Natural Disasters

[Actaeon]

So the fire season I've been ranting about for several months has finally come to Colorado, and my Facebook feed is full of almost nothing else (although none of the major ones are on this side of the Divide). I'm curious as to what natural distasters y'all run into in your neck of the woods. You're welcome to argue about which is the most devastating, but mostly I'm interested in how much various risks- fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, volcano, earthquake, what have you- affect your life on a daily basis. Do you think about them when they're not happening? Or do they only hang over your head when they're happening at home or near by?

 

Oh, and why do I have nightmares about tsunamis when I live thousands of miles inland?

[Nioca]

I live in a fairly disaster-free zone. The only real threats around these parts are Fire and Tornadoes; the former doesn't crop up too often, and the latter tends to be pretty rare.

 

Heavy rainstorms can cause the occasional flash-flood, but around here, those tend to be more of an annoyance than a major threat.

 

That said, none of them affect me on a daily basis, mostly because they're not actually happening on a daily basis. Heck, most of the time, they're not even happening on a monthly basis. You do have to keep an eye out for tornadoes when the weather gets really nasty, but that's about it.

[Callie]

Where I live the two primary concerns are brush fires and flash floods. Nevada is seismically active and there have been significant earthquakes in the past, too.

 

In 2006 a brush fire came within ten feet of our house and melted our siding, but the wind coincidentally blew the other way so the house didn't catch fire. We have flash floods every once in a while that tear up roads. We have a gravel driveway and a huge chunk of it disappeared after one such flood, along with a nice section of the road.

 

Also, every once in a while a species of katydid known as the Mormon Cricket (its name is a misnomer) swarms and causes severe traffic hazards and crop destruction. The swarms are so dense in places that they completely cover the ground. They get crushed by vehicles causing the road to become extremely slick. This is further exacerbated by the fact that they're cannibalistic so more Mormon crickets swarm out to eat their dead fellows in the road and more slick guts ensue. Fortunately, they're incapable of flight and can't climb anything worth a damn so you can keep them out of your property with a simple barricade.

 

(There hasn't been any definitive explanation for why the swarms happen in the first place)

[Dintiradan]

Pretty much exactly what Nioca said.

[Triumph]

Aside from the possibility of tornadoes, I don't think there's much that really threatens this area.

 

Now, when I lived in Florida, it was different...

[keira]

Montana is on fire. The school (where I am working during the summer) has been taken over by the forest service for a headquarters and is supposedly going to be used all summer. Yay for not being able to find a spot to park since there's 100 FS trucks, eight food semis, and thirty fiberglass shithouses in the parking lot.

 

There's been four major forest fires in my area just since Friday alone, and with the complete lack of snowpack, rain, high temperatures, wind, everything is going up in flames this summer.

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the entire divide has ridiculous beetlekill (about 40-50% of the trees dead in a lot of places), and for the last five years the environmentalists have managed to block all logging of the beetlekill. Now nobody wants it because it's all on the ground with holes in it.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Homage

if another FS person comes into my room asking if it is communications, I'm going on a spree. Do I [censored] look like I'm with communications?

So you're saying what you have there is a failure to communicate?

[Actaeon]

Good one, Coolhand.

 

I've noticed most places take their distasters for granted as being easier to deal with than those of other places. Even the Aussies play down the fact that 80% of the fauna and 30% of the flora there can and will try to kill you.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Originally Posted By: Homage

if another FS person comes into my room asking if it is communications, I'm going on a spree. Do I [censored] look like I'm with communications?

So you're saying what you have there is a failure to communicate?

+1. Cool Hand Luke FTW.

No natural disasters around here. A few invasive species and pests, but I'd take Asian Carp or the Emerald Ash Borer over "getting my house burned down" any day of the week.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Originally Posted By: Homage

if another FS person comes into my room asking if it is communications, I'm going on a spree. Do I [censored] look like I'm with communications?

So you're saying what you have there is a failure to communicate?

The room I am in is right at a tee junction of two halls. The door to my room is right next to a sign that says "Communications" with a large left arrow pointing down the hall. Unfortunately this arrow also points to the door to the room I work in. Therefore we have random forest service people come in and ask about radios.

Mind you, they are walking into a room filled with bugs, maps, nets, coolers, etc., so it is quite obvious that it is not communications.

[Actaeon]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

A few invasive species and pests...

I'd start another thread on non-native species (and the introduction of other non-native species to control them and so on and so forth), but I think I'd get banned for the sort of language that comes up when I discuss Tamarisk.

