Geologists Warned of Washington State Mudslides For Decades 230
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Seattle Times reports that since the 1950s, geological reports on the hill that buckled last weekend, killing at least 17 residents in Snohomish County in Washington State, have included pessimistic analyses and the occasional dire prediction. But no language seems more prescient than what appears in a 1999 report filed warning of 'the potential for a large catastrophic failure.' Daniel Miller, a geomorphologist, documented the hill's landslide conditions in a report written in 1997 for the Washington Department of Ecology and the Tulalip Tribes. Miller knows the hill's history, having collected reports and memos from the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s and has a half-dozen manila folders stuffed with maps, slides, models and drawings, all telling the story of an unstable hillside that has defied efforts to shore it up. That's why he could not believe what he saw in 2006, when he returned to the hill within weeks of a landslide that crashed into and plugged the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, creating a new channel that threatened homes on a street called Steelhead Drive. Instead of seeing homes being vacated, he saw carpenters building new ones. 'Frankly, I was shocked that the county permitted any building across from the river,' says Miller. 'We've known that it's been failing. It's not unknown that this hazard exists.'" (More, below.)
"The hill that collapsed is referred to by geologists with different names, including Hazel Landslide and Steelhead Haven Landslide, a reference to the hillside's constant movement. After the hill gave away in 1949, in '51, in '67, in '88, in 2006, residents referred to it simply as 'Slide Hill.' 'People knew that this was a landslide-prone area,' says John Pennington. Geomorphologist Tracy Drury said there were discussions over the years about whether to buy out the property owners in the area, but those talks never developed into serious proposals. 'I think we did the best that we could under the constraints that nobody wanted to sell their property and move.'"
Scientists warned of global warming for decades to (Score:4, Insightful)
And still not much is being done to stop it. Wait 30 years and you'll see this same article here, only referencing global warming.
Insanity.... (Score:3)
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With the guy that passed the first round of Obomneycare, Mitt Romney himself? How do you figure?
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Look at the story after this, California quakes.
I theorize that seismic activity shook the mud loose. I cite Samuel Clemens standing on Nicola Teslas vibrating platform as proof of concept.
California shakes and Washington took a dump.
Its Scienterrific!
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Climatologists were warning of an impending ice age during the Johnson administration.
Liar liar, pants on fire!
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http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
Note the mention of President Johnson there. If that's not enough try google and you will find many others.
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Re:Scientists warned of global warming for decades (Score:5, Insightful)
The stupidity of a bunch of people that believe academics can afford better publicity people than oil companies is amazing. This is exactly the same thing. The geologist states facts once and thinks it's settled. The housing developers have a staff of people who keep asking different officials uni they find one who listens. Then they keep commissioning secret reports until they find a tame "expert" land slide denialist. When they find this person they pay a huge amount more to publish the report.
These are people who are killing people for money. Even of the denialist "expert" is an idiot who never realises what he's done, the industrialist behind him knows exactly what is going on. What should we do?
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>What should we do?
Charge the developers with manslaughter, at least?
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Currently the idea of being 'responsible' only covers your own life, whatever you do to others, as long as you made a profit, is their own fault.
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Exactly. Did the developers make perfectly clear to the buyers what risks were involved? If so they're off the hook, if not...
Ditto on resale - did the fully-informed previous owners pass on the dire warnings to the new buyers? If not, then *they* are the ones on the hook for manslaughter.
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Exactly. Did the developers make perfectly clear to the buyers what risks were involved? If so they're off the hook, if not...
Ditto on resale - did the fully-informed previous owners pass on the dire warnings to the new buyers? If not, then *they* are the ones on the hook for manslaughter.
This is America. Nobody's off the hook when a lawyer is involved. Ever.
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Exactly. Did the developers make perfectly clear to the buyers what risks were involved? If so they're off the hook, if not...
I'd say if they were clear about the risks, that is manslaughter. If they lied about the risks, murder 2.
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Man keep up with the conspiracy theories! The intelligentsia illuminati KNOW global warming is real, but it will helpfully kill off most of the imbeciles with famine, drought, and pestilence on a biblical scale right about the time that automation put them out of work anyways. This prevent revolution, and allows the technocracy to implement "changes" that may deprive liberties but will allow the remaining knuckleheads to survive, which will encourage them to accept that privacy is dead, and that Zombie Li
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#History
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And still not much is being done to stop it. Wait 30 years and you'll see this same article here, only referencing global warming.
