OK I REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THIS!
I realize this may not be Hurricane IKE warnings, alerts, or the like. But Hurricane's do bring rain and lots of it, wind, water surges and the like which all can result in flash flooding. According to the weather channel only 50% chose to take warning and evacuate. Not only are they putting their own lives at risk, but also the lives of the rescuers that come to help.
We have lost so many people in the world because of tragedy's like this. Why do people think they can weather the storm and ride it out. They are saying to expect lives lost.
The 20 foot sea wall they built after the 1900 Galveston Hurricane has settled since it was erected. If they are lucky the say it's 15 foot. With the high tides,water surge and wave heights there is going to be some major flooding with Galveston.
I only hope and pray that everyone has or will vacate to safer grounds. We just spent a day in remembrance of what happened on September 11, 2001.
Some of us morn those that lost lives in the wake of Katrina.
The tsunami in 2005 should I go on?
How many more have to parish before people start taking heed and evacuate. Don't wait for the Government to issue a mandatory evacuation. You'll never make it out early enough. You'll be forced to wait in long lines at the gas pumps and pay higher prices. I hear $5.00/gal was what they were paying to get out. Leave early don't wait to the last minute.
My Persuasive Speech I gave in my Public Speaking Class is below.
Floods
Although the death toll from most weather related hazards has dropped since the 1950’s, the flooding death toll has risen slightly; however, with a change in the way we act could help reduce those numbers further.
As the USGS (United States Geological Survey) states, “Over 75 percent of declared federal disasters are related to floods;” making flooding the biggest cause of destruction out of all natural disasters. We have lost more than 10,000 lives in the United States alone since 1900 due to flooding.
As stated on Wikipedia.com “so far the costliest federal disaster in the history of the United States is Hurricane Katrina (a category 5) in 2005 with 1836 fatalities and damages at $86 billion (2007 USD)” (January 20, 2008). The most costliest flood in the United States history is the Mississippi River Flood of 1993 with 48 fatalities and damages at $20 billion,” according to Charles A. Perry with the USGS. (March 22, 2006) “The most deadly hurricane was in 1900 a category 4 hitting Galveston, TX with somewhere between six and eight thousand fatalities. 1915 another category 4 killing 275 each in Galveston, TX and New Orleans, LA for a total of 550,” according to the article “20th Century Hurricanes: The Deadliest” on USA Today.com (September 8, 2000) The decrease perhaps because people didn’t rebuild if they were located in a flood plain, as hurricanes can cause floods, technology advances with earlier detection and/or people evacuated before it hit.
Rather than becoming a statistic on NOAA’s Website (point to it on the board) (www.weather.gov/oh/hic/flood_stats/recent_individual_deaths.shtml). We need to change the way we act and think to help reduce these numbers. As I mentioned last week one of the websites I got some fact and definitions from FEMA’s website for kids. This would be a great start to talking with our children, as you’ll see on NOAA’s site there were little kids and teenagers that perished. We should be telling them not to play near water along drainage fields, swollen creeks, streams or river beds, near dams, levees or bridges. Also they should tell an adult if they notice any water where normally there is noon if they’ve been out walking. I recall watching a movie years ago where a boy was walking by the dam and noticed water seeping through rocks. He told his father or the authorities – it’s been so long I can’t remember for sure. But the Mayor or Governor didn’t want to open the dam to relieve the pressure to prevent a break. By time they went to do it the flood gates were jammed and couldn’t be opened. That movie also may be a good choice to show our children what could happen.
Besides talking to our children we should also tell our friends and family the risk of being swept away even in a vehicle. As more flood facts I found on weather.com state:
1. 66 percent of flood deaths occur in vehicles, and most happen when drivers make a single, fatal mistake trying to navigate through flood waters.
2. Just 6 inches of rapidly moving flood water can knock a person down.
3. A mere 2 feet of water can float a large vehicle even a bus.
4. One-third of flooded roads and bridges are so damaged by water that any vehicle trying to cross stands only a 50% chance of making it to the other side.
Going back to Hurricane Katrina, a category 5, with excessive rain amounts it’s a possibility it’s going to cause flooding and according to weather.com since 1000 out of the 1300 levees along the Mississippi River failed in 1993, and nearly 50,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and 52 people died Over 12,000 square miles of productive farmland were rendered useless. One could almost count on the levee to give with the effects from Katrina, and according to Wikipedia.com there were reports of the levee not being safe from back in 1986. That should give us a reason to evacuate in advance before a major hurricane or possible flooding to save our lives. Here recently with the flooding nearby a mother in Elkhart looses two children, because she attempted to go through water across the roadway. You don’t know for sure how deep the water is going to be in any given area. Of course if you are familiar with the ups and downs of the road it does help give an advantage. But I still wouldn’t go through unless you can visually see the yellow center line. And providing the water is not going over a bridge, or along side of a river. The current can push your vehicle further into the deeper area if not careful.
Works Cited
USA Today, “20th century hurricanes: The deadliest” Accessed on January 19, 2008.
www.usatoday.com/weather/whfatal.htm
Wikipedia, “Hurricane Katrina” Accessed on January 19, 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrican_Katrina
The Weather Channel, “facts about flooding” Accessed on January 19, 2008. www.weather.com/ready/flood/facts.html
The Weather Channel, “The Mississippi River Flood of 1993.” Accessed on January 19, 2008. www.weather.com/encylopedia/flood/miss93.html
U.S. Geological Survey, “Natural Hazards – A National Threat” Accessed January 10, 2008. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2007/3009/2007-3009.pdf
U.S. Geological Survey, “Significant Floods in the United States during the 20th Century – USGS Measures a Century of Floods” Accessed January 19, 2008. http://ks.water.usgs.gov/Kansas/pubs/fact-sheets/fs.024-00.html
|
|
|