[Cairo Jim]

We rarely cop anything bad here. If anything, we can get lots of rain that can flood half the place. Nothing that serious though.

[Nioca]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

I've noticed most places take their distasters for granted as being easier to deal with than those of other places. Even the Aussies play down the fact that 80% of the fauna and 30% of the flora there can and will try to kill you.

This might be because people who live with those disasters or threats regularly are more prepared to handle them. If you're regularly dealing with a type of threat, you're more likely to know the protocols and rules for staying safe, but if an out-of-context threat shows up, it can wind up catching people completely off-guard.

Of course, this is mostly speaking from personal experience, so... *shrug*

[adc.]

We live here at Saudi Arabia. I didn't mean I am a native there, because it is tax-free, my dad works here and really, no disasters. No floods, no storms, no typhoons, no tsunamis, just parched land. Just a simple sandstorm here. Unfortunately, the normal heat over here is 35 degrees celsius, which goes 38 at 12 p.m.

---------

-Desert heat, Nightwatcher

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

Originally Posted By: Dantius

A few invasive species and pests...

hey this is actually what i am actually working on.

we use bugs to take out noxious weeds. you toss some bugs in a patch of knapweed or spurge or whatever and they nom on it. It takes a few years but it works and it's certainly cheaper than spraying.

for example in our insectary we raise this weevil whose larva shill out in the roots of spotted knapweed over the winter and eat out the roots. it's pretty cool stuff. we also go and collect off of sites that have been released on in years past.

it's really not the exciting and glamorous job i made it out to be but hey, it's made a difference, plus good money and state mileage.

like if you are really bored and want something to read, we have like eight billion crates of little guidebooks my boss printed off, i bet if people were interested i could mail them.

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

I've noticed most places take their distasters for granted as being easier to deal with than those of other places. Even the Aussies play down the fact that 80% of the fauna and 30% of the flora there can and will try to kill you.

This might be because people who live with those disasters or threats regularly are more prepared to handle them. If you're regularly dealing with a type of threat, you're more likely to know the protocols and rules for staying safe, but if an out-of-context threat shows up, it can wind up catching people completely off-guard.

Of course, this is mostly speaking from personal experience, so... *shrug*

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. After 10 years in Florida, and seeing a fair number of hurricanes come through without ever killing me, one starts to become a little blase, or even jaded. It's almost entertaining to hear the government commercials on the radio announcing the start of hurricane season and being all serious and impending doom-y. Yes yes, I know I know, blah blah blah, lighten up dude.

I think natural disasters can have a degree of mystique, especially if one has only ever heard about them on the news and seen pictures of the most devastating examples. Once one experiences a few instances of a "natural disaster," said disaster starts to lose its aura of mystery and terror.

[Nioca]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Originally Posted By: Nioca

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

I've noticed most places take their distasters for granted as being easier to deal with than those of other places. Even the Aussies play down the fact that 80% of the fauna and 30% of the flora there can and will try to kill you.

This might be because people who live with those disasters or threats regularly are more prepared to handle them. If you're regularly dealing with a type of threat, you're more likely to know the protocols and rules for staying safe, but if an out-of-context threat shows up, it can wind up catching people completely off-guard.

Of course, this is mostly speaking from personal experience, so... *shrug*

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. After 10 years in Florida, and seeing a fair number of hurricanes come through without ever killing me, one starts to become a little blase, or even jaded. It's almost entertaining to hear the government commercials on the radio announcing the start of hurricane season and being all serious and impending doom-y. Yes yes, I know I know, blah blah blah, lighten up dude.

Personally, I find it amusing to watch people in/from a warm-weather state completely lose their marbles when they wind up having to deal with snow and ice, something which would hardly phase any Michigander (or any other person from a cold state or nation). And that's not even a disaster!

[The Ratt]

The area where I'm from really only has to worry about the occasional blizzard, but obviously those don't happen much this time of year. However, the effects can be felt for a long time. This year we had a warm February, then a blizzard that dumped 30 inches of wet heavy snow. Most people didn't have power for about a week, and 95% of the local cash crop was lost because the tree had already begun to flower. Not only that but the heavy snow broke off branches and it's estimated that it'll be two or three years until the crop is back up the levels it was at before.

 

I also go to school in Colorado Springs, which is currently going through a disaster. More than 32,000 people have been evacuated, and looking at maps of where the fire has been, places I would recognize have been burned to the ground. It's a chilling experience seeing pictures of a place you call home 8 months of the year on the verge of being burned to the ground.

