Natural Disaster
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Journal 2001 |
By: Amy L
In February of 1978, a disastrous snowstorm took place, right in the heart of New England. This storm put people with no power, no transportation, other than to risk their lives and venture out into the cold by foot, and with no heat. The blizzard was the worst and most disruptive ever. The heavy snowfall and high winds lasted over 24 hours, giving a total of a near 30" of snow on top of some 6" that had fallen from previous days. The only way people could leave their house was to go out of their windows because their doors had be- come blocked from all of the snow that had built up.
People were trapped in all different types of situations. Some were unable
to leave their place of employment, or work, some were stuck inside of their
cars be- cause they were trying to get home, or in other cases they were just
stupid enough to attempt to drive in this tremendous snow- storm, or they
were in other places where they were trying to seek refuge. Once the storm
hit, the actual act of traveling by automobiles was declared illegal.
This storm basically caused New England to go completely dead for over a week. There was no mail delivered or even sorted for that matter, no school for anyone, no working, no going out of the house, no nothing. Most places were at a complete standstill.
Days before the storm an enormous pressure area stretched from the upper Midwest
to New England, drop- ping the temperature in the morning to a near below
zero across the southern of New England. At the same time a small storm moved
east southeastward toward Pennsylvania, from west-central Canada.
While the smaller of the storms were taking place, a very strong and intensifying
disturbance, characterized by very cold temperatures, was moving similarly
in the upper layers of the atmosphere. When this high level disturbance reached
the mid- Atlantic coast on the morning of February 6th, beginning a few hours
after the moon was in perigee (meaning at the time when it was closest to
the earth) and the day before a new moon, the contrast between its cold high
level temperatures and the relatively warm surface temperatures developed
a new secondary storm a few hundred miles east of Norfolk, Virginia. To explain
a little more: storms at ground level tend to be steered by high level and
in this particular case, southerly winds blew moving the exploding storm northward
toward the southern New England coast. The storm moved slowly because of the
blocking, bitterly cold, Arctic area centered over northern New England at
the time. As this storm moved closer, it intensified greatly, tapping the
vast moisture of the Atlantic Ocean. The storm strengthened so much that warmer
ocean air was drawn in over extreme south- eastern New England. Heavy snow
eventually changed to heavy on Cape Cod, significantly cutting down on accumulations
there. Boston actually hit an all-time record, hitting 27.1" of snowfall.
Also, air circulates in a clockwise fashion around high-pressure areas but it circulates counter-clockwise around storm centers. The combination of an immense, cold high pressure area over northern New England, coupled with an intensifying storm just south of New England, resulted in very powerful set of northeast winds which went to 79 mph in Boston (which is actually over hurricane force), and to 92 mph in Chatham. These very powerful winds caused huge waves to form in the ocean. These waves combined with astronomically high tides, created four very high tides due to the slow movement of the storm. Broken seawalls and massive coastal destruction resulted. These enormous waves effected places such as Revere, Winthrop, Hull, and Scituate.
The blizzard of February, 1978, caused $500 million in damages to Massachusetts
alone, much of the loss to coastal properties, resulted not only from the
severity of the storm and its accompanying storm surge, but also from the
extreme- high water caused by the new moon tide. Though meteorological conditions,
such as those that produced the Blizzard of '78, are predictable only days
or hours in advance, astronomical high tides are predictable centuries in
advance.
This storm became something that will never be forgotten. People to this day
have brought up this storm as one of the worst New England has ever experienced
through- out all its history. Overall, I found this topic very interesting,
and I liked it a lot. There was a lot that people went through, and I also
enjoyed listening to my parents talk about it. They told me how they'd sled
to the store and get all of their neighbors food. I just found it very interesting,
but I still would never wish for something like that to happen during my lifetime.
Mount St. Helen's
By: Katie P
Most of the worlds' volcanoes were formed several. 1 million years ago not unlike St. Helen's. The famous volcano is located in the Cascade Mountain Range in the south- western part of the state of Washington. It is located sixty- 1 four miles northeast of Vancouver, Washington and forty- five miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. It is part of a long I series of peaks, which extends seven hundred miles from Lassen Peak, California to Mount Garibaldi in British Columbia. It forms a section of the volcanic "Ring of Fire" c around the Pacific from South America to Alaska, Japan and Indonesia.
British navigator Captain George Vancouver named Mount St. Helen's in 1792 for Lord St. Helen's who was Britains ambassador to Spain at the time. It was previously named Tah-one-lat-clah, which means "Fire Mountain". The Klickitat Indians who inhabited the area many years ago named it.
Mount St. Helen's was a symmetrical, snow-capped cone, which rose 8,366 feet (2550 meters). It is called the Mount Fuji of America. It built over the last thousand years over the remains of an ancient volcano. Prior to 1980 it erupted every one hundred to one hundred and fifty years. The most recent one prior to 1980 occurred in 1857.
