About the pagination of the indexes In this eBook, the indexes at the end of each volume have their own page numbering scheme, consisting of a volume number and a page number, separated by a hyphen. For example, to go to page III of Volume 1, type 1III in the "page #" box at the top of the screen and click "Go." To go to page XXI of Volume 2, type 2XXI… and so forth.
Notable Natural Disasters
MAGILL’S C H O I C E
Notable Natural Disasters Volume 1 Overviews Edited by Marlene Bradford, Ph.D. Texas A&M University Robert S. Carmichael, Ph.D. University of Iowa
SALEM PRESS, INC. Pasadena, California Hackensack, New Jersey
Copyright © 2007, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or in the copying of images deemed to be freely licensed or in the public domain. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.481992 (R1997). These essays originally appeared in Natural Disasters (2001). New essays and other material have been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Notable natural disasters / edited by Marlene Bradford, Robert S. Carmichael. p. cm. — (Magill’s choice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58765-368-1 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-369-8 (vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-370-4 (vol. 2 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-371-1 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. Natural disasters. I. Bradford, Marlene. II. Carmichael, Robert S. GB5014.N373 2007 904’.5—dc22 2007001926
printed in canada
Contents Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
■ Overviews Avalanches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Droughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dust Storms and Sandstorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Earthquakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Epidemics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Explosions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Famines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Fires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Floods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Heat Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Icebergs and Glaciers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Lightning Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Meteorites and Comets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Smog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Tornadoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Tsunamis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Volcanic Eruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Wind Gusts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
■ Indexes Catetory List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX v
Publisher’s Note Some books about natural disasters focus on science, using examples of events or lists without extended descriptions. Disaster chronologies list events and generally do not provide a comprehensive look at underlying scientific principles and other general concerns. Notable Natural Disasters addresses both aspects of natural disasters in an accessible manner that is scholarly, not sensationalized. This three-volume set combines clearly explained scientific concepts with gripping narrative details about 100 memorable disasters in history. In addition, Notable Natural Disasters is illustrated with 170 photographs, maps, tables and diagrams to aid the reader. This affordable subset of Natural Disasters (2001) has been rearranged and thoroughly updated with new bibliographic sources and entries on recent disasters: the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, the 2003 Europe heat wave, the Fire Siege of 2003 in Southern California, the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Kashmir earthquake of 2005, and the 2006 Leyte mudslide in the Philippines. ■ DEFINITION AND SCOPE For this set, a natural disaster is defined as an event caused, at least in part, by uncontrollable forces of nature. For example, the overviews on “Fog” and “Icebergs and Glaciers” discuss collisions and crashes in which those natural conditions were a factor, although human error played a role. Similarly, “Explosions” addresses only accidental ignitions. Decisions were also made regarding scope and focus. For example, only wildfires affecting cities or whole regions are addressed in the “Fires” overview and among the events, rather than tragic blazes in single buildings such as hotels or theaters. In selecting the 100 events covered here, further questions were asked. Is a “great” disaster measured by numbers of people killed and injured, or by the amount of disruption caused? When does a local tragedy become an event of broader significance? Why are some disasters more heartbreaking or spectacular, and thus more memorable, than others? vii
Notable Natural Disasters ■ OVERVIEWS Volume 1 begins with disaster overviews by type: Avalanches Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Droughts Dust Storms and Sandstorms Earthquakes El Niño Epidemics Explosions Famines Fires Floods Fog
Heat Waves Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Icebergs and Glaciers Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Lightning Strikes Meteorites and Comets Smog Tornadoes Tsunamis Volcanic Eruptions Wind Gusts
Each essay explains the disaster in scientific terms. First, a few sentences define the natural phenomenon and its importance. Then the factors involved (animals, chemical reactions, geography, geological forces, gravitational forces, human activity, ice, microorganisms, plants, rain, snow, temperature, weather conditions, wind) and the regions affected (cities, coasts, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, mountains, oceans, plains, rivers, towns, valleys) are listed. Several subsections of text follow. “Science” explains the science behind the phenomenon in general terms understandable to the layperson. “Geography” names and describes the continents, countries, regions, or types of locations where this disaster occurs. “Prevention and Preparations” describes any measures that can be taken to prevent or predict the disaster. The steps that can be taken in advance to avoid or minimize loss of life and property are discussed, including drills, warning systems, and evacuation orders. “Rescue and Relief Efforts” explains what is done in the aftermath of the disaster to find and treat casualties. The typical wounds received and any special challenges faced by rescue workers are addressed. The efforts of relief organizations and programs are highlighted. “Impact” describes the typical short-term and long-term effects on humans, animals, property, and the environment of these disasters. viii
Publisher’s Note Most overview essays also include a section called “Historical Overview,” offering a broad sense of the disaster type beginning with the first recorded occurrences and offering highlights of notable events up to the present day, and a box called “Milestones,” listing major events, such as significant disasters, relevant scientific discoveries, and establishment dates for programs, organizations, and classification systems. All overviews end with an annotated bibliography of further sources for readers to consult. ■ THE DISASTERS The overviews are followed by entries on the 100 worst disasters in history. These narrative-style essays offer facts, figures, and interesting stories. Events were chosen based on loss of life, widespread destruction, and notable circumstances. They range in time from 65,000,000 b.c.e. to 2006 and cover five continents. Each event entry begins with a year and a general description of location or the popular designation for the disaster. Then the most accurate date and place for the event is identified. Magnitude on the Richter scale, either official or estimated, is given for earthquakes. The best speed estimate is listed for hurricanes, if available. For tornadoes, the most reliable F-rating is offered. Measure on the Volcanic Explosivity Index is provided for some eruptions. Estimated temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius is listed for heat waves. “Result” lists the best figures for total numbers of dead or injured, people left homeless, damage, structures or acres burned, and so forth. Each entry then provides readers with an account—before, during, and after—of the disaster, including both broad scientific and historical facts and narrative details. A section at the end of each entry entitled “For Further Information” lists books, chapters, magazines, or newspapers offering specific coverage of that particular event. ■ SPECIAL FEATURES At the back of volume 3, a Glossary defines essential meteorological and geological terms, a Bibliography offers sources for more material about natural disasters, a list of Organizations and Agencies provides information about warning and relief efforts. The Time Line records major disasters and related milestones. The Category ix
Notable Natural Disasters List breaks the 100 events into disaster types, and the Geographical List organizes the events by region, country, or state. A comprehensive subject Index concludes the volume. All articles are written by experts in the various fields of meteorological and geological studies; every essays is signed, and their names and affiliations are also listed in the front matter to volume 1. Special acknowledgment is extended to the Consultants, Marlene Bradford, Ph.D., and Robert S. Carmichael, Ph.D. for their knowledge and enthusiasm.
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Contributors Amy Ackerberg-Hastings Iowa State University
Gordon Neal Diem ADVANCE Education and Development Institute
Richard Adler University of Michigan-Dearborn
Margaret A. Dodson Boise Independent Schools, Idaho
David Barratt Asheville, North Carolina
Colleen M. Driscoll Villanova University
Mary Etta Boulden Middle Tennessee State University Marlene Bradford Texas A&M University
John M. Dunn Forest High School Ocala, Florida
John A. Britton Francis Marion University
Mary Bosch Farone Middle Tennessee State University
Jeffrey L. Buller Georgia Southern University
Bonnie L. Ford Sacramento City College
Edmund J. Campion University of Tennessee
Soraya Ghayourmanesh Nassau Community College
Robert S. Carmichael University of Iowa
Sheldon Goldfarb University of British Columbia
Nicholas Casner Boise State University
Nancy M. Gordon Amherst, Massachusetts
Gilbert T. Cave Lakeland Community College
Robert F. Gorman Southwest Texas State University
Paul J. Chara, Jr. Loras College
Daniel G. Graetzer University of Washington Medical Center
Monish R. Chatterjee Binghamton University, SUNY
Hans G. Graetzer South Dakota State University
Jaime S. Colome Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
Don M. Greene Baylor University Johnpeter Horst Grill Mississippi State University
M. Casey Diana University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign
Irwin Halfond McKendree College
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Notable Natural Disasters C. Alton Hassell Baylor University
Lauren Mitchell Pasadena, California
Charles Haynes University of Alabama
William V. Moore College of Charleston
Diane Andrews Henningfeld Adrian College
Otto H. Muller Alfred University
Mark C. Herman Edison Community College
Anthony Newsome Middle Tennessee State University
Jane F. Hill Bethesda, Maryland
Robert J. Paradowski Rochester Institute of Technology
William Hoffman Fort Myers, Florida
Nis Petersen New Jersey City University
Robert M. Hordon Rutgers University
Erika E. Pilver Westfield State College
Raymond Pierre Hylton Virginia Union University
Steven J. Ramold University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Karen N. Kähler Pasadena, California
Donald F. Reaser The University of Texas at Arlington
Victor Lindsey East Central University
Betty Richardson Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Donald W. Lovejoy Palm Beach Atlantic University
Edward A. Riedinger Ohio State University Libraries
David C. Lukowitz Hamline University Dana P. McDermott Chicago
Charles W. Rogers Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Michelle C. K. McKowen New York City
Billy Scott Fordham University
Louise Magoon Fort Wayne, Indiana
Rose Secrest Chattanooga, Tennessee
Carl Henry Marcoux University of California, Riverside
James B. Seymour, Jr. Texas A&M University
Howard Meredith University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
R. Baird Shuman University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign
Randall L. Milstein Oregon State University
Gary W. Siebein University of Florida
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Contributors Donald C. Simmons, Jr. Mississippi Humanities Council
Robert D. Ubriaco, Jr. Illinois Wesleyan University
Roger Smith Portland, Oregon
Rosa Alvarez Ulloa San Diego, California
David M. Soule Compass Point Research
Winifred Whelan St. Bonaventure University
Kenneth F. Steele, Jr. University of Arkansas
Edwin G. Wiggins Webb Institute
Joan C. Stevenson Western Washington University
Mary Catherine Wilheit Texas A&M University
Dion C. Stewart Adams State College
Richard L. Wilson University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Toby R. Stewart Adams State College
Lisa A. Wroble Redford Township District Library, Michigan
Eric R. Swanson University of Texas at San Antonio
Jay R. Yett Orange Coast College
Sue Tarjan Santa Cruz, California
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Complete List of Contents Volume 1 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv ■ Overviews Avalanches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Droughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dust Storms and Sandstorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Earthquakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Epidemics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Explosions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Famines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Fires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Floods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Heat Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Icebergs and Glaciers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Lightning Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Meteorites and Comets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Smog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Tornadoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Tsunamis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Volcanic Eruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Wind Gusts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 ■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX xv
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Volume 2 Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii Complete List of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix ■ Events c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater . . . c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption . . . . . . 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens . . . . . 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome . . . . . 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption . . . . . . . . 526: The Antioch earthquake . . . . . . 1200: Egyptian famine . . . . . . . . . . 1320: The Black Death . . . . . . . . . . 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic . 1657: The Meireki Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1665: The Great Plague of London . . . 1666: The Great Fire of London . . . . . 1669: Etna eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1692: The Port Royal earthquake . . . . 1755: The Lisbon earthquake . . . . . . 1783: Laki eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1811: New Madrid earthquakes . . . . . 1815: Tambora eruption . . . . . . . . . 1845: The Great Irish Famine . . . . . . 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire . . . . . . 1871: The Great Chicago Fire . . . . . . 1872: The Great Boston Fire . . . . . . . 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic . 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster . . . 1883: Krakatau eruption . . . . . . . . . 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 . . . . 1889: The Johnstown Flood . . . . . . . 1892: Cholera pandemic . . . . . . . . . 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 . . . . 1900: The Galveston hurricane . . . . . 1900: Typhoid Mary . . . . . . . . . . . 1902: Pelée eruption . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
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Complete List of Contents 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake . . . . 1908: The Tunguska event . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908: The Messina earthquake. . . . . . . . . . . 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking . . . . . . . . . . . 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic . . . . . . . . . . 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic. . . . . . . . . . . 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake . . . . . . . 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado . . . . . . . . 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane. . . . . . . . . 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse . . . . . . . . . . . 1928: The San Felipe hurricane . . . . . . . . . . 1932: The Dust Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1946: The Aleutian tsunami . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947: The Texas City Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1952: The Great London Smog . . . . . . . . . . 1953: The North Sea Flood. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1957: Hurricane Audrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1959: The Great Leap Forward famine . . . . . . 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake . . . . . . . . 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak . . . . . . . . . 1966: The Aberfan Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969: Hurricane Camille . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1970: The Ancash earthquake . . . . . . . . . . .
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■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXI Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXVII
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Volume 3 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xli Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xliii ■ Events 1970: The Bhola cyclone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Ebola outbreaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Legionnaires’ disease . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: The Tangshan earthquake. . . . . . . . . 1980’s: AIDS pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption . . . . . . . . 1982: El Chichón eruption. . . . . . . . . . . . 1982: Pacific Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1984: African famine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1985: The Mexico City earthquake . . . . . . . 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires . . . . . . 1988: The Leninakan earthquake . . . . . . . . 1989: Hurricane Hugo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake . . . . . . . 1991: Pinatubo eruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1992: Hurricane Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 1994: The Northridge earthquake . . . . . . . . 1995: The Kobe earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Ebola outbreak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Chicago heat wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster . . . . . . . . 1997: The Jarrell tornado . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption . . . . . . . . . . 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami . . . . . . . . 1998: Hurricane Mitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Galtür avalanche . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak . . . . 1999: The Ezmit earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
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Complete List of Contents 2002: SARS epidemic. . . . . . . . 2003: European heat wave . . . . . 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 . . . . 2003: The Bam earthquake . . . . 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami . 2005: Hurricane Katrina . . . . . . 2005: The Kashmir earthquake . . 2006: The Leyte mudslide . . . . .
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■ Appendixes Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976 Time Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019 Organizations and Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039 ■ Indexes Category List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXXIX Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XLV Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LV
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Notable Natural Disasters
Avalanches Factors involved: Chemical reactions, geography, geological forces, gravitational forces, human activity, ice, plants, rain, snow, temperature, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Cities, forests, mountains, towns, valleys Definition An avalanche is a large amount of snow, ice, rock, or earth that becomes dislodged and moves rapidly down a sloped surface or over a precipice. Avalanches are generally influenced by one or several natural forces but are increasingly being initiated by human activities. Landslide avalanches are defined as the massive downward and outward movement of some of the material that forms the slope of an incline. Unqualified use of the term “avalanche” in the English language, however, most often refers to a snow avalanche and generally refers to movements big and fast enough to endanger life or property. Avalanche accidents resulting in death, injury, or destruction have increased tremendously in direct proportion to the increased popularity of winter recreational activities in mountainous regions. Science The term “avalanche” relates to large masses of snow, ice, rock, soil, mud, and/or other materials that descend rapidly down an incline such as a hillside or mountain slope. Precipices, very steep or overhanging areas of earth or rock, are also areas prone to avalanche activity. Landslide avalanches are downward and outward movements of the material that forms the slope of a hillside or mountain. General lay usage of the term “avalanche” often relates to large masses of snow or ice, while the term “landslide” is usually restricted to the movement of rock and soil and includes a broad range of velocities. Slow movements cause gradual damage, such as rupture of buried utility lines, whereas high-velocity avalanches require immediate evacuation of an area to ensure safety. A landslide avalanche begins when a portion of a hillside weakens 1
Avalanches
Milestones 218 b.c.e.: Hannibal loses 20,000 men, 2,000 horses, and several elephants in a huge avalanche near Col de la Traversette in the Italian Alps. 1478: About 60 soldiers of the Duke of Milan are killed by an avalanche while crossing the mountains near Saint Gotthard Pass in the Italian Alps. September, 1618: An avalanche kills 1,500 inhabitants of Plurs, Switzerland. 1689: A series of avalanches kills more than 300 residents in Saas, Switzerland, and surrounding communities. January, 1718: The town of Leukerbad, Switzerland, is destroyed by two avalanches that leave more than 55 dead and many residents seriously injured. September, 1806: Four villages are destroyed and 800 residents are killed when an avalanche descends Rossberg Peak in the Swiss Alps. July, 1892: St. Gervais and La Fayet, Swiss resorts, are destroyed when a huge avalanche speeds down Mont Blanc, killing 140 residents and tourists. March, 1910: An avalanche sweeps through the train station in Wellington, Washington State, destroying 3 snowbound passenger trains and killing 96. December, 1916: Heavy snows result in avalanches that kill more than 10,000 Italian and Austrian soldiers located in the Tirol section of the Italian-Austrian Alps. January, 1951: A series of avalanches leaves 240 dead; the village of Vals, Switzerland, is completely destroyed. January, 1954: In one of the worst avalanches in Austrian history, 145 people are killed over a 10-mile area. 1962: Melting snow rushes down the second-highest peak in South America at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, killing around 4,000 in Peru. April, 1970: A hospital in Sallanches, France, is destroyed by an avalanche that kills 70, most of them children. 1971: An earthquake unleashes a huge avalanche of snow and ice, killing 600 and destroying Chungar, Peru, and surrounding villages.
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Avalanches 1982: Thirteen students and teachers are killed by an avalanche in Salzburg, Austria. June, 1994: An earthquake in the Huila region of Colombia causes avalanches and mudslides that leave 13,000 residents homeless, 2,000 trapped, and 1,000 dead. November, 1995: A series of avalanches kills 43 climbers in Nepal. March, 1997: A park geologist and a volunteer are killed by an avalanche while working on a project to monitor Yellowstone National Park geothermal features. 1998: Three avalanches in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, leave 8 dead and several wounded. February, 1999: The Galtür avalanche in Austria kills 38 and traps 2,000.
progressively to the point where it is no longer able to support the weight of the hillside itself. This weakness may be caused when rainfall or floodwater elevates the overall water content of the slope, thus reducing the sheer strength of the slope materials. Landslides are most common in areas where erosion is constantly wearing away at the local terrain, but they can also be initiated by events such as earthquakes and loud noises. Some landslides move only sporadically— during certain seasons of the year—and may lie dormant for decades, centuries, or millennia; their extremely slow movements may go unnoticed for long periods of time. Slow-moving landslides are distinguished from creep—the slow change of a mountain’s or hill’s dimensions from prolonged exposure to stress or high temperatures—in that they have distinct boundaries and have at least some stable ground. Natural avalanches can be triggered when additional stressors are provided in the form of the added weight of additional snow, either fresh snowfall or windblown snow, or when the cohesive strength of the snowpack naturally decreases, which serves to weaken the bonds between particles of snow. Artificial avalanches may be triggered when humans, animals, or machinery begin the downslide, due to their contribution of additional stress to the snow. Many avalanches in outdoor recreational areas are triggered by the weight of a single 3
Avalanches skier or the impact of small masses of snow or ice falling from above. Explosives can also trigger an artificial avalanche, either intentionally or unintentionally. When explosives are detonated to knock down potentially dangerous snow at a prescribed time and location, such as for maintenance of highways or ski areas, the public is temporarily evacuated from the area. Ground that has remained relatively stable for as little as one hundred years or possibly as long as tens of thousands of years may begin to slide following alteration of the natural slope by human development, such as during grading for roads or building projects on hillsides. Landslide avalanches can also be started by deep cutting into the slope and removal of support necessary for materials higher up the slope, or by overloading the lower part of the slope with the excavated materials. Some have occurred where development has altered groundwater conditions. Geography Snow avalanches require a snow layer that has the potential for instability and a sloped surface that is steep enough to enable a slide to continue its downhill momentum once it has started. Slopes with inclines between 25 and 55 degrees represent the broadest range for avalanche danger, but a majority of avalanches originate on inclines between 30 and 45 degrees. Angles above 55 degrees are generally too steep to collect significant amounts of snow, as the snow tends to roll down the hillside very rapidly without accumulating. Slope angles of less than 25 degrees are generally safe, except for the remote possibility of very slow snow avalanches in extremely wet conditions. When a layer of snow lies on a sloped surface, the constant force of gravity causes it to creep slowly down the slope. When a force imposed on a snow layer is large enough, a failure is triggered somewhere within the snow, thus stimulating the avalanche to begin to move rapidly downhill. There are two distinct types of failures that can occur within the snow prior to an avalanche. When a cohesionless snow layer rests on a slope steeper than its angle of repose, it can cause a loose snow avalanche, which is often also called a point-release avalanche. This can actually be triggered by as little as one grain of snow slipping out of place and dislodging other grains below it, causing a chain reaction that continues to grow in size as the accumu4
Avalanches lated mass slips down the hill. The point-release avalanche generally appears as an inverted V shape on the snow and is typically limited to only the surface layer of snow cover. In this type of avalanche, the snow has little internal cohesion, no obvious fracture line, and no clear division where the sliding snow separates from the layers underneath. In contrast, when snow fails as a cohesive unit, an obvious brittle fracture line appears and an entire layer or slab of snow is set in motion. Because creep formation causes the snow layer to be stretched out along the slope, the fracture releases stored elastic energy. The release of this energy may cause the fracture to spread across an entire slope or basin. Failure may occur deep within the snow layer, allowing a good portion or nearly all the snow to be included in the avalanche. Slab avalanches are often larger and more destructive than point-release avalanches and can continue to slide on weaker layers underneath or actually upon the ground itself. The specific shape of the slope may reflect the level of avalanche danger, with hazards being highest when snow accumulates on straight, open, and moderately steep slopes. One classic law of avalanches for mountaineers is that they face the least danger while moving on ridges, somewhat more danger while moving on the valley floor, and the most danger when moving directly upon the slope itself. Snow on a convex slope is more prone to avalanches, as it comes under tension because it tends to stretch more tightly over the curve of the hill. When coming down a convex slope, mountaineers may not know how steep the slope is until they pass the curve that temporarily obstructed their view and then discover that they are farther down on the face than is safe. Bowls and cirques (steep-walled basins) have a shape that tends to accumulate snow deposited by the wind. Once an avalanche begins, it most often spreads to the entire face and dumps large quantities of snow into the area below. Couloirs (mountainside gorges) are enticing to climbers because they offer a direct route up a mountain, but they are susceptible to snow movement because they create natural chutes. Forested slopes offer some avalanche protection, but they do not guarantee safety. While slides are less likely to originate within a dense forest, they have been known to crush through even very high-density tree areas. Shattered trees provide clear evidence that a previous avalanche has occurred 5
Avalanches on the mountainside. A slope that has only bushes and small trees growing on it may indicate that the incline has experienced avalanches so often that the timber is not being given a chance to regrow. While avalanches can occur anywhere in the world where snow falls on slopes, some countries and regions are prone to such events. In Europe, the Alps—a mountain range stretching through Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and France—has experienced many devastating avalanches. The Andes mountain range in South America has produced avalanches in Peru. In North America, areas of the Pacific Northwest—particularly Washington State, British Columbia, and Alaska—are most often affected. Prevention and Preparations Snow avalanches are among the main hazards facing outdoor winter sports enthusiasts who drive through a mountain pass in an automobile or snowmobile, or hike, climb, snowshoe, hunt, or ski along a mountainside. The relative level of avalanche hazard and the conditions that occur to create the hazard at any given time are relatively easy for a trained professional to identify. The local news media generally report avalanche danger in heavily populated and well-traveled recreational areas. Unfortunately, there currently is no completely valid and reliable way to predict precisely where and when an avalanche will occur. Novice mountaineers can certainly benefit by being able to recognize the formation of different types of snow crystals and hazardous terrain and weather. They should keep in mind that avalanches can sweep even on perfectly level ground for more than 1 mile after the snow has reached the bottom of a slope. Avalanche hazards can be assessed by examining the snow for new avalanches in the area. Cracks in hard snow may outline an unstable slab as snow settles with the weight of a person moving on it. The sound of a loud thump may indicate that a hard slab is nearly ready to release. Snow stability can be tested by probing with a ski pole to feel for layers of varying solidity or by digging a pit to examine the layers for weakness. Some excellent advice for winter travelers is to always stop to rest or set up camp outside the potential reach of an avalanche. Avalanche research has consistently shown that approximately 80 percent of avalanches occur during or just after a storm. Avalanche 6
Avalanches
Peru’s Mount Huascarán during an avalanche. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
danger escalates when snowfall exceeds a level of 1 inch per hour or an accumulation of 12 inches or more in a single storm. Rapid changes in wind and temperature also significantly increase avalanche danger. Storms that begin with a low ambient temperature and dry snow on the ground and are followed immediately by a rapidly rising temperature are more likely to set off avalanche conditions. Snow that is dry tends to form poor chemical bonds and thus does not possess the strength to support the heavier, wet snow that rapidly accumulates on the surface. Rainstorms or spring weather 7
Avalanches with warm winds and cloudy nights creates the possibility of a wet snow avalanche and causes a “percolating” effect of the water into the snow. The manner in which the sun and wind hit a slope can often provide valuable clues regarding potential avalanche danger. In the Northern Hemisphere, slopes that face south receive the most sun. The increased solar heat makes the snow settle and stabilize more quickly than on north-facing slopes. Generally speaking, south-facing slopes are safer in winter, but there are certainly many exceptions to this rule as determined by local factors. South-facing slopes also tend to release their avalanches sooner after a storm. Thus, slides that begin on southern slopes may indicate that slopes facing other directions may soon follow suit. As warmer days arrive near the end of winter, south-facing slopes may actually become more prone to wet snow avalanches, making the north-facing slopes safer. North-facing slopes receive very little or no sun in the winter, so consolidation of the snowpack takes much longer, if it occurs at all. Colder temperatures may create weak layers of snow, thus making northern slopes more likely to slide in midwinter. It is important to note that these guidelines should be reversed for mountainous areas south of the equator. Windward slopes that face into the snow tend to be safer because they retain less snow—the wind blows it away. The snow that remains tends to become more compact through the blast of the wind. Lee slopes, which face the same direction the wind is blowing, collect snow rapidly during storms and on windy days as the snow blows over from the windward slopes. This results in cornice formation on the lee side of ridges, snow that is deeper and less consolidated, and the formation of wind slabs that can be prone to avalanches. Snow formation often indicates the prevailing wind direction, following the general rule that cornices face the same direction that the wind is blowing. Attempts have been made to prevent avalanche damage by building artificial supporting structures or transplanting trees within anticipated avalanche zones. The direct impact of an avalanche has been effectively blocked by diversion structures such as dams, sheds, and tunnels in areas where avalanches repeatedly strike. Structural damage can be limited by the construction of various types of fencing and by building splitting wedges, V-shaped masonry walls that are de8
Avalanches signed to split an avalanche around a structure located behind it. Techniques have been developed to predict avalanche occurrence by analyzing the relationships between meteorological and snow-cover factors, which are often reported through the media. Zones of known or predicted avalanche danger are generally taken into account during commercial development of a mountainous area. The avalanche danger of unstable slope accumulations is often prevented through detonation, from explosives similar to grenades to the sending out of controlled acoustic waves. Rescue and Relief Efforts Search and rescue experts recommend that, when individuals know they are about to become caught in an avalanche, they should make as much noise as possible and discard all equipment, including packs and skis. They should try to avoid being swept away by grabbing onto anything stable, such as large rocks or trees. Those who become caught in a slide should attempt to stay on the snow surface by making swimming motions with the arms and legs or by rolling. It is also recommended to attempt to close the mouth in the event that the head begins to fall below the snow surface. If victims anticipate becoming completely buried and no longer moving with the snow, they should attempt to create a breathing space by putting their hands and elbows in front of their faces and inhaling deeply before the snow stops in order to expand the ribs. All available oxygen and energy should be conserved if victims anticipate that rescuers will soon begin making appropriate search and rescue efforts. Avalanche search and rescue efforts should begin as soon as possible by companions of the victim, who should generally anticipate that there will not be time for professional help to arrive. Despite the shock of the moment, rescue procedures should begin immediately by noting and marking—with an object such as a ski pole—three critical positions on the snow. These positions include the point where the victim was first caught in moving snow, the point where the victim disappeared beneath the snow surface, and the point where the moving surface of the avalanche eventually stopped. Accurately noting these three areas greatly reduces the area that needs to be searched, thus providing an increased chance of a successful search. Rescue beacons, small electronic devices which should be secured to all per9
Avalanches sons traveling together in a winter excursion party, have proven to be very effective tools in finding buried victims. The beacons can be switched to either transmit or receive signals at a radio frequency that is set to the transmit mode during the initial movement. Searchers who switch their beacons to receive mode immediately after an incident can often locate a buried victim in just a few short minutes. Procedures for avalanche rescue, such as setting up a probe line, have been established by search and rescue organizations and should be reviewed prior to a trip by all persons participating in winter activities within a potential avalanche zone. Impact The impact pressures resulting from high-speed avalanches and landslides can completely destroy or harm human and animal life and property. About one-third of avalanche victims die from the impact; the remaining two-thirds die from suffocation and hypothermia. Movement of snow and other debris is most destructive when it is able to generate extremely high speeds. Small to medium avalanches can hit with impact pressures of 1 to 5 tons per square meter, which is generally enough force to damage or destroy wood-frame structures. Larger avalanches can generate forces that can exceed 100 tons per square meter, which is easily enough to uproot mature forested areas and destroy large concrete structures. Measurements have shown that highly turbulent dry snow or dry powder creates avalanche speeds averaging 115 to 148 feet (35 to 45 meters) per second, with some velocities being clocked as high as 223 to 279 feet (68 to 85 meters) per second. These high speeds are possible only in dry powder avalanches because these avalanches incorporate large amounts of air within the moving snow, thus serving to reduce internal frictional forces. Wet snow avalanches comprise liquid or snow that is very dense, which creates less turbulent movement once the slide begins. With a reduction in turbulence, a more flowing type of motion is generated, and speeds are generally reduced to approximately 66 to 98 feet (20 to 30 meters) per second. Persons who do not live in mountainous regions might mistakenly believe that damage caused by an avalanche is minimal when compared to the destruction caused by other environmental hazards such as tornadoes and floods. However, the frequency of accidents 10
Avalanches resulting in destruction, injury, or death has risen tremendously in direct proportion to the increased popularity of winter recreational activities in mountainous areas. An estimated 150 to 200 avalancherelated deaths occur per year, but it should be noted that these avalanche data are systematically and accurately recorded mainly in developed countries in North America, Europe, and northern Asia. Historical Overview Considered one of the greatest military commanders in the history of the world, Hannibal and his North African army were no match for the natural forces unleashed in 218 b.c.e. when an avalanche descended upon his invading army of thirty-eight thousand soldiers, eight thousand horsemen, and thirty-seven elephants. The rapidly moving snowmass, which wreaked havoc at Col de la Traversette pass in the Italian Alps and claimed nearly 40 percent of Hannibal’s fighting force, dealt the general one of the most devastating losses of his entire military career. The historic and horrendous tragedy experienced by Hannibal was also one of the first documented avalanches in European history. Like so many before and since, Hannibal either was unaware of the dangerous physical environment created by the heavy snows or chose to ignore the danger. Thousands of avalanches occur annually worldwide, but most cause little damage. Each year, however, avalanches consistently claim about 150 lives and cause millions in property losses. The European Alps, where the lives of Hannibal’s troops were claimed, have been the site of the most deadly avalanches in recorded history, although the greatest number occur in the much more sparsely populated Himalayas, Andes, and Alaska. During World War I an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 soldiers were killed and maimed in the Alps by avalanches caused by the sounds and explosions of combat. Such massive loss of life, however, is not representative of avalanche disasters. In a more typical year the country of Switzerland, for example, has an average avalanche death rate of fewer than 25. An 1892 avalanche that destroyed the Swiss resort towns of St. Gervais and La Fayet, killing 140 residents and tourists, was considered a fairly deadly and unusual occurrence. As one of the most avalanche11
Avalanches prone nations, Switzerland committed considerable resources after the early 1900’s to identify ways to avoid the loss of property and life. The leading avalanche research center in Europe is the Swiss Federal Snow and Avalanche Research Unit, which takes considerable pride in its successful Avalanche Warning System. Similar research programs are located in the United States, Japan, and other countries. Despite the best efforts and intentions of warning systems, avalanches continue to claim the lives of unsuspecting victims each year. Even the most highly trained and skilled scientists are often vulnerable to the deadly force of avalanches. Many of the individuals killed by the 1980 Mount St. Helens volcanic explosion and the resulting 250-mile-per-hour avalanche, the largest in recorded history, were scientists on location to study the volcano. In March, 1997, a park geologist and a volunteer were killed by an avalanche while working on a project to monitor Yellowstone National Park geothermal features. As a result of years of research and data collection, however, scientists have identified ways of diminishing the potential for destruction and loss of life resulting from avalanches. Federal, state, regional, and local governments may coordinate efforts to detect and identify potentially unstable snow-covered slopes by monitoring weather conditions; geographic data available through photogrammetry, the science and art of deducing the physical dimensions of objects from measurements on photographs; and satellite imagery. Daniel G. Graetzer Donald C. Simmons, Jr. Bibliography Armstrong, Betsy R., Knox Williams, and Richard L. Armstrong. The Avalanche Book. Rev. and updated ed. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum, 1992. An excellent text highlighting the damage assessment of all major avalanches in North America. Cupp, D. “Avalanche: Winter’s White Death.” National Geographic 162 (September, 1982): 280-305. A documentation of the March, 1982, avalanche tragedy at California’s Alpine Meadows ski resort that claimed seven lives, with heroic rescuers saving the lives of four others. Also reports on how science attempts to deal with avalanches and to rescue quickly those caught in their paths. Ferguson, Sue, and Edward R. LaChapelle. The ABCs of Avalanche 12
Avalanches Safety. 3d ed. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2003. This very readable applied science text discusses different types of avalanches, how they form, and where they can be predicted to occur, in addition to giving general guidelines on safety when traveling in mountainous regions. Fredston, Jill. Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. The author, an avalanche expert with the Alaska Mountain Safety Center, writes from her own experiences with forecasting, prevention, education, and rescue. Graydon, E. Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hill. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 1992. A presentation of both introductory and advanced information on the sport of mountaineering, with much practical information on avalanches and other hazards of snow travel and climbing. Jenkins, McKay. The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone. New York: Random House, 2000. Jenkins uses a description of the deaths of five climbers in Wyoming in 1969 to frame his natural history of avalanches. Logan, Nick, and Dale Atkins. The Snowy Torrents: Avalanche Accidents in the United States, 1980-86. Denver: Colorado Geological Survey, Department of Natural Resources, State of Colorado, 1996. This government document examines avalanche occurrences in the United States between 1980 and 1986. Mears, Arthur I. Avalanche Forecasting Methods, Highway 550. Denver: Colorado Department of Transportation, 1996. In this booklet Mears discusses avalanche control and his studies in Colorado performed in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration. National Research Council Panel on Snow Avalanches. Snow Avalanche Hazards and Mitigation in the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990. Edited by committee chair D. B. Prior and panel chair B. Voight, this government report assesses avalanches and other related natural disasters in the United States and the efficiency of relief efforts by the government. Parfit, M. “Living with Natural Hazards.” National Geographic 194 (July, 1998): 2-39. An excellent write-up on natural hazard areas within the United States and some personal histories of persons whose lives have been affected by them. 13
Avalanches USDA Forest Service. Snow Avalanche: General Rules for Avoiding and Surviving Snow Avalanches. Portland, Oreg.: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, 1982. Provides general guidelines for both recreational and serious outdoor enthusiasts for avoiding and surviving snow avalanches.
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Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Factors involved: Geography, gravitational forces, ice, rain, snow, temperature, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Cities, coasts, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, mountains, plains, towns, valleys Definition Blizzards, freezes, ice storms, and hail are significant weather events that occur infrequently. When they do occur, they may seriously disrupt or curtail transportation, business, and domestic activities; destroy agricultural produce; cause tens of millions of dollars in damages; and result in significant loss of life to humans and animals. Blizzards, freezes, and ice storms are winter storms, while hail and hailstorms occur in the warmer weather of late spring, summer, and fall. Science Blizzards, ice storms, and hail are significant weather events associated with dynamic interactions between masses of air. These interactions are influenced by altitude, latitude, temperature, moisture, geography, geology, cyclonic rotations, and the jet streams, as these air masses and the jet streams move from place to place. Blizzards are severe winter storms that may occur when temperatures are 10 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, when winds blow at a minimum of 35 miles per hour, and when there is sufficient blowing or newly fallen snow to reduce visibility to less than 0.25 mile for at least three hours. Blizzards are produced by strong frontal cyclones that bring low temperatures and blowing snow. Blizzards in the Arctic, Antarctic, mountainous regions, or the continental tundra may have winds that blow in excess of 100 miles per hour, with subzero temperatures creating the legendary blizzards of the polar seas and polar areas. Blizzard snow as well as the perpetual snow cover often found on 15
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail
Milestones 1643-1653: Europe experiences its severest winters after the Ice Age. July 13, 1788: A severe hailstorm damages French wheat crops. early October, 1846: An early blizzard in the Sierra Nevada traps the Donner Party. January 23, 1867: The East River in New York City freezes. March 11-14, 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 strikes the eastern United States; 400 die. February 17, 1962: Major storms blanket Germany; 343 are killed. January 29-31, 1966: The worst blizzard in seventy years strikes the eastern United States. February 4-11, 1972: Heavy snow falls on Iran; 1,000 perish. December 1-2, 1974: Nineteen inches of snow falls on Detroit in the worst snowstorm in eighty-eight years. January 28-29 and March 10-12, 1977: Blizzards ravage the Midwest; Buffalo reports 160 inches of snow. January 25-26, 1978: A major snowstorm strikes the midwestern United States, with 31 inches of snow and 18-foot drifts. February 5-7, 1978: The worst blizzard in the history of New England strikes the Northeast; eastern Massachusetts receives 50 inches of snow, and winds reach 110 miles per hour. All business stops for five days. January 12-14, 1979: Blizzards in the Midwest yield 20 inches of snow, with temperatures at -20 degrees Fahrenheit; 100 die. February 18-19, 1979: Snow blankets the District of Columbia. March 1-2, 1980: The mid-Atlantic region experiences a blizzard. February 5-28, 1984: A series of snowstorms strikes Colorado and Utah. March 29, 1984: A snowstorm covers much of the East Coast. January 7, 1996: The East Coast is hit by another big snowstorm. May 10-11, 1996: A sudden and intense blizzard on Mount Everest, Earth’s highest peak, traps climbers, killing 9 and leaving 4 others with severe frostbite. April 1, 1997: The April Fool’s storm strikes the Northeast. January 5-12, 1998: A major ice storm covers northeastern Canada.
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Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail February-March, 1999: Heavy snowfall in the Alps triggers avalanches. January 20-24, 2005: A heavy blizzard blankets New England with snow up to 40 inches in some places, shutting down Logan International Airport in Boston. January 12-16, 2007: A freezing winter storm moves across the United States causing extensive power outages and 65 related deaths, many of them in Oklahoma.
high mountaintops, even in the tropics, results from the condensation and freezing of moisture contained within air masses that are forced up and over the mountains in a process called orographic lifting. Snow may also form when mid-Atlantic cyclones and upper-air troughs move over mountainous locations. A ground blizzard is one in which previously fallen snow is blown around, often accumulating in large snow drifts that may exceed 10 feet in height. A whiteout is an especially dangerous type of blizzard in which visibility may be reduced to the point where the horizon, one’s surroundings, and the sky become indistinguishable. During such blizzards, exposed humans and animals often suffer from disorientation and loss of the sense of direction. There are several meteorological mechanisms that produce snow, potentially resulting in blizzards. There must be a constant inflow of moisture to feed growing ice crystals within appropriate clouds in the upper atmosphere. Convection may lift some of the moisture to higher, cooler regions of the atmosphere, where condensation may produce snow—or rain that will become snow—as it falls through cold atmospheric regions. Ice crystals falling from higher clouds may “seed” lower clouds, resulting in snowfall. Polar air masses from the north pick up significant quantities of moisture when they blow across relatively warmer bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes. This moisture may then dissipate into huge volumes of snow downwind, on land, creating blizzards. The Pacific Ocean is the source of moisture for most snowfalls and blizzards west of the Rocky Mountains; the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical portion of the north Atlantic Ocean are generally the sources of moisture for snowfalls and blizzards in the central and eastern portions of the United States and Canada. 17
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail When deep low-pressure systems (hurricanes) form over the eastern United States and approach the Atlantic Ocean, they can grow explosively as they are moving offshore, parallel to the coastline. Because winds around a hurricane generally blow in a counterclockwise direction, snow or rain, or both, will be accompanied by strong northeast winds, creating in winter a type of blizzard known as a northeaster. In summer the same systems can bring torrential rains, which may last for many days. Most major snowstorms and blizzards of the mid-Atlantic and New England states come from northeasters. If the system as it moves parallel to the coast should move slowly, or stall completely, the affected land areas may be battered for hours—or even days—by blizzard conditions and large amounts of snow or rain. Ice storms are among the most destructive of all winter storms. They are caused by rain (liquid water) falling from an above-freezing layer of upper air to a layer of below-freezing air on or near the earth’s surface. The freezing rain coats everything with a layer of ice, called glaze. If the rain continues to fall, and continues to freeze, staggering amounts of ice may build up on roads, bridges, trees, utility poles, transmission towers, power lines, and buildings. The ice may vary in thickness from 0.04 inch to as much as 6 inches. Upon slight warming by the sun, ice on superstructures of bridges, buildings, power lines, and trees may loosen and fall in chunks or very large pieces known as ice slabs. This falling ice threatens the safety of anyone or anything below. Roads and bridges are generally closed when this danger exists. Ice storms cripple all modes of transportation, cause roadways and other thoroughfares to be closed, and create extremely hazardous conditions for humans and animals. Hail is sometimes confused with sleet; they are not the same thing. Sleet is made of frozen raindrops that fall during winter storms. Hail is composed of balls of ice of varying shapes and sizes that fall from the interior of cumulonimbus clouds during thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are necessary for the production of hail. Atmospheric instability associated with thunderstorms creates the powerful updrafts and downdrafts necessary for the production of hail. Hail and hailstorms occur not during the winter but rather during the late spring, summer, and fall. During these seasons, heating of the earth’s surface by the sun creates warm, rising air currents called thermals or updrafts, in a process called convection. The rising air masses contain 18
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail moisture, salt particles from ocean spray, particles of kaolinite clay, volcanic dust, sulfur oxides, and other kinds of particles, which are collectively called aerosols. As the rising air masses encounter the lower temperatures of the upper atmosphere, the moisture condenses, forming cumulonimbus clouds. Within these clouds are residual moisture present in a liquid, supercooled state; ice crystals; and aerosols. Supercooled water is water that remains in a liquid state at temperatures below which it would usually freeze. The name cumulonimbus means “heaped cloud which may produce precipitation.” These clouds, also called thunderheads, are towering, often extending vertically thousands of feet into the atmosphere. To the observer on earth they often appear puffy and lumpy and, because of upper-level wind shear, develop anvil-shaped tops. Their undersides often look dark and foreboding. Cumulonimbi are the clouds of greatest vertical extent, often measuring 10 miles or more from top to bottom. Drops of atmospheric moisture brought by updrafts into the cold interiors of cumulonimbus clouds become supercooled and may begin to coalesce with and freeze around existing ice crystals or aerosols. Ice tends to freeze around particulate matter or other ice crystals, both of which serve as freezing nuclei, or nucleating agents. A nucleating agent is a substance that catalyzes the freezing of supercooled water into ice. Aerosols serve as nucleating agents. Updrafts within the clouds may lift the newly formed ice pellets to higher, cooler levels containing more supercooled water, which freezes them further, making them larger and heavier. When they are heavy enough for their movement to overcome the strength of the updraft, and the downward acceleration of gravity becomes the predominant force, they fall out of a cloud as hailstones. Downdrafts within a cloud may also push hailstones out and downward. Prior to exiting a cloud, hail may be bounced in trampoline fashion up and down within a cloud by competing updrafts and downdrafts. With each ascent, more supercooled water may freeze onto the ice pellets, making them still larger and heavier. Hailstones freeze in layers that look much like those of an onion. An examination of a cut hailstone shows these concentric layers. The number of layers provides a record of the number of times the hailstone was tossed up and down within the parent cloud. Hail may pass through several developmental stages 19
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail and appear in pea-sized pieces called graupel, or soft hail. Hailstones may also be the size of baseballs or grapefruit. The most frequent time for the production of hail is between 3 and 4 p.m., with almost all hailstorms occuring between 2 and 6 p.m., times that correspond to the period of maximum heating of the earth’s surface by the sun. The development of the largest hailstones requires powerful updraft velocities and many trips up and down within a cloud. The largest documented hailstone fell in Coffeyville, Kansas, in September of 1970. It had a circumference of almost 18 inches and weighed almost 2 pounds. An updraft velocity of almost 400 miles per hour would be required to create a hailstone that size. In the United States, weather observers and reporters report hailstone sizes either in inches or in descriptive terms such as “quarter” (1 inch), “chicken egg” (2 inches), and “softball” (4.5 inches). No one knows the maximum potential size of a hailstone. There are undocumented reports of basketball-sized hail having fallen in Manhattan, Illinois. Downdrafts from clouds may be powerful enough to slam the surface of the earth with wind gusts that exceed hurricane force, damaging property and causing airplane crashes. Powerful downdrafts are called microbursts, and they are second only to pilot error as the leading cause of airplane crashes. The amount of hail produced at any one time can be staggering. There are confirmed records of hail accumulations several feet deep, covering many square miles. It is not uncommon for snowplows to be used during the summer to clear haildrifts from roads. Melting hail is responsible for stream flooding and extensive property damage in many areas subject to hailstorms. There are periodic reports of falling hail containing unusual items such as toads, frogs, snakes, worms, peaches and other fruits, fish, and even ducks. An explanation for such events suggests that powerful updrafts in appropriate places could be strong enough to sweep up and convectively transfer these objects from the surface of the earth into cumulonimbus clouds, where they would be coated and recoated with ice prior to falling to earth. Geography Blizzards occur in regions where there is an abundance of moisture that can be transformed into snow and where temperatures are low 20
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail enough to both encourage snow production and sustain falling or previously fallen snow. Additionally, blizzard-prone areas are affected by jet-stream-accompanied cyclonic events, such as cyclonic vorticity, troughs, and severe frontal cyclones, which may develop in conjunction with jet streams, causing higher-than-usual winds. These systems create storms at other times of the year; however, during winter months they result in heavy snowfall and other blizzard conditions. Blizzards occur most often in Canada, the northeastern U.S. plains states, the mid- and north Atlantic states, and downwind of the Great Lakes. Blizzards also occur in polar areas and at high altitudes at or near the summits of mountains, particularly in north, central, eastern, and western Europe. Ice storms generally occur in a broad belt stretching from Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Kansas eastward into the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states. They can occur in any other places that experience winter weather. Ice storms are among the most devastating and deadly of all winter storms. A 1952 ice storm covered Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. It lasted from January 28 to February 4 and killed at least 22 people. During such storms an icy glaze of varying thickness coats all exposed surfaces and objects. During a November, 1940, storm in northeastern Texas, ice coatings of 6 inches and more were reported. Coatings 6 inches thick were also reported in a December, 1942, storm in New York State. In February of 1994, an ice storm in the southeastern United States caused 9 fatalities and over $3 billion in economic damages. During that same storm, up to 4 inches of ice accumulated in some locations from Texas to North Carolina. Some utility customers were without power for a month; coping with lengthy power outages may create serious, life-threatening situations for the elderly, the very young, and the ill. An April, 1995, ice storm in Chicago resulted in the closing of Michigan Avenue, a main thoroughfare, because of great ice slabs falling from buildings and other high-rise structures. Ice storms also cause trees to become overburdened with the weight of the ice, causing them to collapse onto power lines or other structures. When utility poles, transmission towers, and other such structures collapse because of accumulations of ice on trees, the fallen trees and utility poles and similar structures must be removed before any work on restoring power can begin. Lack of power seri21
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail ously interferes with or shuts down computers, elevators, escalators, heating systems, and hospital operations, among other things. Freezing rain and ice storms occur an average of twelve days per year around the Great Lakes and the northeastern United States. Such storms also occur in Canada and Europe. Almost 5,000 hailstorms strike the United States each year, with perhaps 500 to 700 of them producing hailstones large enough to cause damage and injury. Hail forms in thunderstorms, but not all thunderstorms produce hail. The state of Florida has the greatest annual number of thunderstorms but has the lowest hail rate in the United States. Hail is most frequently found in “Hail Alley,” a region that covers parts of eastern Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Hail is also common in the high plains, the Midwest, and the Ohio Valley. Cheyenne, Wyoming, is the so-called U.S. hail capital. The Pacific shorelines of the United States have the least hail. Hail in that region is produced by thunderstorms that blow on shore during winter storms. Northern India has the greatest frequency of large hail
Brattleboro, Vermont, is blanketed by snow during a 1941 blizzard. (Library of Congress)
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Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail events. India also has the greatest number of human fatalities from hail. Hail belts around the world are generally found at mid-latitudes, downwind of large mountain ranges. Hail occurs in Canada, central Europe, the Himalayan region, southern China, Argentina, South Africa, and parts of Australia. The highest documented frequency of hailfalls on earth has been in Keriche, Kenya, which averages more than 132 days of hail per year. Prevention and Preparations Humans cannot prevent blizzards, ice storms, or hail. In 1948 the work of scientist Vincent Schaefer showed that adding finely divided dry ice crystals to cold clouds could induce precipitation. Further studies showed that, in addition to dry ice, crystals of either silver iodide or sodium chloride added to appropriate clouds would also spur precipitation. Each of these techniques was used in major efforts to suppress hail formation and/or modify the storm-producing potential of clouds. However, much of this work was terminated because of the lack of consistent positive results. Some states, from Texas to North Dakota, would continue modest efforts to control hail production, funded by the states themselves or jointly with federal agencies. There are several steps that may be taken to lessen damage, injury, and loss of life from blizzards, ice storms, and hail. A very common response by many people to impending severe weather is to ignore it or assume that they will not be directly affected. This attitude should be replaced with one of greater respect and appreciation for these winter events, which can kill and cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Information and forecasts about impending severe weather events for any area are readily available, well publicized, and continuously updated by radio and television weather services. These events often last for considerable periods of time, cause power outages, and make local or long-distance travel extremely difficult or impossible. For these reasons, prior to the onset of severe weather one should ensure that sufficient food, medical supplies, auxiliary lighting devices, water, snow shovels, and ice-melting aids are on hand. Automobiles should be fueled and should contain emergency items, even though travel or driving within or through the impacted areas should be avoided. The occurrence of blizzards, ice storms, and hail is often unpredict23
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail able. Before the onset of such weather, one should be certain that insurance policies are in place to cover damages to personal property, agricultural produce, and livestock. Anyone caught outdoors during such events should seek immediate shelter. If one is trapped within an automobile, the chance of survival is increased by remaining with the vehicle, unless a safe place is visible outside. One should keep hazard lights on, make certain of adequate ventilation within the automobile, and make certain that snow or ice does not clog the exhaust pipe. Mountain climbers and skiers often protect themselves from violent blizzards by digging holes in the snow, crawling in, and curling up in a fetal position to conserve body warmth. Snow is an excellent insulator. There can be a temperature difference of as much as 50 degrees 7 inches below the surface of the snow. Rescue and Relief Efforts Severe blizzards, ice storms, and hail may arise suddenly and be significantly more violent, extensive, or involved than previously forecast. Blizzards are one of the greatest potential killers of humans, livestock, and wildlife. They are often accompanied by freezing rain, hail, and sleet. During such events, humans, domestic animals, and livestock may be trapped away from adequate, safe environments and may require rescue and relief efforts from outside sources. Except for cases of the direst emergencies, rescue and relief efforts are generally mounted after the severe weather has subsided. Typical problems encountered during the storms are blocked, impassable roads and sidewalks; power outages; children, the elderly, and sick persons trapped in unheated dwellings; and travelers trapped in vehicles. Most municipalities located within winter storm belts have dedicated public officials assigned to coordinate snow, ice, and hail removal and rescue efforts. Law enforcement agencies maintain law and order and prevent looting. Service organizations such as the National Red Cross and Salvation Army often have representatives available to assist in providing food, clothing, and shelter for those suffering from the effects of winter storms. When storm effects are very widespread, state governors may request that the president of the United States declare a state of emergency in the impacted area, making people and businesses in that area eligible for federal disaster relief funds. The National Guard is frequently called upon to aid travel24
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail ers and others who face peril from blizzards and other severe winter storms. The Guard helps to maintain order and prevent looting. It also combats accumulations of snow, ice, and hail. A 1979 blizzard that dropped more than 18 inches of snow in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Denver, Colorado, moved eastward at a time when many people were traveling for Thanksgiving. The blizzard killed 125 people, and the National Guard rescued more than 2,000 travelers. Many were rescued by helicopter, while others were stranded in automobiles, hotels, motels, National Guard armories, and public buildings and auditoriums. An Ohio blizzard in January, 1978, stranded about 6,000 motorists. A state of emergency was declared, and the National Guard moved in to aid stranded motorists and exhausted utility repairpersons. The most common hazards associated with severe winter storms are hypothermia, frostbite, broken bones, and other injuries caused by slips, falls, and vehicle accidents. Each year thousands of Americans, especially the elderly, motorists, and hikers, die from exposure to cold. Although relatively uncommon, concussive injuries from falling hail are sometimes reported. In July, 1979, at Fort Collins, Colorado, an infant was killed in his mother’s arms as she tried to shield him from falling hail. A 1953 hailstorm in Alberta, Canada, killed 65,000 ducks. Rescue and relief efforts must be directed not only toward humans but also toward livestock and other animals. Failure to do so may result in staggering losses. Impact Blizzards, ice storms, and hail cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damages; they also kill and injure hundreds of people each year. These storms can bring big-city traffic to a complete standstill, ground airplanes, make it difficult or impossible to get to or from work or school, and create power outages and food and fuel shortages. Additional hardships may result from heavy rains and flooding that often follow such storms. The impact on traffic is enormous. More than 85 percent of all ice storm deaths result from traffic accidents. Historical Overview Throughout history, including modern times, blizzards and ice storms have been a serious threat to travelers. Travelers crossing the Alps 25
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail have been trapped by sudden and unexpected snowstorms; this was the likely cause of death of a prehistoric man whose well-preserved remains were unearthed in the high Alps in the 1990’s. The famous St. Bernard dogs, trained by the friars of the hospice founded around 982 c.e. by St. Bernard of Menthon, have rescued many travelers trapped in the mountain passes of Switzerland by sudden and unexpected snowstorms. In the early fall of 1846, an unexpectedly early snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada trapped the Donner Party, a group of emigrants from the East seeking to reach California. The early storm was followed by many additional snowfalls, leading to the deaths of most of the members of the party. Some were believed to have resorted to cannibalism to relieve their hunger in the weeks immediately preceding their own deaths from starvation. In the seventeenth century, Europe experienced what has been described as the most severe winters after the end of the Ice Age, particularly in the years 1643 to 1653. In the eighteenth century, severe weather played its part in initiating the French Revolution: A hailstorm damaged much of France’s wheat crop in the summer of 1788, sparking strong inflation in the price of bread and rousing the anger of the working class. Hailstorms occur mostly in the summertime as a result of unusual temperature inversions, and the threat they usually pose is the destruction of agricultural crops. The growth of major transportation capabilities has enabled the world to alleviate the risks of local starvation caused by such storms, but they can be devastating to local economies, particularly in parts of the world where the standard of living is low. The nineteenth century experienced a period of lower average temperatures in winter that led to some startling developments. The lower temperatures and early frosts are believed to have played a part in the decline of agriculture in the Northeast. As evidence of the lower temperatures, the East River in New York City froze over in January of 1867. People used sleds for winter travel, and the frozen rivers and ponds provided ice that was cut, stored, and shipped south in the spring and summer in an era before mechanical refrigeration developed in the 1870’s. The most striking event associated with this period of lower temperatures was the Great Blizzard of 1888, in which 26
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail
Cattle in a Blizzard on the Plains, drawn by Charles Graham from a sketch by H. Worrall. This drawing appeared in Harper’s Weekly on February 27, 1886. (Library of Congress)
more than 400 people died as a result of being trapped outside or in unheated buildings. All travel came to a halt for several days. Nevertheless, modern technology enticed several adventurers to believe they could overcome the enormous risks involved in exploring the world’s coldest continent, Antarctica. Although a Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, had managed to travel overland to the South Pole and return safely in 1911, the following year another explorer of the Antarctic, Robert Falcon Scott, together with four companions, who managed to reach the South Pole a month after Amundsen, lost his life in a series of blizzards encountered on the return trip from the South Pole. People continuing a series of scientific expeditions and scientific observations carried out in Antarctica have due regard for the risks of winter weather. In the middle of the twentieth century, colder weather hit the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in several blizzards of note. In February of 1962, a major storm centered in Germany led to the deaths of 343 people. Four years later, in January of 1966, the worst blizzard in seventy years struck the eastern United States. In 1972 heavy snow fell in Iran, a country whose climate normally does not experience 27
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail such events except in the mountains to the north and east. The development of predictive capabilities helped significantly to reduce the toll of such life-threatening storms. In 1960, the deployment of the first weather satellite made it possible to view the weather over large areas of the globe. These images enabled weather services all over the world to see major snowstorms and blizzards coming, and to alert travelers to the risks of travel. In 1967, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began making public its maps of snow and ice cover all over the world. These maps later revealed that in the early 1970’s the snow and ice cover had begun to grow, and by 1973 it exceeded by 11 percent its extent in 1970. Scientists began learning about the earth’s climate and weather from the ice cores extracted from Greenland glaciers as early as 1966. These were analyzed by Danish scientists, as well as climatologists from other countries, and revealed that snowfall has been a variable event throughout history. It is concentrated, however, at high latitudes and high elevations. The lower temperatures that occurred in late medieval times, for example, wiped out the Norse settlers who had established a colony in Greenland around 1,000 c.e. Thanks to ice cores, scientists now have a clear chronological picture of snowfall over the entire period since the end of the last ice age, some twelve thousand years ago. Between 1978 and 1980, the United States was hit by a series of blizzards. The Midwest was blanketed in late January of 1978, and in early February of that year the northeastern part of the country was targeted. There was another blizzard in the Midwest the following January, and in February of 1979 more than 18 inches of snow piled up in the District of Columbia, bringing traffic to a halt. Washington, D.C., had not received that much snow since 1922. In March of 1980, the mid-Atlantic region was the victim of a blizzard. Twenty-eight inches of snow fell in tidewater Virginia, more than at any time in the preceding eighty-seven years. In April, 3 feet of snow fell in Colorado and Utah. The same storm became a blizzard in New England. Another year of heavy snowfall was 1984. In March, much of the East Coast was hit by heavy snows, leading to 8 deaths. The great popularity of skiing for recreation put many people at risk in these storms. In January, 1985, a blizzard hit the Midwest, reaching as far south as San Antonio, Texas, which had a record snowfall of 13.5 inches. In 28
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail November and again in December the Midwest experienced a series of blizzards, leading to 33 deaths. In 1986, it was Europe’s turn. In the last week in January deep cold and snow caused many rivers and canals to freeze, and 33 people died. In January, 1992, an unusual snowstorm hit the Middle East, where it rarely snows except in the mountains. Jerusalem received as much as 18 inches of snow; 2 feet of snow fell in Amman, Jordan. In 1993 winds of 109 miles per hour (the Weather Service defines a blizzard as a snowstorm in which winds exceed 35 miles per hour) powered a blizzard along the entire East Coast, from Florida to Maine. The storm caused 213 deaths. In 1996, a snowstorm covered much of the East Coast, and many highways were closed for as much as two days. Seventeen inches of snow fell on the District of Columbia, and the federal government shut down for two days. Parts of Pennsylvania received 31 inches of snow in this storm, and a few areas in New Jersey were blanketed by up to 37 inches of snow. The elevated trains in New York City had to shut down for a time. On April 1 of the following year, what became known as the April Fool’s snowstorm hit the Northeast. A sudden change in the path of this storm caught weather predictors by surprise. In May of 1997, 7 climbers on Mount Everest perished in a blizzard as they neared the peak of the mountain. Nine climbers had been killed the previous May in similar circumstances. The severe weather of 1996-1997 also proved fatal to at least 240 Hindu pilgrims attempting a pilgrimage to a cave in Kashmir; they were caught in a freak snowstorm on August 25, 1996. What was termed a once-in-a-century ice storm devastated much of the Northeast as well as eastern Canada between January 5 and January 12, 1998. The storm dragged down power lines in much of the region, and crews had to be imported from southern states to help repair the damage. Many residents were without power for several weeks. The ice storm of 1998 was described as the most destructive storm in Canadian history. The Adirondacks in New York, as well as northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, were also hit. Damages in Canada exceeded a half billion dollars, and insurance claims totaling more than $1 billion were filed in both countries. Seven people died in Maine as a result of this storm and 4 in New York State. The threat posed by snow and ice was transferred to Europe in the 29
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail early months of 1999. Heavy snows in the Alps in February and March, the heaviest in fifty years, triggered avalanches that trapped a number of skiers and other tourists. At least 31 people died in Austria and 18 in France. The lives lost in these events made it clear that people have yet to learn to heed the warnings that the weather services of the world are now able to provide: Travel remains a risky proposition under snowy and icy conditions. Billy Scott Nancy M. Gordon Bibliography Allaby, Michael. Dangerous Weather: Blizzards. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Intended for students. Discusses the origins and history of severe winter storms. Includes helpful diagrams. Battan, Louis J. Weather in Your Life. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1983. An introduction to meteorology and weather written for the layperson. Describes how the atmosphere influences humans and human behavior. Topics include weather forecasting; social implications of weather modification; and effects of blizzards, ice storms, and hail on air transport, agriculture, and human health. Christian, Spencer, and Tom Biracree. Spencer Christian’s Weather Book. New York: Prentice-Hall General Reference, 1993. A weather primer written for laypersons. Briefly introduces readers to major weather-related topics, including storms, atmospheric dynamics, weather reporting, and forecasting. Provides information for students and any others who might want to pursue a career in meteorology or weather reporting. Eagleman, Joe R. Severe and Unusual Weather. 2d ed. Lenexa, Kans.: Trimedia, 1990. A detailed and thorough text that describes meterological phenomena that cause various kinds of storms. An excellent companion textbook to accompany courses in general meteorology or the earth sciences. Erikson, Jon. Violent Storms. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Tab Books, 1988. A story of weather through the ages, written in general terms. Discusses weather folklore, weather and the development of agriculture, inadvertent weather modification, rainmaking, and other aspects of voluntary weather modification. Provides a list and discussion of significant historical weather events. 30
Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Ludlum, David M. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. A field guide for observing and forecasting weather. Contains more than 300 color photographs of cloud types, storms, and weather-related optical phenomena. The book has thumb-tab references, visual keys, and images of historic weather occurrences. _______. The Weather Factor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. A collection of little-known facts about how weather and winter storms have influenced Americans from colonial times to modern times. Detailed accounts are provided about when and where storms occurred and descriptions of weather impact on events such as political campaigns, wars, sports events, and air transport. Lutgens, Frederick K., and Edward J. Tarbuck. The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004. Explores basic principles and concepts of science for beginning students of meteorology. Lyons, Walter A. The Handy Weather Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997. Contains photographs and tables to illustrate and explain items and events described in the text. Uses a question-andanswer format to introduce general weather-related topics.
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Droughts Factors involved: Animals, geography, human activity, plants, temperature, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Cities, coasts, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, mountains, plains, rivers, towns, valleys Definition A drought is an extended period of below-normal precipitation. It is a dry period that is sufficiently long and severe that crops fail and normal water demand cannot be met. Science Drought can be defined as a shortage of precipitation that results in below-normal levels of stream flow, groundwater, lakes, and soil moisture. It differs from other geophysical events such as volcanic eruptions, floods, and earthquakes because droughts are actually nonevents—that is, they result from the absence of events (precipitation) that should normally occur. Drought also differs from other geophysical events because it has no recognizable beginning (as opposed to an earthquake) and takes time to develop. Drought may be recognized only when plants start to wilt, wells and streams run dry, and reservoir shorelines recede. Most droughts occur when slow-moving subsiding air masses dominate a region. Commonly, air circulates in continental interiors, where there is little moisture available for evaporation, thereby providing little potential for precipitation. In order for precipitation to occur, the water vapor in the air must be lifted so that it has a chance to cool, condense into dust particles, and eventually, if conditions are favorable, precipitate. Clearly, there is little opportunity for these conditions to occur when the air is dry and descending. Another climatological characteristic associated with droughts is that, following their establishment within a particular area, they tend to persist and even increase in areal extent. Air circulation is influenced by the drying-out of soil moisture and its unavailability for precipitation further downwind. Concurrently, the state of the atmo32
Droughts
Milestones 1270-1350: A prolonged drought in the U.S. Southwest destroys Anasazi Indian culture. 1585-1587: A severe drought destroys the Roanoke colonies of English settlers in Virginia. 1887-1896: Droughts drive out many early settlers on the Great Plains. 1899: The failure of monsoons in India results in many deaths. 1910-1915: First in a series of recurring droughts affects the Sahel region in Africa. 1932-1937: Extensive droughts in the southern Great Plains destroy many farms, creating the Dust Bowl, in the worst drought in more than three hundred years in the United States. 1960-1990: Repeated droughts occur in the Sahel, east Africa, and southern Africa. 1977-1978: The western United States undergoes a drought. 1982-1983: Droughts affect Brazil and northern India. 1986-1988: Many farmers in the U.S. Midwest are driven out of business by a drought. 1998: A drought destroys crops in the southern Midwest and causes ecological damage on the East Coast. 1999: A major drought strikes the U.S. Southeast, the Atlantic coast, and New England. 2002: A severe, long-term drought begins in Australia. Urban areas begin to feel its effects by 2006, as major cities pass heavy restrictions on water usage and Perth constructs a desalination plant.
sphere that produces the unusual circulation associated with droughts can induce surface temperature variations that in turn foster further development of the unusual circulation pattern. As a result, the process feeds on itself, making the drought last longer and intensify until major atmospheric circulation patterns change. Drought-identification research has changed over the years from a time when the size of the precipitation deficit was the only factor considered, to the present, when sophisticated techniques are applied to the quantitative assessment of the deviation of the total envi33
Droughts ronmental moisture status. These techniques facilitate better understanding of the severity, duration, and areal extent of droughts. Early in the twentieth century, drought was identified by the U.S. Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) as any period of three weeks or more when the precipitation was 30 percent or more below normal. (Note that normal is defined as the average for a thirty-year period, such as 1951-1980 or 1961-1990.) The initial selection of three weeks for defining a drought was based entirely on precipitation. Subsequent research has shown that the moisture status of a region is affected by other factors besides precipitation. Further developments in drought identification during the midtwentieth century involved examination of the moisture demands that are related to evapotranspiration, the return of moisture to the atmosphere by the combined effects of evaporation and plant transpiration. Some drought-identification studies have examined the adequacy of soil moisture in the root zone for plant growth. The objective of this research is to determine drought probability based on the number of days when the moisture storage in the soil is zero. The U.S. Forest Service used evapotranspiration in developing a drought index for use by fire-control managers. The index was used to provide an indicator of flammability that could lead to forest fires. It had limited applicability to nonforestry users as it was not effective for showing drought as a measure of total environmental moisture stress. W. C. Palmer developed a drought-identification index in 1965 that became widely adopted. The Palmer Drought Index (PDI) defines drought as the period of time, generally measured in months or years, when the actual moisture supply at a specified location is always below the climatically anticipated or appropriate supply of moisture. Evapotranspiration, soil moisture loss, surface runoff, and precipitation are the required environmental parameters. The PDI values range from +4.0, for an extremely wet moisture status, to −4.0, for extreme drought. Normal conditions have values close to zero. Although the PDI has been used for decades and recognized as an acceptable procedure for including evapotranspiration and soil moisture in drought identification, it has been criticized. For example, the method determines a dimensionless parameter ranging from +4.0 to −4.0 that cannot be compared to variables such as precipitation, which are measured in units (inches) that are immediately 34
Droughts recognizable. In addition, the index is not very sensitive to short drought periods, which can negatively affect crops. In order to overcome these problems with the PDI, other researchers have used water-budget analysis to identify changes in environmental moisture status. The procedure is similar to the Palmer method, as it includes precipitation, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture. However, the values for moisture status deviation are dimensional and expressed in the same units as precipitation—inches. Drought classification using this method yields values ranging from approximately +1.0 inch, for an above-normal moisture status, to −4.0 inches, for extreme drought. As in the PDI, the index is close to zero for normal conditions. Geography Many regions of the world have regularly occurring periods of dryness. Three different forms of dryness have a temporal dimension; they are known as perennial, seasonal, and intermittent. Perennially dry areas include the major deserts of the world, such as the Sahara, Arabian, Kalahari, and Australian Deserts. Precipitation in these large deserts is not only very low (less than 10 inches per year) but also very erratic. Seasonal dryness is associated with those parts of the world where most of the precipitation for the year occurs during a few months, leaving the rest of the year rainless. Intermittent dryness pertains to those areas of the world where the total precipitation is reduced in humid regions or where the rainy season in wet-dry climates either does not occur or is shortened. The major problem for humans is a lack of precipitation where it is normally expected. For example, the absence of precipitation for a week where daily precipitation is the norm is considered a drought. In contrast, it would take two or more years without any rain in parts of Libya in North Africa for a drought to occur. In those parts of the world that have one rainy season, a 50 percent decrease in precipitation would be considered a drought. In other regions that normally have two rainy seasons, the failure of one could lead to drought conditions. Thus, the very word “drought” itself is a relative term, since it has different meanings in different climatic regions. The deficiency of precipitation in one location is therefore not a good indicator of drought, as each place has its own criteria for identifying drought. 35
Droughts Prevention and Preparations Droughts cannot be prevented, but their effects may be ameliorated. There are two main options for managing droughts: increasing the supply of water and decreasing the demand. There are several supply enhancement measures that can be instituted. For example, reservoir release requirements can be relaxed. This occurred on the Delaware River during the severe drought of the early 1960’s, when the required flow of 3,000 cubic feet per second at Trenton could not be met without jeopardizing the watersupply needs of New York City. Accordingly, the reservoir releases in the upper Delaware were temporarily relaxed. Many states require low flow or conservation flows to be maintained in the channel below a reservoir for waste assimilation and aquatic health. If a drought is severe enough, the conservation flows can be temporarily reduced or even eliminated. Other measures include the temporary diversion of water from one source, such as a recreational lake, to a water-supply reservoir. Interconnections with other water-supply purveyors may be encouraged or mandated. New sources of water could also be obtained from buried valleys that contain stratified glacial deposits with large amounts of groundwater. Demand reduction measures include appeals for voluntary conservation. If these do not work, then mandatory water-use restrictions can be imposed. Bans on outside uses of water, such as lawn watering and car washing, are common. Rescue and Relief Efforts Drought in the developed world affects crops and livestock but generally does not pose a threat to life, as it does in the developing world. Industrialized societies have existing transportation networks that enable supplies and foodstuffs to be shipped to affected regions. If there are crop and livestock losses, governments can provide disaster relief in the form of low- or no-interest loans to affected farmers, as happened in the eastern United States in the summer of 1999. The situation in the developing world is much grimmer. Governments often lack the money and resources to distribute supplies to rural populations. Food supplies coming from overseas donors may not reach the intended victims because of inadequate transportation infrastructures. Some relief efforts that could be successful include 36
Droughts drilling of deeper wells so as to tap undeveloped water sources. This takes much time, but the extra water may inadvertently encourage more people to stay in an area that may not be sustainable. Impact Droughts have had enormous impacts on human societies since ancient times. Crop and livestock losses have caused famine and death. Drought has caused ancient civilizations to collapse and forced many people to migrate. Water is so critical to all forms of life that a pronounced shortage can decimate whole populations. The effects of drought are profound, even during modern times. For example, the dry conditions in the Great Plains in the 1930’s in conjunction with intensive farming resulted in the Dust Bowl, which at one time covered more than 77,000 square miles, an area the size of Nebraska. An estimated 10 billion tons of topsoil was blown away, some of it landing on eastern cities. The Sahel region south of the Sahara in Africa had a severe drought from 1968 to 1974, which decimated local populations. Famine and disease killed several hundred thousand people (100,000 in 1973 alone) and 5 million cattle that were the sole means of support for the nomadic populations. Historical Overview Drought is the absence of precipitation. It is a problem particularly where precipitation is marginal, usually because of topographic factors. For example, precipitation is less than 20 inches a year over much of the Great Plains of the United States; the area farther west, until the Rocky Mountains are reached, normally has less than 10 inches per year. In this case, precipitation is low because the Rocky Mountains exist between the Great Plains and the Pacific Ocean: Oceans are the source of moisture that becomes precipitation— either rain or snow. The mountains force most rain clouds to drop their moisture before the clouds have passed over the mountains. This is why rainfall is high in the Pacific Northwest and low in the region to the east of the Rocky Mountains. Precipitation is often marginal in areas where rainfall is seasonal. This condition prevails in much of Africa and in Asia, where precipitation occurs in the form of seasonal monsoons. For central Asia, precipitation that should come in the form of monsoons is interrupted 37
Droughts by the Himalaya Mountains, which lie between central Asia and the Indian Ocean, the source of moisture in that region. Precipitation is also affected by long-term climatic trends. In general, when the climate is warmer, it tends also to be drier; when the climate is colder, it tends to be wetter. Some climatologists believe that the recurring droughts in northern and eastern Africa reflect a warming trend in the climate. Mean temperatures in the 1990’s were higher than any recorded after the end of the Ice Age. These climatological trends are believed to be responsible for a prolonged drought in the American Southwest that undermined the Anasazi Indian culture of that region beginning in the thirteenth century. It is also possible that a comparable drought in central Asia led to the wave of Mongol invasions of Europe in the thirteenth century and the Turkish invasions of the fourteenth century. While droughts occur with fairly regular frequency in areas of marginal precipitation, they represent an important historical event when they last more than one year. This was the case of the droughts believed to be responsible for the elimination of the early English colonies in Virginia in the sixteenth century. Droughts played a somewhat similar role in the late nineteenth century in the Great Plains of the United States, where farming settlement had been heavily promoted by the government through low-cost sales of public land. The process of moving the roving Native American tribes to reservations had been predicated on the assumption that they would be replaced by permanent white settlers. However, after droughts hit the newly established farms between 1887 and 1896, many of the settlers abandoned their residences. The twentieth century saw repeated recurring droughts in the sub-Saharan portion of Africa. One that occurred between 1910 and 1915 led many of the pastoral tribes inhabiting the area to move onto marginal land at higher elevation, land less able to support the tribes as their numbers grew. This same area was subjected to recurring droughts in the second half of the twentieth century, which spread to eastern Africa. Because this area has many subsistence farmers, who are unable to survive a lost harvest, the drought problem led to much unrest, with large numbers of people migrating in search of food. The conditions in the Sudan and in Somalia and Ethiopia resulted in repeated calls for emergency food supplies. 38
Droughts In South America, drought is not uncommon along the Pacific coastline, particularly in Chile and Peru. Because the winds tend to blow from east to west, little moisture is moved over the Pacific coastline of South America, and the Andes Mountains prevent moisture that arises from the Atlantic Ocean from reaching the lands to the west of the mountains. Droughts also affect parts of Brazil that are well inland from the Atlantic. Droughts in this area have been increasing since the seventeenth century; at least 8 occurred in the twentieth century. Many parts of Australia also suffer from recurrent droughts. The continent is located outside the main global circulation patterns that bring clouds and rain to inland areas, with the result that only the fringes of the continent are used for intensive cultivation. Most of Australia is suited only to grazing herds that can utilize the sparse vegetation and then move on. In 2002, a severe, long-term drought began in Australia. By 2006, urban areas had begun to feel its effects. Major cities passed heavy restrictions on water usage and debated gray-water recycling programs. Alternate sources of water were sought. Brisbane hoped to set up larger dams and a pipeline, and Perth constructed a desalination plant. Probably the most famous drought in American history was that which hit the southern part of the Great Plains region in the early 1930’s. Lands that even under the best of conditions receive only marginal precipitation had been “broken to the plough” in the first two decades of the twentieth century. When precipitation failed to materialize in the early 1930’s, many subsistence farmers were driven from the land in what came to be known as the Dust Bowl, as winds blew the unprotected soil off the land. Another drought affected the Great Plains, even the northern Great Plains, in the late 1980’s. Many farmers who had borrowed money to extend their farms were unable to pay back the loans and lost their farms when their crops failed. Another drought hit the southern Great Plains in 1998, destroying a large portion of the cotton crop in Texas. In 1999 the drought conditions moved to the southeastern United States, devastating crops in that region. Coupled with high temperatures, this drought captured public attention. Robert M. Hordon Nancy M. Gordon 39
Droughts Bibliography Allaby, Michael. Droughts. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Intended for students. Discusses the origins and history of droughts. Includes helpful diagrams. Benson, Charlotte, and Edward Clay. The Impact of Drought on SubSaharan African Economies: A Preliminary Examination. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998. A look at the effects of often-occurring droughts on African life. Bryson, Reid A., and Thomas J. Murray. Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World’s Changing Weather. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977. A descriptive discussion of the profound effect of climate on human societies, going back to ancient times. Dixon, Lloyd S., Nancy Y. Moore, and Ellen M. Pint. Drought Management Policies and Economic Effects in Urban Areas of California, 198792. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1996. This report examines the impacts of the 1987-1992 drought in California on urban and agricultural water users. Frederiksen, Harald D. Drought Planning and Water Resources: Implications in Water Resources Management. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1992. This short report of thirty-eight pages contains two papers on drought planning and water-use efficiency and effectiveness. Garcia, Rolando V., and Pierre Spitz. Drought and Man: The Roots of Catastrophe. Vol. 3. New York: Pergamon Press, 1986. Food insecurity and social disjunctions caused by drought are discussed, using case studies from Brazil, Tanzania, and the Sahelian countries. Tannehill, Ivan R. Drought: Its Causes and Effects. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947. A classic technical but nonmathematical book on the climatology of droughts. Wilhite, Donald A., ed. Drought and Water Crises: Science, Technology, and Management Issues. Boca Raton, Fla.: Taylor & Francis, 2005. Explains the role of science, technology, and management in resolving the issues associated with drought management. Wilhite, Donald A., and William E. Easterling, with Deborah A. Wood, eds. Planning for Drought: Toward a Reduction of Societal Vulnerability. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987. A collection of 37 short chapters on the large number of issues pertaining to drought, including social impacts, governmental response, and human adaptation and adjustment. 40
Dust Storms and Sandstorms Factors involved: Geological forces, human activity, plants, rain, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Deserts, plains, valleys Definition Dust storms and sandstorms are composed of airborne and windblown clouds of soil particles, mineral flakes, and vegetative residue that impact climate, air temperature, air quality, rainfall, desertification, agricultural productivity, human health, and human habitation of the land. Science Dust storms result from wind erosion, desertification, and physical deterioration of the soil caused by persistent or temporary lack of rainfall and wind gusts. Dust storms develop when wind velocity at 1 foot above soil level increases beyond 13 miles per hour, causing saltation and surface creep. In saltation, small particles are lifted off the surface, travel 10 to 15 times the height to which they are lifted, then spin downward with sufficient force to dislodge other soil particles and break down earth clods. In surface creep, larger particles creep along the surface in a rolling motion. The larger the affected area, the greater the cumulative effect of saltation and surface creep, leading to an avalanche of soil particles across the land, even during moderate wind gusts. The resulting soil displacement erodes the structure and texture of the remaining soils, reduces the moisture content of the soil, exposes bedrock, and limits the type of vegetation sustainable on the remaining soil. Dust storms remove smaller and lighter soil particles, leaving behind the larger and denser particles and granular minerals associated with deserts, and erode rock surfaces, creating dust and granular particles. As soils become drier and more dense, and as ground cover is reduced, the number and intensity of subsequent dust storms increases. Arid or semiarid soil eventually becomes desert. Atmo41
Dust Storms and Sandstorms
A dust storm approaches a Kansas town in 1935. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
spheric dust increases soil and air temperature by trapping heat in the lower atmosphere. Dust may also reduce soil and air temperature by reflecting the sun’s heating radiation back into space. Changes in air temperature, coupled with dust in the atmosphere and drier land surfaces, reduce local rainfall, encouraging desertification. Dust storms result from the dislodging of small, light soil particles, mineral flecks, and decomposing vegetation matter. Dust storms rise miles into the atmosphere and have both local and global impacts. Sandstorms result from dislodging larger, heavier particles of soil and rock. They tend to occur in conjunction with desert cyclones. Sandstorms remain close to ground level and have primarily local impacts. Dust and sandstorms may occur simultaneously. There are many types of dust storms. Haze reduces visibility to three-fourths of a mile or less and results from persistent wind gusts across arid soils or across temporarily dry or disturbed semi-arid soils. Dust devils lift silt and clay particles several hundred yards into the air. Tornadoes generate local vortices that lift silt, clay, mineral flecks, and vegetation residue more than a mile high and transport it hundreds of square miles. Cyclones form at the leading edge of thunder42
Dust Storms and Sandstorms storm cells, extending across a front of several hundred miles, generating winds up to 150 miles per hour, and lifting particles and debris several miles into the upper atmosphere and jet stream for distribution around the globe. Geography Dust storms and sandstorms of global significance originate in the arid deserts and semiarid lands covering 36 percent of the earth’s land surface. Major deserts are located in northern Africa, northeast Sudan, southwest Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, southwest Asia, the Middle East, northern and western China, central Australia, southwest North America, parts of southern and western South America, the Caucasus of Russia, central Spain, and the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition, dust storms arise when normally semiarid lands periodically become arid, undergo abnormally strong windy periods, or have their vegetation removed by humans or nature. These areas include sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S. Midwest, the northern coast of the Mediterranean, the steppe of central Asia, and all lands immediately adjacent to deserts. Globally significant storms cover areas of several hundred to several thousand square miles and transport dust from one continent to another. Locally significant dust storms originate in overly cultivated agricultural fields, residential or commercial developments denuded of ground cover, major road construction sites, and any lands experiencing a temporary drought. Local storms are often confined to only a few square miles in area. Locales with the highest frequency of dust storms are Mexico City and Kazakhstan in central Asia, with about 60 storms per year; western and northern China, with 30 storms each year; West Africa, with 20 storms; and Egypt, with 10 storms. Storms of the longest known duration occurred in the southwestern United States, with a storm of twenty-eight days in Amarillo, Texas, in April, 1935, and a storm of twenty-two days in the Texas Panhandle in March of 1936. Prevention and Preparations The number and intensity of dust storms and sandstorms are reduced through soil conservation practices, such as covering the soil with vegetation, reducing soil exposure on tilled land, creating wind 43
Dust Storms and Sandstorms barriers, installing buffer strips around exposed soils, and limiting the number and intensity of soil disturbing activities on vulnerable arid and semiarid soils. Vegetative cover slows the wind at ground level, protects soil particles from detachment, and traps blowing or floating soil particles, chemicals, and nutrients. Because the greatest wind erosion damage often occurs during seasons when no crops are growing or when natural vegetation is dormant, dead residues and standing stubble of the previous crop often remain in place until the next planting season. Planting grass or legume cover crops until the next planting season, or as part of a crop rotation cycle or no-till planting system, also reduces dust. No-till and mulch-till planting systems reduce soil exposure to wind erosion. No-till systems leave the soil cover undisturbed before inserting crop seeds into the ground through a narrow slot in the soil. Mulch-till planting keeps a high percentage of the dead residues of previous crops on the surface when the new crop is planted. Row crops are planted at right angles to the prevailing winds to absorb wind energy and trap moving soil particles. Crops are planted in small fields to prevent avalanching caused by an increase in the amount of soil in particles transported by wind as the distance across bare soil increases. Because wind breaks slow wind speeds at the surface of the soil, good wind barriers include tree plantings, cross-wind strips of perennial shrubs, and high grasses. The protected area is ten times the height of the barrier. Alley cropping is used in areas of sustained high wind; crops are planted between rows of larger, mature trees. Strip farming reduces field width, thereby reducing wind erosion. Large fields are subdivided into narrow cultivated strips. Planting crops along the contour lines around hills is called contour strip cropping. Planting crops in strips across the top of predominant slopes is called field stripping. Crops are arranged so that a strip of hay or sod, such as grass, clover, alfalfa, or a close-growing small grain, such as wheat or oats, is alternated with a strip of cultivated row crop, such as tobacco, cotton, or corn. In areas of high wind, the greater the average wind velocity, the narrower the strips. Blown dust from the row-crop strip is trapped as it passes through the subsequent strip of hay or grain, thereby reducing dust. Contour strip cropping or field stripping can reduce soil erosion by 65 to 75 percent. Limiting land-disturbing activities by humans on highly vulnera44
Dust Storms and Sandstorms ble arid and semiarid soils reduces the number and intensity of both dust storms and sandstorms. Deserts are especially vulnerable to impacts of animal herds and motor-vehicle traffic. Many fragile desert plants, shrubs, and trees are easily destroyed by animal or human activity, especially foraging and vehicle traffic. The surface of the desert consists of a thin layer of small and microscopic plants, microorganisms, and insects, whose combined activities produce a thin crust that limits the impact of wind on the surface of the desert. When this crust is broken by surface traffic, the underlying sands and minerals are vulnerable to wind erosion. Natural repair to the broken crust and natural revegetation processes may take decades or centuries. Rescue and Relief Efforts Little can be done to protect humans, buildings, or crops from the impact of dry wind tornadoes or cyclones producing major dust storms or sandstorms, but soil conservation measures reduce the number and intensity of these storms. The effects of these storms on humans is partly ameliorated by remaining indoors, by wearing heavy clothing or remaining inside vehicles when outdoors, and by covering the nose and mouth to prevent the ingestion of dust, spores, and pollens.
