7.5 Magnitude Earthquake by Indonesia

A 7.5 earthquake occurred on the 24th at 9:42 p.m. close to Indonesia and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has issued a local tsunami watch.  There has been no reports on a tsunami occurring but they want to take the right steps to warn the people with adequate time to prepare.  Since we have learned in class that not all earthquakes cause a tsunami so they can only send out a watch, but this will be helpful so that people will hopefully not run to the shore after the earthquake causing more injuries if a tsunami would occur. I think they have taken the correct steps in reducing the risk, but if the people do not listen then it will not matter.

Texas Tornado

A tornado occurred in northeast Texas which had winds blowing up to 125 mph! It took 11 train cars off the track, blew over an 18-wheeler truck, and took the roof off a school off.  It has reported that 4 people have been injured in this event, but do not include how injured they are.  I think that the low population density in this area is the reason why there were not more injuries.  The tornado was on the ground for 7 miles and if it was in a more dense population it would have had a much larger effect. 

Tropical Storm Richard

This is the projected path of the Tropical Storm Richard that is forming in the Carribean Sea right now.  It is projected to rip right through the lower piece of Mexico by early next week.  I think it is great that they are able to project this as early as they have to give the people in that area time to plan an evacuation route.  I am sure that people in this area have their plan memorized by now because they have to deal with numberous storms yearly.  Although, they have been hit pretty hard lately and if they have not have enough time to rebuild since the last storm than that could cause more damage this time around.  I really hope that the people are ready for it, and are able to flee in time.

Mexico Earthquake

There was an earthquake that occurred between Baja California and Mexico that reached a magnitude of 6.9.  The strongest of the earth shaking was along the Mexico border but they said that they were not very worried about that area because not many people live there since it is mostly swamp. On the other hand, Baja California has Cabo San Lucus right on the border along with a city that has a very dense population of 200,000 people.  There were no sign of a tsunami occurring, but they could still have a lot of damage because they do not have strong buildings built.  Having cement made building with a very dense population means that they are going through more holes in the Swiss Cheese Complexity model.  This means that they could end up having more deaths than expected.

Earthquakes in Alaska

Alaska Region

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This shows the earthquake activity in Alaska the past week.  I did not see this last week but by the looks of the map they received some stronger earthquakes there last week.  Those were the largest in the world the past few weeks because there has not been much sesmic activity lately.  I did not realize taht Alaska dealt with so many earthquakes but it does make sense because it is right by a tectonic plate boundary.  The people there are probably very resilient to earthquakes and have their homes built to withstand high magnitude seismic waves.

The East Coast

The east coast is projected to receive very high winds today and into the weekend.  They ahve a low pressure system coming from the north with cold temps and warm wind coming up from the south and they are creating this wind storn.  They are forecasting that the winds will be strong enough for power outages so it will be interesting to see what really happens to them and how they handle it.

Tropical Storm Paula

The tropical storm< Paula in the Caribbean has deminished and is no longer a tropical depression.  It was able to create 3-6 inches of rain and has flooded the roads, but I dont think this is a big hazard to the people in this area because they are use to having this storms in their area.  I think they will be very resilient and bounce back quickly.  This is very good because they are forecasting that there will be conditions around Panama next week that could create another tropical storm.  The people that live around the Gulf coast need to be very resilent to tropical storms because they occur so frequently in that area.