hear that's what they did in the days before governmental disaster relief.

Re:From the captain-obvious department

[evol262]

Perhaps we shouldn't rebuild on the lands that keep getting destroyed... I hear that's what they did in the days before governmental disaster relief.

Actually, that's not true. The Sumerians consistently rebuilt in the same spots after (constant) floods. Same with the Egyptians. The Romans did not abandon any of the cities around Pompeii (i.e. Capua). Many cities in Africa were completely rebuilt after disasters. The Yangtze floods a lot, and they rebuilt. The Japanese learned to build earthquake-proof buildings. Cultures everywhere still rebuild at the foot of volcanoes. The Indians/Sri Lankans rebuilt after typhoons/tsunamis.

While it's not a great idea, people certainly still do it. While most of them would wait for the city to stabilize naturally, a good location is a good location. New Orleans is a fairly unbeatable location for a port (like Alexandria, which is still there after half the damn went into the Med), and any culture in their right mind would rebuild.

The possible loss of human life in the future, while an awful possibility, does not preclude them rebuilding.

Re:From the captain-obvious department

[keraneuology]

Not far off from what they do in tornado-prone midwestern states. Photos of entire subdivisions with each house sporting what appears to be a bank vault that serves as a safe room demonstrate what can happen when people actually care about what might happen. The rest of the house may be destroyed, but everybody has safe haven and the foundations remain intact for easy rebuilding.

So let's see... let's say there is an exceptionally active tornado season that spawned 500 tornados, each twister 100 yards wide (on the larger side) with a ground track of 5 miles each, which result in approximately 150 square miles (heck... let's round up to 200 square miles) of devestation.

At 2nd landfall Katrina had hurricane force winds extending 105 miles out from the center. Let's pretend that the storm made it 20 miles inland and collapsed, causing no subsequent damage. 2,100 square miles of devestation. From a single storm. That is, on average, only one of multiple storms in any given season.

So compare:

Some communities are faced with the odds of being randomly selected by mother nature to be included within 150 square miles of destruction and make endless plans, preparations, code changes, modifications to standard building concepts and the development of new structures, technologies and strategies.

Other communities are faced with the prospect of being included in over 2,000 miles of destruction, elect a governor more interested in retaining a football team than the Mississippi, and not only wipe out the only natural protection they have (the wetlands) but actively discourage storm-and-flood resistance by incorporating strict historical accuracy codes and walk along the bottoms of their earthworks and never think once that the silt deposits are now several feet above their heads, let alone the ever-rising water surface.

Yeah, the city cared about being prepared.

Re:From the captain-obvious department

[hazem]

The only reason someone lives from paycheck to paycheck is because they choose to live that life.

Sure... when you're smart, talented, and have a healhty mind and body, it's pretty easy.

But, there are many people who are not as smart as you and have not had the education and opportunities you have had. There are those who are disabled in many ways who simply can't get a better job or a better life. And that's not even considering the racism, age-ism, and classism that exists in our society.

What should the widowed mother of 3 do to improve her lot, when she's already working 2 part-time jobs and can barely get by. She dosen't have a 401k, and if she did, she can't put any money in it anyway. I'm sure you like to cling to the idea of welfare moms eating potato chips and watching Regis, but there are a lot of poor people who aren't like this.

What about the 50 year old mechanic who hurts his back on the job and can't work. His case for workman's comp gets denied, all the way up to the state supreme court. His considerable savings are exhausted to pay his medical bills. And now he can't work in his profession. Try changing professions at 50 when you're not already highly educated. Maybe he'll be able to work at walmart when his back is healed enough he can stand all day.

It must be nice to be inusulated from the hard realities that many people live hand to mouth because there just is no slack to get ahead with. It's bad enough when the resources are limited, but it's made worse by people who prey upon others.

Not everyone who is poor simply chooses to be poor.

I hope you're lucky and don't have the world collapse around you - no amount of planning and preparation can spare you from everything.

The corruption and graft you talk about is usually done by "well off" people with power and connections. It's these people who are preying on the poor, uneducated, and disadvantaged.

Population

[Tom]

but generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way

Exactly. I don't think our planet is any more unstable then 100, 1000 or 10000 years ago. Yeah, maybe we have global warming but even so it makes much, much more of a difference that a hurricane making landfall at the Mississipi estuary affects several million people today compared to 10,000 in 1803 or maybe a couple hundred in 500 BC.

Re:Population

[Hatta]

Exactly. I don't think our planet is any more unstable then 100, 1000 or 10000 years ago. Yeah, maybe we have global warming but even so it makes much, much more of a difference that a hurricane making landfall at the Mississipi estuary affects several million people today compared to 10,000 in 1803 or maybe a couple hundred in 500 BC.

Sure it makes much MUCH more of a difference. Katrina was a Cat 1 when it hit florida, the hot gulf waters drove it to a Cat 5 right quick. Whether that's global warmings fault is debatable, but certainly plausible.

Also, New Orleans used to have 150 miles of wetlands between itself and the open ocean, that could absorb storm surges. Because of human management of the mississippi river it's rapidly eroding, down to about 30 miles of wetlands. So humans are definately doing some things to make the situation worse.

Not Bush's fault that Katrina happened, BUT...

[Lellor]

It is certainly his fault that the disaster recovery wasn't handled well - the aftermath of Katrina was absolutely awful and Bush seemed asleep at the wheel. That is unforgivable. Disasters have happened all over the world this year - in Portugal and Romania, fire and flooding respecitvely. The people from other countries in Europe, and the governments of those countries, helped the victims. Spanish and French rescue efforts were underway very quickly when the fires in Portugal were blazing - yet in the USA, help was very slow coming from the US itself, and when Europe initially offered the US help, they were turned down - why? What the hell? What the hell is going on with Bush?

Don't criticise Slashdot readers for criticising Bush - they are quite right to. Slashdot's audience, being geeks, are generally more intelligent and well-informed than the average US consumer: Think about it - could there possibly be a reason why so many Slashdotters are criticising Bush? I'll leave you to ponder it.

Unspecific Verbiage

[Jekler]

Although this sounds impressive and devastating: "... 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003..."

The problem is the word "affected". I had a cold last year, was I one of the people "affected" by natural disasters? How are they defining whether or not someone was affected? You could say anyone who donated money to a relief fund was affected, or are they only referring to the number of people injured or that had property damage. What about someone who hid out in his bomb shelter for a week. Was that person affected? Does emotional disurbance count as being "affected"?

I'd prefer a concrete statistic, like number of people killed, number of homes destroyed. Saying that x people were "affected" doesn't tell us anything useful.

Reports like these remind me that we're not in the information age, we're in the data age. The information age will be next when we start compiling all this data into useful information.