Odd, I thought that they'd been claiming that the end of the world would be coming every 10 years for the last 30 years. I can pretty much find that in literature easily enough, including that: No glaciers by 2000, no snow falls by 2000, and 2010 in europe, no polar ice caps, and a whole pile of other things.
Re:Scientists warned of global warming for decades (Score:4, Insightful)
Odd, I thought that they'd been claiming that the end of the world would be coming every 10 years for the last 30 years.
That's because instead of listening to the predictions, you waved your hands without even knowing what the predictions were.
I can pretty much find that in literature easily enough, including that: No glaciers by 2000, no snow falls by 2000, and 2010 in europe, no polar ice caps, and a whole pile of other things.
What you failed to realize is that those were not the predictions of mainstream climate science, but of wackos were paraded in front of you as straw men. I call you on your bullshit and invite you to look up that "literature."
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As if the climate is somehow open to achieving consensus if we can just act like it's a political opponent for long enough: "OK OK, we'll agree to a climate sensitivity of 1.8
Re:Scientists warned of global warming for decades (Score:4, Insightful)
1. You claimed "that the end of the world would be coming every 10 years for the last 30 years." Cite this claim specifically
2. You claimed to have citation stating there would be "No glaciers by 2000" Cite this.
3. " no snow falls by 2000 and 2010 in europe," Cite this from peer reviewed material
4. no polar ice caps - provide this citation (Noting that it must be for both poles and must predict that would be no polar ice caps before 2014 to qualify per your criteria).
I particularly like the ones on no glaciers in the Himalayas, that were based on no evidence by Greenpeace, with no scientific data.
Your mistake. This doesn't qualify as an example of scientific literature (get a full understand of the composition of AR4 before mouthing off next time, moron), and they (the authors of the piece) didn't say "no glaciers in the himalayas" they made reference to one glacier completely disappearing. In an opinion piece.
Now get on with it.
Re:Scientists warned of global warming for decades (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. [youtube.com] Even in the 70s, the consensus was already leaning heavily toward warming.
A survey of climate science articles from '65 to '79 found seven that leaned toward global cooling, but they also found 44 articles on global warming over the same period. This notion of a "consensus" in the 70s about global cooling is simply a myth. The video linked above explains why and how. (Hint: the culprit is the media, not the scientists.)
Here's a little "thought experiment" for you... Imagine a "typical" English or Journalism major from your college days. How would you rate their understanding of science and engineering issues? Now imagine that person is writing for, say, Time Magazine...
Watch the video above to see how that works out. ;-)
Muh freedoms! (Score:5, Insightful)
"I wanna build that wood-made doll house on the side of the collapsing hill, on a shore of a constant tide, at the bottom of a restless avalanche, in the way of a hundred hurricanes, next to an ever-flooding river, at the feet of a volcano! And you ain't gonna stop me!"
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I'd mod the AC up.. thats really the point here. If people want to build and live in a dangerous location then they have to accept the risks.
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Re: Muh freedoms! (Score:2)
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Well, the thing about the Yellowstone "super-volcano" is that it will take out most of the central US and do severe damage to the coastal areas if it goes the way it did last time.
It's quite difficult to FIND a place that isn't exposed to some danger or other. Sometimes it's relatively easy to predict when it will happen (withing a decade or so) and other times it's more difficult.
Now in this particular place, there was clear evidence that the timeline was rather short, and it's quite likely that the peopl
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I wouldn't mind if it were just made out of wood. But it's also made out of PVC and galvanized steel and all kinds of other things that I don't want burned up, so at minimum I don't want people to be permitted to build houses that are likely to burn down even if there is no particular fire danger to others. And I certainly don't want people to be able to have significant generator fuel storage without spill containment, or where it's likely to be pushed into a river by a landslide.
I believe in people's righ
Re:Muh freedoms! (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, yes. Throw in a dash of the "government is doing it", and you've pretty much captured the sentiment that many people have when told they are proposing to build in a dangerous place. Often, they already own the land, and will complain bitterly about the loss of their investment if they are later told how dangerous the location is.
As a geologist, I'm mostly fine with people building where they want when it comes to risks. As long as: A) you sign a declaration and submit it to the local government indicating that you have been informed of and accept all of the risks inherent to that very dangerous site; B) that such a declaration be attached to the deed and any bill of sale so that if the property is transferred to someone else they will know of and be bound by the same terms; C) you're on your own when it comes to getting house and other property insurance; and D) you pay into some kind of private emergency rescue fund rather than expecting government emergency personnel to put their lives at risk trying to get you out of there when it all goes bad.
