Saturday, August 27, 2011

Mother nature is at it again. Are we experiencing more natural disasters lately? There is a monster storm heading towards New York. Hurricanes are supposed to occur in the southern states. This monster storm is developing just a day after the worst earthquake in 70 years occurred on the east coast.
Who cares. Well we have to care and we have to prepare for its effects. I don’t remember a time when airports, trains and even bus services were all halted at the same time in a highly populated area as the Tri-State Area is. It is called Hurricane Irene and in the Bahamas had top sustained winds of 115 MPH. Who cares. Well, we wouldn’t care so much if we didn’t live in a time when so much junk we own can blow around and harm us.
Hurricanes running up the East Coast are so much rarer than ones that stay in the Gulf of Mexico. We rely so much on our communication devices so cell phone towers and telephone lines must be secured. People in the south are so much more prepared for these types of storms. Who in New York or Jersey is going to fill their bathtub with water for drinking purposes? Ugh!
Once the power goes out from a tree falling on a power line we are dumbfounded because everything we own now needs electricity. We threw out all the typewriters, can openers, even radios. Do you have a transistor battery operated radio anymore? NO, Nope. 80 story sky scrapers are very vulnerable to the winds. Hopefully they were built strong enough to with-stand the ride.
In Virginia recently a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck for about 5 seconds. Most people didn’t notice it. If they did, it felt like a freight train was barreling through the town. Earthquakes have occurred in the Virginia area before but earthquakes are associated with faults. Virginia doesn’t have faults. So, why? They did not experience a quake this big since he 1800’s.
We must remember that earthquakes don’t hurt people, buildings crumbling debris hurt people, yes all our junk. There are just too many people to avoid a disaster. We have 24hour cable news and we are just reporting disasters more everywhere. News media no longer has to pick and choose only a few disasters. We can have disasters now 24/7.
So many people love to live around water. Who doesn’t want to look out their window at a beautiful lake or ocean. Everyone loves these areas until a storm comes. Then the government safety rules are implemented and you are told to leave your home and the only roads you can travel on are open away from your waterway. Then the insurance companies cancel your flood insurance and you can’t even afford to rebuild that beautiful oceanfront home.
We must use these natural activities to be a wake-up call to all developers of structures to finally take in consideration how important it is to consider run-off terrain when building. The towns have to have stronger building codes and regulations. People loose all their junk in their flooded homes every time it rains because the house shouldn’t have been built there in the first place. The land is not level or on high ground. Same thing with ocean front homes. The developers ruin the sand dunes and sand weeds that keep ocean swells naturally away. So, if your home is situated on a short flat beach, get tosses into the ocean like a piece of driftwood, you deserve it. Mother nature is at it again so take your beating like an orphan child in a bad home.

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