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Could someone explain to a foreigner why is there so much damage in US areas regularly hit by hurricanes? Would making the river infrastructure hurricane proof
by dandare 9y ago
Could someone explain to a foreigner why is there so much damage in US areas regularly hit by hurricanes?
Would making the river infrastructure hurricane proof be cost ineffective? Or is it a problem of lack of investment in such infrastructure? I mean, we always hear about some breached levees so I suppose some infrastructure is in place but seems not to be up for the job. Would it be possible and cost effective to make all city like Huston hurricane proof?
- AlgorithmicTime 9y agoWell, Harvey has been a once in a thousand year storm. Houston has literally never been flooded like this before.
- samfisher83 9y agoIt suffered 50+ inches of rain (19 trillion gallons of water) in a short period of time. This is the most rainfall in US history. There are things you can do to mitigate flooding, but this was a very extreme event.
- xelxebar 9y agoWe just hope this kind of thing stays as extreme and unlikely in the future too. :(
- saiya-jin 9y agoyeah, like all around the world including back home, where once in 100 years rainfall comes every few years these days, and I believe we had 1 in 500 years one twice this century already. not-a-chance. please somebody explain to that simpleton in white house that there is really no global warming/climate change and it will definitely not cost any money to manage its consequences, and we should all keep focusing on short term monetary goals when shaping up global policies. or not... money is the only talk he seems to comprehend, so maybe he will get this one. that's a massive MAYBE.
- dandare 9y agoThat makes sense. Thanks.
- maxerickson 9y agoYes, lack of investment is part of the problem. There is also resistance to regional planning that would limit building in the most vulnerable areas. (When Katrina hit New Orleans, the oldest parts of the city were less impacted, because building started on higher ground)
- mikeash 9y agoProtecting against massive hurricanes is a hard problem. You can't realistically protect against them completely. An outlier hurricane like this will cause a lot of damage no matter how prepared you are, just like, for example, a 9.0 earthquake will cause a lot of damage even in earthquake prone and earthquake prepared Japan.