2
6
20 18
16 14 12 10 8 6
≥ 10 Dust storms 4
2
≥ 20 Dust storms
The number of dust storms occurring in March, 1936, during the Dust Bowl years.
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Dust Storms and Sandstorms Impact Sandstorms and dust storms have moved sufficient soil particles over the centuries to reshape continents; alter the distribution of plant and animal life; alternately heat and cool the earth; and silt rivers, lakes, and oceans. The volume of annual wind-blown dust is approximately equal to the volume of soil transported each year through water erosion. Approximately half a billion tons of dust is borne aloft each year, with more than half that dust deposited in the world’s oceans. The desertification processes associated with sandstorms and dust storms impacted the historic rise and fall of many civilizations, including the early Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest, the Harappan civilization of southwest Asia, the city-states of Arabia, and the caravan empires of sub-Saharan Africa. Dust storms on agricultural lands cause soil nutrient loss, reduce the moisture-retaining capacity of the soil, and concentrate salts and fertilizer acids in the soil, thereby reducing agricultural production. Efforts to replace lost topsoil with fertilizers have proven futile. Crop yields are reduced by up to 80 percent. Sandstorms kill people and animals and damage, destroy, or bury roads, buildings, machinery, and agricultural fields. Many people and animals are killed each year by the force of the storms or by ingestion of wind-borne particles. In 1895, more than 20 percent of the cattle in eastern Colorado died of suffocation in a particularly intense dust storm. Dust storms are a major source of air pollution and a major distribution vehicle for mold spores, pollens, and other harmful airborne particles. One pathogen causing “valley fever” or “desert rheumatism” kills approximately 120 people each year in the United States alone. Sandstorms and intense dust storms contribute to traffic accidents and disrupt mass-transportation systems. In many southwestern American states, dust storms are responsible for up to 20 percent of all traffic accident fatalities. Gordon Neal Diem Bibliography Morales, Christer, ed. Saharan Dust: Mobilization, Transport, Deposition. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. The editor presents numerous scientific papers and recommendations from a 46
Dust Storms and Sandstorms workshop held in Sweden sponsored by the Scientific Committee on Problems in the Environment. Pewe, Troy L., ed. Desert Dust: Origin, Characteristics, and Effect on Man. Boulder, Colo.: Geological Society of America, 1981. This collection of scientific papers provides detail on the causes and effects of sandstorms and dust storms. Stallings, Frank L. Black Sunday: The Great Dust Storm of April 14, 1935. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2001. A collection of newspaper reports and the eyewitness accounts of more than 100 people about this devastating dust storm. Sundar, Christopher A., Donna V. Vulcan, and Ronald M. Welch. Radiative Effects of Aerosols Generated from Biomass Burning, Dust Storms, and Forest Fires. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1996. This book discusses global heating and cooling from dust storms. Tannehill, Ivan R. Drought: Its Causes and Effects. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947. Discusses the effects of drought on dust storms. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Crop Residue Management to Reduce Erosion and Improve Soil Quality. Conservation Research Reports 3739. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1994-1995. _______. Soil Erosion by Wind. Agriculture Information Bulletin Number 555. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1989. These public information booklets, as well as a variety of Conservation Practice Job Sheets, describe appropriate soil conservation measures to limit dust storms. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s. 25th anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Describes the dust storms of the southwestern United States.
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Earthquakes Factors involved: Geological forces, gravitational forces Regions affected: Cities, coasts, deserts, forests, islands, mountains, plains, towns, valleys Definition Earthquakes often cause violent shaking that can persist for several minutes. This shaking can destroy buildings, bridges, and most other structures. It also can trigger landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters. Science Earthquakes are produced by sudden slips of large blocks of rock along fractures within the earth. This abrupt displacement generates waves that can travel vast distances and cause immense destruction when they reach the surface of the earth. To get an idea of how this occurs, imagine a man trying to slide a very heavy crate across the floor. At first, it will not budge at all. He pushes harder and harder, until, quite suddenly, the crate slips across the floor a few inches before coming to rest again. This motion is called strike-slip motion and is thought to be the way in which most earthquakes occur. Next, imagine what would have happened if, instead of pushing directly on the crate, the man had instead pushed on a big spring, compressing it further as he pushed harder. When the crate suddenly slid across the floor, the spring would have expanded again, continuing to push the crate, even though the man was standing still. The energy stored in the spring is called elastic strain energy. Major earthquakes usually result from the accumulation of a great deal of elastic strain energy as plates move past each other with relative velocities of a few centimeters per year. After a number of decades, the accumulated elastic strain energy is sufficient to cause a sudden slip. With the crate example, the slip surface is between the bottom of the crate and the floor. Within the earth, it is a fracture in the rock called a fault. Many faults are vertical fractures, which come to the surface of the 48
Earthquakes
Milestones May 29, 526: The Antioch earthquake in Syria (now Turkey), estimated at magnitude 9.0, kills 250,000. January 23, 1556: 830,000 people die in Shaanxi, China, the greatest death toll from an earthquake to date. November 1, 1755: An earthquake during church services on All Saints’ Day kills worshipers in Lisbon, Portugal, in stone cathedrals or in the accompanying tsunamis; as many as 50,000 perish. December 16, 1811; January 23 and February 7, 1812: In the sparsely settled region of New Madrid, Missouri, the largest historic earthquakes in North America to date rearrange the Mississippi River and form Reelfoot Lake. January 9, 1857: The San Andreas fault at Fort Tejon, California, in the northwest corner of Los Angeles County, ruptures dramatically. Trees snap off near the ground, landslides occur, and buildings collapse into rubble. April 17, 1889: The first teleseism is recorded in Potsdam, Germany, of an earthquake on that date in Japan. April 18, 1906: The San Andreas fault slips 20 feet near San Francisco. Much of the city is severely damaged by the earthquake, and a fire starts when cinders escape a damaged chimney, leveling the city. December 28, 1908: The Messina earthquake kills 120,000 and destroys or severely damages numerous communities in Italy. 1910: American geologist H. F. Reid publishes a report on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, outlining his theory of elastic rebound. September 1, 1923: 143,000 people die as a result of the Great Kwanto Earthquake, centered in Sagami Bay, Japan. Early 1930’s: Charles Richter, working with Beno Gutenberg at the Seismological Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, develops the Richter scale. 1958: H. Jeffreys and K. E. Bullen publish seismic travel time curves establishing the detailed, spherically symmetrical model of the earth. May 22, 1960: A large earthquake, measuring 8.5, strikes off the coast of Chile, making the earth reverberate for several weeks. For the first time, scientists are able to determine many of the resonant modes of oscillation of the earth. continued
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Earthquakes Milestones (continued) March 27, 1964: The Good Friday earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska, with a magnitude of 8.6, causes extensive damage near the southern coast of Alaska and generates tsunamis that damage vessels and marinas along the western coast of the United States. May 31, 1970: The magnitude 7.7 Ancash earthquake in northern Peru leaves 70,000 dead, 140,000 injured, and 500,000 homeless. February 9, 1971: In the first serious earthquake to strike a densely populated area in the United States since 1906, a moderate (magnitude 6.6) earthquake causes $1 billion in damage in Sylmar, California. February 4, 1976: A slip over a 124-mile stretch of the Motagua fault in Guatemala kills 23,000. July 28, 1976: The magnitude 8.0 Tangshan earthquake in northeastern China kills an estimated 250,000 people and seriously injures 160,000 more; almost the entire city of 1.1 million people is destroyed. May 18, 1980: An earthquake occurs beneath Mount St. Helens, Washington, which causes a large landslide high on that mountain. This landslide exposes a pressurized magma chamber, which explodes with a north-directed lateral blast. September 19, 1985: A magnitude 8.1 earthquake near Mexico City kills 10,000 people, injures 30,000, and causes billions of dollars worth of damage. December 7, 1988: The Leninakan earthquake in Armenia leaves 60,000 dead, 15,000 injured, and 500,000 homeless; it destroys 450,000 buildings, including thousands of historical monuments, and causes $30 billion in damage. October 17, 1989: An earthquake in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the vicinity of Loma Prieta, California, kills 67 and produces more than $5 billion worth of damage in the San Francisco-Oakland area. January 17, 1994: A moderate earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.7, strikes the northern edge of the Los Angeles basin near Northridge, California. There are 57 deaths, and damage is estimated at $20 billion. January 17, 1995: The most costly natural disaster to date occurs when an earthquake strikes Kobe, Japan. The death toll exceeds 5,500, injuries require 37,000 people to seek medical attention, and damage is estimated at $50 billion.
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Earthquakes August 17, 1999: More than 17,000 die when a magnitude 7.4 quake strikes Ezmit, Turkey. December 26, 2003: An earthquake in Bam, Iran, kills more than 26,000 and leaves 75,000 homeless. October 8, 2005: A powerful earthquake rocks Kashmir in Pakistan. More than 90,000 are dead and about 106,000 are injured; 3.3 million people are made homeless, and the damage is estimated at $5 billion. May 26, 2006: A 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Java, Indonesia, kills more than 6,000 people, injures nearly 40,000, and leaves 1.5 million homeless.
earth and are readily apparent from the offsets they produce in rivers, mountain ranges, and anthropogenic structures. The San Andreas fault in California is a well-known example. More often, earthquakes occur on faults that are not vertical but have a substantial slope to them. The quakes may occur along a segment of such a fault, which is buried deep beneath the surface of the earth. Often these faults can be followed up to the surface, using geological and geophysical methods, where their surface exposures can be mapped. Sometimes the faults do not extend to the surface; these are called hidden faults. A portion of the energy released by slippage is transmitted away from the site in the form of elastic waves (waves that travel through a material because of its ability to recover from an instantaneous elastic deformation). Within the interior of the earth, there are two types of waves: P waves and S waves. A P wave is a sound wave, consisting of alternating regions of compressed and rarefied media. All materials— solids, liquids, and gases—transmit P waves. An S wave distorts the material through which it is trying to travel. If that material is capable of recovering from a distortion, the S wave will travel through it. Solids are defined as materials with this capability. As P waves and S waves reach the surface of the earth, they can generate surface waves there. These surface waves, which are also elastic waves, are considerably more complex, travel more slowly, and are usually much more damaging than P waves or S waves. As elastic waves travel through different materials, they are filtered 51
Earthquakes and transformed. Sometimes, particularly when traveling through mud or unconsolidated materials, the energy can be concentrated in waves with a period of a second or two. Many buildings resonate at such low frequencies, and the effect of a long series of these waves passing under such a building is like pushing someone on a swing: Each additional push is very small, but because the timing of the push is in harmony with the swinging, each push adds to the amount the swing moves. Because of this, regions far from an earthquake, if they are underlaid by mud, may experience much greater devastation than areas closer to the earthquake that are underlaid by bedrock. Any major earthquake produces a series of elastic waves that can be detected just about anywhere on earth. From these waves scientists can determine the location and size of the earthquake. The location on the surface of the earth above the point where the earthquake is
Graphic Representation of the Richter Scale Amplified Maximum Ground Motion (Microns)
9
10
8.9
New Madrid, Missouri, 1812 Alaska, 1964
Great
San Francisco, 1906
8
10
8 Major 7
7
10
Strong
6
10 5 104 10 2 10 1 10
Great Devastation and Many Fatalities Possible
6
Moderate Small Minor
4 5
2 3 -1 0 1 Not Felt -1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Damage Begins Fatalities Rare
9
Magnitude
Source: © 1989 by V. J. Ansfield. All Rights Reserved
52
Earthquakes
Powerful earthquakes can topple entire buildings within seconds. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
thought to have happened is called the epicenter. Seismic data measure the size of an earthquake using some form of the Richter scale. Useful from a scientific perspective, such seismically determined sizes do not tell the whole story. If the epicenter is in an uninhabited area, even a large earthquake may cause no fatalities and produce little damage. In contrast, if the epicenter of a small earthquake is in a densely populated region characterized by thick accumulations of mud, death and destruction may be great. Another measure of earthquake size, the Modified Mercalli scale, calculates the intensity of shaking at the surface. Observations of damage and perceptions of witnesses are used to estimate this intensity. In traveling from their source to the seismograph that records them, seismic waves propagate through regions of the earth about which little is known. Differences in composition, temperature, and other factors within a particular region of the earth may result in either early or late arrivals for waves moving through that region. Because the same region will be traversed by waves from many earthquakes, careful studies, compiling large sets of data acquired over decades of work, have been able to decipher much about the interior 53
Earthquakes of the earth. Through the 1960’s these different regions were represented as depth ranges. This produced a model for the earth in which properties varied as a series of spherical shells. As more sophisticated digital instruments came into use, lateral variations could be addressed. The computations required are similar to those in medicine in a computed tomography (CT or CAT) scan and form the basis for the field of seismic tomography. Geography Earthquakes are not randomly distributed on earth: Most occur along tectonic plate boundaries. The surface of the earth is made up of a dozen or so tectonic plates, which are about 62 miles thick and persist with little deformation within them for hundreds of millions of years. Tectonic plates comprise the crust (either oceanic or continental crust) and a portion of the earth’s mantle beneath it. The boundaries between them are named according to the relative motions between the two plates at that boundary. Plates diverge from each other along ridges (generally beneath the oceans, but occasionally running through a continent, such as the East African Rift Valley). Plates move past each other along transform faults, such as the San Andreas fault in California. They also converge, with one plate moving beneath the other, along subduction zones. The forces driving these motions are among the most powerful on earth and have been moving the plates around for at least the last five hundred million years. Discovering and understanding this tectonic system was one of the principal achievements of the earth sciences during the latter half of the twentieth century. Many geographic features are the result of interactions between the plates. Most subduction zones occur near coastlines, have a trench lying offshore, and have a string of volcanic mountains a little way in from the shore. This geography dominates the western coast of Central and South America. Often a chain of islands develops if the subduction zone involves two plates carrying oceanic crust. The Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska are a good example of this phenomenon. Most of the Pacific Ocean is surrounded by subduction zones, which are responsible for the earthquakes and volcanoes of the “Ring of Fire,” a dramatic name given to this region before plate tectonics was understood. (One early theory held that the 54
Earthquakes
Three Main Types of Fault Motion Strike slip (lateral fault)
Fault scarp
Reverse fault Horst block
Normal fault Graben
(Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Moon had been ejected from the Pacific Ocean, and the Ring of Fire was the wound that remained in the earth.) A plate carrying a continent subducting beneath another continental plate may create gigantic mountain ranges and immense uplifted regions such as the Himalayas. They were formed as the subcontinent of India drove into the southern edge of the Eurasian plate. In the process, wedges of crust were forced out to the side, forming some of the eastern portions of China and Indochina. The compression, occurring in a north-south direction, ejected these wedges to the east, much as a watermelon seed squeezed between the thumb and forefinger may be squirted across a table. Hence this process is called “watermelon-seed tectonics.” Other places where it is thought to occur are Turkey and the Mojave Desert in California. Although most earthquakes occur along plate boundaries, a few, including some very large ones, take place in plate interiors. The cause of these intraplate earthquakes is not well understood. It is generally believed, however, that future earthquakes will occur where earthquakes have occurred in the past, and these locations are considered to have substantial seismic risk. The very southeastern corner of Mis55
Earthquakes souri, near the city of New Madrid, is one such area, having had a series of violent earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. Charleston, South Carolina, is another, as it was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1886. Prevention and Preparations Earthquakes are caused by the intermittent motion of tectonic plates past each other. Any attempt to stop the motion entirely is doomed to failure, as it only ensures greater motion at some later time. The only other way to prevent earthquakes is to increase their frequency, thereby avoiding a huge, damaging earthquake by inducing a large number of smaller, less harmful ones. Various scenarios have been proposed in which two sections of a fault are temporarily “locked” and the region between them is encouraged to slip, releasing the accumulated strain energy a little bit at a time. Because the risks involved in such an undertaking are great, and because the confidence in either locking or unlocking a section of the fault is small, such scenarios are rarely taken very seriously. As prevention seems unlikely, preparation is of particular importance. Efforts here involve understanding the science, identifying places at particular risk for earthquakes (forecasting), and identifying and then observing precursory phenomena (which may lead to predicting impending earthquakes). There are two premises on which forecasting is based: If there once was a damaging earthquake at some location, there is likely to be another one there at some time, and if that place recently had a big earthquake, it is unlikely that another one will occur there soon. Understanding faults, plate tectonics, and the earthquake process permits incorporation of these two premises into a concept of seismic gaps: Faults are identified in areas where damaging earthquakes have occurred in historic times. That portion of each fault which slipped during each historic earthquake is then mapped out. Segments that have had large strain-releasing earthquakes in the past, but not for the last thirty years or so, can then be picked out as the locations most likely to have damaging earthquakes in the near future. These seismic gaps represent places where there is a gap in the release of seismic energy and that are thus “due” for an earthquake. Although obviously useful, such forecasts are not specific enough for extensive preparations. 56
Earthquakes
Comparison of Magnitude and Intensity Richter Magnitude
Mercalli Intensity
2 and less
I-II
Usually not felt by people
3
III
Felt indoors by some people
4
IV-V
Felt by most people
5
VI-VII
Felt by all; building damage
6
VII-VIII
People scared; moderate damage
7
IX-X
Major damage
8 and up
XI-XII
Damage nearly total
An earthquake prediction states a time, place, and magnitude for an expected earthquake. Scientists use a variety of precursors to give them clues about when and where future earthquakes will occur. Laboratory experiments during which rock samples are made to fracture and slip under controlled conditions have revealed some interesting phenomena. Just prior to failure, the volume of the sample being compressed actually increases. Sensitive microphones glued to the rock can detect a number of tiny noises inside the samples; tiny cracks within the sample grow longer and open wider. As they grow longer they fracture the rock just ahead of their tips, making the noises. As the cracks open wider they make the volume of the sample increase. When they grow sufficiently to interconnect, the rock fails. This behavior is called dilatancy and explains a number of precursory phenomena. Ground deformation occurred prior to the Nigata, Japan, earthquake of 1964. Although dilatancy had not yet been discovered, the survey data revealed this deformation previously existed. Similarly, anomalous radon fluctuations were observed prior to earthquakes in the Garm District of Russia during the early 1960’s. Dilatancy can explain these, too, as the opening cracks draw water in from surrounding regions at an enhanced rate, increasing the levels of radon in the springwater. Dilatancy also affects seismic waves. The P wave velocity is affected by the amount of water in the growing cracks, whereas the S wave velocity is not. A drop in the ratio of the velocities of these two waves can indicate growing cracks. The length of time that this ratio remains 57
Earthquakes depressed can indicate the size of the impending earthquake. The eventual rise in this velocity can indicate when the earthquake will occur. In 1971 this approach led to the first successful prediction of an earthquake, in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. Unfortunately, not all earthquakes are preceded by indications of dilatancy. If it does occur, however, it may provide a prediction of a major earthquake as much as a year or two in advance of the event. With that much warning, much could be done to reduce the number of people killed and injured by the earthquake. Most important, water levels in reservoirs behind dams could be lowered. Large meetings and conventions could be rescheduled. Emergency service personnel and volunteers could be trained, and people could be evacuated or schooled in earthquake survival. Rescue and Relief Efforts Earthquakes damage and destroy buildings, infrastructure, and lines of communication. Because the crucial connections between the affected area and the outside world, often called lifelines, may be severed, rescue and relief operations are likely to depend on local resources. Setting up reserves of water, fuel, and generators is an obvious prudent step, which most communities in earthquake-prone areas take. Less apparent is the need to identify human resources, on a neighborhood scale, who can help in such a disaster. As an example, a person who was trained as an army cook might be invaluable in a neighborhood field kitchen. As in any mass casualty incident, triage will be essential—and unpleasant. In triage, treatment is allocated to victims based on how severely they are hurt and how likely they are to survive if given treatment. Because resources are limited, some living, badly hurt victims will not be treated, effectively being left to die. The triage officer making these decisions must be medically trained yet cannot actively treat patients. Such unpleasant work requires considerable training and discipline. Once treatment has begun, additional complications may be anticipated. Normal protocols often call for radio communications between Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel and medical doctors or hospital staff. After an earthquake this is likely to be impossible: Too many radios trying to transmit crowd the airwaves. Hos58
Earthquakes pitals are likely to fill quickly. Ambulances may be used as first-aid stations, at least during the early stages of the rescue effort. Fatalities are likely to be from head or chest injuries or from respiratory distress brought on by burial under debris. Those with compromised cardiovascular systems, caused by disease, age, or injuries, will be at greatest risk. Cultural and temporal variables can be important. A major earthquake during rush hour in Los Angeles might result in deaths and injuries from collisions on, and collapses of, the freeways. This could result in retired people being relatively spared. An earthquake at night in an economically depressed area in South America might kill most victims as their heavy adobe homes collapse on them. In this case, infants young enough to sleep next to their mothers are sometimes sheltered from falling debris and have a better chance of survival than the rest of their family members. The extrication of victims from collapsed and damaged buildings after an earthquake presents some special problems. Big earthquakes are usually followed by a series of smaller earthquakes called aftershocks for days after the initial event. A large initial earthquake will have sizable aftershocks, some of which are capable of producing extensive damage to undamaged buildings. A major earthquake damages many buildings structurally, without causing their collapse. Weakened and then subjected to aftershocks, they represent death traps for rescue personnel. Great care must be taken to put as few of these people at risk as possible. Trained, organized groups—professional or volunteer—will most likely be more disciplined than the general population. Plaintive cries for help, adrenaline coursing through the bloodstream, and the overwhelming sense of powerlessness engendered by a massive disaster can combine to put more people at risk. Debris may be pulled off a pile covering a whimpering child, who is scared but unhurt, and unwittingly added to another pile, burying a seriously hurt and unconscious individual. As lifelines are restored, additional assets can be brought in to assist with extrication and medical services. To be effective, these need to be deployed where they are most needed, and priorities need to be established. Prior planning can anticipate many of the needs that will develop, but an overall command system must be in place to ensure that the right tools end up in the right places. Immediately after an 59
Earthquakes earthquake, neighborhoods and localities need to be able to function as independent entities, but eventually the rescue operation needs to evolve into a well-coordinated regional effort. Impact The impact of a devastating earthquake is profound, widespread, and long-lasting. Rescue efforts bring media attention, which in turn encourage assistance for the victims in the form of funds, clothes, and other materials. Sometimes the media portrays a disaster as an unfolding human interest story; much of the critically important work is less likely to make the news. Governments also often provide relief, but, more important, they restore the lifelines necessary for everyone’s survival and the infrastructure required to return life to “normal.” It is sobering to consider how much time may be needed to accomplish this. Electricity and phone service, taken for granted by most people, need wires and poles if they are to be delivered. After an earthquake in which landslides occur, many of those lines and poles are destroyed, as are many of the roads needed to bring in new lines and poles from outside the affected region. The roads that are in service are needed first to transport victims, rescue personnel, and equipment. Water and sewer distribution systems are other obvious high-priority systems to restore. Less apparent is the need for effective transportation if a modern metropolitan area is to remain viable. Elaborate networks of expressways, subways, rapid transit, trains, and buses are especially vulnerable to disruption by earthquakes and require enormous amounts of money and time to rebuild. The financial resources necessary for recovery will not be available within the affected region, and they may not be immediately available within the country. As governments borrow money to accomplish the tasks immediately required, credit may tighten elsewhere, having serious consequences for the economy as a whole. For example, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 is thought by many to have been an important contributing factor to the Panic of 1907. The productivity and economic viability of the affected area are likely to remain depressed for a long time. Small companies, unable to afford a period of inactivity, may fail. Larger companies may transfer personnel and contracts to other localities. Industrial facilities may be so expensive to rebuild that other alternatives, such as re60
Earthquakes locating offshore, might become attractive. More significant, and much more difficult to predict, will be the long-term effect an earthquake has on the reputation of the area in which it occurs. Businesses dislike uncertainty. The extent and duration of earthquake-caused disruptions will be considered when companies evaluate the region in future decisions concerning location. Earthquakes will also have an impact on how residents evaluate their own situation. Fear and the presence of danger will motivate some people to move away. For others, the quality of life will never entirely recover: Although people may remain in the area, concerns and worries about seismic risks will add stress to their lives. Such impacts may be very long-lasting. A technologically advanced society is very fragile. Many systems are interdependent, and an entire economy depends on their working together. A serious earthquake interferes with this, killing and injuring some and inconveniencing and frightening nearly everyone. Perhaps the greatest impact of the next big earthquake will be the realization of this fact, suddenly thrust upon the population by events entirely beyond its control.
Historic buildings were destroyed in the 2004 San Simeon quake in Paso Robles, California. (FEMA)
61
Earthquakes Historical Overview Most cultures have oral histories describing earthquakes, and some have myths or legends attributing their cause to such sources as gods, catfish, or frogs. The Chinese history of earthquakes goes back at least to a device that could detect earthquakes, made by the Chinese scholar Chang Heng in about 132 c.e. However, the written record of a scientific approach to earthquakes, which is generally available to Western students, begins in the eighteenth century. A major earthquake occurred in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1755, which caused many scholars to begin thinking about earthquakes. Scientific academies sponsored expeditions to Italy after several major earthquakes there. Investigators plotted damage to try to pinpoint where the events had occurred. In general they found concentric patterns, with the greatest damage in the center, but sometimes there were isolated pockets of intense damage far from the rest. This early work has been developed over the centuries, leading to the construction of maps showing what is now called the intensity of shaking, and using a scale, usually the Modified Mercalli scale, to try to quantify the event. Less successfully, the early investigators tried to plot the directions in which fallen pillars were aligned, in order to determine the directions in which the earth moved. Current knowledge suggests that the surface motions and building responses are far too complex for such an approach to have much value. In 1872 a huge earthquake in Owens Valley, California, near the Nevada border, raised the Sierra Nevada as much as 23 feet (7 meters) along a fault. American geologist Grove Karl Gilbert, on observing the field evidence, concluded that the earthquake was the sudden release of accumulated elastic energy that had built up across the fault for a considerable period of time. When the frictional resistance along the fault was exceeded, an abrupt movement would occur, resulting in an earthquake. This was the first time the association of earthquakes with faults was recognized. Additional information was sought on the frequency, timing, and duration of earthquakes, so scientists developed instruments. During the latter half of the eighteenth century, many different designs were used in the construction of many seismographs. Attention was directed at local events until 1889, when a recording made at Potsdam, Germany, showed a distinct earthquake, but no earthquakes had 62
Earthquakes been felt in the vicinity. It turned out that an earthquake had occurred in Japan on that date, and that the seismic waves had traveled thousands of miles before being recorded in Germany. Waves that have traveled such distances are called teleseisms. Because a great deal of theoretical work on the theory of elasticity had already been done, the understanding of how and why these waves traveled such great distances developed rapidly. Recognizing the value of the information these waves might provide to the study of the interior of the earth, scientists expended considerable efforts to refine, redesign, build, and deploy seismographs in laboratories throughout the world, particularly in the United States and Japan. By 1906, British geologist Richard Dixon Oldham had established the existence of the earth’s core, correctly interpreting the absence of certain waves at certain points on earth as being the result of a fluid interior. Also in 1906, a great earthquake and subsequent fire had devastated San Francisco; movement on the San Andreas fault was obvious. In some places the offset reached almost 20 feet (6 meters). American geologist Harry Fielding Reid examined the field evidence and used several survey results to determine how the relative motion decreased with distance from the fault. His results quantified Gilbert’s conclusions, let him estimate when the last important strainrelieving earthquake had taken place, and even let him guess when the next earthquake might occur along this segment of the fault. This has become known as the theory of elastic rebound. By the early 1930’s entire laboratories had been constructed to study earthquakes and their elastic waves. To permit workers to compare data, American scientist Charles Francis Richter, working with American seismologist Beno Gutenberg, suggested that they should all use a particular kind of seismograph, a logarithmic scale, and the same equations for how seismic wave amplitudes decreased with distance from their source. This was the basis for the Richter scale, which has evolved considerably but is still in use. After World War II, the Cold War developed, with the Soviet Union and the United States building and testing nuclear warheads. To detect underground nuclear tests anywhere in the world, the United States deployed a network of sensitive seismographs that vastly increased both the quality and quantity of seismological data 63
Earthquakes available to scientists all over the world. The same earthquake would now be recorded at dozens of locations, and details of the earth’s interior were gradually revealed. By 1958 the general model of the earth had been defined. By averaging the results from many earthquakes, recorded by many seismographs, scientists Sir Harold Jeffreys and Keith Edward Bullen compiled a graph of travel time curves. From these the seismic velocities within the earth could be determined as a function of depth. With additional constraints provided by other knowledge of the density distribution, reasonable estimates for the pressure, temperature, and composition of the earth were derived. At the same time, geologists were shifting their attention to the ocean floor. By the 1960’s a picture was emerging of a planet with an outer surface made up of a dozen or so plates that moved past each other, and sometimes over the tops of each other, at rates on the order of centimeters per year. This plate tectonic model provides the source of the deformation ultimately responsible for earthquakes. Movement of the plates past each other occurs in a spasmodic fashion, with elastic energy gradually building up until the strength of the material and the friction-resisting motion on a fault are overcome; then, a sudden displacement occurs, producing earthquakes. When a gong or a cymbal is struck, vibrations occur at many different frequencies. The same thing can happen to the earth if it is struck by a large enough earthquake. This happened in 1960, when an earthquake off the coast of Chile made the earth resonate for several weeks. Scientists detected these very low frequencies, which have periods of about an hour, using instruments called strain meters. These data further refined our understanding of the earth. With advances in electronics, communications, and computers, a new generation of digital seismographs was developed and deployed. New mathematical developments such as the Fourier transform permitted scientists to interpret the data these seismographs obtained. It became possible to examine how seismic velocities varied from place to place at the same depth. These studies, called seismic tomography, revealed that the internal structure of the earth was more complex than just a series of spherical shells with different seismic properties. Otto H. Muller 64
Earthquakes Bibliography Bolt, Bruce A. Earthquakes. 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. In a manner suitable for a beginning student, this popular book presents the knowledge and wisdom of a man who studied earthquakes for decades. While technical details are generally not developed at length, the author’s familiarity with all types of seismological information is apparent. Brumbaugh, David S. Earthquakes, Science, and Society. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. This book covers earthquakes and their impact on society with a thorough, yet easily understood, approach. It explains the physics underlying earthquakes and seismology with unusual clarity. Seismic tomography, seismic refraction, and internal reflections are treated well. Coch, Nicholas K. “Earthquake Hazards.” In Geohazards: Natural and Human. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995. A good treatment of the subject at an introductory level. Generally restricted to earthquakes within the United States, but it also includes good discussions of tsunamis. Heppenheimer, T. A. The Coming Quake: Science and Trembling on the California Earthquake Frontier. New York: Times Books, 1988. This very readable book describes the study of earthquakes from a human perspective. The author narrates a history of scientific developments, giving details of the people involved and their emotional involvement in their work. Keller, Edward A., and Nicholas Pinter. Active Tectonics: Earthquakes, Uplift, and Landscape. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002. Looking at earthquakes from the perspective of how they alter the landscape, this book provides some uncommon insights. Although it requires little in the way of background knowledge from its readers, it manages to develop considerable understanding of fairly complex technical material. Little attention is paid to the impact of earthquake disasters on society. Kimball, Virginia. Earthquake Ready. Rev. ed. Malibu, Calif.: Roundtable, 1992. This book details much of what can be done to prepare for and survive an earthquake. Its technical adviser was Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Lundgren, Lawrence W. “Earthquake Hazards.” In Environmental Ge65
Earthquakes ology. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. Includes case studies of five earthquakes that occurred between 1975 and 1995. Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle, and Donald Theodore Sanders. Earthquakes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Seismic Disruptions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005. Describes how earthquakes are produced and analyzes their effects on societies and cultures across history.
66
El Niño Factors involved: Geography, rain, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: All Definition El Niño is a recurring weather phenomenon involving large-scale alterations in sea surface temperatures, air pressure, and precipitation patterns in the Pacific Ocean. It can cause severe storms and droughts in the bordering continents and has effects worldwide. Science The Spanish words El Niño (the boy) allude to the infant Christ. It is the traditional term used by Peruvian fishermen to refer to a slight warming of the ocean during the Christmas season. Scientists borrowed the name and reapplied it to abnormal, irregularly recurring fluctuations in sea surface temperature, air pressure, wind strength, and precipitation in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These conditions are part of a weather phenomenon that scientists call the El NiñoSouthern Oscillation (ENSO). El Niño conditions can last up to two years. Under normal conditions westward-blowing trade winds push water in a broad band along the equator toward Indonesia and northern Australia. A bulge of water builds up that is about 1.5 feet higher than the surface of the eastern Pacific. The western Pacific is also warmer, as much as 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius), and the thermocline, the border between warm water and cold water, is much deeper. The air above this vast pool of warm water is moist, and evaporation is rapid. As a result, clouds form and rain falls abundantly. The average air pressure is low. Meanwhile, in the eastern Pacific, off the South American northern coast, the sea surface is cold as water wells up from the depths. Evaporation is slow, and there is little cloud formation or rain. The air pressure is high. Sometimes the trade winds weaken. Scientists do not fully understand why this happens, although weather patterns to the north and south are known to influence the change. The trade winds can no 67
El Niño
El Niño storms in 1998 caused the Rio Nido mudslides in Northern California. (FEMA)
longer hold back the bulge of warm water in the western Pacific. It flows eastward, generally within 5 degrees of latitude north and south of the equator. As the water bulge flows into the central Pacific, two sets of huge subsurface waves, Kelvin waves moving east and Rossby waves moving west, are created. They move slowly. The Kelvin waves take as long as two and a half months to cross the ocean to South America, and the Rossby waves reach the western Pacific boundary after six to ten months. As they spread, the Kelvin waves deepen the shallow central and eastern thermoclines as much as 98 feet (30 meters) and help propel the band of warm water, while the Rossby waves raise the deep western thermocline slightly. An El Niño begins when the long finger of warm water extends to South America, raising the average surface temperature there. Scientists gauge the severity of an El Niño by the amount of temperature rise. A moderate El Niño involves an increase of 36 to 37 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 3 degrees Celsius) above the normal summer and autumn temperatures for the Southern Hemisphere, a strong El Niño has a 37 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 5 degrees Celsius) in68
El Niño crease, and a severe El Niño can warm the sea surface nearly 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). The effects of the warm water are relatively rapid and dramatic. The warm layer blocks the normal upwelling of cold water near Peru and Ecuador, diverting it southward. The increased surface temperature accelerates evaporation. The coastal air turns more humid, and as it rises, the water vapor injects tremendous thermal energy into the atmosphere. As clouds form from the vapor, winds are generated that push the clouds inland in large storms. The storms bring downpours to regions that are normally desert. There is a rise in the sea level because of the warm water, which is less dense; that rise, together with high waves from the storms battering the coast, causes beaches to disappear in some areas and pile up in others. A huge low-pressure system settles in the central Pacific, centered approximately on Tahiti. In the Australia-Indonesia region, conditions are nearly the reverse. The air pressure becomes abnormally high—in fact, this largescale variation from low to high air pressure makes up the Southern Oscillation part of ENSO. Drought strikes areas that normally receive substantial rainfall. Sea levels fall, sometimes exposing coral reefs. There are further abnormal weather conditions in more distant regions, which scientists call teleconnections to El Niño. When the Kelvin waves hit the South American coast and the Rossby waves reach the westernmost Pacific, they rebound. The western thermocline is deepened, and the eastern thermocline rises. This action begins the reversal of El Niño effects. The warm water retreats westward, pushed back by strengthening trade winds. Eventually, normal weather patterns resume. If these oscillations came regularly, El Niños would simply be the extreme of a pattern. However, the period is not regular. For at least the last five thousand years, scientists believe, an El Niño occurred every two to ten years. Sometimes a decade, or even several decades, passes without one. Some, but not all, events are separated by abnormally cold weather in the eastern Pacific, a phenomenon known as La Niña, anti-El Niño, or El Viejo. Geography El Niños profoundly influence weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean. In addition to increasing rainfall along the northwestern South 69
El Niño American seaboard, the warm water can increase the number of Pacific Ocean hurricanes, which can strike Central and North America and the Pacific islands. Above-normal water temperatures also have been recorded along the California coast of North America. Accordingly, there is more precipitation, causing coastal flooding and piling up large snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada. The Pacific Northwest, southern Alaska, the north coast of China, Korea, and Japan have above-average winter air temperatures. Australia and the maritime area of Indonesia and Southeast Asia suffer coastal and inland drought as rainfall is sparse throughout the western equatorial Pacific. Teleconnections disrupt normal weather patterns throughout much of the Southern Hemisphere. Sections of the eastern Amazon River basin experience drought, and the monsoons in northern India may be short or fail entirely. Low rainfall occurs in southeastern Africa and drought in Sahelian Africa, particularly Ethiopia. There are also indications that El Niños affect Atlantic Ocean weather patterns. Northern Europe can be unusually cold, while across the Atlantic mild conditions prevail along the eastern seaboard of the United States, and the American Southeast has a wet winter. During the Atlantic hurricane season, fewer and weaker hurricanes arise. Prevention and Preparations No El Niños are identical because external weather forces cause variations in the development, duration, and severity of each. Moreover, El Niños do not recur regularly. Predicting them is therefore difficult. Since the late 1950’s, however, intensive basic scientific research has identified the dynamics of the phenomena, and technological developments have made prediction and tracking of El Niños ever more reliable, allowing potentially affected areas to prepare for harsh weather. Weather stations in the western and eastern Pacific look for changes in air pressure and signs of declining precipitation. The Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array comprises hundreds of buoys; most monitor water temperature and atmospheric conditions, but some also measure the depth of the thermocline. Weather satellites can use infrared imaging and laser range-finding to follow the path of expanding warm waters and to gauge sea surface level. Data from all such sources is fed into computers with special software that 70
El Niño compares the information with past El Niños and fits it into empirically derived formulas in order to model the potential development of a new event. While computer modeling is not foolproof, it is accurate enough that Pacific-bordering nations make preparations based upon the forecasts. Disaster relief agencies, such as the United States Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), stockpile food, medicines, and sanitation and construction supplies in anticipation of floods and hurricanes. Some governments, as well as the World Meteorological Organization, maintain Web sites with the latest information on El Niños so citizens can make preparations of their own. Governments of countries in potential drought areas have staved off disaster by encouraging farmers to plant drought-resistant crops or those that mature before the El Niño season. Moving people away from canyons and low-lying lands that are subject to flooding can sometimes save lives. Rescue and Relief Efforts El Niños do not directly threaten life and property. Instead, the storms that they spawn do the damage. The chief danger comes from flash floods in deserts, such as those in coastal Peru and Ecuador, flooding from rain-swollen rivers, and high winds from tropical storms. Since it is difficult to predict exactly where one of these conditions will occur, emergency workers usually respond only after a crisis develops. Their efforts follow the pattern for all flooding and windstorms: Move residents out of the area of danger and institute searches for those swept away by flash floods or caught in collapsed buildings. Because flooding can be sudden, serious, and widespread, sometimes appearing simultaneously in widely separate locales, a substantial danger exists to public health from polluted drinking water. This is particularly true in areas that lack sewer systems, but even sophisticated city sewers can overflow. In such cases, water-borne diseases, such as cholera and typhoid, may wreak far greater harm to the populace than flooding or winds. Rescue workers must therefore provide clean water and treat outbreaks as they appear.
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El Niño Impact Because an El Niño prevents nutrient-rich cold water from rising near the coast of South America, fish must change their feeding grounds. Important commercial species, such as the anchoveta, seek cooler water to the south. This is a boon to Chilean fishers, but the fisheries of Peru and Ecuador are drastically reduced. Fishing boats make few, small catches, and the crews suffer economically, as do industries dependent upon them, such as fishmeal production. Seabirds that feed on the fish also suffer; large-scale die-offs have been recorded. Similar alterations in fishing patterns off the coasts of Central and North America occur, forcing fishers to travel farther for their catches and causing starvation among birds and seals. Severe storms can decimate crops and kill livestock in the eastern Pacific nations, while drought does the same in Australia and the western Pacific. In Indonesia, dry forests often ignite and burn out of control, lifting smoke into the atmosphere and destroying property. The economic damage of a severe El Niño can easily exceed $1 billion on the West Coast of the United States alone, and many times that amount worldwide. The death toll from windstorms, flooding and attendant disease outbreaks, and drought-caused famine may reach into the thousands, principally in South America. Scientists suspect that global warming may make future El Niños more powerful, raising the potential for yet greater destructiveness. Roger Smith Bibliography Allan, Rob, Janette Lindesay, and David Parker. El Niño Southern Oscillation and Climatic Variability. Collingwood, Australia: CSIRO, 1997. Offers a scholarly introduction to the history of El Niño studies, the oceanic-atmospheric forces behind the phenomenon, and forecasting methods, followed by hundreds of color graphs displaying data on conditions during El Niños from 1871 to 1994. Arnold, Caroline. El Niño: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife. New York: Clarion, 1998. Intended for young readers, a richly illustrated explanation of the mechanics of El Niño, its effects, and forecasting methods. A clear introduction for general readers who are science-shy. Babkina, A. M., ed. El Niño: Overview and Bibliography. Hauppauge, 72
El Niño N.Y.: Nova Science, 2003. Analyzes this weather pattern, including stronger events such as the El Nino of 1982-1983. Provides a detailed overview, as well as comprehensive title, author, and subject indexes. D’Aleo, Joseph S. The Oryx Resource Guide to El Niño and La Niña. Westport, Conn.: Oryx Press, 2002. Chronicles the basic causes and effects of El Niño and La Niña, including their historical, meteorological, ecological, and economic impacts. Fagan, Brian. Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilization. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Following a popular explanation of El Niño, Fagan examines evidence of its influence on ancient civilizations, concluding with an overview of the 1982-1983 and 1997-1998 episodes. Glantz, Michael H. Currents of Change: El Niño’s Impact on Climate and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Glantz, an environmental scientist, outlines the natural causes of El Niños for nonscientists and discusses the phenomenon’s effects on society at length. Lyons, Walter A. The Handy Weather Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997. Explains the fundamental science of weather systems and describes forecasting and the instruments used to gather meteorological data. A chapter address El Niños and climate change. The question-and-answer text is simple and clear, accompanied by illustrations. Nash, J. Madeleine. El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master WeatherMaker. New York: Warner Books, 2002. Nash describes how generations of scientists and explorers helped unravel the mystery of the El Niño weather phenomenon. Philander, S. George. Is the Temperature Rising? The Uncertain Science of Global Warming. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. Intended for college students, an enjoyable survey of the science behind climatic phenomena, with a lucid chapter on ENSO. _______. Our Affair with El Niño: How We Transformed an Enchanting Peruvian Current into a Global Climate Hazard. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Philander discusses the scientific, political, economic, and cultural developments that shaped the perception of the El Niño current.
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Epidemics Factors involved: Animals, human activity, microorganisms, plants, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: Cities, forests, islands, towns Definition An epidemic is the spreading of an infectious disease over a wide range of a human population that historically leads to a dramatic loss of life. Preventive measures, which include aggressive sanitation procedures, have reduced the impact of epidemics on human life, but new threats have emerged. Science Contagious or communicable diseases are those transmitted from one organism to another. Living microorganisms, also known as parasites, such as bacteria, fungi, or viruses, may invade or attach themselves to a host organism and replicate, thus creating infectious diseases. A disease that affects a large human population is called an epidemic. In a disease situation the host organism serves as the environment where the parasite thrives. With many diseases, such as syphilis, the parasite remains present throughout the lifetime of the host unless it is destroyed by treatment. Generally, the parasite appears to have a degree of specificity with regard to the host. Thus, microorganisms adapted to plant hosts are rarely capable of attacking an animal host and vice versa. However, a given parasite may attack different types of animal hosts, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. Many times the parasite emigrates from one host to another by means of an insect carrier or other vector. In other cases the parasites may spend one part of their life in an intermediate host. This may enhance or decrease the harmful effect the parasite will have on the host, as the intermediate host may or may not interact constructively with the parasite. As a result geographic or seasonal differences in the disease outbreak are very likely to occur. Occasionally, diseases are spread among rodents by an intermediate host, such as fleas. The rodent-flea-rodent sequence is called 74
Epidemics enzootic, meaning the infection is present in an animal community at all times but manifests itself only in a small fraction of instances. However, once the environmental conditions are favorable the condition becomes epizootic, and a large number of animals become infected at the same time. As the rodent population is reduced by death, fleas from the dead animals fail to find other host rodents and begin infecting other animals that are present in the immediate area, including humans. The overall infestation is slow at the beginning but quickly explodes, with a devastating number of victims. The human involvement in this progression is therefore more coincidental than programmed. Most pathogenic parasites adapt comfortably to their hosts and do not survive the conditions outside the host’s tissues. Exceptions to this case are those microorganisms whose lives involve a resistantspore stage. Such examples include the Coccidioides fungus, which is responsible for desert fever and the anthrax bacillus that affects cows, sheep, goats, and even humans. An animal disease that can also be transferred to humans is called zoonosis. Epidemiology is the medical field that studies the distribution of disease among human populations, as well as the factors responsible for this distribution. Contrary to most other medical branches, however, epidemiology is concerned more with groups of people rather than with the patients themselves. As a result, the field relies heavily on statistical patterns and historical trends. Its development arose as a result of the great epidemics of the last few centuries that led to an immeasurable loss of human lives. Scientists at the time began looking into the identification of the high risk associated with certain diseases in an attempt to establish preventive measures. Epidemiological studies are classified as descriptive or analytic. In descriptive epidemiology, scientists survey the nature of the population affected by the disorder in question. Data on factors such as ethnicity, age, sex, geographic description, occupation, and time trends are closely monitored and recorded. The most common measures of disease are mortality, which is the number of yearly deaths per 1,000 of population at risk; the incidence, which is defined as the number of new cases yearly per 100,000 of population at risk; and prevalence, which is the number of existing cases at a given time per 100 of population at risk. In analytic epidemiology, a careful analysis of the collected data 75
Epidemics
Milestones 11th century b.c.e.: Biblical passage Samuel I tells of the Philistine plague, a pestilence outbreak that occurred after the capture of the Ark of the Covenant. 7th century b.c.e.: Assyrian pestilence slays 185,000 Assyrians, forcing King Sennacherib to retreat from Judah without capturing Jerusalem. 451 b.c.e.: The Roman pestilence, an unidentified disease but probably anthrax, kills a large portion of the slave population and some in the citizenry and prevents the Aequians of Latium from attacking Rome. 430 b.c.e.: The mysterious Plague of Athens early in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta results in about 30,000 dead. 387 b.c.e.: According the records of Livy, a series of 11 epidemics strikes Rome through the end of the republic. 250-243 b.c.e.: “Hunpox,” or perhaps smallpox, strikes China. 48 b.c.e.: Epidemic, flood, and famine occur in China. 542-543 c.e.: Plague of Justinian is the first pandemic of bubonic plague that devastates Africa, Asia Minor, and Europe. The first year the plague kills 300,000 in Constantinople; the infection resurfaces repeatedly over the next half century. 585-587: The Japanese smallpox epidemic, probably the country’s first documented episode of the disease, infects peasants and nobility alike. Because it occurs after the acceptance of Buddhism, it is believed to be a punishment from the Shinto gods and results in burning of temples and attacks on Buddhist nuns and priests. 1320-1352: Europe is stricken by the Black Death (bubonic plague), claiming over 40 million lives. 1347-1380: The Black Death kills an estimated 25 million in Asia. A reported two-thirds of the population in China succumbs. 1494-1495: French army syphilis epidemic strikes in Naples and is considered the first appearance of this venereal infection in Europe. 1507: Hispaniola smallpox is the first recorded epidemic in the New World, representing the first wave of diseases that eventually depopulate America of most of its native inhabitants. In the next two centuries, the population plunges by an estimated 80 percent.
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Epidemics 1520-1521: About 2 to 5 million die in the Aztec Empire when they contract smallpox during the Spanish conquest and colonization of Mexico. 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic results in over 100,000 cases and 20,000 deaths, particularly in Memphis, Tennessee. 1892-1894: A cholera pandemic leaves millions dead but confirms the theory that the disease is caused by bacteria in contaminated water. 1900-1915: “Typhoid Mary” Mallon, a cook, spreads typhoid fever to more than 50 people, causing at least 3 deaths. 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic affects 26 states, particularly New York, prompting quarantines and resulting in 27,000 reported cases and at least 7,000 deaths. 1918-1920: The Great Flu Pandemic sweeps the globe, killing 30 to 40 million, perhaps the largest single biological event in human history. 1976: 221 American Legion veterans contract a mysterious type of pneumonia at a hotel in Philadelphia, and 29 of them die; the media names the illness “Legionnaires’ disease.” 1976: An Ebola virus epidemic in Zaire kills 280 people and proves one of the deadliest diseases of the late twentieth century. 1981: U.S. epidemic reported by U.S. Centers for Disease Control in June and given the name acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In some regions of Africa the infection touches 90 percent of the population and poses a constant pandemic threat. 1995: An outbreak of Ebola virus in Kitwit, Zaire, leaves 245 dead. 1999: 7 die in an epidemic of encephalitis in New England and New York. 2002: A virulent atypical pneumonia, dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), spreads quickly through China and then internationally, infecting at least 8,422 victims and causing 916 known deaths.
is made in an attempt to draw conclusions. For instance, in the prospective-cohort study, members of a population are observed over a long period of time, and their health status is evaluated. The analytic studies can be either observational or experimental. In observational studies, the researcher does not alter the behavior or exposure of the study subjects but instead monitors them in order to learn 77
Epidemics whether those exposed to different factors differ in disease rates. On the other hand, in experimental studies the scientist alters the behavior, exposure, or treatment of people to determine the result of intervention on the disease. The weighted data are often statistically analyzed using t-tests, analysis of variance, and multiple logistic regression. An epidemic that takes place over a large geographical area is known as a pandemic. Its rise and decline is mainly affected by the ability of the infectious invading agent to transfer the disease to the susceptible individual host. Interestingly enough, the population of infected individuals that survives the parasite usually acquires a type of immunity. This immunity diminishes the epidemic and prevents it from reoccurring within a certain time period in the same geographic area. As a result the invading parasite is unable to reproduce itself in this immunity-equipped host population. This may be the reason that areas that have exhibited the Ebola epidemic for several months with a death rate of almost 95 percent suddenly display a suppressed outbreak. Within a certain time frame, however, the host’s susceptibility to the invader may be reproduced due to several factors. These include the removal of the immune generation by death, the deterioration of the individual immunity by external conditions, and the birth of offspring who do not have the ability to naturally resist the disease. In some cases, such as syphilis, the disease severity appears to be less now than a few centuries ago. One theory suggests that the ability of the parasite to infect as many hosts as possible has produced a negative effect on the parasite itself. Eliminating all hosts steadfastly will lead to the extinction of the parasite itself. Therefore, once the adaptation of the parasite to the host has become close, the tendency for the disease outbreak appears less severe. Ecological studies suggest, however, that it is incorrect to assume that the host-parasite antagonism will reduce in intensity and that the continuous fight for dominance remains in full force. Geography Epidemics can take place anywhere on earth as long as the conditions allow it. Historically these conditions favor an isolated environment with animal or insect carriers, unsanitary conditions, and large human 78
Types of Viral Infection Family
Conditions
Adenoviruses
Respiratory and eye infections
Arenaviruses
Lassa fever
Coronaviruses
Common cold
Herpesviruses
Cold sores, genital herpes, chickenpox, herpes zoster (shingles), glandular fever, congenital abnormalities (cytomegalovirus)
Orthomyxoviruses
Influenza
Papovaviruses
Warts
Paramyxoviruses
Mumps, measles, rubella
Picornaviruses
Poliomyelitis, viral hepatitis types A and B, respiratory infections, myocarditis
Poxviruses
Cowpox, smallpox (eradicated), molluscum contagiosum
Retroviruses
AIDS, degenerative brain diseases, possibly various kinds of cancer
Rhabdoviruses
Rabies
Togaviruses
Yellow fever, dengue, encephalitis
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Epidemics populations. The infectious disease can be spread easily to other areas and have an equally strong impact there. Rodents have long served as one of the primary factors in spreading diseases to people, especially if the human population is contained. The tsutsugamushi disease (also known as scrub typhus) is transmitted by the bite of a rat mite. One of the first epidemics in history that involved infected rats occurred at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in Greece (431-404 b.c.e.), in which the rats were transferred by ships. The Athenians, who were the dominant naval force in the conflict, were besieged by the Spartan army inside Athens. The infected rats were brought into the city unintentionally via ships that were transporting food from Egypt. The ensuing Plague of Athens led to the decline of the Pericles regime and tilted the scales of the war toward the Spartan army. The historically devastating bubonic plague in Europe occurred in the fourteenth century, almost two centuries after the so-called Black Death originated in Mesopotamia. The mass spreading of rats is greatly attributed by many historians to the onset of the Crusades and led to an estimated 25 million lives lost in Europe alone. France was particularly affected (1348-1350), with many cities losing about one-third of their populations. Nothing appeared to check the disease in populations without immunity: neither bonfires to disinfect air, nor demonstrations of penitence, nor persecutions of Jews and Gypsies. Oceangoing ships also appear to have been responsible for the epidemic in China during the end of the nineteenth century. It is believed by many scholars that the origins of venereal syphilis were in America, since historical accounts of the outbreak first appeared in Europe after Christopher Columbus’s return trip from the New World at the end of the fifteenth century. Moreover, skeletal remains of pre-Columbian American Indians indicate the presence of the Treponema pallidum spirochete, which is responsible for the disease. Among the victims of that disease were England’s king Henry VIII and several members of the Italian Borgia family in the middle of the sixteenth century. Prevention and Preparations There seems to be a variable degree of natural susceptibility to a specific disease among different people. This occurs because the outcome of the interaction of parasite and host is variable in each indi80
Epidemics vidual case. As a result individuals who have low resistance quickly show symptoms of the disease and easily display the infection. On the other hand, people with strong resistance do not show the symptoms, and the infection is not recognizable. Most diseases seem to be preventable unless they are idiopathic (particular to the individual), such as inherited metabolic defects. Diseases that are caused by environmental factors may be avoided by eliminating or greatly reducing the effectiveness of the factors responsible. The various epidemics in Europe, such as the Black Death and the London plague, had much less impact on the upper classes. More affluent groups that had sufficient land or wages that would allow for the replacement of tools and isolation from the infected areas suffered much less. On the other hand, the poor, who had very few possessions and a lack of sanitation and pure water, were forced to live under miserable conditions that allowed diseases to thrive. Transmission of infection may be avoided by preventing contact between the susceptible host and the parasite. Historically, the easiest application of this principle has been quarantine, which in several cases had very limited success. It is nearly impossible to prevent diseases from spreading across borders because of airborne factors, such as mosquitoes infected with malaria and flies carrying the plague. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is believed to have originated in the northwestern part of the United States but spread to Mexico, South America, and Africa, is transmitted to humans via tick bites and is native to many rodents. Syphilis would not have been so devastating in Europe if prostitutes did not spread the disease to their patrons. The consequences would not have been as severe if mercury treatment, the most popular method of combating syphilis at the time, was given to prostitutes. However, the expense, together with the social belief that such women were not worth the treatment, prohibited the remedy. The last two cases of the plague in European urban areas were in Marseilles, France (1720), and Messina, Italy (1740), which were not as destructive as previous plagues because of more elaborate and organized methods of quarantine. The same was true during the last months of the Great Plague of London (1665). Some historians give credit for the containment of epidemics to the isolation of lepers, 81
Epidemics many of whom modern scientists believe were carrying communicable diseases other than leprosy. Another way to prevent the spread of disease is to exterminate animals that may carry the infectious factors, which has taken place as late as the 1990’s, in the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease. The spreading of plagues is greatly confined by controlling rat populations, particularly those on ships, and by preventing rodents from landing at uninfected ports. One plague bacillus can infect as many as 80 rodents, giving rise to the sylvatic plague. Using sprays to eliminate mosquitoes reduces outbreaks of malaria, which occur especially in swampy areas. Louse-borne typhus may be regulated in humans by strong disinfecting methods. Typhus has become virtually nonexistent in industrialized societies through the extermination of lice and fleas, while typhoid fever has been eliminated by the use of sanitized water. Examples of this involve the chlorination of water in swimming pools and municipal water sources, as well as pasteurization of milk. Despite the fact that plague epidemics have come under control in recent centuries, there still exist many foci of infection. The explosive development of medical technology after World War II led to the synthesis and administration of significant medica-
Transmission of Plague Yersinia pestis
rats
ground squirrels
gophers
chipmunks
flea
The bacterium responsible for the disease, Yersinia pestis, circulates among rodents and their fleas in many parts of the world.
Rats, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and gophers are all examples of rodents.
Humans may become infected if they enter plague-affected areas when fleas, carrying the disease bacterium, transfer from dead rodents to humans.
The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes plague, follows a path from fleas to rodents to humans.
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Epidemics tions, such as antibiotics and vaccines, which led to the decisive control of epidemics. Developing an artificial immunity, such as through vaccination, is extremely effective because the infecting agent cannot inhabit the organism after the virus has been administered to it. This was demonstrated with the diphtheria, smallpox, and poliomyelitis (polio) vaccines that were designed for children after World War II. The polio vaccine against infantile paralysis is a combination of the killed virus, which is injected, and the attenuated or weakened virus, which is given orally. In the early 1980’s the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic appeared. During this decade many thousands, possibly millions, of people died all over the world. Although quarantine is generally not possible in the society of industrialized countries, other measures of prevention are lessening the disease’s spread. The use of prophylactics during sexual contact, extensive screening of blood transfusions, and education about the impact of the virus all seem to have had a positive effect on the number of people affected. To a much lesser degree the various forms of hepatitis have claimed a large number of victims. Although not as much in the public eye as AIDS, the disease is communicable, and municipal health departments have tried to control its spread by monitoring the sanitation conditions of restaurants. Rescue and Relief Efforts Throughout history, epidemics have been controlled by the destruction of the organisms responsible. The fact that the Great Plague of London never reappeared is attributed, according to some scholars, to the great fire that burned the city in September, 1666. In the eighteenth century, bodies were often buried with caustic bases. The pioneering work of English scientist Joseph Lister in the nineteenth century introduced doctors to antiseptics, and detergents were used more frequently. The various laboratory procedures that were developed in the twentieth century provided first the detection of the disease and then the prescribed routes for cure. Thus, the eradication of syphilis started with the development of the serological test for syphilis (STS), which detects syphilis reagin and the treponemal antibody, two antibodies formed by the organism once the bacteria have in83
Epidemics vaded it. Penicillin and other antibiotics helped curb the number of syphilis victims. American doctor Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine in the 1950’s gave all children the chance to walk without crutches. The wide availability of quinine has saved millions of people from malaria. A vaccine against the plague is currently available and is being used in areas where the epidemic continues to flourish. The World Health Organization (WHO) was set up in 1948 to increase the international effort toward improved health conditions, particularly in poor areas of Africa, Asia, and South America. The WHO was the successor of the Health Organization of the League of Nations, established in 1923, and the Office International d’Hygiene Publique, created in 1907. Unlike the other two organizations, whose duties included quarantine measures, drug standardization, and epidemic control, WHO undertakes the task of promoting the highest possible conditions for universal health to all populations. Its responsibilities include the revising and updating of health regulations, support of research services, and the dissemination of information that concerns any potential pestilent-disease outbreak. The organization also collaborates and shares information with all member countries on the latest developments in nutrition research, updated vaccinations, drug addiction, cancer research, hazards of nuclear radiation, and efforts to curb the spread of AIDS. Much credit has been given to the WHO for its mass campaign against infectious diseases, which led to the control of a large number of epidemics. As a result, smallpox has been eradicated, cholera and the plague have been practically eliminated, and most other diseases have been substantially reduced. Intensive programs that have provided pure water, antibiotics, pesticides, primary health care facilities, and clean sanitation systems to underdeveloped countries helped to reduce infant mortality and increase the average life span in these places. During the late 1980’s and throughout the 1990’s a concentrated effort was coordinated by the WHO enlisting the governments of its member countries in the war against AIDS. Data collection, education campaigns, promotions encouraging safe sex, continuous research, health-care providers, and infection control were employed to overcome dangerous and unsanitary practices in the underdeveloped world. 84
Epidemics It should also be noted that many of the countries that are vulnerable to natural disasters, such as floods, mudslides, earthquakes, tornadoes, and typhoons, face the menacing problem of refugees and homeless people after these events. The lack of sanitary conditions and an efficient way to remove the dead, a reduced number of medical supplies and personnel, and poverty increase the casualty count in many disasters. The WHO has been helped in these situations by other international relief organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Peace Corps, together with the voluntary contributions of other countries. Impact Epidemics have played a role in checking the human population. The Great Plague of London claimed more than 75,000 of a total population of 460,000 and forced the king and his court to flee to the countryside for more than eight months, while the Parliament kept a short session at Oxford. The outbreak in Canton and Hong Kong left almost 100,000 dead. Severe epidemics of poliomyelitis have been reported in many parts of the world, especially during the twentieth century. About 300,000 cases were recorded in the United States alone during the 1942-1953 period. Western Europe, and especially Germany, Belgium, and Denmark, as well as Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines, also suffered many casualties in the early 1950’s. When the carriers of the epidemic are rodents, the economic damage to the afflicted area is also immense. Norway rats, black rats, and the house mouse had devastating effects as they devoured crops of wheat, sugar beets, and potatoes in Germany at the end of the World War I, Russia in 1932-1935, and especially France in 1790-1935, where at least 20 mouse plagues have been reported. Epidemiological studies and comparisons have shown that the twentieth century was pivotal in transforming the patterns of frequent death from disease to the lowest in human history. Infant and child mortality were reduced dramatically, cases of famine and epidemic were lessened, and modern science shifted many of its efforts to degenerative diseases that affect the elderly. Many countries still faced epidemics of relatively minor proportions in areas where civil strife occurred, especially Somalia, Rwanda, the Sudan, even into the 1990’s. The aftermath of the hurricanes in Bangladesh and the Ca85
Epidemics ribbean in that decade proved that epidemics were not fully eliminated from society. During the twentieth century, the epidemiologic transition of the human race shifted. Until the early part of that century the pattern of mortality and disease afflicted infants and children as well as younger adults and was related to bacteriological epidemics. In contrast, by the late twentieth century, with the exception of AIDS and occasional outbreaks of epidemics in underdeveloped countries, most diseases were human-made and degenerative, such as the ones attributed to drug use, smoking, and drinking. As a result the average life span increased sharply, by almost twenty-five years after the early 1960’s. This holds true for industrialized countries; however, the pattern is only slowly changing in developing countries, which have not had the same socioeconomic development as industrialized countries. Nevertheless, the twentieth century decline in mortality in developing countries was significantly more rapid than that of the nineteenth century in countries now classified as industrialized. Historical Overview Epidemic diseases are the greatest destructive force in human history. Epidemics have killed millions across continents and even more so influenced cultural, economic, and political institutions. Great empires, powerful armies, and a host of human endeavors have crumbled under the weight of disease and, likewise, factored in subsequent societal changes. Epidemics are contagious diseases that spread rapidly and extensively through a community, region, or country. When they sweep across the globe they are referred to as pandemics. Prior to the introduction of vaccination and antibiotics, viral and bacterial infections posed a constant and often widespread threat to human existence. The history of epidemics dates from the earliest written records, an influence upon human life throughout time. In Western culture an epidemic is often referred to as a pestilence, which is symbolized in the Bible’s book of Revelation as one of the three great enemies of humanity, along with famine and war. Characterized as the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, these three serve as a convoy for a fourth rider, Death. Peoples throughout ages, regions, and religions explained illness and death as divine judgment for the sins of humanity, psychologi86
Epidemics cally interlacing poor health with their own moral depravity. Illness was punishment; cast from the hands of God, disease tortured individuals and often entire populations with more than the hardships of sickness. Modern medical science, together with the social sciences, has since revealed secular connections between social disorder and the spread of contagious infections. Still, many cultures maintain the belief that sickness and death are a form of divine retribution. However, medical theory also has ancient roots. Healers and medical practitioners speculated on the origins of disease and epidemics throughout recorded history. The Greeks developed a more formalized framework for understanding the causes of illness and periodic epidemics, rejecting the idea of divine retribution. Hippocrates (c. 460-370 b.c.e.) is considered the “father of medicine” and the most prominent physician of the ancient world. His name is associated with the high ideals of medical practice. The Corpus Hippocraticum, a collection of nearly sixty treatises written by his students following his death, established the foundation of medical knowledge, especially relating to endemic and epidemic diseases. The most notable treatise, Airs, Waters, and Places, discusses the links between the environment and disease. It states that some diseases maintain a constant presence in a population and are referred to as “endemic.” Other diseases flare infrequently but with deadly force; these are termed “epidemics.” We still employ these terms today. Less enduring were early notions of the body, which, according to Hippocratic doctrine, consisted of four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Good health meant keeping the humors in balance through proper diet, temperament, and correction of bodily deficiencies. Disease occurred when the humoral balance was upset, and epidemics resulted from excesses in the natural environment. In the latter, changing seasons and atmospheric conditions corresponded to the prevalence of vast instances of contagious diseases. Thus, drastic changes that upset the natural environment produced widespread sickness in humans. The ideal for human health was to live a balanced and unstressed life within a harmonic environment. Hippocratic doctrine related epidemics as a natural force in nature without understanding the role of microorganisms. It was only within the last one hundred years that science expanded upon the Hippocratic doctrine to understand the mechanics 87
Epidemics of disease, how it spreads, and how it may be prevented or cured. The outbreak of an epidemic is dependent upon a variety of factors, some of which are seemingly unrelated to the actual spread of contagious infections. Among the important factors to consider in the formation of an epidemic are the general health of a population; living conditions, including hygiene and sanitation practices; immunity to a particular disease; access to medical treatment; community public health responses; and environmental conditions. Less obvious factors favoring the spread of disease may include economic disarray; the introduction of new people or products, especially after a period of isolation; a massive disruption resulting from war or natural disasters, such as earthquakes, famines, and floods; or an explosion in insect or rodent populations. Thus, epidemics are often dependent on a variety of factors that may work independently or in tandem to cause widespread destruction. Historical references to epidemics are found in a variety of ancient texts. The Gilgamesh Epic (2000 b.c.e.) mentions the impact of natural disasters, floods in particular, and affirms the destructive force of the god of pestilence. The ancient writings illustrate how disease can have far more extensive effects than simply reducing populations. Histories of the great civilizations in Babylon, China, and Egypt document a host of diseases and widespread sickness. Many of these, such as bubonic plague, diphtheria, smallpox, and typhus, have paralleled human existence into the modern world. Other population-decimating diseases are difficult to define clearly given the lack of precise descriptions. For example, the last plague of Egypt, recounted in Exodus, offers little scientific evidence for identification of a specific disease other than that it killed the firstborn children. Similarly, the Plague of Athens in 430 b.c.e., which struck during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, not only influenced the outcome of an important historic event but also produced a turning point in world history. Athenians were infected by an epidemic that killed 25 percent of the population. Thucydides, the Greek historian and witness to the plague and war, described the ailment as causing “violent sensations of heat in the head,” sneezing and hoarseness, unquenchable thirst, and death in seven to ten days. He also described the collapse of morality within the city where without the “fear of gods or law of men there was none to restrain them.” 88
Epidemics The plague, a disease without clear identification, in this case lengthened the war and thereby facilitated the eventual downfall of the Athenian Empire. The Roman Empire also experienced several epidemics with significant consequences. Malaria may have been endemic in the Mediterranean region during much of antiquity and produced major problems in the Roman Empire from 100 b.c.e. The vastness of the empire, which extended from the African Sahara to Scotland and from the Caspian Sea to Spain, meant that infections from the hinterland found easy transportation to vulnerable populations. For example, the Plague of Antonius attacked the Empire between 164 and 189 c.e. and produced a ghastly mortality rate. Galen, the famous Roman physician, described victims with high fevers, throat inflammation, diarrhea, skin eruptions after a week of illness, and then death. Medical scholars maintain that this may have been one of the first smallpox epidemics in Western history. The disease may have started in Mongolia and moved eastward into the Germanic tribes, with whom the Romans were at war. Of historical importance, the Antonius plague helped stimulate the acceptance and spread of Christianity within the Empire. Christianity provided hope for believers in miraculous cures, resurrection, and eternal salvation. In addition, the teachings of Christ, which stressed care for the sick, fit perfectly into an era marked by widespread illnesses. The establishment of charitable hospitals for the sick and indigent became a foundation of the faith. During the fourth century, a woman named Fabiola founded the first such hospital in Rome and institutionalized through medical care the religion’s tenets, which have lasted into the twenty-first century. The epidemic in this instance promoted a religion that beforehand was of little significance. Powerful epidemics not only devastated populations but also shattered the authority of governments, religions, and economic systems. The Black Death of the fourteenth century offers the best example of the destructive force of epidemics or, in this case, pandemics, because the affliction spread from Central Asia to East Asia and west to Europe. Fleas served as the vector, or agent that carries a pathogen, from rats to humans. In this manner, the causative bacillus Pasteurella pestis or Yersinia pestis spread through the movement of rats along caravan routes and accompanied the Mongol invasions in Central Asia. 89
Epidemics The regions suffered massive devastation. In Europe the bubonic plague swept urban and rural communities in huge waves, claiming perhaps 50 percent of the population. The loss of life fractured the feudal economic and social order, splintered control of the Roman Catholic Church’s dominance, and helped usher in a new political order. The plague continued as a serious threat to Europeans into the eighteenth century. In other parts of the world, especially Asia, the plague flared, frequently with enormous loss of life and institutional destruction. In 1911 an epidemic of bubonic plague swept the Manchurian region of northern China. The death toll, perhaps 60 percent of the population, could have been much worse had modern public health initiatives not held the disease in check. Chinese people traditionally believed that heaven sends a natural disaster as a sign of the end of an empire. The decaying Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty in China’s history, collapsed under the combined weight of social disruption and the force of the epidemic. In the twentieth century, epidemics were checked by the development of antibiotics, widespread inoculations, and international public health measures. Still, the so-called Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, arguably the greatest single biological event in human history, killed 30-40 million people worldwide, 600,000 in the United States alone. In the modern age, where an infected person can travel the globe in a few hours, a potential exists for natural disasters of giant proportions. Thus, government health organizations, such as the United States Public Health Service and the World Health Organization continually monitor disease and varying social and environmental conditions to prevent the outbreak of epidemics. In November, 2002, many thought that these fears had been realized with the spread of a virulent atypical pneumonia, dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), through China and then internationally. At least 8,422 people were infected, and 916 known deaths occurred before the epidemic ended the following July. Subsequent concerns have been centered on the threat posed by avian influenza, often termed “bird flu,” which sometimes affects humans and could mutate into a strain transmitted between people. Soraya Ghayourmanesh Nicholas Casner 90
Epidemics Bibliography Bollet, Alfred J. Plagues and Poxes: The Impact of Human History on Epidemic Disease. New York: Demos, 2004. Focuses on specific diseases and their historical effect. Intended for general readers. Ernester, Virginia L. “Epidemiology.” In McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. This article discusses epidemiology and its branches, including descriptive and analytic approaches, with emphasis on observational and experimental studies. Farrell, Jeanette. Invisible Enemies: Stories of Infectious Diseases. 2d ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Intended for young people. Explores humankind’s struggle against dangerous diseases. Karlen, Arno. Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times. New York: Putnam, 1995. Describes the history of communicable diseases, such as cholera, leprosy, AIDS, viral encephalitis, lethal Ebola viruses, and streptococcal infections. Lampton, Christopher F. Epidemic. Brookfield, Wis.: Millbrook Press, 1992. This text, designed for young adults, discusses how epidemics begin and spread and what can be done to prevent them. Emphasis is on the Black Death and AIDS. McNeill, William Hardy. Plagues and Peoples. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1998. Topics include the impact of the Mongol Empire on transoceanic exchanges and the ecological impact of Mediterranean science after 1700. Ranger, Terence, and Paul Slack, eds. Epidemics and Ideas: Essays in the Historical Perception of Pestilence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. This book views medicine and disease as conceived by different civilizations, including those of classical Athens, the Dark Ages, Hawaii, and India. Thomas, Gordon. Anatomy of an Epidemic. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982. Analysis and causes of epidemics are thoroughly investigated by the author. Watts, Sheldon J. Epidemics and History: Disease, Power, and Imperialism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. This book discusses the human response to plagues in Europe and the Middle East from 1347-1844, with special chapters on leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, cholera, and yellow fever.