[Tyranicus]

Natural disasters aren't all that common here in central Pennsylvania. We do get blizzards and minor flooding from time to time. Tornados have been known to occur here, but th are hardly a frequent occurrence. Earthquakes are even more rare.

[Andraste]

There was a dust storm today. Now everything is dirty. Such an inconvenience.

[Student of Trinity]

I used to be a post-doc at Los Alamos, and I went back for a short visit a few years after leaving. Half-way through my planned visit, the whole town was evacuated ahead of an approaching wildfire. I felt so lucky to just be able to throw my suitcase into the trunk of my rented car and drive away, while lots of people I knew were wondering what to try to save of their possessions. As the long line of cars threaded its way down the winding cliff-edge road out of town, ash was falling from the sky like snow. It was all more than a bit apocalyptic.

 

I just went to Albuquerque to stay with some cool distant relatives until my flight home. Los Alamos survived, but among the handful of buildings that actually burnt down was the B&B in which I had been staying, and one of my friends lost a valuable mineral collection that had included a piece of trinitite.

[Goldengirl]

My city gets consistently voted as one of the top ten safest in these United States, and it makes sense. We're too high up in the mountains for tornadoes, or anything water-based. The only real threat we could face is wildfire. However, we've got enough reserves of water that the city itself if reasonably safe. Crime is low, too, even though some might not call that a "natural" disaster. Or even a disaster.

 

I dislike the designation "natural" because it doesn't make sense to me. Where do we draw the line between what is and isn't natural? "Manmade" is one boundary I've seen used to distinguish, but people are natural themselves, and all of the resources used by humans come from nature as well, even if at a few removes. It's problematic.

[nikki.]

We just get a bit of rain. Down south they sometimes have hurricanes, but I reckon they just make all that up to try and make us jealous. As if that'd work; we have rain!

[Trenton.]

Tornadoes are common down here in florida, durring storm season. We also had a tropical storm cause a few floods just last weekend. We hope for no hurricanes.

[BMA]

No hurricanes/blizzards/tornadoes; it's almost boring. But my state has a very old dam, believed to be in imminent danger of breaking down and flooding the entire area. We want to take down the dam, but the neighbouring state won't allow it, as they want the water for irrigation.

The case is pending in the Supreme Court.

---

Not sure of whether the potential disaster can be classified 'natural', though.

[Jerakeen]

Here on the Canadian Shield, an ice storm is the biggest natural disaster we're likely to have to deal with, and they can be pretty devastating — but only because we're so dependent on the power grid. A hundred years ago, the impact would have been minor.

 

Wildfires are another concern in a dry season, tornadoes occur rarely, blizzards happen but are considered to be "winter" rather than "disasters". Since my area is essentially a wetland, you would think flooding would be an issue, but really it's very rare.

 

There have been two or three earthquakes in my lifetime, of the rattle-your-dishes variety, but this is one of the most geologically stable places on the planet. However, some of the land forms around here do make me wonder how they could have formed in the absence of violent upheaval — steep rough cliffs, for example, that don't look as if they could have been carved by a glacier.

[Lilith]

we had an earthquake last week

 

it was terrifying

[A less presumptuous name.]

Lilith, that reminds me of the earthquake we had here nearly a year ago. Most of us had to check the internet/news to confirm that it wasn't just a big truck driving past. Shortly thereafter, we got the edge of a hurricane. Unlike the previous Maryland hurricane, the tides were going out (or something lunar) so there wasn't much flooding. Just enough wind to knock out power for as much as a week in some areas.

 

More recently, we had our annual tornado already. Coming from the midwest, I can say that it was entirely underwhelming.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

I dislike the designation "natural" because it doesn't make sense to me. Where do we draw the line between what is and isn't natural? "Manmade" is one boundary I've seen used to distinguish, but people are natural themselves, and all of the resources used by humans come from nature as well, even if at a few removes. It's problematic.

Categorizing disasters (or in your case, obliterating categories) based on the whim of whether laypeople "like" or "make sense" out of the categories seems like the most unhelpful way to understand and manage disasters. The BP oil spill is a very different sort of disaster from Hurricane Katrina. You can pass laws and regulations that aim to prevent oil spills from happening, for instance, but you can't do that with hurricanes.

Dikiyoba dislikes the "people are natural too" argument. There are some cases where it is helpful, but usually it's just a distraction or strawman argument.

[Dintiradan]

Yeah, here 'natural' is usually taken to mean 'non-man-made'. Otherwise it's like saying my electricity is nuclear-powered because the coal got its energy from the sun if you go back far enough.