MetaFilter posts tagged with floods

Events That Touched Our Ancestors' Lives

netbros — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:36:19 -0800

GenDisasters is a genealogy site, compiling information on the historic disasters, events, and tragic accidents of Canada and the U.S. that our ancestors endured, as well as, information about their life and death. Search is quite extensive and navigation is broken down by disaster type, including earthquakes, hurricanes, mining explosions, and dozens of other categories. You can also choose by state within the USA, for example Arizona, or province within Canada, i.e. New Brunswick. Finally, you may also browse a timeline that begins as early as 1755 and includes information as current as the Swan's Island fire in July of this year. Members are encouraged to report and add information to the ever-growing database.

End of the World? ABC wants your ideas

stbalbach — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:14:46 -0800

Earth2100.tv is a project by ABC (video preview) to solicit ideas from the public and experts about the dangers facing world in the next 100 years. "The world’s brightest minds agree that the “perfect storm” of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results. We need you to bring this story to life."

The Wettest Place on Earth

Surfurrus — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 21:27:08 -0800

8 people and 3 houses were swept away on Kauai today - the island that was already slammed and battered by weeks of rain (over 18 inches in 24 hours last month). More dams are expected to fail. Today's disaster should have been predicted?

Calamaties transform more than landscape

spock — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:14:48 -0800

More than 30 feet of water stood over land inhabited by nearly one million people. Almost 300,000 African Americans were forced to live in refugee camps for months. Many people, both black and white, left the land and never returned. "When Mother Nature rages, the physical results are never subtle. Because we cannot contain the weather, we can only react by tabulating the damage in dollar amounts, estimating the number of people left homeless, and laying the plans for rebuilding. But . . . some calamities transform much more than the landscape." No, not Katrina. The Great Mississippi flood of 1927. Author John M. Barry in his definitive work on the subject, "shows how a heretofore anti-socialist America was forced by unprecedented circumstance to embrace an enormous, Washington-based big-government solution to the greatest natural catastrophe in our history, preparing the way (psychologically and otherwise) for the New Deal." The author is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research of Tulane and Xavier universities (whose web site is *understandably* not answering right now). <Heading for the library to find this book>

The Mumbai Floods

Gyan — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 17:57:55 -0800

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005, was a wet day for the city of Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay), to say the least. Within 12 hours, it rained more than half the average annual rainfall. Upwards of 400 people are believed to have died, with more in adjacent regions. In many regions, the water rose as high as five feet. All transportation links to the rest of India were severed. Within the city, many commuters who left work, for home, on Tuesday evening, didn't reach home till Wednesday night. There have been substantial financial and ecological damages. The state apparatus was caught offguard and proven unprepared; the police were nowhere to be found, and the meteorological department found wanting with their warnings. The rumour-mongering of an incoming tsunami or cyclone also didn't help, as 24 people died in the resulting stampede. Alas, just as one is relieved that the ordeal is over, it appears there's yet more to come.

1953 floods

ginz — Sun, 02 Feb 2003 04:29:59 -0800

Delta 2003 Yesterday the 1953 floods were commemorated in the Netherlands and a day earlier in the UK. What happened in 1953?

luser — Fri, 16 Aug 2002 07:21:05 -0800

900 now dead in flooding, and 25 million are trapped or homeless. Ha! Gotcha. It's just India.

elpapacito — Wed, 31 Jul 2002 19:25:11 -0800

You can't have a cabletv box and live in a flooded area at the same time Unless you're ready to pay $300 for repairs. Corporate lack of clue ?! They didn't flood the place, but they must pay like they did it.

rschram — Mon, 21 Jan 2002 09:15:48 -0800

US Agency Says El Nino Pattern Emerging
Vanuatu decided this a few days earlier, and told its residents to start conserving water (1).
In 1997, a major El Nino pattern created droughts in the Pacific followed by floods toward the end of the year (1, 2). I think one can reasonably attribute fires in Australia to El Nino influenced dry spells and high temperatures (1). If you care to make your own predictions, the number to watch is the SOI.

panopticon — Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:09:24 -0800

NYC subways might flood. Apparently, the WTC collapse may allow the Hudson River to flood into subway tunnels. eek!

crasspastor — Sun, 01 Jul 2001 04:11:25 -0800

FEMA for kids! Let Herman the spokescrab guide you through the catalog of potentially civilization ending disasters. Education is great. Entertaining your kids on cabin fevered summer days is better. I have friends that when they bring their young buck over send him to my computer to play the kiddie offerings at nick.com (sorry dead link this time o' night it seems). But I can just hear the sunburned Minnesota five year old who's been overly femafied asking mommy after her bedtime story, "August is hurricane season. Is it windy now because we're going to have a hurricane?" Mom strokes child's hair, "No, here we're only prone to devastating thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, kidcicle causing cold and blizzards. Now you have sweet dreams and quit worrying about ridiculous things like that. 'Night." Like of course, a kid that age would really find the FEMA website riveting to begin with. . .

LeiaS — Sun, 10 Jun 2001 15:29:11 -0800

At least 12 people are dead and damage could be $1 billion as a result of flooding in the US' fourth largest city of Houston. Some areas received more than two feet of rain in a 24 hour period this weekend after the remains of Tropical Storm Allison regrouped and poured on southeast Texas. Why does this story only get one page on the major news sites, when the Seattle quake was covered extensively all over the country?