After a series of earthquakes explosive steam began erupting around March 27, 1980. This was followed by periods of quiet and minor eruptions. Scientists were monitoring the volcano very closely. People were warned to leave the area and most people took the warning very seriously but a handful remained behind. On the morning of May 18, 1980 an earthquake that registered 5.1 on the Richter Scale triggered a massive landslide. Pressure from the rising magma within the volcano created a massive landslide and explosion. The whole northside of the peak was destroyed. The explosion was the most violent event ever to occur in the continental United States. It was over five hundred times the force of Hiroshima. After the eruption St. Helen's height was reduced by 1,300 feet (400 m).
A vertical eruption of gas created clouds of super i heated ash and stone,
which billowed over twelve miles into 1 the sky. Fallout from the volcano
was experienced as far away (as central Montana. It brought darkness at noon
to central t and eastern Washington.
The avalanche and blast were followed by mudflows and lava flows. It flooded the river valleys east of Mount St. 1 Helen's up to seventeen miles away. Further eruptions have j occurred since the May 18, 1980 explosion and a dome of I lava has grown intermittently in the crater.
The event leveled two hundred and thirty miles of , green forest. They estimated
that over ten million trees were) blown down by the lateral air blast. It
destroyed hundreds of acres of Douglas Fir trees. All other vegetation was
destroyed.The
area looked like a moonscape totally devoid of any kind of life.
The face of the mountain was changed forever. The - blast completely leveled the volcanic cone. It left a horse- - shoe shaped crater with a rim reaching elevations of about eight thousand feet.
There was loss of human life. Thirty-six people were 1- killed and twenty-three
people were missing and presumed " dead. One of the people that perished
in the blast was David d Johnston. Johnston was a geologist that lived five
miles from the summit in order to monitor the Quakes activity, The cradter
that was left was named in his honor. Greater loss of life IS would have occurred
if there had been no warning.
Millions of living things lost their lives. Thousands of deer, antelopes,
beavers, rabbits and squirrels lost their lives.
The fish in the rivers and the stream perished not to mention birds and hundreds
of species of insects. The blast effected the climate of much of the world
for a year. Could things ever be the same?
The spring snows of March 1980 protected hibernating animals, sapplings and
seeds. It helped jump-start the process of regrowth. According to geologists
everything would have been devoid of life much longer if the event had occurred
in the heat of the summer.
Over twenty years have past since this event and you can still see large trees
laid down by the blast. Life is also beginning to appear. Small forms of vegetation
are springing up. Nature is reclaiming its, own.
Foxgloves cover a hill that was once devastated by ash. There are now walking
trails for scientist to study the land. There are wildflower gardens popping
up. You can see lupines Indian Paintbrush and other wildflowers that were
known to this region showing their heads. You even see willow and alder trees.
The roots and decaying leaves and stems provide the organic material needed
to once again create sustaining soil. There are sparkling brooks and ponds
with tiny toads. The water protects frogs and water beatles and other insects.
'Birds and animals large and small are showing up? They transport and deposit
seeds in their droppings. Gophers dig and burrow and bring up former topsoil
through the ash to the top once more. Mountain breezes transport seeds to
other areas of the mountain area.
Every living thing has a role to play in reclaiming the barren landscape.
Man has decided to let nature to take its course. We sit back and let nature
take care of itself.
Over six hundred thousand people come to view the magnificent view every year.
Everyone seems to be do- ing his or her part. We need to sit back and enjoy
the land we have been given to protect and take care of.
We never know when nature will speak to us in such a manner once again.
San Francisco in Ruins; 1906
By: Kerry S
There were many
great earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault before the San Francisco earthquake
of 1906.
Then why should the 1906 earthquake be considered any more important than
the others? The answer comes not in the magnitude of the earthquake but in
the fact that it took the San Francisco earthquake to draw public attention
to the San Andres an to provoke scientists to think about the underlying mechanism
of its destructive ruptures. This paper serves, to provide a detailed account
of life in San Francisco before, during, and after the 1906 earthquake. It
will reveal how a natural disaster can disrupt the flow of daily life, and
at the same time how such a disaster will pull people together to rebuild.
The coast of the western United States, and particularly its sections in California and western Nevada, spawn ninety percent of the seismic activity in the United States. This region is divjded by the San Andreas Fault, an 800 mile long fissure that starts at the Salton Sea in southern California, continues northward, brushes Los Angeles, crosses San Francisco and dives briefly into the Pacific Ocean a Point Arena before reappearing at Punta Gorda in northwestern California, where it veers westward into the Pacific Ocean to join the Mendocino Fracture Zone.
