Hundreds Trapped in Mexico Mudslide

There was a hill that was about 650 ft wide that collapsed on a town in Southern Mexico this morning.  They estimated that 300 homes were affected, but they are unsure of the death toll at this point.  They are guessing that it could reach to the 1,000's.  I am not sure of the cause of the mudslide but I am confused on why the people were not alerted earlier because a 1,000 people should not die from a natural hazard like this.  Mudslides are normally triggered by a different event, but they did not say what it was, but the looks of the video it looks like a flood caused it.  This town sits on a hillside so I was amazed to see all the water still tanding, because I figured it would continue down the stream.

Portage

While I have been following the flooding in our area I did not know that there was massive flooding in Portage, WI.  They seem to be having lots of problems because their 120-year-old sand leeve is giving away.  They reported that they are having the inmates repair the leeve, but I think it is too little too late.  The town is already experiencing mass flooding as you can see from the video.  I think this comes to the fact that people do not pay attention to things i.e. sand leeves until it is too late.  This town is going to suffer emensely from the leeve breaking and it is something that probably could have been provented if it was taken care of.

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Book Review

The Great Peshtigo Fire

Flooding

I feel like the flooding in our area will have a very large impact on many different things. I feel like our area knows that flooding is always possible but we really don't think it is going to hit us like it has the past couple of days. In towns like Arcadia where the damage is much higher I think it will take them a very long time to bounce back from this disaster. It is not something that the majority of people plan for so the rebuilding process will be slow. While I feel very sorry for these people, I think it is very interesting that something like this has happened so close to home. Because we hear about so many huge events that happen around the world, but they really become interesting when it is happening in our own back yards.

Local Area Flooding

 

 

Flooding in Eau Claire

Earthquake in NZ

This particular story stood out to me because I am interested in earthquakes but also because I have traveled to New Zealand.  I was actually in Christchurch for a couple of days, and I have a friend that lives in New Zealand.  I was astonished to find that New Zealand has about 14,000 earthquakes a year, but less than 10 of them cause damage.  I was very surprised and happy to figure out that only two people have been injuried.  Especially since Christchurch is one of the bigger cities in the South island of NZ.  I think they did a good job in alerting the NZ residents because a magnitude 7 earthquake could have taken many more lives.  I am not sure how NZ will bounce back from this because they do have 10 earthquakes annually that cause damage but I am not sure how they will deal with this massive distruction.

Hurrican Karl

There have been no deaths or injuries from this disaster, but I feel like that could change quickly.  They have warned the tourists in the area that there would be high winds and rain, but no one left.  I think that they are not telling them the severity of the storm which could have a back lash on them later.  This area in Mexico is very resilient to hurricanes because they occur there frequently.  On the other hand, the tourists are not use to hurricanes and probably do not know how to handle them.  I think they need to do a better job at imforming the tourists in the area before it is too late.

Wildfire

While the wildfire has yet to claim any lives it is destroying all the land and the structures in its way.  I think they are taking affirmative action in making sure that all of the residence are making it out of their homes in plenty of time.  Having an early and urgent alarm is very important in keeping people safe.  While the people are not being harmed, their homes are going up in flames.  I think the rebuilding process will be slow, leaving many people homeless for a long time.  It will be hard for this area to be resilient because the last massive wildfire was in 2002 so they are not conditioned to handle a wildfire of this caliber.  They could have prevented structure loss by not building all or most of the structures with wood.  Using a different product could have helped decrease the amount of homes and structures destroyed.