No taxpayer-funded bailouts for that kind of informed, free, but stupid choice.
Alternatively, people could be rational about it and not build there, but if they insist on not being rational about it, then they should be forced to do so on their own dollar.
This is not to diminish the feelings about the losses in this tragic case, but if people were well-informed about the risks and built there anyway, they have to live with the consequences. And if they weren't well-informed, then heads should roll.
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Hear, hear.
Re:Muh freedoms! (Score:4, Interesting)
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One tricky part there, people have children.
What's tricky about it? If they're so stupid that they're willing to put their children in that sort of danger, the children are likely to have inherited the lack of basic intelligence and foresight. Good Darwinian principles suggests that culling the herd in that sort of situation is reasonable; no action is needed beyond telling the parents "I told you so" after the fact if they survive, before suggesting that this indicates that they'd be best off getting sterilised for the good of the rest of humanity.
G
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I'm afraid that you are right.
An interesting article in the NY Times today talks about that very subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03... [nytimes.com]
Basically, if you try to prevent people from building where it might be unsafe, you run up against all of the "freedom" people and greed and "guvmt meddling" people.
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Nice ASSumption that the victims were all the original builders. I suspect many of them simply saw a house for sale and bought it - and were not made aware of the risk.
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Or even, worked nearby and rented a house and had no reason to believe it wasn't safe, and no reason to invest in a study or report.
The whole "if they know the risks" stuff breaks down fast, because owning a residence probably means they have a Right to let others live there with them. So for the "knowing their risks" stuff, they'd still have to have their rights restricted in a way where everybody that comes onto the property has also had the risks explained to them. And people who can't understand the ris
'Murica! (Score:5, Funny)
Why do they hate our freedom to build somewhere incredibly stupid and dangerous?
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There was a small town near my hometown. My boss at the time lived in this small town. Every year around spring time that small town would flood. My boss' house would literally have a moat. Tells me how tough he's got it because he has to move all his stuff from the bottom floor to keep from getting wet. I had a hard time finding sympathy for him. Why? That entire small town was BUILT ON A FLOOD PLANE.
Then again that town had a nic
Re:'Murica! (Score:5, Insightful)
> Jokes aside, I never understood why people live in KNOWN dangerous places.
Because it's only one factor. Farmers value the fertile land where floods deposit soil, and it's rarely feasible to live very far from the farm. Traders value the shipping made easier by river or ocean traffic near river heads, but those are likely flood areas. Damming and irrigation and dikes can actually _change_ the shape of the flood plain, making formerly safe areas profoundly more dangerous. Industries rely on the river water or hydro-electric power, and long commutes to work are a subtle tax on every worker's time every day.
Would you pay double the price of your current home, or apartment, to live in a safer place further from your work? Could you afford it?
Beach houses (Score:3, Insightful)
When it comes to beach houses, nothing can be done to protect them from hurricanes. But people still build huge homes there. A hurricane comes by and wipes them out, the President declares a disaster area, government (taxpayers) pays to rebuild - rinse and repeat.
See, the wealthy people who own beach houses also have the political clout to get us peons to pay for their luxuries.
What we need is to just say, "Sorry, you build on the beach and your house gets smashed by a hurricane, tough shit. Eat it."
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The Great Lakes region has a significant percentage of the US's population and I would not consider it "way too risky."
Southeast Michigan, part of this region, has around 5.5 million people. We haven't had a significant natural disaster that I'm aware of in the last 100 years or more. We are not subject to tsunamis or earthquakes. We're far away from the ocean and fault lines. We aren't subject to volcanoes or rock slides. This region is flat; no mountains here. Remnants of hurricanes cause little more than
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It's like how other places have to deal with fires or tornadoes. The expected can be dealt with.
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That isn't the formula; mostly you pay more to live some place dangerous.
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We have a situation near us in the community of Squaw Valley with is a (duh) valley with steep slides where there are avalanches in heavy snow years (not this year due to global warming). There are houses in the avalanche paths so they are required to post a large sign on the bathroom door warning people that the house is in an avalanche path.
I guess that's the best they can do.
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Jokes aside, I never understood why people live in KNOWN dangerous places.
