Natural Disasters

A natural disaster has the capability to cause large scale damage and destruction to an area. Seismic events have been known to alter landscapes and affect the livelihoods, health and development of communities. No two earthquake events are the same and the level of threat posed by an earthquake can vary due to both the human and physical factors of an area. The 2010 magnitude - 7.0 earthquake that occurred in Haiti is an example of where a natural disaster caused a previously vulnerable area to suffer tremendous loss and debilitating socio-economic impacts, to an already poverty-stricken nation.

As the World Bank and the United Nations (2010) point out, “Climate-related hazards (“extreme events”) have resulted in an average of $59 billion a year in global damages” (p.174). Climate chance forces emergency planers to not only address current increased risk, but it also requires significant long-term plaining as the problem increases in magnitude. As an example, places like Florida will not only need to contend with a longer and stronger hurricane season, but increased sea levels as well. In the short term, the effects of climate change can have secondary effects. Things like droughts create secondary problems like social and economic disruptions (World Bank & United Nations, 2010, p. 182). This is the case in California where droughts are causing economic problems in the states agricultural sector and an increase in forest fires.

natural disasters). Gallup et al. (2003, pp.41, 46) have estimated that natural disasters in Latin America over the last 30 years have cost up to $3.3 billion and in extreme disasters costs can reach 10 per cent of a country’s GDP. This, coupled with the fact that they suffer regularly from natural disasters due to their location, means that they find it harder to recover from them. The destruction of crops causes vast economic loss which cannot be regained as farmers rely on monoculture. Furthermore, many buildings in developing countries are often built from weak materials which causes mass destruction and costly re-construction which these countries cannot afford.

Hurricane Katrina is the most expensive natural disaster in American history (Kates et al., 2006). This is supported by the statistics from August 2006, where the death total surpassed 1836 and the cost of the destruction was projected to be near $108 billion (Kates et al., 2006). On August 29, it made landfall in Louisiana as a category 3 Hurricane and its aftermath was devastating

In 2005 alone 88,117 people were killed in Natural Disasters. A massive 1836 of those people died during Hurricane Katrina that struck New Orleans. Natural disasters are sometimes unpredictable and can not be avoided. It is important that communities are educated and authorities are prepared for anything.

The natural environment is, of course, not “getting its revenge”. Geophysical, meteorological, and hydrologic processes are unfolding as they have for millennia, beginning long before humans occupied the earth and continuing to the present. Given the eons-long perspective of the natural environment, it would be very difficult to identify meaningful changes in event frequency for the short time period in which scientific records are available on geological, meteorological, and hydrological phenomena. Event frequency, from an emergency management perspective, is not really the issue. It is certainly true that, over the years, more people have been affected by natural disasters and losses are becoming progressively greater. The significant feature driving these observations, however, is the extent of human encroachment into hazard prone areas. With increasing population density and changing land use patterns, more people are exposed to natural hazards and consequently our accumulated human and economic losses are increasing. Much of this exposure is a matter of choice. Sometimes people choose hazardous places, building houses on picturesque cliffs, on mountain slopes, in floodplains, near beautiful volcanoes, or along seismic faults. Sometimes people choose hazardous building materials that fail under extreme environmental stresses—for example, unreinforced masonry construction in seismically active areas. Some exposure results from constrained choices; the cheap land or

Adams and Kostel, the authors, discuss the causes of the disasters and ways to minimize the effects of these type of disasters. The authors use physical data to help readers visualize the..causes..In...text..it..states,.“Total losses exceeded $150 billion.” The authors use monetary data to show the devastating effects of the hurricane.

For a city or country ability to rebuild after a natural disaster depends on the city 's strength and the government’s response to the disaster. If a city cannot recover after a natural disaster it is all on the government. A city need a strong stable government in order to thrive. Once disaster hit it’s up to the city at first to take care of what is going on in the city. This is the part of the government responding at a local level. The business owners and civilians help start the rebuild of their city from within. If the city is completely

For example, in Canada, the number of human deaths has been small in comparison to those that have occurred in developing nations as a result of extreme events of similar magnitude and intensity. Nevertheless, there have been a number of disasters that have caused enormous disruption and/or damage, including the 1998 Ice Storm, the Prairie droughts of the 1930s, 1980, 1987 and 1989, the Red River flood of 1997, the British Columbia forest fires of 2004, the Saguenay flood of 1997, Hurricanes Hazel (1954) and Juan (2004), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS, 2003) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) (Haque, C.E and Etkin, D 2007).

A natural disaster is an event that causes great damage. Such as floods, hurricanes, or a loss of life. Speaking this there was a Wildfire in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In fact, there was a wild fire that occurred on June 23, 2012. Only four miles Southwest of Colorado Springs. Therefore, there were several locations that needed to be evacuated. Even though there was 18,247 acres burnt, the fire was 100 percent contained on July 10, 2012. All in all, 346 homes were burnt. Due to that fact, two families lost a loved one. Eventually the mystery of this wildfire, is still unknown.

Due to diverse geo-climatic conditions prevalent in different parts of the globe, different types of natural disasters like floods, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, and volcanoes etc may strike according to the vulnerability of the area.

While natural disasters such as floods, drought and hurricanes are commonly thought to occur due to environmental forces such as weather, climate and tectonic movements; a deeper investigation into the ‘disaster’ displays other contributing forces. Human factors have a large, if not equal, contribution to the occurrance and outcome of such disasters (Pelling, 2001). As Pelling (2001) argues, there is both a physical and human dimension to ‘natural disasters’. The extent to which the natural occurrence of a physical process, such as a flood or earthquake, impacts on society is constructed by that society, creating a ‘disaster’ as measured by a

“Natural disasters have killed more than 600,000 people and left behind trillions of dollars in damages in the last two decades, the United Nations said Monday.” (Chan) Extreme weather has caused millions of casualties and extreme damages over the years, but lately there has been an increase in severe weather events. This is causing problems in the US, with the amount of tornadoes rising in tornado alley “Tennessee experienced a 67 percent increase in tornado activity in 1983-2013 compared to the 1954-1983 time period. Oklahoma experienced a nearly 35 percent decrease in tornadoes in 1983-2013 compared to 1954-1983.”

Natural disasters are anything from floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, or anything else nature could develop that causes massive amounts of damage, or cause a large losses of life. Such events are not anything caused because of human beings, but only by the actions of atmospheric conditions, or due to the changes of continental drifts that these disasters occur. Technology has come a long way since the early days before the industrial revolution where predictions can be made and warnings can be issued. This helps reduce the amount of possible loss of lives that would occur in 21st century. However, that is not what happened during Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 Hurricane.

Natural disaster is a sudden and terrific event in nature (such as a hurricane, tornado, flood, heat waves,typhoon) that usually results in serious damage and a huge amount of deaths.