258 posts tagged with disaster.
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A basic conceptual re-orientation is a necessary starting point
Blaming nature or the climate for disasters deflects responsibility. It is largely human influence that produces vulnerability. Pointing the finger at natural causes creates a politically convenient crisis narrative that is used to justify reactive disaster laws and policies. For example, it is easier for city governments to blame nature instead of addressing human-caused social and physical vulnerability. A deflection of responsibility also leads to a continuation of an unequitable status quo where the most vulnerable people in society are worst affected repeatedly in every disaster. A discourse that attributes disasters to nature paves a subtle exit path for those responsible for creating vulnerability. from Stop blaming the climate for disasters [Nature; pdf]
Christ, What an Asshole
In early September 2020, wildfires tore through eastern Washington state, obliterating tens of millions of dollars of property, displacing hundreds of rural residents and killing a 1-year-old boy. But then-President Donald Trump refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor. [more inside]
1974 Super Outbreak
On April 3 and 4, 1974, thunderstorms spawned more
than 100 tornadoes, killing
more than 300 and injuring another 6000. Most fatalities occurred in
small towns from Guin
and Tanner, Alabama to Monticello,
Indiana and the
small city of Xenia,
Ohio. The Super
Outbreak became the impetus for improved
weather forecasting, improved
emergency notification, and comprehensive
federal response. [more inside]
whereas, the alt right prepper alone in his basement with tons of food
Zoe, The Leftist Prepper, on supporting one another after disaster. From the Struggle Care podcast, with an auto-generated transcript. It's this rugged individualism that I think combined with gun love, because they are in my comments every single day... 'Oh, I'm gonna come to the blue state when the apocalypse hits and just take all your stuff.' And it baffles me... like, don't you care about the old granny next door who may need help opening her cans? I just, I don't get it. [more inside]
after a year of conversation, the concept of resilience hubs was born.
What does a third place designed not only for community-building, but also for climate resilience, look like? "I think anything where we’re saying, ‘Here’s an individual kit, go be an individual and care for yourself, that’s missing out on the entire essence of what resilience is." Key aspects and examples of resilience hubs, also depicted in the winning story in Grist’s Imagine 2200 contest “To Labor for the Hive.” [more inside]
The Largest Peacetime Disaster in American Naval History
Calhoun knew that not everyone from his ship had made it. He wondered how many still flailed in the oil-coated water. And the engine- and fire-room crews deep inside the ship: had they been trapped down below, or were they pulled out by the undertow as the ship rolled? Those men—his men—had been 150 yards from shore with no way out of the ship. On shore, when Herzinger mentioned to Calhoun that the losses were great, as many as 20 or 30 sailors, the young captain’s response was grave: “My God, I know—but we will not discuss it now.” from Dead Reckoning
it would appear our potholes are so bad that hell sprung a leak
nola_prepared is a satirical city emergency preparedness Instagram account for New Orleans Louisiana (although the official nolaready IG appreciates their different skill sets). Recommended posts: Hurricane season preparations include rescue gators; new hazard signs; a Hell vs NOLA comparison chart; flood warning; the dysfunction of Sewerage & Water Board; the toxic optimism of a happy New Orleanian as told by a marine iguana (do NOT click if you have a fear of snakes, like even a vague unease, unless you have some form of emotional support near you). No Instagram account? You should be able to see a few posts before they cut you off.
the scan now freezes the wreck in time before more is lost to the sea
The world's most famous shipwreck has been revealed as never seen before. [BBC] The first full-sized digital scan of the Titanic, which lies 3,800m (12,500ft) down in the Atlantic, has been created using deep-sea mapping. It provides a unique 3D view of the entire ship, enabling it to be seen as if the water has been drained away. The hope is that this will shed new light on exactly what happened to the liner, which sank in 1912. The visualization was pieced together from a staggering 700,000 images collected by remote controlled submersibles. Over the course of 200 hours, a crew of engineers directed the robotic explorers to scan the length and breadth of the colossal ship as it rested at a crushing depth 3,800m below the ocean surface. Scan images and footage are from @AtlanticProds and Magellan.
