Can We Prevent Disasters

[southsider2k5]

Can we head off disasters?

 

Dennis Byrne

Published October 17, 2005

 

 

Remember Iben Browning? When today's biggest news is how we're supposed to predict, prepare and respond to such natural catastrophes as the earthquake in South Asia and Hurricane Katrina, we should take a moment to recall Browning.

 

Fifteen years ago, he predicted that on Dec. 3, 1990, an earthquake as powerful as the one that killed tens of thousands in Asia would rock the Midwest. Schools closed, church attendance increased, earthquake insurance sales soared and children were scared out of their minds. "I don't want to be dead," one told USA Today. The media gathered.

 

For those too young to remember, if you think times are goofy now, you should have been there back then.

 

Browning predicted that tidal forces from the alignment of the Earth, moon and sun would cause an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 to 7.5 on the Richter scale, in the Mississippi Valley along the New Madrid fault. Browning was a biologist, inventor, climatologist and business consultant, but he was no expert on earthquakes. Yet, the public and media ate it up. Pathetically, few scientists disputed Browning, because as one said, "We didn't want to call attention to him," thus, irresponsibly contributing to the hysteria.

 

Still, Browning had some history on his side. The strongest recorded earthquake in American history was not in San Francisco, but the New Madrid series of quakes from late 1811 to early 1812. The largest was estimated at magnitude 8.3, compared with the 7.6 Asian quake. It reversed the Mississippi River's flow, created a new 20-mile-long lake, swallowed islands and liquefied land into a Jell-O-like consistency. Canadians felt it, and if Chicago had existed then, church bells here would have rung or worse. No one knew how many died in the sparsely settled region.

 

Imagine a similar quake now. It would be at least as devastating as the Asian quake. The blame throwing would eclipse Hurricane Katrina's finger pointing. (The complaints about the supposedly indifferent and inadequate government response to the Asian quake are eerily similar to those that followed Katrina, but few, if any, commentators have drawn parallels. Maybe it's because they can't blame the quake on the "Bushies.")

 

Truth is, not much has been readied for the coming New Madrid quake, and few are making much of it. After the 1990 scare, such quake preparations as bracing Midwest skyscrapers were discussed. But today, no massive stores of rations, rescue crews or emergency shelters are pre-positioned. None will be, because (1) it is human nature to put off such matters and (2) it is financially and physically impossible to do so for this or any combination of predicted natural disasters.

 

Yet, we want and expect protections against: asteroids and comets; rising sea levels, tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes; weapons of mass destruction, including terrorist attacks on subways; airplane hijackings; avian flu, swine flu and mad cow disease; HIV/AIDS pandemics and assorted run-of-the-mill epidemics, contagions and pestilences; global warming; etc. Just two years ago, a SARS epidemic was going to be another Spanish flu outbreak that killed as many as 50 million. Instead, SARS killed 774.

Just after Katrina, the media demanded: "Are we ready for the `Next Big One?'" Meaning, any or all of the above tribulations. Of course, we aren't; we don't have enough money, time or people to turn life on Earth into life in a cocoon. Nor should we. What other important things would we have to exchange for certain security?

 

Truth is, our capacity to plan for natural calamities lags behind the actual dangers. The inherent nature of bureaucracy is not up to providing immediate relief. A more centralized government makes detailed, local planning and execution more difficult. Yet, the evening news feeds us the expectation that we can meet and turn aside every calamity.

 

I'm not suggesting we succumb to fatalism. We can plan and make incremental improvements in search and rescue, communications and other emergency, life-saving procedures.

 

Yet, it should be worrisome that our 21st Century expectations have become so high that they are unreal and blind us to our precarious existence. In what may be one of the most critical issues of our time, we have become impossibly reliant on some grand plan to solve all troubles. In doing so, we become less self-reliant. One day, we demand to know why we can't do a better job of predicting hurricanes; the next why we can't do a better job predicting earthquakes. It's enough to give a network anchor a lifetime of work.

 

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Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and consultant. [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

[Balta1701]

He's quite correct that we don't have the money or time (right now at least) to protect against every single possible form of disaster. But that doesn't mean there isn't significant progress that can be made on each of those issues.