Actually, there are damn few places in the US that are not subject to some type of natural disaster. http://www.datafoundry.com/dis... [datafoundry.com] And this does not include the power grid killing ice storms... And southwest Texas, while nice from a natural disaster standpoint has a rather large man made disaster of the drug trade and related crime to contend with. So, where are you going to live?
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It's a fundamental rule of geology, well documented in a 1960's book called "The Exploding Metropolis".
The most productive agricultural fields happens to be land which has a near constant groundwater level, which is best achieved from being away from hillsides, mountain canyons and river flood plains, ideally raised plateaus formed from river sedimentation. Everything else then has a lower land value, due to the dangers of landslides, avalanches, flash flooding, subsidence and sinkholes. Downtown areas will
Re:'Murica! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why not, that's pure Darwinism.
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So much of San Francisco is actually built on land reclaimed from the sea using compacted landfill and other materials. There are maps which show what San Francisco Bay looked like back in the 1900's and what it looks like now. The assumption is that with the next big earthquake, all that land will undergo liquefaction as underground water is pushed upwards, and the shockwaves bounce around.
Like living near a train track. (Score:3)
At some point the urgency wanes, the storm turns at the last before landfall again, and fewer people leave their homes.
Since the '50's is way past most folks' attention spans.
Re:Like living near a train track. (Score:5, Interesting)
The hurricane situation is a lot stupider than this one. The states force insurance companies to provide insurance to everyone and dictate that the rates can't be too high. So the insurance company raises the rate state-wide to cover the costs of the people living in the most prone areas. My mother-in-laws Florida home that just sold for a whopping $60k had premium that was $5000 per year before she sold it. That's INSANE. But the majority of the states revenue comes from the coast so that's what they protect.
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Re: Like living near a train track. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ask yourself this - if you consider a $60k house "disposable", how likely are you to live in a $60k house? And if it's not disposable, then here's a fair chance you have a mortgage. And if you have a mortgage then the bank will require insurance. And even if you don't have a mortgage you still have to consider the odds that something will happen to your house in the next 12 years - the "break even" point where you would be better off just saving the money.
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The breakeven point is only 12 years if you assume the insurance company will pay off on time and full value with no fight. The only things insurance companies do on time and full value is collect premiums. At least they will short you by the amount low enough not to make it worth your while to hire a lawyer.
I'd put estimated break even verses a total loss at 8 years, depending on how you value the time you will spend fighting insurance company.
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Don't forget to subtract the value of the land. The house might blow away, but the land will still be there and it must be worth some amount over zero.
Contradictory news (Score:3)
The story in the news was particularly "funny".
It starts with "and then the slope collapsed without any warning".
Later it stated that "scientists warned of the risk in a report 15 years ago".
So how is that "without any warning"?
And I hate it when they say "scientists". They don't say "celebrities", "politicians", "football players" - no, they use names. But scientists always remain nameless. Scientists are not amorphous magicians, they are people like you and me.
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So, if someone said to you, "your house is likely to catch fire in the future", and then your house caught fire 15 years later, you'd be thinking "damnit! I was warned this would happen, I should have listened to that guy 15 years ago and moved"??
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if that person said it would catch fire in the future because of faulty wiring (or something else) then i'd fix the wiring.
Re:Contradictory news (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if someone said to you, "your house is likely to catch fire in the future", and then your house caught fire 15 years later, you'd be thinking "damnit! I was warned this would happen, I should have listened to that guy 15 years ago and moved"??"
if that person said it would catch fire in the future because of faulty wiring (or something else) then i'd fix the wiring.
Ah, the arguments of the willfully ignorant. I wish I were still a conservative. No nuances, no questions. Everything had a trite simple answer.
Reality does not so neatly fit into a box.
House fires happen rapidly. They are also largely preventable. And even though one person's house fire may be a tragedy, pouring water on it puts out the fire. (Remember kids: the fire department exists to prevent your house fire from burning down the rest of the city, not to save your house)
Mudslides, like earthquakes, are triggered by complex conditions that are not knowable by humans in advance (with any degree of certainty). They also cannot be prevented or controlled. There is no "Mudslide Department" because there is no response. By the time you find out about it, the mudslide is over and the damage is done.
This case is very simple to explain: no one wants to be the person who "wastes" taxpayer dollars buying out homeowners and tearing down houses when the potential disaster can strike anywhere between tomorrow and 50 years from now. So county officials, housing developers, and maybe to some degree homeowners all chose to ignore the report and get on with their lives. That works great, right up until the moment when everyone died.