The cold impedes rescue work
Survivor in rubble sparks hope for more 'miracles.' Death toll passes 11,000 in Turkey and Syria. Syria's White Helmets are urgently asking for international help.
“You’re joking?” was the most printable response.
Remember 2018 in the UK? A more innocent time. Russian tourists skulked around Salisbury, Pinkfong (??) made it to the official Top 40 (!!) with something unforgettable, and Boris Johnson was just offering his charming opinions on religious attire instead of being prime minister. Late in the year, desperate for something cool and hip to say, then-PM Theresa May announced a festival. It was mocked, for some reason. And then nobody heard anything about it... until it was already almost over. Stuart McGurk investigates how the UK Government's £120m "Festival Of Brexit" went rogue! [more inside]
Best golf movie ever? Caddyshack. Worst golf movie ever? Caddyshack 2
Sports Illustrated from 2020: The Inside Story of Caddyshack II, One of the Worst Sequels in History [more inside]
Excessive Indentations, Bullet Points, and Font Sizes
Finally the single most important fact... is hidden at the very bottom. Twelve little words which the audience would have had to wade through more than 100 to get to. If they even managed to keep reading to that point.
Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people [more inside]
The worst mountaineering disaster in modern history
Marching through the mountains in winter, what could go wrong? In 1902, Japan was anticipating war with Russia. A training march through the mountains, planned for a single day, went horribly wrong when the unit was overtaken by a blizzard. This is now known as "The Mount Hakkoda Incident".
Jirō Nitta wrote a documentary novel about the event which was translated into english (reviewed here). A movie based on his book was produced in 1977. Another documentary novel, "Tragedy in a Blizzard" by Koshu Ogasawara was used for another film made in 2014. [more inside]
That village near Gomorrah got too hot for Lot
The city’s destruction was associated with some unknown high-temperature event. An interdisciplinary research team claims that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam (present-day Jordan) was destroyed by a meteor, or comet which detonated in mid-air. [more inside]
Hurricane Ida
Hurricane Ida is set to be a major hurricane and track very near to New Orleans at midday Sunday on the anniversary of Katrina. [more inside]
California Dreaming, Nightmare Edition
Surrounded by fires, parched by drought, and shut down by the pandemic – residents of California’s scenic South Lake Tahoe thought they’d endured everything. That was until this week, when the US Forest Service announced it was closing several popular sites after discovering bubonic plague in the chipmunk population. The Guardian's Erin McCormick reports on something that sounds terrible but maybe isn't a nightmare? As frightening as it sounds, plague in rodents at higher elevations is apparently not that rare, and a spokeswoman for the US Forest Service said spread to humans was easily preventable with a few precautions.
Vada a bordo, cazzo!
”When she premiered, the tradional bottle of champagne bounced right off the side instead of smashing. A bad omen, but... Nothing could go wrong on Friday the 13th of January 2012, on the 100th year anniversary of The Titanic, on a ship that is also only safety rated for two-compartment flooding. Especially when you have a five-star, max-level-rated captain like Francesco Schettino, a man who mysteriously rose from Head of Security to the position of Captain in just a couple of years... He knows exactly what to do in an emergency.”The Cost of Concordia (SLYT)
"Will history blame me…or the bees?"
Just a poignant essay about who you think about when big things happen
"I am very persistent about my small, stupid story, about the idea that I’m the main character here, on the couch, looking at my phone, doing nothing at all. All the people I once loved and don’t speak to anymore all crowd in real against the convenient backdrop of these big and horrible days. "
all born of the same wounds.
'We’re used to thinking about mass incarceration or climate change or public health or reproductive rights or immigration as singular issues. That’s why, for example, when the pandemic kicked off in the United States in earnest, there was a pernicious drop in climate coverage. As I and others pitched stories about the climate crisis, we were told, again and again, that “it wasn’t the time.” And now we’re out of time.' A powerful essay by Mary Annaise Heglar about climate grief, "climate vision" and the way crises cascade and injustices interlink.
