Re: Earth's Carrying Capacity

From: Richard D. Latham (lathamr_at_us.ibm.com)
Date: 08/22/04 

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 18:11:22 -0400

"Ian St. John" <istjohn@noemail.ca> writes:

> Gactimus wrote:
>> Psalm 110 <LyingFrauds@Go_to_Hell.org> wrote in
>> news:l8edi0dlj9ffps806u8q4msvlg2n663ibr@4ax.com:
> <snip>
>>> Your opinion is immaterial. We are waiting for the "big one" the
>>> force five hurrican that hits dead on to megatropolis and kills a
>>> million people in one swope, and causes $500,000,000,000 in one
>>> event.
>>
>> No hurricane will kill a million people nowadays thanks to advance
>> warning technology.
>>
>> As for $500 Billion, I find that highly unlikely. Insurance estimates
>> for a direct hit on Miami by Hurricane Andrew were only around $80
>> billion.
>
> It could happen or nearly. Read up on the St. Louis area. A force 5
> hurricane with 25 meter storm surge would destroy the entire St. Louis and
> region ( 25 to 33 meters flood height as St. Louis is already up to 8 meters
> below sea level ) and there is no way to evacuate the entire region so the
> death toll would probably be in the hundreds of thousands. Figure out how
> many were in the area when Charlie hit and how many could have evacuated by
> road if Charlie had taken a detour to the west and hit St. Louis instead of
> veering east into Florida. They couldn't predict landfall a few hours ahead
> of the storm even in Florida and the area that was hit was almost unprepared
> BECAUSE of the predictions that it would hit further north. They cannot
> evacuate EVERYWHERE that it MIGHT hit. Nobody can predict where a hurricane
> will go with accuracy.
>
> The U.S. has been 'lucky' so far.
>

Are you sure you're don't mean to say New Orleans ? 

-- 
#include  <disclaimer.std>    /* I don't speak for IBM ...           */
                              /* Heck, I don't even speak for myself */
                              /* Don't believe me ? Ask my wife :-)  */
Richard D. Latham   lathamr@us.ibm.com

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