Crumpled

After hurricane Katrina I've considered possible scenarios for future disasters that might effect me personally (unlike Katrina). I may be a bit of a fatalist when it comes to natural disasters. Like if I can't mark it in my calendar I can't be held responsible for the consequences I'm forced to cope with, and besides we might get hit by cars or something. You know, whatever. They call them "Acts of God". How that survives as a legal term is beyond me. Anyway.... In the November 2005 issue of Wired magazine is an article called "Danger Zones: Ten trouble spots you aren't already worried about."

I had thought about three of them. The first one after Katrina that was brought to my attention happens to be number one on Wired's list: Sacramento Levee system failing. I was made aware of this because my local NPR station is based out of Sacramento. (the Governator recently, and arbitrarily declared a state of emergency to try to get federal money to prop up the system. That's like one Republican suggesting to another that they both pretend to be Democrats for a while.) But two of the other nine are also places that I've lived.

When I lived in Missouri, in my sophomore science class, we all watched a tape-recorded news report from our NBC affiliate about how, sometime in the future, a large chunk of the state would probably get destroyed by a huge earthquake. I bet everyone went home and told their families about what they learned in school that day. It's such a good anecdote. But nobody really cares. It's fatalism again. Wait until it happens, then you'll believe it and it will really concern you if you live there. In the meantime, don't worry. What can you do? By the way, the likelihood of this scenario, according to the news video and the more recent article is very high.

Then there is Mount Rainier erupting. Pretty much everyone who lives in Seattle acknowledges that this is an inevitability, but this time the consequences aren't so clearly defined. One thing seems to be reasonably certain in this scenario: the glacial ice pack on that mountain will probably mix with the lava, and create a huge moving wall of concrete (these flows are called "Lahars"), that will drastically alter the surrounding area.

Anyway, I'm probably moving up there. (we'll see what the job market is like), so let's just hope that the volcano behaves itself for a while, or the lahar doesn't travel more than a hundred miles or so. If it does, oh well, act of God. Whatever.