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Explosions Factors involved: Chemical reactions, human activity Regions affected: Cities, towns Definition The detonation of pipes or storage tanks containing fuel and grain dust in silos occurs with little warning and often in densely populated areas, so that the explosions have devastating, although localized, effects on life and property. Science For an explosion to occur, three conditions must exist. First, a fuel must be present in sufficiently concentrated form. Industrial society is awash with volatile materials—the hydrocarbons of petroleum and natural gas used for power, volatile chemicals for processing and fabrication, and the residue of manufacturing and agriculture. Second, there must be an ignition source. Third, oxygen must be present, and it is, except under special conditions, everywhere humans live. When a fuel and an oxygen-bearing agent, or oxidant, react to produce heat, light, and fire, they are combusting. Explosions are fast combustion. More precisely, an explosion is combustion that expands so quickly that the fuel volume (and its container, if there is one) cannot shed energy rapidly enough to remain stable. The energy from the chemical reactions spreads into surrounding space. This runaway reaction, or self-acceleration, produces two types of explosions. If the rate is slower than the speed of sound, the reaction spreads outward as burning materials ignite the materials next to them. The process is called deflagration, and explosives that deflagrate are known as low explosives. If the rate is faster than the speed of sound, a shock wave progressively combusts materials by compressing them. This process is called detonation and occurs in high explosives. Ignition starts an explosion. All materials have some minimum temperature, called a flash point, at which a combustible mixture of air and vapor exists, and increasing the pressure on the materials may lower this point. Beyond the flash point, the fuel awaits only an igni92
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Milestones June 3, 1816: The steamboat Washington explodes on the Ohio River. May, 1817: The steamboat Constitution explodes on the Mississippi River. April 27, 1865: 1,500 die in the explosion of the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River. September 8, 1880: A mine explosion at the Seaham Colliery in Sunderland, England, kills 164. April 28, 1914: An explosion in the Eccles Mine in West Virginia leaves 181 dead. December 6, 1917: Munitions ships in Halifax, Nova Scotia, harbor explode and burn; 2,000 die. May 6, 1937: The German zeppelin Hindenburg explodes into a massive fireball as it tries to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36. July 17, 1944: Two ammunition ships in Port Chicago, California, explode, killing 300. March 25, 1947: A mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois, kills 111. April 16, 1947: The French vessel Grandcamp explodes in Texas City, Texas, killing 581. April 25-26, 1986: 32 are killed when a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Russia, explodes. July 6, 1988: The explosion of Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea kills 167. June 8, 1998: A Kansas grain elevator explodes, killing 6. April 22, 2004: In Ryongchon, North Korea, a train carrying flammable cargo explodes at the railway station, killing 54 people and injuring 1,249.
tion source—electric spark, sharp blow, static electricity, or friction— to start the explosion. Some materials, in fact, combust spontaneously if they are sufficiently hot, as is the case, for instance, with oilsoaked rags. Most often the fuels are liquid, but many gases will also explode when the vapor forms a sufficiently dense cloud. Fuels that explode when ignited by a nonexplosive source are known as primary explosives. Additionally, some explosions occur when pressur93
Explosions ized equipment, such as steam boilers, rupture, although these explosions are seldom catastrophic on their own. The most common and easily obtainable commercial explosives in the United States are mixtures of ammonium nitrate (also used as fertilizer) and fuel oil mixtures (ANFOs), accounting for 95 percent of commercial applications. Unfortunately, late in the twentieth century ANFOs also became weapons in the form of car bombs used by terrorists. Dust constitutes a special, important category of explosive materials. About 80 percent of industrial dusts are explosive, as is all the dust produced by milling and storing grain. All that is necessary for an explosion, in addition to an ignition source, is that the dust be dry, concentrated, mixed with air, and in a confined space. Under these conditions, dust that is only the thickness of a coin is explosive. The power of commercial explosives is usually measured on a scale comparing them to trinitrotoluene (TNT), where TNT equals 100. Most primary explosives have a rating of about 50. The aluminum nitrate in ANFOs on its own, for instance, has a rating of 57, which rises considerably in the presence of fuel oil. Almost universally, however, the power of an accidental explosion is expressed as equivalent to tons of TNT. After ignition, a shock wave continues beyond the initial flash point into the surrounding environment and gives the explosion its power to shatter and crush, or brisance. Following the shock wave is a region of vacuum, followed in turn by high pressure—a pair of effects called backlash. The shock wave and backlash together may produce subtle but serious damage. The shock wave can knock walls and supports out of place, and then the backlash can move them back into place, but in dangerously weakened condition. The damage is difficult to detect. Heat (often in the form of fire) also spreads out from the explosion, extending its impact with secondary detonations and deflagrations, while flying debris and ground vibrations worsen the damage. Geography Explosions are phenomena of industrial civilization—especially its energy production. About 80 percent of explosions in the United States take place in industrial plants. Because most industry is located 94
Explosions near metropolitan areas, explosions are most likely to occur in cities. Naturally, facilities making or transporting commercial or military explosives run a high risk of accidental explosions, but petroleum refineries; storage tanks for natural gas; and liquefied petroleum gas, propane, and gasoline are also at risk and are more likely to occupy the outskirts of a city. Moreover, terrorists usually target heavily populated areas, especially those associated with a symbol of power or wealth, such as military headquarters or corporate offices. Towns likewise suffer explosions from fuel processing and storage. In addition, agricultural communities in grain-producing regions store the grain in large silos. If the grain dust is ignited, the silos explode with spectacular, deadly violence. The arteries of communication between inhabited areas also see explosions. Tanker trucks on highways and tanker cars on railways may explode if they rupture during a wreck, and leaks in pipelines conveying natural gas and petroleum products can also lead to explosions. Human-caused explosions in wilderness areas are rare, usually the by-product of an airplane crash or military accident. Prevention and Preparations Preventing accidental industrial or residential explosions first requires that the three minimum conditions for an explosion do not exist. Fuels must be used, stored, and moved at conditions well below their flash points, and ignition sources, especially sparks from machinery, must be eliminated. In some cases, oxygen levels can be lowered. Additionally, the design of fuel-handling buildings and equipment can ward off accidents or reduce their effects. Reinforcing buildings, locating hazardous equipment in the center of rooms, installing water systems to douse flames, venting rooms to the outside environment, and installing grating rather than solid decks all can serve to contain, suppress, or dispel an explosion’s destructive force. Locating critical structures, such as storage tanks and processing plants, far from one another prevents secondary explosions. Automatic shutdown sensors on pipelines and temperature sensors in ovens, boilers, and processing machinery can eliminate the conditions for an explosion. Government agencies, insurance companies, public utilities, and 95
Explosions private contractors offer risk analysis of existing structures and equipment and may recommend safety improvements. Experts point out, however, that technology alone cannot prevent accidents. Human error accounts for about 60 percent of accidental explosions. Proper training in handling and storing materials is therefore essential, both for workers on the job and people at home. Especially important is knowing how to avoid an accidental ignition. Because explosive materials are usually highly toxic, preventive measures must also safeguard pollution of the environment. Fuels— in gas, liquid, or solid form—ejected from an explosion can poison wildlife and even lead to further explosions. For this reason, thorough cleanup of a disaster site is important. Rescue and Relief Efforts Immediately following a disastrous explosion, rescue workers have three paramount tasks: stopping fires, ensuring the injured are located and receive adequate medical care, and evacuating anyone who is threatened by the explosion’s aftermath. All three tasks involve substantial risks. An explosion of petroleum products or a natural gas leak often leaves some of the fuel unignited. This can form pools or, if it is a gas, collect in sewers or low-lying areas. Fires started by the initial detonation may then ignite the leftover fuel after rescuers have entered the disaster zone, placing them in peril. Likewise, buildings damaged in the explosion may look safe but then suddenly collapse as rescue workers search for survivors. Digging survivors from building rubble poses similar hazards and must be conducted with utmost care. Debris, disturbed by digging, may suddenly settle or shift, killing those trapped below and injuring rescuers. Most industrial plants and surrounding cities maintain evacuation plans for disasters. The plans prescribe the areas to be cleared of residents in an emergency; who is to perform the evacuation; and places to set up emergency medical facilities, temporary lodging, and kitchens. Rescue officials allow residents back into the area only after thorough inspection shows that all fires have been put out and buildings are safe. For small explosions, local police and firefighters conduct the rescue work, while medical personnel in area facilities take care of the 96
Explosions injured. In large disasters, police, firefighters, and medical personnel from surrounding areas may be called. In the United States, state police, the National Guard, and federal armed forces, all coordinated by state or federal agencies, may become involved. Impact While uncommon, explosions cause great damage, and do so spectacularly. Between January of 1995 and July of 1997, for instance, 39 industrial explosions occurred, causing an average of almost $1.5 million in damage each. In 1998, the 18 grain-dust explosions alone cost about $30 million and killed 7 people. ANFOs have caused some of the worst disasters in American history. In 1947, a fire broke out in the Grandcamp, a cargo ship docked near the Monsanto Chemical Company factory in Texas City. The crew could not extinguish it, and 2,500 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded in its hold, also igniting the same cargo in a nearby ship. The factory was destroyed, as well as two-thirds of the buildings in Texas City. More than 500 people died. ANFOs also appeal to terrorists because they are cheap and relatively easy to obtain. In 1995, a truck full of ANFOs tore apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 people. Because of industrial accidents, state and federal legislators enacted regulations designed to minimize the danger of explosions and, should one occur, to safeguard life and property. The building codes, procedures, and technological measures that implement the regulations increase immediate production costs to industry but, by reducing the number of accidents, save money in the long run. Likewise, to guard against terrorist bombs, increased control of explosive materials, security in public buildings and airports, and surveillance costs taxpayers billions of dollars. Measures to protect against accidental or terrorist explosions, critics maintain, make society ever more dependent upon technology and security forces, and to some degree affect individual liberty. Historical Overview Explosions occur when there is a pressure differential on either side of a barrier or when inherently unstable chemicals ignite. A few explosions are entirely a result of natural situations. This is the case with volcanoes, a portion of whose cone may explode upon eruption, as 97
Explosions was the case when Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, but most are the consequence of human-made structures. The startling increase in human ability to create artificial structures since the onset of the Industrial Revolution is responsible for most of the memorable explosions in history. Among the earliest explosions that caused a significant loss of life were those occurring in mines, especially coal mines, where large accumulations of coal gas could arise. When most coal mining was at or near the surface, this was not a problem, but as mines were sunk deeper into the earth, as happened in the nineteenth century, the risk of explosion increased. Explosions in British coal mines killed 1.2 miners for every 1,000 employed between 1850 and 1870. However, the introduction of new machinery and government regulation dramatically reduced the number of accidents and fatalities in British mines in the twentieth century. Coal mining in the United States expanded less quickly than in Great Britain because the United States had ample wood fuel for a longer period of time. However, from the middle of the nineteenth century, coal production grew rapidly, especially for industrial uses. Between 1900 and the U.S. entrance into World War I in 1917, there were 14 mine disasters in the United States in which more than 100 people died. One of the worst mining disasters in U.S. history occurred in March, 1947, in Centralia, Illinois, when 111 miners were killed. In the United States, the shift to other fuels in the years after World War II, as well as the shift away from shaft mining to open-face mining, dramatically reduced the risk in coal mining. Coal mining in underdeveloped countries is highly labor intensive, and when explosions occur the loss of life is substantial. An explosion at the Chasnala coal mine in India on December 27, 1975, killed 431 miners. Among the most spectacular explosions occurring in the United States in the early years of the nineteenth century were those on steamboats, especially those plying the midwestern rivers. The first major steamboat disaster on the midwestern river system occurred in 1816, when the Washington blew up on a trip between Wheeling, West Virginia, and Marietta, Ohio. The second occurred in May, 1817, when the Constitution blew up on the lower Mississippi River. Most steamboat explosions were attributed at the time to the preference for high-pressure steam engines on these rivers, but the fascination of 98
Explosions the public with the speed of travel they provided (compared to horsedrawn land transportation) led to much overcrowding on the steamboats, partly accounting for the high number of casualties when explosions occurred. In 1848, the U.S. Commissioner of Patents estimated that 110 lives had been lost annually to steamboat explosions since l830. After the introduction of regulation of steamboats by the federal government in l852, the number of explosions dropped somewhat. Still, a catastrophic explosion occurred in April of 1865, when the Sultana blew up near Memphis, Tennessee, taking the lives of l,500 people. This was the worst steamboat explosion in U.S. history. After that, as railroads replaced steamboats, casualties dropped dramatically. The increase in the use of military explosives from the middle of the nineteenth century onward led to many explosions of munitions. The most spectacular munitions explosion occurred during World War I, when two munitions ships collided in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; the resulting explosion and fire killed about 2,000 people. A similar event in July, 1944, in Port Chicago, California, killed more than 300. In 1947, an explosion of a Norwegian vessel carrying nitrate outside Brest, France, killed 20 people and injured 500. An explosion at a naval torpedo and mine factory in Cadiz, Spain, also in 1947, killed 300 to 500 people. The same year, on April 16, a French vessel exploded in Texas City, Texas, killing 581. The oil and gas industry has also experienced some major explosions. One of the most deadly was an explosion on the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea, July 6, 1988; 167 people died. In September of 1998 an explosion at a gas plant in Australia killed only 2 persons but shut down the plant and cut off gas supplies to the entire state of Victoria for more than a week. Although casualties have generally been few because few workers are involved, periodic explosions occur in grain elevators. On June 8, 1998, a Kansas grain elevator exploded, killing 6 workers trapped in a small tunnel. The most fearsome explosion of the twentieth century was the meltdown at the Russian atomic-energy plant at Chernobyl on April 25-26, 1986. Several explosions blew off the steel cover on the reactor, permitting the release of large amounts of radioactive material into 99
Explosions the atmosphere. Prevailing winds carried this radioactive material over much of Eastern Europe. The entire reactor was shut down after the accident; 32 people were killed in the explosion. Roger Smith Nancy M. Gordon Bibliography Bodurtha, Frank. Industrial Explosion Prevention and Protection. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. For readers sophisticated in science, this book offers a technical discussion of how industrial products— mainly gases—can ignite and how to prevent accidents. Brown, G. I. The Big Bang: A History of Explosives. Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 1998. Brown summarizes the history of explosives and their use, from gunpowder to nuclear bombs. Cleary, Margot Keam. Great Disasters of the Twentieth Century. New York: Gallery Books, 1990. A somewhat grisly picture book (mostly black-and-white photographs) of natural and human-caused disasters, accompanied by descriptive text. Crowl, Daniel A. Understanding Explosions. New York: Center for Chemical Process Safety of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 2003. Explains the many different types of explosions and offers practical methods to prevent them from occurring. Davis, Lee. Man-Made Catastrophes: From the Burning of Rome to the Lockerbie Crash. New York: Facts On File, 1993. Brief descriptions of various types of disasters illustrating, according to the author, how human folly and carelessness wreak havoc. Fires and Explosives. Vol. 7 in The Associated Press Library of Disasters. Danbury, Conn.: Grolier Educational, 1998. Drawn from the story and photograph files of the Associated Press, this volume, written for young readers, tells about famous explosions worldwide. Rossotti, Hazel. Fire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. A compellingly written history of fire and explosives that explains the basic science and discusses types of disasters, as well as practical uses.
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Famines Factors involved: Geography, human activity, rain, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: All Definition Famines recur periodically in many parts of the world, most devastatingly in heavily populated arid and semiarid regions that rely on rainfall for the production of food. Famines are less deadly in modern times because of transportation improvements and international relief capacities. Science The most common cause of famine is drought, although other weather conditions can cause famine conditions by inhibiting production of food. Severe cold late into a planting season, for instance, can reduce harvests substantially, as can excessive rains during the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons. Excessive rain tends to stimulate the growth of molds and blights, which can severely damage food crops. The Irish potato famine of 1845-1849 is an example of this kind of phenomenon. More often than not, however, weatherinduced famines are a function of lack of precipitation, whether in the form of snow or rain, in nonirrigated areas that rely on seasonal precipitation for cultivation. Research has shown that regional and global weather patterns are responsible for cyclical periods of drought in many parts of the world. The El Niño and La Niña phenomena, for instance, are known to affect weather patterns throughout the world. When the Pacific Ocean heats up, as it does in fairly regular cycles along the equator several hundred miles off the western coast of South America, moisture evaporates into the atmosphere and surges to the east in the Northern Hemisphere, bringing moisture-laden storms in its wake. Moisture in the Southern Hemisphere tends to head away from South America. In 1997, flooding related to El Niño struck as far away as the horn of Africa, where unseasonably heavy rains caused considerable damage in Somalia. El Niño periods are fol101
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Milestones c. 3500 b.c.e.: The first known references of famine are recorded in Egypt. 436 b.c.e.: Thousands of Romans prefer drowning in the Tiber to starvation.917-918 c.e.: Famine strikes northern India as uncounted thousands die. 1064-1072: Egypt faces starvation as the Nile fails to flood for seven consecutive years. 1200-1202: A severe famine across Egypt kills more than 100,000; widespread cannibalism is reported. 1235: An estimated 20,000 inhabitants of London die of starvation. 1315-1317: Central Europe, struck by excessive rains, experiences crop failures and famine. 1320-1352: Europe is stricken by the bubonic plague, which induces famine, claiming more than 40 million lives. 1333-1337: Famine strikes China, and millions die of starvation. 1557: Severe cold and excessive rain causes famine in the Volga region of Russia. 1769: Drought-induced famine kills millions in the Bengal region of India. 1845-1849: Ireland’s potato famine leads to death of over 1 million and the emigration of more than 1 million Irish. 1876-1878: Drought strikes India, leaving about 5 million dead. 1876-1879: China experiences a drought that leaves 10 million or more dead. 1921-1922: Famine strikes the Soviet Union, which pleads for international aid; Western assistance saves millions, but several million die. 1932-1934: Communist collectivization schemes in the Soviet Union precipitate famine; an estimated 5 million die. 1959-1962: As many as 30 million die in Communist China as a result of the Great Leap Forward famine. 1967-1969: The Biafran civil war in Nigeria leads to death of 1.5 million Biafrans because of starvation. 1968-1974: The Sahel drought leads to famine; international aid limits deaths to about a half million.
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Famines 1975-1979: Khmer Rouge policies of genocide provoke famine in Cambodia; more than 1 million die of starvation. 1984-1985: Drought in Ethiopia, the Sahel, and southern Africa endangers more than 20 million Africans, but extensive international aid helps to mitigate the suffering. 1992-1994: Civil war sparks famine in Somalia, where hundreds of thousands die before international efforts restore food supplies.
lowed by La Niña. The waters of the equatorial Pacific cool down, and, where once moisture-laden storms coursed across the land, sunbaked days follow. Although drought is a natural phenomenon that lies beyond the control of human science and policy, the activities of human beings combine with natural conditions to worsen droughts. For instance, deforestation reduces the capacity of foliage and land to absorb water, which leads to silting of rivers. The wind and water erosion brought about by deforestation deplete topsoil needed for cultivation. The loss of land for agriculture inhibits growth of the food supply, placing populations at risk, especially during prolonged droughts. Similarly, when land is overcultivated or overgrazed, it becomes less productive. In Bangladesh, where extensive deforestation has occurred, especially in the Himalayas, large-scale death occurs because of both floods and drought, whereas in the Philippines, where deforestation has been less extensive, mortality is not nearly as great, although the frequency of monsoons is about the same for both countries. Apart from patterns of cultivation and deforestation, which are human-made contributing factors to drought, other human-made factors sometimes operating alone or in concert with drought conditions can cause famine. International and civil wars, for example, can inhibit production of food. A prolonged war can wreak havoc on agricultural production, inducing a largely human-made famine. Government policies that increase food prices can cause localized famine in regions where people have too little money to buy food. Governmental export of food crops is known to have caused famines by reducing domestic food resources. 103
Famines Geography Almost any part of the globe can be subject to famine, but some areas are more prone than others. Famines rarely occur, despite periodic drought, in the Western Hemisphere. Centuries ago, the populations of North and South America were predominantly nomadic. When faced with localized drought, nomads responded by migration. When widespread and prolonged drought occurred in the American Southwest, the thriving Anasazi people eventually migrated elsewhere. Generally, peoples in the Americas relied on a variety of crops, some fairly resistant to drought, for food. Moreover, the Americas were sparsely populated, so that widespread famine was less likely. Many areas were well watered, and rivers rising from mountain ranges provided water resources to the widely scattered populations, even in arid regions. Historically, the continents most susceptible to drought include Europe, Asia, and Africa, where larger concentrations of population often subsisted on arid or semiarid lands more prone to drought. With larger populations, overcultivation of land and deforestation are more common, and these regions became even more susceptible to drought. Several consecutive years of poor rains could provoke widespread and devastating famine. Today, Europe, though still liable to drought, rarely experiences famine. Owing to its highly developed economies with agriculturally diverse production and extensive transportation capacities, famine has been eliminated as a major concern in Europe. Asia and Africa, however, remain highly susceptible to both drought and famine. Asia is heavily populated, and successive years of drought can severely limit food production. North Korea in the late 1990’s experienced severe drought and famine. Africa, though less heavily populated than Asia, has seen dramatic population growth for several decades, and in semiarid zones, such as the Sahel region, overcultivation and overgrazing has placed extensive areas of land into highly fragile, drought-prone zones. Coupled with this, Africa, like parts of Asia, has experienced widespread political instability and civil war, which have exacerbated drought-related conditions and contributed to famine. Prevention and Preparations Although it is not yet possible for humans to prevent drought or to manipulate weather conditions that lead to drought, it is possible to 104
Famines predict droughts, to prepare for them, and to prevent famine. Because famine is normally a function of prolonged drought, there is usually plenty of warning before famines begin. The same satellite technology that allows meteorologists to predict weather can be used to prepare long-term forecasts. Remote-sensing satellite imagery can document the progress of deforestation and predict crop production. Social science also comes to humanity’s aid. When drought has existed for a year, farmers and livestock owners tend to sell off herds in order to buy food. Similarly, the next year’s seed may be consumed in the first year of a drought by farmers who then sell livestock for the purchase of more seed. Yet another year of drought can put producers at immediate risk of starvation. Migration patterns also suggest where the effects of drought are being felt most acutely. By paying close attention to these indicators, governments and international agencies are in a good position to know when famine is likely to make an appearance. If a country is further troubled by civil wars or regional violence, then famine is likely to be more acute and possibly highly localized. Given the well-documented factors that contribute to famine and the attention the international community has given to early warning in the past several decades, there is no reason for famine to break out unannounced. Predicting the localities of famine is one thing, however, and taking steps to prepare for a famine is quite another. Often, local governments or neighboring governments are reluctant to ask for food and other emergency supplies for fear of precipitating population movements that might be forestalled with good rains. Sometimes, governments are quite willing to overlook famine conditions in areas of their countries controlled by opposition rebel groups. In addition, well-meaning international food aid can actually depress prices for homegrown foods, thereby giving local farmers even less incentive to produce much beyond their subsistence needs. While governments take the primary responsibility for prevention of famine, international agencies have been established within the United Nations system to monitor famine emergencies. The United Nations Disaster Relief Organization did so until the early 1990’s, and it was succeeded by the U.N. Department for Humanitarian Affairs and later by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Af105
Famines fairs (UNOCHA), which coordinates a variety of intergovernmental, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies dedicated to provision of disaster aid. There is increasing awareness, however, that all such measures are highly remedial and that the most significant factor in preventing famine is the broader development of national economies. Rescue and Relief Efforts The existence of U.N. organizations for the prevention and mitigation of humanitarian disasters such as famine, when coupled with the phenomenal growth of private humanitarian agencies and the resources of wealthier donor nations, has substantially reduced mortality in modern droughts and famines. In the latter half of the twentieth century, despite the fact that global population more than doubled, mortality during famines rarely exceeded a few hundred thousand, whereas in previous decades and centuries famine often claimed millions of lives. This decline in famine-related deaths is due in large part to the global nature of modern communication and transportation systems, wider public awareness of famine emergencies, the existence of agencies dedicated to the prevention of famine, and to the emergence of disaster mitigation agencies within and among governments. Within the U.N. system, apart from UNOCHA, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) often provides assistance to people who have fled persecution and natural disasters such as drought and famine. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is also very active in famine situations, providing food and medical attention to children who are victims of famine; the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is similarly involved in famine detection and prevention programs. The World Food Program (WFP) provides food aid to areas experiencing food deficits, and a private agency, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) often provides relief in famine areas, especially those where civil war is a factor. Nongovernmental organizations such as Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam), Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere (CARE), Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Save the Children, and countless other agencies are heavily engaged in the 106
Famines provision of both long-term development and humanitarian aid. The U.S. government’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and its parent organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development, are engaged in the provision of emergency famine aid and prolonged development assistance. Likewise, the U.S. Department of States Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration provides emergency assistance to populations in distress. Most governments have similar kinds of agencies to provide managerial capacity for response to famine emergencies. Sometimes the military establishments of countries are in a position to bring their logistical capabilities to bear when famines rage out of control and demand immediate and extensive food delivery. With a truly global famine mitigation system now in existence, there is little reason, other than political neglect, for famine to cause extensive starvation and death. Impact Famines affect more people than any other form of disaster. Although fewer people die from famine today than in previous centuries, it is still not unusual for a famine in a very poor country or in a country experiencing civil war to affect millions and kill hundreds of thousands. Famines can wipe out whole villages and destroy regions. The impact of prolonged famines and civil discontent is felt much more strongly in poor countries than in wealthy ones, where capacities and infrastructure to respond to localized drought is far more developed. Famine kills people in poor countries, not rich ones, which leads most scholars to conclude that long-term economic development is the single most effective way to prevent famine and mitigate its effects. Historical Overview Famine has occurred with great regularity and deadliness throughout history. Even in ancient times, it was greatly feared. Along with death, war, and pestilence, famine is portrayed in the Bible as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the New Testament book of Revelation, where the rider on the black horse carries scales to indicate the scarcity of grain and the need for it to be carefully weighed. References to famine are also frequently found in the Old Testament. Genesis describes famine as reasons for Abraham, Isaac, and 107
Famines Jacob at different times to migrate from Canaan to Egypt, and the story of Jacob’s son, Joseph, indicates that famine had also struck Egypt. Ancient Egyptian records and art indicate that famine was a noteworthy reality of the land along the Nile. It is common even today, when famines attain great magnitude, to speak of a famine of “biblical proportions.” Famines occur when a widespread shortage of food causes malnutrition, starvation, and death. Famines are commonly associated with civil wars and conflicts in which food supplies are interrupted, as well as with prolonged droughts that limit food production. A population facing famine and malnutrition is often highly susceptible to disease. Thus, the biblical association of famine with war, pestilence, and death is based on empirical reality. The historical record testifies to this association. The earliest known reference to famine was in Egypt around 3500 b.c.e. Egypt is situated in a very arid zone, and it depends on the regular flow of the Nile and the seasonal flooding that permits regular planting and harvesting, which in turn depends upon monsoonal rains in the highlands of East Africa. When the rains fail, so does the regular flow of the Nile, thus threatening agriculture. Parts of China, India, the great steppes of Russia, and the Sahel region of Africa are likewise prone to periodic droughts, and thus to famine. Even areas that are normally well watered can be subject to occasional drought, however, and they may put local populations at risk of famine. A traditional means of coping with localized drought and famine is migration to areas where food is more plentiful. This, in turn, has provoked conflict among migrants, however. The consistently largest and most frequent famines have occurred in China and India, countries that have always had very large populations. Areas with large populations that rely heavily on monsoonal rains for agricultural production are particularly vulnerable to largescale famine when several successive years of drought occur. The most devastating famines in modern times have occurred in China. As many as 13 million people perished in the great famine of 18761879, during which people sold their children or resorted to cannibalism. During about the same time span, an estimated 5 million people died in India from famine, as drought affected much of Asia. In the twentieth century, famine related to Communist China’s Great 108
Famines Leap Forward occurred between 1959 and 1962, when it is estimated by some that as many as 30 million died. The largest death toll owing to famine in history occurred during the Black Death of 1320-1352, in which over 40 million are estimated to have perished either from disease or from starvation resulting from disrupted agriculture. While drought is a major cause of famine, sometimes too much rain can lead to famine by interrupting harvests or destroying crops. This was the case in Europe from 1315 to 1317; bad weather in Ireland from 1845 to 1847 contributed to the blight of the potato crop, the death of 1 million Irish, and the migration of more than 1 million. The Great Irish Famine was also a function of British economic policy, because wheat exports continued from Ireland to Great Britain during the potato famine, and little was done to divert such food stocks to the starving. Famine rarely occurs in modern times in wealthy, industrialized countries. Rather, it tends to be associated with poverty in the Third World, where subsistence farming is still the means of livelihood for millions. Thus, Africa and Asia still experience much famine, which is also a result of their being prone to political instability and civil war. Diverse food sources and less extensive population in much of South America and the Western Hemisphere generally prevent these regions from being prone to famine. Moreover, the emergence of international assistance agencies and foreign food aid have mitigated famine emergencies even in the more drought-prone areas of Africa and Asia in modern times, thus substantially reducing mortality. Robert F. Gorman Bibliography Aptekar, Lewis. Environmental Disasters in Global Perspective. New York: G. K. Hall, 1994. This is a trim and useful volume concerning the definition of natural disasters and their prevention and mitigation. Cuny, Frederick C. Famine, Conflict and Response: A Basic Guide. West Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press, 1999. Cuny, a noted humanitarian relief worker who disappeared in Chechnya in 1995, offers long-term solutions to famine by identifying its causes and promoting the efficient use of resources during a crisis. Curtis, Donald, Michael Hubbard, and Andrew Shepherd. Preventing 109
Famines Famine: Policies and Prospects for Africa. London: Routledge, 1988. An anthology of case studies, this book draws largely from African settings concerning the early detection and prevention of famine. Field, John Osgood, ed. The Challenge of Famine: Recent Experience, Lessons Learned. West Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press, 1993. This is a fine collection of critiques of famine responses in several African cases. Varnis, Stephen. Reluctant Aid or Aiding the Reluctant: U.S. Food Aid Policy and Ethiopian Famine Relief. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1990. This volume combines balance and careful documentation of the political obstacles preventing timely famine relief. Von Braun, Joachim, Tesfaye Teklu, and Patrick Webb. Famine in Africa: Causes, Responses, and Prevention. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Presents the results of field work and other research from various regions. Explains the factors that cause famines and assesses efforts to mitigate and prevent them.
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Fires Factors involved: Chemical reactions, geography, human activity, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: All Definition Fires occur throughout the world as a result of many causes. They can inflict devastating damage to natural environments, cities, and buildings, causing billions of dollars in damage. Large fires may be accompanied by many deaths and injuries to people and animals. Science Fire occurs through the process of combustion. Combustion is an exothermic, self-sustaining, chemical reaction usually involving the oxidation of a fuel by oxygen in the atmosphere. Emission of heat, light, and mechanical energy, such as sound, usually occurs. An exothermic reaction is one in which the new substances produced have less energy than the original substances. This means that there is energy in various forms produced in the reaction. In fires, the energy is released primarily as heat and light. A fuel is a material that will burn. In most environments, carbon is a constituent element. Many typical fuels must undergo a process called pyrolysis before they will burn. Wood, for example, exists in many buildings in the form of furniture and framing to support the walls and roof. In its normal condition, wood does not burn. It must be broken down through the application of heat into its constituent elements before it can be oxidized. This is the process of pyrolysis. Oxidation is a chemical reaction in which an oxidizing agent and a reducing agent combine to form a product with less energy than the original materials. The oxygen is usually obtained from the air. The fuel is the reducing agent. For the process to begin, a source of heat must be applied to the fuel. This heat is needed to raise the temperature of the material to its ignition point, or the lowest temperature at which it will burn. Ignition can occur from a variety of natural and human sources. Electric wires or appliances can come in contact with combustible materials, raising their temperature. Natural sources such as 111
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Milestones 64 c.e.: Much of the city burns during the Great Fire of Rome. March, 1657: The Meireki Fire destroys Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, killing more than 100,000 people. 1666: In the Great Fire of London, about 436 acres of the city burn, eliminating the Great Plague. 1679: Fire burns portions of the city of Boston. 1788: New Orleans burns. 1812: Moscow is set on fire by troops of Napoleon I. 1814: Washington, D.C. is burned by occupying British troops. 1842: Most of the city of Hamburg, Germany, burns, leaving 100 dead. May 4, 1850: Fire burns large portions of the city of San Francisco. May 3-4, 1851: San Francisco again experiences large fires; 30 die. December 24, 1851: The Library of Congress is burned. October 8, 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire affects a large area in northern Wisconsin; 1,200 are killed, and 2 billion trees are burned. October 8-10, 1871: The Great Chicago Fire leaves 250 dead and causes $200 million in damage. November 9-10, 1872: The Great Boston Fire kills 13, destroys 776 buildings, and causes $75 million in damage. April 18-19, 1906: A fire follows the magnitude 8.3 earthquake in San Francisco. November 13, 1909: A fire breaks out in the Cherry Mine in Illinois, trapping and killing 259 miners. 1910: Wildfires rage throughout the U.S. West in the most destructive fire year in U.S. history to date. March 25, 1911: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurs in New York City; 145 employees, mostly young girls, die. November 28, 1942: The Cocoanut Grove nightclub burns in Boston, killing 491. July, 1943: Hamburg, Germany, is destroyed, mostly by fires caused by incendiary bombing; 60,000-100,000 are killed. 1945: A large section of Oregon forest ignites in the third in a series of wildfires known as the Tillamook burn.
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Fires February 13, 1945: 25,000 die in the firebombing of Dresden. March 9, 1945: Incendiary bombs destroy 25 percent of Tokyo. November 21, 1980: A fire in the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas kills 84. Summer, 1988: Fires affect some 1.2 million acres in Yellowstone National Park and other western forests. September, 3, 1991: A chicken-processing plant in North Carolina burns, killing 25 workers. October 19-21, 1991: Wildfires burn much of Oakland Hills, California; 25 die. April 19, 1993: A cult compound in Waco, Texas, is destroyed by fire. July 4-10, 1994: A Glenwood Springs, Colorado, forest fire kills 14 firefighters. April 15, 1997: A fire at a tent city outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia, costs 300 lives. January-March, 1998: Large forest fires burn in Indonesia, sickening thousands; 234 die in a Garuda Indonesia plane crash caused by poor visibility from smoke. October 21-November 4, 2003: Warm winds fuel at least 12 wildfires that burn simultaneously across Southern California; 22 die, 80,000 are displaced, and 3,500 homes are destroyed.
lightning can start wildfires. People can deliberately start fires using an accelerant; arson is responsible for many fires throughout the world. Three factors are necessary for a fire to begin. They are illustrated as the fire triangle of heat, fuel, and oxygen. A fire with these three elements will be a glowing fire. For self-sustaining combustion to occur, a fourth factor, a chain reaction, must be added to the original three factors. This converts the fire triangle to a fire tetrahedral, or foursided pyramid. A chain reaction occurs when the heat produced by the fire is enough not only to burn the fuel but also to preheat the next segment of fuel so that the fire can grow. As long as the rate of heat production is greater than the rate at which heat is dissipated to the surroundings, more fuel can be ignited and the fire will spread. When the heat produced by the fire is dissipated to the surroundings, the fire will gradually decay. 113
Fires A fire will continue until the available fuel is consumed, the available oxygen is used, the flames are extinguished by cooling, or the number of excited molecules is reduced. Fire extinguishment and prevention strategies are aimed at breaking or removing one leg of the fire triangle or tetrahedral. In most fires, either the action of a person or an act of nature, such as a lightning strike or earthquake, are required to bring the factors together for a fire to start. The act of a person may be deliberate, as in the case of arson; accidental, as in the case of someone falling asleep in bed with a lighted cigarette; or an act of omission, such as a building not being constructed in a safe manner. There are two basic kinds of fires. A fuel-controlled fire is one that has an adequate amount of oxygen but has limited contact with fuel. A ventilation-controlled fire has access to adequate amounts of fuel but has limited contact with oxygen. The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) has classified four types of fires. Type A fires involve ordinary combustibles such as wood, paper, cloth, or fiber; they can be extinguished with water or foam. Type B fires involve flammable liquids, such as hot grease, paints, thinners, gasoline, oil, or other liquid fuels; they can be extinguished with a chemical foam or carbon dioxide. Type C fires, electrical fires, can be extinguished with a nonconducting extinguishing agent such as carbon dioxide or a dry chemical. Type D fires involve flammable metals, such as magnesium or sodium alloys, and they can be put out by smothering with a dry powder with a sodium chloride or graphite base. Four basic mechanisms of heat transfer are involved in fires. Convection is heat transfer within a fluid. In most fires, this occurs within the air. As a fluid is heated, its molecules become less dense and rise. Air at normal density will move into the area of heat, replacing the less dense air that has risen. As this air is heated, it will also rise. This explains the natural movement of fire gases and smoke from lower areas to higher ones. Conduction is heat transfer between two bodies in direct contact with each other. Heat can be transferred through the molecules in a wall by conduction. A combination of convection and conduction occurs between a solid and a fluid at their boundary. Radiant heat transfer involves heat transfer by electromagnetic waves across distances. A surface, such as a wall, that has been heated by a fire can transfer radiant heat 114
Fires across the room to heat another wall surface or a person’s skin even if there is no direct contact. This process occurs in the same way that the heat energy from the sun is transferred to the earth across millions of miles of space. The fourth form of heat transfer involved in fires is latent heat transfer. Latent heat is the heat that is involved in the change of state of a substance. In a fire, water used as an extinguishing agent will be converted to steam, absorbing large quantities of heat energy as it changes from a liquid to a gas. A conflagration is a fire that spreads over some distance, often a portion of a city or a town. A large group fire spreads from building to building within a complex of buildings. The number of conflagrations and large group fires were substantially reduced in the twentieth century. This decrease is attributed to building codes that require fire-resistant construction of the exterior walls and roofs of buildings in cities, modern fire-department capabilities to extinguish fires, adequate urban water systems that have large quantities of water available for fire extinguishment, and limits on openings between buildings that are located close to one another. Three main types of conflagrations have occurred since 1950. The first are urban/wild land interface fires. An urban/wild land interface is the area where an urban or suburban area adjoins the natural or undeveloped environment. Fires may start in the wild land and be driven by strong winds and available combustibles into residential or urban areas over a large fire front that cannot be extinguished. The Oakland Hills fire of 1991 is an example of this type of fire. These fires were the most prevalent type of conflagration in the 1990’s. Conflagrations also occur in “congested combustible districts.” These fires are typical of urban conflagrations before the 1900’s, when the need for streets wide enough for automobiles changed the character of cities around the world. The congested combustible district is one with narrow streets lined with continuous buildings. The Great Boston Fire of 1872 is an example of this type of fire. Third, conflagrations can be driven by strong winds among houses with wood shingles or other flammable roofing materials. These fires often occur in the southwestern United States. Last, large group fires often occur in old manufacturing districts, where the buildings are abandoned or are poorly maintained. The fire in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1908 is an example of this type of fire. 115
Fires Geography Fires occur in all geographic regions of the world. Air as a source of oxygen is available in all environments that support human habitation. Fuels are also present in every environment. The trees and grasses in natural environments will become fuels for wildfires; the furnishings in homes, the materials used in the construction of many buildings, and the clothes people wear are all potential fuels in the presence of heat. Most fires occur outdoors. These are often called wildfires or brushfires. Fires can occur in forests, grasslands, and farms (crop fires). Wildfires can be started either by an act of nature, such as a lightning strike, or by human actions. Many wildfires are started by accident or by carelessness. Examples of this include leaving a campfire unattended or discarding smoking materials through the window of a car into a natural area. Trash fires, or the burning of debris in land clearings, can also spread beyond the point of origin. Forest management personnel often direct controlled burns in natural areas to burn underbrush, consume fallen limbs and dead plants, and rejuvenate the forest ecosystem. This practice is thought to reduce the hazard of wildfires because a large amount of fuel is consumed in a controlled manner. There are dangers, however, as in the May, 2000, fire in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in which a controlled burn grew into a major conflagration and destroyed hundreds of homes. Most deaths and injuries from fire occur in homes and garages. Historically, there have also been large numbers of deaths and injuries in public buildings, such as theaters, assembly buildings, schools, hospitals, stores, offices, hotels, boardinghouses, dormitories, and other community facilities. Modern building codes and construction practices have reduced the number and severity of these fires. The industrial environment poses many serious fire hazards. Industry includes storage, manufacturing, defense, utility, and other large-scale operations. The presence of large amounts of potential fuel or volatile materials such as solvents in an industrial plant in a large open building constitute a potential fire threat. Fires may also occur in structures that are not buildings, such as bridges, tunnels, vacant buildings, and buildings under construction. While much public fear and awareness of fire is centered on large 116
Fires fires in public buildings, most people who are killed in fires in the United States die in their homes or cars. Approximately 80 percent of fire deaths and 70 percent of fire injuries occur in homes and cars. The mobile environment is composed of trains, automobiles, airplanes, and other transportation vehicles. Many people die or are injured from fires that occur after vehicles crash or are otherwise involved in accidents. However, it is important to note that only onesixth the number of people die in vehicle fires as die in home fires each year. The dangers of fire to people and property are omnipresent. Therefore, strategies for design, fire protection, and fire prevention must reach everywhere. Significant progress appears to have been made in reducing fires that result in multiple deaths and large property losses. Prevention and Preparations Fires can be prevented by attacking each leg of the fire triangle or tetrahedral. Sources of heat, particularly open flames, must be isolated from fuels. This can be accomplished in several ways. Rooms that contain sources of heat, such as boiler rooms, mechanical plants, and shops, are usually built with fire-resistant enclosures to contain or compartmentalize the building. Electric wires and electrical appliances must be adequately insulated so the heat produced cannot escape to building materials or furnishings. Fuels must be limited in wild lands and buildings. Controlled burns, described earlier, provide a method of decreasing fuels in the natural environment. Buildings can be constructed of and furnished with materials that are noncombustible. The amount of fuel in a building is often expressed as the amount of combustible materials by weight compared to an equivalent amount of wood. This is known as a fuel load. Products used in homes and commercial buildings can be redesigned to reduce their fire risk. Most fires are the result of either careless or deliberate human behavior. Therefore, educating people about fire risks and appropriate fire-prevention strategies is an essential element in fire prevention. Educating the general public could potentially have the greatest impact on reducing the number and severity of fires, but it is perhaps the most difficult strategy to implement. Fire-protection authorities 117
Fires believe that to modify the behavior of the American public with regard to fires requires more than a brief exposure to fire-safety education. The NFPA has produced the “Learn Not to Burn” curriculum material for use in schools across the United States, which consists of a series of exercises with which teachers may teach children of the dangers of fire, fire-prevention strategies, and methods of protecting themselves and their families in the event of a fire. The NFPA reported that in the 1990’s only a small percentage of schools actually used this material, however. The NFPA and many municipal fire departments regularly conduct community meetings and demonstrations of fire protection and prevention techniques, distribute brochures and educational kits, and conduct open houses during Fire Prevention Week activities. These efforts have been aimed at emphasizing actions to prevent fires and appropriate behaviors during fires. Preparation for fires and protection during a fire can take several forms. Preparing for a fire consists of maintaining buildings to have limited fuels and heat sources. Fuels should be stored in protected areas, and electrical systems and other potential sources of heat must be properly maintained. Access to volatile substances should be limited. A fire-detection system, such as smoke detectors with audible and visible alarms that notify building occupants during the earliest stages of a fire, is an essential preparation component. If the detection system is attached to an automatic suppression configuration, such as a sprinkler system, the fire can be extinguished before it moves beyond the area of origin, reducing its threat to people and property. Providing fire extinguishers, standpipe systems, and other opportunities for manual fire suppression in buildings is also necessary. The fire-detection, alarm, sprinkler, and standpipe systems are called active fire protection systems. Maintaining a fire department with adequate personnel and equipment is necessary if fires do start and are not suppressed by automatic equipment. A community emergency notification system, such as the 911 telephone line, is required to contact the fire department quickly to ensure that personnel can arrive at the scene with enough time to suppress a fire and rescue people. Buildings are required to be designed to confine fires to the area of origin by a series of fire and smoke barriers that subdivide a build118
Fires ing into a series of compartments. The use of fire- and smoke-resistant walls to confine fire spread is called a passive fire protection method. Other passive fire protection strategies include limiting the use of materials that contribute to fire growth and limiting the size of buildings based on the relative combustibility of their construction systems and contents. Providing safe ways for people to leave a burning building is an essential method of fire protection. The path from a point inside a building to safety outside the building is called the means of egress. The means of egress consists of three components. The exit access is the unprotected path from any point in a building to an exit. This distance is limited in all buildings so people can move quickly to an exit. An exit is a fire-resistant, smoke-resistant enclosure that leads one from an exit access to the exit discharge, the opening that takes one from an exit to the safety of the “public way.” An exit may be a fire stairway in a tall building, a horizontal corridor, or doors that lead directly out of a building in a small, one-story structure. The number and size of exits are determined by how many people will use the building. It is essential that the exits do not become overly congested during fire evacuations. Fire exits must be illuminated with lights connected to an emergency power source so that when the normal electric service in a building is interrupted during a fire, people can still find the exits in smoke-filled corridors. In very large buildings or in structures such as hospitals, where people cannot be moved out of the building, places of refuge are provided. A place of refuge is an area in a building that is protected from fire and smoke where people can move to await rescue. Conducting fire drills in homes, schools, workplaces, and other buildings is essential so people know how to react in the event of a fire. Many large buildings have voice systems for someone to provide evacuation instructions to occupants through loudspeakers on each floor. Rescue and Relief Efforts Three hazards are posed by fire: smoke inhalation, burns, and building collapse or explosion. Some of the gases present in a fire, such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and carbon dioxide, are narcotics or materials that cause pain or loss of consciousness. Particles and 119
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Firefighters monitor a wildfire carefully in order to predict its path and distribute resources wisely. (FEMA)
other gases can cause irritations of the pulmonary system or eyes, ears, and nose. Other gases, such as hydrogen chloride, are toxic in the quantities created during a fire. The combined effects of breathing these gases is called smoke inhalation. It is treated by removing people to a safe environment with clean air and administering oxygen. Injuries and death in fires are primarily caused by the effects of smoke inhalation. Smoke consists of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases that result from pyrolysis and combustion. The combustion process is never fully complete, so there are also a number of unburned fuel particles and gases in the smoke as well. Many of the particles are about the same size as the wavelength of visible light. Light is scattered by the smoke particles, making vision very difficult in smoke-filled rooms. Heat is another major product of the combustion process. Typical building fires exceed temperatures of 1,000 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Human beings cannot survive temperatures of this magnitude. 120
Fires The skin will receive second-degree burns when exposed to temperatures of 212 degrees Fahrenheit for fifteen seconds. People will go into shock as a result of exposure to heat, irritants, and oxygen deficiency experienced even at the periphery of fires. This condition can lead to elevated heart rates that can bring on heart attacks. Burns are classified as first, second, and third degree depending upon the damage done to the skin. First-degree burns are characterized by redness, pain, and sometimes a swelling of the outermost layers of the skin. Second-degree burns usually penetrate deeper into the skin than first-degree burns. Fluids accumulate beneath the skin, forming blisters. The skin becomes moist and pink. Third-degree burns result in dry, charred skin that exposes the layers beneath. Third-degree burns are life-threatening and require special treatment. People can also be injured or die in fires as a result of collapse of burning buildings and explosions. In some fires in large buildings there have been reports of panicked behavior contributing to fire deaths. The NFPA defines panic as a sudden and excessive feeling of alarm or fear, usually affecting a number of people, which is vaguely apprehended, originates in some real or supposed danger, and leads to competitive, fear-induced flight in which people might trample others in an attempt to flee. Fire investigators state that this type of panic does not occur in many fires. It is often very difficult for fire rescue workers to remove people trapped in a building. In tall buildings, people must be evacuated by ladders or helicopters to areas of safety, where initial medical evaluation and treatment can occur. Rescue workers require special fireresistant clothing and self-contained breathing apparatus to move into a fire scene to remove people without injuring themselves in the process. Fire-department personnel and emergency medical technicians are specially trained to remove people from fires and provide initial first aid. For those suffering from severe smoke inhalation or third-degree burns, special treatment is required. Many hospitals in large metropolitan areas have special burn centers to treat severe injuries. There have been incidents reported in which people have walked away from a fire scene only to die within a few days as a result of exposure to toxic gases. Fire department personnel stay at a fire scene until the combus121
Fires tion process has stopped. In a large fire, smoldering can continue under a top layer of ash for some time after the fire has been apparently extinguished, only to restart at a later time when a wind blows some of the ash into contact with a new fuel. Impact The short-term effects of fire include damage to and destruction of property, including both buildings and natural lands; injury and death of people and animals; and a loss of homes or workplaces, which can have a lasting impact on a community. In the United States there are over 2.4 million reported fires each year. Many estimate that the actual number of fires is much greater than this. There are more than 6,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries each year from fires, resulting in over $5.5 billion in fire losses. While there was a decrease in fire deaths in the 1970’s and 1980’s, attributed to requirements for the installation of smoke detectors in residences, the rates remained relatively constant after that time. The fire death rates in the United States and Canada are almost twice those of other developed countries. Fire remains the second most prevalent cause of accidental death in homes. It is the primary cause of death among children and young adults. Most of the 6,000 fire deaths in the United States each year occur in two segments of the population: the very young and the elderly. Historical Overview Throughout the history of civilization, humans and fire have been intimately intertwined. Mastery of fire provided a boon to prehistoric humans, and they used it to shape their environment. Primitive peoples used fire to “drive the game,” that is, to force wild game into a small area of concentration, where the kill was much easier. As long as humans remained hunter-gatherers, use of fire was central to survival. Indeed, it has been suggested that the growing ability of such people to control the wild game population led to the extinction of many species. When humankind converted from hunting to agriculture, fire was equally essential, for domestic fire was needed to convert the harvested grains into edible food for humans. The use of fire was at the heart of the growth in technology as well, for the manipulation of raw 122
Fires materials nearly always depended on fire: Pottery needed to be baked to make it usable as containers, and metals needed to be heated at ever higher temperatures to make the fluid metal that could be transformed into usable items. Fire is a tricky tool and requires proper management. All too often, fire escapes from the control of the humans wielding it and creates devastation. A vast number of escaped fires were certainly never recorded: Little is known of the fire usages of Mesoamericans prior to the arrival of Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century, although there is archaeological evidence of their use of fire, probably in religious ceremonies. They also used it to manufacture jewelry from the gold they found in the mountains. One of the earliest recorded instances of uncontrolled fire was the fire that burned much of the city of Rome during the reign of the Emperor Nero, in 64 c.e. Part of Nero’s unsavory reputation comes from the story that he amused himself while the city burned and destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of its citizens: “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Countless unrecorded fires must have taken place during the collapse of the ancient civilization of Rome. At the time, wood was the universal building material, especially for domestic use, and many homes must have burned down when a cooking fire raged out of control. Occasionally such escaped domestic fires had their uses, notably when a large portion of the city of London burned in 1666: The city’s population had just been decimated by an epidemic of bubonic plague, carried by rats. When the houses burned down in the Great Fire of London, the rats burned with them, and the plague was ended. It is known that the indigenous peoples in America used fire extensively, both to heat their dwellings and, particularly, to modify the environment. They used fire to clear the underbrush in the eastern United States, where otherwise forest cover dominated the landscape. Fire enabled them to rid a small portion of land of trees that they had girdled and of the brush that grew up when the trees died, leaving them a clearing where they could plant the corn, beans, and squash that formed an important part of their diet. They also burned the land to eliminate underbrush within the forest, making travel through it, as well as hunting, easier. These practices were adopted by 123
Fires the European settlers who, in any case, brought with them a tradition of the use of fire for land management. Fire also shaped the environment without intervention by humans. In the parts of America where rainfall is scarce, lightning often strikes, especially during the summer. The grasslands of the Great Plains are believed to be largely the product of frequent widespread fires that burned over the land often enough to prevent trees from developing. As more American Indians were concentrated on the Great Plains, fire was used by them to manage the great herds of buffalo that grazed there. It was only as the Europeans began to establish settlements on the Great Plains that efforts were made to contain the grass fires. Meanwhile, fire had become an important tool in warfare. In ancient times, barricades were generally made of wood, and many attempts were made to burn them by tossing burning brands into the area under siege. The development of what came to be known as Greek fire—material that would burst into flame on contact—made possible a more potent use of fire in sieges. In addition, it became the practice of conquering armies to set fire to urban centers they conquered. Napoleon I’s army burned Moscow in 1812, and Washington, D.C., was burned by the British in 1814. In World War II, fire started by aerial bombardment became an important tool. Many fires were begun in London from 1940 through 1945 as a result of German bombardment. The Allies retaliated by setting fire to both Hamburg, in 1943, and Dresden, in 1945. That same year, incendiary bombs rained down on Tokyo, burning large portions of the city. As urban concentrations grew, the risk of fire grew with them. Portions of the city of Boston burned as early as 1679. In 1788, the city of New Orleans burned, as did the city of Hamburg in 1842. In 1850 and again in 1851, the city of San Francisco burned. Chicago burned in 1871, allegedly when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a kerosene lantern. In 1894, a part of the grounds and structures of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago burned. Much of San Francisco burned again following the devastating earthquake of 1906. A number of fires in individual buildings became major disasters. Perhaps the most infamous was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in 1911, when 145 trapped workers died. On November 28, 1942, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston burned, causing 491 deaths. The MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas burned in 1980, and 84 people died. A 124
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A helicopter douses a forest fire with water, one of many methods of combating the spread of flames. (FEMA)
chicken-processing plant in North Carolina burned on September 3, 1991, killing 25 workers. Eighty-six people died in 1993, following an extended siege by federal agents at a cult compound in Waco, Texas. In 2003, 100 people were killed when pyrotechnics ignited soundproofing foam at a club in Rhode Island during a concert. Although the number of victims of building fires in the United States has declined, a number of such disasters continued to occur abroad in which the death toll exceeded 100. In 1960, a mental hospital in Guatemala City caught on fire, and 225 died. A movie theater in Syria burned the same year, with a loss of 152 persons. The following year, a circus caught fire in Brazil, killing more than 300. In 1971 and 1972, fires in a hotel and nightclub in South Korea and Japan, respectively, each claimed more than 100 victims, as did a department store fire in Japan in 1973. Large congregations of people are particularly at risk. In 1975 a fire in a tent city in Saudi Arabia resulted in the loss of 138 individuals; 300 pilgrims to Mecca lost their lives in a similar fire in 1997. In 1977, 164 people were killed in Kentucky when a nightclub burned, 125
Fires as did 100 people attending a Great White concert in Rhode Island in 2003 when pyrotechnics ignited soundproofing foam. A fire at a nursing home in Jamaica resulted in the deaths of 157. In 1994, a fire in a toy factory in Thailand killed 213 people, and the same year a theater in China burned, with some 300 losing their lives. Besides localized fires in buildings, wildfires have been consistent causes of disaster, even though the loss of life has been much less dramatic. The most famous of these was the fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871, when at least 1,200 died. Large forest fires burned the same year in Minnesota and Michigan. In 1881 large portions of the northern half of the lower peninsula of Michigan were engulfed in forest fires. In 1894 fires broke out again in the northern, forested sections of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, reappearing in 1908. All these fires were a product of the heavy logging that had taken place in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. By 1910 the north woods of the Great Lakes states were logged out, and the problem was transferred to the heavily timbered regions to the west. In 1910, wildfires raged throughout the West and the Midwest; more than 6 million acres of national forestland burned, destroying large acreages of privately owned forestland as well. That year was the worst year in history of losses to forest fires, though it was to be rivaled by the years 1945, 1988, and 1996. In the dry regions of the United States, as well as elsewhere in the world, forest and brushfires are common in drought years. Nearly every year there are brushfires in California and in the arid Southwest, where the brush accumulations grow rapidly. The spread of settlement into these regions has heightened the risk of disaster, and there is some evidence that arson plays a part. Aerial surveillance has helped to reduce the risk to individuals, and local and national agencies have developed new tools for fighting such conflagrations. Even so, tragedies sometimes occur: In July of 1994, 14 firefighters lost their lives in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, when a sudden wind gust moved a forest fire uphill at a rate of more than 100 feet per second. The huge forest fires that burned in and around Yellowstone National Park in 1988 attracted the attention of the world through television broadcasts. The United States Forest Service, which had for more than fifty years followed a policy of fire suppression, from the 126
Fires massive burns of 1910 until the late 1970’s, had then changed its policy. It had become clear that, at least in the West, fire suppression, associated with the popular icon, Smokey Bear, had the effect of allowing large quantities of tinder to build up in the forest. Once a fire got started, the large amounts of fuel made it easy for the fire to expand into a major disaster. Thus the forest service had taken a “let burn” policy, allowing fires that did not threaten people to burn, hoping to keep down the accumulation of brush. However, in 1988 the fires got away from the officials in control, and the public was outraged when more than 1 million acres burned around Yellowstone, America’s most-visited national park. Huge forest fires in Alaska the same year drove the total of burned acreage to more than 3.5 million, and federal officials were forced to revise their fire policy. There was, after 1988, a greater use of what is called controlled burning, deliberately set fires that are confined to a limited area, designed to eliminate the buildup of combustible materials before they create massive conflagrations. Forest fires will continue to be a problem, especially wherever drought conditions exist. In 1998, drought conditions in Indonesia led to extensive wildfires, some of them escaped fires that had been set by cultivators to open up new areas for farming. The smoke and haze from these fires spread all over Southeast Asia. In 1996, 6 million acres of U.S. forestland burned, the worst fire year since 1951, when the last of the four wildfires in Oregon known collectively as the Tillamook burn took a heavy toll. One of the worst fire seasons in history occurred in 2000. As many as eighty forest fires were burning at a time in thirteen states in the western United States. Dry summer thunderstorms ignited vegetation that had not seen rain in months. Fires were responsible for more than 6.5 million acres burned, and firefighters were recruited from as far away as Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia. In California, more than 70,000 acres of the Sequoia National Forest burned, along with 25,000 acres in Idaho and 20,000 in Nevada. Montana experienced its worst fire season in over fifty years, with 8 deaths from fire by August. The federal government allotted $590 million in emergency funds to combat the conflagrations. Because there had been few fires—and little rain—in these areas in previous years, there was much “fuel” for the fires in the undergrowth and vegetation. 127
Fires In the fall of 2003, Southern California experienced at least 12 wildfires that burned simultaneously from Los Angeles to San Diego. Fueled by dry conditions and the warm winds called Santa Anas, the fires killed 22 people and displaced 80,000 more, destroying 3,500 homes. This Fire Siege of 2003 tested local fire departments to the limit and again highlighted the danger of urban/wild lands interface. As earth’s climate warms and drought conditions occur more frequently, more large fires are a probability. Gary W. Siebein Nancy M. Gordon Bibliography Branigan, Francis. Building Construction for the Fire Service. Quincy, Mass.: National Fire Protection Association, 1992. This book is a primer on fire safety in buildings, written from the perspective of firefighters. Cote, Arthur, ed. Fire Protection Handbook. 19th ed. Quincy, Mass.: National Fire Protection Association, 2003. This handbook by the leading fire-safety association in the world contains detailed chapters on every aspect of fire prevention and control by leaders in the field. It is updated continually and is the definitive work in the area. Cote, Arthur, and Percy Bugbee. Principles of Fire Protection. Quincy, Mass.: National Fire Protection Association, 1995. This book by two noted fire researchers presents a concise summary of fire principles and fire-protection strategies. Cottrell, William H., Jr. The Book of Fire. 2d ed. Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press, 2004. Intended for students and general readers. Explains how heat, ignition, and flame can progress to a wildfire. Lathrop, James K., ed. Life Safety Code Handbook. 5th ed. Quincy, Mass.: National Fire Protection Association, 1991. This is an illustrated annotated guide to the rules and regulations governing life safety in buildings. It includes many illustrations on how to design safety features in buildings. Lyons, Paul Robert. Fire in America! Boston: National Fire Protection Association, 1976. This book presents the history of fires in cities, buildings, and vehicles from ancient times to modern times, in a readable and illustrated format. 128
Fires Tebeau, Mark. Eating Smoke: Fire in Urban America, 1800-1950. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Shows how the changing practices of firefighters and fire insurers helped to shape American cities and urban life.
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Floods Factors involved: Geography, human activity, plants, rain, snow, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: Cities, forests, islands, mountains, plains, rivers, towns, valleys Definition Floods occur when streams or rivers overflow their banks and inundate the adjacent floodplain. They have caused enormous destruction of property and loss of life ever since human societies settled in large numbers along river valleys. Science Floods are difficult to define. This is partly because there are no natural breaks in nature and partly because flood thresholds are selected based on human criteria, which can vary. A flood is commonly defined as the result of a river overflowing its banks and spreading out over the bordering floodplain. The scientific definition is based on discharge, which is the volume of water moving past a given point in the stream channel per unit of time (cubic feet per second). Two aspects that are instrumental in flood occurrence are the amount of surface runoff and the uniformity of runoff from different parts of the watershed (a region that drains to a body of water). If the response and travel times are uniform, then the flow is less likely to result in a flood. Conversely, watersheds that have soils and bedrock with higher infiltration rates are prone to flooding. Flood magnitude depends on the intensity, duration, and areal extent of precipitation in conjunction with the condition of the land. If the soils in the watershed have been saturated due to antecedent precipitation, the flooding potential is much greater. For example, the unusual occurrence of Hurricanes Connie and Diane in 1955 striking so close together in time resulted in substantial flooding along the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania because the ground was already saturated from the first storm. Floods are caused by climatological conditions and part-climatological factors. Climatological conditions include heavy rain from 130
Floods tropical storms and hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, midlatitude cyclones and frontal passages, and rapid snow and ice melt. Partclimatological factors consist of tides and storm surges in coastal areas. Other factors that may cause floods are ice- and logjam breakups, earthquakes, landslides, and dam failures. Flood-intensifying conditions include fixed basin characteristics, such as area, shape, slope, aspect (north- or south-facing), and elevation; and variable basin characteristics, including water-storage capacity and transmissibility in the soil and bedrock, soil infiltration rates, and extent of wetlands and lakes. Channel characteristics, such as length, slope, roughness, and shape, also may intensify floods, as may the human effects of river regulation: conjunctive use of groundwater, interbasin transfers, wastewater release, water diversion and irrigation, urbanization and increases in impervious cover, deforestation and reforestation, levees, and land drainage. Because floods are capable of such extensive damage, knowledge of the magnitude and frequency of these events would be very useful. Accordingly, hydrologists use statistical methodology to obtain estimates of the probability that a flood of a certain size will occur in a given year. The estimates are based on historical stream-flow records, and special graph paper is used. The peak discharge for each year of record is plotted on the vertical Y-axis, which is scaled arithmetically. The horizontal X-axis on the bottom is scaled in probability terms, which provides the percent probability that a given discharge will be equaled or exceeded. The plotting position for each annual peak flow is calculated using a special equation. A straight line is drawn through the array of data points on the graph, which then becomes a flood-frequency graph for a location (gauging station) on a particular river. The horizontal X-axis at the top of the graph provides the return period in years (or recurrence interval), which is the inverse value of the probability percentage on the bottom X-axis. Thus, a discharge associated with a value of 5 percent means that this discharge is expected to be equaled or exceeded in five out of one hundred years. In this example of a 5 percent probability value, the return period is twenty years, implying that on the average, this particular discharge is estimated to be equaled or exceeded once every twenty years. This frequency estimate can also be called the twenty-year-flood. 131
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Milestones 1228: Flooding in Holland results in at least 100,000 deaths. 1333: The Arno River floods Venice, with a level of up to 14 feet (4.2 meters). 1642: More than 300,000 people die in China from flooding. 1887: The Yellow River floods, covering over 50,000 square miles of the North China Plain. Over 900,000 people die from the floodwaters and an additional 2 to 4 million die afterward due to flood-related causes. 1889: A dam bursts upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and the floodwaters kill over 2,200 people. 1911: The Yangtze River in China floods, killing more than 100,000 people. 1927: Extensive flooding of the Mississippi River results in 313 deaths. March 12, 1928: The St. Francis Dam collapses in Southern California, leading to about 450 deaths. 1938: Chinese soldiers are ordered to destroy the levees of the Yellow River in order to create a flood to stop the advance of Japanese troops. It works, but at a terrible cost to the Chinese people; more than 1 million die. 1939: Flooding of the Yellow River kills over 200,000 people. 1947: Honshn Island, Japan, is hit by floods that kill more than 1,900 people. February 1, 1953: A massive flood in the North Sea kills 1,853 in the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Belgium. November 1, 1959: More than 2,000 people die in floods in western Mexico. October 10, 1960: Bangladesh floods kill a total of 6,000 people. October 31, 1960: Floods kill 4,000 in Bangladesh. November 3-4, 1966: Flooding in Florence, Italy, destroys many works of art. January 24-March 21, 1967: Flooding in eastern Brazil takes 1,250 lives. July 21-August 15, 1968: Flooding in Gujarat State in India results in 1,000 deaths. October 7, 1968: Floods in northeastern India claim 780 lives.
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Floods June 9, 1972: Heavy rainfall over Rapid City, South Dakota, causes an upstream dam to fail and release floodwaters, and 238 people lose their lives. July 31, 1976: A flash flood rushes down Big Thompson Canyon, Colorado, sweeping 139 people to their deaths. July, 1981: Over 1,300 people die in the flooding of Sichuan, Hubei Province, China. June-August, 1993: Largest recorded floods of the Mississippi River occur; 52 people die, over $18 billion in damage is inflicted, and more than 20 million acres are flooded. February-March, 2000: Severe flooding in Mozambique, caused by five weeks of rain followed by Cyclone Eline, kills 800 people and 20,000 cattle.