In the year 1906, of all years, people flocked to California to inhabit the
ever-growing city of San Francisco. Not since the years of the nineties had
life been so good, so exciting. People could find time to think of others
who were in trouble and to give generously. At that time a fund was growing
in the city for the fifty thousand homeless survivors of Vesuvjus, which had
begun to erupt April 6. It was easy to give when things were going so well.
The earthquake worked its path through Sonoma and Marin counties with its
displacement gradually lessening, but not the vjolence of the shock. It passed
the island of Alcatraz in the Golden Gate without disturbing a brick of its
military prison, and struck with its full force at San Francisco. The unsuspecting
people of the city, who just the night before were having the time of their
lives, were awakened from their security by the massive force of the San Francisco
earthquake of 1906.
In the city heavy masonry walls of City Hall collapsed. Many other Masonry buildings were destroyed. Still, the new skyscrapers along Market Street rode out the earth- quake with little damage, and most wood-frame buildings- the vast majority of all the buildings in the city - survived, even if their chimneys cracked or fell. Only in the landfill areas near the waterfront did buildings collapse accumulatively.
Within half an hour of the earthquake, at least fifty- two separate fires
had broken out across the city. Soon, two major fires heading toward each
other were underway, one north, one south of Market Street. And to make matters
worse, there was no water.
Block after block was consumed with fire. Mechanics Hall burned to the ground.
So did the Palace Hotel, de- spite the three-quarters of a million gallons
of water stored on the premises for just an emergency. The skyscrapers on
Market Street that had survived the earthquake burned, as did the tenements
of Chinatown, the wharves - everything that could bum, did so. Only portions
of Telegraph Hill and Russian Hill were spared.
In the fourteen months following the quake, a total of 153 aftershocks were
recorded, a modest number com- pared with the 1,256 aftershocks in the first
month following the Tokyo earthquake of 1923.
Eventually groups fonned from chaos. Each group worked together to do tasks
whether it was searching for bodies or cooking for refugees. Slowly, but surely,
order was fonning out of chaos.
By December there was enough confidence for the city to resume the plans conceived
in 1905 to hold a giant World's Fair in 1915. It was a project that might
have even intimidated a city undamaged by fire and earthquake, and one that
under the circumstances might have justifiably been postponed. Instead it
was pressed through to fulfillment in the San Francisco Exposition of 1915.
By the time it opened, hardly a trace of the ravages the city had suffered
remained.
Astonishingly, San Francisco itself was rebuilt within three years and now
stands on its beautiful site around the Bay, still stradling the San Andreas
Fault and destined for more shakeups as the Pacific and North American plates
grind past one another. For people who have now lived out their lives happily
in this danger zone with no quake disaster, the gamble had paid off. But for
those living t here now, the name of the game is Russian roulette.
In conclusion, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a giant advancement
in predetennining quakes ahead of time with seismic equipment. It made people
more alert to the devastation caused by natural disasters and therefore has
saved the .Jives of thousands of people.
By: Fallon H
Viruses are different from any other living thing on . Earth. They are mainly
characterized by size, shape and half- alive/ half- dead existence. Viruses
are really small and can only be seen with an electron microscope. On average,
vi- ruses are smaller than a regular wavelength of light and can, in fact,
hide between light waves, which cause them to be colorless. Viruses are so
small, the biggest virus is the same size as the smallest bacteria.
Since viruses are so small, they are hard to study. Equally important as the
size of the virus is the shape of the virus. They can be rods, filaments,
crystals, helixes, polyhedrons, or spheres. Almost all human viruses are to
close to being spherical. Viruses can lie dormant within in any host or environment
until the proper condition for the virus is arrived at.
One type of virus, the Ebola virus has been causing problems recently. The
Ebola virus is part of a larger group of viruses called filoviruses. They
are one of the most lethal kinds known, having up to a 90% fatality rate.
The Ebola virus is shaped like a question mark. This is ironic because so
little is known about the silent killer. Ebola is characterized by a sudden
onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, bizarre rashes, severe diarrhea, bloody
vomiting, hemorrhages from every body orifice, and peeling away of the skin.
The Ebola virus is transmitted by direct contact with blood, semen, organs
or secretions of the infected per- son. It has also occurred by handling infected
chimpanzees.
The exact origin, location and natural habitat of the Ebola virus is unknown.
However, on the basis of available evidence similar viruses, researchers believe
that the virus is animal borne and usually maintained in an animal host that
is native to the African continent. The virus is not known to be native to
other continents such as North America.
No specific treatment or vaccine exists for the Ebola virus. Severe cases
require the patient to be in isolation or have intensive support care because
they became dehydrated and need intravenous fluids. If a person it thought
to have the virus, it is extremely important that they are isolated and I
that the staff where they are be treated is brought up to date on the treatment
and care of the patient. The patients who i die must be promptly buried or
cremated so that the virus does not spread and infect even more people.