Florida Sinkhole Highlights State's Geologic Instability

An anonymous reader writes "Last Thursday night, a sinkhole took the life of a man (TV news video, with ad) while he slept in his home in Seffner FL, near Tampa. While human fatalies are rare, sinkholes are so common in Florida that the insurance industry successfully lobbied the state lawmakers to pass legislation in 2011 making it more difficult for homeowners to claim sinkhole damages. The bedrock in Florida is limestone, a weakly soluble mineral formed from calcified deposits of sea creatures tens of millions of years ago. Above the limestone is a clay layer called the Hawthorn Formation which shields the limestone from ground water; and above the clay is sand. However, the protective clay layer is thin or nonexistent in some areas of Florida, particularly in the middle part of the state near the Gulf coast, where caves and sinkholes are common. Geologists say that human activity, particularly construction and irrigation, can trigger sinkholes by destabilizing the landscape above caverns by drawing down water tables and massing structures above them."

Comments

Re:insurance companies

[AK Marc]

You do realize why the Jewish fucks (you should capitalize Jew, even when calling then dirty Jews) are all schiester bankers and jewelers, right? For many years, and in many places, they were banned from owning land or otherwise fully participating in the economy. When you are a Jew living in an Islamic area, and you can't invest in many things (like land), and Musilms are banned from being bankers, but not banned from using them, then naturally, you'll start a bank. You have cash and there's a need others can't, by law, meet. Same with jewels. If you have piles of spare money and are banned by law from investing in a number of things, jewels are an easy way to concentrate wealth in something that is less volatile than tulip bulbs.

The laws pushed a highly persecuted people into specific industries historically, and today we make fun of them for what we forced them to do previously.