Note that the flood estimate is stated in probability terms. This has confused some people, who believe that if a twenty-year-flood event occurred, then the next flood of that magnitude will not occur again for another twenty years. This is incorrect, as two twenty-year-floods can occur in the same year, even though the probability is low. A fiftyyear-flood and hundred-year-flood have a probability of being equaled or exceeded of only 2 and 1 percent, respectively. The longer the historical record of floods, the more confidence may be taken in the estimated flood frequencies. However, the historical period of record for many bodies of water of fifty or even seventyfive years is considerably shorter than the total time the water has been flowing. In addition, many watersheds have been extensively changed by urbanization, farming activities, logging, and mining to such an extent that previous discharges may not be in accord with current conditions. Also, climatic change, particularly near large metropolitan areas, may have been great enough to make quantifiable changes in discharge. Thus, forecasts that are based on past flows may not be suitable for estimating future flows. Flash floods differ from long-duration floods of large streams in that they begin very quickly and last only a short time. They often occur with torrential thunderstorm rains of 8 to 12 inches in a twentyfour-hour period over hilly watersheds that have steep ground and 133
Floods channel slopes. Three climatological situations are associated with flash floods. One is a hurricane that occurs over a landmass, which happens often in the eastern United States. The second situation occurs when moist tropical air is brought into a slow-moving or stationary weather front, which is common in the central and eastern United States. The third occurs in the mountainous western states, as typified by the flash floods caused by winter storms in California. The hydrologic effects of urbanization on flooding potential are substantial. Roofs, driveways, sidewalks, roads, and parking lots greatly increase the amount of impervious cover in the watershed. For example, it is estimated that residential subdivisions with lot sizes of 6,000 square feet (0.14 acres) and 15,000 square feet (0.34 acres) have impervious areas of 80 and 25 percent, respectively. Commercial and industrial zones have impervious areas of 60 to 95 percent. A typical suburban shopping center with its large expanse of parking area has about 90 percent impervious cover. As the impervious cover increases, infiltration is reduced and overland flow is increased. Consequently, the frequency and flood peak heights are increased during large storms. Another change related to urbanization is the installation of storm sewers, which route storm runoff from paved areas directly to streams. This short-circuiting of the hydrologic cycle reduces the travel time to the stream channel, reduces the lag time between the precipitation event and the ensuing runoff, and increases the height of the flood peak. In essence, an increasing volume of water is sent to the stream channel in a shorter period of time. Geography Floods are one of the most common and damaging of natural hazards. They can occur anywhere in the world but are most prevalent in valleys in humid regions when bodies of water overflow their banks. The water that cannot be accommodated within the stream channel flows out over the floodplain—a low, flat area on one or both sides of the channel. Floodplains have attracted human settlement for thousands of years, as witnessed by the ancient civilizations that developed along the Nile River in Egypt, the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers of China, and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). More people are living in river valleys than ever before, and the num134
Floods ber is increasing. About 7 percent of the United States consists of floodplains that are subject to inundation by a hundred-year-flood. Most of the largest cities of the nation are part of this 7 percent. Even as flood damages increase, development in the floodplain has been growing by about 2 percent a year. Large areas of the floodplain not only are inundated but also are subjected to rapidly moving water, which has enormous capacity to move objects such as cars, buildings, and bridges. If the flood is large enough, the water will inundate even stream terraces, which are older floodplains that are higher than the stream. For example, Hurricane Agnes in 1972 caused the Susquehanna River to rise nearly 16 feet above flood stage, inundating the downtown portion of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which was built on a terrace. Floods can also be devastating in semiarid areas where sparsely vegetated slopes offer little resistance to large volumes of overland flow generated by a storm event. For example, the winter storms in January, 1969, in Southern California and the consequent flooding resulted in 100 deaths. Floods also occur in coastal and estuarine environments. A winter storm in 1953 resulted in severe coastal flooding in eastern England and northwestern Europe (particularly the Netherlands), causing the deaths of almost 2,000 people, the destruction of 40,000 homes, and the loss of thousands of cattle. Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to coastal flooding. Most of the population of over 115 million in an area about the size of New York State live in the downstream floodplain of the Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers. In addition, its location at the head of the Bay of Bengal only accentuates the storm surges that frequently occur in this area from tropical storms. For example, coastal storm surges killed 225,000 people in 1970 in Bangladesh. Prevention and Preparations Societies have made many attempts over the years to prevent floods, most of which involve some form of structural control. For example, the Flood Control Acts of 1928 and 1936 assigned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the responsibility of building reservoirs, levees, channels, and stream diversions along the Mississippi and its major tributaries. As a result of this legislation, 76 reservoirs and 2,200 miles of levees in the Upper Mississippi River basin alone were built by the 135
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The Mississippi River floods Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1927. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Army after the late 1930’s. State and local governments constructed an additional 5,800 miles of levees in the same watershed. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) built over 3,000 reservoirs on the smaller tributaries in the basin. All these very expensive efforts on the Mississippi and similar efforts on other watersheds still did not prevent the disastrous floods in 1993 on the Mississippi and in 1997 on the Red River in North Dakota and Minnesota. Flood-abatement measures can be divided into structural and nonstructural approaches. The structural approach involves the application of engineering techniques that attempt either to hold back runoff in the watershed or to change the lower reaches of the river, where inundation of the floodplain is most probable. The nonstructural approach is best illustrated by zoning regulations. One form of a structural measure is to treat watershed slopes by planting trees or other types of vegetative cover so as to increase infiltration, which thereby decreases the amount of overland flow. This measure, when combined with the building of storage dams in the valley bottoms, can substantially reduce the flood peaks and increase the lag time between the storm event and the runoff downstream. 136
Floods Another very common type of structural measure is to build artificial levees (or dikes) along the channel. They are usually built of earth, may be broad enough to contain an automobile trail, and should be high enough to contain a flood. During high water on the Mississippi at New Orleans, it is possible to see ships sailing above when standing at the foot of the levee. Starting in 1879 with the Mississippi River Commission, a large system of levees was constructed in the hope of containing all floods. This levee system has been expanded and improved so that it totals over 2,500 miles in length and is as high as 30 feet in some places. One problem with the levees is that the river channel aggrades or builds up over time so that it is higher than the bordering floodplain. If the levees fail, the water in the channel will rush into the floodplain, which is at a lower elevation, and create a disastrous flood. For example, the Yellow River in China in 1887 flooded an area of 50,000 square miles (nearly the size of England), which resulted in the direct deaths of nearly 1 million people and the indirect deaths of millions more by the famine that followed. Another structural measure that has been tried by the Army Corps of Engineers on the Mississippi is to cut channels (also known as cutoffs) across the wide meander loops, which shortens the river length. This reduction in length increases the river slope, which correspondingly increases the average velocity of the water. As velocity increases, more water can move through the channel, and the flood peak can be reduced. Although the technique was initially successful, the river responded by developing new meanders, which only increased the length. Where feasible, selected portions of the floodplain may be established as temporary basins that will be deliberately flooded in order to reduce the flood peak in the main channel. A related structural measure, which is used in the delta region of the Lower Mississippi, is to use floodways that divert water from the channel directly to the ocean. For example, the Bonne Carre floodway upstream of New Orleans is designed to divert excess water to Lake Pontchartrain, which is adjoined to the Gulf of Mexico. As an alternative to structural flood abatement measures that involve engineering solutions, the nonstructural approach is to view floods and the damages they cause as natural events that will con137
Floods tinue in the future even after expensive and elaborate engineering structures have been built. Levees that were designed for a hundredyear-flood will fail if a flood of greater magnitude, say a two-hundredyear-flood, occurs. The real problem is the ongoing urban, commercial, and industrial development in the floodplain. Consequently, the nonstructural measure that has received increasing attention is floodplain zoning, which restricts development in flood-prone areas. This type of planning allows some agricultural activity and recreation in the floodplain as these types of land use call for occasional flooding. Under this form of zoning, permanent structures such as houses, schools, businesses, and industries would not be permitted in the flood-prone portions of the floodplain. One of the major nonstructural techniques that has developed over the years in the United States to reduce flood losses is flood insurance. The notion of an insurance program that provides money for flood losses appeared to be reasonable because the pooling of risks, collection of annual premiums, and payments of claims to those property owners who suffer losses was similar to other types of insurance programs, such as fire insurance. The first attempts to begin a federal flood insurance program began after flooding of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers in 1951. Legislation was introduced over the years and finally resulted in the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. This act created the National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The objectives of the program are to have nationwide flood insurance available to all communities that have potential for flooding, try to keep future development away from flood-prone areas, assist local and state governments in proper floodplain use, and make additional studies of flood hazards. One of the useful outcomes of the program has been the preparation of maps showing the approximate delineation of the area that would be covered by the hundred-year-flood. These maps are made available to all floodplain communities and provide essential information to realtors and mortgage-lending institutions. The flood insurance program is meant to be self-supporting. There is some controversy about flood insurance, however. For example, although one of the intents of the program is to assist people who cannot buy insurance at private market rates, the effect has been 138
Floods to encourage building on the floodplain because people feel that the government will help them no matter what happens. Some people would even like to move their homes and commercial facilities to higher land in another location, but property owners can only collect for damages if they rebuild in the same flood-prone location. If these criticisms are correct, this policy of rebuilding on the floodplain will only perpetuate the problem. As distinct from an earthquake, which occurs without warning, major storms and the associated possibility of flooding can be learned of in advance. Satellites and specially equipped reconnaissance airplanes can track storms over the ocean that may be heading for land and provide early warning of potentially heavy rainfall and storm surges. The River and Flood Forecasting Service of the U.S. National Weather Service maintains eighty-five offices at various locations along the major rivers of the nation. These offices issue flood forecasts to the communities within their region. The flood warnings are disseminated to local governmental agencies, who may then close roads and bridges and recommend evacuation of flood-prone areas. Parts of coastal Florida have evacuation routing directions on highway signs.
Levees are structures designed to contain stream flow, oxbows are bodies of water that were detached from the stream, and bluffs are the boundaries of a floodplain.
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Floods Rescue and Relief Efforts The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been actively involved in flood control efforts since 1824, and much more so after 1890. This involvement in flood fighting was broadened in 1955, when Congress authorized them under Public Law 84-99 to engage in preparation and emergency response to floods. The Corps became responsible for implementing precautionary measures when there was an imminent threat of potentially serious flooding, providing any necessary emergency assistance during floods so as to prevent loss of life and property damage, providing immediate postflood assistance, and rehabilitating any flood-control structures that were damaged. In order to respond quickly and provide assistance under emergency conditions, the Corps established emergency-response plans in conjunction with training of personnel for emergency response and recovery activities. These plans are tested by conducting exercises with state and local governments and other federal agencies, such as FEMA. When flooding is imminent or has already occurred, the Corps has the authority to provide state and local governments with technical assistance, supplies and materials, and equipment. Emergency construction—which includes stream obstruction removal; temporary levee construction; and the strengthening, repairing, and increasing of the height of existing levees—may also be included. Sandbagging levees to protect buildings during a flood constitutes 90 percent of the emergency assistance. For example, about 500,000 sandbags were used during the 1986 flood near Tulsa, Oklahoma. As soon as the flood subsides, the Corps is authorized to remove debris that blocks critical water supply intakes, sewer outfalls, and key rail and road arteries. Restoration of public services and facilities is also provided. The nonengineering relief efforts are handled by other agencies. Foremost among them is the American Red Cross, which started in 1905 to establish shelters for the homeless and arrange for meals for flood victims and rescue workers. Other civic and religious organizations join in the rescue effort with food, clothing, miscellaneous household goods, and money. These organizations can also assist in cleanup and rebuilding operations.
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Debris can be the dangerous aspect of a flood. Timber clogs the Kansas River in Kansas City following the spring floods of 1903. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Impact Among the natural hazards in the world, floods rank first in the number of fatalities. An estimated 40 percent of all the fatalities that occur from natural hazards are attributed to flooding. People are attracted to river valleys for water supply; navigation; arable, level land; and waste disposal—yet these are the same lands that are the most susceptible to floods. Flood damages tend to be more in terms of property loss and less in fatalities in industrialized societies because the latter have the technology for better monitoring, storm and flood warnings, and evacuation procedures. In contrast, developing countries, particularly those with high population densities, suffer greater loss of life, because prevention and relief efforts are less well organized. The estimated distribution of fatalities and property losses from flooding is 5 and 75 percent in developed countries, respectively, as compared to 95 and 25 percent in developing countries, respectively. These differences can be illustrated by the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 and several historical floods in China. Unusually heavy rain in the Upper Mississippi River basin in the late spring and early summer of 1993 was the immediate cause of the flood. For many loca141
Floods tions, monthly rainfall totals were the highest ever measured in over a century. Levees failed and allowed enormous volumes of water to spread out over the floodplain, inundating an area of over 15,000 square miles (nearly the size of Switzerland). An estimated 70,000 people were driven from their homes, 52 lives were lost, and the property damage topped $18 billion. Historical records for floods in the densely populated floodplain of the Yellow River in China estimate an astonishing 900,000 and 3.7 million deaths in 1887 and 1931, respectively—a sad world record. Obviously, water is the key element in flood damage. The water overflowing the stream channels inundates land that has buildings, equipment, crops, roads and rails, and lines of communication that were not intended to operate underwater. In addition, the high velocity of floodwaters has extra capacity to carry sediment and debris, such as parts of buildings, which damage other structures in its path and are later dumped at some inconvenient location. The most dramatic damage from floods is loss of human life. Other forms of damage include loss of livestock in rural areas; destruction of crops, buildings, transport facilities, and stored materials, such as seed, fertilizer, and foodstuffs; and soil erosion by the rapidly moving water. Even the coffins in cemeteries may be scoured out and destroyed, as was the case in the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993. Historical Overview Flooding of rivers and coastal areas has been a natural phenomenon ever since Earth cooled sufficiently for water to accumulate on its surface. Floods are important in numerous geological processes, such as erosion of the continents, transport of sediments, and the formation of many fluvial and coastal landforms. There are a number of causes of flooding in historic times. The most common cause is an excess of precipitation in a drainage basin, which then leads to rivers overflowing their banks and inundating the surrounding areas. In general, rivers flood about every one to two years. This type of flooding may be very local, in the case of flash flooding, or it may be more widespread, as when large-scale storms dump great quantities of rain over extended areas for long periods of time. A second common reason for flooding is the movement of typhoons or hurricanes into coastal ar142
Floods eas, which often causes severe coastal flooding. Flooding may also be caused by the collapse of human-made structures, such as dams or levees. Finally, there are a few examples of flooding caused directly by humans as an act of war or terrorism. Perhaps the most spectacular example of large-scale flooding occurred during the Pleistocene epoch (the Ice Age) in eastern Washington and Idaho, when an ice dam in western Montana broke and released a torrent of floodwaters. The floodwaters raced across eastern Washington at velocities of 98 feet (30 meters) per second and scoured much of the area down to bedrock. The discharge of the floodwaters was estimated at about 179 million cubic yards (13.7 million cubic meters) per second, and the total water released in this catastrophic flood is estimated to be approximately 81.7 million cubic yards (25,000 cubic meters), an amount about equal to five times the water held in Lake Erie. The flood may have lasted as long as eleven days. Many other ice-dam collapses probably resulted in similar, if less catastrophic, floods during the ice ages, but the record of the eastern Washington flood is the best preserved. When humans began to live in towns and cities, they commonly chose sites along rivers. The rivers provided water, transportation, and food, and the floodplains had fertile soils. Civilizations arose along the Tigris (western Asia), Euphrates (western Asia), Nile (eastern Africa), and Yellow (northern China) Rivers. Each of these civilizations depended directly or indirectly on the flooding of these rivers. The yearly floods brought nutrients to the floodplains, which became the early agricultural bases for these civilizations. As populations grew after the agricultural revolution began, more and more people moved into areas that were inundated periodically by floods. Floods are the most widespread of the natural hazards, and, because of the extensive development in the floodplains, floods are the most commonly experienced natural disaster. For centuries, floods were seen as necessary but completely uncontrollable acts of nature. However, this view changed when people realized that some floods might be controlled by constructing levees and dams. Chinese engineers have tried to control the flooding of the Yellow River for over 2,500 years. Levees have been built along this river to control the river during high water flow, but the program requires constant expansion and maintenance. The Yellow River is the muddiest river in 143
Floods the world, and it continually deposits sediment in its channel, thus raising the level of the river water. This aggradation of the channel bed requires that even higher levees be constructed. The levees do control moderate flooding events but have frequently broken during higher flow levels. The Yellow River has broken through its levees 1,593 times since the year 1800. Each levee breach causes a flood, many of which have been catastrophic. In 1887 more than 900,000 people lost their lives as the Yellow River flooded, and an additional 2 to 4 million people died later as the result of the flooding. The Yellow River flooded again in 1921, 1931, 1938, and 1939. Millions of Chinese have died during the flooding of this river known as “China’s Sorrow.” The 1938 flood was created by the Chinese army as it dynamited the levees in order to cause a flood southward to stop the advancing Japanese troops. The strategy worked, but at a great cost. Over 1 million Chinese people died in this human-made flood, and many more suffered for years afterward due to hunger and disease caused by the inundation of the agricultural areas. The Yellow River has not been the only danger in China. Flooding of the Yangtze River in China has also caused extensive damage and great loss of life. In India, the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers annually flood because of the enormous amount of rain and snowfall in the Himalayas, which are the source area for these rivers. Monsoon conditions add to the flooding during most years, and rivers commonly inundate large regions along the lower stretches of these rivers. Yearly flooding of the lowlands in Bangladesh is often compounded by coastal flooding caused by oceanic storms moving inland. In October of 1960, two separate floods killed 6,000 people and 4,000 people, respectively. In August of 1968 more than 1,000 people perished in a flood in the Gujarat State, India, and this was followed by another deadly flood three months later in northeastern India, which resulted in the death of 780 people. Owing to the enormous population growth in Asia and the relatively low level of flood control in many parts of the region, damage and death from flooding in this area have historically been great. It is estimated that in the twenty-year period between 1947 and 1967 more than 154,000 people were killed by floods in Asia. Flooding in Europe has also caused damage, suffering, and loss of 144
Floods life. Records indicate that a flood in Holland in 1228 killed an estimated 100,000 residents. On November 4, 1333, Florence experienced one of its greatest floods when the Arno River overflowed its banks and inundated the city to a depth of 14 feet (4.2 meters). In 1966, Florence was once again flooded by the Arno River, but to the even greater depth of 22 feet. In total, 24 people perished in the flood. This flood also damaged priceless paintings, sculptures, tapestries, books, and maps. On October 9, 1963, Italy suffered a devastating flood caused by the overtopping of a high arch dam in Vaiont. The flood was caused by an enormous rockslide that rushed into the reservoir behind the dam. The rock debris filled the reservoir and displaced the water toward the dam in waves as high as 230 feet (70 meters). The water flowed over the dam (which was not destroyed) and down the river valley at great speeds. A total of 1,800 people died. In the period from 1947 to 1967, floods took 10,540 lives in Europe (excluding the Soviet Union). Flooding has also been extensive in the United States. One of the great tragedies in the late nineteenth century was caused by the collapse of the dam above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In the western part of the country another dam collapse occurred in 1928, when the St. Francis Dam in Southern California ruptured, sending a flood downstream. More than 450 people in the Santa Paula area died from this flood. Regional flooding of the Missouri-Mississippi drainage basin has long caused problems for the midwestern part of the country. Flooding of the lower stretches of the Mississippi River in the late 1800’s caused engineers to design extensive levee systems to hold back the floodwaters. In 1927 the river rose to its then-historic high water level, causing extensive damage in the southern states. The river breached its levees in 225 locations, and 313 people lost their lives. The Mississippi again flooded in 1943 and 1944. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes moved onshore and northward through the eastern part of the country, dumping enormous quantities of rain in the region and causing extensive flooding east of the Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina to New York State. A total of 113 people lost their lives in these floods. Estimated damages were in excess of $3 billion, the largest flood disaster in United States history at that 145
Floods time. Also in 1972, the devastating Rapid City, South Dakota, flood occurred. A tremendous thunderstorm broke over the area, dumping up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain in less than six hours. The upstream dam was overtopped, and the river inundated the floodplain and much of Rapid City. The death total was 238, and damages exceeded $160 million. The following year, the Mississippi River flooded extensively again, resulting in over $1.155 billion in damage. However, the extensive flood-control measures and early evacuation kept the death toll to a low level. In 1976, a thunderstorm dropped over 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) of rain in four hours over Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado. The flash flood that resulted killed 139 people. Only a few days earlier the Teton Dam in Idaho had collapsed, killing 11 people. The largest flood of the Mississippi River in the 133 years of record keeping occurred in 1993. High-water marks were recorded at St. Louis, and the river broke through or overtopped 1,083 levees in the upper part of the basin. More than 20 million acres were flooded, and damages exceeded $18 billion. At least 52 people died in the floods. Robert M. Hordon Jay R. Yett Bibliography Beyer, Jacqueline L. “Human Response to Floods.” In Perspectives on Water, edited by David H. Spiedel, Lon C. Ruedisili, and Allen F. Agnew. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. This is a wellwritten chapter that focuses on flooding and how societies respond to its danger. Dunne, Thomas, and Luna B. Leopold. Water in Environmental Planning. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1978. This is a classic book that contains several very useful chapters on runoff processes, flood hazard calculations, and human adjustments to floods. Dzurik, Andrew A. Water Resources Planning. 2d ed. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. In addition to other material on planning issues in water resources, this book contains a good chapter on floodplain management. Hornberger, George M., Jeffrey P. Raffensberger, Patricia L. Wilberg, and Keith N. Eshleman. Elements of Physical Hydrology. Baltimore: 146
Floods Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Contains a chapter that provides a technical discussion on streams and floods from an engineering perspective. Jones, J. A. A. Global Hydrology. Essex, England: Longman, 1997. A well-documented book on hydrology and environmental management, including a chapter on floods and magnitude-frequency relationships. Martini, I. Peter, Victor R. Baker, and Guillermina Garzón, eds. Flood and Megaflood Processes and Deposits: Recent and Ancient Examples. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Science, 2002. Promotes an understanding of large floods and their impact. Myers, Mary Fran, and Gilbert F. White. “The Challenge of the Mississippi Floods.” In Environmental Management, edited by Lewis Owen and Tim Unwin. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. This chapter provides a readable account of the issues involved in the destructive 1993 Mississippi floods. O’Connor, Jim E., and John E. Costa. The World’s Largest Floods, Past and Present: Their Causes and Magnitudes. Reston, Va.: U.S. Geological Survey, 2004. A circular from the U.S. Geological Survey. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online at http:// pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1254. Strahler, Alan, and Arthur Strahler. Introducing Physical Geography. 4th ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. One of the better standard college books that has useful text and illustrations on runoff processes and floods. White, Gilbert F. Choice of Adjustment to Floods. Department of Geography Research Paper 93. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1964. This is a classic paper that deals with the social-science aspects of settlement on floodplains, including the increasing damages from floods in the face of ever-larger expenditures for flood control.
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Fog Factors involved: Geography, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: Coasts, especially those where a cool ocean current is present; mountains; cities; towns Definition Fog can be a transportation danger because it reduces visibility. It is particularly hazardous in situations where heavy use of a transportation artery occurs. Science Fog occurs when the temperature of any surface falls below the dew point of the air directly above it. There are a number of different kinds of fog, depending on the circumstances that lead to its generation. Radiational fog occurs in the early morning hours, when the cooling of the ground has created a temperature differential between the ground and the moist air directly over it. The lower ground temperature (at lower temperatures the air is less able to hold moisture) causes the moisture in the air immediately above it to condense into tiny droplets. Massed, the droplets make visibility impossible. By definition, fog exists when visibility is less than 0.6 mile (l kilometer). Advectional fog occurs when moist air moves over colder water. This is the kind of fog common along coasts, especially those where a colder ocean current tends to parallel the coast. If wind speeds increase, the density of this kind of fog also tends to increase, unless the wind speed is such as to blow away the moist air mass constituting the fog. For that to occur, wind speeds greater than 15 knots are needed. Upslope fog occurs in areas in which the prevailing winds blow over a large surface area from a moist region toward a region of increasing altitudes. As the wind blows upslope, it creates the temperature gradient between the ground and the moister air that can induce fog. Occasionally, precipitation in the form of drizzle can turn into fog. This can occur if the drizzle is falling through cool air that be148
Fog
Milestones January 19, 1883: 357 die in fog-related collision of steamers Cimbria and Sultan. 1901: Transatlantic wireless radio sends first signal to receiver in St. John’s, Newfoundland. May 29, 1914: More than 1,000 drown in the sinking of the Canadian liner Empress of Ireland following its collision with Norwegian freighter Storstad in heavy fog on the St. Lawrence River. 1925: First radio signal to warn of fog is sent to ships on the Great Lakes. December 23, 1933: Two trains collide in fog near Paris, killing 230. 1945: Radar is used for tracking civilian traffic in ships and planes. December 5-9, 1952: Heavy smog in London kills 4,000 people. July 25-26, 1956: The Italian liner Andrea Doria sinks after being struck by Swedish vessel in fog. July 31, 1973: A Delta Airlines jet crashes while attempting to land at Boston’s Logan International Airport in fog; 89 die. March 27, 1977: Two airliners collide in fog in Tenerife, Canary Islands; 583 die. April 10, 1991: 138 die in crash of ferry Moby Prince and oil tanker Agip Abruzzo in Italy.
comes saturated as a result of the drizzle. Such fogs can become very dense and are most apt to occur in places where relatively high rainfall is the norm. In high latitudes, what are known as ice fogs are rather common. In these cases, below-freezing temperatures cause moisture in the air to become suspended ice crystals that dominate the atmosphere, creating the effect of fog. For such fogs to form, very low temperatures are needed—at least minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit. The fog that comes off the surface of a body of water in early winter is often warmer than the air above. Even though the vapor pressure of the water is higher (the reverse of the normal condition creating fog) droplets will sometimes move upward from the water creating the effect of fog. Such fog is called steam fog. 149
Fog Geography Radiational fog may occur anywhere if the proper temperature differential exists, but it is most common in areas where there are different elevations. This type of fog tends to concentrate in depressions or river valleys. It tends to burn away during the early morning hours if the day is sunny—the heat of the sun dries up the condensed water vapor. Advectional fog is most common along coasts and most frequent along coasts where a cold ocean current flows and creates the necessary temperature differential. The cold ocean current is the defining factor, and for this reason fog is very common on seacoasts where such currents exist. The west coast of the United States, from San Francisco northward, is subject to such conditions, with the prevailing wind blowing the moisture off the ocean onto the land. The Pacific coast of North America has at least sixty days of dense fog each year. The east coast of Canada, especially Newfoundland and Labrador, is notorious for its dense fogs. These fogs result from the cold Labrador current that runs up that coast. Even farther south, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, fogs are fairly common, although they lack the intensity of those along the east coast of Canada. Iceland and the British Isles are notorious for their fogs, again resulting from the temperature differential between the land and the surrounding ocean. On the other hand, fogs are rare in the lower latitudes farther south in Europe, although radiational fog may exist in, for example, the Alpine valleys of Switzerland. Although fog is rare in tropical areas, there are two regions that do experience it. One is the Peruvian coastline, where, although there is little actual precipitation, vegetation can survive in an essentially desert climate from the condensation of the moisture contained in the fogs. Another tropical area that experiences fog is the coast of Somalia, in eastern Africa, where some unusual coastal currents create the necessary temperature differential. Arctic fogs have created problems for weather-gathering stations in Greenland for a number of years. They are particularly intense on the east coast of Greenland. Although the reduction in the use of coal-fired steam engines has reduced the amount of steam vented into the atmosphere around cities, auto exhausts and emissions from power plants can, if added to 150
Fog natural fog, produce what is often called smog. This mixture of natural fog and emissions can be a hazard. Some cities, located where prevailing winds cannot disperse such atmospheric collections because of adjacent mountains, have severe problems with smog—Denver and Los Angeles are examples. Prevention and Preparations Because of the hazard to transportation, especially air transport, at various times efforts have been made to try to disperse fog, especially at transportation hubs. Seeding a fog with salt has been found effective but has some obvious environmental drawbacks. Another method, creating a blast of hot air along the runways of airports, has been used in some critical situations but demands an extremely large fuel input. However, when temperatures are below freezing (below 25 degrees Fahrenheit), success has followed seeding of fog with solid carbon dioxide crystals. Another method occasionally used has been spraying with propane gas. However, when temperatures are above freezing (and most fogs form under such conditions), no satisfactory method has been found to disperse fogs at airports. Foghorns have been the traditional method of warning vessels both at sea and on large bodies of inland waters, such as the Great Lakes. The most effective antidote to fog has been the development of radar, which sees through fog. This methodology has become increasingly successful in handling air traffic, although the radar devices have had to become more exact as the volume of traffic has grown. Even so, and even though all commercial pilots now must be able to land a plane solely with the use of instrument indicators, fog can shut down air operations. Most pilots prefer being able to see a runway before they land. Even localized fogs can disrupt the schedules of virtually all airlines because they interrupt interconnecting flights. Although airplane crashes in the United States resulting from fogs are now relatively rare because the flights are regularly shut down when fog closes in at an airport, there is always an intensive investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) if there is a crash. Because the federal government controls all the airline flights through its air traffic control system, flights are routinely canceled when a serious fog situation exists. Fog continues to be a problem in automobile travel, although the 151
Fog development of the interstate highway system, with its dual road structure, has helped reduce the dangers. However, the majority of roads remain two-lane roads, and it is up to the individual motorist to drive with exceptional care in foggy conditions. As shipping has become more a system for moving freight than for moving people, the risk of marine accidents is no longer what it once was. Still, in certain areas fog continues to be a problem for oceangoing traffic despite the assistance of radar. Impact As the amount of air travel has grown, so has the danger posed by fog conditions. The layout and siting of airports can be helpful in mitigating the effects of fog, but the standard response is still to shut down flights until the air clears. Historical Overview Although fogs can occur anywhere in the world under the appropriate conditions, they are more common in the northerly latitudes, especially along seacoasts. Consequently, they began to pose a major problem as the inhabited world spread northward from the Mediterranean. They constitute a hazard for travelers, and as the development of new vessels made people more venturesome on the sea, fog became more of a risk factor. At the same time, vessels tended to hug the shoreline, where the lack of visibility in a fog (fog is defined as a condition in which visibility is less than 3,281 feet, or 1,000 meters) posed the risk of running aground on a difficult-to-see coast. As European fishermen braved the Atlantic to fish in the rich waters of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, the fogs that often enshroud that peninsula became deadly. Breton fishermen risked their lives in search of cod as early as the fifteenth century, and thousands of fishermen have lost their lives in shipwrecks brought about by the inability of the crewmen to see. In the lobby of one of the principal hotels on the French island of Miquelon, one of the few remaining possessions of France in the Western Hemisphere, there is a chart listing more than 300 wrecks that have occurred along the Newfoundland coastline, most as a result of fog. The locals maintain that the list significantly undercounts the number of wrecks that have cost fishermen their lives. 152
Fog Throughout the nineteenth century, as residents of coastal areas of New England went to sea to make a living, the risk of shipwreck along the rocky New England coast remained great. In the middle of the nineteenth century the whaling vessels of New England numbered more than 700. Because the ships possessed only relatively rudimentary navigational instruments and navigated by sight, fogs posed a real danger. Even the adoption of foghorns at many risky coastal points did not relieve the danger for sailing vessels. New technology, especially the invention of wireless radio in the late nineteenth century enabling ship-to-shore communication, reduced some of the risks posed by fog. Radio communication from shore stations to vessels during fog was only introduced gradually, however; the first such signal on the Great Lakes was sent in 1925. The invention of radar in World War II vastly reduced the risks of fog at sea, as it enabled vessels to “see” even under conditions of heavy fog. Marine disasters under foggy conditions did not disappear with the introduction of wireless radio, however. On May 29, 1914, the Empress of Ireland was struck by a Norwegian steam freighter on the St. Lawrence River; when the Norwegian vessel backed off, the Empress of Ireland quickly filled with water and went down within fifteen minutes. Although 444 people were saved, more than 1,000 died. All passengers were rescued when the George M. Cox struck Isle Royale in Lake Superior in 1933, despite foghorn warnings. Even the presence of radar did not prevent a collision between two vessels on Lake Michigan in October, 1973, although no one was injured. The most spectacular shipping disaster attributed to fog was, however, the sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria in July of 1956. The Swedish liner Stockholm struck the Andrea Doria just after 11 p.m. in heavy fog. The Swedish ship had a reinforced prow, and, despite being equipped with numerous watertight bulkheads, the Andrea Doria could not be saved; it sank in the Atlantic eleven hours later. All passengers who survived the impact were saved, however, by other ships that came to the rescue. Fog, when mixed with suspended particles in the air, can be a killer on its own. The famous London fogs, mixed with suspended particulate matter and called “smogs,” proved to be particularly intense between December 5 and 9, 1952. They are thought to be responsible for the deaths of more than 4,000 individuals. 153
Fog Fog also poses a danger to surface transportation. The greatest problems have arisen in situations where numerous trains use the same track and are dependent on signals that may not be readily visible in heavy fog. London has a history of train disasters due to fog and smog. In 1947, in South Croydon, an overcrowded suburban train was rammed from behind by a faster-moving train. The signaling equipment, only partly automated, failed to alert the faster train to the presence of the suburban train on the same track. In 1957, on a day when fog reduced the visibility to as little as 66 feet (20 meters), an express train struck an electrified suburban train at St. John’s, outside of London, killing 92 people. The introduction of fully automated signaling equipment has helped prevent such disasters, although as late as 1966 a passenger train crashed into the rear of a freight train in Villafranca, Italy, causing the death of 27 people. Fog is a major hazard to airplane traffic. Although most airplane accidents in the United States are not attributable to fog, in part because the stringent rules of the Federal Aviation Administration require that airports with severely reduced visibility be shut down, the danger is great. The crash of a Delta jet attempting to land at Logan International Airport in Boston on July 31, 1973, brought home the dangers posed by fog. Eighty-nine people lost their lives. Since then, airports have been shut down entirely when they are enveloped in fog, and incoming flights are diverted to other airports. The flight control system maintained by the federal government is entirely based on radar, which is unaffected by fog. Nancy M. Gordon Bibliography Barry, Roger G., and Richard J. Chorley. Atmosphere, Weather, and Climate. 8th ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. A strongly scientific presentation that treats fog as condensation. Provides numerous maps showing water vapor content at various locations. Gedzelman, Stanley David. The Science and Wonders of the Atmosphere. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980. Contains numerous diagrams and maps. Provides descriptions of the climate in various geographical areas, with the resulting vegetation. Numerous photographs. Hidore, John J., and John E. Oliver. Climatology: An Atmospheric Science. 154
Fog 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002. Contains excellent diagrams of the process of fog formation. A solid, scientific-based presentation for the general reader. Lockhart, Gary. The Weather Companion. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988. Contains some information on foghorns. Otherwise, a compendium of popular weather lore. Lydolph, Paul E. The Climate of the Earth. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1985. Although a generalized text on climatology, this text contains good material on the different kinds of fogs.
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Heat Waves Factors involved: Chemical reactions, geography, human activity, temperature, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Cities, coasts, deserts, plains, towns, valleys Definition Heat waves occur when the air temperature remains abnormally high for an extended period of time over a region. Heat waves destroy crops; damage infrastructure, such as roads, buildings, and railroad tracks; and cause both animal and human deaths. Science Heat waves are the result of a combination of natural factors and human activity. Natural factors include the normal heating of the earth’s atmosphere by short-wave radiation from the sun and longwave radiation from the earth, the flows of heat that make up the net radiation balance, the tilt of the earth, and the chemical makeup of the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. Human activity, mainly the burning of fossil fuels, is capable of changing the chemical makeup of the atmosphere and thus affects the heating of the earth’s atmosphere. Normal heating of the earth’s atmosphere occurs when radiant heat, or short-wave radiation, from the sun begins to heat the earth shortly after dawn. Radiation is defined as the transmission of energy in the form of electromagnetic waves. The short-wave radiation is absorbed by the earth. The earth then emits long-wave radiation, which is absorbed by the atmosphere as heat. (Wavelength refers to the distance between the wave crests of successive waves.) In summary, the sun’s rays heat the earth, the earth passes some of this heat to the air, or atmosphere, that surrounds it, and the atmosphere becomes warm. As the air near the earth warms, it rises, and cooler air descends. This rising and lowering sets air currents in motion in the atmosphere. These air currents carry the heat that under certain circumstances can become a heat wave. 156
Heat Waves A wide variety of factors can affect the amount of short-wave radiation that is absorbed by the earth. About 30 percent of the short-wave radiation coming to Earth is reflected by clouds or dust particles and never reaches the earth’s surface. Another 17 percent of the radiation is absorbed by clouds and other particles in the atmosphere. Thus, a change in the amount of clouds or particles in the atmosphere will affect the amount of radiation that reaches Earth. The condition of the earth’s surface also influences how much radiation is absorbed. The color, composition, and slope of the surface determine how much radiation is absorbed or reflected. Rays that strike the earth perpendicularly are less likely to be reflected. Rays that strike dark soil or dark surfaces are more likely to be absorbed than if they strike light-colored areas. Carbon dioxide, water vapor, and ozone are the three major components of the atmosphere that absorb the long-wave radiation emitted by the earth, with carbon dioxide absorbing the most. The higher the concentration of these substances becomes in the atmosphere, the more heat is absorbed and the hotter the air becomes. High concentrations of these chemicals also provide a blanket effect over the earth, preventing radiation and heat from escaping. This blanket effect results in a phenomenon called the “greenhouse effect.” In a greenhouse, the sun’s rays pass through the glass and warm the air within the greenhouse. The glass, however, then prevents the heat from escaping. Similarly, the sun’s radiation passes through the atmosphere, warming the earth and the air, and then the atmosphere stops the heat from escaping. Although the greenhouse effect occurs naturally, it can be influenced by human activity. When fossil fuels are burned, enormous quantities of carbon dioxide are produced and released into the atmosphere. Over the last one hundred years, human beings have increased their use of fossil fuels drastically. Generating electricity, heating buildings, and using automobiles are all human activities that currently depend on burning fossil fuels. Debate continues among scientists as to what role the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect play in global warming trends. When the radiation that leaves the earth is subtracted from the radiation that reaches earth, the amount of radiation left over is called the net radiation. Net radiation affects the earth’s climates and is a 157
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Milestones 1348-1350: Hot summers contribute to the spread of bubonic plague in Europe. 1665-1666: Very hot summers in London exacerbate the last plague epidemic. 1690: Siberia experiences extreme heat, probably due to southerly winds; at this time, Europe is abnormally cold. 1718-1719: Great heat and drought affect most of Europe during the summers of these years. 1845: Moist, southerly winds and a hot summer provide the perfect growing conditions for the potato blight fungus, resulting in the Irish Potato Famine. 1902: Willis H. Carrier designs the first system to control the temperature of air. 1906: The term “air-conditioning” is used for the first time by an engineer named Stuart W. Cramer. 1936: Dust Bowl conditions arise in the central United States; 15,000 to 20,000 die. 1968-1973: Drought occurs in the Sahel region of Africa. 1972: A heat wave affects Russia and Finland. 1975-1976: Heat waves are recorded in Denmark and the Netherlands. 1980: A heat wave in Texas produces forty-two consecutive days above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 1990: The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that, if unchecked, greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions produced by human activity could raise world surface temperatures by 0.25 degree Celsius per decade in the twenty-first century. August, 1994: A severe heat wave and drought parches Japan; blocks of ice are put in subway stations for travelers to rub their heads against. 1995: The IPCC predicts carbon dioxide and greenhouse emissions to raise Earth’s surface temperature between 0.8 and 3.5 degrees Celsius within one hundred years. July, 1995: A heat wave in the midwestern United States kills almost 500 people in Chicago alone, as well as 4,000 cattle.
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Heat Waves July, 1998: A heat wave hits the southwestern and northeastern United States; daytime temperatures in Texas hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit, with forty-one days of above-100-degree weather, causing huge crop losses and 144 deaths. July, 1998: Worldwide, July is determined to be the hottest month in history to date. August, 1998: India reaches 124 degrees Fahrenheit; 3,000 people die in the worst heat wave there in fifty years. August, 1998: As a result of summer heat, 50 people die in Cyprus, and 30 die in Greece and Italy; grapes die on vines. August, 1998: In Germany, record heat produces severe smog, and cars lacking antipollution devices are banned. July-August, 2003: A heat wave grips all of Europe, especially France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal; as many as 40,000 die from heat-related causes, and drought and wildfires follow.
source of heat for earth. Thus, all factors that affect radiation to and from the earth will influence the possible development of heat waves. Geography Heat waves can occur anywhere on Earth. A wide range of countries have reported heat waves, including the United States, Canada, Russia, India, Japan, many European countries, many African countries, Australia, and Cyprus. Heat waves generally occur over land masses rather than over the oceans. More energy is required to raise temperatures over water than over land, so temperature fluctuations are more prevalent over land. Thus, islands that are surrounded by large bodies of water do not experience heat waves. Since air cools as the altitude increases, mountainous areas are less susceptible to heat waves than are lower areas. Urban areas tend to have higher rates of heat-related deaths than do rural areas. The heat retention of urban structures contributes to the natural heat of the heat wave. Also, the tall buildings and the pollution of urban areas stagnate the movement of air, thus intensifying the effects of a heat wave. Many areas of the United States have been affected by heat waves. 159
Heat Waves In 1901, 9,508 heat-related deaths occurred in the midwestern states. During the brutally hot summer of 1936, 15,000 to 20,000 people perished from the heat. As recently as July, 1995, heat in the Midwest killed almost 500 Chicago residents. Heat waves have devastated the southern states and have wreaked havoc in both New England and California. Neither Hawaii nor Alaska has recorded a heat wave. Although Hawaii is located near the equator, the Pacific Ocean surrounding Hawaii moderates its temperatures. Alaskan summer days can be hot, but they only go above 90 degrees Fahrenheit occasionally. Prevention and Preparations Human beings are powerless to control the natural forces, such as radiation, that affect heat waves. However, human beings can control the amount of fossil fuels they burn, and thus somewhat control the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Numerous international conferences have been held to discuss this issue. Although heat waves are not preventable, both individuals and communities can prepare for heat waves and reduce their harmful effects. Individuals should discuss with family members what they would do during a heat wave and should identify the coolest places to be while at home, at work, or at school. They should learn about places in the community where people can go for help, plan daily activities for the coolest time of day, and refrain from physical activity during the midday hours. Wearing lightweight, light-colored clothing and staying out of the sun can reduce the effects of a heat wave. People should talk to their doctors about any medications or medical conditions that would affect their ability to tolerate heat, as well as learn the signs and symptoms of heat stroke and heat exhaustion and first-aid treatments for these conditions. Community support programs can greatly reduce loss of life. Those most at risk are the elderly, the poor, and those with health conditions that reduce the ability to tolerate heat. Obtaining air conditioners and fans for those who need them has been effective in saving lives. Establishing “cool centers,” areas that are air-conditioned, where people can go to cool down, can also help reduce fatalities. Media announcements, especially television and radio, inform and alert people to the dangers of heat waves. During the Chicago heat wave of 1995, police officers even went door to door to check on elderly citizens. 160
Heat Waves Rescue and Relief Efforts To save lives, rescue and relief efforts must be started as soon as the heat wave hits. The two dangerous medical conditions that result when heat waves occur are heat exhaustion and heat stroke, the latter being the more serious. When someone is exposed to hot weather for an extended time and does not take in adequate water and salt, heat exhaustion occurs. The human body cools itself by sweating; the evaporation of water from the skin reduces body heat. Excessive sweating causes the body to lose large amounts of water and salt. Extended exposure to heat requires the body to sweat profusely in an effort to get rid of heat. If the water and salt lost in this process are not replaced, the body’s attempts to cool itself eventually become ineffective, and heat exhaustion occurs. The symptoms of heat exhaustion include pale, clammy skin, rapid pulse and breathing, headache, muscle cramps, dizziness, and a sick and faint feeling. If heat exhaustion occurs, the victim should lie down in as cool a place as possible with his or her feet raised slightly, loosen tight clothing, and replace lost fluids by drinking water. One level teaspoon of salt added to each quart (or liter) of water will help to replace the salt lost during excessive sweating. Heat exhaustion must be treated immediately or it will progress to heat stroke. Heat stroke, also called sunstroke, occurs when the body’s temperature regulation mechanism fails. This mechanism, which is located in the brain, normally helps the body maintain a constant temperature by telling the body to shiver if it needs to become warmer or to sweat if it needs to cool. If a person suffers a heat stroke, this mechanism stops functioning and the body temperature starts to rise to 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) or higher. This is a medical emergency, and medical help should be sought immediately. The symptoms of heat stroke include flushed, hot, dry skin; strong, rapid pulse; confusion; and ultimately unconsciousness. To treat heat stroke until medical help arrives, victims should be moved to the coolest place possible. Their clothing should be removed, and they should be sponged with cool or tepid water and fanned by hand or with an electric fan. A blow-dryer set on cool may also be used.
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Heat Waves Impact In the United States alone, heat waves have been responsible for the loss of billions of dollars and thousands of human lives. Heat waves damage property, both privately and publicly owned. They kill cattle and destroy crops. Excessive heat causes roads to buckle and crumble, and it warps metal, causing, for example, railroad tracks to bend, resulting in train derailments. Heat waves have been connected to increased cases of riots, violence, and homicides. Sustained heat waves are very difficult for the human body to tolerate. When heat waves occur, normal daily activity must be adjusted in order for humans to survive. Historical Overview Throughout history, extremes in temperature have greatly affected human existence. From 543 to 547 c.e., the entire Roman world suffered from plague. Great heat in the area contributed to the spread of the disease. Hot weather caused the flea that transmitted the bubonic plague to speed up its life cycle. The European countries were also affected by wave after wave of disease from 1348 until 1665. Again, the hot summers furthered the spread of the disease. Detailed weather records from early times do not exist. Information about weather is inferred from the reports of travelers and food availability. Weather reports from the sixteenth century have survived. However, reports based on instrument readings did not appear until the seventeenth century. These records show that periods of high temperature have been recorded for many areas on earth, including Europe, Africa, China, India, Australia, and North America. As time progressed, the records became much more detailed. Thus, much of the information available on heat waves relates to events occurring after the middle of the nineteenth century. Heat waves have been a contributing factor in human migration patterns. In Ireland, in 1845, hot summer temperatures favored the growth of the organism that caused the potato blight fungus. Failure of the potato crop resulted in widespread famine. Over the next six years around 1 million people died in Ireland. Although an epidemic of typhus contributed to the death toll, hunger played a significant role. Believing that there were more opportunities elsewhere, thousands of Irish immigrated to the United States. 162
Heat Waves In the United States, heat waves have been responsible for thousands of deaths and the loss of billions of dollars in the twentieth century alone. The century began with a very hot summer in 1901. It is reported that 9,500 people died that summer. The summer of 1936 was brutally hot; an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people lost their lives. Those who survived often lost their farms and everything for which they had worked. Again, heat waves influenced migration; families left the “Dust Bowl” area of the middle United States and moved toward the coasts, where more fertile land was to be found. The air-conditioning of homes began in the 1930’s, but it was not in prevalent use. In 1980, only 30 percent of the homes in the United States had air-conditioning, which greatly reduces death tolls during heat waves. The heat wave of 1980 in the midwestern United States killed 1,265. The heat wave of 1988 resulted in 10,000 casualties. In 1995, almost 500 people in Chicago died within one week. The same heat wave killed 4,000 cattle. The increasing frequency and severity of heat waves worldwide beginning in the last half of the twentieth century generated tremendous concern in the scientific community. Much effort went into studying weather patterns in an attempt to determine whether these heat waves are just part of a natural fluctuation of weather or if human activity is contributing to the warming of the earth. The damage done by heat waves does not affect all socioeconomic classes to the same degree. The economically disadvantaged suffer more dire consequences when heat waves hit than do those with resources. During the heat wave that struck Chicago in 1995, most of the fatalities were people who were poor and elderly. Most lived in the top floors of old apartment buildings that were not air-conditioned. People with resources obtained air-conditioning or left the city. Farmers are another group of people who are hard hit by heat waves. When heat waves destroy crops or kill cattle, the farmer’s livelihood is destroyed as well. Meanwhile, an accountant who lives in an air-conditioned home in the city pays a bit more for hamburger but hardly notices. Thus, heat waves affect some social classes more than others. In other countries, cultural issues can play a role. In July and August, 2003, a severe heat wave in Europe claimed as many as 40,000 victims, many in France. Most homes in Europe do not have air163
Heat Waves conditioning, and the effects of the heat wave were worsened by the tradition of August vacations, with few people around to check on elderly residents. Louise Magoon Bibliography Abrahamson, Dean Edwin. The Challenge of Global Warming. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1989. Provides a through discussion of the greenhouse effect. American Red Cross. Heat Wave. Stock Number NOAA/PA 94052. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1998. This pamphlet gives very practical advice on how to survive a heat wave. Clayman, Charles B. The American Medical Association Family Medical Guide. 3d ed. New York: Random House, 1994. Offers a thorough description of heat exhaustion and heat stroke and the first-aid treatments for these conditions. DeBlij, H. J., and Peter O. Muller. Physical Geography of the Global Environment. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. This geography textbook describes the heating of the earth’s atmosphere, global distribution of heat flows, the greenhouse effect, and climate changes. Graedel, T. E., and Paul J. Crutzen. Atmosphere, Climate, and Change. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1995. This book gives a very easy-toread description of weather, temperature, and climatic changes. _______. Atmospheric Change: An Earth System Perspective. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1993. Details the chemistry of the atmosphere and climate and describes ancient climate histories. Kirch, W., B. Menne, and R. Bertollini, eds. Extreme Weather Events and Public Health Responses. Berlin: Springer, 2005. Describes the development of and the damage caused by extreme weather events in Europe since the 1970’s. Lyons, Walter A. The Handy Weather Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997. Using a question-and-answer format, the author gives short, simple answers to questions that are posed. Oliver, John E. The Encyclopedia of Climatology. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1987. Provides a good discussion of the effects of temperature extremes.
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Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Factors involved: Geography, gravitational forces, rain, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Cities, coasts, forests, islands, oceans, rivers, towns Definition Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are storms formed over tropical oceans. A single storm can cover hundreds of thousands of square miles and has interior winds of from 74 to over 155 miles per hour. Hurricanes are known as the “greatest storms on earth,” and destruction goes beyond wind damage, as storm surges and subsequent flooding have caused many of the greatest natural disasters in the world. Hurricane damage in the United States continues to rise as more people move to coastal areas; however, the loss of life has decreased because of better forecasting and evacuation methods. Science A hurricane (from the Caribbean word huraka’n), also called a typhoon (a combination of t’ai feng, Chinese for “great wind,” and typhon, Greek for “whirlwind”), requires warm surface water, high humidity, and winds from the same direction at a constant speed in order to form. All hurricanes begin as cyclonic tropical low-pressure regions, having a circular motion that is counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. These depressions can develop only in areas where the ocean temperatures are over 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius). The eye structure of a hurricane, which must be present in order for a storm to be classified as a hurricane, demands temperatures of 79 to 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit (26 to 27 degrees Celsius) to form. In hurricane formation, heat is extracted from the ocean, and warm, moist air begins to rise. As it rises, it forms clouds and instability in the upper atmosphere. The ascending air then begins to spiral inward toward the center of the system. This spiraling movement 165
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Milestones 1588: A major storm destroys the Spanish Armada, which is seeking to escape the English navy under Sir Francis Drake. August 15, 1635: A hurricane strikes Massachusetts and Rhode Island coastal settlements. September 27, 1727: A hurricane strikes the New England coast. September 15 and October 1, 1752: Two hurricanes strike South and North Carolina. September 8-9, 1769: The Atlantic coast, from the Carolinas to New England, is hit by a hurricane. October 22-23, 1783: A hurricane strikes the Atlantic coast, from the Carolinas to New England. August 13, 1856: A hurricane striking Last Island, Louisiana, results in a death toll of 137. 1890: The Federal Weather Bureau is created. 1898: A hurricane warning network is established in the West Indies. September 8, 1900: A hurricane in Galveston, Texas, leads to the highest death toll from a hurricane to date, from the following storm surge. September 15-22, 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane strikes Florida and the Gulf states, resulting in 243 dead. September 10-16, 1928: A Category 4 storm, the San Felipe, or Lake Okeechobee, hurricane claims over 4,000 lives in the Caribbean and Florida. September 21, 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 causes high winds, flooding, and a storm surge that leave 680 dead, more than 1,700 injured, and $400 million in damage. December 17-18, 1944: A typhoon in the Philippine Sea kills 790. September 4-21, 1947: A hurricane impacts the Gulf states, leaving over 50 dead. 1953: The system of naming hurricanes is adopted. October 12-18, 1954: Hurricane Hazel strikes the Atlantic coast, causing 411 deaths and $1 billion in damage. June 27-30, 1957: More than 500 die when Hurricane Audrey hits the Louisiana and Texas coastlines. September 6-12, 1960: The Atlantic coast’s Hurricane Donna results in 168 dead and almost $2 billion in damage.
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Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones August 15-18, 1969: Hurricane Camille rages across the southern United States; 258 die. November 12-13, 1970: The Bhola cyclone strikes the Ganges Delta and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing at least 300,000 people. June 21-23, 1972: 122 die during Hurricane Agnes. September 7-14, 1979: Hurricane Frederic strikes the Gulf Coast states, causing $1.7 billion in damage. September 12-17, 1988: Hurricane Gilbert kills 260 in the Caribbean and Mexico. September 13-22, 1989: 75 die as Hurricane Hugo strikes the Caribbean, then South Carolina. April 30, 1991: A cyclone hits Bangladesh and kills more than 131,000. August 22-26, 1992: Hurricane Andrew strikes southern Florida, leaving 50 dead and $26 billion in damage. July 5-15, 1996: Hurricane Bertha hits the Caribbean and the Atlantic coast; winds exceed 100 miles per hour. November 3, 1997: Typhoon Linda kills more than 1,100 in Vietnam. June 9, 1998: A cyclone hits the Indian state of Gujarat; more than 1,300 are killed. September 16-29, 1998: 400 die when Hurricane Georges strikes in the Caribbean, then the Gulf Coast; winds exceed 130 miles per hour. October 27, 1998: Hurricane Mitch hits Central America; the death toll exceeds 11,000. February 11, 1999: Cyclone Rona strikes Queensland, Australia; 1,800 are left homeless. October 4-9, 2001: Hurricane Iris kills 31 and does $150 million in property damage in Belize. September 18, 2003: Category 5 hurricane Isabel makes landfall south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, leaving 53 dead and property damage of $3.37 million. 2004: Four Category 5 storms—Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne— make landfall in the United States, the most in a hurricane season since 1963. August 25-September 2, 2005: Hurricane Katrina kills 1,500-2,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and leaves hundreds missing; property damage is estimated at $75 billion. The levees protecting New Orleans are breached, and the city is completely flooded. Two other powerful hurricanes, Rita and Wilma, hit the Gulf Coast shortly afterward.
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Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones causes the seas to become turbulent; large amounts of sea spray are then captured and suspended in the air. This spray increases the rate of evaporation and helps fuel the storm. As the vortex of wind, water vapor, and clouds spins at an increasing rate, the eye of the hurricane forms. The eye, which is at the center of the hurricane, is a relatively calm area that experiences only light winds and fair weather. The most violent activity in the hurricane takes place in the area around the eye, called the eyewall. In the eyewall, the spiraling air rises and cools and moisture condenses into droplets that form rainbands and clouds. The process of condensation releases latent heat that causes the air to rise and form more condensation. The air rises rapidly, resulting in an area of extremely low pressure close to the storm’s center. The severity of a hurricane is often indicated by how low the pressure readings are in the central area of the hurricane. As the air moves higher, up to 50,000 feet, it is propelled outward in an anticyclonic flow. At the same time some of the air moves inward and into the eye. The compression of air in the eye causes the temperature to rise. This warmer air can hold considerable moisture, and the water droplets in the central clouds then evaporate. As a result, the eye of the hurricane becomes nearly cloud-free. In the middle and upper levels of the storm, the temperature in the eye becomes much warmer than the outside. Therefore, a large pressure differential develops across the eyewall, which helps to produce the violence of the storm. The hurricane winds create waves of 50 to 60 feet in the open ocean. Winds in a hurricane are not symmetrical around the eye. Facing the direction the hurricane is moving, the strongest winds are usually to the right of the eye and can move at speeds up to 200 miles per hour. The radius of hurricane winds can vary from 10 miles in small hurricanes to 100 miles in large hurricanes. The strength of the wind decreases in relation to its distance from the eye. Depending on the size of the eye, which can range from 3 to 40 miles in diameter, a calm period of blue skies and mild winds can last from a few minutes to hours as the eye moves across a given area. The calm is deceptive because it does not mark the end of the storm but a momentary lapse in intensity until the winds from the opposite direction hit. 168
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Storms resembling hurricanes but that are less intense are classified by their central pressure and wind speed. Winds up to 39 miles per hour (34 knots) are classified as tropical depressions, and winds of 40 to 73 miles per hour (35 to 64 knots) are called tropical storms. To be classified as a hurricane, storms must have sustained winds of 74 miles per hour or higher. All hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere have a general track, beginning as a westward movement in response to the trade winds, veering northward because of anticyclonic wind flow around subtropical high pressure regions, and finally trending northeastward toward polar regions in response to the flow of the prevailing westerly winds. The specific path that each storm travels is very sporadic. Some will travel in a general curved path, while others change course quite rapidly. They can reverse direction, zig-zag, veer from the coast back to the ocean, intensify over water, stall, return to the same area, make loops, and move in any direction at any given time. The path of a hurricane is affected by pressure systems of the surrounding atmosphere and the influence of prevailing winds as well as
A satellite view of a hurricane as it approaches the United States. The cyclonic motion of the “arms” and the eye are visible. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones the earth’s rotation. Hurricanes can also be influenced by the presence of high and low pressure systems on the land they invade. The high pressure areas act as barriers to the hurricanes, and if a high is well developed, its outward spiraling flow will guide the hurricane around its edges. Low pressure systems tend to attract hurricane systems. The greatest cause of death and destruction in a hurricane comes from the rise of the sea in a storm surge. As the hurricane crosses the continental shelf and moves to the coast, the water level may increase 15 to 20 feet. The drop in atmospheric pressure at sea level within the hurricane causes the storm surge. The force of the reduced pressure allows the hurricane to suck up the seas and to allow the winds in front of it to pile up the water against the coastline. This results in a wall of water that can be up to 20 feet high and 50 to 100 miles wide. This wall of water can sweep across the coastline where the hurricane makes landfall. The combination of shallow shore water and strong hurricane winds makes for the highest surge of water. If the storm surge arrives at the same time as the high tide, the water heights of the surge can increase an additional 3 to 4 feet. The height of the storm surge also depends upon the angle at which the storm strikes the coast. Hurricanes that make landfall at right angles to the coast will cause a higher storm surge than hurricanes that enter the coast at an oblique angle. Often the slope or shape of the coast and ocean bottom can cause a bottleneck effect and a higher storm surge. Water weighs approximately 1,700 pounds per cubic yard, and when lifted to any great height its weight can be very destructive. The storm surge is responsible for 90 percent of the deaths in a hurricane. The pounding of the waves caused by the hurricane can easily demolish buildings. Storm surges can cause severe erosion of beaches and coastal highways. Often, buildings that have survived hurricane winds have had their foundations eroded by the sea surge or have been demolished by the force of the waves. Storm surges and waves in harbors can destroy ships. The salt water that inundates land can kill existing vegetation, and the residual salt left in the soil makes it difficult to grow new plants. Precipitation from hurricanes can be more intense than from any other source. The amount of rainfall received during a hurricane de170
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones pends on the diameter of the rain band within the hurricane and the hurricane’s speed. A typhoon in the Philippines in 1944 caused 73.62 inches of rain to fall in a twenty-four-hour period, a world record. Heavy rainfall can cause flash floods or river system floods. Flash floods last from thirty minutes to four hours and are caused by heavy rainfall over a small area that has insufficient drainage. This causes excess water to flow over land and overflow streambeds, resulting in damage to bridges, underpasses, and low-lying areas. The strong currents in flash floods can move cars off roads, destroy bridges, and erode roadbeds. River system floods develop more slowly. Two or three days after a hurricane, large rivers may overflow their beds because of excessive runoff from the saturated land surface. River floods cover extensive areas, last a week or more, and destroy both property and crops. When the floodwaters retreat, buildings and residences can be full of mud. Often, all furnishings, appliances, wallboard, and even interior insulation within the structure must be completely replaced because of the infiltration of the mud. Rain driven by the wind in hurricanes can cause extensive damage to buildings because of leakage around windows, through cracks, and under shingles. Hurricanes often spawn tornadoes. The tornadoes associated with hurricanes are usually about half the size of tornadoes in the Midwest and are of a shorter duration. The area these tornadoes affect is small, usually 200 to 300 yards in width and not quite 1 mile long. Yet even though they are smaller tornadoes, they can be very destructive, ruining everything in their path. Tornadoes normally occur to the right of the direction of the hurricane’s movement. Ninety-four percent of tornadoes occur within 10 to 120 degrees from the hurricane eye and beyond the area of hurricane-force winds. Tornadoes associated with hurricanes are most often observed in Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas, and the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico and the south Atlantic Ocean. Geography Because hurricanes require temperatures of 79 to 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit (26 to 27 degrees Celsius) to form, they will rarely develop above 20 degrees latitude because the ocean temperatures are never warm enough to provide the heat energy needed for formation. In 171
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones the Northern Hemisphere the convergence of air that is ideal for hurricane development occurs above tropical waters when easterly moving waves develop in the trade winds. The region around the equator is called the “doldrums” because there is no wind flow. Hurricanes, needing wind to form, can be found as little as 4 to 5 degrees away from the equator. At these latitudes the Coriolis effect, a deflecting force associated with the earth’s rotation, gives the winds the spin necessary to form hurricanes. Hurricanes evolve in specific areas of the west Atlantic, east Pacific, south Pacific, western north Pacific, and north and south Indian Oceans. They rarely move closer to the equator than 4 or 5 degrees latitude north or south, and no hurricane has ever crossed the equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricanes are common from June through November; in the Southern Hemisphere, the hurricane season occurs from December to May. In the Western Hemisphere, these storms are called hurricanes. They are referred to as typhoons in the western Pacific, cyclones in the Indian Ocean, Willy Willys near Australia, and baguious in the Philippines. The swirling motion of these storms is counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Prevention and Preparations Hurricanes cannot be prevented; therefore, steps need to be taken to avoid loss of life and destruction of property. Persons in hurricane areas need to be aware of and respond to hurricane watches and warnings forecast by the National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, and local media. The National Hurricane Center is responsible for forecasting hurricane watches and warnings for the Atlantic and eastern Pacific north of the equator. Although both warning capacity timing and accuracy have greatly improved, predictions can still be inaccurate by as much as 100 miles in a twenty-four-hour period. Before a watch or warning is forecast, residents need to prepare a home evacuation plan. This involves determining where the family will go if a hurricane threatens. The options include staying with friends or relatives outside the area or going to public shelters. Evacuation supplies such as extra cash, hygiene products, drinking water, 172
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones batteries, bedding, clothing for wet and cold conditions, prescriptions, canned foods, and road maps should be kept on hand. A threeweek supply for each person and pet is recommended. Restoration supplies should also be organized and stored together for use after residents are able to return home. Restoration supplies include rope and chains, brooms and shovels, rolls of heavy plastic, duct tape, tools, nails, pruning shears and saws, large-capacity garbage bags, nonperishable foods, folding lawn chairs, mosquito spray and netting, and chlorine bleach to be used for purifying water. In order to protect homes in hurricane areas, shutters should be installed to protect windows. In some cases thin plywood can be used to cover large windows. Masking tape or duct tape applied to windows can help control some of the shattering in window breakage. Gas grills and propane gas tanks should be stored in a safe place so they are not damaged or do not explode during the storm. It is recommended that dead vegetation around the house be cleared and any coconuts removed from the trees so that they will not become destructive debris in the midst of the hurricane. All objects kept outside should be tied down, and all electricity, water, and gas should be turned off at the main panel if a hurricane warning is issued. Insurance policies, inventory records, and important documents should be kept in safe-deposit facilities. Trees and shrubbery should be cut in such a manner as to allow air to flow through them so that they will survive in hurricane winds. If a hurricane watch is issued, windows should be covered and backup systems such as portable pumps to remove floodwater, alternate power sources, and battery-powered lighting should be made available. Because a hurricane watch means that a hurricane is possible in twenty-four to thirty-six hours, residents should be prepared for evacuation if one is called. A hurricane warning indicates that a hurricane will reach land within twenty-four hours. All utilities should be turned off and loose items secured. Small items inside the house should be placed on countertops in order to avoid damage in case of flooding. Cash, social security cards, drivers’ licenses, wills, medical records, bank account information, small valuables, and photo albums should be put in waterproof bags to ensure their safety. Garbage cans, lawn furniture, and bicycles should be brought inside. Cars should be filled 173
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones with gas and should contain evacuation maps; if evacuation is called for, then emergency plans should be put into action. One way to survive a hurricane is to build a “safe room” or shelter in the house. The shelter must be built where it cannot be flooded during a hurricane. It must be anchored to the foundation of the house in such a way as to resist uplift or overturning in the storm. All the connections in the shelter must be strong enough to resist structural failure and penetration by wind-blown debris. Rescue and Relief Efforts Devastation after a hurricane can range from light to catastrophic, depending on the storm’s intensity. Millions of cubic yards of debris can be left in a hurricane’s wake. Before residents are allowed to return to a hurricane area, emergency management personnel make search and rescue and preliminary damage assessments. Residents are not allowed back until the area is determined safe. Dangling wires, fallen trees, debris, and washed-out roads can make travel into the area difficult or impossible until cleanup has been accomplished. Debris can consist of trees, shrubs, building materials, and hazardous waste, such as paints, solvents, batteries, and insecticides. As this debris is cleaned up, Emergency Management and Environmental Resource Management personnel, with the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will need to authorize and manage the disposal of the debris. Task forces work with regulatory agencies to determine the impact of incineration and other disposal methods. The Red Cross and other volunteer agencies help provide needed relief. Often there is deterioration or contamination of water supplies, and the Red Cross supplies bottled water as well as nonperishable foods. Shelters may be set up for those left without homes. Residents are advised not to enter their homes or businesses before officials have checked for structural damage. They are told to beware of such outdoor hazards as downed power lines, weakened limbs on trees, or damaged overhanging structures. People need to be aware that poisonous snakes are often driven from their dens by high water and seek refuge in trees and structures. Residents are encouraged to take as many photographs of the damage to their property as possible for insurance purposes. If their homes are livable, the long process of cleanup begins. 174
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Impact The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale categorizes the storm intensity of hurricanes into five levels. Category 1 hurricanes are considered weak and have sustained winds of 75 to 95 miles per hour. They cause minimal damage to buildings but do damage unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery, and trees. Normally they cause coastal road flooding and minor damage to piers. Storm surges seen in Category 1 hurricanes are usually 5 to 7 feet above normal. Category 2 hurricanes, with wind speeds of 96 to 110 miles per hour, damage roofing materials, doors, and windows on buildings. They also cause substantial damage to trees, shrubs, mobile homes, and piers. Utility lines can be blown down, and vehicles may be blown off bridges. Flooding of roads and low-lying areas normally occurs two to four hours before the center of the hurricane arrives. Storm surges are estimated to be 8 to 12 feet high under these conditions. Category 3 hurricanes are considered strong, with winds of 111 to 130 miles per hour; large trees can be blown down. These storms destroy mobile homes and can cause structural damage to residences and utility buildings. Small structures can be destroyed, and structures near the coastline can sustain damage from battering waves and floating debris. Flooding from this level of hurricane can destroy small structures near the coast, while larger structures normally sustain damage from floating debris. There can be flooding 8 miles or more inland. Coastal areas can sustain storm surges of 11 to 16 feet. Category 4 hurricanes are categorized as very strong, with winds of 131 to 155 miles per hour. These storms can blow down trees, shrubs, power lines, and antenna towers. They cause extensive damage to single-family structures and cause major beach erosion. They can damage lower floors of structures, and the flooding can undermine foundations. Residences often sustain roof structure failure and subsequent rain damage. Land lower than 10 feet above sea level can be flooded, which would cause massive evacuation of residential areas up to 6 miles inland. Storm surges may reach 14 to 20 feet at this level. Category 5 hurricanes are classified as devastating, sustaining winds greater than 155 miles per hour. Evacuations of residents living within 5 to 10 miles of the shoreline may be required. Such a strong hurricane can cause complete roof failure on residential and indus175
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones trial buildings, as well as some complete building failures. Major utilities are usually destroyed in this level of hurricane. Structures less than 15 feet above sea level can sustain major damage to lower floors, and massive evacuations of residential areas usually occur. Storm surges associated with these severe hurricanes can be 18 feet or higher. The devastation of hurricane winds is exemplified by the fact that the wind force applied to an object increases with the square of the wind speed. A building 100 feet long and 10 feet high that has 100mile-per-hour winds blowing against it would experience 40,000 pounds of force being exerted against its walls. This is because a 100mile-per-hour wind exerts a force of approximately 40 pounds per square foot. If the wind speed was 160 miles per hour, the force against the house would be 100,000 pounds. Additionally, winds in a hurricane do not blow at a constant speed. The wind speeds can increase and decrease rapidly. The wind pressure on the house and fluctuating wind speed can create enough stress to cause connections between building components to fail. Often the roof or siding can be ripped off the house, or windows may be pushed in. Structures that fail because of the effects of extreme winds often look as if they have exploded. Rain blown by the wind also contributes to an increase of pressure on buildings and can result in structure failure. Flying debris, often referred to as “windborne missiles,” can be thrown at a building with enough force to penetrate the walls, windows, or roof. A 2-by-4-inch piece of wood that weighs 15 pounds can have a speed of 100 miles per hour when carried by a 250-mile-perhour wind. This will enable it to penetrate most reinforced masonry. The impact of hurricanes goes beyond the destruction of homes and property. Agricultural loss, oil platform and drilling rig damage, and destruction of boats can range into millions and even billions of dollars. Property loss alone in 1992’s Hurricane Andrew was approximately $25 billion. Agriculture, petroleum industry, and boat losses in Florida and Louisiana amounted to another $1 billion. The marine environment is also impacted by hurricanes. There can be changes in near-shore water quality, as well as bottom scouring and beach overwash. Fuel from damaged boats can discharge into the water for days. Often, sponges, corals, and other marine life will be severely impacted. 176
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Historical Overview Hurricanes are major tropical storms that originate in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Africa between June and November. Similar storms can develop in the Pacific Ocean, where they are called typhoons, and in the Indian Ocean, where they are called cyclones. Hurricanes have clearly existed since the end of the last ice age, but their impact on humans has increased markedly with the growth of population in the coastal areas hit by these storms. The Atlantic Coast and the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico are the two areas most affected by Atlantic hurricanes. The tail end of such a storm may have destroyed the remains of the Spanish Armada in 1588, when it sought to escape the victorious English fleet by sailing around the British Isles. Hurricanes have had a profound impact on the vegetation of the Atlantic coastline. These “disturbances,” as ecologists classify them, have the effect of destroying so much of the vegetation that the process of ecological succession must start over in the areas affected by hurricanes. There is, on average, one hurricane per century at any particular point on the Atlantic coast; in the twentieth century, a Category 4 hurricane struck the Atlantic coast once every six years, on average. Hurricanes are classified according to wind speed from 1 to 5; Category 4 hurricanes have windspeeds of 131-155 miles per hour. What is known about hurricanes before the twentieth century comes mainly from descriptive records. It is known, for example, that what has been described as a “hurricane” struck the coastline of Rhode Island and Massachusetts in 1635, and another hit about a century later, in 1727. In 1752, the Carolinas were hit, and in 1769 and again in 1783 hurricanes struck the Atlantic coastline from South Carolina to New England. How much destruction was done by these hurricanes, or how many may have lost their lives, is unknown because records of that sort were not kept at that time. Scientists are sure that a hurricane that missed New Orleans on August 13, 1856, wiped out the settlement on Last Island, off the Louisiana coast. The Federal Weather Bureau was created in 1890, and in 1898 an early warning network was set up in the West Indies—the first steps in the system that, by the end of the twentieth century, succeeded in reducing the loss of life from hurricanes. Notwithstanding, these early warning efforts did not prevent what is still, from the 177
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones standpoint of loss of life, the most devastating hurricane in U.S. history, the one that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900; estimates of the death toll (arising as much from the following storm surge) reach about 12,000. Deaths by drowning are common features of some of the earlier known hurricanes, a hazard that has been mitigated by the evacuation of communities in the path of a hurricane. A storm that hit the Miami, Florida, area in 1926 left more than 200 people dead. More than 4,000 died in 1928 when, as a consequence of the storm named for it, Lake Okeechobee overflowed. This disaster, also known as the San Felipe hurricane, led to the construction of a levee around the lake. Only 47 were killed in 1933 when a hurricane struck the midAtlantic coast. This hurricane led to further actions on the part of government to prevent the loss of life from hurricanes. Notwithstanding preventive measures, the 1930’s had one of the most destructive hurricanes of the twentieth century, when the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 struck New England and pushed inland, killing more than 600 people and causing extensive damage, particularly to the forests of New England. Even though this hurricane qualified as only a Category 2 storm, the extent of the damage etched it permanently in the minds of many New Englanders. Major changes in the government’s handling of hurricane alerts resulted from technological advances in the 1930’s and particularly during World War II. The radio made advance warning of large populations much easier as it became popular in the 1930’s. World War II, however, with its extensive use of airplanes, revolutionized the handling of hurricane information. With airplanes, it became possible to fly over the disturbances as they progressed from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa toward the Atlantic coastline of the Western Hemisphere. It thus became customary to follow the path of a hurricane and to forewarn threatened populations by radio. Because the radio message was easier to understand when it had a name attached to it, the practice of naming hurricanes began in 1953. In 1965 U.S. president Lyndon Johnson reorganized the government’s weather monitoring system. Prior to that, in 1955, two new facilities were created: the National Hurricane Center in Miami and the Experimental Meteorology Laboratory, also in Miami. The latter 178
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Rows of houses in Greenville, North Carolina, are flooded after Hurricane Floyd dumped as much as 20 inches of rain on the coast. (FEMA)
performs meteorological research, and the former tracks the paths of hurricanes as they develop. They subsequently became part of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 1978 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was added by President Jimmy Carter to the governmental organizations designed to deal with hurricanes and other natural disasters. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Camille, which struck the Gulf Coast on August 17, 1969, made clear the importance of united societal action. Although Camille caused only 258 deaths—as compared with predecessors Audrey in 1957, in which more than 500 people lost their lives, and Hilda, which killed 304 people in 1964— but the value of the property destroyed by Camille soared into the billions and focused people’s minds on the problem of hurricanes. Hurricanes have been quite erratic in where they strike land (they generally lose force quickly once they move over land), but the Gulf Coast has been a favorite target. In August, 1970, Hurricane Celia struck Texas and Florida; in September, 1979, Hurricane Frederic 179
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones landed on the Gulf Coast (in 1979 men’s names as well as women’s began to be used), in 1985 Hurricane Juan struck the Gulf Coast, and in September, 1988, Hurricane Gilbert hit the Caribbean and Mexico. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit chiefly South Florida but also went on to Louisiana, and in 1998 Hurricane Georges struck first in the Caribbean and then traveled to the Gulf Coast. In 2005, numerous strong hurricanes formed, with several striking the Gulf Coast. The worst by far was Hurricane Katrina, which devastated Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and left as many as 2,000 dead. Despite the severity of that season, analysis of the history of hurricanes indicates that, beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, intense hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean decreased. No conclusive scientific evidence has been found for linking hurricanes to global warming. There is some connection between the formation of hurricanes and the heat over the Sahel in Africa, but it provides no indication as to where any hurricanes that might form will strike land in North America. It has been found that the number of deaths caused by hurricanes can be reduced dramatically by evacuating the residents of an area in the path of a hurricane. If a hurricane strikes the coast of North America in a relatively uninhabited area, destruction will probably be extensive but few lives will be lost. However, the rapid growth of coastal populations makes it less and less likely that hurricanes will come ashore where there are few people. Even though Hurricane Hugo in 1989 struck a portion of the South Carolina coast that was lightly inhabited, it caused the deaths of 75 people; the more intense Hurricane Andrew resulted in the deaths of only 50. Massive evacuation efforts were made once it became clear where Hurricane Andrew would strike the Florida coast, and no doubt many lives were saved as a result. Evacuating a large city in the path of a hurricane, however, can prove more problematic, as the situation in New Orleans proved with Hurricane Katrina. In countries where the governmental infrastructure is less well developed than in the United States, the kinds of policies followed in the United States will not particularly help. A cyclone that hit Bangladesh in 1991 killed 131,000 people. A typhoon that landed in Vietnam in November, 1997, killed 1,100. A cyclone in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in November, 1996, caused the deaths of more than 180
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones 1,000 people, and when a cyclone hit the Indian state of Gujarat in June, 1998, more than 1,300 people lost their lives. Hurricane Mitch, which hit Central America in late October, 1998, killed more than 11,000 and totally devastated the economies of Honduras and Guatemala. Experts have estimated that in Asia alone, the number of people at risk for death from cyclones is somewhere between 12,000 and 23,000. Although actions taken by society have succeeded, at least in the United States, in reducing the effects of hurricanes on humans, the costs of hurricanes have risen dramatically. Hurricane Camille, which struck the Gulf Coast in 1969, and Hurricane Betsy, which landed in the Bahamas, South Florida, and Louisiana in 1965, produced damages estimated to run in the neighborhood of $1 to $2 billion. In contrast, the damage caused by Hurricane Andrew, in 1992, totaled more than $25 billion. The largest part of this consisted of damage to private property, but many public structures and roads were also affected. The damage caused by Andrew bankrupted a number of insurance companies, and many more restricted the amount of coverage they would provide in hurricane-prone regions. Hurricane Katrina left widespread damage totaling $75 billion. As the value and number of properties in coastal areas grow, the risk of major economic dislocation from future hurricanes grows as well. Although some governments have attempted to restrict development along hurricane-prone shores, this approach has proved unpopular and has not been highly successful. Most experts agree that future disasters caused by hurricanes are inevitable. Dion C. Stewart and Toby R. Stewart Nancy M. Gordon R. Baird Shuman Bibliography Bryant, Edward A. Natural Hazards. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Provides a solid scientific treatment for the educated student. Readers should have a basic understanding of mathematical principles to fully appreciate this book. Contains a glossary of terms. Emanuel, Kerry. Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. A hurricane expert de181
Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones scribes the science behind these storms and analyzes their historical impact. Pielke, R. A., Jr., and R. A. Pielke, Sr. Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. A very informative and well-written book by father and son meteorologists. Focuses on the United States, integrating science and social policies in response to these storms. Robinson, Andrew. Earthshock: Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Tornadoes, and Other Forces of Nature. Rev. ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. An informative book written for high school students or general adult readers. Provides an interesting mix of science, individual event summaries, and noteworthy facts and figures. Sheets, Bob, and Jack Williams. Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth. New York: Vintage, 2001. Discusses historical methods of prediction as well as modern forecasting techniques. Simon, Seymour. Hurricanes. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Intended for young people. Discusses how hurricanes are formed, the destruction that they can cause, and the precautions that can be taken. Tufty, Barbara. 1001 Questions Answered About Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Other Natural Air Disasters. Rev. ed. New York: Dover, 1987. This text has a logical flow to it. Excellent illustrations accompany the text.
