'Are we prepared to lose a major city every year?'

[struggle4progress]

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
Associated Press Writer

<snip> Are we prepared to lose a major city every year?" asks Carnegie Mellon University risk strategist Baruch Fischhoff. "It's cowardice not to ask the question, and cowardice on the public's part not to get engaged in the answer."

"We failed quite significantly," says sociologist Havidn Rodrguez, director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. "Will what we've seen over the last few weeks continue to be the case? It could unless we prepare. People tend to forget lessons learned. Governments tend to forget." <snip>

"What we are missing, utterly and completely, in this government is accountability," Hawken said.

"I don't see anybody talking in terms of shame," Fischhoff said. "I don't see any soul-searching." <snip>

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/09/30/top_sub/00ererere.txt

[valerief]

1. What? Is this the BushCo Urban Renewal Program?

Let "Mother N." flattened a city and rebuild it to the Saudis liking.

[speedoo]

2. kick n/t

[LevelB]

3. We were talking about this at work today.

These larger hurricanes are like having small nuclear explosions along random stretches of our southern coast.

And even if we are done with hurricanes this year, there is next year, and the year after, etc.

I also think we may be losing ground - not everything is rebuilt before the next season is upon us.

B.

[Lisa]

4. and it's not just the front-page grabbers ...

... like hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and earthquakes.

There are also the slow-motion disasters like drought, which unfold over years but can cause just as much devastation to communities. It wouldn't take too much to put us into another Dustbowl situation.

A combination of more people/ more infrastructure, using more of the earth's surface (including hazardous areas like coasts and floodplains) -- and a predicated increase in extreme events due to global warming this century -- means trouble.

Even if global warming, by some miracle (faith-based climatology?) didn't occur -- we'd still be looking at a more vulnerable situation.

[UpInArms]

5. "The adults are back in charge"

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/4/29/213846.shtml

Former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, speaking at a discussion of Bush's 100 days in office at the Heritage Foundation in Washington Friday said, "if you had to sum up the 100 days in one sentence, I would say, that George Bush has shown the people of the United States, the adults are back in charge."

[bemildred]

6. "We think it's worth it." nt