 

For example...let's take the New Madrid fault line system. Yes, it exists. Yes, it has been active within recent memory. But the problem is...no one for sure knows how active it's going to be in the future. I haven't seen any real good estimates of a recurrence interval on those faults.

 

Now, without that data, is it a good idea to spend a few hundred billion to seismically retrofit all of the buildings in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys? Probably not. Why? Because while the potential risk is great, the odds are also minimal at present, barring the availabliltiy of future data, such as a recurrence interval on earthquakes in New Madrid.

 

However, if data were to come out showing that the fault line there had produced at least 1 magnitude 7+ earthquake every 100 years for the entire Holocene, then it would be possible to say that there is a very high probability of another major earthquake there in our lifetimes. In that case, would it be worth a few hundred billion? Probably. Why? Because if we didn't spend that money, then the entire area could be leveled.

 

This is a classic problem when you're dealing with the interactions between the Earth and people. Californians like living on hillsides, especially the wealthy ones. But when those hillsides give way, should the government spend millions of dollars rebuilding those areas, or should they declare the hillside itself unstable and close the homes off?

 

Once again, it comes down to individual cases, and it is all best done by cost-benefit analysis.

 

We're absolutely certain that sometime in the next hundred years or so, tehre will be another major earthquake on the San Andreas in each section of it...near San Fran, near L.A., etc. In those areas, the high probability of the occurrence suggests that its a very good idea to spend funds preparing for them and to mitigate their results.

 

Similarly, in 2003, people in New Orleans were writing articles saying that the area would be hit by a hurricane at some point, and if that happened the levees would fail. People knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was going to happen. I was in Yellowstone when it hit...and when I heard on my little transistor radio that I use to check Sox scores when I'm in the middle of no where that the hurricane was headed for NOLA, every single person said that the city was dead. The prof on the trip with me visited New Orleans earlier this year because he figured he might not get the chance in the future.

 

Those things, which we know with absolute certainty will happen, should get high priorities in dollars.

 

But then there are the smaller certainty events, the ones with much higher elements of risk but much lower likelihoods of them happening. By this, I mean things like an asteroid impact or an Atlantic Ocean tsunami. Is it worht $100 billion to prepare for these events? Probably not. But is it worth say $1 million a year to put 1 tsunami buoy in the Atlantic just in case one of the Islands in the Azores collapses, sending out a tsunami that would bury Washington, Boston, and NY? Given the huge potential costs, yeah that is worth some sort of small investment.

 

You have to handle it on a case by case basis. When you do that, then you can carry out a decent evaluation afterwards of what should have happened. New Orleans is a prime example. In hindsight...everyone and their grandmother should have known what hte result would be. And we just hoped it wouldn't happen. This is a case which by all estimation has been handled horrifically by the people making budgetary decisions.

 

With an asteroid impact...we've spent a fair amount, in small doses, trying to find the th ings so that we could have a warning. This is the right approach...time is most likely on our side, so if we use that time to prepare, in small doses, we're in good shape.

[kapkomet]

So how was Yellowstone? That's one place I really want to go at some point soon.

[Balta1701]

So how was Yellowstone?  That's one place I really want to go at some point soon.

Quite an enjoyable trip. Lots of interesting geology...not sure how I'd have evaluated it had I just been a tourist and not been looking at the rocks, but probably just as cute.

 

There's like 4 major geysers in the Upper geyser basin...Old Faithful, Beehive, Castle, and Grand. Old faithful goes off over a dozen times per day, the rest go off less than 1 time per day. Somehow, in about 1 hour, I managed to catch all 4 of them going off.

[kapkomet]

Quite an enjoyable trip.  Lots of interesting geology...not sure how I'd have evaluated it had I just been a tourist and not been looking at the rocks, but probably just as cute.

 

There's like 4 major geysers in the Upper geyser basin...Old Faithful, Beehive, Castle, and Grand.  Old faithful goes off over a dozen times per day, the rest go off less than 1 time per day.  Somehow, in about 1 hour, I managed to catch all 4 of them going off.

That's cool!

 

As I said, a place I defintely want to go ...

 

but my vacation plans have been altered for the next 5-7 years, like, there won't be any.