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Icebergs and Glaciers Factors involved: Geography, geological forces, gravitational forces, ice, snow, temperature, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Coasts, forests, lakes, mountains, oceans, rivers, towns, valleys Definition Glaciers are gigantic ice masses flowing down and over land, whereas icebergs, which originate from glaciers, are ice masses that typically float in oceans. Over the centuries, glaciers and especially icebergs have caused much destruction of human property and lives. Science Glaciers, which cover about 10 percent of the earth’s surface, are large masses of freshwater ice formed by the compacting and recrystallization of snow in polar regions and in other regions’ high mountains. When the aggregated ice is large and thick enough, it generally starts flowing downhill by gravity and spreading outward because of its increasing volume. Moving glaciers may terminate on land, where their melting ice turns into a river of water, or they may end in a lake or ocean. Various scientists estimate the number of glaciers at 70,000 to 200,000, depending on how their sizes are defined. Glaciers can vary from an area of about one-third of a square mile to nearly 5 million square miles (12.5 million square kilometers), the size of the great Antarctic ice sheet. About three-quarters of the world’s freshwater exists as glacial ice. Climate and topography cause differences in a glacier’s size, shape, and physical characteristics. When an ice mass grows so large that it covers an area of about 19,300 square miles (50,000 square kilometers), glaciologists call it an ice sheet, and it usually spreads over vast plateaus, flowing from its center outward. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are the only ones now existing, but during the ice ages of the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 million to 10,000 years ago) ice sheets covered the northern parts of Europe and North America. If the area covered is less than 19,300 square miles, the glacier is 183
Icebergs and Glaciers called an ice cap, a flattened, dome-shaped glacier covering both mountains and valleys. In Arctic regions ice caps occur at fairly low altitudes, whereas in such temperate regions as Iceland they occur on high plateaus. In valley glaciers, the flow of ice is confined between a valley’s hillsides or mountainsides. These glaciers may originate from ice sheets or ice caps, but they may also flow out of cirque glaciers nestled in the steep-walled hollows of mountain flanks. Because a glacier is essentially a flowing ice river, it has a tendency to move from its initial high altitude toward sea level. When glaciers are unconfined by geological barriers, they are able to flow to the sea, where, because of erosive action of changing tides and winds, large chunks of ice split from glacial tongues and ice shelves. These floating masses of freshwater ice are called icebergs, and calving is the process of making them by fracture from a glacier’s seaward end. Icebergs can be white, blue, green, or even black (from the rock materials they contain). Scientists have categorized icebergs by their sizes and shapes. Tabular (table-shaped) icebergs, also called “ice islands,” are large blocks of ice that protrude several feet above sea level and average 1,640 feet (500 meters) in diameter. Tabular icebergs are rare in the Arctic but common in the Antarctic. Pinnacled icebergs, also called castellated after their castlelike shape, are characteristic of northern polar oceans. Whether tabular or pinnacled, an iceberg has only one-ninth of its mass projecting above the water’s surface, though the ratio of an iceberg’s vertical height above water to its height below varies because of icebergs’ irregular shapes. Icebergs form mostly during the spring and summer, when warm weather increases the rate of calving. In the Northern Hemisphere glaciers in west Greenland produce about ten thousand icebergs. An average Greenland-born iceberg weighs approximately 2 billion pounds (1 million metric tons) and lasts from two to five years. The West Greenland Current carries these icebergs northward and westward, until eventually many of them are captured by the cold Labrador Current as it moves south to encounter the warm Gulf Stream. They then drift into the region of the Grand Banks, a submarine plateau extending from the Newfoundland coast. Canadian scientists have found a nearly linear decrease in the numbers of icebergs as they wander from northern to southern latitudes. Nevertheless, suffi184
Icebergs and Glaciers cient numbers survive to populate the North Atlantic shipping lanes with potential hazards to navigation. Geography Glaciers develop in geographical regions of the earth where such precipitation as snow and hail exceeds the aggregated frozen precipitation that melts during the summer. This growing glacial accumulation occurs in polar regions where summers are cool and short, but glaciers are also found in temperate zones on high mountains, such as the Alps in Switzerland, and even in the tropics on very high mountains, such as Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Glaciers occur on all the earth’s continents, except Australia, and on all the world’s great mountain ranges. Whether a glacier develops in a certain geographical region depends on both its latitude and its altitude. Approximately 91 percent of the volume of the earth’s glacial ice (85 percent of its area) is concentrated in Antarctica, whereas 8 percent of its volume (12 percent of its area) is in Greenland. This means that only 1 percent of the total volume of the earth’s glacial ice exists in the world’s mountain ranges. Arctic icebergs are the products of glaciers in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Russia, but western Greenland is by far the major source of icebergs in the Northern Hemisphere. Icebergs are rare in the north Pacific Ocean because those that are calved from Alaskan glaciers generally drift northward, whereas in the north Atlantic Ocean icebergs generally drift southward (icebergs have been reported as far south as Bermuda). Another geographical source of icebergs is the Antarctic. Because the immense weight of the Antarctic’s ice sheet has depressed its underlying landmass, most Antarctic ice tends to remain inland rather than flow to the coast. Nevertheless, the sloping coastal edges of the Antarctic ice sheet constantly calve icebergs. For example, in 1927 a section about eight times the size of the state of Rhode Island broke from the Antarctic shore and floated north along the coast of Argentina. Prevention and Preparations Because glaciers move slowly and because they are located in sparsely populated regions, they do not pose the same threat to human life 185
Icebergs and Glaciers and property that icebergs do, but they are not devoid of hazard. Glaciers are capable of overrunning buildings or small settlements, as they did in seventeenth century Switzerland during the start of what came to be called the “Little Ice Age.” Glacial movements can block streams, and when these ice dams fail, human structures and lives are at risk. Today, remote-sensing mapping techniques are able to identify glacial areas of potential dangers to human communities. Throughout the period of sailing ships and even during the period of steamships, icebergs caused massive loss of life and property. Because of the tragedy precipitated by Titanic’s collision with an iceberg in 1912, an international conference was held in London in 1913 to determine what needed to be done to prevent such disasters in the future. The International Ice Patrol (IIP) began its service in 1914, and through aerial surveillance of icebergs supplemented by observations from commercial ships, the IIP tracked dangerous icebergs, alerted ships to their presence, and prevented collisions. After World War II, radar and sonar techniques were developed to precisely monitor iceberg movements. Canadians were particularly successful in developing airborne ice-mapping sensors, including sidelooking airborne radar (SLAR). Scientists from the United States and Canada have also used satellite images to study the loss of glacier mass by calving, and these quantitative data have proved more accurate than estimates based on iceberg reports from ships. A measure of the success of the IIP’s efforts is the fact that, since its inception, not a single reported loss of life or property has occurred from a cooperating vessel’s collision with an iceberg. Rescue and Relief Efforts Glacier-related disasters are generally neither as dramatic nor as catastrophic as major earthquakes, but their cumulative costs in property loss and human fatalities mean that survival and rescue become important after such disasters occur. When the lobe of a glacier blocks a stream or an iceberg threatens a seabed oil installation off Labrador, sufficient time exists to evacuate people from a potential glacial surge or to lift workers by helicopter from an oil rig. During the days of sailing ships, rescues were largely matters of chance. When John Rutledge, traveling from Liverpool to New York, collided with an iceberg off the Newfoundland banks on February 186
Icebergs and Glaciers 20, 1856, its 120 passengers and 16 crew members tried to survive in five lifeboats (with one compass among them), but by the time Germania picked up one of the lifeboats eight days later, only one young boy remained alive. During the time of the great steamships, the most dramatic rescue of passengers and crew from an icebergsunk ship was Titanic. Its 705 survivors owed their lives to the wireless telegraph, for the Cunard liner Carpathia heard Titanic’s SOS messages and sped to the disaster site. Modern technology has improved survival rates and rescues at sea. Training and drills on ships, emergency alarms, and detailed evacuation systems, as well as superior lifeboats, life rafts, life jackets, and immersion suits, have all facilitated rescues and lessened the loss of life. Because of hypothermia, only 14 people who went down with Titanic were pulled alive out of the water, and only half of those survived. Thermal protective suits now enhance the chances that rescue ships will pull survivors rather than corpses out of cold ocean waters. Impact In the early twenty-first century, only a small number of glaciers existed near inhabited areas, minimizing their impact on humans. Icebergs cause disasters on a short time scale, such as collisions with ships, but glacier-related hazards can also be serious when considered on a long-term basis. Variations in the amount of glacial ice are crucial to human populations. Throughout geological history, particularly during the ice ages, glaciers have had a powerful effect on humans and their environment, as they forced our species to adapt or migrate. At the height of the last ice age, about twenty thousand years ago, much more ice existed on continents than exists today, preventing humans from using much valuable land in North America and northern Europe. Some scientists predict that the earth will eventually experience another ice age that might last 50,000 years and that this would have devastating effects on human beings. On the other hand, many scientists are worried about the effects of future global warming on the earth’s glacial ice. If all this ice were to melt, the resulting rise in sea level of about 200 feet (60 meters) would submerge every major coastal city. Glaciers are sensitive indicators of climate change, expanding and contracting in response to temperature fluctuations. During the lifetime of our species, humans 187
Icebergs and Glaciers have adapted to immense expansions and contractions of gigantic polar ice sheets, and if the present understanding of glaciologists about the periodic nature of these fluctuations is correct, humans will need to continue their adaptations well into the future. Robert J. Paradowski Bibliography Benn, Douglas I., and David J. A. Evans. Glaciers and Glaciation. New York: Arnold, 1998. The authors create a contemporary synthesis of “all important aspects of glaciers and their effects.” Particularly valuable is an extensive set of references. Hoyle, Fred. Ice: The Ultimate Human Catastrophe. New York: Continuum, 1981. In this popular account Hoyle presents the arguments of those scientists who believe that an ice age is imminent, while offering practical suggestions about what needs to be done to avoid its catastrophic consequences. McCall, G. J. H., D. J. C. Laming, and S. C. Scott. Geohazards: Natural and Man-Made. New York: Chapman and Hall, 1992. This book, written by geoscientists experienced in the practical problems of natural disasters, enlightens readers through descriptions of geohazards (including glaciers and icebergs), their assessment and prediction, and the mitigation of their effects. Simon, Seymour. Icebergs and Glaciers. New York: HarperTrophy, 1999. Intended for young people. Discusses the formation, movement, and types of glaciers and icebergs. Describes their effect on their surroundings. Tufnell, L. Glacier Hazards. New York: Longman, 1984. The dangers to human life and property posed by ice sheets in glacierized regions can be significant, and the author shows how to identify such high-risk areas and to reduce their dangers.
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Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Factors involved: Geography, geological forces, gravitational forces, human activity, ice, plants, rain, snow, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: All Definition “Landslide” is a general term referring to any perceptible mass movement of earth materials downslope in response to gravity. The deadly forms of landslides, such as debris avalanches and mudflows, can move at speeds in excess of 249 miles (400 kilometers) per hour and can bury entire cities. The death toll from a single event can be greater than 100,000. Landslides cause more deaths and cost more money each year than all other natural disasters combined. Science Mass movement is the proper term for any form of detachment and transport of soil and rock materials downslope. Some forms of mass movement have extremely slow velocities, less than 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) a year. Landslides include all forms of mass movement having speeds of greater than 0.04 inch (1 millimeter) a day. Landslides can be divided into as many as fifteen different classes. The basis for the classification is the type of material that moves (for example, mud) and the general nature of the movement (for example, flow). The names of most of the individual classes are merely a combination of the two terms used in making the classification. For example, when very small particles called mud are saturated with water and flow down a slope like a liquid, the landslide is classified as a “mudflow.” The types of materials that are involved in a mass-movement event are called debris, mud, rock, sand, and soil. These terms refer to the size of the particles that are moving. The word “soil” is used by earth scientists for particles that are less than 0.08 inch (2 millimeters) across. The word “mud” refers to the smaller pieces of soil, whereas 189
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Milestones 1512: A landslide causes a lake to overflow, killing more than 600 in Biasco, the Alps. September, 1618: Two villages are destroyed by landslides, and 2,427 are reported dead in Chiavenna Valley, Italy. September, 1806: Portions of Rossberg Peak collapse, destroying 4 villages and killing 800 people in Goldau Valley, Switzerland. April, 1903: A 0.5-mile section of Turtle Mountain near Frank, Alberta, slides down the mountain, killing 70 people in the town. December, 1920: An earthquake shears off unstable cliffs in Gansu Province, China, destroying 10 cities and killing 200,000. 1959: Hurricane rains and an earthquake combined with a series of massive landslides bury the 800 residents of Minatitlan, Mexico, and kill another 4,200 in surrounding communities. October, 1963: A landslide caused by an earthquake destroys the Vaiont Dam, drowning almost 3,000 residents of Belluno, Italy. November, 1963: Grand Rivière du Nord, Haiti, is devastated by landslides brought about by tropical downpours; an estimated 500 tourists and residents are killed. 1964: Earthquakes and rains cause landslides near Niigata, Japan, killing 108, injuring 223, and leaving more than 40,000 homeless. 1966: A slag heap near Aberfan, Wales, collapses and kills 147—116 of them children. 1968: More than 1,000 are killed in Bihar and Assam, West Bengal, by floods and landslides. January, 1969: Torrential rains lasting more than a week trigger mudslides that kill 95 and cause more than $138 million in damage in Southern California. July, 1972: Landslides caused by torrential rains kill 370 persons and cause $472 million in property damage throughout Japan. 1974: A landslide in Huancavelica, Peru, creates a natural dam on the Mantaro River, forcing the evacuation of 9,000 living in the area and killing an estimated 300. September, 1987: Mudslides wipe out entire sections of the Villa Tina area of Medellín, Colombia, killing 183 residents and leaving 500 missing.
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Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides July, 1998: Waves created by an undersea landslide caused by an earthquake kill 2,000 in Papua New Guinea. August, 1998: The village of Malpa, India, is destroyed by boulders and mud, leaving 202 dead; only 18 survive. February, 2006: A mudslide buries 16 villages on the island of Leyte in the Philippines; more than 200 are confirmed dead, and 1,800 are missing.
“sand” indicates the larger-sized soil fragments. The term “rock” is used for particles that are greater than 0.08 inch (2 millimeters) across. The term “debris” is used when there is a mixture of soil and rock; however the rock sizes usually predominate in most debris. Civil engineers, who build highways, bridges, dams, and other construction projects, have slightly modified the classification of materials. They consider “soil” any unconsolidated material, which they divide further into two classes, called “earth” when the particle size is small and “debris” when the particle size is large. The term “rock” is reserved for material that started as distinct, rigid, rock layers within the earth. Rock will usually break up into gravel-size particles during a mass movement. The nature of the movement can be a “slide,” “flow,” “fall,” or one of a number of special terms in which a mixture of different movements occurs. There are several key characteristic movements associated with a slide, which physically resembles a child’s slide in a playground. The material usually moves as a single mass. The moving material is coherent; it does not break apart, nor do the individual fragments take differing contoured paths down the slope. Also, the base of the sliding material is usually a single, well-defined surface. A “translational slide” occurs when the surface at the base of the moving material is a flat plane having a uniform slope, which roughly corresponds to the slope on the land surface prior to the mass movement. A “rotational slide” occurs on a curved basal surface, where the upper part of the surface is steeper and the lower part is gentler, giving the surface a spoon shape. The mass movement called a “flow” has a motion similar to that of a shallow mountain stream: The entire mass behaves as a fluid. The 191
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides individual particles of moving material take contoured paths that diverge, converge, and collide with one another as they proceed down the slope. The basal surface beneath the flowing material is more undulating, having higher and lower elevations in different areas of the flow. In most cases flows have higher water content than slides; however, the fluid nature of a flow can also be generated by internally trapped air. A “fall” occurs when material either free-falls down a cliff face or bounces down a very steep slope. A special movement called a “topple” happens when the material rotates around a fixed pivot axis near the base of the column before the fall occurs. The rotation may proceed slowly over a period of years, but this fall is the fastest of all types of movement. Two special categories of motion are often associated with natural disasters. An “avalanche” is a special category of flow, in which a highly disaggregated material is fluidized by entrapped air and moves at very fast speeds. A “spread” is a vertical combination of a coherent upper layer that slides downslope on a lower, more fluid layer that flows. Spreads commonly occur during an earthquake, when the dry coherent material above the groundwater table laterally spreads out and sinks into the water-saturated flowing material below the water table. Often, people are not present at the location of a landslide, and the nature of movement must be deduced from the deposits formed. The standard technique to distinguish a slide from a flow is to make a ratio of the depth (thickness) of the moving material divided by the length (or distance) the material moves down the slope. This ratio is called the depth-length ratio. Flows move greater distances down the slope even though they generally involve less thickness of flowing material. Flows, thus, have small values for the depth/length ratio, compared to slides, which are thick and move a short distance downslope. Of the fifteen classes of landslides, which are defined by the type of material and the nature of movement, all can be disasters in terms of property loss, but less than half are life-threatening. The most common disaster is when debris moves by a rotational slide; this class is called a “slump.” A slump generally moves slowly, taking hours, days, months, or even years to complete its travel down the slope. The main block of material in a slump often breaks into a series of smaller blocks that appear as backward-tilted steps. A small, slow-moving 192
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Parts of a Slump Scarp Head Slump blocks Hummocks Toe
Failure Plane Foot
earthflow typically develops at the toe of the slump. Few lives have been lost because of slumps, but when a slump develops in a city or town, every home in a section of several square blocks will have broken foundations and loss of vertical orientation of their walls and will probably need to be razed. Mudflows and debris flows are the landslides that have generated the greatest death tolls. These events involve thick masses of mud or debris saturated with water and flowing with the consistency of wet cement. They can move at speeds of 31 miles (50 kilometers) per hour and faster. Normally, they develop after a long period of rainfall, which saturates slope materials and causes them to move. These flows also occur after sudden melting of frozen soils, often brought on by spring snowmelt. They are particularly numerous in years with heavy snowfalls and deep snowpack. As the snow melts, the water seeps into the subsurface of the slope, saturating the soil or rock mass and beginning the landslide. Mudflows are usually unexpected, and the slurry of mud and debris rushing down the slope can destroy homes, wash out roads and bridges, fell trees, sweep away cars, and obstruct roads and streams with a thick deposit of mud. A special class of mudflow or debris flow called a “lahar” is pro193
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides duced when material from a volcanic eruption is ejected onto snowfields, glaciers, or crater lakes at the summit of a stratovolcano. An eruption of Nevado del Ruiz, an ice-capped Andean volcano in Colombia, in 1985 killed no one. However, the lahar produced by the melting glacier rushed 37 miles (60 kilometers) down the valley and killed 25,000 people in the city of Armero. Lahars can travel at speeds of 93 miles (150 kilometers) per hour, and when these thick deposits of mud come to rest they become as firm as concrete in a matter of a few hours. Mudslides can be distinguished from mudflows by the coherence of the moving mass. One eyewitness in a mudslide reported that the ground became soft and he sank to his ankles, making walking difficult while he moved several hundred yards downslope on top of a mudslide. People unfortunate enough to be atop a mudflow would immediately sink into it and become part of the churning fluid. The landslide categories of rockslides, rockfalls, and rock avalanches are also usually lethal. A vivid example is the Vaiont Dam Disaster, where a slab 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) wide by 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long and 820 feet (250 meters) thick slid into the Vaiont Reservoir in Italy in 1963. The drop into the reservoir took less than one minute. The rockslide splashed a wave over the dam, producing a downstream flood that killed almost 3,000 people in a town 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) from the dam. The dam itself survived. A rock avalanche in 1962 in Peru moved 3.9 million cubic yards (3 million cubic meters) of mountain 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) down a valley in seven minutes. Observers said the landslide bounced from one side of the valley to the other at least five times before it spread out over a populated valley at the base of the mountain, killing 60 people. The same valley experienced another rock avalanche in 1970, exacting a death toll of 70,000. The material of a rockslide differs from that of a rock avalanche in the amount of fracturing found in the rock. Rockslides involve crack development at a specific horizon where there is expansion within the rock mass. Cracks form within the rock over a relatively narrow zone; the fracturing does not penetrate the whole rock mass. Rock avalanches develop when the fracturing is continuous all the way down to the sliding surface. An avalanche involves independent movement of fragments in the entire mass above the sliding surface, as opposed 194
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides to the rockslide, which involves a single direction of movement for the material above the layer of continuous cracks. Rockfalls in mountainous regions are often controlled by an increase in temperature, causing a thaw. Rockfalls can be so continuous in mountains that spring climbing on some European peaks must be completed by 10 a.m. Several people are killed each year in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States because of rockfalls, usually motorists struck by bouncing rocks clearing the retaining wall. All landslides are a form of slope failure. They happen when the shear stress within a slope exceeds the strength of the slope material. Then the slope fails, and millions of cubic feet of rock and soil materials can shear away from the slope and move hundreds or thousands of feet down the hill. There are a half dozen or more factors that can cause shear stresses to exceed the forces that hold the slope in place. The most significant factor promoting landslides is an increase in the angle of the slope: The steeper the slope, the more prone it is to landslides. The angle of the slope always increases directly above any region where construction has cut a relatively flat region into the hillside, such as a road, the leveling for a house foundation, or a quarry site. Fills for roads and waste from mines and quarries are often placed on slopes, making them steeper than the normal angle of rest. Slides will begin until the angle of rest (usually about 35 degrees for coarse material) is attained. The naturally steep walls of river gorges and glaciated valleys are therefore common sites for landslides. Another common factor contributing to landslides is the addition of water to the area. Water lifts or pushes the grains apart in the soil or rock, reducing the internal friction of the soil and counteracting the gravitational forces that hold the slope in place. Much in the same way air pressure in a car’s tires lifts the car, high water pressure in the pores of rock or soil will lower the stability of the slope. This added water can come from heavy rains, melting snow, or even ponds and reservoirs. The area of Southern California is like a desert most of the year; however, it can receive heavy rains in later winter and early spring, which corresponds to the landslide season. Human influence has added water to the ground by construction of septic tanks, ponds, reservoirs, or irrigation canals. In one case in Los Angeles, a man went on vacation leaving his lawn sprinklers running, which caused an earthflow. 195
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Landslides can also be caused by earth tremors. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and even heavy machinery or trains passing on nearby roads or railroads have been known to induce tremors that start landslides. Most of the victims of the 1998 earthquake in Afghanistan were killed not by the earthquake itself but by landslides caused by the quake. In January, 1994, an earthquake in Northridge, California, triggered more than 11,000 landslides over an area of approximately 3,861 square miles (10,000 square kilometers). The largest measured rockslide had a volume in excess of 130,790 cubic yards (100,000 cubic meters). Dozens of homes were destroyed or damaged, roads were blocked, and an oil-field infrastructure sustained damage from the slide. Another factor that promotes landslides is the removal of lateral or basal support from a slope. In nature, this occurs because of erosion by either meandering rivers or wave action on ocean cliffs. Every year numerous million-dollar homes are lost to earthfalls from wave erosion along the Pacific coastline. Vegetation changes contribute to landslides in a variety of ways. In high mountain valleys the bedrock is wedged apart by roots of trees. In regions of rockslides the depressions created where small-scale movements have occurred are often the very sites where trees will take root and grow. On gentler slopes vegetation helps to anchor loose soil materials and prevent landslides. Wildfires have been responsible for promoting landslides by destroying tree cover; areas freshly clear-cut by the logging industry or cleared for housing developments have also been reported as sites of increased landslide activity. The repeated freezing and thawing of water in cracks can be responsible for rockfalls. The process is called frost wedging, in which the expansion during freezing widens the crack and allows the water to penetrate deeper into the rock when the thaw occurs. Individual blocks can be wedged out of the cliff face, falling independently or causing such a loss of cohesion that larger portions of the cliff face can collapse. Geography Mass movement occurs in varying degrees almost everywhere. Huge landslides have been identified on the Moon, on Mars, and beneath the Atlantic Ocean on continental margins. A landslide discovered 196
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides on Mars in 1978, was about 37 miles (60 kilometers) long and 31 miles (50 kilometers) wide. The number of landslides increases in regions that have steep slopes, high precipitation, sizable fluctuations in seasonal temperatures, much clay in the soils, and frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Some countries that are among the hardest hit by landslides are Switzerland, Italy, Japan, China, Peru, and Colombia. Landslides occur in every state of the United States. California, West Virginia, Utah, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Washington have the most severe landslides. Many of the disastrous landslides in the United States have occurred in the West; these states are among the most arid, and the occurrence of landslides is strongly correlated with unusually heavy rainfalls or the melting of winter snowpack. Once a landslide has occurred in a given area the chances of a repeat occurrence are very high. Governments spend a considerable amount of time and money attempting to identify geographic regions where landslides have occurred. Satellite images are used to
An undated rockslide in Frank, Alberta, Canada. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides identify large landslides by noting changes in soil and vegetation cover. Photographs taken from planes are used to record the extent of sliding land. Prevention and Preparations The standard method used to evaluate the potential of a landslide is the determination of the “factor of safety.” A numerical value is determined for every factor related to the occurrence of a landslide. The factor of safety is a ratio in which all the values that resist landsliding are divided by the sum of all the values that favor a landslide. The slope is considered stable when the factor of safety has a value that is greater than 1. Landslides are considered imminent when the value is less than 1. Myriad techniques and equipment are used to assess the instability of a slope. Conventional surveying methods measure and record the development of cracks, subsidence, and uplift on slopes. Tiltmeters are used to record changes in the slope inclination near cracks and areas of weakness. Inclinometers and rock noise instruments are installed to record movements near cracks and ground deformations. Dating cracks and subsidence and upheavals of slope areas can help scientists assess the past changes in climate and denudation, along with rainfall and earthquake and volcanic activities, which can act as triggers for future slope failures. Recording air-temperature thresholds forecasts the onset of landslides brought on by snowmelt. Research is demonstrating that 85 percent of landslide events occurs within two weeks after the first yearly occurrence of a six-day average temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit. This sort of forecasting can allow ample time to prepare persons in the area to evacuate. One of the safety problems of landslides is that they normally happen within seconds, pouring tons of material on homes and buildings in their path, not allowing the populace enough time to evacuate the area. Trends from past measurement coupled with current monitoring of slopes increase the ability to predict future landslides. Monitoring rainfall and pore water pressure are other ways to try to predict potential landslides. However, predicting landslides is a very inexact science because some cracks can form on slopes and cause landslides within minutes of their formation. Other slopes have been known to 198
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides sustain cracks, subsidence, or buckling for years and then fail suddenly, with little or no warning. Local officials are turning more to the development of landslide hazard mapping. Each area is rated as to the potential for movement and assigned to one of six designations. Areas of similar designation are grouped together as regions on a map. Local legislation places restrictions on and develops greater monitoring of the areas having the highest hazard rankings. In San Mateo County in California the hazard maps are used to restrict the number of homes that may be built there. The normal density allowed is one home per 5 acres, whereas high-hazard areas are restricted to one home per 40 acres. People living in landslide areas need to note common warning signs of potential slope failure. Some signs of landslides are doors or windows sticking or jamming for the first time on a home. New cracks appearing in plaster, tile, brick, or the foundation of houses can be a precursor of earth movement. Widening cracks on paved streets or driveways also indicate movements in landslide areas. Sometimes underground utility lines will begin to break as result of earth movement. Water will sometimes break through the ground in new locations, and fences, retaining walls, utility poles, and trees will tilt more. A faint rumbling sound, increasing in volume, can be heard as the landslide nears. If any of these warning signs are experienced, evacuation plans should be made. It is recommended that there be at least two planned evacuation routes, because roads may become inaccessible from deposit of slide materials. Japan spends approximately $4 billion annually to try to control mud- and debris flows. The Japanese government has built sabo dams along the river systems in urban areas to trap mud and rock that slide down the mountains. In the United States an American version of these dams is found in Los Angeles County, where there is a system of temporary fortifications to protect areas such as Pasadena and Glendale from debris flows that originate in the San Gabriel Mountains and canyons after hard rains. The best form of landslide prevention is to not build on areas where landslides have occurred, at the base of slopes, at the base of minor drainage hollows, at the base or top of old fill slopes, or on hillside developments where leach-field septic systems are used. Unfortunately, landslide, rockslide, and mudslide areas are very scenic and 199
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Winter storms in 2005 created a number of fatal mudslides in California, such as this one in the town of La Conchita. (FEMA)
are known to entice people to build houses. The West Coast, one of the most slide-prone areas in the world, is a prime example of an area that attracts building in spite of the dangers of landslides. Rescue and Relief Efforts A variety of agencies are usually dispatched to the scenes of disastrous landslides. Search and rescue teams are trained in recovery techniques that are appropriate for landslides, such as rescue dogs and proper digging methods. The dangers that are associated with disease, hunger, and lack of water and shelter are handled by entities such as state governments, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the American Red Cross. The National Landslide Hazards Program, within the United States Geological Survey, responds to emergencies and disasters to provide information on the continuing potential for movement while rescue efforts are taking place. The National Flood Insurance Program was amended in 1969 to include payment for damage incurred by mudslides caused by flood200
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides ing. Most homeowners’ insurance policies do not cover damage caused by landslides. Federal assistance is available for areas declared a national emergency. Impact The United States Geological Survey reported that more people died from landslides in the last three months of 1985 than were killed during the previous twenty years by all other geological hazards (such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). In terms of property damage, landslides have cost Americans three times the combined costs from all other natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. The average annual statistics for the United States report 25 people killed and $1.5 billion in damage. Landslides are a major worldwide hazard. Thousands of people are killed each year across the world in landslides. A region of southern Italy experienced a series of landslides in 1973, causing 100 villages to be abandoned and 200,000 people to be displaced. A single mudflow event in the Gansu Province of China in 1920 is thought to have been the deadliest landslide, with an estimated 200,000 people killed. Property damage from landslides worldwide is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars. Historical Overview Historically, the deadliest landslides have occurred in the mountainous regions of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. While landslides are also frequently experienced in Africa and Australia, the quantity of slides and the resultant loss of life in those regions do not compare to those in other parts of the world. Most landslides occur in hilly or mountainous regions where sloping conditions make such activity more likely, but they can happen almost anywhere. In the United States, landslides and rockslides have occurred most frequently in the Rocky Mountain region and along the Pacific coast. Utah, Colorado, California, and Washington have been the most susceptible to landslide disasters. West Virginia holds that distinction on the U.S. East Coast, primarily as a result of slope instability caused by mining and the debris and waste that it creates. Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec are considered the most landslide-prone provinces of Canada. 201
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides The largest and most devastating landslides have been caused by earthquakes. Most landslides occur with little or no warning, often in tandem with seismic activity. In one of the worst slides in recorded history, a 1920 earthquake in Gansu Province, China, sheared off unstable cliffs, destroying 10 cities and killing 200,000. Human activity has also been a major contributor to the death toll caused by landslides. Ground that is normally stable may slide after human activity alters its natural state. Many deadly landslides have occurred when development altered slope and groundwater conditions. In Virginia, a state not considered a prime site for landslide activity, 8 people were killed in 1942 when a coal waste heap slid into a river valley near the city of Oakwood. The worst landslide in the history of Wales occurred when a human-made slag heap outside of Aberfan shifted, sending 2 million tons of rock, coal, and mud downhill into the city and killing 147 people, most of them children. Deforestation was a major factor in the Leyte mudslide that buried villages in the Philippines; more than 2,000 people were missing or confirmed dead. Scientists were long unaware of the potential for destruction from underwater landslides. A scientific team that visited the site of a 1998 tsunami in Papua New Guinea later concluded that the deadly waves were probably caused by an underwater landslide set in motion by a small earthquake. This theory forced many scientists to seriously consider the possibility of a connection between landslides and tsunamis. Unlike many other natural disasters, landslides often have a longlasting effect on the physical environment. Landslides have collapsed mountains, sent rivers on new and destructive courses, and created huge lakes that inundated populated fertile valleys. A 1925 landslide sent some 50,000 cubic yards of debris into the Gros Ventre River of Wyoming, creating a natural dam 350 feet high. A 3-mile-long lake formed behind the dam. It is not unusual for a landslide to permanently displace animals and humans. Property damage from landslides is a common occurrence throughout the world, resulting annually in billions of dollars in property damage. A variety of methods are now employed throughout the world to prevent landslides. One way of avoiding catastrophe is diversion and drainage of water before it reaches potential problem areas. Building contractors consider the potential for landslide 202
Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides damage to buildings and other structures prior to excavation and construction. The disposal of construction, logging, and mining waste is closely monitored by many governments in efforts to avoid potential slide disasters. Dion C. Stewart and Toby R. Stewart Donald C. Simmons, Jr. Bibliography Bloom, Arthur L. Geomorphology: A Systematic Analysis of Late Cenozoic Landforms. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998. Chapter 9, entitled “Mass Wasting and Hillslopes,” provides a lowlevel technical discussion of factors contributing to landslides. Bryant, Edward A. Natural Hazards. 2d ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2005. A nontechnical book that cites nearly twenty additional readable references on land instability. Cooke, R. U., and J. C. Doornkamp. Geomorphology in Environmental Management. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1990. This book provides details on hazard assessment and risk calculations. It gives detailed examples from many countries, including the United States. Easterbrook, Don J. Surface Processes and Landforms. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. This college textbook is quite good for a general audience. It provides excellent descriptions, pictures, and accounts of over ten classes of landslides. Erickson, Jon. Quakes, Eruptions, and Other Geologic Cataclysms: Revealing the Earth’s Hazards. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2001. One of the books in the series entitled The Living Earth. Contains a chapter on earth movements that provides a descriptive treatment of landslides. Plummer, Charles C., David McGeary, and Diane H. Carlson. Physical Geology. 11th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2007. A superb introductory textbook. A chapter is devoted to mass wasting and landslides, including descriptions of common forms of landslides and a section on prevention. Ritter, Dale F., R. Craig Kochel, and Jerry R. Miller. Process Geomorphology. 4th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 2002. This book provides the technical details of how to evaluate all factors involved in the calculation of the factor of safety. Requires a good background in mathematics, including trigonometry and vectors. 203
Lightning Strikes Factors involved: Chemical reactions, rain, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: Cities, coasts, forests, lakes, mountains, plains, towns, valleys Definition Lightning strikes fatally wound between 50 and 100 persons each year in the United States, mostly within the thunderstorm season that occurs during the spring and summer months. Lightning also causes tens of millions of dollars of damage each year by sparking large forest fires and destroying buildings and various forms of electrical and communication systems. Science A lightning bolt is a high-voltage electrical spark which occurs most often when a cloud attempts to balance the differences between positive and negative charges within itself. Lightning bolts can also be generated between two clouds, or between a cloud and the ground, although these conditions occur much less often. A lightning bolt is generally composed of a series of flashes, with an average of four flashes. The length and duration of each flash will vary greatly. Thunder is caused by the heating of air surrounding a lightning bolt to temperatures as high as 72,032 degrees Fahrenheit (40,000 degrees Celsius), which is approximately five times hotter than the Sun, causing a very rapid expansion of air. This heated air then moves at supersonic speeds under a force ten to one hundred times normal atmospheric pressure, thus forming shock waves that travel out from the lightning at speeds of approximately 1,083 feet (330 meters) per second. Thunderstorms are local rainstorms that feature lightning and resultant thunder claps; they sometimes produce hailstones. Much less often, lightning is created by snowstorms, dust storms, or clouds produced by volcanic eruptions or thermonuclear explosions. The explosive release of electrical energy within a thunderstorm cloud creates a lightning bolt, which is most often produced by accumulations 204
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Milestones 1769: 1,000 tons of gunpowder stored in the state arsenal at Brescia, Italy, explode when struck by lightning. One-sixth of the city is destroyed, and 3,000 people are killed. 1786: The people of Paris make bell-ringing during thunderstorms illegal. The ringing of church bells was believed to prevent lightning strikes but often proved fatal to ringers. April 3, 1856: 4,000 are killed on the Greek island of Rhodes when lightning strikes a church where gunpowder is stored. 1900: The first quantitative measurements of peak current in lightning strikes are conducted. 1917: The first photographic record of the spectrum from lightning using a spectroscope is made. 1918: In Nasatch National Forest, Utah, 504 sheep are killed by a lightning strike. 1925: The U.S. Weather Bureau applies sensors to airplane wings to record atmospheric conditions. July 10, 1926: Explosions triggered by lightning at an ammunition dump in New Jersey kill 21 people, blasting debris 5 miles. 1927: French scientists produce the radiosonde, an instrument package designed to measure pressure, temperature, and humidity during balloon ascents and radio the information back to earth. 1929: American scientist Robert H. Goddard launches a rocket carrying an instrument package that includes a barometer, a thermometer, and a camera. 1959: The first meteorological experiment is conducted on a satellite platform. 1963: The first quantitative temperature estimates are made for individual lightning strikes. 1963: Lightning strikes a Boeing 707 over Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 persons on board. This is the first verified instance of a lightninginduced airplane crash. December 23, 1975: A single lightning strike in Umtrali, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), kills 21 people.
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Lightning Strikes of electrical charge within the same cumulonimbus cloud. Cloud-tocloud lightning involves one cloud which is seeking an oppositely charged cloud to neutralize itself. Cloud-to-ground lightning involves a lightning bolt which is seeking the best conducting route to the ground, thus hitting lightning rods, tall buildings, and trees. Thunderstorms occur when the atmosphere is unstable and moist air at the ground surface rises, creating several small cumulus clouds that initially dissipate while producing rain or electrical charges. As the clouds increase in size and combine, they surge upward and generate rain and lightning. The average storm produces five to ten flashes per minute, whereas larger clouds can produce electrical discharges of over a thousand flashes per minute. A single thunderstorm cloud has the potential to build up an electrical charge of approximately 1 million volts per meter, produced by the action of the rising and falling of air currents. This electrical charge is transferred through the cloud as raindrops, hailstones, and ice pellets collide with smaller water droplets and possibly ice. A falling stream of electrons creates a negative charge, which generally accumulates in the lower part of the cloud, with the positive electrons simultaneously creating a positive charge in the upper part of the cloud. Lightning is essentially the reaction that neutralizes these positive and negative charges. Other functions of lightning are to enhance rain and snow formation, supply energy to tornadoes, and assist in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. Other forms of lightning include ball lightning, also called kugelblitz, a rare phenomenon in which round balls of fire appear, often near telephone lines or buildings. Heat lightning involves lightning seen from a distant thunderstorm which is too far away for the thunder to be heard. American scientist Benjamin Franklin performed the first systematic study of lightning in the late eighteenth century, working from his hypothesis that sparks observed in his laboratory experiments and lightning were both forms of the same type of electrical energy. During a Pennsylvania thunderstorm in 1752, he flew the most famous kite in history, with sparks jumping from a key tied to the bottom of the damp kite string to an insulating silk ribbon tied to Franklin’s knuckles. The kite took the place of a lightning rod, and Franklin’s grounded body provided the conducting path for electrical currents originating from the storm clouds. Franklin’s experi206
Lightning Strikes ments proved that lightning strikes do contain electricity and determined that the lower parts of the clouds were negatively charged, with Earth providing the positive charge. Franklin’s research also laid the groundwork for the implementation of lightning rods as a means of protecting buildings. Geography An estimated fifteen hundred to two thousand thunderstorms occur somewhere on the Earth’s surface at any given moment. These thunderstorms are estimated to trigger approximately one hundred or more lightning flashes every second, which corresponds to approximately 8.6 million strikes every day and more than 3 billion every year. Lightning has also been known to occur within atmospheric storms on other planets within Earth’s solar system, such as Jupiter and Venus. Lightning occurs most commonly in warm and moist climates, with the hot and humid climate of Central Florida experiencing the highest occurrence of lightning strikes and the Pacific Northwest seeing the lowest occurrence. Prevention and Preparations The National Lightning Detection Network was set up in the 1970’s to assist meteorologists in locating and tracking thunderstorms and lightning strikes. This intricate computer network utilizes lightning detection images from orbiting satellites and other equipment which reveal precisely where severe storm activity is located, in addition to the exact locations where lightning has occurred and has possibly hit the ground. Thunder is an important warning signal by nature which reveals that a lightning bolt has just fired within approximately a 10-mile radius. The commonly used “flash-to-bang” method is effective in estimating how far away this most dangerous part of a storm is occurring. Once a flash of lightning is visibly observed, the number of seconds until thunder is heard is counted. The speed of light is 186,300 miles per second, thus enabling lightning to be seen immediately after it flashes. By contrast, sound waves travel about a million times slower at approximately 1 mile every five seconds. To estimate the approximate distance from the location of an individual to the lightning 207
Lightning Strikes strike, one should divide the number of seconds between the “flash” and the “bang” by five to obtain the distance away that the lightning occurred in miles. If the lightning and thunder are extremely close together, one should divide the difference between the lightning and thunder by 360 to obtain the estimated distance away that the lightning occurred in yards. Common sense dictates that an individual caught near a thunderstorm should seek safe shelter immediately, particularly if the “flashto-bang” time is only ten to fifteen seconds, as this means that the lightning is only 2 to 3 miles away. Successive lightning strikes within the same storm can be used to determine if the thunderstorm is approaching one’s location or moving away. If the time interval between the lightning and the thunder is getting progressively shorter, the storm is getting closer. If time between the lightning and the thunder is getting progressively longer, the storm is moving away from one’s location. The best defense against getting struck by lightning is prevention, in the form of examining the weather forecast before participating in any outdoor activities. Continually being on the lookout for clouds that appear to be forming into thunderstorms is critical, as is heading for shelter at the first sight of lightning or the first sound of thunder. The occurrence of thunder means that lightning must be present somewhere even if it is not directly visible, with the flash often hidden within thick clouds. The best shelter from lightning is a large, permanently fixed, and electrically conductive building, staying away from windows and other breakable objects. Sheds and small buildings, particularly those constructed with wood and masonry and that do not contain a lightning rod, do not provide nearly as much protection. In the event that a building is not available, taking refuge in a motor vehicle with a metal roof can provide some protection, as the lightning current has a chance to pass harmlessly down through the vehicle and dissipate into the ground. Regardless of the structure in which a person seeks cover, it is important to refrain from touching any metal surfaces. Locations that contain flammable fuels, such as gasoline, should be avoided during a thunderstorm. Persons are advised to avoid being exposed in open areas, high places, or near isolated trees during lightning danger periods. Those 208
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U.S. Lightning Deaths by Month, 1959-1980 Deaths 641 600
496
500
481
400
300 240 194
200
100 33 0
84
64 2
4
39 8
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
This graph represents the deaths caused by lightning in the United States by month from 1959 to 1980. Lightning strikes most often during spring and summer, when the air is warm and moist.
caught in the water during a storm, such as while swimming, have a much greater chance of experiencing electrical shocks in the event that lightning strikes an area nearby. Saltwater, a better conductor of electricity, is less dangerous than freshwater as the electrical current tends to flow around, rather than through, an individual or boat in the water. Lightning rods are important protection devices required to be 209
Lightning Strikes placed within all modern structures. They are made from metal strips that conduct lightning discharges through the building and into the ground. Arresters are often used in locations where power, telephone, and antenna wires enter buildings. Ground wires involve cables that are strung above other wires in an electrical transmission line, in the hope that they will become the preferred target for a lightning surge. Rescue and Relief Efforts The heavy currents of large lightning bolts have been known to shatter masonry and timber, and they often start fires. Lightning has been documented injuring critically or even killing persons talking on the telephone, taking a bath, or sitting near electrical units such as a computer. Cadaver studies on victims of fatal lightning strikes reveal that death can occur from heart damage, inflated lungs, brain damage, and burns. For those who survive a lightning strike, immediate medical atten-
Large cities, with their tall buildings, often attract lightning. Because many airports are located in or near cities, lightning poses much danger to airplanes. (PhotoDisc)
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Lightning Strikes tion is necessary. If the victim is not breathing, artificial respiration can provide adequate short-term life support, though the victim may become stiff or rigid in reaction to the shock. Survivors of electric shock, from lightning or other sources, may suffer from severe burns and permanent aftereffects, including cataracts, angina, or nervoussystem disorders. Amnesia and paralysis can also occur. Impact Lightning thunderbolts have long been feared by societies with beliefs in the supernatural, such as the Greeks, Vikings, Buddhists, and Native Americans. Science has confirmed that lightning is one of the strongest forces in nature, with larger bolts generating an average potential difference of 100 million volts of energy, approximately equivalent to the power contained in a middle-sized nuclear reactor. Data collected by the National Lightning Detection Network reveal that lightning strikes kill an average of 75 people each year in the United States and injure hundreds more, mostly during the spring and summer months. Most fatalities occur from a direct hit, but electrical activity occurring along the ground following a severe strike has also proved fatal. Lightning is also to blame for over 10,000 forest fires each year in the United States alone, with the total property replacement cost in the tens of millions of dollars. Lightning research greatly increased in the 1960’s, motivated by the danger of lightning to both aerospace vehicles and the solid-state electronics used in computers and other technical devices. Commercial airliners performing a normal number of service runs are subjected to an average of one lightning strike per year, and in many cases the lightning is triggered by the airplane itself. Historical Overview Lightning predicted a victory by Gilgamesh, Sumerian hero of an epic dating to the third millennium b.c.e. Zeus, chief god of the Greeks, hurled thunderbolts, and Thor, the thunderer, was the strongest of the Norse gods. Thunderstorms occur throughout the globe, even in Africa’s Sahara Desert, and many societies have produced myths that associate lightning, a frightening and long-misunderstood phenomenon, with supernatural power. Thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai preceded presentation of the Ten Commandments to 211
Lightning Strikes Moses. The Romans considered the location of lightning to be an omen favoring or discouraging personal and governmental business. Many cultures believed that objects struck by lightning held magical powers, but people’s primary concern has been protection from the unpredictability of lightning, with its associated fire and destruction. Romans wore laurel leaves for protection, and, in the Middle Ages, European fire festivals sought protection for communities. Simultaneously, rational explanations for lightning have encountered superstition. Greek philosopher Socrates described a storm as “a vortex of air.” Aristotle theorized that a cooling and condensing cloud forcibly ejects wind which, striking against other clouds, creates thunder. He wrote, “As a rule, the ejected wind burns with a fine and gentle fire, and it is then what we call lightning.” Greek historian Herodotus observed that lightning strikes tall objects, and Mongol law recognized the fatal association between lightning and water, forbidding washing of clothes or bathing during thunderstorms. Italian artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci theorized that clouds forced together by opposing winds could only rise, and he thus connected storm clouds with updrafts. Not until the eighteenth century was lightning associated with electricity, itself a little-understood phenomenon named in the late 1500’s by Elizabethan court physician William Gilbert after the Greek philosopher-scientist Thales of Miletus’s experiments with amber, or, in Greek, electra. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, electricity and magnetism attracted experimentation and showmanship. Only when knowledge of European experiments and gifts of apparatus, including glass Leyden jars capable of holding and storing electrical charges, came to American Benjamin Franklin in 1746, did a theory of electricity emerge. Franklin determined that there was a single type of electricity, confirmed speculation that lightning was electricity and, in 1749, first proposed that metal rods could protect buildings and ships from strikes. His suggestions for construction, placement, and grounding appeared in the 1753 Poor Richard’s Almanac. Practical applications of electricity, beginning with American inventor Thomas Alva Edison’s 1879 invention of a durable light bulb, and the subsequent problems of distribution along power lines vulnerable to lightning, encouraged lightning research. Despite light212
Lightning Strikes ning rods on poles, lightning struck power lines and disrupted service. Solutions required accurate measurements of lightning voltage and speed of discharge, studies led by Westinghouse and General Electric engineers. German immigrant Charles Steinmetz built highvoltage generators to simulate lightning. Generators produced 50foot bolts of lightning for New York World’s Fair visitors in 1939, but laboratory apparatus could not equal the energy of natural lightning. In 1925, Sweden’s Harold Norinder, using the European-developed cathode-ray oscilloscope, measured a lightning-induced electrical surge of about a ten-thousandth of a second, and Americans measured lightning strikes on power-transmission lines of 5 million volts in under two-millionths of a second. Understanding the magnitude of the problem led to improved protection, reducing power failures. Research leading to recognition of weather conditions likely to produce lightning, and knowledge of the location of lightning strikes serves military, commercial, and public interest and furthers technological advances. Practical applications of scientist Robert H. Goddard’s 1929 Massachusetts launch of a rocket carrying a barometer, thermometer, and camera improved both World War II rocket design and television cameras. In 1959, scientists conducted the first meteorological experiment on a satellite platform. On April 1, 1960, the launch of the polar-orbiting Television Infrared Operational Satellite, TIROS-1, inaugurated the era of satellite meteorology. Capability expanded December 6, 1966, with the launch of the first geostationary meteorological satellite. Research begun at the University of Arizona in the 1970’s evolved into the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network under Global Atmospherics Incorporated, the product of a 1995 merger, which supplies data to local forecasters. Lightning has caused more deaths than tornadoes or hurricanes in the United States but far fewer injuries and less property damage. Despite advances in radar and satellite remote sensing and increasing reliability of forecasts, weather predictions warn only of the potential for lightning, and technology locates lightning only as it occurs. Public and private agencies stress public awareness and education in safety procedures to minimize exposure to strikes and fatalities. Daniel G. Graetzer Mary Catherine Wilheit
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Lightning Strikes Bibliography Dennis, Jerry. It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes: Four Seasons of Natural Phenomenon and Oddities of the Sky. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Very readable manuscript highlighting lightning strikes and other natural phenomena within the atmosphere. Gardner, Robert L., ed. Lightning Electromagnetics. New York: Hemisphere, 1990. Text applying examples from physics and electronics to the natural events occurring during a thunderstorm. Rakov, Vladimir A., and Martin A. Uman. Lightning: Physics and Effects. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Covers all aspects of lightning, including physics and protection. Accessible to general readers. Renner, Jeff. Lightning Strikes: Staying Safe Under Stormy Skies. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2002. Discusses the risks of lightning, thunderstorm winds, and floods. Offers practical strategies for avoiding lightning. Salanave, Leon E. Lightning and Its Spectrum: An Atlas of Photographs. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980. Document relating the physics principles behind lightning formation and its spectrum. Uman, Martin A. The Lightning Discharge. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2001. Excellent description of the intricate process of lightning discharge in various environments. Williams, Jack. The Weather Book. 2d rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. An often-referenced text giving excellent descriptions of various weather patterns such as thunderstorms and catastrophic events such as lightning strikes.
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Meteorites and Comets Factors involved: Chemical reactions, geography, gravitational forces, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: All Definition The effects of meteorite and comet impacts on Earth range from the insignificant to the greatest natural disaster humankind may ever face—the extinction of most of the life on Earth. Science The Moon viewed through even a small telescope is a spectacular sight. It is covered with craters. Samples brought back from the Moon prove that they are impact craters, not volcanic craters. Because Earth and the Moon are in the same part of the solar system, it follows that Earth has been subjected to the same bombardment from space that produced craters on the Moon. Having been largely erased by erosion, Earth’s own cratering record is not so obvious. Earth’s atmosphere protects it from the rain of smaller meteoroids, a protection the Moon lacks, but the fact remains that Earth has been hit countless times in the past, and no doubt it will be hit countless times in the future. Objects that are out in space that might hit Earth include dust, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. In modern terminology, a meteoroid is a natural, solid object in interplanetary space. A meteor is the flash of light produced by frictional heating when a meteoroid enters a planetary atmosphere. Particularly bright meteors are called fireballs or bolides (especially if they explode). Meteorites are meteoroids that survive their passage through the atmosphere and reach the ground. Photographs of three meteorites during their meteor phase— from Pribram, Czechoslovakia, 1959; Lost City, Oklahoma, 1970; and Innisfree, Alberta, 1977—have allowed pre-impact orbits to be calculated. The orbits of all were traced back to the asteroid belt. Beginning in 1969, various workers were able to match the spectra of meteorites with those of asteroids, and it is now widely accepted that most 215
Meteorites and Comets meteorites are chips from asteroids. A few have been identified as having come from the Moon or from Mars. Rocky or metallic objects larger than about 328 feet (100 meters) across are called asteroids. They are so named because they look like stars—like points of light—in a telescope, but they have more in common with planets than with stars. It is believed that when the Sun first formed it was surrounded by a platter-shaped cloud of gases and dust grains. These grains accreted to form ever-larger objects, and the largest ones became the planets. Asteroids and comets are leftover objects that were never incorporated into planets. Asteroids larger than about 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) in diameter contained enough radioactive elements to melt their insides, allowing nickel and iron to sink to the center and stony material to float to the top. Over the eons, collisions among the asteroids have produced the collection present today. Nickel-iron asteroids are the remnant cores of asteroids whose outer, stony material has been chipped away. To penetrate deeply enough into Earth’s atmosphere to cause severe damage, objects must be more than about 131, 164, and 328 feet (40, 50, and 100 meters) in diameter for metallic, stony, or icy bodies, respectively. The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Farther out in the solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune, ice was the most abundant solid building material. (Here, ice means mostly frozen water, but it also includes frozen carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia.) The solid part of a comet, the nucleus, forms from these ices mixed with silicate and hydrocarbon dust grains. An inactive comet looks much like an asteroid, but as a comet nears the Sun, vapor streams from the nucleus as the ices evaporate. Inactive comets are difficult to detect, but a large, active comet is a spectacular sight. The nucleus is surrounded by a vapor cloud 621,400 miles (1 million kilometers) across and has a gas tail up to 62,140,000 miles (100 million kilometers) long. Asteroids or comets that may hit Earth are of obvious interest. Richard P. Binzel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed a scale to help scientists communicate with the media and the public about the perceived risks associated with these objects. This scale is named the Torino Impact Hazard Scale and was adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1999. A Torino scale 0 object is either too small to cause damage or will not 216
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Milestones 2 billion b.c.e.: An asteroid impact at Vredefort, South Africa, produces a 186-mile-diameter crater, the largest known on Earth. 1.85 billion b.c.e.: An asteroid impact at Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, produces a 155-mile-diameter crater. Groundwater, upwelling through fractured rocks, eventually produces one of the world’s richest nickel deposits. 65 million b.c.e.: A 6.2-mile-diameter asteroid produces a 112-milediameter crater on the Yucatán Peninsula. The associated environmental disaster causes most of the species then living, including the dinosaurs, to become extinct. 49,000 b.c.e.: The impact of a huge nickel-iron boulder forms the Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona. 1680: Scientist Isaac Newton notes that the comet of 1680 passes less than 621,400 miles (1 million kilometers) from the Sun and deduces that its nucleus must be solid in order to survive. December 25, 1758: The first predicted return of Halley’s comet is observed. 1794-1803: Scientists prove that meteorites do fall from the sky. 1861: Earth passes through the tail of the Great Comet of 1861 with no measurable effects. June 30, 1908: A huge boulder or a small comet explodes over Tunguska, Siberia, causing widespread destruction. 1920: Arizona’s Barringer Crater is the first Earth feature recognized to have been caused by a meteorite impact. January 3, 1970: The fall of the Lost City, Oklahoma, meteorite is photographed, and its orbit is later traced back to the asteroids. August 10, 1972: A house-sized rock forms a brilliant fireball as it hurtles through Earth’s atmosphere and back into space. June, 1980: Luis Alvarez and others at the University of California at Berkeley publish an article in Science presenting the hypothesis that an asteroid impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. March, 1986: The nucleus of Halley’s comet is photographed. October 9, 1992: A meteorite smashes the rear end of a 1980 Chevy Malibu automobile in Peekskill, New York. July, 1994: The impact of the fragmented Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter is widely observed.
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Meteorites and Comets hit Earth. Torino scale 1 objects will probably not hit Earth, but they merit careful watching. Torino scale 2, 3, and 4 objects merit concern, and scale 5, 6, and 7 objects are progressively threatening. Torino scale 8, 9, and 10 objects will hit Earth and are expected to cause local, regional, or global damage, respectively. Geography Any place on Earth may be hit by a meteorite; no location is particularly safe, but seacoasts are the most vulnerable. The 1908 Tunguska impact was a Torino scale 8 event with localized destruction. Had the Tunguska meteorite been just large enough to reach the ground intact, the destruction still would have been largely local. However, if such an object struck the ocean it would generate tsunamis that would cause widespread coastal destruction. The impact of a Tunguska-scale object on the glaciers of Greenland or Antarctica might melt 35,315 cubic feet (1 cubic kilometer) of ice, but that would produce only an imperceptible rise in the ocean level. However, the impact on Antarctica of a 6-mile-diameter asteroid, such as is thought to have killed the dinosaurs, could melt enough ice to raise the sea level more than 230 feet (70 meters). Another environmentally sensitive site for a giant impact is a thick limestone deposit such as exists on the Yucatán Peninsula. It seems likely that the copious amounts of carbon dioxide released from the Yucatán limestone contributed to a warmer climate for thousands of years after the impact. Prevention and Preparations The first step in meteorite strike prevention and preparation is to make a survey of objects that come close to Earth. These are called near-earth objects (NEOs). Under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union, the Spaceguard Foundation was established on March 27, 1996, in Rome. The foundation coordinates international efforts to discover NEOs. As of November 2, 2006, 4,338 NEOs had been discovered and their orbits calculated. Considered the most dangerous of these were 814 potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). PHAs are larger than 492 feet (150 meters) in diameter and will come within 4.7 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth. More refined orbital information should eventually tell whether or not 218
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The Torino Impact Hazard Scale Assessing asteroid and comet impact hazard predictions. Events Having No Likely Consequences (White Zone)
0
The likelihood of a collision is zero, or well below the chance that a random object of the same size will strike Earth within the next few decades.
Events Meriting Careful 1 Monitoring (Green Zone)
The chance of collision is extremely unlikely, about the same as a random object of the same size striking Earth within the next few decades. A somewhat close, but not unusual encounter. Collision is very unlikely. A close encounter, with 1 percent or greater chance of a collision capable of causing localized destruction. A close encounter, with 1 percent or greater chance of a collision capable of causing regional devastation.
Events Meriting 2 Concern (Yellow Zone) 3
4
Threatening Events (Orange Zone)
5
A close encounter, with a significant threat of a collision capable of causing regional devastation.
6
A close encounter, with a significant threat of a collision capable of causing a global catastrophe. A close encounter, with an extremely significant threat of a collision capable of causing a global catastrophe. A collision capable of causing localized destruction. Such events occur somewhere on Earth between once per 50 years and once per 1,000 years. A collision capable of causing regional devastation. Such events occur between once per 1,000 years and once per 100,000 years. A collision capable of causing a global climatic catastrophe. Such events occur once per 100,000 years, or less often.
7
Certain Collisions (Red Zone)
8
9
10
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Meteorites and Comets they will actually hit Earth. There were no known PHAs with more than a minute probability of hitting Earth. If it is discovered that an asteroid is about to hit Earth, can anything be done about it? The answer depends upon three key factors: the amount of warning time, the size of the asteroid, and the state of readiness of the space program. Taking the third factor first, there are normally no spacecraft on standby that are capable of reaching an asteroid. That means that if the warning time is only a few months, the only thing to be done is to evacuate the probable impact site, or to evacuate coastal areas if an ocean impact is predicted. Such an evacuation will be difficult and disruptive for a Torino scale 8 (local damage) object and will approach the impossible for a Torino scale 9 (regional damage) object. It would be incredibly difficult to evacuate the eastern United States, for example. For a Torino scale 10 object (global catastrophe), preparation efforts will be to provide food, shelter, and energy stores to maximize the number of survivors. Once an asteroid is discovered and observed for a period of time, its orbit can be predicted accurately for fifty to one hundred years into the future. Deflecting the asteroid into a slightly different orbit becomes an option if there is a ten- to twenty-year warning time. Deflection is probably superior to attempting to destroy the object. Objects small enough to be vaporized with nuclear weapons are small enough to be destroyed by Earth’s atmosphere. If an asteroid were not vaporized, but rather only shattered, by a nuclear explosion, the cloud of fragments would continue in the asteroid’s orbit and still strike Earth. If there were enough fragments, or if there were large fragments, Earth would still be devastated. Another solution is to explode a nuclear weapon above the surface of the asteroid. Prior experimentation and manned exploration may be necessary to determine how best to do this. Heat and radiation from the blast will vaporize asteroidal surface material, causing it to push against the asteroid like a rocket engine and thereby change the asteroid’s orbit. Only a small change in orbit would be necessary if done far enough in advance. A neutron bomb would be the weapon of choice since neutrons would penetrate deeper beneath the surface and therefore launch more material into space than would the gamma rays and X rays of a conventional thermonuclear weapon. 220
Meteorites and Comets
Scientists monitor the path of near-Earth objects such as comets in order to identify any collision threats. (NASA)
If humankind were to develop sufficient space-faring capacity, workers might land on the asteroid. Given enough time and an energy source such as a nuclear reactor, the orbit of the asteroid could be changed by launching rocks from a catapult device (mass driver) acting as a rocket engine. If there were sufficient water available, as ice in a comet nucleus, or combined in minerals as in some carbonaceous asteroids, steam rockets mounted on the object might be used to change its orbit. Three properties of comets make them more difficult to deal with: The vast majority can be discovered only months before their closest approach to Earth, and they are fragile and may break apart if one tries to maneuver them. They also travel faster than asteroids. Typical approach speeds relative to Earth are 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) per second for asteroids, but are 15.5 to 31 miles (25 to 50 kilometers) per second for comets.
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Meteorites and Comets Rescue and Relief Efforts and Impact If the damage from a meteorite were local, the aftermath would resemble that of other large-scale disasters, such as massive flooding, large earthquakes, destructive hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, or massive bombings. Rescue and aid workers would come from outside the area, but if a large city were destroyed, it would probably take days to bring sufficient resources to bear. As with the Tunguska event, most impacts occur in sparsely inhabited areas, but such events are expected to occur between once every fifty years to once every thousand years. If the destruction were regional, it might take many weeks to bring in sufficient aid. During that time the tragedy would be greatly compounded. Such regional events are expected to occur between once every thousand years and once every hundred thousand years. If the destruction were worldwide, sufficient aid would not exist. People in steel and stone buildings might survive the sky becoming baking hot (because of the fiery reentry of debris) unless the air became too hot to breathe or too oxygen-depleted by conflagrations. Both Switzerland and China have large systems of underground shelters built for nuclear war, and many other nations have some shelters. Those who survive the initial impact, earthquakes, tsunamis, hot sky, secondary fires, possibly toxic vapors and gases, and rising sea level (from melting ice) will need food and energy to keep warm for a few months to a year until the worldwide dust cloud settles from the air and the Sun shines again. Then they will need crops that will grow in the new, warmer climate. They will also need to deal with greatly increased ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, plagues, and the breakdown of civilization. Yet, except in an extreme worst case, some people should survive. Global climatic catastrophe due to asteroid or comet impact is expected to occur roughly every hundred thousand years. Historical Overview Humankind’s observations of meteorites and comets surely extend back to the times before recorded history. Some suggest that the ancient Greek myth of Phaethon’s ride is based upon a close brush with an active comet. According to the legend, Phaethon, son of the sun god, Helios, receives reluctant permission to drive the sun chariot across the sky. The inexperienced Phaethon drives too close to Earth 222
Meteorites and Comets and scorches it. To curtail further harm to Earth, Jupiter slays Phaethon with a lightning bolt. Helios reclaims the sun chariot, but in his grief, he refuses to bring light to Earth. All of this makes a fairly good description of a small comet rising in the east just before the Sun, a comet fragment producing a Tunguska-like fireball, and dust from an impact blocking sunlight. There is evidence for a destructive blast wave and for wildfires sweeping the Middle East four thousand years ago. The Greek word meteoros means “high in the air.” Some ancient Greeks considered comets to be meteors, that is, fiery gases high in the atmosphere. Others thought them to be “long-haired” stars (astTrkomTtTs), properly belonging to the heavens beyond the orbit of the Moon. Because comets often look like swords in the heavens poised to strike Earth, they were usually regarded as ill omens portending drought, famine, or war. Long ago, the term “meteors” also included rainbows, clouds, rain, snow, the aurora borealis, hailstones, and thunderstones. Thunderstones were unusual stones that were imagined to have been formed by lightning fusing dust in the air or by lightning striking the ground and launching stones into the air. Discovered thunderstones actually included some fossils, certain minerals, ancient stone tools, and meteorites. Throughout history some people claimed to have seen stones fall from the sky, or they have found things they believed to have come from the sky. Certainly, an iron meteorite is different enough from normal rocks that its finder would seek a special explanation. The Assyrian term for iron meant “metal from heaven.” The earliest-known iron objects were made from meteoric iron, and it is quite possible that working with this “sky metal” aided the Hittites in ushering in the iron age by smelting iron ore around 1400 b.c.e. Several meteorites became objects of veneration because they were considered gifts from the gods in the heavens. The temple of Artemis at Ephesus housed a meteorite, and the stone of Emesa in Syria was regarded as an incarnation of the sun god, Heliogebalus. The most famous is the black stone mounted in the corner of the Kaaba in the court of the Great Mosque at Mecca. The black stone of the Kaaba is said to have fallen from the sky as a sign of the divine calling of the prophet Abraham. By 1790 scientists had shown that most thunderstones did not 223
Meteorites and Comets come from the sky, and they supposed that none did. That supposition changed over a period of only ten years. In 1794 the physicist Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni published a treatise exploring the evidence for a dozen falls—cases where the meteorite was seen falling and was then recovered. In 1802 the chemist Edward Charles Howard announced that the minerals and chemical constituents of several meteorites were similar to each other but different from terrestrial rocks. In 1803 the physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot reported on a fireball that dropped many stones at L’Aigle in Normandy, proving that meteorites did fall from the sky. In the 1500’s several astronomers noted that because comet tails always pointed away from the Sun, comets must be in heavenly realms and cannot be luminous gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Tycho Brahe attempted to measure the distance to the comet of 1577 and showed that it was far beyond the Moon, thereby settling that question. Sir Isaac Newton maintained a lifelong fascination with comets. He eventually proved that the comet of 1680-1681 followed the same laws of motion and gravitation that planets did. It was Edmond Halley who
Meteor Crater in Arizona was formed by a meteorite more than 150 feet in diameter about 50,000 years ago. (NASA CORE/Lorain Valley JVS)
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Meteorites and Comets fired the public’s imagination with his successful prediction of the return of the comet that carries his name. Noting that the comets of 1531, 1607, and 1682 had very similar orbits, Halley supposed that they were the same comet and predicted that it would return near the end of 1758—it did, on Christmas night. Charles W. Rogers Bibliography Burke, John G. Cosmic Debris: Meteorites in History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. An engaging treatment of how science discovered the truth about meteorites. Chapman, Clark R., and David Morrison. Cosmic Catastrophes. New York: Plenum Press, 1989. This book treats the K/T impact, in which a meteorite hit the earth 65 million years ago, and other disasters. Cox, Donald W., and James H. Chestek. Doomsday Asteroid: Can We Survive? Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996. A good treatment of the efforts needed to locate and deflect potentially dangerous asteroids and comets. Lewis, John S. Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth: Computer Modeling. San Diego, Calif.: Academic, 2000. An excellent and scholarly treatment of the subject. _______. Rain of Iron and Ice: The Very Real Threat of Comet and Asteroid Bombardment. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996. A good account of various impacts, including interesting, but less wellknown, ones. Sagan, Carl, and Ann Druyan. Comet. New York: Random House, 1985. An excellent book by this very successful husband-wife writing team. It explains what we know about comets and how we learned this. The book is easily read and profusely illustrated. Steel, Duncan. Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets: The Search for the Million Megaton Menace That Threatens Life on Earth. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995. A good book for the general reader on mass extinctions and the K/T impact, the Tunguska object, and early detection efforts. Verschuur, Gerrit L. Impact! The Threat of Comets and Asteroids. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. An excellent and authoritative popular work written by an active astronomer. 225
Meteorites and Comets Zanda, Brigitte, and Monica Rotaru, eds. Meteorites: Their Impact on Science and History. Translated by Roger Hewins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. An accessible, comprehensive guide written by a team of experts.
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Smog Factors involved: Geography, human activity, temperature, weather conditions Regions affected: Cities, towns, valleys Definition Smog is a common component of urban life in many parts of the world. It was responsible for thousands of deaths after the widespread use of fossil fuels led to damaging emissions in local urban areas. Governments have responded by setting emissions standards in many countries. Science Smog is one of the major atmospheric problems of modern urban life and is found in two varieties. Until the middle part of the twentieth century, smog was formed by the mixture of particulate matter and sulfurous compounds combined in the atmosphere in regions where coal burning was common. This type of sulfurous smog is commonly called gray air or “London-type” smog. With the increased use of automobiles and trucks, a second type of smog, generated by the impact of sunlight on pollutants, became prevalent in many urban areas. This second type is called photochemical smog and results primarily from exhausts of vehicles in urban areas that have certain meteorological and topographical characteristics. The general term “smog” is a combination of the words “smoke” and “fog” and covers both types of air pollution. Air pollution formed by the burning of coal is not just a modern phenomenon. As far back as the thirteenth century, laws controlling the burning of coal were enacted to reduce the amount of smoke and haze that formed in London. However, the increased reliance on that common energy source produced more and more episodes of this type of air pollution in Europe and in other areas where coal was burned in quantity. When coal is burned, large amounts of particulate matter are released into the atmosphere, and these particles can cause health problems when inhaled in sufficient quantity. These small particles 227
Smog
Milestones 12th and 13th centuries: Air pollution in London is caused by extensive burning of coal. 1273: A law passes in London to restrict the burning of soft coal in an attempt to improve air quality in the area. 1306: England’s Parliament issues a proclamation requiring citizens to burn wood instead of coal in order to improve local air quality. December, 1873: An air pollution event in London kills between 270 and 700 people. February, 1880: Approximately 1,000 people die in London from an air pollution event. December, 1892: A smog episode kills 1,000 people in London. December, 1930: A thick fog settles in the industrialized area along the Meuse River in Belgium and is trapped for three days; thousands of people become ill and 60 die. 1943: A major smog episode in Los Angeles leads local officials to begin to look at regulations to reduce air pollution. December, 1948: Smog accumulates over Donora, Pennsylvania, and is trapped in the valley of the Monongahela River for four days, resulting in 18 deaths above the average number for that time period. November, 1949: A smog forms in Berkeley, California, from the exhaust of automobiles being driven into the area for a football game. December, 1952: A dense fog develops over London and remains stagnant for five days, leading to 4,000 deaths above the average number for that time interval. 1953: Smog accumulates in New York City, causing at least 200 deaths. 1956: A severe smog episode in London leads to the deaths of 1,000 people. November, 1956: At least 46 people die in a smog episode in New York City. 1962: Over 700 people die in a smog event in London. December, 1962: 60 people die from smog in Osaka, Japan. January-February, 1963: Smog kills up to 400 people in New York City. 1966: A four-day smog event in New York City results in the deaths of 80 people; Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller declares a state of emergency.