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This case is very simple to explain: no one wants to be the person who "wastes" taxpayer dollars buying out homeowners and tearing down houses when the potential disaster can strike anywhere between tomorrow and 50 years from now.
Wait, so you would be willing to buy the houses of those people with your own money so they could move somewhere else?
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Re: Contradictory news (Score:3)
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And I hate it when they say "scientists". They don't say "celebrities", "politicians", "football players" - no, they use names. But scientists always remain nameless. Scientists are not amorphous magicians, they are people like you and me.
If they listed all the names of scientists who have warned about this since 1950, there wouldn't be room for anything else on that page.
Money trumps science (Score:5, Insightful)
As a tech working in Southern California with a B.A. in Geology, I can tell you that most geologic reports that are prepared are typically all but ignored by developers, leading to many problems down the road, and occasional tragedies such as this. I know of a large building built in the San Andreas Fault Zone that did not have the proper footings in place, and has sunk as a result (not from any earthquake, but from the nature of the fractured strata beneath the site), costing more taxpayer money to save it (this being a state institution).
Geologist warnings serve more to set insurance rates then to avoid issues, and many lives have been lost, and will be lost as a result. Geologist by the nature of their science look at the land in terms of what will happen over time, while Developers are concerned with only if their investment will pay off in the short term, assuming the added risk as just an increase in insurance costs taken from their bottom lines.
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'Developers' build state institution buildings on spec? State buildings are built by the state, usually based on a bond issue. Clearly the problem is not with the developers alone.
Money trumps everything (Score:3)
one warning came to pass (Score:3)
Think of all of the warnings we hear from scientists/experts.
Mudslides, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes - there are lots of places we just shouldn't live because some day there will be a disaster.
Bridges, buildings, subways - there are lots of man-made structures we need to repair. some will collapse
Diet, medicine, excessive - it will harm society if we are allowed 20 oz drinks or salt at the table.
We could probably list legitimate warnings all day. And I'll probably experience dozens of things today that scientists have warned about. This situation is tragic but it doesn't mean anyone is to blame. With 1000s of warnings from scientists, some will happen - but most don't.
If there's anywhere to focus it's on how to evaluate and prioritize warnings across a wide variety of areas (natural disaster, diet, structures, etc). We don't have the resources to fix everything we are warned about - where do we start?
The other thing we may want to learn is that the media should not over-hype all warnings. People need to know better what warnings to pay attention to. When we watch the news and scientists say "just about everything you do today" may kill you (or the planet), why even try to fix anything?
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Think of all of the warnings we hear from scientists/experts.
At once? I'll try.
We could probably list legitimate warnings all day. And I'll probably experience dozens of things today that scientists have warned about. This situation is tragic but it doesn't mean anyone is to blame. With 1000s of warnings from scientists, some will happen - but most don't.
[citation needed]
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Well, you could either conclude "Too many warnings! I'll shut my ears and hum." Or you could not build homes under a mountain famous for its mudslides. If you build on an earthquake fault, you can build to handle a quake. You can fund repair of bridges, buildings and transit systems before they fail. You can avoid taking in too much sugar (salt it turns out is mostly good for you; low-salt dieters don't live as long, on average).
We do have the resources to vastly improve the odds. We mostly aren't investing
Geologist? (Score:2)
"Hey Sharon! Come look at the crap I just took!"
What about the hill next to that one? (Score:2)
Old news... (Score:2)
Indian names (Score:4, Funny)
There's a story in Washington State that all of the river names here, Snohomish, Skykomish, Skokomish, have the postfix "ish". Which is an Indian term meaning "This is a flood plain, idiot. Don't build your house here."
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Casino not slurpee.
Regulatory capture kills (Score:3)
Whether it's the regulators overseeing the Deepwater Horizon being captured by the oil and gas industry, or whether it's local politicians being captured by the Finance/Real Estate sector, the results are usually bad for the society. And occasionally, they becomes spectacularly lethal.
To overcome the persistent regulatory capture of the US government, two things must occur:
1) Overhaul of the campaign finance system (so politiicians will be more inclined to work for their constituents not their highest bidder).
2) Term limits (because power corrupts).
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Term limit idea: one term in any part (i.e., no going to the senate after being in the house) and you get summarily executed at the end of the term.
That would attract some strange people to politics. Not sure if they'd be more dangerous than what we have though.