Commence eye-roll sequence
Every human on earth ingests a credit card’s worth of plastic each week
PLANET PLASTIC - How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades. By Tim Dickinson, from Rolling Stone
PS752
It was still dark when Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 took off on Wednesday from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. Onboard were 176 people. Most were returning home after holidays spent with families and friends in Iran. They were couples, newlyweds, students. [more inside]
Flying to conclusions
As FAA administrator Steve Dickinson prepares to meet with Boeing executives to assess changes to the 737 Max 8, both the New York Times and The New Republic have published detailed reports on the 737 Max crashes. William Langewiesche writing for the New York Times: "What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max? Malfunctions caused two deadly crashes. But an industry that puts unprepared pilots in the cockpit is just as guilty." Maureen Tcacik, writing for New Republic: "Crash Course: How Boeing's managerial revolution created the 737 MAX disaster."
“It’s such a helpless feeling.”
“ ... thousands of Harvey survivors remain displaced or live in damaged homes. Thousands more relive their trauma with each rain, making mental lists of what to grab if they must evacuate or comforting family members troubled by memories of rising water. And, two years after the storm, residents have been given precious few reasons for optimism. Not in the progress of programs to repair and rebuild flood-damaged housing. Not in projects aimed at lessening the risk of future floods.” Hurricane Harvey, Two Years Later (Houston Chronicle)
The near crash of Air Canada flight 759
On the 7th of July 2017, Air Canada flight 759 lined up to land on the taxiway instead of the runway at San Francisco International Airport, in the process coming just seconds away from causing what might have been one of the worst aviation disasters in history.
I thought the project was just to build a big, dumb steel arch
So what are the difficulties of building a giant shed around an exploded nuclear reactor? How did a small Scottish consultant land work on a critically important international project? And what is it like to work at the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident? [more inside]
The untold story of QF72:
In 2008, rogue automation caused an Airbus A330 to fall out of the sky, a harbinger of the 737MAX debacle a decade later. An uncommanded nose dive on an Airbus A330 caused a mass casualty incident, injuring 9 out of 12 crew and over 100 passengers, 14 seriously enough that they required life flights to Perth. Attempting to reboot the malfunctioning flight control computer sends the plane into a second nose dive, forcing the pilot to fly the crippled plane by hand to the nearest airport with multiple systems disabled. Initial reporting blamed clear air turbulence and reminded passengers to keep their seat belts on for safety, but it soon became clear something terrible had gone wrong with the automation on the plane. [more inside]
The Hotshots of Helltown
The November 2018 Camp Fire in northern California destroyed the town of Paradise and would have consumed the nearby, ironically named Helltown except for a few brave homeowners who went to heroic lenghts to protect a one mile stretch of road as the fire crept in from all sides. This is the story of the hotshots of Helltown.
I won't see that kind of life ever again.
The Floods Are Coming: Climate Refugees in Bangladesh (42½min video) “An estimated 2000 people arrive in Dhaka every day. During monsoon season, the number rises to 4000 a day.”
Some Interesting Predictions and a Possible Death Sentence
Tales of the Premonitions Bureau. Sam Knight tells the story of a British psychiatrist's attempt to scientifically explore precognition.
(SLNewYorker)
Death and valor on a warship doomed by its own Navy
A little after 1:30 a.m. on June 17, 2017, Alexander Vaughan tumbled from his bunk onto the floor of his sleeping quarters on board the Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald. The shock of cold, salty water snapped him awake. He struggled to his feet and felt a torrent rushing past his thighs. [a ProPublica investigation]
Two million gallons of molasses, to go.
One hundred years ago today, a storage tank burst in Boston, unleashing a thirty-foot wave of molasses that flooded the streets at thirty-five miles per hour. Twenty-one people died, some of them by suffocating in the sweet, sticky mire. Here's a song about it.
[sound of individual quietly sobbing to himself]
On January 15, 2009 US Airways flight 1549 departed LaGuardia airport on its way to Charlotte. Roughly three minutes into the flight they struck a flock of large winged rats Canada geese, which caused a loss of thrust from both engines. This was uncharted territory. In short, this crew went from routine to having a very bad day in just a few seconds. This is where I try to imagine myself in that situation.