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Smog 1970’s: Severe smog conditions are recognized in many Chinese cities; death rates as high as 3,500 people per year are reported in some areas in 1979. 1980’s-1990’s: Reports of increase of deadly air pollution conditions in Eastern Europe, Mexico, and China. December, 2005: In Tehran, Iran, businesses and schools close because of severe smog conditions; hundreds of people are taken to the hospital.
also act as nucleation sites for water vapor to condense and form water droplets, leading to the formation of a fog. In addition, most coals contain a significant amount of sulfur, and, when burned, this sulfur is combined with oxygen and released into the atmosphere as sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide may then combine with the water droplets formed on the particulate matter to create sulfuric acid. Major episodes of sulfurous smog generally occur when certain topographical and meteorological features coincide. If the urban area is located in a basin, then the pollutants can be easily trapped if an atmospheric inversion develops in the region. An atmospheric inversion forms when winter anticyclonic conditions and low temperatures occur and little low-level atmospheric circulation is produced. As a result, the pollutants are pumped into a basin sealed by a meteorologic “lid,” and there is little to no dispersion of the particulate matter and sulfuric acid droplets. These meteorologic conditions may continue for days, during which time the resultant air pollution will worsen. The smog will be dispersed only if meteorologic conditions change such that breezes can move the pollution over the surrounding hillsides and out of the basin. In some areas, there is no topographic basin that retains the pollutants; rather, the input of pollutants is so great that horizontal flow is not fast enough to remove the smog. The classic examples of this type of smog were the London smogs of the 1950’s. Photochemical smog is formed in very different ways. This type of smog has been recognized since the 1940’s in Southern California and is now common in many large urban areas. Once again, the major culprit in the formation of this type of air pollution is the burn229
Smog ing of fossil fuels, particularly oil. The combustion of gasoline in motor vehicles and industrial plants produces a wide variety of exhaust particles and compounds. Particularly important in the formation of photochemical smog are hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides. Through a series of complex chemical reactions, these compounds and others lead to the formation of photochemical oxidants such as ozone and peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN). The chemical reactions begin when nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is split by the ultraviolet radiation of sunlight and the oxygen atom released by the reaction, then combines with oxygen (O2) in the air to produce ozone (O3). Ozone is a major component of photochemical smog, causing numerous respiratory health effects. In the absence of other compounds the ozone will decompose, releasing an oxygen atom that will combine with nitrogen oxide (NO), which was produced when nitrogen dioxide was split by sunlight. Thus, the concentration of ozone will generally not rise to high levels unless the latter reaction is not allowed to proceed. Automobiles and trucks release large quantities of hydrocarbons during operation, and these hydrocarbons are degraded in the atmosphere by oxygen, creating volatile organic compounds. These volatile organic compounds then enter into a number of complex reactions with the NO and thus short-circuit the reaction of NO and ozone that keeps the level of ozone quite low. The reactions of the volatile organic compounds and the nitric oxide may produce numerous compounds, including PAN. Whereas natural levels of ozone, produced in the absence of volatile organic compounds, may reach background levels of 0.04 parts per million, ozone levels in urban areas may reach over 0.2 parts per million, and levels over 0.6 were recorded in the Los Angeles area during the 1950’s. These higher levels of ozone and other pollutants of photochemical smog are usually developed in topographic basins where an atmospheric inversion occurs. In the Los Angeles basin, the effect of descending warm air produced by regional weather patterns tends to seal the air mass into the basin and not allow even coastal breezes to push the pollutants over the mountains to the east and north. These conditions may last for several days and keep the polluted air mass within the region. Pollution will lessen only when the inversion disappears and the smog can be dispersed into the areas east of the basin. 230
Smog Geography Smog has been a significant air-pollution problem in Western countries for centuries because of the development of coal and, later, oil resources as major energy sources that fuel economic development. As a result, the most significant smog episodes have been reported in Europe and the United States. Smog has killed thousands of people in London, Belgium, New York, Pennsylvania, and other industrialized areas in the Western world. However, photochemical and sulfurous smogs are not confined to the United States and Europe. The industrialization of many other countries and the increase in automobile usage worldwide have created the unwanted side effect of atmospheric pollution. Many of the most severe smog events now occur in Eastern Europe, Mexico, Japan, and China. The number of automobiles operating at the end of the twentieth century was about 700 million, and because the number was expected to climb to over 1 billion in the early part of the twenty-first century, it is apparent that the occurrence of photochemical smog in urban areas will continue to be a significant problem for many years. Prevention and Preparations Governments have approached the prevention of smog in a number of ways. One approach has been to attempt to control emissions by establishing laws limiting the quantity of emitted pollutants. The United States, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, Yugoslavia, Norway, and Russia have established air-quality standards. The air-quality standards vary within these countries. In the United States, the Clean Air Act, enacted in 1970 and emended in later years, established national ambient air-quality standards, which set the permissible levels of six pollutants in the air. The six original pollutants were carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, particulate matter, sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides. In many cases the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authorized states to monitor and enforce the regulations, which have been aimed at controlling emissions from large point sources, such as coal and oil-fired factories and utilities, in an attempt to reduce the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants. The localized nature of these point sources makes the control of emissions manageable but often expensive. 231
Smog However, the formation of photochemical smog is the result of emissions from millions of automobiles, trucks, and buses. Four approaches have been tried to reduce the emission of tailpipe pollutants. One approach has been to set emissions standards that all automobiles must meet in order to be licensed for the road. Smog tests are required for cars, and those not passing the test must be repaired before further use. Second, since the total emission is related to total gasoline usage, an increase in car efficiency would reduce pollutants. Miles-per-gallon standards have been established for automobile manufacturers, although these standards have been modified at times. The third method of reducing emissions has been alteration of the fuel itself. Gasoline additives such as methyl butyl ether (MTBE) have reduced tailpipe pollutants by helping to burn the fuel more completely. Unfortunately, MTBE has been shown to be a groundwater pollutant and will be phased out of use; alternative compounds will be substituted to reduce emissions. Finally, general conservation methods such as carpooling and mass transit can reduce total fuel use and result in fewer emissions. These regulations have greatly reduced some of the pollutants—lead and particulate matter—but reducing the levels of the other air pollutants has been more difficult. Impact The health impacts of smog are various but are generally associated with respiratory effects. People most affected by sulfurous smogs are children, the elderly, and those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Also affected are people with heart disease. It has been estimated that the London smog event of December, 1952, resulted in an excess of over 4,000 deaths above the average. Most of these deaths were attributed to pulmonary problems, with those having chronic bronchitis resulting in the highest number of deaths. In addition, a significant number died because of heart failure. Photochemical smogs also affect the young, elderly, and the sick most severely. Epidemiological studies have not shown that photochemical smogs alone cause death, but the combination of smog and high temperatures has resulted in increased mortality. Because ozone is a gas, it most frequently affects respiratory function, and short-term exposure may lead to coughing, wheezing, shortness of 232
Smog
U.S. Air Pollution Trends, 1970-1997 In Thousands of Tons Volatile organic Carbon Nitrogen dioxides compounds monoxide
Year
PM-10
PM-10, fugitive dust
1970
13,190
(NA)
31,161
21,639
30,817
128,761
220,869
1975
7,803
(NA)
28,011
23,151
25,895
115,968
159,659
1980
7,287
(NA)
25,905
24,875
26,167
116,702
74,153
1985
4,695
40,889
23,230
23,488
24,227
115,644
22,890
1990
5,425
24,419
23,678
23,436
20,935
95,794
4,975
1995
4,306
22,454
19,189
23,768
20,558
89,151
3,924
1997
8,428
25,153
20,369
23,582
19,214
87,451
3,915
Sulfur dioxide
Lead
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1999, 1999. Note: PM-10 emissions consist of particulate matter smaller than 10 microns in size.
breath, chest tightness, headaches, nausea, and throat dryness. The long-term effects of ozone exposure are not well understood, but there is some indication of scarring in lung tissue and the development of lung fibrosis. The primary eye irritants found in photochemical smog are PAN, peroxybenzol nitrate, and acrolein. In the case of both types of smog the advice is the same. All people, particularly those most at risk, should restrict exposure to smog during these air-pollution events by remaining indoors and restricting exercise. Children are particularly at risk to smog because their air intake is higher per unit of body weight than that of adults, and they should be supervised appropriately during a smog event to reduce exposure. Smog also has significant impacts on agriculture and forests. Ozone, a significant component of photochemical smog, causes an estimated annual economic loss of over $3 billion in the United States because of a reduction in productivity of crops. Particularly susceptible plants include tomatoes, spinach, pinto beans, and tobacco. Ozone and other oxidants also cause damage to forests. Signif233
Smog icant tree loss or damage because of ozone has been reported in Southern California, Mexico, Israel, and Europe. Smog can also cause damage to many consumer products. Stretched rubber exposed to ozone will rapidly degrade and crack, but damage is controlled by adding ozone inhibitors during the production of automobile tires and insulation. Other consumer products affected by ozone include textiles, dyes, and some fabrics. Historical Overview Air pollution has been a problem in some parts of the world since the use of coal and oil became important and common. As early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in London, the air became so polluted with smoke from coal fires that complaints were frequent, and in 1273 a law was enacted to reduce the amount of soft coal burned. This was followed in 1306 by a proclamation issued by Parliament requiring citizens to burn wood instead of coal in an attempt to rid London of the dreaded gray fogs that periodically caused illnesses and deaths in the city. However, the meteorologic conditions in southern England and the continued use of coal by industries and residents led to numerous smog episodes throughout the years. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, major smog events in London occurred in 1873, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1891, and 1892. An additional major air-pollution episode occurred in 1901. Smog generated by the industrial use of coal and, later, oil continued to be a significant environmental problem in the twentieth century. In December, 1930, a very heavy fog developed in Belgium along the Meuse River. The fog mixed with the emissions from blast furnaces, fertilizer plants, glass factories, and other industries and created a deadly smog, which caused thousands to become ill and resulted in at least 60 deaths. In 1948, Donora, Pennsylvania, experienced one of the most deadly air-pollution events in the United States. This area in the Monongahela River Valley was engulfed in a dense polluted fog for four days. The air was polluted with the emissions from coal burning as well as those from a zinc smelter and a steel mill. This stew of air pollutants was responsible for approximately one-half of Donora’s population becoming ill and about 20 deaths. Beginning in the early 1940’s in Southern California a new type of 234
Smog smog was recognized. Photochemical reactions produced a type of air pollution that consisted of ozone and other irritants. Initially, it was thought that this smog was produced in much the same manner as those smogs of London or New York. In Los Angeles, politicians thought that the smog could be eliminated within just a few months by restricting the emissions of a number of industries in the city. However, these controls were not successful. In 1949 the role of automobiles in the production of photochemical smog became evident, when such a smog developed in Berkeley, California, where there were no major industrial plants. Fans attempting to reach a football game at the University of California there were stalled in a massive traffic jam, and the idling cars released emissions that were converted into smog. During the 1950’s and 1960’s London and New York City continued to suffer very severe, deadly air pollution episodes. Over 4,000 people died in London in December, 1952, and another 1,000 people were killed by smog in the same city in 1956. Killing smogs occurred in New York City in 1953, 1963, and 1966. More than 500 people died from these smog events. The widespread nature of smog became more evident beginning in the 1970’s and continuing throughout the remainder of the century. China revealed the heavy toll air pollution had taken on its population in large cities. It was reported that about 3,500 people died per year in the city of Wuhan alone and that many other Chinese cities suffered severely from the smogs created by the burning of coal. Air pollution has been extremely damaging in Eastern Europe, although the exact nature of all the damage is not yet known. In addition, Mexico, particularly Mexico City, suffered extreme air pollution in the latter part of the twentieth century. The increasing development of Third World countries will, in all probability, lead to more frequent damaging smog episodes. In December, 2005, hundreds of people had to be taken to the hospital in Tehran, Iran, and businesses and schools were closed as a result of severe smog conditions. Jay R. Yett Bibliography Allaby, Michael. Fog, Smog, and Poisoned Rain. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Intended for students. Discusses air pollution and its consequences. 235
Smog Benarde, Melvin A. Our Precarious Habitat. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989. The author presents information on a wide variety of environmental problems, including smog. Good data are given on specific instances of air pollution and its effects. Elsom, Derek M. Atmospheric Pollution: A Global Problem. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Scientific, 1992. This is an excellent text on all types of atmospheric pollution and includes very informative chapters on smog and its effects. The book covers scientific, economic, political, and social aspects of air pollution. Graedel, T. E., and Paul J. Crutzen. Atmospheric Change: An Earth System Perspective. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1993. The authors are primarily concerned with long-term climate change, but their book is a good introduction to physical and chemical processes of the atmosphere. Also contains an important chapter on urban air quality. Keller, Edward A. Environmental Geology. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000. A well-written text that covers atmospheric pollution as well as other geologically important environmental problems. Soroos, Marvin S. The Endangered Atmosphere. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. All aspects of air pollution are treated in this book, which includes an informative section on gaseous pollutants.
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Tornadoes Factors involved: Geography, temperature, weather conditions, wind Regions affected: Cities, coasts, forests, mountains, plains, towns, valleys Definition Tornadoes are violent, funnel-shaped whirlwinds that extend downward from thunderstorm clouds. Each year, hundreds of tornadoes touch down worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage and claiming many lives. Science A tornado is a violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from the base of a thunderstorm or a towering cumulus cloud. A condensation funnel does not need to reach the ground or even be visible for a tornado to be present. A waterspout is a tornado occurring over water. The word “tornado,” a hybrid of the Spanish tronada (thunderstorm) and tornar (to turn), appeared in sixteenth and seventeenth century English writings but referred to a tropical Atlantic thunderstorm, often with torrential rain and sudden violent gusts (probably a hurricane). Eighteenth and nineteenth century Americans called tornadoes “whirlwinds” or “cyclones.” Not until the twentieth century did the word “tornado” define a vortex over land. A tornado is usually a white, gray, black, or invisible funnel-shaped cloud, but some tornadoes may resemble a wall of smoke rolling across the landscape. Path widths vary from a few yards to more than a mile; path lengths, averaging 4.5 miles, range from 0.25 mile to more than 200 miles. In the United States, the storms move most often from southwest to northeast or west to east at ground speeds from nearly stationary to 70 miles per hour. A tornado may last from a few minutes to more than an hour. Winds in tornadoes generally whirl in a counterclockwise (cyclonic) direction in the Northern Hemisphere and a clockwise (anticyclonic) direction in the Southern Hemisphere, although about one in one thousand whirls in the op237
Tornadoes
Milestones 600-500 b.c.e.: Perhaps the first recorded tornado is the “whirlwind” mentioned in Ezekiel 2:4 and 2 Kings 2:11 of the Old Testament. October 17, 1091: The earliest British tornado for which there is an authentic record hits London, killing 2 and demolishing 600 houses. May 27, 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, an F4 tornado, hits St. Louis, Missouri, leaving 306 dead and 2,500 injured and destroying or damaging 7,500 buildings as well as riverboats and railroads. June 30, 1916: Canada’s most lethal twister to date kills 28 in Regina, Saskatchewan. March 18, 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado, the United States’ worst tornado disaster to date, occurs when a 219-mile-long twister destroys entire towns along its path through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, causing 689 deaths, more than 2,000 injuries, and $16-18 million in damage. March 25, 1948: Air Force officers Ernest Fawbush and Robert Miller issue the first tornado watch in the United States, but it is for military use only. March 17, 1952: The U.S. Weather Bureau issues the first tornado watch to the American public. May 11, 1953: A tornado destroys much of downtown Waco, Texas, leaving 114 dead and 1,097 injured. June 8, 1953: The last U.S. tornado to date to claim 100 lives devastates parts of Flint, Michigan, killing 120 and injuring 847. June 9, 1953: The worst tornado to date to strike the northeastern United States plows a path greater than a half-mile wide through Worcester, Massachusetts; 94 people are killed, 1,288 are injured, and more than 4,000 buildings are damaged or destroyed. April 11, 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak of around 50 tornadoes kills 271, injures more than 3,100, and causes more than $200 million in damages in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. June 8, 1966: The first $100 million tornado in the United States cuts a path through Topeka, Kansas, killing 16 and destroying more than 800 homes and much of the Washburn University campus. May 11, 1970: A powerful tornado plows through downtown Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 and injuring more than 1,500. This tornado initiates a new interest in tornado studies, including Theodore Fujita’s development of a tornado rating scale.
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Tornadoes January 10, 1973: South America’s worst tornado to date destroys parts of San Justo, Argentina; 50 people are killed. April 3-4, 1974: In the Jumbo Outbreak, 148 tornadoes, including 6 rated F5, kill 316 and injure almost 5,500 in 11 midwestern and southern states; an additional 8 deaths occur in Canada. Hardest hit communities include Xenia, Ohio, with 35 deaths and 1,150 injured, and Brandenburg, Kentucky, with 31 deaths and 250 injured. June 9, 1984: Europe’s worst tornado to date kills over 400 and injures 213 in Belyanitsky, Ivanovo, and Balino, Russia. April 26, 1989: The world’s deadliest tornado to date occurs in Bangladesh when a twister slashes a 50-mile-wide path north of Dhaka; about 1,300 people are killed, more than 12,000 are injured, and almost 80,000 are left homeless. May 13, 1996: A large tornado levels several towns near Tangail, Bangladesh; more than 1,000 are dead and 34,000 are injured, with 100,000 left homeless. May 27, 1997: An F5 tornado hits Jarrell, Texas; 27 are dead, 8 are injured, and 44 homes are damaged or destroyed. May 3, 1999: Part of the Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak, one of the most expensive tornadoes in U.S. history destroys nearly 2,500 homes and kills 49 in Oklahoma City and its suburbs; damage estimates approach $1.5 billion. May 15, 2003: A researcher is able to insert probes called “turtles” into an F4 tornado to measure its pressure. February 2, 2007: A tornado outbreak in central Florida kills 20 people; it is the first event to be measured by the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which factors in storm damage.
posite direction. Scientists do not know the minimum pressure within a tornado but estimate that it may be as low as 60 percent of normal air pressure, or about 600 millibars of mercury. Witnesses have variously described the sound of a tornado as like a freight train, a jet airplane, or a high-pitched squeal. Wind speeds range from below hurricane strength (75 miles per hour) to more than 300 miles per hour, but about 70 percent of tornadoes produce winds of less than 110 miles per hour. The appearance of a tornado is not an indication of its intensity. No instrument 239
Tornadoes
The Fujita Scale Rating
Strength
Wind Speeds
Damage Levels
F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5
weak weak strong strong violent violent
40-72 mph 73-112 mph 113-157 mph 158-206 mph 207-260 mph 261-318 mph
light damage moderate damage considerable damage severe damage devastating damage incredible damage
to measure wind speed has ever survived a strong tornado. Theodore Fujita at the University of Chicago devised a tornado rating scale, called the Fujita scale or F-scale, which examines structural damage to assess the wind speed of a tornado. Meteorologists and engineers assign each U.S. tornado a rating, from F0 to F5, based on the single most intense example of damage in its path. Only 2 percent of tornadoes have received an F4 or F5 rating, but they have caused 70 percent of deaths. An F5 tornado is extremely rare; only twenty of the more than twenty-seven thousand tornadoes from 1970 through 1998 received that rating. Although tornadoes can appear at any hour of the day, most form between noon and 9 p.m., peaking between 5 and 6 p.m. The majority of tornadoes occur in spring and summer, but they have occurred during every month of the year. A tornado has a distinct life cycle. It is usually born as a thin funnel descending from a parent thunderstorm cloud. As it matures and expands, the rotating column of air picks up material in its path and acquires the color of the circulating debris. In its dying stage the funnel may appear as a long, thin rope. A tornado is capable of massive destruction during all stages. Some tornadoes have multiple vortices, or several small funnels rotating around a central axis. Occasionally, a tornado “outbreak” occurs, when a single weather system produces numerous tornadoes in one day. Annually, the United States is home to about 100,000 individual thunderstorms; about 1,000 of them produce a tornado. Conditions for formation of a tornadic thunderstorm exist when a layer of warm, moist air becomes trapped beneath a layer of cold, dry air by an intervening layer of warm, dry air. If a cold front or disturbance in the up240
Tornadoes per levels of the atmosphere disturbs the delicate layering, the warm, moist air pushes upward through the cold air. As the thunderstorm develops, winds of different speeds and directions at varying heights in the atmosphere create an invisible, horizontal spinning effect near the earth’s surface, much like a rolling pin moving across a table. The rising warm air tilts the rotating air from horizontal to vertical (stands the rolling pin on end while it is still turning), producing an area of rotation about 2 to 6 miles in diameter within the storm. Tornadoes appear from this rotating area, called a mesocyclone, but not all mesocyclones produce tornadoes. A majority of tornadoes form in conjunction with cold fronts, but in the central plains many tornadoes develop along a dryline, the dividing line between very moist warm air to the east and hot dry air to the west. Both cold fronts and drylines can produce supercell thunderstorms with clouds towering to 50,000 feet or higher. Supercells produce most of the violent tornadoes. Tornadoes also form when tropical storms or hurricanes move over land, but these tornadoes are usually weak. Scientists have not found the last piece of the puzzle, the exact mechanism that triggers the formation of a tornado. The capricious nature of tornadoes is well documented. Tornadoes have completely destroyed a house but left food on a table untouched or leveled one house and left the neighboring one intact. The howling winds have carried people and objects great distances and deposited them back to earth unhurt. They commonly drive blades of grass or splinters of wood into trees or houses. Tornado myths abound. One says that areas near lakes, rivers, and mountains are safe from tornadoes, but in reality these barriers have no effect on tornadoes. They have traveled across lakes and up and down mountains; more than thirty tornadoes have crossed the Mississippi River. Other myths include that tornadoes are always preceded by hail, mobile homes attract tornadoes, and opening windows will keep a building from exploding. Geography More than one-half of the world’s tornadoes occur annually in the United States, where the conditions for their formation are ideal: a moisture source to the south, a cold source to the north, mountain ranges to the west, deserts to the southwest, and an active jet stream. 241
Tornadoes These meteorological conditions converge most often in an area designated “Tornado Alley,” which extends from Texas northward to Nebraska. From 1880 to 1998, more than 35,000 killer tornadoes brought death to virtually every state of the union. The Great Plains, Midwest, and Southeast experienced the greatest loss of life. Only seven states— Alaska, Hawaii, California, Nevada, Utah, Rhode Island, and Vermont—reported no fatalities. Texas led the nation in the number of tornadoes and total deaths. Oklahoma had the greatest tornado concentration per square mile. Mississippi led in deaths per million people. About twenty other countries, including Canada, Russia, Australia, India, China, Bangladesh, England, Italy, France, and Japan, have conditions favorable for tornadoes. In most of these countries, tornadoes are weak and take few lives. Fujita studied tornado damage reports from throughout the world and concluded that tornadoes rated F4 or greater occur only in the United States, Canada, Bangladesh, and India. Statistics for countries outside the United States may be misleading, however. No standards for identifying and rating tornadoes exist, and no organization compiles international tornado statistics. Countries with large, sparsely populated areas, such as Australia, Canada, and Russia, may experience many more tornadoes than are reported. Second to the United States in the number of tornadoes is Canada, which averages 80 tornadoes and 1 or 2 deaths annually. Most Canadian tornadoes occur in areas near the U.S. border and in western New Brunswick and interior British Columbia. The United Kingdom, which experiences 33 weak tornadoes in an average year, has the highest frequency of tornadoes per unit area in the world. The most susceptible areas are the Midlands and eastern England; tornadoes are rare in Northern Ireland and Scotland. About 15 tornadoes occur annually in Australia in the summer and winter, particularly in the eastern, southeastern, and western coastal areas. Prevention and Preparations Humans cannot prevent tornadoes or lessen their destruction, but they can take several steps to lessen loss of life. A successful preparation program includes four integral parts: the issuance of a tornado 242
Tornadoes forecast or watch, the spotting of a tornado, the dissemination of warnings to the public, and the response of an educated public to the warnings. The United States is the only country to have a national office responsible for issuing severe weather forecasts. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, issues a tornado watch (forecast) when atmospheric conditions that could produce a tornado arise. A watch, which usually covers an area of 20,000 to 30,000 square miles, activates spotter networks within the watch area. These volunteers are amateur radio operators, law enforcement officials, or ordinary citizens who receive training in recognizing and reporting tornadoes within their county. A tornado watch also activates emergency procedures at the local National Weather Service (NWS) offices, law enforcement agencies, and emergency management offices. If spotters see a tornado, or if Doppler radar indicates that one may be forming, the local NWS office issues a tornado warning for the affected county. Local television and radio stations break into programming to warn citizens of impending danger, and many communities sound a warning siren. The media, especially television, relay information on the path of the tornado and the safety precautions to take. In Canada and Australia, provincial and regional weather offices are responsible for tornado forecasts and warnings. Canada has a weather alert system that scrolls severe weather information across television screens, and a Doppler weather radar network was completed in 2003. Most other countries where tornadoes occur have no organized method of forecasting or warning of tornadoes. Because tornadoes occur so rapidly, all the potential victim has time to do is seek shelter. Doppler radar has increased the average warning time for tornadoes that strike in the United States to about fifteen minutes, but many occur with much less notice. To educate the public about the actions to take when a tornado threatens, the NWS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) distribute millions of tornado-safety brochures to schools and the general public, and states susceptible to twisters have a severe weather safety week each spring. Among the other countries that produce tornado-safety materials are Canada and Australia. The key to survival in a tornado is to avoid flying and falling debris. The best place to take shelter is in a storm cellar or basement. In 243
Tornadoes homes without basements, the safest place is on the lowest level in an interior room. The idea is to put as many walls as possible between oneself and the tornado and to stay away from windows. People in public buildings should go to an inside hallway on the lowest level and avoid wide-span roofs such as those found in auditoriums, gymnasiums, and shopping malls. Mobile homes and vehicles are especially vulnerable in a tornado and should be abandoned. In the United States 50 percent of the tornado fatalities from 1985 to 1997 occurred in mobile homes and vehicles. Those caught outdoors should seek shelter inside a building, and if nothing is available they should lie in a ditch. In all cases, arms or pillows should be used to protect the head and neck. Texas Tech University’s Wind Engineering Research Center studied building construction for many years in an effort to design homes that could withstand tornado and hurricane winds. In 1998 FEMA made plans for inexpensive home shelters that the Tech Center had designed available to the public and encouraged their construction. Rescue and Relief Efforts Because tornadoes occur with so little warning, and the odds of their striking one particular locale are so minute, few communities have specific tornado rescue plans. Often the streets are blocked by debris after a tornado, so much of the initial search for victims and rescue of trapped people comes from the survivors themselves. The greatest hazard in a tornado is being buried by falling debris. Frequently, those who seek shelter in a basement have the house fall in on them. When a tornado struck downtown Waco, Texas, in 1953, brick buildings crumbled, burying victims under 20 to 30 feet of rubble. In Saragosa, Texas, in 1987, 22 of the 30 fatalities occurred when the concrete block community center collapsed. Local law enforcement agencies are usually in charge of search and rescue. When the tornado is of great proportions, the governor may call in the National Guard for assistance, and if a large number of people are unaccounted for, FEMA may send search dogs to sniff through the rubble. A very strong tornado may hurl victims about like pieces of paper, sometimes many yards from their places of shelter. In the most violent tornadoes, victims may be found in trees or wrapped in tele244
Tornadoes phone or electric lines. Those who remain in mobile homes or cars are often found entangled in twisted metal. Tornado victims tend to have specific types of injuries. Most fatalities are from crushing injuries and head traumas. Broken bones, gashes, cuts, puncture wounds, and embedded glass are among the most common nonfatal injuries. In nearly all tornadoes, a majority of the victims are the elderly and children. An immediate concern is to turn off the gas and electricity to prevent fires and electrocutions. The National Guard may be mobilized to restore order and patrol against looting. If many fatalities are involved, law-enforcement officials will order everyone out of the devastated area until the bodies are recovered. When the victims are allowed to return to what remains of their homes and businesses, they usually find very little that is salvageable. What the wind does not destroy, the rain that frequently follows does. Simultaneously with rescue efforts, national relief organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, begin feeding the victims and rescue workers and setting up shelters for the homeless. A designated agency, often the Red Cross or a local government entity, compiles lists of survivors and fatalities. Within hours of the disaster, religious and civic organizations as well as individuals provide food, clothing, household items, and money for the victims. Many also help in the cleanup and rebuilding process. If the tornado has left behind substantial property damage, the governor may request a national disaster declaration. This designation, which the president must sign, provides federal assistance to individuals and communities for rebuilding. Impact Tornadoes rarely have a long-lasting effect on the physical environment. Unlike many natural disasters, such as floods or volcanic eruptions, “twisters” do not alter the topography of the area that they strike. The greatest environmental impact of a tornado is on trees, animals, humans, and the artificial environment. Violent tornadoes snap off trees, leaving only stubs, while most smaller tornadoes only break off branches. Occasionally, a twister downs thousands of trees in a forest. More commonly, the greatest damage to vegetation is to agricultural crops, which are readily replanted. 245
Tornadoes Tornadoes often kill wildlife. Frequently, frogs, fish, and various types of birds “rain” from the sky when they are caught in the rotating winds and dropped some distance away. During a 1978 tornado in Norfolk, England, 136 geese fell from the sky along a 25-mile track. Few reports of tornadoes killing larger wild animals exist, but it is probable that tornadoes killed many bison that once roamed the American Great Plains. Deaths of farm animals are common in tornadoes. Tens of thousands of cows, horses, pigs, and chickens have died through the years when winds carried them distances before dropping them or when barns or chicken houses collapsed. Dogs and cats are also frequent casualties of tornadoes. Tornadoes cause incredible damage to human-made objects. Stronger storms can reduce brick and wooden buildings to piles of rubble in seconds, and even weak ones can demolish mobile homes. Tornadoes have dumped bridges into rivers and lakes, leaving behind only twisted iron or steel and concrete pillars. A violent tornado can scour pavement from roads, toss cars and trucks like matchsticks, and derail trains. The annual price tag for tornado damage is unknown, but single tornadoes have been known to cause more than $1 billion in damage. The tornado that struck Omaha, Nebraska, on May 6, 1975, left behind $1.135 billion in damage (in 1995 dollars), and the tornadoes that ripped through the Oklahoma City area on May 3, 1999, cost more than $1 billion. Tornadoes leave their greatest impact on humans. During the twentieth century, these storms killed almost 15,000 and injured approximately 125,000 in the United States. In 1998, a record 1,426 tornadoes touched down in the United States and took 130 lives, the most in twenty-five years. Although they do not keep tornado statistics, India and Bangladesh combined may lead the world in tornado fatalities. A single tornado north of Dhaka, Bangladesh, killed 1,300 and injured 12,000 in 1989, and one in 1996 took more than 1,000 lives in the same area. The number of homeless and bereaved left in the path of tornadoes is uncountable. Historical Overview Although Greek philosopher Aristotle, the founder of meteorology, described tornadoes (or what he called “whirlwinds”) around 340 b.c.e, few accounts of nature’s most violent storms exist before 1600 246
Tornadoes
A large funnel cloud moves across the plains. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
except in the legends of several American Indian tribes. Tornadoes occurred infrequently in Europe and, except in England, received little notice until settlement began in North America, the prime natural habitat of these storms. Even then, tornadoes were not common occurrences. Only twenty such storms were recorded in pre-Revolutionary War times, including the July 8, 1680, storm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which claimed the life of John Robbins. This was the first written account of a tornado and a victim within the future United States. A Jesuit priest’s narrative of the tornado that struck Rome in 1749 is one of the few published accounts of a European tornado outside England to appear before the nineteenth century, and after 1800 most of the interest in tornadoes centered in the United States. A twister that struck New Brunswick, New Jersey, on June 19, 1835, stirred an ongoing scientific debate between U.S. meteorologists James Pollard Espy and William Redfield over the origin and nature of the storms. During the 1850’s and 1860’s, the Smithsonian Institution collected weather data from volunteer observers and military 247
Tornadoes posts, and in 1862 it distributed circulars to the public warning about tornado dangers and asking for reports on these storms. The first weather forecast in the United States, which meteorologist Cleveland Abbe issued on September 2, 1869, raised the possibility of forecasting severe storms and tornadoes in the future. On February 2, 1870, the federal government created a national weather service and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Army Signal Corps. One corpsman, John Park Finley, began a systematic study of tornadoes in 1877. Based on personal observations of the storms in the Great Plains and historical tornado data, Finley devised a set of rules for forecasting tornadoes. The corps allowed Finley to issue trial tornado predictions in 1884, and he claimed a 95-98 percent success rate. These forecasts never reached the public because the prevailing thought of the time was that people would panic if they thought a tornado might appear. This fear, along with a lack of interest in tornadoes among the scientific community, led to a prohibition on the use of the word “tornado” in any weather forecast until 1938. During the nineteenth century, four tornadoes in the United States claimed more than 100 lives each: May 7, 1840, in Natchez, Mississippi, 317 deaths; June 3, 1860, in rural Iowa and Illinois, 112 deaths; May 27, 1896, in St. Louis, Missouri, 306 deaths; and June 12, 1899, in New Richmond, Wisconsin, 117 deaths. The large population increase in the sections of the United States most prone to tornadoes led to greater tornado disasters during the first half of the twentieth century. The worst tornado disaster in U.S. history occurred on March 18, 1925, when a boiling mass of black clouds rolled 219 miles through parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 689 and injuring more than 2,000 in its path. This “Great Tri-State Tornado,” also the holder of the record for the longest path, helped make 1925 the deadliest year (794 deaths) and the 1920’s the deadliest decade on record for the United States (3,169 deaths). Annual deaths during the first half of the century averaged 210, and in addition to the Great Tri-State Tornado, eight tornadoes claimed 100 or more lives each: May 18, 1902, in Goliad, Texas, 114 deaths; April 24-25, 1908, in Louisiana and Mississippi, 143 deaths; March 23, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska, 115 deaths; May 25-26, 1917, in Mattoon, Illinois, 103 deaths; April 2, 1936, in Tupelo, Mississippi, 216 deaths; April 6, 1936, in Gainesville, Georgia, 206 deaths; June 248
Tornadoes 23, 1944, in Shinnston, West Virginia, 151 deaths; and April 9, 1947, in Woodward, Oklahoma, 181 deaths. The Weather Bureau lifted the ban on the use of the word “tornado” in forecasts in 1938 and gave its local offices responsibility for issuing severe storm and tornado forecasts, but local offices rarely mentioned the word. World War II brought a change in attitude toward these deadly storms. Many munitions plants and Army Air Corps fields were located in the tornado-susceptible Great Plains and South. To lessen the possibility of many deaths should lightning strike a munitions plant and to decrease the potential loss of airplanes, the bureau organized storm-spotting networks around the crucial facilities. A few of these remained after the war and became the nucleus of a nationwide spotter network organized in the 1950’s. On March 20, 1948, a tornado raked Tinker Field in Oklahoma City. Air Force meteorologists Ernest Fawbush and Robert Miller studied the atmospheric conditions that existed before the storm occurred. Five days later, when they recognized nearly identical conditions, the officers issued a tornado forecast for Tinker Field, the first such forecast in modern history. They were correct—a tornado touched down on the base. Fawbush and Miller continued to issue forecasts for the military, but the civilian population did not receive the same type of advanced notification until 1952. The Weather Bureau issued the first tornado forecast to the American public on March 17 of that year, but no tornadoes occurred within the watch area. Four days later, the bureau issued another tornado watch, and this time it was a “success”—one tornado occurred within the designated area and time—but there was no cause for rejoicing on March 21. The 17 tornadoes that struck Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi that day took 202 lives and injured over 1,200. In May, the Weather Bureau formed a Severe Weather Unit, the ancestor of the Storm Prediction Center, to issue both tornado and severe thunderstorm forecasts for the United States. In 1953, tornadoes hit three U.S. cities, with terrible consequences. On May 11, a twister plowed through downtown Waco, Texas, taking 114 lives; on June 8, a tornado struck Flint, Michigan, killing 120; and the following day, nature’s fury struck Worcester, Massachusetts, leaving 94 dead. These deadly storms ushered in a decade of vast improvements in tornado forecasting and warning, primarily the result 249
Tornadoes of radar and an expanded communications system. After the Waco tornado, Texas A&M University converted surplus navy radar to weather radar and installed it at various Weather Bureau offices around the state to create the country’s first comprehensive tornado warning system. Meteorologists noticed that frequently a tornado formed a distinctive radar pattern, called a hook echo, and they began issuing tornado warnings based solely on radar. During the 1950’s, their partner in spreading the warning of approaching danger to the public was radio (95 percent of U.S. households had a radio in 1950), but by the next decade, television had replaced radio as the primary warning medium. The weather establishment began to realize that one of the best ways to save lives was to educate the public. The Weather Bureau (which became the National Weather Service in 1970), state disaster offices, newspapers, television stations, and schools began a campaign in the late 1950’s to teach the public the difference between a tornado watch (meaning a tornado is possible) and a tornado warning (meaning a tornado has been sighted) and the precautions to take to save lives. Most communities in tornado-prone areas organized volunteer spotter networks. Television stations began to acquire radar and to hire professional meteorologists. The White House designated the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio as the sole government system to provide direct warnings of natural or nuclear disasters to private homes in 1975, and many Americans bought a special radio that sends out a warning when severe weather threatens their area. In the 1990’s, the National Weather Service installed a vastly improved tornado detector, Doppler radar, at all its offices throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and many television stations bought their own Dopplers. All these advances, along with improved building construction, contributed to a substantial reduction in the U.S. tornado death rate after the 1950’s, the last decade to register more than 1,000 tornado deaths. As of 2006, no individual tornado had claimed more than 100 lives since 1953, and the last single tornado to kill more than 50 Americans occurred in 1971. These statistics are remarkable considering that the population in the southeastern and southern plains states, the areas most susceptible to tornadoes, increased more than 60 percent in the second half of the twentieth century. 250
Tornadoes In spite of all the technological and educational advances that the United States has made, nature’s most vicious storm occasionally triumphs. An outbreak (several tornadoes in the same day) of 148 tornadoes on April 3-4, 1974, claimed 316 lives and injured more than 5,000 in 11 states. Other deadly outbreaks occurred on April 11, 1965, when 271 died in 6 midwestern states and on February 21, 1971, when 110 died in Louisiana and Mississippi. During 1994 and 1995, scientists from many U.S. universities and U.S. and Canadian weather agencies employed an armada of specially equipped vehicles, including aircraft, to gather data from thunderstorms in an effort to unlock the secret of tornado formation. In 2003, researchers were able to insert measuring devices called “turtles” into an F4 tornado. Marlene Bradford Bibliography Bluestein, Howard. Tornado Alley: Monster Storms of the Great Plains. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. This book by a leading meteorologist and tornado chaser is a history of tornado research interspersed with magnificent photographs. Bradford, Marlene. Scanning the Skies: A History of Tornado Forecasting. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. Traces the history of today’s tornado warning system. Explains how advancements in the late twentieth century resulted in the drastic reduction of fatalities. Eagleman, Joe R. “The Strongest Storm on Earth.” In Severe and Unusual Weather. Lenexa, Kans.: Trimedia, 1990. The author describes the basic science of tornadoes in terminology that general readers can understand. Flora, Snowden D. Tornadoes of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953. This book served as the standard reference work on tornadoes for years. Although outdated in many respects, it offers excellent historical accounts of many destructive tornadoes. Grazulis, Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes: 1680-1991. St. Johnsbury, Vt.: Environmental Films, 1993. _______. Significant Tornadoes Update, 1992-1995. St. Johnsbury, Vt.: Environmental Films, 1997. This massive book and its supplement 251
Tornadoes contain basic tornado information, maps, statistics, and a description of every tornado rated F2 or higher that occurred in the United States from 1680 to 1995. _______. The Tornado: Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. A comprehensive look at the most destructive tornadoes in the United States and 200 other countries. Ludlum, David. Early American Tornadoes: 1586-1870. Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1970. The author describes every reported tornado that occurred within the present United States until 1870 and discusses early American scientific thought on these storms. Whipple, A. B. “Thunderstorms and Their Progeny.” In Storm. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1982. This chapter mixes the science behind tornadoes with excellent meteorological drawings, magnificent photographs, and historical accounts of tornadoes.
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Tsunamis Factors involved: Geography, geological forces, gravitational forces Regions affected: Cities, coasts, islands, oceans Definition A tsunami is an ocean wave, or a series of ocean waves, of enormous energy caused most often by undersea geological disturbances, especially earthquakes. The waves can travel thousands of miles from their source to an island or coastal region, where they can cause great loss of life and massive physical damage to the natural environment and artificial structures. Science “Tsunami” is a Japanese word that means “harbor wave.” Tsunamis are also known popularly as tidal waves, although this is a misnomer because they are not caused by the tides or by Earth-Moon gravitational attraction, as are the tides. Tsunamis are caused by any disturbance under the ocean’s surface that causes great movements in the seawater. Tsunamis can be generated by earthquakes as well as landslides or volcanic eruptions on the seafloor. Tsunamis have been called seismic sea waves because they are often caused by earthquakes. They can also be caused by the impact of a large meteorite or large volcanic debris on the surface of the ocean. A tsunami should not be confused with a tidal bore, a storm surge, or a seiche. A tidal bore is a quickly advancing frontal wave of the incoming tide when concentrated into shallow narrow estuaries. Storm surges are associated with hurricanes and cyclones, which superimpose wind-driven waves onto the normal tidal actions and the sea currents created by offshore winds. Seiches are the slow and rhythmic oscillations of water in enclosed or nearly enclosed waters, such as bays or lakes. Tsunamis, like other waves or wave systems, are collections of energy. At a specific point in time and at a specific location, energy is transferred by a disturbance into a medium at rest, in this case the ocean, is propagated through that medium, and is ultimately dissipated, either slowly through friction with adjacent media or by the 253
Tsunamis sudden transfer of the remaining energy into another medium at a moment and point of disturbance. The vast majority of tsunamis are caused by earthquakes. Earthquakes themselves are caused by the shifting of tectonic plates relative to each other at the lines, either faults or trenches, where the plates meet. According to plate tectonics, the earth is a dynamic structure in which a dozen or more huge plates, each some 70 to 100 miles thick, float on a semimolten viscous mantle, which covers the entire surface of the earth. The energy dissipated by the circulation of the mantle causes the plates above to shift. Tectonic-plate motion is extremely slow, only an inch or two per year. If the forces that cause this motion are not completely dissipated through this slow movement they will build up and be released at once in a sudden cataclysmic shifting of the plates. Although earthquakes are the most frequent cause of tsunamis, not all earthquakes will produce such an event. An earthquake must be located under or near the ocean, be large (tsunamis are typically caused by earthquakes measuring 6.5 and above on the Richter scale), have a focal point less than 30 miles below the seafloor, and cause movement in the seafloor. It is the movement of the ocean floor under the water above it which serves as the initial impetus for the creation of the tsunami. Much more important than the magnitude of the earthquake are the type of earthquake and the type of motion it causes in the seafloor. Vertical shifting of the plates, especially a phenomenon known as subduction, is much more effective than transverse (side-by-side) motion in generating tsunamis. Subduction is the movement of one plate under an adjacent plate. Such subduction earthquakes are especially formative of tsunamis in the Pacific, where the thinner plates underlying the seafloor are moving downward and under the thicker adjacent continental plates. The sudden vertical movement of a subduction earthquake will displace, and thereby upset the equilibrium of, the water above. Because water is not compressible, the movement will force upwards, or downwards, the entire column of water above the shifted area, which might measure thousands of square miles. Waves form subsequently as gravity pulls the enormous volume of disturbed water back downward to its position of equilibrium. In this type of tsu254
Tsunamis
Milestones 1692: Tsunamis spawned by an earthquake in Port Royal, Jamaica, kill 3,000. 1703: 5,000 die in tsunamis in Honshn, Japan, following a large earthquake. 1707: A 38-foot-high tsunami kills 30,000 in Japan. 1741: Following volcanic eruptions, 30-foot waves in Japan cause 1,400 deaths. 1755: As many as 50,000 lose their lives in the combined earthquake and tsunami in Lisbon, Portugal. 1783: A tsunami in Italy kills 30,000. 1868: Tsunamis in Chile and Hawaii claim more than 25,000 lives. 1883: The Krakatau volcanic explosion and tsunami in Indonesia result in 36,000 deaths. 1896: As many as 27,000 die after tsunamis hit Sanriku, Japan. 1933: 3,000 are killed by tsunamis in Sanriku, Japan. 1946: The Aleutian tsunami creates 32-foot-high waves in Hilo, Hawaii, causing 159 deaths there. 1946: 2,000 die in Honshn, Japan, after an earthquake spawns tsunamis. 1964: 195-foot waves engulf Kodiak, Alaska, after the Good Friday earthquake; 131 die. 1998: A series of tsunamis in Papua New Guinea kills 2,000, mostly children. 1999: A tsunami and accompanying earthquake at the island of Vanuatu kills 10, injures more than 100, and leaves thousands homeless. 2001: A tsunami in Peru leaves 26 dead and 70 missing. 2004: A massive tsunami strikes 11 nations bordering the Indian Ocean, leaving at least 212,000 dead and almost 43,000 missing.
nami generation the amount of vertical drop or uplift of the underlying seafloor and the area over which it occurs govern the size of the resulting tsunami. The physics of the tsunami itself render it possible for the generating energy of the earthquake or other motive disturbance to be propagated across an entire ocean and deposited on 255
Tsunamis shore in powerful destructive forces. The tsunami will move outward in all directions from the point of disturbance in concentric circles, similar to the way ripples fan out in all directions when a stone is dropped into water. Unlike the ripples on a pond, however, the tsunami waves in the deep ocean are impossible to see from the air, nor can they be felt on a ship by which they pass. It is precisely the dimensions of the tsunami that render that possible. Wave dimensions are height (the distance from the bottom of the trough to the top of the crest), length (the distance from one crest to the next), and period (the time it takes for successive wave crests to reach a fixed point). Waves caused by the wind, which are visible on a lake or at the beach, will have a period of a few seconds, a height of a few feet or less—or more in the case of storms—and a length of a few hundred feet. In such an environment an object or vessel will visibly bob up and down on the surface as successive waves pass. A tsunami wave in the middle of the ocean, however, can have a period ranging from ten minutes to two hours, a height of a few feet or less, but a length of 300 miles or more. The ratio of length to height is thus far greater for a tsunami than for a winddriven wave. As a tsunami passes in the open ocean an object or vessel will only rise and fall a very short distance over a far greater length of time. The tsunami, for all the destructive power it manifests when striking a shore, is thus impossible to see or feel on the open ocean. To illustrate this irony one need only look to the example of the tsunami that destroyed the village of Sanriku, Japan, on June 15, 1896. About 90 miles offshore, an earthquake caused a tsunami that passed by the town’s fishing fleet, then working only 20 miles off the coast, completely unnoticed. The fishermen returned home the next day to find their town destroyed and the bodies of some 27,000 people littering the harbor. Tsunamis behave as shallow water waves. Such waves are characterized by a very low ratio of water depth to wave length. Although it may be hard to imagine, given the enormous depths found in the open ocean—especially the Pacific—if one considers the dimensions it is not hard to believe. The average depth of the Pacific is between 3 and 4 miles. If a tsunami’s length can be some 300 miles, then the ratio of ocean depth to wavelength is on the order of 1 to 100. Very important for the case of a tsunami, the speed of a shallow water wave is the 256
Tsunamis square root of the product of the acceleration of gravity and the depth of the water. That means the deeper the water, the faster the tsunami. Normal sea waves travel no faster than 60 miles per hour, even in the stormiest of weather over the deepest of seas. A tsunami can travel ten times as fast. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean is 18,480 feet. In water of such a depth a tsunami will travel 524 miles per hour. Through water 30,000 feet deep a tsunami travels at 670 miles per hour—as fast as a jet passenger plane. Furthermore, the rate of energy loss for a wave is inversely related to its length. Therefore, the longer the wave, the more slowly it loses its energy. These two factors, high velocity and slow energy loss, make it possible for a tsunami to deliver a tremendous amount of force across the entire Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean on the earth, in less than one day. A tsunami can carry so much energy that striking a shore will not necessarily consume all of its energy. Tsunami waves have been known to bounce back and forth across the Pacific for a week or more while their energy is slowly dissipated. As a tsunami approaches the perimeter of the ocean or an island and begins to run into increasingly shallow water, the wave’s velocity,
A tsunami capsizes a fishing boat. (FEMA)
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Tsunamis dependent entirely upon the depth of the water, decreases. In 60 feet of water, a tsunami wave will be slowed to 30 miles per hour. However, since the wave’s period will remain constant, the height of the wave will increase. Therefore, as the wave approaches land its speed decreases and its height increases. Although tsunami heights of up to 100 feet have been recorded, only very rarely will a tsunami take the form of a towering cresting wave of the sort sought after by surfers. The wave height will increase, however, and the tsunami will be noticeable, unlike on the open ocean. A tsunami might appear as a quickly changing tide, a series of breaking waves, or even a bore—a steplike wave with a steep breaking front. It is not necessarily the case that the tsunami will cause the water first to rise. If the trough of the tsunami reaches the shore first, the water level can drop and recede to an enormous extent, baring more of the shore bottom than the lowest tide. The crest will still follow, however. It has happened that onlookers, seeing what they thought was an incredibly low tide, have ventured out onto the exposed bottom, only to be caught by the subsequent fast-moving crest and drowned. Geography Although tsunamis can occur in any ocean of the world, approximately 80 percent of tsunamis are found in the Pacific Ocean. Another 10 percent are found in the Atlantic, and the rest are found elsewhere. Most tsunamis occur in the Pacific because that ocean has far more seismic activity than the others. The perimeter of the seafloor of the Pacific, known as the “Ring of Fire,” is a series of mountain chains, deep trenches, and volcanic island arcs caused by the movements of the adjoining tectonic plates that cover the surface of the earth. Major mountain ranges, such as the Andes Mountains in South America, and deep trenches, such as the Peru-Chile trench immediately off the west coast of South America, the Aleutian trench south of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and the Japan trench east of Japan, were created by the sudden movement of adjoining plates along fault lines. In the Pacific Ocean at least one tsunami per year has been recorded since 1800, and there is an average of two destructive tsunamis somewhere in the Pacific per year. Hawaii, an easy target in the 258
Tsunamis middle of the Pacific Ocean, suffered 37 tsunamis from 1875 to 2000, while Japan was struck by 15 major tsunamis, 8 of them especially destructive, between 1650 and 2000. Although Pacific-wide tsunamis are somewhat rare, the nations of the Pacific Ocean can expect an oceanwide tsunami on the average of once every ten or twelve years. Tsunamis are rare in the Atlantic, but they are not unknown. In November of 1928, an earthquake off of the Grand Banks in Newfoundland, Canada, generated a tsunami that caused both loss of life and significant property damage in that region. In terms of local geography, low-lying coastal regions and islands, especially land less than 50 feet above sea level and within 1 mile of the shoreline, are at the greatest risk of damage once a tsunami strikes. Prevention and Preparations Scientists and public officials are especially keen to lessen the damage and loss of life caused by tsunamis. Mitigation of tsunami damage depends upon three factors: prediction, warning, and preparation. Because earthquakes are the prevalent cause of tsunamis, efforts at tsunami prediction have focused on earthquakes. In spite of significant research, however, scientists remain unable to predict the incidence of earthquakes with real certitude. Tsunami researchers instead focus their efforts on distinguishing as quickly as possible tsunamigenic earthquakes from other earthquakes, thereby decreasing the amount of time necessary to issue a clear warning. The shorter the time period between tsunami generation and the issuance of a warning, the more lives that can be saved. While it remains virtually impossible to warn population centers of an oncoming locally generated tsunami—because of the great speed at which a tsunami travels—it is very possible to warn residents of areas under threat of a tsunami generated by distant seismic disturbances. The ability to predict the arrival time of a tsunami has been in place for some time. The known physics of tsunami creation and propagation, combined with increasingly accurate mapping of the seafloor over which the tsunamis travel and precise measurements of ocean depths, make it possible to predict with reasonable, even excellent, accuracy the moment and point at which a tsunami will arrive ashore. An earthquake struck off the coast of Chile in 1960, causing enormous damage and loss of life to the local residents, who had 259
Tsunamis been caught completely unaware. Yet once tsunami monitors were able to confirm that a tsunami had been created, they were able to predict its arrival in Hilo, Hawaii, with truly phenomenal accuracy— the tsunami arrived within one minute of its predicted time. Later, scientists assumed a new challenge, that of ascertaining the amplitude of a tsunami once it is created. This requires a better understanding of how earthquakes create tsunamis and how they are propagated, as well as the creation of better instrumentation to detect and measure them. As part of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System, scientists and engineers have placed throughout the Pacific increasingly sensitive subsurface pressure sensors that measure tsunami amplitude in the open ocean. The study, understanding, and measurement of coastal runup and impact ashore is an equally important piece of the Tsunami Warning System. Accurate and current surveys of the local topography—both below and above the shoreline—accurate tidal measurement, numerical modeling, and historical data are combined to create worst-case impact and inundation scenarios and define evacuation zones and routes to ensure quick response when a tsunami warning must be issued. This information is also used in long-term public efforts to mitigate public and private property damage and loss of life. Government agencies can initiate public works projects, such as the construction and maintenance of breakwaters or floodwalls that act as physical barriers to tsunami flooding. Governments can also acquire land or regulate land usage through zoning or taxation policy to prevent, discourage, or regulate areas prone to tsunami impact or flooding. Finally, governments can foster public education and awareness of the dangers inherent in tsunami-prone areas by requiring, for instance, disclosure of such information in real estate transactions. The final component of efforts to mitigate loss of life from tsunami impact and flooding is the warning itself. Research, monitoring, and understanding of tsunami generation and propagation, and communication of the data relevant to them, are all essential components of any warning effort. Tsunami warnings are issued by the authorities or institutions that monitor the data coming from remote sites and sensors scattered throughout the Pacific. Once a decision to 260
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Tide and seismograph reporting stations of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System. This is a representation of the travel times for tidal waves originating at Honolulu, Hawaii. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
announce a warning has been made, the governmental authorities where a tsunami is expected to come ashore are alerted. The warning is then disseminated to the various appropriate regional and local civil defense organizations and other responsible agencies and broadcast to the public via radio and television. The effectiveness of such a system, no matter how well devised and maintained, is ultimately dependent upon a well-informed and responsive public. Education and outreach are thus critical components of the work of the organizations responsible for monitoring tsunamis or issuing tsunami warnings and other agencies involved in public safety. Public awareness is essential in the case of locally generated tsunamis, where nearby coastal residents must be taught to seek refuge inland on higher ground upon feeling the tremors of a locally generated earthquake. Education is, however, no less important in the case of tsunamis generated by distant earthquakes and for which there is thus much 261
Tsunamis time to issue a warning. Residents in areas prone to tsunamis must be educated as to the complexity of the danger. People have drowned because they went out to marvel at what they thought was an incredibly low tide but which in fact was the trough of an oncoming tsunami whose crest followed. Residents must be likewise alerted to the incidence of multiple waves. Civil defense authorities had managed to evacuate Crescent City, California, in March of 1964 when warned of a tsunami that was on the way from an earthquake that struck near the coast of Alaska. Their work paid off well; there was no loss of life after the arrival of the first two waves of this particular tsunami. Unfortunately, some residents, assuming the danger was over, decided to return to the stricken area before an all-clear signal was given and were drowned by a third wave that was much larger than the first two. It is perhaps an irony that tsunami warnings bring out sightseers interested in viewing the very danger from which they have been instructed to flee. The warnings issued in May of 1960 to Hilo, Hawaii, while instrumental in preventing large-scale loss of life, did bring out a few sightseers, all of whom were drowned. Rescue and Relief Efforts Although the areas of tsunami damage might be small compared to those of other disasters, the damage is particularly thorough. Localities affected by tsunamis are usually devastated, requiring significant short-term and long-term recovery and reconstruction efforts. After a tsunami strikes, the most immediate concern for local civil defense authorities is the public health. While treatment of injured survivors is important, perhaps more critical is the condition of the water supply, typically fouled by tsunami flooding. If sewer lines are broken or the sewage system is overwhelmed, the potential public health hazard is even worse. Additionally, the bodies of the drowned must be located, recovered, and disposed of properly as quickly as possible to prevent further pollution of the water and outbreaks of communicable diseases. Besides bringing the immediate threats to the public health under control, initial relief efforts require the recovery of the essential infrastructure, especially the water and power supply, as well as communications and transport. Without these basics it is impossible for both 262
Tsunamis individuals and communities as a whole to commence the task of rebuilding. Because the tsunami will have left an enormous amount of debris in its wake, initial cleanup efforts require the removal of everything from trash and building debris to boats and motor vehicles, much of which may have been moved hundreds of yards inland. In the long term, recovery from a tsunami entails reconstruction of homes, businesses, and public spaces and even the rehabilitation of the environment, which often suffers massive damage. Impact Tsunamis cause damage in two ways: flooding and exertion of the wave’s force against structures. The water that comes onto the shore and proceeds inland is called runup. Its height is the vertical distance measured from the tide level at the time the tsunami strikes the shore to the contour line of highest point on shore reached by the water. A tsunami can easily raise the water level from 20 to 30 yards above normal height and reach, especially if the stricken coastal area is particularly low, hundreds of yards inland, thereby flooding enormous tracts of land. Runup can cause enormous environmental damage, removing years of accumulated beach sand, stripping away coastal vegetation and trees, and drowning animals. Tsunamis exert a truly powerful force against anything with which they come into contact, including human-made structures. A tsunami wave can easily flatten buildings or remove them from their foundations, wash boats and small ships hundreds of yards ashore, and toss around automobiles and even heavy construction equipment as if they were toys. The movement of such objects, as well as the debris of destroyed structures and even uprooted trees, can cause severe secondary damage when the wave carries them forward and forces them against still-standing structures, and then subsequently when the waters recede and drag the same objects back to strike against what little might still be left standing. Besides causing severe environmental and property damage, tsunamis cause important and sometimes dangerous infrastructure damage that can threaten public health and delay post-tsunami recovery efforts. Widespread flooding almost always causes polluted water supplies. The local energy grid can be compromised or put out of service entirely if electrical or gas lines are destroyed. 263
Tsunamis A tsunami’s most fearsome toll, however, is always loss of human life, attributable almost exclusively to drowning. Between 1932 and July of 1998, more people died in the United States as a result of tsunamis than as a result of earthquakes. The desire to prevent such loss of life has been the primary motivation behind the establishment of the warning system and preparatory measures now in place throughout the Pacific. In April of 1946 an earthquake in the Aleutian trench near Alaska generated a tsunami that struck Hawaii unexpectedly, causing 159 fatalities and tens of millions of dollars in damage. Motivated by what is still considered to be Hawaii’s worst natural disaster, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey established in Hawaii the Seismic Sea Wave Warning System, which later became the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC). Before the end of the twentieth century, the PTWC would be the operational center of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System, a sophisticated and coordinated international effort comprising 26 member states. These countries of the Pacific region pool their knowledge and resources to monitor the entire Pacific basin for tsunamigenic earthquakes in the hope of giving adequate warnings to population centers under threat of a tsunami and thereby lessening property damage and reducing the loss of human life. Historical Overview Tsunamis are caused by sudden seismic shocks that sometimes erupt in coastal waters. When earthquakes accompany tsunamis, as they often do, the loss of life and property in the affected areas can be staggering. Because waterfront land is usually heavily populated, the gigantic waves characteristic of tsunamis are particularly devastating. Unless they have some forewarning of an advancing tsunami, whole populations can simply be swept away in the roiling waters that move with such force that they flatten everything in their paths. Most large, devastating tsunamis that have resulted in the greatest loss of life have occurred in the Pacific Basin. They have usually been the result of underwater earthquakes caused by the movement of tectonic plates, often in the western reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Japan has often fallen victim to such disasters, although tsunamis have hit Indonesia, eastern Russia, and Alaska with relative frequency as well. The earliest records of tsunamis date to the end of the fifteenth 264
Tsunamis century, although they undoubtedly occurred but were not recorded before that time. One was thought to have struck Japan in 1498. Two others are known to have occurred there in the early seventeenth century, one in 1605 and the other in 1611. Between 4,000 and 5,000 inhabitants were thought to have died when these tsunamis swamped their oceanside villages. Tsunami activity in the eighteenth century was substantial. Japan suffered devastation from it in 1707, 1741, and 1792. The Kamchatka Peninsula in the North Pacific was struck by a tsunami in 1737, and one struck the Ryukyu Islands in 1771. Peru was hit by tsunamis in 1724 and 1746. In 1783, one was recorded in Italy, where tsunamis are experienced only infrequently. This part of the world, however, has not been exempt from them entirely. Indeed, in 1755, the most spectacular tsunami of the eighteenth century hit Lisbon, Portugal, which was struck simultaneously by an earthquake that leveled much of the old city. The waves that engulfed Lisbon almost totally destroyed its port, one of the most active in southern Europe. Memories of this disaster are preserved in the Voltaire’s famous novel Candide (1759), whose protagonist arrives in Lisbon in time to witness the catastrophe. The Lisbon disaster claimed as many as 50,000 lives, making it the most destructive such event in recorded history until its loss of life was eclipsed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by greater loss of life in tsunamis and earthquakes. When Chile was struck by a tsunami in 1868, its huge waves, traveling at speeds thought to have exceeded 500 miles (800 kilometers) an hour, swirled across the Pacific Ocean and struck Hawaii. Approximately 25,000 lives were wiped out by this event. Among the costliest tsunamis in loss of life was the eruption of the Krakatau Volcano in Indonesia in 1883, which triggered a wall of water 135 feet high that snuffed out the lives of 36,000 people. In 1896, a tsunami killed 27,000 people in Japan. In the twentieth century, many tsunamis struck the Pacific rim, the so-called Ring of Fire, but the loss of life was smaller than in many of the tsunamis in earlier centuries, perhaps because early warning systems were in place. The Kamchatka Peninsula suffered tsunamis in 1923 and in 1952. Tsunamis struck the Aleutian Islands in 1946 and 1957. The former devastated Hilo, Hawaii. 265
Tsunamis Japan suffered tsunamis in 1933, 1944, and 1983, but none of these was so destructive as the one that struck Kodiak, Alaska in 1964, where an earthquake leveled much of the town before the tsunami followed, wiping out the entire community. This tsunami also created the enormous waves that overwhelmed Crescent City, California. Another devastating tsunami of the twentieth century killed more than 5,000 people in the Philippines in 1976. During the twentieth century, scientists developed the means to prevent the enormous death tolls that tsunamis exacted in earlier centuries. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) set up a tsunami warning system in Hawaii, making it possible to evacuate endangered areas. Following the Alaskan earthquake and tsunami of 1964, this system was extended to Alaska, where it is designated the Regional Tsunami Warning System. At the Pacific Tsunami Warning System, headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, seismologists carefully track seismic activity throughout the Pacific basin and issue warnings whenever there is need. The ability to predict the time and place of landfall has made it possible to protect most residents of coastal areas from tsunamis. So precise is the work of the seismological warning stations that when an earthquake struck off the coast of Chile in 1960, it was possible to predict its arrival in Hilo, Hawaii, to within one minute of the actual landfall. Despite the remarkable advances that have been made in predicting and giving advanced warnings of tsunamis, the most devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in recorded history occurred on December 26, 2004. The underwater earthquake that created it registered a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale. This tsunami swamped the coastlines of 11 countries that border the Indian Ocean. The immediate death toll was set at 186,983, with another 42,883 missing and unaccounted for. The final death toll may never be known. Many bodies washed out to sea. Thousands eventually died of diseases triggered by the appalling sanitary conditions in the storm areas. Infections from open wounds likely accounted for deaths from blood poisoning and related ills. Dysentery, malaria, typhoid, and dehydration plagued the survivors. David M. Soule Nancy M. Gordon R. Baird Shuman 266
Tsunamis Bibliography Lander, James F., and Patricia A. Lockridge. United States Tsunamis, 1690-1988. Boulder, Colo.: National Geophysical Data Center, 1989. This is an excellent source for readers looking for more detail regarding specific tsunamis that have struck the United States and its possessions. It includes data and descriptions of individual events, their causes, and the ensuing damages. The many illustrations and tables are helpful. Lockridge, Patricia A., and Ronald H. Smith. Tsunamis in the Pacific Basin, 1900-1983. Boulder, Colo.: National Geophysical Data Center and World Data Center A for Solid Earth Geophysics, 1984. Similar to the work by Lockridge mentioned above, it includes information for the 405 tsunamis that occurred in the Pacific region during the years covered. The number of tsunamis alone is a fascinating statistic. Myles, Douglas. The Great Waves. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. This is an excellent and easy-to-read introduction, treating tsunamis throughout history and covering them from the perspectives of science, geography, and impact on people. Robinson, Andrew. “Floods, Dambursts, and Tsunamis.” In Earth Shock: Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tornadoes, and Other Forces of Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993. This essay gives good, but brief, coverage of the damages a tsunami can cause. Includes some excellent photographs. Satake, Kenji, ed. Tsunamis: Case Studies and Recent Developments. Springer, 2006. A review of current tsunami research. The first part reports on tsunamis generated by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes around the Pacific Ocean, while the second part reports on developments in computations, monitoring, and coastal hazard assessment. Solovev, Sergei, and Chan Nam Go. Catalogue of Tsunamis on the Eastern Shore of the Pacific Ocean. Sidney, B.C.: Institute of Ocean Sciences, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1984. This catalogue provides a wealth of data on individual tsunamis. _______. Catalogue of Tsunamis on the Western Shore of the Pacific Ocean. Sidney, B.C.: Institute of Ocean Sciences, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1984. The counterpart to the above-mentioned work. Together these two volumes provide the interested reader with 267
Tsunamis great detail on the tsunamis, both real and legendary, that have occurred throughout the centuries in the Pacific Ocean, as well as on the earthquakes or volcanoes or other disturbances that may have caused them. Whittow, John. Disasters: An Anatomy of Environmental Hazards. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979. This excellent work covers the mechanics of tsunamis and the earthquakes that cause them. The detailed explanations are superb and are aided by helpful diagrams and tables. Photos are included. This is a great source for those wishing to get a more in-depth understanding of tsunamis.
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Volcanic Eruptions Factors involved: Chemical reactions, geography, geological forces, wind Regions affected: All Definition A volcanic eruption is the manner in which gases, liquids, and solids are expelled from the earth’s interior onto its surface. Eruptions can range from calm outflows of lava to violent explosions. About fifty volcanoes erupt every year, and a truly catastrophic eruption occurs about once a century. Nearly 200,000 people have died over the last five centuries because of volcanic eruptions. Three-quarters of these deaths were caused by only 7, extremely violent, eruptions. Science Volcanic eruptions are induced by and usually propelled by gas. The most common source of the gas is water, which at the high temperatures associated with volcanic activity is turned to water vapor (steam). Liquid lava is often involved in an eruption. The ratio of gas to liquid in an erupting magma (molten rock material within the earth) is extremely variable. Some eruptions are almost entirely gas with minuscule amounts of liquid, such as the Salt Lake explosion crater in Oahu, Hawaii. At the other extreme are eruptions of lava flows that have less than 1 percent gas, such as the seafloor eruptions at midoceanic ridges. There are several methods to generate the water and associated gas in a magma. The gas that causes the eruption can come from the magma itself. Magmas that are deeply buried (under a high pressure) can dissolve considerable amounts of water. About 10 percent water can dissolve in a magma that resides 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) below the earth’s surface. The amount of water that can stay dissolved decreases as the magma begins to rise. When the pressure drops sufficiently, the water comes out of the magma and boils to make bubbles. This process is called “vesiculation.” Vesiculation occurs in a similar manner to the opening of a champagne bottle: When the cork is removed and the pressure on the liq269
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Milestones 5000 b.c.e.: Crater Lake, Oregon, erupts, sending pyroclastic flows as far as 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the vent; 25 cubic miles of material are erupted as a caldera forms from the collapse of the mountaintop. c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera erupts in the Aegean Sea, possibly causing the disappearance of the Minoan civilization on Crete and leading to stories of the lost “continent” of Atlantis. August 24, 79 c.e.: Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum. March 11, 1669: Sicily’s Mount Etna begins a series of devastating eruptions that will result in more than 20,000 dead and 14 villages destroyed, including the seaside town of Catania, Italy. June 8, 1783-February 7, 1784: The Laki fissure eruption in Iceland produces the largest lava flow in historic time, with major climatic effects. Benjamin Franklin speculates on its connection to a cold winter in Paris the following year. April 5, 1815: The dramatic explosion of Tambora, 248.6 miles (400 kilometers) east of Java, the largest volcanic event in modern history, produces atmospheric and climatic effects for the next two years. Frosts occur every month in New England during 1816, the Year Without a Summer. August 26, 1883: A cataclysmic eruption of Krakatau, an island in Indonesia, is heard 2,968 miles away. Many die as pyroclastic flows race over pumice rafts floating on the surface of the sea; many more die from a tsunami. May 8, 1902: Pelée, on the northern end of the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, sends violent pyroclastic flows into the city of St. Pierre, killing all but 2 of the 30,000 inhabitants. June 6, 1912: Katmai erupts in Alaska with an ash flow that produces the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. February 20, 1943: Paricutín comes into existence in a cultivated field in Mexico. The eruption of this volcano continues for nine years. March 30, 1956: The Russian volcano Bezymianny erupts with a violent lateral blast, stripping trees of their bark 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) away. January, 1973: During an eruption on Heimaey Island, Iceland, the flow of lava is controlled by cooling it with water from fire hoses.
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Volcanic Eruptions May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens, in Washington State, erupts with a directed blast to the north, moving pyroclastic flows at velocities of 328 to 984 feet (100 to 300 meters) per second (nearly the speed of sound). March 28-April 4, 1982: El Chichón, an “extinct” volcano in Mexico, erupts violently, killing 2,000, injuring hundreds, destroying villages, and ruining over 100 square miles of farmland. November 13, 1985: Mudflows from the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz, in Colombia, kill at least 23,000 people. August 21, 1986: After building up from volcanic emanations, carbon dioxide escapes from Lake Nyos, Cameroon, killing over 1,700 people. June, 1991: Pinatubo erupts in the Phillipines after having been dormant for four hundred years. September-November, 1996: Eruption of lava beneath a glacier in the Grimsvötn Caldera, Iceland, melts huge quantities of ice, producing major flooding. June 25, 1997: On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, 19 people die and 8,000 are evacuated when the Soufrière Hills volcano erupts. January 17, 2002: The Nyiragongo volcano erupts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sending lava flows into the city of Goma; 147 die and 500,000 are displaced.
uid is released, the dissolved gas (carbon dioxide in champagne) forms bubbles in the liquid. If an abundance of gas is produced, the bubbles can coalesce and shred the magma into droplets surrounded by turbulent jets of gas. In larger, more explosive eruptions the expanding gases can pulverize preexisting rocks in the throat of the volcano and along the walls of the magma passages. This combination of gases, ash, degasing droplets of liquid, vesiculating clots of lava, and broken fragments of hot rock can erupt as a glowing avalanche (nuée ardente), which is the most destructive and deadly of all forms of eruptions. Numerous nuées ardentes erupted in 1902 from Pelée in the Caribbean, killing 30,000 in St. Pierre within two minutes on May 8 and 800 in Morne Rouge on August 30. Another source of the water needed to drive an eruption is groundwater. Water that originates as atmospheric precipitation cre271
Volcanic Eruptions ating lakes, rivers, and oceans is called “meteoric water.” Starting at the surface, meteoric water can infiltrate into the ground to produce water-saturated rock, where it is called groundwater. Large quantities of groundwater can be raised to the boiling point as magma rises. The destructive eruption of Vesuvius in 79 c.e., which buried the city of Pompeii and killed over 13,000 people in the region, was initiated by the boiling of groundwater. Magma reaching the surface of the solid earth can acquire a latestage explosive nature by interacting with surface water of lakes, rivers, or oceans. The 1963 birth of the island of Surtsey in Iceland produced a pair of violent explosion plumes, a white steam cloud and a black cloud of fragmented lava. The crater region where many volcanoes have their main vent is often a circular depression that becomes filled with meteoric water to make a crater lake. The water in crater lakes is often highly acidic and filled with mud. Kelut, on the Indonesian island of Java has a deep crater lake that has repeatedly been the site of eruptions; a minor eruption in 1919 mixed the lake water and the fragmented lava to make a violent mudflow that killed 5,500 people. The deadliest eruption ever was Krakatau in 1883, which killed 36,000 people from a tsunami that was generated when seawater entered the collapsed side of the island volcano and hit the erupting magma. An explosion requires two components: the force (expanding gases) and a resistance to the force. To pop a balloon loudly requires that air be blown into it and that the latex rubber exert a force against the inflow of air. The explosion occurs when the pent-up force eventually overcomes the resistance. In a violent eruption the resistance comes from the very sticky nature of the liquid portion of the magma. The stickiness of a liquid is called the viscosity. Highly viscous magmas are the most explosive. The higher the amount of silicon in the magma the greater the viscosity and the more explosive the eruption when water is present. Nuées ardentes, the most deadly form of volcanic eruptions, usually develop in magmas that have a high silicon content. About 13,000 people were evacuated in Japan in 1991 when a low-gas, highsilicon lava began erupting at Unzen, forming a thick, pasty dome of lava on top of the volcano. When the lava acquired sufficient gas it erupted as a nuée ardente, killing 42 people, mostly journalists and 272
Volcanic Eruptions geologists who had stayed to study and photograph the volcano. Volcanoes are classified into six general categories with several subgroups. The major categories are Hawaiian, Strombolian, Vulcanian, Peléan, Plinian, and Surtseyan. The classification is based upon the volcano’s predominant eruptive style, which considers both the violence of the eruption (as indicated by plume height, frequency of event, and volume of material) and the type of material ejected (ranging from the effusion of liquid lava flows to a gaseous mixture that contains ash, fragments of rock, and droplets or clots of liquid). A Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) was developed to assist with the classification of an eruption. Calm, effusive lava eruptions are given a VEI value of 0, whereas the most violent eruptions have VEI values of 8. The most nonexplosive class is the Hawaiian class of eruption. It involves minimal explosions (VEI values of 0 or 1) and a calm outpouring of low-viscosity, low-silicon lava. When these occur on the floor of the ocean at mid-oceanic ridges and ocean basin hot spots they are called submarine eruptions. The pressure of the overlying seawater helps to nullify the explosiveness of the eruption. A Hawaiian eruption can emerge from a single vent that erupts almost on a daily basis for months on end. These eruptions typically form shield volcanoes with gentle slopes of 3 to 5 degrees. Shield volcanoes may rise from the seafloor to become islands, which can continue growing for another 13,123 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level (Mauna Loa in Hawaii is 13,678 feet above sea level and still growing, as evidenced by a 1984 eruption). When Hawaiian eruptions occur from long fissures, they can produce large volumes of liquid lava. The Great Tolbachik fissure eruption in Russia in 1975 produced over 70,629 cubic feet (2 cubic kilometers) of lava that covered more than 15.4 square miles (40 square kilometers). In Iceland the Laki fissure eruption of 1783 covered 102 square miles (265 square kilometers), destroyed four-fifths of the sheep and half the cattle, and caused 10,000 residents to starve to death during the ensuing winter. The Strombolian class of eruptions is weakly explosive (VEI values of 1 or 2). These eruptions usually begin with the volcano tossing out molten debris to form cinders and clots of liquid that solidify in the air to fall as bombs. This high-arching, incandescent portion of the eruption resembles firework fountains. These bursts last only a few 273
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Lava streams down Mauna Loa in Hawaii. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
seconds, with long pauses of twenty minutes or more between the bursts. Magma can rise from 328 feet (100 meters) to 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) into the air, breaking into lava clots of all sizes. Many Strombolian eruptions are known for throwing bombs hundreds of feet into the air every few seconds. The pyroclastic display is often followed by fluid lava flows. Normally short-lived, the eruptions last a 274
Volcanic Eruptions few months before pausing for a year or so. The cinder cones associated with an eruptive phase are rarely over 820 feet (250 meters) in height and the lava flow rarely exceeds 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) in length. The explosion of Etna in Italy in 1500 b.c.e. is thought to be the first historic record of any volcano recorded. Etna has over one hundred recorded eruptions of Strombolian activity, and it still erupts every few years. The Vulcanian class of eruptions is more explosive, with VEI values ranging from 2 to 4. The magma is usually more viscous and has considerable strength. The eruption column is quite noticeable, rising from 1.9 to 9.3 miles (3 to 15 kilometers) above the volcano. There are few, if any, lava flows; rather, these eruptions are characterized by thick liquid clots being shot far into the air. Vulcanian eruptions’ explosiveness is so powerful that it sometimes destroys part of the volcanic edifice. These volcanoes can lay dormant for over one hundred years and then burst into a noisy, violent eruption. Nuées ardentes are often byproducts of Vulcanian explosions, and when the nuée ardente is associated with the collapse or explosion of a volcanic dome sitting over the vent it is classed as a Peléan eruption (often considered a subclass of Vulcanian eruptions). The dome-building phase of the Peléan eruptions can begin when the center of the crater starts to bulge upward, revealing a spine mantled with explosive debris from the floor of the crater. The dome can grow as much as 98 feet (30 meters) a day to a final height of 1,969 feet (600 meters) or more. The elevation of the crater floor can rise 328 feet (100 meters) above its normal level, changing the shape of the volcano to an almost-level platform. The explosions can shatter the dome, and its pieces can become swept up in the turbulent flow of the nuée ardente. The dome can be rebuilt in the crater again and exist in a quiet phase. A nuée ardente has so much gas that it is a semifrictionless fluid, and it can race down the slopes of the volcano at velocities of up to 311 miles (500 kilometers) per hour. It is an avalanche of hot, frothy clots of lava, noxious gases, fragments of molten ash, and incandescent boulders. A large cloud of ash and gas rises above the nuée ardente as it moves across the ground, and the clouds can asphyxiate animals and humans that are near the nuée ardente. 275
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Nevado del Ruiz spawned many mudflows called lahars, which destroyed towns and caused many deaths in northern Colombia. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
The most famous Peléan eruption is the eruption of Pelée in 1902, which became the basis for this subclass of volcanic eruptions. Lamington in New Guinea has produced both Vulcanian and Peléan eruptions. It was not thought to be a volcano until, in 1951, it erupted a nuée ardente that devastated an area of 69.5 square miles (180 square kilometers) and killed 3,000 people. Since then, several volcanic domes have grown in its summit crater and have subsequently been destroyed by later explosions. Plinian eruptions are the most explosive and rare of the volcanic eruptions of historic record, having VEI values of 4 to 6. Although Ultra-Plinian explosive eruptions (VEI values of 7 and 8) have been deduced from the geological record of their deposits, no Ultra-Plinian eruptions have occurred in recorded history. A powerful eruption shaft develops over the vent, having speeds of several feet per second and shooting volcanic materials in a column that can reach 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) or more in height. As the volcanic fragments falls they can cover a huge area of ground (hundreds of square miles). Plinian 276
Volcanic Eruptions eruptive fragments are predominantly made of bubbly pumice and ash. Pumice falling fairly near the volcano can attain thicknesses of close to 100 feet. The Tambora eruption of 1815 in Indonesia is the largest of all historic eruptions. It killed 92,000 people, had an eruption column that was 25 miles (40 kilometers) in height, and deposited 164 feet (50 meters) of pumice in surrounding areas. The eruption plume of a Plinian eruption will bring an abundance of ash into the stratosphere, which can circle the globe for several years before falling back to the ground. After the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines, the dust clouds became an aviation hazard because neither pilots nor radar could distinguish waterbased clouds from dust clouds. In the months following the eruption 14 airliners developed engine problems from dust clouds, and 9 had to make emergency landings.
