With hurricane season in full swing as of June 1, the Red Cross has responded with a small series of hurricane preparedness videos aimed at raising awareness on the importance of preparation. They depict real life families that suffered loss during devastating hurricanes like Hugo in ’89, Andrew in ’92, Katrina in ’05, and Hurricane Ike in 2008.
From a family that experienced the adverse affects of a hurricane firsthand, these final words of wisdom ring true: Get a kit. Make a plan. Be informed.
In the last 40 years, the Haiti earthquake has been the deadliest and most destructive natural disaster, when measured by the amount of deaths per inhabitants. The following chart ranks these disasters by the “deaths per million inhabitants” column.
This is an interesting way to look at the damage caused by these disasters, as it highlights the overall percentage of deaths in each country. In the case of Haiti, approximately 2% of the population was killed. That’s a staggering number. Surely, every Haitian knew at least one person who lost their life in this tragedy.
Another takeaway is that it’s almost split evenly between earthquakes/tsunamis (a byproduct of earthquakes) and cyclones.
This article on 5 Probable Natural Disasters to Strike the United States contains some interesting predictions for the U.S. It’s founded in scientific data, but at the end of the day, it’s only an educated guess. Of course, we can never accurately predict any natural disaster. But we can be prepared for them.
As everyone knows by now, Chile was rocked with an enormous 8.8 earthquake early this morning. This came just one day after a 7.0 in Japan and a little over a month from the devastating 7.0 in Haiti.
The reality is, strong earthquakes occur around the world everyday. In fact, around 50 earthquakes above magnitude 6.5 are recorded somewhere in the world each year. This real-time earthquake magnitude tracking tool from the USGS, shows all the earthquakes that exceeded magnitude 5.0 in the last week. At the time of writing, over 80 earthquakes were on the list! The majority of them in the Chile region.
It is estimated that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake is equivalent to about half a million tons of high explosives. With each increase of 1.0 in the magnitude scale, it equates to 32 times more energy! That means the earthquake in Chile was approximately 800 times stronger than the ones that hit Haiti and Japan!
So how can that be? How can an earthquake of the same magnitude in Japan and Haiti result in virtually no deaths and over 230,000 deaths respectively? Further, how can an earthquake approximately 800 times stronger result in less than 1,000 deaths? It depends on many factors including:
density of the population
infrastructure and economic status of the region
education of the people
financial resources available in the aftermath
the type of earthquake (see chart on right)
Southern California Earthquake Simulation
As an example of this, Southern California is an extremely dense area of the United States. It also lies on a massive fault line known as the San Andreas Fault. Experts predict that a 7.8 magnitude quake would result in approximately 1,800 deaths. A stark contrast from Haiti. But they also estimate over 255,000 would be homeless and the economic result would be a devastating 213 billion in damages.
Relative to the density of the population, the predicted death toll is very low compared to Haiti. This is due primarily to strict building code laws that require “earthquake-proof” construction. You could also argue that the education of the people (like school drills and public awareness) and the financial resources would have a large positive impact as well.
This video is an amazing artistic depiction of such an earthquake on the San Andreas Fault:
“It doesn’t take a large catastrophic disaster for anyone of us to find ourselves in a situation where we are stuck in our home, maybe for a period of days, without food or water available to us other than what we have there.” It’s a wise warning from the American Red Cross. This video from the CDC is short, sweet and informative:
“Stockpile things you like and normally buy, just buy a little more of them. Stockpile foods that are non-perishable and don’t require refrigeration or cooking.” It’s really common sense. Store a little extra food and water in a pantry, garage or extra closet.
When an emergency strikes and the power goes out and stays out:
Eat the food in your refrigerator first, since this will go bad the soonest.
Then, eat the food in your freezer. As long as you keep the door closed, it should last a few days (maybe longer depending on the climate).
Finally, eat your stockpiled food of canned goods and non-perishable items.
They are simple suggestions, but so simple to overlook.
Survival Simon Says: Simply Prepare!
With hurricane season in full swing as of June 1, the Red Cross has responded with a small series of hurricane preparedness videos aimed at raising awareness on the importance of preparation. They depict real life families that suffered loss during devastating hurricanes like Hugo in ’89, Andrew in ’92, Katrina in ’05, and Hurricane Ike in 2008.
It is estimated that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake is equivalent to about half a million tons of high explosives. With each increase of 1.0 in the magnitude scale, it equates to 32 times more energy! That means the earthquake in Chile was approximately 800 times stronger than the ones that hit Haiti and Japan!
Loading ...
