Hurricane Season
Hurricane season. It seems to get increasingly problematical. When the big ones hit, they're described as the worst, ever. In extremes. That's big-time environmental catastrophe. And the ensuing, anticipated damage as well.
Which we are informed could have been, might have been far greater had Hurricane Irene not downgraded itself with furious exhaustion after hitting the U.S. northeast coast from a hurricane to a tropical storm category. As it was, the winds howled and raged and the torrential rain together with the wind wrought untold damage.
Damage held to be in the billions of dollars; according to an estimate by Standard & Poor's, the national total would be roughly $20-billion. And people whose homes were destroyed, those whose homes suffered damage and who had insurance that excluded flood damage coverage are not in a very hopeful position.
The East Coast of the United States was battered with up to 38 centimetres of rain on that miserable week-end, with rivers overflowing their banks, washing out bridges and roads and isolating small towns so that emergency supplies had to be airlifted in for the desperately anxious residents.
Millions of people were bereft of electricity, and in some instances it will not be restored for a week. That represents a true hardship to many, those living on rural properties are dependent on electricity for their wells to pump water; no electricity, no running water. And still the waters which hadn't fully receded have to be dealt with.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land inundated. Crops lost. Farmers looking at utter ruin. Peoples' lives completely upended, everything they worked all their lives to acquire suddenly disappeared under the brutal onslaught of the storm. This is raw nature, against which all the cunning inventions of humankind can do nothing.
And the Federal Emergency Management Agency which insisted after the debacle of their near-absent reaction during Hurricane Katrina washing New Orleans into near oblivion? Well, there's a problem, they have only $800-million left in the emergency-fund kitty for disaster relief. To respond as well as they may, they will be forced to put long-term projects on ice.
This will not aid the faltering U.S. economy, now will it?
Which we are informed could have been, might have been far greater had Hurricane Irene not downgraded itself with furious exhaustion after hitting the U.S. northeast coast from a hurricane to a tropical storm category. As it was, the winds howled and raged and the torrential rain together with the wind wrought untold damage.
Damage held to be in the billions of dollars; according to an estimate by Standard & Poor's, the national total would be roughly $20-billion. And people whose homes were destroyed, those whose homes suffered damage and who had insurance that excluded flood damage coverage are not in a very hopeful position.
The East Coast of the United States was battered with up to 38 centimetres of rain on that miserable week-end, with rivers overflowing their banks, washing out bridges and roads and isolating small towns so that emergency supplies had to be airlifted in for the desperately anxious residents.
Millions of people were bereft of electricity, and in some instances it will not be restored for a week. That represents a true hardship to many, those living on rural properties are dependent on electricity for their wells to pump water; no electricity, no running water. And still the waters which hadn't fully receded have to be dealt with.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land inundated. Crops lost. Farmers looking at utter ruin. Peoples' lives completely upended, everything they worked all their lives to acquire suddenly disappeared under the brutal onslaught of the storm. This is raw nature, against which all the cunning inventions of humankind can do nothing.
And the Federal Emergency Management Agency which insisted after the debacle of their near-absent reaction during Hurricane Katrina washing New Orleans into near oblivion? Well, there's a problem, they have only $800-million left in the emergency-fund kitty for disaster relief. To respond as well as they may, they will be forced to put long-term projects on ice.
This will not aid the faltering U.S. economy, now will it?
Labels: Environment, Nature, United States, Upheaval
posted by Pieface | 7:13 PM
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