Natural Disasters

Over the weekend, torrential rains caused “epic” flooding in Louisiana, requiring 30,000 rescues from 40,000 damaged homes in what appears to be the “worst flooding in Louisiana history” and the “worst natural disaster in the United States since Superstorm Sandy that hammered the East Coast in 2012” (AP, August 16, 2016;  LA Times

Watching the news is like watching one long disaster movie. One wild fire follows another, destroying hundreds of homes and thousands of wooded acres. One flood follows another, washing away everything in its path. The intensity and frequency of disasters is increasing.

Typhoon Nepartak left destruction in its wake as it plowed through China and Taiwan last week. Nearly 200 people were killed in China, 50,000 homes collapsed and over 1.6 million people were displaced (Telegraph, July 7, 2016).

For more than a week, the Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta, Canada has burned, bringing a halt to up to a quarter of the country’s oil production! Over 100,000 residents of the area have been evacuated and 20 percent of homes have been destroyed in a fire that experts expect to take months to completely put out (BBC, May 8, 2016).

“Robert Glasser, the special representative of the secretary general for disaster risk reduction [of the United Nations], said that with the world already ‘falling short’ in its response to humanitarian emergencies, things would only get worse as climate change adds to the pressure... He also predicted a rise in the number of simultaneous disasters. ‘As the odds of any one event go up, the odds of two happening at the same time are more likely.