Natural Hazards are Rarely Completely Natural Essay

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.

“There are natural hazards, but disasters are the result of human actions that put people and property in harm’s way” (Cigler 2007: 64). Throughout history New Orleans has been continuously altered by the presence of humans through the creation of levees and canals, the introduction of artificial irrigation systems, and through human induced processes that have ultimately accelerated the process of land degradation and erosion. While a natural hazard struck New Orleans in 2005, the disaster portion resulting from Hurricane Katrina was a result of human induced interactions throughout the history of New Orleans.

Imagine living your life on a regular day for you and BOOM! Your life is now suddenly completely changed, everything you thought was normal or part of you has changed. This is what natural disasters tend to make happen in your life, they affect us in many ways. In this essay i will discuss the various elements each author uses to express the causes and effects of disasters. The author Jacqueline Adam clearly expresses the causes and effects of disasters through the use of text structure, choice of vocabulary and use of data and details.

This storm was no normal hurricane, it grew and grew and grew till the conditions were terrible. The hurricane of 1938 started off the coast of Africa as a thunderstorm. Then it moved toward Florida, ships reporting heavy rain, strong winds, and waves. Meteorologists expected it to hit Florida and start heading north and die down. The storm turned into a tropical cyclone and missed Florida and heads north. Once the cyclone hit the cool water it does not die it grew stronger and turned into a storm surge. Soon it’s right outside

Natural hazards — are different natural phenomena that disrupt the usual live of a population, destroy and demolish objects of material value. They often have a negative effect on nature, and can happen anywhere in the world. Many different types of natural hazards exist; for example, earth quakes, landslides, floods, snow drifts, hurricanes, droughts, volcano eruptions, storms, etc. Natural hazards can happen independently or can be related to each other. If there is an earthquake, it can lead to a tsunami or massive fires. Some of them happen as a result of mankind’s doings; construction work, depending on the location, can cause snow drifts, or massive fires.

Ever wonder how bad hurricanes get? Early in the day on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. It had a rating of 3 on the Hurricane Scale–it brought continuous winds of 100–140 miles per hour and 400 miles across. The storm itself did an abundance of destruction, but its aftermath was somewhat apocalyptic. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana were taken from their own homes, and experts say that Katrina caused over $100 billion in damage.

Jack London grasped the idea of naturalism when he wrote “To Build a Fire” and he used naturalism to illustrate the brutal unrelenting beast that is nature. London also uses naturalism to stress nature’s dangerous and unpredictable qualities. Basically London is saying that we must be accountable for our decisions and cannot depend on anything but our own will to live and survive. " To Build a Fire" is a short story that incorporates the idea of naturalism and how, if we are not deliberate, nature will win the duel and we will perish. There is no doubt when beginning to read this story that the readers notice the main character is in a dangerous situation with the weather.

Hurricanes have and always will be very deadly and destructive natural disasters. They are some of the most leading causes of death near the coasts. All of the states that have beaches can get these kind of storms. These storms cause a lot of damage and devastation. Hurricanes can really ruin a person’s life.

In this text, Dr. Jorn Birkmann takes an in-depth look at the interaction between society and natural hazards. Birkmann explores, among other things, the concept of vulnerability and how it relates to calamity. There is a focus on how the knowledge of particular natural hazard can be combined with information regarding the vulnerability of a society before a disaster to reduce risk. Overall, this text will provide me with relevant information on the complex interactions between natural hazards and society.

Hurricane Katrina was a storm that should not have caused as much damage as it did. Hurricane Katrina was category one when it made landfall in the state of Florida and was only a category three storm when it made landfall at the Louisiana-Mississippi border (Zimmerman). The weak infrastructure and physical characteristics of cities like New Orleans experience a much greater impact than would normally be expected with a category three hurricane. 1,833 people were killed, the majority of whom were in Louisiana (CNN Library). The total damage to property, buildings, infrastructure, etc. was $108 billion, the most damage ever incurred by a hurricane in the United States (CNN Library). Seventy percent of all occupied housing in New Orleans were destroyed and hundreds of thousands were displaced from the city (CNN Library). Overall, Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history and could have been avoided had actions been taken earlier and had infrastructure been better.

Natural disasters come in many forms such as earthquakes, tornados, floods, blizzards, fires, and volcanic eruptions, just to name a few. Anyhow, Natural disasters occur everywhere around the world every single day, if they are small or large. Natural disasters events have been a topic that has affected many countries through the years. Even though many disasters aren’t subjected to one area it is common that the worst natural disaster in the United States, occur more often in the coastal areas like Florida, California, and outer Texas. It's not a secret without different weather patterns, the human race possibly wouldn’t be able to exist on this planet if it wasn’t for weather. Just this year in 2017, hurricanes have been the main story-line in our news media’s channels this summer and fall. The strong winds combine with water waves in these major hurricane disasters end up creating horrifying floods in many of our communities in the United States. Today I will compare and contrast hurricane Katrina from 2005 and the rapid city flood of 1972 and give a brief summary of the history of both natural disasters and then explain how it affected our economy, environment Also, list the characteristics of these two major natural disasters events.

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

Prior to the storm it was known that the land being built on was not safe or fit for development. The government encouraged this development by making it “safe” to build on and by subsidizing building projects there

Natural disasters may be defined as natural catastrophes which cause great damage by disrupting the functioning of a society thus rendering the country incapable of coping through using its own resources as there is a need for outsider assistance in order to effectively preserve lives and the environment. Conversely, Natural hazards are natural phenomena that are potential threats to people within a society, structures or economic assets and may cause disaster. Natural disasters are inevitable and ubiquitous worldwide. Within the Caribbean, they are chiefly present in the forms of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, and volcanoes. The great damages caused by natural disasters may be divided into three categories: social, economic

Throughout human history there have been many kinds of disasters. Many of these disasters have been mad-made, whether they be the fault of improper infrastructure, lack of maintenance, or just poor planning from the engineers. These types of disasters can usually occur frequently and we usually we put the blame on someone who will pay for the damages to those who were affected by the disaster. There is however another type of disaster that plagues man-kind, and is known as a natural disaster. Natural disasters are the ones that are caused by Mother Nature, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and severe flooding. Each type of natural disaster brings with it, its own types of hazards and ways in which people can prepare for them. Many of these types of natural disasters are unpredictable, so planning and managing them has to be done ahead of time in order to prepare for the worst after the disaster is over. There are however, some natural disaster that we can see coming, and even then we are sometimes caught off-guard with the damages they can bring to an area. This was the case with hurricane Katrina in 2005. The massive storm caused millions in damages and killed thousands of people, and was a lesson that sometimes we are not fully prepared to handle nature’s wrath. The lessons that we learned from hurricane Katrina are vital to help us prepare for another massive storm if it were to hit in the near future.