Comparison of Eruption Styles Flood
Lava Plains
.I. V.E 6
Increasing Volume
5
7
8 Ultraplinian
4 Plinian
g sin rea Inc 1
3
a Are
Phreatoplinian
2 Subplinian
0
Vulcanian
Strombolian Hawaiian Inc rea sin gF rag
me
Surtseyan nta
tio n
277
Volcanic Eruptions There is a strong correlation between large eruptions and a change in the weather conditions. The eruption of El Chichón (VEI of 4) in Mexico in 1982 was the first eruption cloud to be tracked in the atmosphere by weather satellites. The eruption injected 3.3 million tons of gaseous sulfur into the atmosphere, which converted to sulfuric acid within three months. Following the Laki eruption of 1783 the acid aerosol contaminated the pastures and animals grazing on these grasses, and they died within three days. Once dispersed, the dust and gases can reflect incoming solar radiation and reduce the earth’s temperatures. Following the 1815 eruption of Tambora, the coldest summer in over 250 years of record keeping was recorded. The average summer temperature was 2 degrees colder than the second-coldest summer. The Pinatubo eruption of 1991 caused the average world temperature to drop by 0.5 degree. Geography The vast majority of the active volcanoes on Earth are associated with long, narrow belts of fractured rocks. The longest belt and the site of over 75 percent of all the volcanic activity on earth takes place underwater, along the crests of the mid-oceanic ridges. Although the ridge system is over 37,284 miles (60,000 kilometers) in length, the actual number and magnitude of the eruptions are untold. The submarine volcanic events are not counted on the list of active volcanoes until the lava deposits bring the submarine volcano to the surface as an island. Iceland, which is the largest island on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has twenty-two active volcanoes. Other notable volcanoes with historic eruptions from the flanks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge are the Azores, Ascension Island, and Tristan da Cunha. The longest belt of active volcanoes virtually circles the Pacific Ocean and is commonly called the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” Two-thirds of the world’s active volcanoes occur in this belt. The volcanic chains making up the Ring of Fire are the Cascades of the United States and Canada (Mount St. Helens), the Mexican Volcanic Belt (El Chichón), the Central American Belt (Santa María), the Andes of South America (Nevado del Ruiz), New Zealand (Ngauruhoe), Tonga (Niuafo’ou), New Guinea (Lamington), Indonesia (Kelut), the Philippines (Pinatubo), the Ryukyu Island arc (Kutinoerabu), the volcanic arc of the Mariana, the Izu and Bonin Islands (Miyak278
Volcanic Eruptions zima), Japan (Unzen), the Kamchatka Peninsula (Bezymianny), and the Aleutian Islands and South Alaska (Katmai). The third major belt of active volcanoes starts at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the Azores and runs east through the Mediterranean Sea (Etna and Vesuvius), across the northern Arabian Peninsula, down the Malaysian Peninsula (Krakatau), and connects with the Ring of Fire in Indonesia. The smallest belt of active volcanoes that is isolated from the other longer belts is the volcanic island arc that occurs along the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea (Pelée). There are a number of isolated volcanic centers that occur in the interior of continents and ocean basins, usually a considerable distance from the linear belts. The island of Hawaii in the center of the Pacific basin has experienced over 100 recorded eruptions since 1700, and Nyiragongo in Zaire had a lava lake in its summit crater from the time of its discovery in 1894 until 1977, when it suddenly drained 28.8 million cubic yards (22 million cubic meters) of lava down its flanks and killed 70 people. The active volcanoes outside of the system of belts account for less than 5 percent of all historic eruptions. Prevention and Preparations Volcanic eruptions are virtually impossible to prevent, but there have been some fairly successful efforts made to divert or control the direction of lava flows and lahars (mudflows) once volcanoes have erupted. Lahars are flash floods, having the consistency of wet cement, which are caused when a volcanic eruption melts glacial ice or occurs in a lava lake. Less than 10 percent of the diversion barriers for lava flows have been successful. In Iceland an advancing lava flow was cooled by a spray of water from hoses, which forced the lava to spread sideways. Aerial bombing to collapse crater walls and disrupt existing magma flows has also been tried. These techniques usually at least slow down the lava flow if they do not divert it, providing for needed evacuation time. An unusual prevention measure was used on Kelut on Java after the 1919 eruption produced a lahar that killed 5,500 people. The Dutch colonial authorities dug a series of underground tunnels through the crater wall, draining most of the lake. The volcano’s next eruption, in 1951, emptied into a lake that was 164 feet (50 meters) lower. There 279
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A volcano erupts in the middle of Lake Taal in the Philippines in 1965. Islands can be formed by volcanic activity. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
were no lahars produced, but the tunnel system was destroyed. In 1964 the crater again acquired 52.3 million cubic yards (40 million cubic meters) of water, and scientists asked that new tunnels be dug. A 1966 eruption again caused lahars, which killed hundreds of people, and new tunnels were dug to drain the lake. In 1990 prediction techniques forewarned of another eruption, and 60,000 people were evacuated. The eruption did not produce a lahar, but 32 casualties occurred because of roofs collapsing under the heavy weight of the ash and pumice. Steps are now also made to reinforce roofs of homes and buildings in order to support the weight of falling debris. The best prevention of a high death toll is orderly evacuation. Evacuation plans require a high degree of cooperation between civil authorities and scientists, as well as an amazing amount of preparation. In the scientific arena, the first step to being prepared for a volcanic eruption is to monitor the activity of a volcano. Most volcanoes give some warning signs of an upcoming eruption. Normally, magma will move into the area below the volcano in a reservoir called the magma chamber. The magma then travels up the chamber and be280
Volcanic Eruptions gins to release gases. As the magma moves up the chamber it produces small earthquakes and ground vibrations. There are three forms of seismic activity: short-period earthquakes, long-period earthquakes, and harmonic tremors. Short-period earthquakes are caused by the fracturing of brittle rock as the magma forces its way up the chamber; they signify that the magma is coming near the surface. Long-period earthquakes are thought to be the result of increased gas pressure in the volcano. Harmonic tremors are the result of sustained movement of magma below the surface. Scientists use seismographs to monitor the earthquakes. As the magma moves toward the surface, a volcano will begin to swell, and the degree of slope of the volcano may change. Fumaroles, which are vents giving off gas, will often increase their sulfur content. Scientists can monitor these events with a number of tools: Tiltmeters measure the change in slope, and geodimeters measure the amount of swelling in the volcano. Gases released near the volcano can be measured by spectrometers. Many regions have established volcano observatories to monitor ground motion for dangerously active volcanoes. The Rabaul Volcano Observatory in New Guinea recorded two swarms of 1,000 earthquakes in a two-day period in 1984. In June of that month they recorded 13,749 individual earthquakes. They also recorded an uplift of 63 inches (160 centimeters) over the nine months leading up to the earthquakes. With these techniques, scientists are becoming skilled at predicting volcanic eruptions. Monitoring of volcanoes can save countless live. Communication with the populace is of utmost importance; restricted areas must be drawn, and certain areas must be completely or partially evacuated. In 1985, the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia was well monitored, but due to lack of communication the town of Armero was not prepared for evacuation, and a lahar swept down the slope and killed at least 23,000 people, 90 percent of the town’s population. Before the eruption of Pinatubo in June of 1991, scientists worked closely with civil defense authorities in the Philippines to establish a four-stage plan leading to the eruption. They evacuated more than 80,000 people from the area. Each stage of the plan was implemented when the scientists measured a specific level of sulfur in the fumarolic gases, a certain number and strength of earthquakes occurred, 281
Volcanic Eruptions or a specified amount of rise and tilt of the volcano came to pass. With each stage the authorities evacuated a larger area and took actions to increase their readiness. The death toll could have run in the tens of thousands, but because of advance preparations and education, only a few hundred people died. Rescue and Relief Efforts More deaths often occur in the aftermath of a violent eruption— from starvation and disease—than from the eruption itself. Survivors usually return to their homes after the eruption has waned. In the historic past, areas around Plinian eruptions were deeply buried, with complete loss of all crops and pastures and severe loss of livestock and potable water supplies. Most countries did not have disaster relief plans, nor was international aid available. This usually led to a higher death toll from starvation and disease than was attributed to the ejected materials from the volcano. The modern world has vastly differing degrees of readiness. Mexico, with over a dozen active volcanoes, had no civil defense program or contingency plans for evacuation, shelter, or resettlement when El Chichón erupted in 1982. Italy set up its Ministry of Civil Protection in 1981. Many poor countries with active volcanoes have no volcano monitoring programs and no civil defense systems for volcanic eruptions. Japan is at the other end of the scale in terms of readiness. That country established volcano surveillance and disaster plans in the 1950’s. The On-take area is a model of preparation, with concrete volcanic shelters at intervals along all the roads in the area. Within the river systems special dams and canals have been built to impede the progress of lahars. Children wear helmets when they go to school; once a year all citizens in the area participate in a rehearsal of a fullscale evacuation. Temporary lodgings are built and maintained, and the monitoring information from the volcano is computerized and automatically transmitted to the civil authorities. Impact Volcanoes are the second most destructive natural disasters on Earth. Historically, two-thirds of all eruptions have caused fatalities. The chief causes of death from violent eruptions are suffocation and drowning. Most catastrophic eruptions occur in populated coastal re282
Volcanic Eruptions gions, and tsunamis (tidal waves) generated by eruptions can exact a much greater toll than the actual erupted materials. In the past five hundred years, volcanic eruptions have killed 200,000 people and have cost billions of dollars in damage to homes and property. During the twentieth century, volcanic eruptions killed an average of 800 people per year. Historical Overview A dark plume obscures the sun and the sky; acrid fumes irritate the mucous membranes as a sulfurous stench pervades the air. Intermittently, accompanied by deafening noise, lightning, and thunder, eruptions spew fire and brimstone into the air, hurling hot, sputtering chunks of rock far from the mountain. This is the experience of those who have lived near volcanic eruptions and were fortunate enough to survive. In the face of such incredible power, death and destruction, and dramatic changes in landscape, cultures throughout time have attached great religious significance to volcanoes. Within Western European cultures, objective written descriptions of volcanic events date back to 79 c.e., when Vesuvius, a famous volcano to the northeast of the Bay of Naples in Italy, erupted. The towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried beneath ash and pumice. Pliny the Elder, a well-respected admiral in the Roman navy, perished, and the historian Tacitus, reconstructing the conditions of his death, sought information from his nephew: Pliny the Younger, in two letters, described what had occurred. The volcano had not been active for several centuries, and no one considered it a threat. Benjamin Franklin was among the first to recognize the global climatic effects of volcanoes when he speculated that the 1783 Laki fissure eruption in Iceland was responsible for the bitter winter of 17831784 in Paris. Temperature records for this year from the eastern United States show an average winter temperature 41 degrees Fahrenheit (4.8 degrees Celsius) lower than the 225-year average. The eruption, lasting eight months, produced the largest lava flow in historic time, but much of its deadly effect resulted from the gases that escaped. Modern analysis of gas samples retrieved from Greenland ice cores reveals a dramatic spike in acidity corresponding to this eruption. It has been estimated that the influx of acid gases into the atmo283
Volcanic Eruptions sphere from this one eruption is about equivalent to the annual global anthropogenic input. Sulfur dioxide is responsible for much of the acidity observed in the ice cores, but hydrogen fluoride from the eruption is suspected to have killed most of the cattle in the region, which caused a famine. Three-quarters of the livestock in Iceland, and 25 percent of the human population, died. The 1815 eruption of Tambora, in Indonesia, produced much greater climatic effects. Whereas the relatively calm basaltic eruption of Laki was probably confined to the lower levels of the atmosphere, where precipitation is constantly removing dust and ash, the very explosive eruption of Tambora injected ash and gases into the stratosphere, far above these elevations. Records from astronomers show that the haze produced by this eruption persisted for at least two and a half years. During 1816, often referred to as the Year Without a Summer, New England experienced a frost every month of the summer. Crops failed, and famines struck much of Europe, Canada, and the United States. When Krakatau erupted in 1883 it generated intense scientific interest. More than 36,000 people died, most from tsunamis. The eruption was witnessed by many who survived to write about it, and it was the subject of research for the Royal Society and the Dutch government. Heard as far away as 2,990 miles (4,811 kilometers), causing atmospheric pressure fluctuations that circled the globe many times, and lowering temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by 0.25 degree Celsius for a year or two, this eruption captured the attention of scientists in a way no earlier eruption had. Strange optical effects were observed, including blue tinges on the sun and the moon. Solar energy reaching the earth at an observatory in France decreased initially by 20 percent, then remained 10 percent below normal for many months. By the second half of the nineteenth century the Neptunist theory, which held that all rocks had precipitated from a primitive ocean, was no longer impeding the development of the earth sciences. Many geologists went into the field to study active and ancient volcanoes. Laboratory techniques evolved rapidly, and by the early twentieth century many of the processes and reactions involved in the melting and freezing of rock had been sketched out. Pelée erupted in 1902, and suddenly a great deal was learned 284
Volcanic Eruptions about pyroclastic flows. Emanating from the volcano after a period of minor eruptive activity, these flows raced down the slopes at velocities of about 99 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, running over and totally destroying the town of St. Pierre. The force of such a blast was devastating in itself, but its temperature, estimated to have been about 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Celsius), made it particularly deadly. Of the 30,000 people in the town that morning, only 2 survived—and they were horribly burned. These pyroclastic flows, which were given the name nuées ardentes, or “glowing avalanches,” had never been witnessed before—at least not by anyone who survived. Enough was learned, however, to be able to identify this mechanism as having been responsible for similar, but much larger, deposits displaced during the eruption of Katmai a decade later. Only distant ashfalls were directly observed from this volcano, located in a sparsely populated area of Alaska. It was not until 1916 that an expedition actually visited the site of the eruption. Still, there was enough heat left in the deposit to continue to turn water from the soil below it into steam. This region has been called the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes ever since.
Cars trapped in a lava flow in Hawaii. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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Volcanic Eruptions Over the next sixty years the theory of plate tectonics was developed. It explained why volcanoes occur where they do and why their rocks, shapes, and eruptive styles vary so much. The theory was able to show why some volcanoes, such as all of the Hawaiian islands— other than the big island of Hawaii—are truly dead and pose no risk at all, while most other volcanoes are capable of erupting centuries after their last activity. One of those that did return to activity was a volcano of the Cascade Range in southwestern Washington, named Mount St. Helens. In 1978 scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey had predicted that this volcano would erupt again, perhaps by the end of the century. In March and April of 1980 it began to exhibit some signs of life. Seismic activity and small ash eruptions indicated that the long-sleeping giant was coming to life. Well aware of the risks it posed, government agencies began restricting access to the region and preparing evacuation plans. The media converged on the region, and there was television news coverage nearly every night. Peculiar seismic signals, called harmonic tremors, were detected, signaling the ascent of melted rock into the upper reaches of the volcano. This magma caused the mountain to swell, increasing in size by as much as 3 feet a day. Such bulging made the slopes on the mountain steeper and thus less stable. On May 18 a moderate earthquake proved to be the last straw. A major landslide occurred, and as a huge portion of the mountain slid down, the side of the chamber of pressurized magma was exposed. A dramatic lateral blast ensued, devastating vast areas to the north in just a few minutes. This was followed by a vertical blast that transported huge quantities of ash as high as 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) into the atmosphere. Scientists have estimated that the energy released by Mount St. Helens was the equivalent of one atomic bomb being dropped per second for nine hours. The initial blast was nearly horizontal, which had not been expected, and was far more destructive than anyone had imagined. Still, because of excellent monitoring of the developing events, cooperation between scientists and the government, and strong communication with the populace, only 60 people died. Similar scientific work and careful monitoring were unable to avoid a calamity a few year later, in 1985, when mudflows, or lahars, from the eruption of Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz killed at least 286
Volcanic Eruptions 23,000 people. Scientists had accurately predicted that an eruption would melt much of the glacial ice near the summit, producing huge mudflows that would flow down the river valleys toward the populated towns, including one named Armero. They also knew an eruption was imminent. As with Mount St. Helens, there had been a month of small eruptions in advance of the large one. An hour after the main eruption began authorities urged evacuation of the downstream towns, but the order to evacuate Armero was not given for another five hours. When it was given, radio communication was not established. It is likely that most of the inhabitants would have survived if effective evacuation measures had begun in a timely fashion. No warning existed for more than 1,700 people in Cameroon, Africa, in 1986, when a cloud of carbon dioxide swept down on them in their sleep. Carbon dioxide enters Lake Nyos from molten rock beneath it. The lake is stratified, and most of the carbon dioxide enters the dense water near the bottom. If the water is suddenly mixed by a landslide, an earthquake, or even stiff breezes, the gas-charged water can rise to the surface, where the pressure is lower and the carbon dioxide comes out of the solution. A cloud of gas, denser than air, builds up and eventually races down the valleys, killing everything in its wake by asphyxiation. Now that this hazard has been identified, efforts are underway to remove the carbon dioxide before it builds up to unstable concentrations. The successful efforts to mitigate the effects of the eruption of Pinatubo, which occurred in the Philippines in 1991, provide hope. A series of evacuations proceeded in parallel with increasing volcanic activity. Although complicated by the arrival of Typhoon Yunya, the evacuation of more than 200,000 people undoubtedly saved a great many lives. This eruption, the third largest of the twentieth century and occurring in a densely populated area, killed only 320 people. Dion C. Stewart and Toby R. Stewart Otto H. Muller Bibliography Bardintzeff, Jacques-Marie, and Alexander R. McBirney. Volcanology. 2d ed. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 2000. This is a more advanced book that gives details of gas generation and mechanisms for explosive eruptions. 287
Volcanic Eruptions Bullard, Fred M. Volcanoes of the Earth. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Still one of the best books on eruption classification, with excellent photographs, line drawings, and illustrations of volcanoes and volcanic processes. Decker, Robert, and Barbara Decker. Volcanoes. 4th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. A book for general readers that introduces all aspects of volcanology. Fisher, Richard V. Out of the Crater: Chronicles of a Volcanologist. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. This is a personal narrative of visits to many of the volcanic sites mentioned in this article. Francis, Peter, and Clive Oppenheimer. Volcanoes. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. This book gives information on nearly five hundred volcanic eruptions. It has an interesting chapter on volcanoes and changing weather. Macdonald, Gordon A. Volcanoes. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1972. This college-level textbook contains a map and tabulated data on more than five hundred active volcanoes. Scarth, Alwyn. Volcanoes: An Introduction. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1994. This book has a large section on predictions. It also provides many interesting accounts of historic eruptions. _______. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Describes 15 notable eruptions in history, from Vesuvius in 79 to Pinatubo in 1991, using firsthand accounts.
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Wind Gusts Factors involved: Geography, temperature, topography, weather conditions, atmospheric pressure, wind Regions affected: Cities, coasts, forests, mountains, plains, towns, and valleys Definition Wind gusts can be violent, with loss of property and life measured in millions, even billions of dollars. They can occur anywhere on earth, sometimes without warning. Wind shear, a localized wind gust, can imperil aircraft, causing collisions with terrain on takeoff and landing. Science Wind gusts, also called wind shear, occur for a number of reasons, sometimes seemingly at random. No place on the earth’s surface is immune to wind gusts, although some areas are more likely to experience them than others. Gusts may be localized differences in atmospheric pressure caused by frontal weather changes. These occur most often in the spring and fall seasons. Normally, fronts having a temperature difference at the surface of 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) or more and with a frontal speed of at least 30 knots are prone to creating wind gust conditions. These so-called cold fronts contain a wedge of cold air at their leading edge. This wedge of cold air pushes warm air that is ahead of it upward very rapidly. If the warm air is rich in water vapor, as is seen in the southeastern United States, severe storms erupt ahead of the cold front and may continue until it passes. The weather proverb “If the clouds move against the wind, rain will follow” implies a cold front where clouds in the upper wind are moving in a different direction from clouds driven by lower winds. Most experienced aircraft pilots know how to fly cold frontal boundaries for fuel efficiency, in effect gaining a tailwind both ahead of and into the front. To determine the strength of wind gusts, a good reference is the Beaufort scale. Beaufort numbers vary from 0, no wind, to 12, which 289
Wind Gusts
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
News photographer Howard Clifford runs from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge as it collapses following a wind gust in 1940. (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, FAR021)
depicts winds in excess of 73 miles per hour. People can start to feel the wind at Beaufort 2. A Beaufort 6 means that an umbrella is hard to control and large tree branches are moving. Serious damage potential arrives with Beaufort 10, when trees are uprooted and considerable structural damage can be incurred by anything in the path of the wind gust. Thunderstorms, whether a product of a cold front or local air mass heating, are responsible for the majority of wind gusts. Thousands of thunderstorms occur across the earth’s surface every day. Typical of thunderstorms are the “first gust,” the rapid shift and increase in wind velocity just before a thunderstorm hits, and the “downburst,” or rapid downward movement of cooled air in and around the thunderstorm cell. A thunderstorm pulls in relatively warm air near the earth’s surface, then sends it skyward at several 290
Wind Gusts thousand feet per minute, rapidly cooling it. The cool air, becoming more dense and heavy, then plummets back down to the earth’s surface. This downward plunge of 7 to 10 miles creates tremendous inertia that can only be dissipated by outflow when the mass strikes the surface. This effect can be compared to dumping a bucket of water on a concrete surface: The “splash” is the same as the outflow from the downburst. The gusty winds associated with mature thunderstorms are the result of these large downdrafts striking the earth’s surface and spreading out horizontally. Some gusts can change direction by as much as 180 degrees very rapidly and reach velocities of 100 knots as far as 10 miles ahead of the thunderstorm. Low-level gusts, typically between the earth’s surface and an altitude of 1,500 feet, may increase as much as 50 percent, with most of the increase occurring in the first 150 feet. This makes them particularly dangerous for aircraft in takeoff and landing. The downburst is an extremely intense localized downdraft from a thunderstorm. The downdraft frequently exceeds 720 feet per minute in vertical velocity at 300 feet above the earth’s surface. This velocity can exceed an aircraft’s climb capability, even that of large commercial and military jets. This downdraft is usually much closer to the thunderstorm than the first gust. One clue is the presence of dust clouds, roll clouds, or intense rainfall. Hurricanes and cyclones also breed large wind gusts. Although winds from these weather phenomena have predictable direction and velocity, tornadoes and whirlwinds imbedded in them can produce wind gusts capable of major damage. Very local gusting is often referred to as wind shear, and it can be horizontal or vertical. Horizontal shear can move an aircraft off the centerline of a precision approach to an airport. While annoying, it is not usually harmful. Vertical shear, however, is potentially lethal to aircraft. The change in velocity or direction can cause serious changes in lift, indicated airspeed, and thrust requirements, often exceeding the pilot’s and the aircraft’s ability to recover. A decreasing head wind can cause airspeed and lift of the aircraft to decrease. The pilot reacts with application of power and nose-up attitude of the aircraft. Although overshoots of the intended approach may occur, the pilot is usually able to go around and land 291
Wind Gusts safely. Decreasing tailwind causes an increased lift, and the aircraft climbs above the intended approach path. Modern commercial pilot training devotes significant time to wind shear problems. Using computerized flight simulators, the entire array of wind shear problems can be programmed for flight crews. This increases their awareness and application of wind shear recovery without exposing them to the hazards of ineffective recovery techniques if using actual aircraft. Geography Topographic features, both natural and human-made, can promote wind gusts. Most people have experienced this in cities with tall buildings, where the wind intensity is much greater in the gaps between large buildings and swirling winds are expected. Conditions peculiar to the southwestern United States prompt the formation of temperature inversions. These inversions are caused by overnight cooling, where a relatively cool air mass hugs the ground and is overlain by warmer air in the low-level jetstream. High winds from the low-level jet sometimes mix with this inversion, and significant wind gusts may occur at the interface with 90-degree shifts in direction and 20- to 30-knot increases in wind velocity common. On a much larger scale are the gusts resulting from high winds in mountain passes, on the leeward side of large mountains, and across valleys between mountain ranges. A weather phenomenon often called a “mountain rotor” results from differential heating across a valley between two mountain ranges. Air flowing down an upwind mountain during the day is heated, traverses a relatively cool air mass in the valley, then moves across the downwind mountain, causing the turbulence at the boundary of the cooled and heated air masses described above. As the air is heated in the morning, a weak rising motion of the cool air is induced and pulls the air currents attempting to climb the downwind mountain back into the valley. This backrotation creates a rotary motion that contains both horizontal and vertical wind gusts. At least one commercial aircraft accident has been tentatively blamed on a rotor. Rotors can be seen, unless the atmosphere is devoid of moisture, as nearly round symmetrical clouds in mountain valleys. Pilots undergoing mountain-flying training are cautioned to steer 292
Wind Gusts clear of these rotors. A flight into a dry rotor is usually dangerous. The roughness of the earth’s surface plays a major role in determining wind gust intensity. This roughness can occur from obstacles or terrain contours, called orography. Orography promotes tunnel effects (mountain passes) and hill effects (lee—the side sheltered from the wind—of mountains). Pilots are very familiar with this effect. A very calm outbound flight in the morning after a cold-front passage can mean a bumpy return flight in the afternoon as the frontal wind gains intensity and flows over rough topography. In general, the rougher the earth’s surface, the more the wind will be slowed. Forests and large cities slow the wind more than lakes and prairies. Surface roughness can be classified as to its ability to slow wind. For example, landscapes with many trees and buildings have a roughness class of 3 or 4, while a large water surface has a roughness class of 0. Open terrain has a roughness class of 0.5. Roughness length is used with roughness class, and relates to the distance above ground level where the wind speed theoretically should be 0. Prevention and Preparations The aviation industry has been particularly interested in wind gusts, or wind shear, because of their potential effect on aircraft performance in takeoff and landing. According to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) records, wind shears contributed to approximately 50 percent of all commercial airline fatalities between 1974 and 1985. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has required some type of wind shear hazard detection systems on scheduled commercial aircraft since 1995. Pulsed Doppler radar is the primary means of detection of wind gusts for aircraft crews and ground-based air controllers and weather prognosticators. Doppler radar senses speed and direction in the same manner as police traffic radar. A well-understood Doppler effect is a train whistle that is always higher in pitch when the train is approaching than when moving away. Doppler weather radar bounces its pulses off raindrops in storm clouds. If the raindrops are moving toward the radar set, the reflected signal is higher in frequency than if the rain is falling vertically. Frequencies are compared, and color displays are created to depict areas of precipitation and wind shear. Some Doppler radar sets 293
Wind Gusts create an audible warning to aircrews if wind shear is nearby. Effective though dangerous indicators of wind shear are reports from pilots experiencing it. Air-traffic controllers solicit these reports, and many may be received in a short period of time in areas where pilots are experiencing wind shear conditions. Aside from aviation and its vulnerability to wind gusts, other modes of transportation are frequently disturbed by wind gusts. Mountain valleys and other gust-prone locations often experience upended tractor-trailer rigs, which are typically top-heavy and show a considerable broadside resistance to the wind. Sailing ships and relatively light watercraft are also prone to upset by wind gusts. Even with no sails in the wind, boats are difficult to steer with changing wind speeds bearing against their hulls. Rescue and Relief Efforts Wind gusts produce the same results as tornadoes but are even more localized. Building damage and injury to humans and animals can occur. Trauma-related injuries are typical, including broken bones, excessive lacerations, and imbedded debris. Police and fire officials usually handle the localized nature of wind gust damage, although for widespread damage, the Red Cross and Salvation Army, as well as other relief organizations, may assist victims. Local authorities also customarily oversee property damage. Clearing may be necessary to restore public utilities and roadways. Insurance adjusters are frequent visitors to damage sites so that they can assess the severity of the damage to client property and recommend compensation. Impact Like that of tornadoes, wind gust damage is not long-lasting. It has no significant effect on local topography, but it can cause extensive damage to human-made structures. The famous “Galloping Gertie,” or Tacoma Narrows Bridge, was set in motion by wind gusts and ultimately destroyed by its own harmonic frequencies. Windows and trim in large buildings can be damaged or even removed by wind gusts. Large signs and other similar displays are also frequently damaged or dislodged by gusty winds. These articles pose a risk to passersby on the streets below. 294
Wind Gusts Perhaps most important, wind gusts damage aircraft quite easily. Those aircraft on the ground not secured by tie-down lines may be blown around by gusty winds and extensively damaged. However, the most important damage to aircraft occurs when wind gusts overcome the pilot’s ability to maintain flying conditions in takeoff or landing configurations. Aircraft collisions with the ground can cause minor damage or extensive loss of life and totally destroy aircraft. Literally thousands of aircraft accidents can be traced to wind gusts as the primary cause of or at least a major contributor to the accident. A portion of the avionics industry is devoted exclusively to assessing the severity of wind shear and its effect on the operation of aircraft. Even local television stations proudly advertise that their weather gurus are equipped with the most modern Doppler radar for the safety and convenience of their viewers. Charles Haynes Bibliography Freier, George D. Weather Proverbs: How 600 Proverbs, Sayings, and Poems Accurately Explain Our Weather. Tucson, Ariz.: Fisher Books, 1992. A very interesting book on weather phenomena, with modern explanations given to ancient weather lore. Kimble, George H. T. Our American Weather. New York: McGraw Hill, 1955. This is a very readable book, unique in that it depicts U.S. weather by month. Entertaining as well as informative. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Making the Skies Safe from Windshear. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/ factsheets/ Windshear.html. A series of NASA documents that detail its research into the causes and detection of wind shear as it affects aircraft. National Transportation Safety Board. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/ query.asp. This is the NTSB’s aviation accident/incident database. Although cold and cryptic details are the essence of this Web site, it nevertheless details the mounting toll of aircraft accidents resulting in part from wind gusts. Palmén, E., and C. W. Newton. Atmospheric Circulation Systems: Their Structure and Physical Interpretation. New York: Academic Press, 1969. Although some knowledge of calculus is necessary to master this book, it still has many readable pages concerning global 295
Wind Gusts weather at the lower altitudes that can be understood by most individuals. Wood, Richard A., ed. The Weather Almanac: A Reference Guide to Weather, Climate, and Related Issues in the United States and Its Key Cities. 11th ed. Detroit: Thompson/Gale, 2004. Provides a detailed description of the Beaufort number for wind speed and contains much weather data.
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Indexes
■ Category List Avalanches Avalanches (overview) 1999: The Galtür avalanche, Austria Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail (overview) 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888, U.S. Northeast 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster, Nepal Comets. See Meteorites and Comets Cyclones. See Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones; Tornadoes Droughts Droughts (overview) 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains Dust Storms and Sandstorms Dust Storms and Sandstorms (overview) 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains Earthquakes Earthquakes (overview) 526: The Antioch earthquake, Syria 1692: The Port Royal earthquake, Jamaica 1755: The Lisbon earthquake, Portugal 1811: New Madrid earthquakes, Missouri 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake 1908: The Messina earthquake, Italy 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake, Japan 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake 1970: The Ancash earthquake, Peru 1976: The Tangshan earthquake, China 1985: The Mexico City earthquake III
Category List 1988: The Leninakan earthquake, Armenia 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake, Northern California 1994: The Northridge earthquake, Southern California 1995: The Kobe earthquake, Japan 1999: The Ezmit earthquake, Turkey 2003: The Bam earthquake, Iran 2005: The Kashmir earthquake, Pakistan El Niño El Niño (overview) 1982: El Niño, Pacific Ocean Epidemics Epidemics (overview) 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens 1320: The Black Death, Europe 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic 1665: The Great Plague of London 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, Memphis 1892: Cholera pandemic 1900: Typhoid Mary, New York State 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic, United States 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1976: Ebola outbreaks, Zaire and Sudan 1976: Legionnaires’ disease, Philadelphia 1980’s: AIDS pandemic 1995: Ebola outbreak, Zaire 2002: SARS epidemic, Asia and Canada Explosions Explosions (overview) 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster, England 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster, West Virginia 1947: The Texas City Disaster Famines Famines (overview) 1200: Egypt famine IV
Category List 1845: The Great Irish Famine 1959: The Great Leap Forward Famine, China 1984: Africa famine Fires Fires (overview) 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome 1657: The Meireki Fire, Japan 1666: The Great Fire of London 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire, Wisconsin 1871: The Great Chicago Fire 1872: The Great Boston Fire 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster, Illinois 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster, New Jersey 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire, Northern California 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003, Southern California Floods Floods (overview) 1889: The Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse, Southern California 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Fog Fog (overview) 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking, Canada Freezes. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Glaciers. See Icebergs and Glaciers Hail. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Heat Waves Heat Waves (overview) 1995: Chicago heat wave 2003: Europe heat wave V
Category List Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones (overview) 1900: The Galveston hurricane, Texas 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane 1928: The San Felipe hurricane, Florida and the Caribbean 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1969: Hurricane Camille 1970: The Bhola cyclone, East Pakistan 1989: Hurricane Hugo 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1998: Hurricane Mitch 2005: Hurricane Katrina Ice Storms. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Icebergs and Glaciers Icebergs and Glaciers (overview) Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides (overview) 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster, Italy 1966: The Aberfan Disaster, Wales 2006: The Leyte mudslide, Philippines Lightning Strikes Lightning Strikes (overview) Meteorites and Comets Meteorites and Comets (overview) c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater, Atlantic Ocean 1908: The Tunguska event, Siberia Mudslides. See Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Rockslides. See Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Sandstorms. See Dust Storms and Sandstorms VI
Category List Smog Smog (overview) 1952: The Great London Smog Tornadoes Tornadoes (overview) 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, St. Louis 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak, U.S. Midwest 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak, U.S. South and Midwest, Canada 1997: The Jarrell tornado, Texas 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak Tsunamis Tsunamis (overview) 1946: The Aleutian tsunami, Hawaii 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Typhoons. See Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Volcanic Eruptions Volcanic Eruptions (overview) c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption, Aegean Sea 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption, Italy 1669: Etna eruption, Sicily 1783: Laki eruption, Iceland 1815: Tambora eruption, Indonesia 1883: Krakatau eruption, Indonesia 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption, Washington 1982: El Chichón eruption, Mexico 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster, Cameroon 1991: Pinatubo eruption, Philippines 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat Wind Gusts Wind Gusts (overview) VII
■ Geographical List Africa. See also individual countries 1984: Africa famine 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Alabama 2005: Hurricane Katrina Alaska 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake Armenia 1988: The Leninakan earthquake Asia. See also individual countries 2002: SARS epidemic 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Atlantic Ocean c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Austria 1999: The Galtür avalanche Bahamas 1992: Hurricane Andrew Bangladesh. See also East Pakistan 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Belgium 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 California 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake IX
Geographical List 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire 1994: The Northridge earthquake 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 Cameroon 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster Canada 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak 2002: SARS epidemic Caribbean 1692: The Port Royal earthquake, Jamaica 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1928: The San Felipe hurricane 1989: Hurricane Hugo 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat Central America. See also individual countries 1998: Hurricane Mitch China 1959: The Great Leap Forward Famine 1976: The Tangshan earthquake 2002: SARS epidemic East Pakistan 1970: The Bhola cyclone Egypt 1200: Egypt famine England 1665: The Great Plague of London X
Geographical List 1666: The Great Fire of London 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster 1952: The Great London Smog Ethiopia 1984: Africa famine Europe. See also individual countries 1320: The Black Death 2003: Europe heat wave Florida 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane 1928: The San Felipe hurricane 1992: Hurricane Andrew 2005: Hurricane Katrina France 2003: Europe heat wave Great Britain. See also England; Ireland; Wales 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Great Plains, U.S. 1932: The Dust Bowl Greece 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens Hawaii 1946: The Aleutian tsunami Hong Kong 2002: SARS epidemic Iceland 1783: Laki eruption
XI
Geographical List Idaho 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Illinois 1871: The Great Chicago Fire 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado 1995: Chicago heat wave India 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Indian Ocean 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Indiana 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Indonesia 1815: Tambora eruption 1883: Krakatau eruption 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Iran 2003: The Bam earthquake Ireland 1845: The Great Irish Famine Italy 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome 79: Vesuvius eruption 1669: Etna eruption 1908: The Messina earthquake 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster
XII
Geographical List Jamaica 1692: The Port Royal earthquake Japan 1657: The Meireki Fire 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake 1995: The Kobe earthquake Kenya 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Louisiana 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1992: Hurricane Andrew 2005: Hurricane Katrina Martinique 1902: Pelée eruption Massachusetts 1872: The Great Boston Fire Mediterranean c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption, Aegean Sea 1669: Etna eruption, Sicily Mexico 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic 1982: El Chichón eruption 1985: The Mexico City earthquake Midwest, U.S. 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Mississippi 2005: Hurricane Katrina
XIII
Geographical List Mississippi River 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Missouri 1811: New Madrid earthquakes 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, St. Louis 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Montana 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Montserrat 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption Nepal 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster Netherlands 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 New England 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 New Jersey 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster New York 1900: Typhoid Mary North Carolina 1989: Hurricane Hugo North Sea 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Oklahoma 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak XIV
Geographical List Pacific Ocean 1982: Pacific Ocean El Niño Pakistan 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Papua New Guinea 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami Pennsylvania 1889: The Johnstown Flood 1976: Legionnaires’ disease, Philadelphia Peru 1970: The Ancash earthquake Philippines 1991: Pinatubo eruption 2006: The Leyte mudslide Portugal 1755: The Lisbon earthquake Russia 1908: The Tunguska event Siberia 1908: The Tunguska event South, U.S. 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak South Carolina 1989: Hurricane Hugo Sri Lanka 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami
XV
Geographical List Sudan 1976: Ebola outbreaks 1984: Africa famine Syria 526: The Antioch earthquake Tennessee 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, Memphis Texas 1900: The Galveston hurricane 1947: The Texas City Disaster 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1997: The Jarrell tornado Thailand 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Turkey 1999: The Ezmit earthquake United States. See also individual states and regions 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Wales 1966: The Aberfan Disaster Washington State 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption West Indies 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1928: The San Felipe hurricane XVI
Geographical List 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat West Virginia 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster Wisconsin 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire Worldwide 1892: Cholera pandemic 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1980: AIDS pandemic Wyoming 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Zaire 1976: Ebola outbreaks 1995: Ebola outbreak
XVII
Notable Natural Disasters
MAGILL’S C H O I C E
Notable Natural Disasters Volume 2 Events to 1970 Edited by Marlene Bradford, Ph.D. Texas A&M University Robert S. Carmichael, Ph.D. University of Iowa
SALEM PRESS, INC. Pasadena, California Hackensack, New Jersey
Copyright © 2007, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or in the copying of images deemed to be freely licensed or in the public domain. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.481992 (R1997). These essays originally appeared in Natural Disasters (2001). New essays and other material have been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Notable natural disasters / edited by Marlene Bradford, Robert S. Carmichael. p. cm. — (Magill’s choice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58765-368-1 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-369-8 (vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-370-4 (vol. 2 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-371-1 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. Natural disasters. I. Bradford, Marlene. II. Carmichael, Robert S. GB5014.N373 2007 904’.5—dc22 2007001926
printed in canada
Contents Complete List of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix ■ Events c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater . . . c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption . . . . . . 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens . . . . . 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome . . . . . 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption . . . . . . . . 526: The Antioch earthquake . . . . . . 1200: Egyptian famine . . . . . . . . . . 1320: The Black Death . . . . . . . . . . 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic . 1657: The Meireki Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1665: The Great Plague of London . . . 1666: The Great Fire of London . . . . . 1669: Etna eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1692: The Port Royal earthquake . . . . 1755: The Lisbon earthquake . . . . . . 1783: Laki eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1811: New Madrid earthquakes . . . . . 1815: Tambora eruption . . . . . . . . . 1845: The Great Irish Famine . . . . . . 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire . . . . . . 1871: The Great Chicago Fire . . . . . . 1872: The Great Boston Fire . . . . . . . 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic . 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster . . . 1883: Krakatau eruption . . . . . . . . . 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 . . . . 1889: The Johnstown Flood . . . . . . . 1892: Cholera pandemic . . . . . . . . . 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 . . . . 1900: The Galveston hurricane . . . . . 1900: Typhoid Mary . . . . . . . . . . . 1902: Pelée eruption . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii
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Notable Natural Disasters 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake . . . . 1908: The Tunguska event . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908: The Messina earthquake. . . . . . . . . . . 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking . . . . . . . . . . . 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic . . . . . . . . . . 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic. . . . . . . . . . . 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake . . . . . . . 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado . . . . . . . . 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane. . . . . . . . . 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse . . . . . . . . . . . 1928: The San Felipe hurricane . . . . . . . . . . 1932: The Dust Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1946: The Aleutian tsunami . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947: The Texas City Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1952: The Great London Smog . . . . . . . . . . 1953: The North Sea Flood. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1957: Hurricane Audrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1959: The Great Leap Forward famine . . . . . . 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake . . . . . . . . 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak . . . . . . . . . 1966: The Aberfan Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969: Hurricane Camille . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1970: The Ancash earthquake . . . . . . . . . . .
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■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXI Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXVII
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Complete List of Contents Volume 1 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv ■ Overviews Avalanches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Droughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dust Storms and Sandstorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Earthquakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Epidemics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Explosions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Famines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Fires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Floods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Heat Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Icebergs and Glaciers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Lightning Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Meteorites and Comets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Smog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Tornadoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Tsunamis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Volcanic Eruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Wind Gusts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 ■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX xxix
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Volume 2 Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii Complete List of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix ■ Events c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater . . . c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption . . . . . . 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens . . . . . 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome . . . . . 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption . . . . . . . . 526: The Antioch earthquake . . . . . . 1200: Egyptian famine . . . . . . . . . . 1320: The Black Death . . . . . . . . . . 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic . 1657: The Meireki Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1665: The Great Plague of London . . . 1666: The Great Fire of London . . . . . 1669: Etna eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1692: The Port Royal earthquake . . . . 1755: The Lisbon earthquake . . . . . . 1783: Laki eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1811: New Madrid earthquakes . . . . . 1815: Tambora eruption . . . . . . . . . 1845: The Great Irish Famine . . . . . . 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire . . . . . . 1871: The Great Chicago Fire . . . . . . 1872: The Great Boston Fire . . . . . . . 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic . 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster . . . 1883: Krakatau eruption . . . . . . . . . 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 . . . . 1889: The Johnstown Flood . . . . . . . 1892: Cholera pandemic . . . . . . . . . 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 . . . . 1900: The Galveston hurricane . . . . . 1900: Typhoid Mary . . . . . . . . . . . 1902: Pelée eruption . . . . . . . . . . . xxx
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Complete List of Contents 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake . . . . 1908: The Tunguska event . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908: The Messina earthquake. . . . . . . . . . . 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking . . . . . . . . . . . 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic . . . . . . . . . . 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic. . . . . . . . . . . 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake . . . . . . . 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado . . . . . . . . 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane. . . . . . . . . 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse . . . . . . . . . . . 1928: The San Felipe hurricane . . . . . . . . . . 1932: The Dust Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1946: The Aleutian tsunami . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947: The Texas City Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1952: The Great London Smog . . . . . . . . . . 1953: The North Sea Flood. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1957: Hurricane Audrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1959: The Great Leap Forward famine . . . . . . 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake . . . . . . . . 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak . . . . . . . . . 1966: The Aberfan Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969: Hurricane Camille . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1970: The Ancash earthquake . . . . . . . . . . .
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■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXI Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXVII
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Volume 3 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xli Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xliii ■ Events 1970: The Bhola cyclone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Ebola outbreaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Legionnaires’ disease . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: The Tangshan earthquake. . . . . . . . . 1980’s: AIDS pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption . . . . . . . . 1982: El Chichón eruption. . . . . . . . . . . . 1982: Pacific Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1984: African famine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1985: The Mexico City earthquake . . . . . . . 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires . . . . . . 1988: The Leninakan earthquake . . . . . . . . 1989: Hurricane Hugo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake . . . . . . . 1991: Pinatubo eruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1992: Hurricane Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 1994: The Northridge earthquake . . . . . . . . 1995: The Kobe earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Ebola outbreak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Chicago heat wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster . . . . . . . . 1997: The Jarrell tornado . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption . . . . . . . . . . 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami . . . . . . . . 1998: Hurricane Mitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Galtür avalanche . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak . . . . 1999: The Ezmit earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . xxxii
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■ Appendixes Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976 Time Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019 Organizations and Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039 ■ Indexes Category List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXXIX Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XLV Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LV
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■ c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater Meteorite Date: About 65 million years ago Place: Yucatán Peninsula, Atlantic Ocean Classification: 10 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale; energy equivalent to at least 100 million megatons of TNT released Result: Instantly destroyed most life within 621-mile radius and caused worldwide climate changes resulting in the extinction of up to 85 percent of species then living
A
team of scientists led by Luis and Walter Alvarez, father and son, were studying the thin clay layer that lies between the rocks of the Cretaceous geological period and the rocks of the following Tertiary period. This boundary is designated the K/T boundary. (By convention, Cretaceous is abbreviated K. The letter C is used for the earlier Cambrian period.) Knowing that the element iridium is more abundant in meteorites than in earth rocks, and supposing that small meteorites fall at a more or less constant rate, they supposed that the amount of iridium in the clay would be a clue to how long it took to form the clay layer. To their great surprise, they discovered that the iridium concentration in the clay was 300 times that of the rocks above and below it. In 1980, they startled the world with this result and with their theory of what had ended the reign of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. According to their theory, now widely accepted, a rocky asteroid 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) or more in diameter hurtled toward Earth at tens of miles per second. Plunging through the atmosphere in a few seconds, its energy of motion was converted into heat as it struck the ground, vaporizing itself along with a great deal of the target rock. The resulting explosion lofted 100 million megatons of dust and rock vapor into the air, much of it out into space. It also produced an earthquake 30,000 times stronger than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. 297
c. 65,000,000 B.C.E.: Yucatán crater
Scientist Luis Alvarez, who theorized that a large meteorite destroyed most life on earth in 65,000,000 B.C.E. (The Nobel Foundation)
There is a huge crater about 112 miles (180 kilometers) across at Chicxulub, Yucatán. It is 65 million years old and is thought to be the impact site of the Alvarez asteroid. Fittingly, Chicxulub (pronounced CHEEK-shoe-lube) means “tail of the devil.” Today, the crater is completely covered with surface rock. Further evidence of an impact is that all around the Gulf of Mexico there is a 65-million-year-old layer of tsunami-wave rubble 33 feet (10 meters) thick, including large boulders washed far inland. Shock-fractured crystals found in the K/T boundary layer are another key piece of evidence. While a large impact can form these crystals, volcanic activity cannot. 298
c. 65,000,000 B.C.E.: Yucatán crater Shock and heat from the impact killed nearly everything above ground within 621 miles (1,000 kilometers). The vapor that was lofted into space cooled and condensed into rocky globules that reheated as they plunged back into the atmosphere all around the world. Their heat started forest fires worldwide. The amount of soot found in the worldwide K/T boundary layer shows that much of Earth’s total biomass burned. Smoke from these fires combined with dust lofted into the stratosphere by the impact formed a worldwide pall that blocked sunlight for months, causing Earth to cool about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and photosynthesis to cease. This has been called “impact winter.” Heat from the fireball caused nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere to combine to form nitric oxide, which was lofted into the stratosphere, where it destroyed the ozone layer. Less than 2 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with layers of limestone and evaporite 1.2 to 1.9 miles (2 to 3 kilometers) thick, but the Yucatán Peninsula is such a place. Vaporizing these deposits released huge amounts of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Nitric oxide and sulfur dioxide combined with water vapor in the air to form acid rain. There may not have been enough acid rain worldwide to be a serious problem by itself, but it did add to the environmental insult. As the dust cleared, “impact winter” turned to “impact summer,” and the climate warmed about 40 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for thousands of years. These elevated temperatures were possibly due to a greenhouse effect caused by the extra carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere. Which species became extinct and exactly when that happened remains somewhat controversial; however, the most complete studies support the hypothesis that the dinosaurs died because of the climate-changing effects of an asteroid impact. The general pattern is that species such as dinosaurs, whose food chain depended upon living plant material, became extinct. Species whose food chain depended upon organic detritus left in logs, soil, or water survived and eventually expanded into niches previously dominated by extinct species. Apparently, mammals survived on insects, arthropods, and worms until the sun began to shine again and plants to grow again. Charles W. Rogers
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c. 65,000,000 B.C.E.: Yucatán crater For Further Information: Alvarez, Luis W. “Mass Extinctions Caused by Large Bolide Impacts.” Physics Today, July, 1987, 24-33. Beatty, J. Kelly. “Killer Crater in the Yucatán?” Sky and Telescope, July, 1991, 38-40. Raup, David M. The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Verschuur, Gerrit L. Impact! The Threat of Comets and Asteroids. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Zanda, Brigitte, and Monica Rotaru, eds. Meteorites: Their Impact on Science and History. Translated by Roger Hewins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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■ c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption Volcano Date: c. 1470 b.c.e. Place: Aegean Sea Result: Volcanic eruption and caldera collapse, town buried and preserved intact, possible cause of disappearance of Minoan civilization on Crete, alleged location of lost “continent” of Atlantis
T
he eruption of Thera (now known as Thíra) in 1470 b.c.e. has been compared in severity with the eruption in 5000 b.c.e. that formed Crater Lake in Oregon, but as no written records survive, knowledge of the eruption must be deduced entirely from the geological and archaeological evidence. Judging from the pottery, archaeologists date the eruption to around 1400 b.c.e. Geologists give a date of 1470 b.c.e. based on a radioactive age determination. The volcano lies in a cluster of islands that used to be known as Santorin or Santorini. These islands form part of a convex arc of recently extinct volcanoes in the Aegean Sea, facing the Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece. Geologists describe this as a firing line where the crustal plate of Africa is plunging down beneath the crustal plate of southeastern Europe. Prior to the 1470 b.c.e. eruption, Thera had a long and complicated volcanic history, beginning with submarine eruptions from volcanic vents located adjacent to some bedrock islands. When ejecta from these vents reached water level, small volcanic islands appeared, which then grew together with the adjoining bedrock as eruptions continued. Ultimately this complex of overlapping volcanic cones and bedrock masses formed a circular island nearly 10 miles in diameter and with a summit that might have been as much as 1 mile high. A period of quiescence then followed, which scientists believe lasted for many thousands of years. During this interval, fertile soils developed on the weathered volcanic rocks, lakes and marshes formed in the depressions, and vegetation appeared. Humans colonized Thera from neighboring islands, bringing with them the Bronze Age 301
c. 1470 B.C.E.: Thera eruption BULGARIA
MACEDONIA
TURKEY Serrai Edhessa
Florina
ALBANIA
Kilkis Thessaloniki
Kastoria Veroia Kozani Katerini Grevena Kerkira
Ioannina
Preveza
Poliyiros
Larisa TURKEY
Volos
Kardhitsa
Aegean Sea
Mitilini
Karpenision Lamia Amfissa Levadhia Mesolongion Patrai
Argostolion Zakinthos Ionian Sea
Kariai
GREECE
Igoumenetsa Trikala Arta
Drama Xanthi Komotini Kavala Alexandroupolis
Pirgos
Khalkis Chios Athens
Corinth Navplion
Tripolis
Samos Ermoupolis
Kalamata Sparta
Thíra Akrotiri (Thera)
Rodhos
Sea of Crete Khania Mediterranean Sea
Crete Rethimnon Iraklion Ayios Nikolaos
culture then prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean. The largest settlement appears to have been at ancient Akrotiri on the southern coast, a location that had a natural harbor, shelter from the strong northerly winds, and probably more rainfall than other parts of the island. Excavations begun here in 1967 have unearthed, from beneath the mantle of volcanic debris, the most completely preserved prehistoric site in Europe. The once-thriving town of several thousand inhabitants had narrow streets; underground sewers to carry away domestic effluent; and two-, three-, and four-story homes adorned with frescoes, which are still breathtakingly fresh 3,500 years after they were first painted. In the surrounding fields, the inhabitants of the island raised sheep and goats; cultivated grapes for wine; and grew 302
c. 1470 B.C.E.: Thera eruption crops of lentils, split peas, and barley, from which they milled flour to make bread. Pottery discovered in the excavation indicates that the residents maintained close trade connections with both Crete and mainland Greece. Archaeologists have concluded that the first indication of the impending eruption was a large-scale earthquake, which caused major damage to buildings throughout the town. Then came a period of calm—perhaps several months in length—during which people began rebuilding their homes. Repairs were still in progress when the next phase of the eruption struck. This began with a fall of pellets of pumice that eventually built up a layer as much as 15 feet thick over most of the island. By now the inhabitants of Akrotiri must have fled, taking with
A modern satellite image of Thera. (NASA)
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c. 1470 B.C.E.: Thera eruption them whatever valuables they could carry and leaving behind the furnishings of their homes, as well as a vast assortment of pottery used for the storing, cooking, and serving of food. The absence of human or animal remains in the ruins indicates that people had time to evacuate safely. After the fall of pumice pellets came a series of minor ash and pumice falls, and then the culminating phase of the eruption: fine, white ash, with scattered basalt boulders, that blanketed the island to a depth of 100 feet or more. The ash is also present beneath the Mediterranean as a layer up to 7 feet thick found in core samples more than 450 miles away. Following the ashfall—or perhaps simultaneous with it—the central part of the volcano collapsed into the underlying magma chamber, creating a huge depression in the seafloor, known as a caldera. Thera’s caldera is 7 miles long and 5 miles wide and has a maximum depth of 1,575 feet. The rim of the old volcano still surrounds it in the form of three ragged islands with rocky cliffs 1,200 feet high, rising toward where the summit used to be. The volume of the collapse has been estimated at 38 cubic miles, which is about the same as the collapse at Crater Lake and more than three times the collapse at Krakatau in Indonesia. Tsunamis (tidal waves) were probably generated at this time, and a pumice deposit found 23 feet above sea level at Tel Aviv in Israel has been attributed to them. About 70 miles to the south of Thera lies the island of Crete, which was the center of the highly developed Minoan civilization during the Bronze Age. Many archaeologists blame the sudden disappearance of this civilization on the eruption of Thera, citing the destructive earthquakes that accompanied the eruption, the possibility of devastating tsunamis, and the ashfalls from the volcano that could have destroyed the fertility of fields on Crete. Thera is also cited as a possible location for Plato’s famous lost “continent” of Atlantis, which he mentioned in two of his writings. He describes Atlantis as the home of a rich and powerful nation with an advanced civilization. According to him, the end of this civilization came when the island was wracked by violent earthquakes and floods and then, in the space of a single night and day, was swallowed up by the sea. This description would fit the catastrophic end of Thera perfectly. Donald W. Lovejoy 304
c. 1470 B.C.E.: Thera eruption For Further Information: Bullard, Fred M. Volcanoes of the Earth. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Doumas, Christos G. Thera, Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean: Excavations at Akrotiri, 1967-1979. London: Thames and Hudson, 1983. Fisher, Richard V., Grant Heiken, and Jeffrey B. Hulen. Volcanoes: Crucibles of Change. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Fouqué, Ferdinand. Santorini and Its Eruptions. Translated by Alexander R. McBirney. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Friedrich, Walter L. Fire in the Sea: The Santorini Volcano—Natural History and the Legend of Atlantis. Translated by Alexander R. McBirney. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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■ 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens Epidemic Date: 430-427 b.c.e. Place: Athens, Greece Result: About 30,000 dead
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s the early battles of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 b.c.e.) were being waged between the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta, urban crowding in several major cities reached an unprecedented level. Perhaps the worst of these overpopulated centers was Athens itself. It had been the strategy of the Athenian general and statesman Pericles to protect the entire populace of Attica, the region in which Athens is located, by permitting any resident of this area who wished to do so to take refuge within the Athenian city walls. While this policy won much support because it protected most of the citizenry from Spartan raids, it also caused such intense crowding within central Athens that the city became vulnerable to the swift spread of disease. The plague that befell Athens in 430 b.c.e. was first observed in Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, and the island of Lemnos. Scholars assume that it was carried to Athens aboard ship, a theory given credence by the illness’s first arrival in mainland Europe at Piraeus, the port of Athens. Because a state of war then existed between Athens and Sparta, initial suspicions fell upon the Spartans. They were accused of poisoning the Athenian water supply in an attempt to win through deceit victories that they could not win on the battlefield. Nevertheless, as the disease spread, ultimately killing as many as a quarter to a third of the entire Athenian population, it became apparent that the cause of the disaster was not an enemy conspiracy but a new form of contagion that had a natural (or, as some thought, a divine) origin. Symptoms of the Athenian Plague. The symptoms of the Athenian plague have been detailed with far greater precision than those of any other ancient epidemic because the Greek historian Thucydides (c. 459-c. 402 b.c.e.) provided a full account of it in his history of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides himself had suffered 306
430 B.C.E.: The Plague of Athens from the plague, but, like a number of other fortunate individuals, he survived. The description that Thucydides provided of the plague includes little speculation as to its cause but extensive analysis of its symptoms. Thucydides relates that he provided this information in the hope that future generations would recognize later outbreaks of the disease and understand its prognosis. By taking this approach, Thucydides revealed that he was under the influence of the “father of Greek medicine,” Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460-c. 370 b.c.e.), then at the height of his prestige among the Athenian intelligentsia. Hippocrates, too, had stressed diagnosis and prognosis over vain attempts to find cures. Thucydides notes that the onset of the plague was sudden. During a year that had otherwise been remarkably free of other illnesses, apparently healthy people would unexpectedly develop a high fever. Inflammation of the eyes, throat, and tongue soon followed, turning the victim’s breath extremely foul. Several of the plague’s initial symptoms resembled those of a severe cold. Patients suffered from sneezing, hoarseness, and coughs. The standard treatments of these symptoms had, however, little effect upon the rapid progress of the plague. In its second stage, the plague moved from victims’ heads to their stomachs. Vomiting and great pain were followed by dry heaves (or, some scholars believe, violent hiccups) and prolonged spasms. Then, as the fever began to subside, the patient’s skin turned sensitive. Many victims found that they could not tolerate being touched in any way or even being covered by either clothing or blankets. The patient’s skin turned deep red or black-and-blue in spots, with sores breaking out over large areas of the body. Sleep proved to be impossible, both from the pain of the illness and from a general restlessness. Unquenchable thirst caused many victims to throw themselves into public rain basins in their desire to drink as much water as possible. By this stage in the illness, seven or eight days had elapsed; many of the plague’s victims died at this point. Those who survived the plague’s initial ravages, however, quickly developed severe diarrhea. The general weakness that resulted from sustained dysentery then caused additional deaths among the very young and very old. Those in the prime of life, however, might begin to regain their health at this point. The severe fevers caused some victims to develop amnesia. Others became blind or lost the use of their extremities. 307
430 B.C.E.: The Plague of Athens As the plague lingered in Athens, it increasingly took its toll upon those with weakened immune systems. Thucydides notes that, as the winter continued, nearly any disease that an individual developed eventually turned into the plague. Victims also remained contagious after they died. Thucydides reports that animals did not feed on the corpses of plague victims or, if they did, they died soon after. Human patients who survived appeared to be immune to further attacks of plague. Several of those who repeatedly developed plague symptoms found that subsequent infections were increasingly less severe. In their elation at their restored health, many former victims imagined that they were now immune to illness of any kind. As evidence emerged that this was not true, however, a number of these survivors were plunged into a deep depression. Subsequent History of the Plague. One unanticipated outcome of the Athenian plague was the emergence of an almost citywide sense of fatalism. The sudden, indiscriminate death caused by the plague suggested to many individuals that no human action or remedy was useful. Victims died regardless of whether they were ignored or well treated by physicians. Death occurred without respect for a victim’s character or individual piety. Diet, exercise, and a person’s general state of health had little bearing on the rapid progress of the disease. What was worse in the eyes of many was that the merciful appeared to be dying in even greater numbers than the callous. Compassionate individuals were more likely to treat others suffering from the disease and thus were more likely to be exposed to it themselves. As a result, many Athenians felt that all the virtues they had once cherished—piety, fitness, civic-mindedness, integrity—were of little practical value. In a matter of days, the plague did more to harden the hearts of many Athenians than did all the months of the war against Sparta. The public disorder caused by the plague, combined with the psychic trauma resulting from daily exposure to victims dying or in intense agony, produced a state of chaos throughout Athens. The law provided no deterrent to citizens who imagined that they would die soon anyway. Crimes of all sorts began to increase. People ceased planning for the future, preferring to direct their efforts toward the satisfaction of immediate pleasures. The worship of the gods declined because many people felt that religion provided no guarantee 308
430 B.C.E.: The Plague of Athens of health. Even the literature and art of the city was affected by the plague. The god Apollo, until then regarded as a source of inspiration and light in Athenian literature, took on an increasingly negative image in many works, including the tragedies of the playwright Euripides (c. 485-406 b.c.e.). Apollo’s oracle at Delphi had promised aid to the Spartans, and, as the Athenians remembered well, Apollo was the god of plagues in Homer’s Iliad (c. 800 b.c.e.). When, in the spring of 429 b.c.e., the Spartans again invaded Attica and once more laid waste to the fields, public opinion began to turn against Pericles. The Athenians claimed it was his fault that no crops could be planted for two years and that the city was sufficiently crowded to spread the plague. In part, at least, these criticisms were justified. It had been Pericles’ policy to protect behind the city’s walls thousands of Athenian citizens who ordinarily would have remained unaffected by the plague in the countryside. As an urban phenomenon, the plague was largely confined to Athens itself and a few other large cities. It did not enter the Peloponnisos, sparing Sparta, a lesspopulated city than Athens. Pericles was removed from office as general of Athens. Two of his own sons died in the plague. History, perhaps unreliably, reports that his mistress Aspasia and two of his friends, the philosopher Protagoras and the sculptor Phidias, were placed on trial by the Athenians in an effort to discredit Pericles. Pericles himself was fined for misuse of public funds. Soon, however, public opinion shifted yet again, and Pericles was restored to public office. Nevertheless, by this time, his health was in decline. Calling the plague “the one thing that I did not foresee,” Pericles became its most prominent victim. He died in 429 b.c.e. After its initial outbreak in 430 and 429, the plague returned to claim more victims in 427 b.c.e. In 1994, a mass grave dating to the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. was discovered as preparations were being made for a subway station near the ancient Kerameikos cemetery in Athens. Numerous bodies were uncovered, hastily thrown into multiple shafts. One shaft alone contained more than 90 skeletons, 10 of which belonged to children. Because of the date of the burial and the cursory manner in which the interment appeared to have been carried out, many scholars speculated that the site might have been associated with the great Plague of Athens. In his account of the plague, Thucydides had men309
430 B.C.E.: The Plague of Athens tioned that the sheer number of casualties had necessitated swift burial in mass graves. Although the date and general location of the burial are appropriate for the Plague of Athens, final identification will never be possible because the site was destroyed as construction continued. Precise Causes of the Athenian Plague. Historians and epidemiologists cannot agree as to the precise nature of the organism responsible for the Athenian plague. Some scholars believe that the illness was either identical or closely related to various illnesses known in the modern world. Others believe that, because of the rapid evolution of microbes, it was a unique contagion having no parallel in contemporary society. Candidates put forward as possible causes of the Athenian plague have included the Ebola virus, influenza, measles, typhus, ergotism (a disease caused by the ingestion of contaminated grain products), and toxic shock syndrome. The latter two of these possibilities seem unlikely because they would not have been spread in the highly contagious manner attributed to the Athenian plague. The other candidates for the disease all lack at least one of the major symptoms described by Thucydides. Although the precise nature of the Athenian plague will probably never be determined, one thing remains clear: The cause of this disease cannot be identified with that of another famous plague, the Black Death that ravaged Europe during the fourteenth century. Nowhere in Thucydides’ account is there any mention of the buboes, those enlarged lymph nodes in the groin or armpits that gave the bubonic plague its name. In the history of epidemics, the Plague of Athens appears to remain unique. Jeffrey L. Buller For Further Information: Bollet, Alfred J. Plagues and Poxes: The Impact of Human History on Epidemic Disease. New York: Demos, 2004. Holladay, A. J., and J. C. F. Poole. “Thucydides and the Plague of Athens.” Classical Quarterly 29 (1979): 282-300. Langmuir, A. D. “The Thucydides Syndrome: A New Hypothesis for the Cause of the Plague of Athens.” The New England Journal of Medicine 313 (October, 1985): 1027-1030. Morens, D. M., and R. J. Littman. “Epidemiology of the Plague of Ath310
430 B.C.E.: The Plague of Athens ens.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 122 (1992): 271-304. _______. “The Thucydides Syndrome Reconsidered: New Thoughts on the Plague of Athens.” American Journal of Epidemiology 140, no. 62 (1994): 1-7. Morgan, Thomas E. “Plague or Poetry? Thucydides on the Epidemic at Athens.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 124 (1994): 197-209. Page, Denys L. “Thucydides’ Description of the Great Plague.” Classical Quarterly, n.s. 47, no. 3 (1953): 97-119. Scarrow, G. D. “The Athenian Plague: A Possible Diagnosis.” Ancient History Bulletin 11 (1988): 4-8.
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■ 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome Fire Date: July 19-24, 64 c.e. Place: Rome, Italy Result: Thousands dead (accurate records unavailable), thousands of homes destroyed, more than two-thirds of the city destroyed
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n the early morning hours of July 19, 64 c.e., a fire broke out in a slum district south of the Palatine hill. Due to the high density of poorly built and very flammable insulae (tenement houses), the fire quickly burned out of control. During the next several days acre after acre of the city burned up as the fire spread northward. Panic-stricken residents ran through the streets, where many were suffocated or crushed by crowds of people desperately seeking escape. Adding to the confusion were sudden winds that whipped up the flames in different directions. Reportedly, rescuers and soldiers, instead of trying to stop the conflagration, kindled it even more in greedy hopes of obtaining plunder. To make matters worse, after the original fire subsided, a second fire broke out near the Capitoline hill and lasted for three days. The damage was so extensive that many Romans feared the city would never regain its greatness. By the time the fire was quenched, 3 of the 14 districts of Rome (as originally laid out by Emperor Augustus) were completely destroyed. Only 4 districts were untouched by the fire. The best ancient sources about the fire, historians Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Suetonius, and Cornelius Tacitus, did not record precise numbers of either lives lost or buildings destroyed. Cassius Dio wrote that “countless” people died in the fire, and it seems likely that hundreds of people perished in the disaster. An ancient letter, purportedly from the philosopher Seneca to the Apostle Paul, mentions that 132 domi (private homes) and approximately 4,000 insulae were destroyed in the flames. Nero was emperor of Rome at the time, and his role in the disaster and its aftermath has been the subject of many debates on the part of scholars. Nero was at Antium, 35 miles from Rome, when the fire broke out, and he rushed back to his palace in Rome. While watching 312
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Emperor Nero sings while Rome burns. (R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill)
the fire from his palace, he composed and sang a song, supposedly called “The Taking of Troy,” while playing the lyre. He certainly did not “fiddle as Rome burned,” as stated in folklore, because violins had not yet been invented. The fact that Nero was not in Rome when the fire started and that when he returned he graciously opened his palace to shelter many who were made homeless by the blaze has led many historians to conclude that he was not responsible for starting the fire. On the other hand, Cassius Dio, Pliny the Elder, and Suetonius allege arson by Nero. Nero was known to complain about how Rome was aesthetically displeasing. When he purchased 120 acres in the same area where the fire broke out to build an ostentatious palace, it served to confirm the widespread opinion of Roman citizens that Nero had the fire started in order to rebuild the city according to his own liking. The evidence for implicating Nero in starting the fire is, however, primarily circumstantial, and no firm conclusions can be made in this regard. After the fire, Nero set about making Rome a safer and more beautiful city. New building codes were established, with an emphasis on the use of fireproof materials, and insulae were constructed with greater access to the public water supply. Wider streets were laid out, 313
64 C.E.: The Great Fire of Rome and Greek-style colonnaded buildings were erected. Nero also began his famous Golden Palace. This prodigious edifice, had it been finished, would have covered nearly a third of Rome. However, Nero’s overly ambitious plans for rebuilding Rome resulted in severe financial strain. The growing economic crisis combined with the lingering opinion that Nero was responsible for the fire jeopardized the stability of Nero’s rule. With the likelihood of riots and a revolt against his reign becoming ever more threatening, Nero knew that something had to be done. His solution had a profound impact on a new religious group. Nero’s advisers suggested blaming Christians for the fire in order to distract the public. Nero agreed and made a big display of arresting and executing, often by torturous means, many Christians. One of Nero’s more hideous methods of killing Christians was to lash them to stakes, tar them, and then turn them into living torches—a supposed example of the punishment fitting the crime. Making Christians the scapegoats for the fire had its desired effect, and the immediate threat of rioting was diffused. The persecution of Christians, however, resulted in the martyrdom of two of Christendom’s greatest leaders, the apostles Peter and Paul. The harrowing circumstances facing Christians during this time is revealed in a letter from Peter to fellow believers (written shortly before Peter’s execution), in which he writes about their faith being “tried in fire” (I Peter 1:7). The Great Fire of Rome continued to influence events in the Roman Empire long after the last flames were extinguished. The persecution of Christians did not turn public opinion in Nero’s favor, and within the next four years two plots against his life were made. He was able to foil the Pisonian Conspiracy in 65 c.e., but he succumbed to a second plot in 68 c.e., purportedly committing suicide. Nero succeeded in making Rome a more beautiful city, but his Golden Palace was never finished. Furthermore, his fire-prevention plans did not prevent another major fire that devastated Rome in 191 c.e. Nero’s blaming of Christians for the 64 c.e. disaster resulted in the first official Roman persecution of that religious group. Although Nero’s actions were restricted to the city of Rome, this persecution did set a precedent that led to larger and more widespread oppressions of Christians by Roman emperors in the succeeding centuries. Paul J. Chara, Jr. 314
64 C.E.: The Great Fire of Rome For Further Information: Bunson, Matthew. Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. New York: Facts On File, 1994. Champlin, Edward. Nero. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003. Millar, Fergus. A Study of Cassius Dio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. Tacitus, Cornelius. The Annals and the Histories. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. New York: Modern Library, 2003. Tranquillus, Gaius Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated by Robert Graves. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1957. Warmington, H. B. Nero: Reality and Legend. Edited by M. I. Finley. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969.
