Ripleysbaby
supernatural anesthetist
- Location
- Cumbria UK
- Name
- Garry
The awful event in Osa has brought back memories of a similar tragedy in Aberfan ,Wales in 1966. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all those affected.
I see people build houses on flood plains all the time. The land is cheap and it's all they can afford. In the 27 years I've been in this part of VA, I've seen two floods that were serious enough to take out houses. Some moved on and some rebuilt. This is the same drive that let our species settle new continents.
Here in Albuquerque the city has grown deeply into the foothills of the Sandia mountains that border us on the east. The mountains themselves were in part formed when a huge and still existing fault along the Rio Grande pushed them up some 10,000 ft; you can see the diagonal of the geological layers on the mountains. It's very interesting. But eventually -- who knows when? -- there will be a major earthquake in Albuquerque, and those huge boulders already perched precariously on the eastern slope wlll come rumbling down, crushing anything in their path, including some very nice homes of friends of mine, assuming that they are not long gone already.
In this case, no one can be sure when the event will occur, and it could be eons from now, or it could be soon. Meantime, this is prime real estate, with a view of the rocky slopes of the Sandias practically in your backyard, and, to the west, a great view of the entire city and sunsets that can be spectacular. My own dream house would be a nice old abode structure in the valley, but then, if Cochiti dam to the north, an army corps of engineers project, were ever to fail, I'd be swept away in a flood. The control of the river is causing the Bosque to die, but pictures from the 1930's show flooding well into residential areas even then. We like to feel like we are safe in between the mountains and the river, but during very heavy summer rains, cars have been swept into arroyos, and not just by having been driven heedlessly through deep, flowing water. Sometimes it finds you.
We close our doors and we all feel safe, but natural events can find us out anywhere. I live in a pretty big mobile home, and though tornadoes are rare around here, they are not unheard of. Call me dead meat if one pops up in the neighborhood. Not to mention the statistics about lightning strikes in New Mexico. And Boston, where I grew up, is ripe for a tsunami, according to some: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/19/study-boston-new-england-at-greatest-tsunami-risk-in-us
All I'm saying is I weep for those people who felt safe in their houses and who nonetheless perished. It's a more wide-spread possibility than any of us would like to acknowledge. Be safe.