2) term limits. NO. (Score:2)
When you are LUCKY enough to have a great leader who remains honest despite the pressures of the office and successfully navigates the inevitable compromising positions, you should KEEP them as long as possible! Get them body guards to protect against "accidents" too!
IT IS RARE TO FIND HONEST LEADERS; you can't replace them. More games of musical chairs played by crooks does not produce better results. Therefore, I am against term limits. I'm still for assuming politicians are guilty until proven innocen
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Term limits haven't really improved things around here. Granted they are allowed to be re-elected.
#1 is a valid concern, but even that's not the main problem with the US election system. The main problem is that it's a plurality wins system rather than a majority wins system (like Instant Runoff Voting or Condorcet Voting). This, in and of itself, tends to separate all arguments into either "my side supports it" or "my side rejects it" where each side has a constellation of different positions. This, in
Every state has its hazards... (Score:3)
Govement needs to Limit its risk via Permits. (Score:2)
If government worked as promised once a area becomes known as a slide, avalanche, wildfire, tusnami, tornado, sinkhole, earthquake or flood risk where the chance of total loss of the property or the occupants is a real number, permitting of new residen
'I think we did the best that we could...' (Score:2)
'under the constraints that nobody wanted to sell their property and move.'
After all, eminent domain is restricted only to cases where you need to give the land to private development. :P
AVOID THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST AT ALL COSTS! (Score:5, Informative)
It's hell on Earth here! Raining at the moment! When it stops it'll go back to our 9 straight months of greyness! No jobs! Unless hack sacking weed smoking hippies who make careers out of pan handling count! Furious volcanoes! Floods! People being chased by landslides! [youtube.com] Don't move here! It sucks! Stay where you are! It's mostly just more pavement! Plus you can't pump your own gas! And you get a holy reaming on your property taxes! Here be dragons! And rabid beavers!
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Umm, no. At least for New Orleans. We already have levees around the city to deal with hurricane flooding. Raising the levees a foot or so per century really isn't that big a deal.
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Umm, no. At least for New Orleans. We already have levees around the city to deal with hurricane flooding.
Which prompts today's trivia question:
What British cover of a old American blues song starts off with what may very well be the greatest drum break in the history of rock and roll?
Re: Not much different than. (Score:2)
The song started playing in my head as soon as I read that phrase.
Led Zeppelin When the Levee Breaks. [youtube.com]
Re: Not much different than. (Score:3)
The song started playing in my head as soon as I read that phrase.
Led Zeppelin When the Levee Breaks. [youtube.com]
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Those New Orleans flood walls are already a joke. Another foot of rising sea level, plus the inevitable higher storm surges will easily knock those over.
If you want to see how to build proper dikes, look at how its done in the Netherlands. They build very deep embankments rather than thin vertical concrete panels. But to do this in New Orleans would require acquiring a wide strip of land on either side of the waterway. Given the nature of individual property rights in the USA, its not likely that this cou
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Oddly enough, if you actually drive around the peripheries, you'll find exactly that sort of levees. Some of which have vertical concrete panels atop them (mostly as sound/sight barriers, not to stop floods).
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So your example of the Nederlands shows that in fact something can be done, and maybe the cities will still be there.
I agree it is not likely to happen before disaster, but once disaster strikes, property values will go down, and then proper dikes can be built. So even the disaster scenario doesn't require the city to disappear.
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Not quite the same thing. Nature works at its own pace, but when you have geological evidence you should take heed of it. Geology can only help so much, because the exact time element is where things are fuzzy. On the flip side there are geologists who are more cautious about announcements and then get put in jail (case in Italy) - it's hard to win when everyone wants a scape goat.
For me it's like buildings or bridges that were built badly. You know they will fail, but not when. You know when the failure ha
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And that turns out to be a less than useful warnin
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
"Structurally deficient" does NOT mean there is a known safety risk, or that they predict it will randomly fall down. It means that they have reduced weigh or traffic limits to ensure safety.
In this case, the warning was not that the hill was structurally deficient, and needed lower weight limits. The warning was that it was going to fail catastrophically and kill a bunch of people.
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Also note that federal money was allocated for levee improvements. It was sent to the local government, who spent it on tax subsides for Casinos.
Charging the local government would be 'racist'.
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There was an extensive article on New Orleans in Scientific American that examined the exact same scenario as Katrina and predicted everything that happened.
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No -- this hill slid five or six times in the last 60 years, and he said it's gonna keep on sliding. Back when, people weren't building there. More recently, probably with a little help from the housing bubble, people built it up.