It was not thunder
You Never Think About Structural Engineering
Shopping Mall Collapse in Mexico City (no injuries) Every time I look at a tall building, I think about how a misplaced decimal or overlooked soil survey could kill everyone around. [more inside]
Climate Refugees In Artsy Suburbs
“If I have any takeaway from nearly drowning in the flash flood that swept through Ellicott City, Maryland, last Sunday, it’s that reality feels like it’s falling apart around you. “ When the Water Came for Me, a first person account of the Ellicott City flood and how thousand year storms are happening every two years.
Evangelizing climate science
The Anarchist Bikers Who Came to Help
In November, the artist and writer Molly Crabapple spent a week in Puerto Rico documenting grassroots efforts by communities to rebuild after Hurricane Maria. Here are excerpts from her sketchbook
The Seven Whistlers
The Ellensburgh Capital, 1904: “In some parts of England peculiar whistling or yelping noises are heard in the air after dusk and early in the morning before daylight in the winter months.” The Leicester Chronicle (quoted), 1853: “Strange, mysterious sounds are heard in the air at night, sometimes like the distant singing of a flock of birds, and at other times resembling the smothered wailings of children chanting a funeral dirge.” The Gentleman's Magazine, July 1782, page 338: “Some months ago, I and all my neighbours, as I heard afterwards, late in an evening, were alarmed with a whistling, which, on going out of doors, seemed to be in the air, and at such a height, that everyone thought it just over his head." [more inside]
"that tremendous cataclysm which almost ruined Italy"
"It was a Caporetto." On this day 100 years ago, an Italian byword for disaster was born. Advancing through mist, a combined German/Austria-Hungarian attack surprised and shattered the Italian 2nd army, driving deeply into the Veneto Plain. Italian suffered almost 300,000 casualties, retreated nearly one hundred miles, and almost lost Venice. [more inside]
But what do we need to know for the exam?
At Literary Hub, Emily Temple has gathered up "10 College Classes to Read Along with This Semester" and "The Classes 25 Famous Writers Teach." Syllabuses on other media suggest how Richard Lemarchand (designer on Uncharted) teaches video game design [PDF], how David Isaacs (consultant on M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frasier, etc.) teaches comedy, or how video/performance artist Patty Chang teaches video/time-based art [PDF]. Syllabuses related to current events suggest how Noam Chomsky (who has joined the U. of Arizona) co-teaches politics [PDF], how Chris Holmes teaches about gun violence, or how Jacob Remes (interviewed this week about Puerto Rico) teaches critical disaster studies [PDF]. [Previously: 1M+ syllabuses / autodidact course catalog.]
The sloth bears prefer watermelons.
If we fail
A storm is coming...
...a Geostorm! - the incredibly stupid looking disaster movie from Gerard Butler and Dean Devlin which just got a a new trailer.
He did not, after all, have the formula.
One hundred years ago the Nivelle Offensive fails. In April 1917 the Allies launched an enormous attack on German forces designed to crack enemy lines in 48 hours and send them reeling back to the Rhine. General of French forces on the Western Front Robert Nivelle, a hero for his role in Verdun the previous year (previously), deployed a mix of tanks, artillery, air power, and multiple assaults across hundreds of miles. While some gained ground, the offensive, marred by leaks, a lack of leadership support, and bad tactical decisions, failed to break the Germans. Nivelle was fired and the offensive petered out. The human costs on both sides, including French, Germans, British, and Canadians, were very high. [more inside]
Backcountry Drug War
Backcountry Drug War The drug war is just nuts--and I wish I could work in it if this is how it goes.
The Great Molassacre
Some perspective for all my fellow Californians dealing with flooding. It could be so much worse. (podcast) [more inside]
Speculating Futures
Speculating Futures looks at past speculative narratives, like those of Ursula K. Le Guin, and past attempts at creating technological utopia, like Chile's Cybersyn. [more inside]
The physics behind the deadly 1919 Boston Molasses Flood
On January 15, 1919, in Boston's North End, a 50-foot-tall tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst, unleashing a deadly wave that rose nearly 25 feet high at one point. The disaster killed 21 people and injured another 150. Nearly one hundred years later, an analysis carried out by a group of Harvard fluid dynamics physicists explains how "cold temperatures and unusual currents conspired to turn slow sticky goop into a deadly speeding wave." [more inside]