« Photos of Joe Morgan | Main | Things I Will Not Miss About The Crappy Apartment I Am Moving Out Of »
May 09, 2006
Flirting WIth Disaster
I've always had a kind of odd fascination with disasters. (Look at my otherwise inexplicable thing for Britney Spears, for example.) Put a documentary on about some plane crash or flood or explosion, and I'm pretty much hooked. (For an idea of the look on my face when these things come on, think of the end of Ghostbusters II, when Vigo was trying to possess Dan Aykroyd... and Aykroyd got that blank, feeble-minded, drooling stare on his face while looking at Vigo's picture.)
I can't explain it, really. I don't know why I have been fascinated since I was a kid with things going very, very wrong. (Perhaps it was a precursor to my future romantic life? Would explain a lot.) Anyway, whether I can explain it or not, the interest has always been there. As a kid, I was reading about the Hindenburg and the Galveston hurricane and that DC-10 out of Chicago back in 1979 as avidly as today's kids read Harry Potter. As an adult, my television spends an uncomfortable amount of time tuned to the History Channel and Discovery Channel. And the only thing better than a documentary that analyzes what went wrong in a disaster that's already happened is one in which experts suggest what might go wrong in the future.
So I'm looking forward to the new series on the HIstory Channel, "Mega-Disasters," which will feature both expert commentary and CGI depictions of potential massive natural disasters that could hit the United States. (Had they made this series in 2004 and not 2006, for example, I suspect that one episode might have been "What might happen if a category 4 or 5 hurricane scored a direct hit on New Orleans?") Tonight's debut episode focuses on:
What would happen if a massive earthquake and tsunami were to strike the West Coast of the United States? Experts say it could easily match the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in scale and might. A 700-mile stretch of coast, from northern California to southern British Columbia lies just off the extremely volatile Cascadia Subduction Zone. Many seismologists say that after more than 300 years of massive pressure build-up, it is likely to erupt in the not too distant future.
I'll be watching in sick fascination. But the best thing about series like this is that no one in any future government will be able to say, "I don't think anyone anticipated (insert disaster here)..." This series examines 10 of the potentially worst natural disasters that could ever occur in the US -- what could happen, why, and what the impacts might be. And rather than just an exercise in scaring the hell out of people, it's an educational opportunity and a chance to possibly, oh, you know... prepare.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thechroniccurmudgeon.com/cgi-bin/mt/mtb.cgi/164
Comments
Mudge, I'm a major disaster junkie too. With no cable (and very little TV at all) I'd usually have missed the History Channel promo. I was in Astoria OR this weekend for aircraft egress and survival training at the air station and caught the promo in the hotel. Looks great.
Posted by: usefulguy at May 9, 2006 10:16 AM
Yikes. I don't think I like that premise. Tsunamis radiate out in both directions from the epicenter of the earthquake which causes them, and look where I live! Granted I'm about 800 feet above sea level, but still...
Since Katrina we worry about things like evacuation and emergency supplies out here in beautiful but non-contiguous Hawai'i. The airport is down on the water and one of the runways is on an artificial reef. If one of those waves hit, nobody could get out and no relief supplies could get in. And it's happened before.
Posted by: Linkmeister at May 10, 2006 02:58 AM
Rats. The html isn't enabled. Ok, here's the link to the Hilo tsunami museum.
Posted by: Linkmeister at May 10, 2006 02:59 AM