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■ 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption Volcano Date: August 24, 79 c.e. Place: West coast of Italy Result: More than 13,000 dead, 4 cities completely buried, 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) devastated
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esuvius is a large stratovolcano, having a height of 4,203 feet (1,281 meters). Prior to the 79 c.e. eruption the estimated height was about 6,562 feet (2,000 meters). Mount Vesuvius is located about 93 miles south of Rome, and 4.4 miles inland from the Mediterranean coast off the Gulf of Naples. The gulf is a thriving port, being well protected by surrounding peninsulas and islands. The city of Naples was a major port of call, lying on the northern side of the gulf with the Misenum promontory making up the northern peninsula. Naples was located 7.5 miles northwest from Vesuvius. The cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii (population 20,000), which were located 4.4 and 6.2 miles, respectively, to the southwest and southeast of Vesuvius, were completely buried by the eruption. The southern side of the gulf was formed by the Sorrento Peninsula and the island of Capri, with the city of Stabiae (now known as Castellammare di Stabia) located at the tip of the southern peninsula. Stabiae, which was abandoned during the eruption, lies 9.3 miles south of Vesuvius on the coast. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius is generally regarded as the most violent eruption in Europe during historic times. Typically, a very violent eruption of a stratovolcano only occurs after centuries of quiescence. This appears to be so for Vesuvius because the historic record of the ancient peoples in the region did not recognize Mount Vesuvius as an active volcano. The first indication of the awakening of Vesuvius was an earthquake on February 5, 63 c.e. This earthquake destroyed a portion of Pompeii and damaged the cities of Herculaneum and Naples. For the following sixteen years the area experienced intermittent earth tremors until the actual volcanic eruption began on August 24, 79 c.e. 316
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption Eyewitness Accounts. A vivid and detailed account of the eruption of Vesuvius was recorded by Pliny the Younger, who was almost eighteen years old at the time of the eruption. His account takes the form of letters to a prominent historian, and it chronicles two excursions during the eruption. The first excursion is that of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, who sailed across the bay during the early stages of the eruption. The second account chronicles Pliny the Younger’s flight north from Misenum away from the eruption. Pliny the Youn-
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79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption ger and his widowed mother lived with Pliny the Elder in Misenum. Pliny the Elder was a scientist, the author of a well-known treatise on natural history, and the commander of the Roman Fleet. At approximately 1:00 in the afternoon of August 24, Pliny the Younger’s mother noticed an unusual cloud in the sky. The cloud that she observed rose in a vertical plume for several thousand feet before spreading out laterally, like a Roman pine tree spreads its branches, into the sky. The cloud was sometimes illuminated by flashes of brightness and then would turn completely dark or become lightly spotted. She brought the strange cloud to the attention of Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Elder decided to conduct a scientific investigation of the cloud and had his crew get a light boat ready for him to sail to the source of this cloud. Just as he was ready to depart he received a message from a friend who lived in Resina at the foot of Vesuvius. The friend realized that Vesuvius was erupting and that her only chance of escape from the volcano was by sea. Pliny began receiving additional requests for help from other inhabitants on the coastline, and he set off to sea with a fleet of ships to rescue the frightened citizens. As Pliny’s ship drew near Resina, cinders, pieces of pumice, and fragments of burned rock from the exploding volcano fell onto the deck of the ships. Pliny observed that the shore was inaccessible, as fragments of rock and cinders were piling up on the beach, making it impossible to reach the citizens of Resina. Pliny was forced to turn southeast to the coastal town of Stabiae, where his friend Pomponianus lived. He found his friend anxious and frantic to escape Stabiae, but the onshore winds made escape by ship impossible at that time. Pliny felt that Stabiae was far enough away from the volcano to be safe, and he assured Pomponianus of their safety and that they would have ample time to escape if danger was imminent. Pliny then decided to bathe, eat dinner, and to sleep. As night came the citizens of Stabiae could see tall, broad flames flare out from several locations near the top of Vesuvius. During the night, conditions on Stabiae worsened, with a heavy fall of ash and pumice. When the building began to sway and shake from the eruption tremors, Pomponianus and his companions felt that the time had come to abandon the city. They decided to flee to the beach and attempt to escape by sea. They woke Pliny and tied pillows on their 318
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption heads with napkins in order to protect themselves from falling volcanic debris as they made their way to the shore. They arrived at the shore, having found their way in the blackness with lit torches. Even though it was well after sunrise, the dark ash clouds continued to block all light from the sun. When they reached the shore they found that the wind was still blowing from the north, continuing to make leaving by sea impossible. Pliny the Elder, who was overweight, began to feel ill. He lay down on a sheet that had been spread on the beach. Shortly thereafter, strong winds and flames appeared nearby, accompanied by a strong odor of sulfur. Pliny’s companion began to flee in panic southward down the beach, and as Pliny the Elder struggled to get up he collapsed and died. It is clear in his letters that Pliny the Younger assumed the sulfurous fumes from the volcano overcame his uncle. Pliny the Younger also chronicled the ordeal that he and his mother went though at Misenum. Misenum was located on the opposite side of the Bay of Naples from Stabiae, placing it upwind from the volcano and thereby less affected by it. Earthquakes shook the city of Misenum all night, and by 6 a.m. the volcanic ash was so thick that it partially obstructed the sun. Pliny and his mother decided to flee the city in chariots. They were joined by chaotic mobs of frightened people. Pliny the Younger and his mother took solace in the open country, feeling that they were safe from the falling buildings in the city. However, around 8:30 a.m. the land was ravaged by a series of strong earthquakes. The tremors were so bad that the shaking kept moving the chariots, which they tried to stabilize with stones against the wheels on the level ground. They observed frequent flashes of light in the dark, ash-laden cloud that was sweeping toward them. The sea became very turbulent and receded so much that sea creatures were stranded on the beaches; then, minutes later, the sea would crash forcefully back over the beach. Pliny the Younger and his mother moved farther into the open country as the black sky seemed to reach down and envelop the sea. The island of Capri and the promontory of Misenum were no longer visible. Frightened for her son’s safety and knowing that he could move faster without her, Pliny the Younger’s mother urged him to go ahead without her. Pliny refused to leave her, and they traveled on 319
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption slowly in the thick darkness. As visibility became worse, they heard the panicked screams of men, women, and children who had lost sight of their loved ones; other people were praying or crying in fear. The ash began to snow upon the people so thickly that they had to stand up and shake it off in order to not be buried by it. Many hours later, daylight began to show though the ash clouds. As the air began to clear and Pliny could once again see across the bay to Vesuvius, he noticed that the smooth cone had become merely a stump. Fields that had been formerly lush with green trees and farmlands were now a gray sea of ash. Scientific Analysis and Pliny’s Narrative. Pliny the Younger’s account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius proved to be so clear and concise that all similar eruptions are now classified as “Plinian” in honor of him and his uncle. The normal sequence of events in a Plinian (violently explosive) eruption are now well understood and correlate well with aspects of Pliny’s narrative. Plinian eruptions are preceded by a slightly less violent explosion that clears the vent and allows the Plinian eruption to proceed. The eruption of Vesuvius began when the rising magma encountered water and exploded early in the morning of August 24. It was this initial explosion that frightened Pliny’s friend at Resina. She sent word to Pliny some 5 miles away via a messenger, who arrived shortly after Pliny the Younger’s mother saw the eruption cloud for the Plinian eruption, which began at 1:00 in the afternoon. A Plinian eruption typically produces three types of deposits, which can be expelled multiple times. The first to form is usually an air-fall deposit that rains down from the initial explosion column. The individual particles fall independently of the other particles around them. The deposit produced, surprisingly, has the smaller particles on the bottom with larger particles occurring higher in the deposit. The larger fragments of pumice and accidental rock are often blown higher in the initial blast. The thickness of an air-fall deposit is largely controlled by the local winds. After three days, the Vesuvius eruption of 79 c.e. produced nine different air-fall layers. The second type of deposit in a Plinian eruption is ash flow. An ash flow begins with an initial blast called a base surge. This base surge moves at hurricane velocities (usually greater than 108 feet per second) and often will defoliate trees without charring the branches. 320
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Two victims at Pompeii are immortalized in plaster almost 2,000 years after being covered by volcanic ash from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E. (Library of Congress)
The deposit left by this surge is surprisingly thin, usually only an inch thick. Although thin, this material is distinct because it displays ripple marks and dune structures. The Vesuvius eruption produced seven surge layers. When one of the later surges reached Pompeii the buildings that were not already buried were knocked flat. Overlying the surge layer are the main deposits of the ash flow, which can be tens of feet thick. Ash flows can result from either avalanching of near-vent material because of explosion tremors or gravitational collapse of the eruptive ash column above the vent. An ash flow usually follows an initial air-fall eruption, when the radius of the vent has been enlarged or some of the pent-up gas has been released. Pliny’s description corresponds to ash flows formed by both avalanches and cloud collapse. Six ash-flow layers were generated during the three days of the eruption of Vesuvius. Ash flows can move incredibly fast, at speeds of 197 feet (60 meters) per second or 124 miles (200 kilometers) per hour. They can reach distances of 1,242 miles (100 kilometers) from the vent. They have sufficient momentum that they can cross ridges that are 2,297 321
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption feet (700 meters) high at a distance of 181 miles (50 kilometers) from the volcano. The great distance of travel is due to the particles still dissolving gas. Although the explosion at the vent releases the pentup gas, the droplets of liquid take longer to release their dissolved gases. Once moving, the flows trap and heat surrounding air as they glide down the slope. The high gas content in the flow makes the mixture behave like a fluid, and it flows with virtually no internal friction and, often, little, if any, ground friction—it flows on its own carpet of gas. It can reach speeds that approximate the velocity of freefalling objects, when the slope is taken into consideration. An ash flow that contains larger blocks of incandescent volcanic fragments (often with a diameter of a few feet or more) is called a glowing avalanche, or nuée ardente. A cloud of ash and steam usually rises and expands above the glowing avalanche. The flow itself closely follows canyons and valleys as it moves downslope, similar in behavior to a snow avalanche. The cloud, however, is not deflected by topography, and it rolls onward over ridges and valleys, following a considerable distance behind the flow. The description that Pliny the Younger gives of the cloud overtaking the chariots near Misenum is a classic description of the ashsteam cloud of a glowing avalanche. An ash flow must have moved out across the water in the Gulf of Naples; because they ride on their own carpet of gas they do not need to have a solid surface beneath them. Volcanic tremors (earthquakes) that displace the seafloor can cause tidal waves, or tsunamis. When ground displacement occurs a considerable distance off the coast, the water at the shoreline will recede entirely from the beach before coming back on the land as an enormous wave. Pliny’s description of the Misenum sequence of an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, followed by the engulfing cloud of ash, corresponds to the normal sequence of explosive base surge and ash flow with an accompanying ash-steam cloud. Accounts vary as to the destructive nature of the ash-steam cloud that hovers over the ash flow. In one historical case, the cloud was so hot and violent that the cloud alone destroyed an entire town and killed all the residents, while the ash flow followed a nearby stream valley and entirely missed the town. In another well-documented ac322
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption count, a geologist on a high ridge reported watching an ash flow sweep down the valley below him before the cloud enveloped him. He reported that there was an enormous thickness of ash in the swirling air and a very strong, almost overpowering odor of sulfur. This corresponds well to the events that are associated with the death of Pliny the Elder. Most of the ash flows in the Vesuvius eruption were probably generated by the repeated thrusting and collapsing of the eruption column. Pliny’s mother described the form of an eruption column that is classic in a Plinian eruption. The lower part is a straight vertical column, while the upper part branches out horizontally in gradually increasing distances with increasing height. The upper portion of the cloud has the appearance of an inverted cone. The lower column is propelled by gas thrusts as the gases are released from the volcanic vent. The upper cloud is propelled by convective thrusts due to the heating and rising of the air above the volcano. A cloud’s height can be calculated easily after the eruption by looking at the deposits of the ash flows. A sloping energy line exists that starts at the boundary between the upper and lower clouds and descends at a 30-degree angle to the ground. The energy line touches the ground at the distant end of the longest ash flow. Calculations based upon the ash flows from Vesuvius indicate that the eruption column was about 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) high. Another interesting aspect of a Plinian eruption is the gradual change of color in pumice (a volcanic glass) erupting from the vent; starting out white, the pumice gradually grows darker in color as the eruption goes on. Prior to the eruption the magma in a chamber will change its composition slowly, over long periods of time. The upper regions of the chamber become very low in the element iron; the higher the content of iron, the darker the magma’s color. When an eruption occurs the first lava erupted is from the upper regions of the chamber and is white in color, whereas after the eruption has gone on for some time the magma comes from lower in the chamber and is gray from the higher iron content. At Mount Vesuvius white pumice erupted from the vent at a rate of 5,000 to 80,000 tons every second. The white pumice eruption is thought to have lasted seven hours. The white pumice, which erupted first, came from magma at the top of the chamber. It was fol323
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption lowed by gray pumice, which originated further down in the chamber. Some scientists feel that the gray pumice, which fell on the evening of August 24, erupted from the volcano at 150,000 tons per second. Last, it is common for a Plinian eruption to conclude with the collapse of the summit region. When sufficient magma is expelled from the chamber a large void will exist below ground, and the overlying rocks of the volcano are not sufficiently strong to support the weight of the summit area. The collapse can invert the topography around the top of the volcano. The eruption of Vesuvius expelled 247,202 cubic feet (7 cubic kilometers) of magma, and after the eruption had concluded, Pliny reported that the mountain was merely a “stump” of its former shape. Geological and Archaeological Analyses. Quarries and construction in the region of Mount Vesuvius have exposed more than a dozen areas where the deposits of the eruption can be studied in detail. Geological and archaeological research have allowed the history of the region to be determined to a minute-by-minute level of accuracy. The city hit hardest by the eruption was Pompeii, which was founded in 600 b.c.e. Distribution patterns of the air-fall deposits show that northwesterly winds prevailed during the eruption. These winds blew ash and pumice directly onto the city of Pompeii for almost eighteen hours, burying it under 9.8 feet (3 meters) of volcanic fragments. Some of the townspeople began to leave their homes when the heavy weight of the ash, cinders, and bombs from the eruption caused the collapse of numerous roofs and killed some of the inhabitants. Making matters worse, an ash flow spewing clouds of pumice and dust collapsed downward from the eruption column and flowed into the town at about 7:30 a.m. on August 25 (almost twentyfour hours after the eruption began). The surge flattened most of the second stories of the taller buildings (the air-fall deposits already covered the ground to a depth that covered the first floor). Survival in the violent surge was impossible; all the residents perished in the hot blast of gas and dust. It is estimated that 2,000 people were still alive in the town when the surge hit. They were all killed within a minute. This was the fourth of six surge deposits that came from the volcano. Another surge deposit swept over the town only 324
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption five minutes later. This fifth surge and ash flow carried all the way to the outskirts of Stabiae. The sixth and last surge and ash flow was released at 8 a.m. on August 25. It was the largest and was caused by widening of the vent at the summit of the volcano. As the vent increased its diameter the eruption lost some of it force, and the existing cloud collapsed down toward the volcano. This ash flow reached Stabiae and was probably responsible for the death of Pliny the Elder. Another branch of the same ash flow swept across the waters of the Gulf toward Misenum, 20 miles away, and was recorded by Pliny the Younger. After the eruption, the town of Pompeii and the surrounding region was a wasteland of ash. It was so devastated that there seemed to be no option but to abandon the area. The tephra, or volcanic debris, from the eruption covered hundreds of square miles, and it buried several small settlements near Pompeii, which remain buried today. It was not until 1595 that some of the remains of Pompeii were found during construction of an aqueduct. Some coins and pieces of a marble tablet, which contained some writings about Pompeii, were found at that time. This led to the rediscovery of the forgotten city. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wealthy post-Renaissance families in Europe became interested in ancient objects of art, and Pompeii became a favorite site for uncovering statues, jewelry, and other ancient treasures. The diggings took place haphazardly, without any thought to the preservation of the city or its culture. Ravaging and pillaging took place all through the excavated areas. In the nineteenth century people realized the historical and cultural significance of Pompeii, and more coordinated and scientific methods were used in excavating the abandoned city. Many acres of the town have been excavated and are open to the public. The archaeological excavation found uneaten food laid out on tables in some of the Pompeiian homes, leading scientists to believe that normal life continued in Pompeii until the very last second. The bodies of people killed in the disaster are quite unique, as they were quickly buried in the accumulating ash and cinders from the eruption; when rain fell on the ash, the substance formed a cement around the bodies, making molds. Some of these molds perfectly preserved facial expressions and the patterns and textures of the clothing. Nineteenth century excavators poured plaster of Paris into 325
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption the molds and were able to produce three-dimensional casts of the people and animals killed. Almost 2,000 skeletons were found with their hands or cloths over their mouths, trying to protect themselves from searing, lethal gases of the surge or from breathing the ash and dust particles of the air-fall deposits. The city of Herculaneum was located closer to Vesuvius on its western flank and had a population of about 5,000. Unlike Pompeii, which was destroyed mostly by the accumulation of air-fall tephra over a two-day period, Herculaneum was obliterated in minutes by a surge and ash flow at 1:00 in the morning of the 25th. The town had been spared from the thick fallout of the white pumice because the wind had blown the air-fall deposits to the south, toward Pompeii. However, the very first of Mount Vesuvius’s six ash flows hit Herculaneum and buried it under more than 65.6 feet (20 meters) of volcanic material. Some buildings were demolished by the force of the surge; others were simply buried in ash and pumice from the ash flow. In addition, an avalanche of mud passed over Herculaneum, filling every crack and crevice in the buildings and sealing the city so completely that it became a lost city. When this material became impacted and hardened it became a true volcanic rock, making it very difficult to excavate. Excavation of Herculaneum has uncovered approximately eight city blocks. At first it appeared that many of the townspeople had escaped because very few bodies were uncovered. However, further exploration in what was an area of the beach during Roman times has yielded hundreds of skeletons, found huddled in buildings supported by arched chambers, which were opened to the beach and housed boats and fishing tackle. It appears that the townspeople fled to the beach, thinking that the arched chamber would protect them from the volcano. In summary, the 79 c.e. eruption of Vesuvius was the first volcanic eruption ever to be described in detail. The eruption lasted about twenty-five hours, the last nineteen of these hours being a sustained highly explosive eruption. About 141,258 cubic feet of volcanic material was erupted and blanketed 116 square miles around the volcano. Vesuvius lost 2,297 feet of its summit area to the final collapse. More than 13,000 people were killed, and most of the farms, villages, towns, and cities in the vicinity vanished. Modern archaeological ex326
79 C.E.: Vesuvius eruption cavation of the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum continue to reveal details of the last few minutes of life for the residents of this region. Dion C. Stewart and Toby R. Stewart For Further Information: De Carolis, Ernesto, and Giovanni Patricelli. Vesuvius, A.D. 79: The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003. Francis, Peter, and Clive Oppenheimer. Volcanoes. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pellegrino, Charles. Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections. New York: William Morrow, 2004. Scarth, Alwyn. Volcanoes: An Introduction. London: University College of London Press, 1994. _______. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Sigurdsson, H., S. Carey, W. Cornell, and T. Pescatore. “The Eruption of Vesuvius in a.d. 79.” National Geographic Research 1, no. 3 (1985): 332-387.
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■ 526: The Antioch earthquake Earthquake Date: May 29, 526 Place: Antioch, Syria (now Antakya, Turkey) Magnitude: 9.0 (estimated) Result: About 250,000 dead
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ntioch was founded around 300 b.c.e. by the Syrian emperor Seleucus I. Rome captured Antioch in 25 b.c.e., making it into a colony called Caesarea Antiochia. Antioch quickly became a political center for Rome, and Saul of Tarsus (Saint Paul) selected it as the center of his mission in the Roman province of Galatia around 50 c.e. Antioch subsequently became an important, wealthy city of the eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, surrounded by olive plantations and home to a silk industry. Located on the Orontes River about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the northeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, Antioch also prospered in trade. Prominent in Christian worship during the sixth century was the feast of the Ascension, a celebration of Jesus Christ’s final rise into heaven that conventionally took place forty days after Easter. A holiday on the same scale as Easter or Christmas, Ascension came on May 30 in the year 526. Antioch, home to thousands of people, swelled with thousands of visitors who had come to worship in its many magnificent churches and to eat, drink, and celebrate in its many inns the night before Ascension. On the evening of May 29, at a time when most of the people in Antioch were inside buildings, the earthquake struck. Many buildings collapsed or caved in instantly, killing thousands of people. To escape the crushing walls, many fled to marketplaces and other open spaces within the city. One such person was Patriarch Euphrasius, religious leader of Antioch, who reportedly fled to the open space of the Circus (a circular, outdoor arena), only to be killed by a falling obelisk. Bishop Asclepius of Edessa and other prominent members of the Christian Church were also killed. Some buildings withstood the initial shock but were destroyed by 328
526: The Antioch earthquake great fires caused by the earthquake. Rain following the earthquake further weakened structures, causing them to collapse days later. John Malalas, an eyewitness to the earthquake, reported that Antioch’s Great Church, built under the direction of Constantine the Great, survived for five days after the earthquake, then caught fire and burned to the ground. According to eyewitness accounts, eventually the entire city was destroyed, except for a few buildings on the nearby slope of Mount Silpius. On Ascension Day, according to authors reporting from eyewitness accounts, the survivors gathered at the Church of the Kerateion for a service of Intercession, indicating that the region south of the inner city might have survived the initial damage. In all, an estimated 250,000 people were killed by the earthquake, fires, and aftershocks. Miraculous escapes from the crushing debris were reported. Pregnant women, who had been buried underneath the debris for twenty-one days, were excavated still alive and healthy. Some of these women had even given birth while buried but were still rescued in good condition. Another reported miracle occurred three days after the earthquake, on a Sunday. Above the northern part of the city, a vision of the Holy Cross appeared in the sky and hovered for more than an hour. The survivors of the earthquake who witnessed this vision reportedly fell to their knees, wept, and prayed. Mount Silpius, which stood underneath the manifestation, was thenceforth called Mount Staurin in its honor. (“Staurin” was colloquial Greek for “cross.”) After the earthquake, many survivors gathered whatever possessions they could and fled the city. Many of these refugees were killed by people in the country. A number of robbers were reported entering the city to strip corpses of jewelry and other valuable goods and to gather up the gold and silver coins that the earthquake had scattered about. Accounts of this period tell of the robbers meeting divine justice after molesting corpses. One story tells of a Roman official called Thomas the Hebrew who, after the earthquake, stationed himself and his servants 3 miles away from Antioch at the Gate of Saint Julian. Thomas, with his band of obedient robbers, successfully gathered together a large amount of money and luxurious goods over a period of four days. Apparently healthy with no signs of ailment, Thomas then suddenly collapsed and died as a divine punishment for his bad deeds, and all that he had amassed was distributed among needy survivors. 329
526: The Antioch earthquake News of the Antioch earthquake quickly reached Emperor Justin I (ruled 518-527) in Constantinople, the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. The emperor had served in Antioch during his military career and had fond memories of the city. He ordered the imperial court to wear mourning, and he suspended all public entertainments in Constantinople. On Pentecost, which is celebrated fifty days after Easter, Justin walked to the church of Saint Sophia in Constantinople in mourning. Rebuilding Antioch became his first priority. First, the emperor sent several government officials with large amounts of gold to seek out survivors and give them monetary relief. These officials were also ordered to assess the damage to Antioch and estimate how much money would be needed for restoration. Once this was determined, the restoration began, although it was a slow process hindered by a second earthquake in November of 528. Residents of Antioch and nearby areas continued to emigrate from the region. Despite setbacks, Antioch was gifted by Emperor Justinian I (ruled 527-565) with several churches, a hospice, baths, and cisterns in celebration of his rise to emperor. After the second earthquake, he deemed the city free of taxation. Antioch had made little progress, however, when the Persians sacked the city in 540. In 542, remaining Antioch residents were hit by a devastating plague, thus destroying any hope of regaining the once-powerful city’s grandeur. Rose Secrest For Further Information: Downey, Glanville. A History of Antioch in Syria. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961. “Killer Quake at Antioch: A Stroke of Nature’s Fury Destroys a Brilliant Metropolis.” In Great Disasters: Dramatic True Stories of Nature’s Awesome Powers. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Readers Digest Association, 1989.
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■ 1200: Egypt Famine Date: 1200-1202 Place: Across Egypt Result: More than 100,000 dead
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rom the earliest beginnings of agriculture until the building of modern dams in the twentieth century, the people of Egypt depended on the annual flooding of the Nile for survival. In a typical year, the Nile began to rise in late June and reached its highest level in the middle of September. The water then receded, leaving behind a thick layer of silt that allowed crops to be grown. Without this flooding, the land surrounding the Nile would become a barren desert. Two months before the flooding of the Nile began in the year 1200, the water in the river turned green and acquired an unpleasant taste and odor. Boiling the water did not improve it, and Egyptians began drinking well water instead. Abd al-Latif, an Arab scholar who left an eyewitness account of the famine, determined that the water was full of plant matter and correctly surmised that this was caused by a lack of rain at the source of the Nile. Although the water eventually returned to normal, the annual flooding failed to reach its usual level. A level of about 28 feet (16 cubits) was considered necessary to produce sufficient crops. According to records kept for six hundred years, the Nile had risen to only 24.5 feet (14 cubits) twenty times and only 22.75 feet (13 cubits) six times. Previous failures of the Nile to reach adequate levels had led to famine. In 1064, a famine that lasted until 1072 resulted in between 25,000 and 40,000 deaths. On September 9, 1200, the Nile reached its highest point for the year, at a level below 22.75 feet (13 cubits). Knowing that this extremely low flood level would lead to severe food shortages, thousands of Egyptians fled the country to seek refuge in other areas of North Africa and the Middle East. Huge numbers of farmers left their unproductive fields, leading to overcrowd331
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ing in the cities. By March of 1201, starvation in the cities reached the point where the poor were reduced to eating dogs, carrion, animal excrement, and corpses. As the famine progressed, children, who were often left unprotected by the deaths of their parents, were killed and eaten. The government of Egypt sentenced all those who ate the flesh of children to be burned at the stake, but the murders continued. Latif records that he saw the parents of “a small roasted child in a basket” brought to the ruler of Egypt, who condemned them to death. Ironically, the burnt bodies of those executed for cannibalism were released to the starving populace for legal consumption. The famine spread from the cities to all parts of Egypt. Adults as well as children were in danger of being murdered, even by the 332
1200: Egypt wealthy. Workers, brought into homes to perform their duties, and guests, invited to social events, were sometimes killed and eaten by their hosts. The corpses of those who died of starvation filled every town. In Cairo, between 100 and 500 bodies were carried away daily. Latif visited a pile of about 20,000 bodies in order to study human anatomy. Meanwhile, in April of 1201, the water of the Nile again turned green, a sign that the annual flood would fail to reach the level needed to relieve the famine. In early September of 1201, the Nile’s maximum level was about 28 feet (below 16 cubits), then immediately began to drop back. Although not as severe as the extremely low flood level of 1200, the rapid decline of the Nile ensured that starvation would continue. The second year of the famine resulted in fewer deaths than the first year, mostly because the population of Egypt, particularly among the poor, had been greatly reduced. As an example of the reduced population, Latif records that the number of rush-mat makers in the city of Misr fell from 900 to 15. The population of the cities, so recently increased by refugees, fell so rapidly that rents decreased by as much as 85 percent. Even the price of wheat fell; although there was still a severe shortage of food, the number of buyers had been drastically reduced. In early 1202, plague broke out in many parts of Egypt. The disease acted so rapidly that farmers fell dead while working their plows. In the city of Alexandria, funeral prayers were said for 700 people in one day. Between July of 1200 and April of 1202, the official number of deaths in Egypt was reported to be nearly 110,000. This number did not include many deaths that government officials failed to record. In February of 1202, the Nile again turned green, leading to expectations that the annual flood would again fail to reach an adequate level. Many Egyptians began to suspect that the source of the Nile had been altered in some way, so that flood levels would never return to normal. On May 20, 1202, a series of violent earthquakes struck Egypt, adding to the number of deaths. The Nile rose very slowly from the middle of June to the middle of July, discouraging those who hoped for relief from starvation. After the middle of July, however, the Nile rose more rapidly, reaching a 333
1200: Egypt level of about 5.25 feet (3 cubits) and remaining steady for two days. The Nile then swiftly increased to a maximum level of about 28 feet (16 cubits) on September 4, 1202. Unlike the flood of 1201, which had declined quickly, the Nile remained at this level for two days, allowing adequate silt to be deposited, then dropped slowly. The return of the Nile to its normal behavior brought two years of devastating famine to an end. Rose Secrest For Further Information: “Famine in Egypt: Failure of Nile Floods Brings Hunger to an Ancient Land.” In Great Disasters: Dramatic True Stories of Nature’s Awesome Power. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Association, 1989. Nash, Jay Robert. “Egypt: Famine, 1199-1202.” In Darkest Hours: A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1976. Tannahill, Reay. “Ferocity and Famine.” In Flesh and Blood: A History of the Cannibal Complex. Rev. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
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■ 1320: The Black Death Epidemic Also known as: The Plague, the Black Plague, the Pestilence, the Great Mortality Date: 1320-1352 Place: Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa Result: 25 million estimated dead in Europe, perhaps more than double that amount worldwide
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he Black Death was the worst pandemic in human history, one that annihilated at least one-third of all humanity during its thirty-year killing spree in the fourteenth century. No other disease has killed so many people so quickly as the Black Death. Some scholars call it the “greatest biological-environmental event” in history. Despite many attempts to explain the reasons for the Plague, no one at the time understood what caused the disease or how it was spread. Today, however, medical experts know that the deadly disease was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium. Many researchers also believe the disease manifested itself in four distinct forms as it raged across most of the known world during the fourteenth century. The most common form was the bubonic plague. Victims of this malady suffered headaches, weakness, and feverish chills. A white coating on the tongue appeared along with slurred speech and a rapid pulse. Within days painful swellings the size of eggs, called buboes, erupted in the lymph nodes of the groin and armpits. Black purplish spots formed by subcutaneous hemorrhaging also appeared on the skin of most victims. This discoloration may have earned the disease the name the Black Death, though many historians believe this designation did not become commonplace until two centuries later, when Scandinavian writers used the term swarta doden (black death) to emphasize the dreadful aspects of the disease. Most sufferers of the bubonic plague died within a week of contracting the disease. Though highly contagious, this form of the plague was not transmitted from one human to another as many 335
1320: The Black Death fourteenth century observers believed. The real carrier of the disease was the Xenopsylla cheopsis, a flea that lived as a parasite on the European black rat and other rodents. In a complicated cycle of contagion, fleas were the first to become infected by the bacterium, eventually transmitting the disease to their rodent hosts. When rats died and became scarce, the infectious fleas searched for new warm-blooded hosts, such as human beings. Because so many people in the fourteenth century lived in cramped, squalid conditions, rats and fleas were ever-present in their daily lives. As result, plague-carrying fleas easily carried the disease from rats to people. A pneumonic form of the plague that infected the lungs also developed during the colder periods of the pandemic. Death resulted from vomiting blood, coughing, and choking. Unlike the bubonic plague, the pneumonic form was transmitted by one human to another by sneezing and coughing contaminated mucous particles. Though less common than the bubonic form, the pneumonic plague was more lethal and killed up to 95 percent of its victims. The deadliest of all the Plague’s manifestations were two very rare forms of the Black Death. Septicemic plague attacked the bloodstream; death often came within hours. Almost no one survived. Equally lethal was enteric plague, which devastated digestive systems. Spread of the Disease. Although historical records of the disease are imprecise, many historians believe the first major outbreak of the Black Death in human populations took place among the nomadic tribes of Mongolia in 1320. Alternating periods of drought, intense rain, and locust attacks throughout Asia may have produced severe ecological disturbances that upset the normal balance between plague fleas and rats in the wild. This disruption may have also caused rodents to come into closer proximity to humans. The result was an epidemic among humans unlike any ever seen before or since. From the steppes of Mongolia, the Plague spread throughout China, India, and other Asian lands, killing tens of millions. Next, infected rats, fleas, and humans headed west by accompanying the numerous ships, barges, and caravans that traveled the trade routes connecting the East and West. By 1346 the Plague had spread into the lands along the Black Sea, but it had not yet reached medieval Western Europe. Europe’s apparent immunity to the disease soon changed as a result of human conflict. According to Italian chroni336
1320: The Black Death cler Gabriele de Mussis, a dispute broke out one day between local Turkish Muslims, or Tatars, and merchants from Genoa, Italy, who had established a trading post near the city of Kaffa (today called Feodosiya) on the Crimea. When fighting erupted, the Genoans retreated to their walled compound nearby and managed to keep their enemy at bay for months. The stalemate broke when the Black Death arrived and killed Tatars in great numbers. Distraught by their misfortune, the Muslims reportedly catapulted the corpses of their dead comrades into the Genoa compound to share the disease with their Christian enemies. Though modern scientists think it is unlikely that the Plague could be spread in this way, the volley of corpses prompted the Genoans to escape in their galley ships and head for friendlier ports in the West. They took with them the Black Death, presumably brought aboard by infected rats. The returning Genoa ships, along with other seagoing vessels plying the trade routes, most likely introduced the disease to the various populated ports of the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Within a year, the disease swept through the Middle East, Arabia, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and Africa. Muslim pilgrims making their way to Mecca may have helped spread the disease through the Islamic world. Genoese ships also arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina in October, 1347. On the ships were infected sailors. Though the terrified people of Messina drove the vessels away, the disease managed to infect the local human and rodent populations before departure. Soon, the residents of Catania, a nearby town, also began to die, and within weeks the disease raged across Sicily. The Black Death next entered Italy through its many seaports and fishing villages. Millions of Italians, already weakened by famine, earthquakes, civil strife, and severe economic problems, quickly succumbed to the pestilence as it rushed across the peninsula. Venice lost 600 people a day during the worst of the disease; ultimately an estimated total of 100,000 Venetians died. As many as 80,000 may have perished in Siena. Matteo Villani, a plague survivor, estimated that 3 out of every 5 died in Florence. The disease soon went beyond Italy. In 1357, it entered the port of Marseilles and swept through France, Europe’s most populated country. In Narbonne, 30,000 died. The Plague destroyed half the population of Avignon, and in Paris 50,000 were killed. Within 337
1320: The Black Death
An illustration of bubonic plague from a medieval Bible.
months the north and west of France also lay in the grip of the Plague. Mortality in many villages and towns often exceeded 40 percent. Next, the Low Countries (today Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) became infected. By this time, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Hungary also suffered. During the summer of 1348, while the Plague ravaged continental Europe and many other areas of the world, the English Channel seemed to offer a protective barrier to those living in the British Isles. Their security was breached in August, however, when plaguebearing ships finally arrived in England at the ports of Weymouth and Melcombe. Soon, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, and other settlements in the south of England were hit. Within months the disease had moved northward to London, where as many as 100,000 eventually died. By the summer of 1349 East Anglia and Yorkshire were also infected. For a short while, many Scots welcomed the Plague as a divinely inspired punishment sent to strike down their enemy, the English. However, such wishful thinking soon vanished when the disease swept into Scotland. It also spread into Wales and made its way to Ire338
1320: The Black Death land. Before the year ended, infected ships reached Sweden and Norway, where the pneumonic form of the Plague may have destroyed 50 percent of the population. According to some accounts, the Black Death even reached Scandinavian settlements in Iceland and Greenland. The Plague also raced eastward and infected vast areas in Russia that had not yet been infected. No place seemed safe from the Black Death. Outbreaks of the disease occurred in cities, towns, and villages throughout most of the known world. Though the rich were less likely than the destitute to contract the disease, all social classes suffered catastrophic losses. Everywhere, people died horrible deaths in their homes, on the streets, and in the fields. Animals died as well: Dead rats, dogs, cats, and livestock lay rotting alongside odiferous human cadavers. The living were horrified to see rats, vultures, crows, and wolves devouring the diseased bodies of beasts and humans alike. By 1352, the worst of the Black Death was over, but the disease had not gone away forever. Instead it had become endemic to most countries it had struck. This new ecological situation meant that the plague recurred many times well into the eighteenth century. When it struck again in 1361 and killed a disproportionate number of the young, it became known as the “Pestilence of the Children.” Wherever and whenever the plague took root, stunned survivors struggled to understand the calamity that had overwhelmed them. The Search for Answers. From every land came a host of explanations of why and how the Plague had come into being. Many religious leaders claimed God sent the disease as a punishment for the sins of humanity, such as avarice, usury, adultery, and blasphemy. Others blamed the devil or an antichrist. Even the most learned minds of Christendom and Islam believed in astrology during the fourteenth century, and many scholars cited astrological influences as causes of the disease. When asked by Pope Clement VI to explain the presence of the Black Death, an esteemed panel of doctors in Paris concluded that a conjunction of the planets Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter at 1 p.m. on March 20, 1345, caused the disease. Phantoms were also accused of spreading the Black Death. Among them was an apparition called the Plague Maiden. Many panicstricken Europeans claimed to have witnessed her ghostly form sailing into one home after another to spread her deadly contagion. 339
1320: The Black Death Some believed the Black Death materialized when frogs, toads, and reptiles rained down on earth. Priests in England insisted that immoral living and indecent clothing fashions were responsible. Comets were also blamed. The fourteenth century French surgeon Guy de Chauliac believed sick people spread the Plague merely by looking at another person. Inordinate fear generated by the Black Death also produced theories based on hatred and hysteria, which resulted in massive scapegoating and persecution. Witches, Gypsies, Muslims, lepers, and other minorities were often accused of starting the Plague and were killed by crazed mobs. The worst abuses, however, were reserved for Europe’s Jewish population, a religious minority that had long faced persecution in Europe. Despite condemnation from the papacy, mobs in Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and parts of Central Europe tortured, hanged, and burned alive tens of thousands of Jews in revenge for allegedly spreading the disease with secret poisonous potions. Though political leaders in a few countries such as Poland and Lithuania offered sanctuary to Jews, most civil authorities either did nothing to protect them or officially authorized the mass executions. Others, meanwhile, sought more rational explanations for the presence of the pestilence. Basing their opinions on the ideas of ancient Greeks, many Christian and Muslim physicians of the fourteenth century suggested that bad air brought on contagion. This contamination was believed to have been caused by foul odors released by earthquakes, decaying corpses on battlefields, or stagnant swamps. Fogs and winds from the south were also suspected of producing plagues. Many medieval physicians also subscribed to another ancient Greek teaching, which claimed that illness resulted from an imbalance of the four humors—phlegm, blood, black bile, and yellow bile—-believed to have made up the human body. At special risk, according to many physicians, were poor people whose “bodies were replete with humours.” Medieval Preventives and Cures. Balancing the humors in the body through corrective dieting was one preventive measure undertaken by Europeans. Many people also burned pleasant-smelling woods, such as juniper and ash, to produce counterbodies in the air to ward off the Plague. Rosewater and vinegar solutions also were 340
1320: The Black Death used to purify household air. Women often held bouquets of flowers to their noses to counteract bad air. Birds were allowed to fly free in some homes to keep the air stirred up and free of the Plague; bowls of milk and pieces of bread were also left out in various rooms with the hope of soaking up bad air. Medieval physicians told their patients to shun more than bad air. They also recommended avoiding hot baths, sexual intercourse, physical exertion, daytime slumber, and excessive consumption of deserts. On the other hand, diets of bread, nuts, eggs, pepper, onions, and leeks were recommended to ward off disease. Antiplague pills were also available and consisted of dozens of substances, ranging from saffron to snake meat and various toxins. Europeans were also urged to keep their minds healthy and sound as the Plague approached. Physicians advised others to purge their minds of all ideas of death and to think only pleasant thoughts. Another fourteenth century theory held the opposite view and contended that bad air should be counteracted with something foul. Accordingly, some Europeans bathed in urine or menstrual blood or deliberately inhaled the fumes of fecal matter to fumigate themselves of any plague-causing agents. In addition to these preventive measures, medieval physicians relied on common medical procedures of their day to cure those stricken by the Black Death. Because medical knowledge was limited to mostly inaccurate theories from the ancient world rather than research and experimentation, their efforts invariably failed. Nonetheless, doctors practiced their craft the best they could. Many bled their patients to alter the balance of humors in a sick or dying person. Some punctured buboes to release evil vapors or applied dead toads or poultices directly to these swellings to absorb toxins. Muslim physicians treated the buboes with cold water. Above all, doctors urged their patients to pray for good health. Spiritual Weapons. The appeal to prayer found a receptive audience among most fourteenth century Christians and Muslims, who put more faith in their religious beliefs and institutions than anything their physicians had to offer. Both private and group prayer were rendered constantly to gain heavenly favor during the Black Death. In addition, religious pilgrimages, the construction of new shrines, and public processions of piety became commonplace at341
1320: The Black Death tempts to gain spiritual strength in the fight against the Plague. Christians and Muslims also donned special religious charms to protect themselves. Not all clerics tried to stave off the Plague, however. Many stressed an acceptance of God’s will. Muslim religious leaders, for example, often taught that fleeing the Plague was futile, if not contrary, to divine plan. Allah, they said, was responsible for all things, including pestilence. Sometimes, the panic-stricken took spiritual matters into their own hands. Many Christians dug up graves of various Catholic saints to obtain relics of skull fragments or bones believed to have antiplague powers. Others launched spiritual crusades against the disease. The biggest such campaign was the Flagellant Movement, which emerged in Germany and spread into France and the Low Countries. Detached from the Catholic Church, the movement urged atonement for personal sins and an end to the Plague through public acts of penitence and self-debasement. Members of the movement were called Flagellants because of the flagella or barbed whips they used to lash their naked backs in mass public demonstrations carried out in churchyards or town centers. Sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, the Flagellants marched on bare feet from one community to the next debasing themselves with whips, praying, singing, and seeking forgiveness before the eyes of thousands of onlookers. At times, their exhibitions also became fiercely anti-Semitic and resulted in mob violence against local Jews. Convinced the Flagellants were heretical and usurping Church authority, Pope Clement VI eventually ordered an end to their activities. Secular officials, including the kings of England and France, equally worried about civil disorder, provided enforcement of the papal order, and by 1350 the movement ceased to exist. Human Response. Wherever the Black Death raged, terrified humans responded in various ways. Displays of fear, rancor, suspicion, apathy, violence, and resignation, along with nobler responses of altruism, self-sacrifice, and heroism, all appeared wherever the Plague struck. Some people faithfully nursed those who lay sick and dying, while others shunned all Black Death victims and fled. Many, terrified of contagion, refused to tend to even their loved ones; many physicians and priests abandoned their duties and ran away. Fear even 342
1320: The Black Death prompted many to avoid the possessions of the dead and dying. According to Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio in his collection of stories Decameron: O, Prencipe Galetto (1349-1351; The Decameron, 1620), many people of Florence isolated themselves from the sick and spent their time carousing and living lives of wild abandon until death came or the disease went away. Similar behavior was reported in other plague-stricken cities. The Black Death caused panic and social breakdown wherever it struck. Merchants closed shops. Trade ceased. Construction projects halted. Crops and livestock were abandoned. Even some churches closed their gates to keep away terrified mobs. The English Parliament shut down twice during the worst days of the Plague. Though many civil authorities died or fled the disease, most governments did not entirely cease to function. Hard-pressed to maintain a semblance of law and order, those left in charge of civil matters often passed antiplague ordinances. Some of these decrees were designed to fight the Plague by improving public moral behavior to please God. Authorities in Tournai, France, for example, ordered men and women, who lived together outside of matrimony, to marry at once. They also banned swearing, playing dice, and working on Sundays. Medieval officials also imposed travel bans and quarantines on travelers to reduce contact with the infected. In many places, the sick were forced into buildings hastily designated as Plague hospitals, where they invariably died. Authorities in Milan took even more drastic measures by ordering laborers to seal up homes of Plague victims, entombing both the alive and the dead. Disposal of the dead became a logistical nightmare for both church and civil authorities. Because most European Catholics believed Christian burials in consecrated graves were necessary for salvation, church graveyards quickly filled. As a result, grave diggers, if they could be hired, hastily dug new mass graves, into which corpses were unceremoniously dumped. In many communities, only the abject poor and released criminals were willing to nurse the dying or bury the dead. In Italy, for example, slaves from galley ships were freed and ordered to undertake these tasks. All too soon, however, the new class of grave diggers—called the Becchini—took advantage of their newfound freedom and robbed, raped, murdered, and extorted the living. Civil authorities, exhausted by death and desertion 343
1320: The Black Death within their own ranks, were often too weak to control the Becchini and their counterparts in other cities and towns. Aftermath. Humanity had never before witnessed such a massive death toll as that of the Black Death. According to a study commissioned by papal authorities, the Plague killed more than 24 million Europeans. Throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, the Plague killed anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of local populations. Some scholars estimate that as many as 1 out of every 3 died throughout the Muslim Empire. Although exact figures will never be known, and many may have been exaggerated by shocked survivors of the disease, most modern historians agree the impact of untold millions of human deaths caused great trauma among the living. Some scholars, in fact, suggest that the widespread mental suffering caused by the Plague paralleled that of the world wars of the twentieth century. Many people responded to the pestilence by becoming more pious, in an attempt to appease God and keep such a calamity from recurring. Religious faith for others, however, was shaken or destroyed by the horrors of the Black Death. Many disillusioned Christians failed to understand how a loving god they had worshiped had failed to protect them from the terrors of the Plague, nor could they readily forgive the priests who had fled and failed to administer last rites to dying Christians. Some disenchanted Christians, including religious reformers such as England’s John Wyclif and Bohemia’s Jan Hus, openly questioned many Church doctrines and practices and may have paved the way for the Protestant Reformation two centuries later. Others rejected Christianity altogether and joined various new cults based on mysticism or even satanic beliefs. Though the Catholic Church remained a powerful institution in Europe, its authority was forever weakened. The Black Death also brought about other major changes. According to many firsthand reports, outbreaks of immorality, crime, violence, and civil breakdown followed in the wake of the Black Death. In addition, a preoccupation with death and the macabre expressed itself in many areas. Young people, for example, in many plaguestricken areas began to socialize in graveyards, where they danced and played games, as if to flaunt their indifference to death. Various folk dances that emphasized death also appeared in parts of Europe. The death dance also became a popular subject for artists and writers 344
1320: The Black Death who concentrated on the ghoulish and inescapable aspects of dying. Although cities and towns were growing, a majority of Europeans lived as feudal peasants or poor urban laborers when the Black Death first struck. This situation began to change in the wake of the Plague, however. The massive loss of life caused by the disease produced a severe widespread labor shortage that ultimately benefited the working poor. For one thing, the dearth of workers caused a rise in wages and gave laborers more negotiating power with employers and greater mobility than they had ever had before. Farm workers, artisans, and workers of all types no longer felt obliged to adhere to fixed working conditions imposed by a ruling nobility. In response to the newfound economic strength of workers, the ruling classes imposed various sumptuary laws both to prevent chaos and to control inflation generated by rising wages. Some of these new laws set wages and fined any employer who violated the restrictions, but many others were established primarily to maintain distinctions among the social classes. Some of these rules, for example, attempted to control what kinds of clothes and food the poor could buy to prevent them from trying to imitate their social superiors. Though often effective, the sumptuary laws proved unpopular and hard to enforce. Despite such attempts to maintain the old order, the shake-up caused by the Black Death helped to dismantle many of the centuriesold assumptions, traditions, and institutions of medieval Europe. The changes wrought by the Plague also lead to widespread questioning of the social and economic order that had existed in Europe for centuries. This assault on the old manner that had benefited a privileged class of nobles and the Church for centuries now opened the door for the coming of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the modern age. John M. Dunn For Further Information: Benedictow, Ole J. The Black Death, 1346-1353: The Complete History. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 2006. Byrne, Joseph P. The Black Death. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. Cantor, Norman F. In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made. New York: Perennial/HarperCollins, 2002. 345
1320: The Black Death Herlitly, David. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Horrox, Rosemary, trans. and ed. The Black Death. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1994. Karlen, Arno. Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times. New York: Putnam, 1995. Kelly, John. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Nohl, Johannes. The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague Compiled from Contemporary Sources. Translated by C. H. Clarke. London: Unwin Books, 1961. Orent, Wendy. Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease. New York: Free Press, 2004.
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■ 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic Epidemic Date: 1520-1521 Place: Tenochtitlán, Aztec Empire Result: 2 to 5 million dead
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panish conquest and colonization of Mexico began in 1519 when Hernán Cortés was ordered by Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba, to command an expedition to the mainland of Mesoamerica. The smallpox epidemic of 1520-1521 figured importantly in the unlikely conquest of an empire of millions by a much smaller force of Spaniards accompanied by their Native American allies. Landing on the Yucatán peninsula, Cortés marched inland, collecting allies en route to the capital of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlán, where he took the emperor, Moctezuma II, prisoner. In 1520, Cortés left Tenochtitlán, leaving some of his men behind to hold the city, in order to meet an expedition on the coast sent by Velázquez, who suspected the ambitious Cortés of exceeding his orders. Cortés convinced these forces to join him rather than arrest him, and he returned to Tenochtitlán. He found a capital where the Indians were in the throes of rebellion against the Spanish. In June of 1520 the Aztecs succeeded in repelling the Spanish. Few Spaniards survived la noche triste (the sad night). Cortés and the remainder of his troops retreated to Tlaxcala to rebuild his fighting forces. Meanwhile, a smallpox epidemic was proceeding from Yucatán to Tenochtitlán. A soldier who had an active case of smallpox came with the expedition to arrest Cortés. According to some chroniclers his name was Francisco Eguia. He infected Indians with the viral disease, and it was quickly spread from person to person and from village to village, progressing rapidly from the coast to the interior. The disease was reported to have arrived in April or May of 1520; it spread inland from May to September, and it reached Tenochtitlán in September or October. 347
1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic The effects of the outbreak in America were far greater than were experienced during an outbreak in Europe during the same period. The susceptibility of the American Indians compared to the Spanish can be accounted for by the fact that this disease was unknown to them. The Aztecs had no specific word in their language for smallpox and usually described it in their writings by its characteristic pustules. In Europe the disease had been extant for centuries, and when it reappeared there were usually many persons who were immune because of previous exposure. In contrast, the Indian population was extremely vulnerable to the disease. There were no immune persons in the population, and the people were highly homogeneous genetically, which meant that the virus did not have to adapt to various genetic makeups to be successful in infecting the host. In addition, the first outbreak of a disease within a group is generally the most severe. This disease wreaked disaster on the indigenous population. It is estimated that one-third to one-half of the population died during the epidemic. In contrast, only about 10 percent of a European population died in an outbreak in the sixteenth century. Because all segments of the population in America were vulnerable, there were few healthy caregivers to sustain the sick. In addition, many rulers were struck down. In Cortés’s letters to the king, he reported that he was asked by many Indian groups who were allied with him against the Aztecs to choose a leader to replace someone who had died of smallpox. Most important, the epidemic reached Tenochtitlán at a crucial moment in history. The Aztecs had forced Cortés to retreat, but during his time of rest and rebuilding he sent spies into Tenochtitlán to determine the strength of his opponents. He learned that the Aztecs had been struck down with smallpox and were greatly weakened. At times, the disease struck so many persons that no one in a family was able to give care to the others, and whole families died, not only of smallpox but also of thirst and starvation. Homes were destroyed with the corpses inside to diminish the fetid odor wafting through the once-great city. Bodies were thrown into the water, offering a wretched sight of bloated, bobbing flesh. Warriors who survived were weakened by the disease, and their chain of command was compromised. The emperor named to replace Moctezuma died of smallpox. The loss of continuity and experience in leadership greatly weakened the ability of the Aztecs to mount a defense against the Spaniards. 348
1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic Having replenished his forces, Cortés struck Tenochtitlán again in May of 1521, and within months he had conquered the seat of the Aztec Empire. Debate continues over the role of the smallpox epidemic in this conquest. Cortés did not give it much weight in his chronicles, but Indian chronicles of the time emphasize its importance. The year 1520 is called the year of the pustules, according to Aztec chronicles. Though there is great disagreement among historians over the number of deaths and the importance of the smallpox epidemic in the conquest, there is no doubt that this epidemic was one of the most serious disasters in Mexico in the sixteenth century. Bonnie L. Ford For Further Information: Crosby, Alfred, Jr. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Glynn, Ian, and Jenifer Glynn. The Life and Death of Smallpox. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. McCaa, Robert. “Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in Mexico.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (Winter, 1995): 397-432. Noble, David Cook. Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 14921650. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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■ 1657: The Meireki Fire Fire Also known as: The Furisode Fire, the Great Edo Fire Date: March, 1657 Place: Edo (now Tokyo), Japan Result: More than 100,000 dead
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he city of Edo, located where the eastern part of the central city of Tokyo stands today, became the most important city in Japan at the start of the seventeenth century. In the year 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated other daimyos (provincial military governors) at the Battle of Sekigahara. Tokugawa established himself as shogun (hereditary military dictator) of Japan, with his headquarters in Edo. Although the emperor of Japan remained in the ancient capital city of Kyoto as the symbolic ruler, the Tokugawa shogunate retained all political power until 1867. Like all Japanese cities of the time, Edo was built of wood. Fire was always a potential hazard. The first official fire-defense system in Japan was established by the shogunate in 1629. At first, the shogunate employed a small number of resident daimyos to protect important sites within the castle and the family shrines of the shogun. By 1650, this system, known as the daimyo hikeshi, was expanded to include firefighters who watched over the residences, shrines, and temples of the daimyos who lived near the castle. This new system was known as the jobikeshi. The Meireki Fire took place in March of 1657, the third year of the Meireki era. A year of drought had left the wooden buildings of Edo particularly vulnerable to fire. In addition, a wind blowing from the northwest at hurricane speed ensured that a fire would spread rapidly throughout the city. Because the fire was thought to have been caused by the burning of a furisode (young girl’s kimono) during an exorcism ceremony, it was also known as the Furisode Fire. The fire began in the Hommyoji Temple in the Hongo District of Edo. It quickly spread to the Kanda District, then south to the Kyobashi District and east to the Fukagawa District. Zacharias Waganaer, 350
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a Dutch trader who left an eyewitness account of the fire, reported that the heat from the flames could be felt from a quarter of a mile away. He described the approaching wall of fire as a mile wide, with sparks falling from it “like a strong rain.” The sun was completely blocked out by the huge amounts of black smoke. The next day, the wind changed direction. The fire spread north to the Kojimachi District, destroying the houses of the servants of the daimyos. Soon the flames spread to the homes of the daimyos who lived near the castle, burning them to the ground. The castle itself 351
1657: The Meireki Fire suffered extensive damage. Although the inner section was saved, much of the outer section was destroyed. The castle’s central tower, about 200 feet tall, was lost and never rebuilt. By the end of the third day, the wind and the flames decreased, but the smoke was so thick and the city so full of ruins that it was difficult to move from place to place for several days. Meanwhile, those who had lost their homes in the fire faced severe winter weather. More than 100,000 people lost their lives to the fire, either directly or as a result of exposure to the snowstorm that struck the city the day after the fire. When movement was possible again, the dead were loaded on boats and transported up the Sumida River to the suburb of Honjo. Here they were buried in large pits as funeral prayers were recited by monks of many different sects. A memorial temple, known as the Ekoin, was built on the site and remained until the twentieth century. The shogunate responded to the disaster by setting up medical facilities and distributing food and money to those left homeless. The rebuilding of the city took two years and depleted the shogunate’s treasury. The commercial sections of Edo were the first to be rebuilt, in an effort to restore the economy. The houses of the resident daimyos were not rebuilt; instead, the daimyos were sent back to their home provinces. The restoration of the castle was the last task to be completed. In an elaborate ceremony, the shogun entered the new castle in 1659. The devastation caused by the fire led to reforms in fire prevention. During the rebuilding of Edo, the width of roads and the spacing of houses were standardized, in order to ease movement during an emergency. Special fire lanes were constructed at various intersections to allow for rapid motion. Laws were passed forbidding the common practice of stacking surplus goods along the banks of rivers, in an attempt to prevent fires from spreading by way of these large piles of flammable objects. The Ryogoku Bridge was built across the Sumida River in 1660, both to allow the city to expand and to ease movement across the river. Wide streets were placed on both sides of the bridge, in order to prevent fires from spreading to it. In 1718, volunteer firefighting units made up of commoners were organized in Edo. This system was known as the machi hikeshi. This system, which eventually included more than 10,000 volunteers, served as the main 352
1657: The Meireki Fire defense against fire in areas where the common people lived until the late nineteenth century. In 1868, when the emperor regained power from the shogunate, the daimyo hikeshi and the jobikeshi systems were disbanded, and the machi hikeshi system was reorganized into companies of firefighters known as the shobogumi. The shobogumi were placed under the control of the police in 1881, renamed the keibodan in 1939, and renamed the shobodon in 1947. In 1948, the first independent, professional fire departments in Japan were created. Rose Secrest For Further Information: Kornicki, Peter. “The Meireki Fire.” In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan, edited by Richard Bowring and Peter Kornicki. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. McClain, James L., John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru, eds. Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. “Meireki Fire.” In Encyclopedia of Japan. New York: Kodansha, 1983. Naito, Akira. “The Great Meiriki Fire.” In Edo, the City That Became Tokyo: An Illustrated History. Translated by H. Mack Horton. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2003. Sansom, George. “The Great Fire of Meireki.” In A History of Japan, 1615-1867. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963.
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■ 1665: The Great Plague of London Epidemic Date: May-December, 1665 Place: London, England Result: Approximately 100,000 dead
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lague in England was a constant visitor for many centuries. The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century had killed off between one-fourth and one-third of the country s population. In London, before the devastating Great Plague of 1665, there were serious epidemics in 1593 that killed 15,000; in 1603, 33,000; in 1625, 41,000; in 1636, 10,000; and in 1647, 3,600. In the interval between 1603 and 1665, there were only a few years in which London did not record any plague deaths. Reasons for the Plague. In 1665, London was a city of fewer than 500,000 people. The core of this vast metropolis was the city itself, the historic area of about 1 square mile still enclosed by an impressive wall. Surrounding the city were growing suburbs, where most of the poor lived under wretched conditions. It is not known what brought the plague to London, but it is likely that it either came from abroad—perhaps from Holland, which experienced a terrible plague the previous year—or was already endemic to England and waiting for favorable conditions to break out. The Bills of Mortality, the official statistics that recorded deaths in London, reveal only 3 deaths from plague in the first four months of the year, but plague deaths jumped to double digits in May, and for the first time there was widespread concern about the plague. By the end of June, the weekly total had risen to 267; the plague was definitely spreading. Unfortunately, neither the civic authorities nor the medical professionals had any knowledge of what the plague was or how it was transmitted. In fact, it was not until 1894 that the bacillus that caused the disease was isolated, discovered almost simultaneously by two scientists working independently of each other, Swiss bacteriologist 354
1665: The Great Plague of London Alexandre Yersin and Japanese physician Shibasaburo Kitasato. It was given the name Pasteurella pestis (later Yersinia pestis), and eventually the method of transmission was also discovered. It was carried by the black rat, which in turn infected fleas. Unfortunately, the black rat was a sociable creature that lived comfortably with human beings, and this close proximity made it easier for fleas to transfer themselves from the rats, which became plague victims, to nearby human hosts. The reason the plague was most ferocious in the summer months was likely due to the fact that rat fleas tended to flourish in hot weather. The type of plague that afflicted London was the bubonic variety, characterized chiefly by the telltale buboes that appeared on the body of victims, large swellings about the size of eggs that appeared in the joints, groin, armpits, and neck. The disease had an incubation period of usually two to five days, and the victim suffered from fever, chills, weakness, and headaches, eventually becoming lethargic or delirious. Bubonic plague had a death rate of 50 to 90 percent. At the time of the plague, London was a filthy, unsanitary city, made up mostly of dilapidated, unventilated wooden dwellings, fronted by open sewers masquerading as streets and having no proper methods for disposal of garbage and human waste—in short, an ideal environment for rats. Conditions were most appalling in the suburbs, and the plague broke out in one of the worst slum areas, St. Giles-in-theFields, eventually spreading eastward, as well as to the south and west. By the end of July the weekly plague figure had risen to over 1,800 victims, but the deadliest moments of the epidemic were in August and September, when the total plague deaths exceeded 46,000. In late October, the figures began to decline noticeably, and by the first week of December only 210 deaths were recorded. For the entire year, the official total was 68,596, of which the ravished suburbs accounted for 85 percent of the deaths. In general, this was a “poor man’s plague” and a suburban phenomena. As alarming as these figures were, scholars believe the death toll was seriously undercounted, and a more likely total is about 100,000. Still, the plague lingered, and in the following year over 1,700 died. It was not until 1670 that London recorded no plague deaths for the entire year. Methods of Containment. A series of events conspired to make the death tolls even higher than they should have been, since the au355
1665: The Great Plague of London thorities often took measures that were counterproductive. For example, civic authorities mistakenly believed that dogs and cats may well have carried the disease, and officials ordered their extermination, resulting in the killing of tens of thousands of the creatures. Yet these were the very animals that could have possibly checked the rat population. The most disastrous decision was to invoke a quarantine as the principal method of containing the plague. Authorities decreed that any house containing a case of plague was to be closed and locked, with all the residents sealed inside. Armed watchmen guarded the house to ensure that no one escaped from the infected dwelling. The door of the house was painted with a large red cross with the words “Lord Have Mercy upon Us” inscribed on it. This action simply guaranteed that the plague would likely spread to everyone trapped inside, and it was common for entire families to perish, one member after the other. In retrospect, a more successful policy would have been to separate the infected from the uninfected, perhaps by transferring all the infected to the local pesthouse or other such building, thus isolating the sick from the healthy. Authorities believed that the contagion was carried in the air. Therefore, the city officials decreed in early September that fires should be burned throughout London, and for three days the city’s air was fouled by a heavy pall of suffocating smoke and a terrible stench until rains mercifully doused these fires. Individuals had their own remedies for fighting the plague but all too frequently relied upon quack potions, amulets, charms, and mystical signs and numbers. Aftereffects. London still managed to function during the plague, however imperfectly, despite the fact that the king, his court, and parliament fled the city for safety reasons. Among the few heroes to emerge from this period otherwise filled with much cowardice and stupidity were the Lord Mayor Sir John Lawrence and several of the city’s aldermen. During the plague, they ensured a steady supply of food from the surrounding farmlands, kept prices from rising, prevented any riots, and raised money, mostly from private charities, to offer assistance to an increasingly destitute population. A bureaucracy of sorts was established to cope with the demands of the plague. Watchmen were appointed to guard the infected houses. Nurses lived in the infected dwellings and administered to 356
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A victim of the plague shows physicians the bubo under his arm. (Library of Congress)
the needs of the sick. However, this dangerous and depressing work was done only by the truly desperate, who quickly established a reputation for venality and callousness, frequently misusing their position to steal from their patients and even expedite their deaths. Perhaps the most notorious workers were the “searchers,” people who were to visit the houses of the deceased and establish the cause of death. This dangerous job was usually taken only by elderly impoverished women, who were often ignorant, illiterate, and corrupt. Frequently, they either misdiagnosed the cause of death or were bribed to attribute the cause of death to something other than the plague, so that family members could leave the house immediately and not be placed under further quarantine. Other unfortunates pushed their 357
1665: The Great Plague of London carts through the city during the night in order to collect those who died, shouting “Bring out your dead” to announce their arrival. Gravediggers, who were almost overwhelmed at times by the tide of thousands of people dying weekly, frequently had to dig mass pits into which bodies, nude or wrapped in sacks or cloths, were tossed, without the dignity of a coffin or proper burial service. Economic Results. London was economically devastated during the plague. Commercial activity almost vanished from the city. Shops were closed, the houses of the wealthy were shuttered, and many dwellings were kept under quarantine. Even the port of London, one of the most active in the world, saw deserted docks and little cargo, with foreign ships fearing to sail to this plague-infested destination and foreign customers reluctant to accept London goods that might be contaminated. When the nobility and the professional classes fled the city by the tens of thousands, they often dismissed their workers or servants from employment. Newly impoverished, these unemployed sought cheap housing, which meant they were forced to live in the very suburbs that had the highest death tolls, thereby providing the human fodder that fed the deadly toll. There was a dramatic decline in human interaction. The authorities either forbade or discouraged large gatherings of people, whether in churches, alehouses, funerals, or inns. London, once one of the most noisy, bustling, and industrious of cities, became strangely silent and largely devoid of human activity. The Last Plague. This was the last major plague epidemic to afflict London. The question of why a plague never struck London again is one of the great historical mysteries. Although a precise answer has confounded both the historical and the medical professions, there are a number of possible explanations. First, it has been argued that the Great Fire of 1666, which burned almost the entire city within its ancient walls, destroyed the plague by burning the old unsanitary wooden city and killing off the rats in the process. However, this does not explain why the plague did not return to the unsanitary suburbs, which were untouched by the Great Fire. Another popular explanation is that the brown or Norwegian rat supplanted the black rat as the chief urban rodent. Unlike its predecessor, the brown rat tended to avoid human contact, preferring sewers, garbage dumps, and other areas free of human beings. This may 358
1665: The Great Plague of London have eventually been an important component in containing the plague, but the brown rat did not supplant the black rat immediately after 1665. Rather, the displacement occurred over a period of several decades, thereby not accounting for the era before it became dominant. There are also medical theories concerning how human beings may have developed immunities to bubonic plague or that the plague’s bacillus had mutated into a more benign form, but these ideas are considered suspect by medical authorities. Perhaps the most persuasive explanation emphasizes measures undertaken by public authorities. Central governments around the globe developed sophisticated methods of isolating their nations from plagues by strict quarantines imposed upon ships and cargoes from infected regions of the world. Also, societies witnessed important developments in the areas of public health and standards of public sanitation. Over a period of decades and centuries, people have become healthier, water supplies purer, housing more sanitary, refuse collection more efficient, and disposal of human waste more effective. All these measures have made cities healthier and safer places to live. Undoubtedly, it was a combination of several of the above explanations that have helped modern society escape the horrors that London experienced in 1665. David C. Lukowitz For Further Information: Bell, Walter George. The Great Plague in London. Reprint. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1994. Butler, Thomas. Plague and Other “Yersinia” Infections. London: Plenum Medical Books, 1983. Cowie, Leonard W. Plague and Fire: London, 1665-6. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970. Moote, A. Lloyd, and Dorothy C. Moote. The Great Plague: The Story of London’s Most Deadly Year. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Mullett, Charles F. “London’s Last Dreadful Visitation” and “The Plague of 1965 in Literature.” In The Bubonic Plague and England. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1956. Orent, Wendy. Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease. New York: Free Press, 2004. 359
■ 1666: The Great Fire of London Fire Date: September 2-6, 1666 Place: London, England Result: 8 dead; 13,200 homes destroyed; 87 churches destroyed; 44 livery halls, 373 acres within the city walls, and 63 acres outside the city walls burned; more than 100,000 people left homeless; between 6 and 10 million British pounds in damage
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he Great Fire of London, which raged from early Sunday morning, September 2, 1666, until early Thursday morning, September 6, 1666, was regarded by many contemporaries as the worst catastrophe in London’s history. Coming shortly after the Great Plague of 1665 and during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667), the fire caused substantial changes to be brought to London. Because much of older, medieval London was destroyed—an area 1.5 miles long by 0.5 mile wide—400 streets ceased to exist, and major landmarks such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Exchange burned, a major rebuilding project overseen by prominent architect Christopher Wren was undertaken. New regulations and strict building codes were implemented that aimed to prevent future conflagrations. Some have argued such massive destruction and the rebuilding of London was a factor in the prevention of additional outbreaks of the plague. Background. During the 1600’s there were a number of substantial fires in London and throughout England. Fires in London in 1630 consumed 50 houses; in 1633 the houses on London Bridge plus 80 more burned; and a gunpowder fire in 1650 killed 27 people, destroyed 15 homes, and severely damaged 26 more. Provincial fires proved to be much more damaging: In 1644, 300 houses burned in Oxford; in 1653, 224 houses in Marlborough; in 1659, 238 houses in Southwold; and in 1665, 156 houses in Newport, Shropshire. The danger of fire was ever-present from household fires; clogged chimneys; and from the businesses of tradesmen, such as bakers, brewers, blacksmiths, and chandlers. No fire departments existed, and fire360
1666: The Great Fire of London fighting equipment was primitive by modern standards. Leather buckets for carrying water, fire hooks for pulling down buildings, ladders, axes, brooms, and “water engines” and “water guns”—devices for drawing water from wells, rivers, ponds, and aqueducts and spraying the fire—were of some use. London, the largest city in the British Isles and the second largest in Europe, with a population of about 350,000 to 400,000, occupied 458 acres within the city walls and sprawled beyond the walls into the “out parishes” or suburbs. In April, 1665, King Charles II wrote to the lord mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bludworth, and the aldermen of the city, warning them of the danger of fire due to buildings overhanging the streets. He authorized them to imprison people who built overhanging dwellings and to tear the buildings down. Many superstitious people had feared that the year 1666 would bring disaster because of the number 666, which was viewed as a sign of the Antichrist mentioned in the biblical book of Revelation, and there were many predictions issued by self-proclaimed prophets about London’s destruction as a result of God’s judgment. The Fire. The fire started in the house of the king’s baker, Thomas Farriner (also spelled Farrinor or Farynor), between 1 and 2 a.m. Sunday morning on September 2, 1666, on Pudding Lane near London Bridge, in what is now EC3 in modern London. The streets in this part of London were congested and narrow, wide enough for only a wheelbarrow. Farriner’s family escaped the fire by climbing out an upper-story window to the roof of the next-door building. A female servant’s fear of heights prevented her from using this escape route, and she became the first fatality. Wood-frame buildings with pitch on their roofs and combustible materials, such as flax, rosin, oil, tallow, wines, brandy, and other alcoholic beverages, in warehouses on Thames Street fueled the fire, which was blown westward toward the center of the city by a strong wind. Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, was awakened by Jane Birch, his female servant, at 3 a.m. to see the flames, but he was not concerned by the fire some distance from his residence. Initially, the fire spread slowly, and most people were able to remove their belongings from their houses. Some ferried them down the Thames River and were charged exorbitant prices; others stored them in churches, only to have to move them again or lose them as 361
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London during the Great Fire of 1666, from a print by Visscher. (Robert Chambers)
the fire spread more extensively than anyone could have imagined. Lord Mayor Bludworth was awakened and surveyed the scene around 3 a.m. and concluded that it was not serious. An inoperative “water engine” near the scene, low water levels, and the failure to pull down nearby buildings allowed the fire to continue to spread. Some contemporaries said that an alderman opposed pulling down the buildings because his home would have been one of the first to be destroyed. The occurrence of the fire on a Sunday caught officials off guard and added to the confusion. Rumors spread quickly that the fire had been deliberately set by Catholics or foreigners, such as the Dutch or French, and London mobs began assaulting immigrants. A French Huguenot watchmaker, Robert Hubert, later “confessed” to having set the fire. Although his story was full of inconsistencies and changed repeatedly, he was convicted and hanged in October, 1666. The fire spread throughout Sunday; the streets were clogged with people fleeing and with household goods. The Thames River became crowded with sightseers on boats and goods floating in the river. The sound of crackling flames, crashing buildings, occasional explosions, and peoples’ cries filled the air. King Charles II and his brother, James, duke of York, alerted by Pepys, arrived on the scene and began to supervise and assist the firefighting efforts, as did William Lindsay, 362
1666: The Great Fire of London earl of Craven, who had stayed in London during the Great Plague the previous year. People from the countryside came to London with carts and wagons to make money by helping to transport peoples’ belongings. Some charged £30 for use of a cart, and thievery was commonplace. Some contemporary eyewitnesses were critical of citizens for being more concerned with saving their household belongings than with attempting to extinguish the fire. People rendered homeless by the fire began to congregate in large open spaces and fields in Moorfields, Finsbury and Islington, and Highgate in the north and St. Giles Fields and Soho in the west. Citizens of different social classes, along with whatever possessions they could transport, crowded into these areas. The fire’s impact was unlike that of the plague the previous year; the plague killed the poor, while the rich had fled. The fire destroyed the property of both the rich and the poor. Although the fire had advanced only 150 yards east of Pudding Lane to Billingsgate, damage caused by the northern and westward movement of the fire started to become substantial. Citizens had been reluctant to pull down buildings to create a firebreak because of ordinances requiring people to pay to rebuild any structures pulled down. Eventually, sailors and watermen from the Thames River began pulling down houses with ropes and using gunpowder to blow up buildings. Samuel Pepys was concerned enough by Sunday evening to move his money into his cellar and to have his gold and important papers ready to carry away if flames threatened his home. At about 4 a.m. Monday, September 3, Pepys moved his belongings in carts while riding in his nightgown. By Sunday’s end, the fire had burned half a mile westward along the Thames. The fire’s spread on Monday, September 3, continued to cause astonishment, and it seemed as if the air itself had been ignited, with the sky resembling “the top of a burning oven,” according to diarist and eyewitness John Evelyn. He also noted that the Thames was still choked with floating goods, boats, and barges loaded with all manner of items. Charles II, concerned about a possible breakdown in law and order and the lack of success in stemming the fire’s spread, established eight “fire posts” throughout the city, with the duke of York in charge. These posts, under the command of a nobleman assisted by justices of the peace and constables and supported by soldiers, pro363
1666: The Great Fire of London vided for the protection of property and were a symbol of authority in that chaotic time. Coleman Street in the east; Smithfield, Adlersgate, and Cripplegate to the north; and Temple Bar, Clifford’s Inn Gardens, Fetter Lane, and Shoe Lane in the west were the locations of these posts. Militia from the counties surrounding London were called up to be ready to assist. Hopes that the fire might be stopped along the Thames at Bayard’s Castle, a large, tall stone structure, were dashed, as this building burned and the fire continued to move westward along the river. The portions of the city along the river that had been destroyed were the poorer ones, but as the conflagration remained unchecked it began to consume some of the wealthiest portions, including Lombard Street, where many merchants, bankers, and goldsmiths plied their trade. Most of these individuals moved their valuables, primarily money and bonds, to Gresham College much more easily than could the tradesmen who had bulky goods and materials stored in warehouses along the Thames. The most important structure lost to the flames on Monday was the Royal Exchange, the principal location in London for trading commodities, such as pepper and silk. The one bright spot on Monday was the halt of the fire at Leadenhall, a marketplace for grain and poultry products, in what would be EC2 in modern London, which marked the extent of the fire to the north and east. Although the financial center of London had been burned, its relocation along with the city government to Gresham College to the north was a positive development that provided for a semblance of financial and political stability. The worst day of the fire was Tuesday, September 4. Contemporaries living in the countryside reported that the red glow of the fire could be seen 10 to 40 miles away at night, and residents of Oxford, 60 miles to the west, noted that the smoke obscured the daytime sunlight. A strong east wind blew embers, spreading the fire rapidly. The Guildhall in the north burned, and the fire jumped the city walls and moved into the out parishes. The Fleet River, which ran to the Thames to the west of the city walls, was regarded as a potential firebreak, but the flames leaped across it and continued westward. St. Paul’s Cathedral, the most prominent landmark in London, burned, along with 150,000 British pounds worth of books that booksellers had moved into its basement for safekeeping. Eyewitnesses re364
1666: The Great Fire of London ported that chunks of stone between 20 and 100 pounds fell from the cathedral, and lead from its roof melted into the streets. The Exchequer (national treasury) was moved to Nonesuch, Surrey, and the Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, moved to Hampton Court, west of London. The Tower of London was spared because the nearby buildings had been blown up, preventing the fire from reaching it. Had fire reached the stores of gunpowder in the Tower, a tremendous explosion would have resulted. Samuel Pepys and William Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania, dug holes in their gardens to bury their wine and cheese, believing that this would preserve them. Charles II and the duke of York helped to man water buckets and shovels and scattered gold coins among the workers as payment for their effort. Such actions helped elevate popular opinion of the monarchy. Late Tuesday night the wind began to drop. Because of the abatement of the wind and demolition work, the fire began to be contained on Wednesday, September 5. The Temple, one of the Inns of Court (law school), was the last significant structure to burn. Rumors spread throughout London that the French and Dutch, 50,000 strong, had landed in England and were marching on London. Such notions were fueled by the fact that the postal service from London had been disrupted, and newsletters that were routinely sent to the provinces had stopped, causing puzzlement and suspicion. By Thursday, September 6, when dawn broke, the fire ended after it reached its furthest border at Fetter Lane in the west, where brick buildings halted the flames, Cock Lane in the north and west, and All Hallows Church, Barking, in the east. Pepys noted that it was “the saddest sight of desolation” that he ever saw. Citizens who walked through the city noted that the ground was hot enough to burn the soles of their shoes; ash was inches deep, and debris was piled up in mounds. Fires smoldered in basements for weeks and even months, and acrid odors permeated the air. Aftermath. On Wednesday, September 5, 1666, Charles II issued two royal proclamations to begin the process of recovery from the disaster. In order to feed the displaced and homeless, the king ordered local magistrates to bring bread to London. He also had markets set up throughout the city and let people store their goods in public places. The second proclamation urged the inhabitants of surround365
1666: The Great Fire of London ing towns to accept refugees and allow them to practice their trades. On Thursday, September 6, the king went to Moorfields to address the thousands of refugees there and to explain that the fire was the judgment of God—not a conspiracy of Catholics, the French, or the Dutch. Charles II ordered 500 pounds of navy sea biscuits, or “hardtack,” released for the refugees to eat, but the food was too dense for the people who were not used to it. Army tents were used to house the homeless, who also had built makeshift huts or had slept out in the open. Another significant problem was sorting out the owners of the personal effects, household belongings, business papers, and wares that had been quickly deposited at several locations throughout the city. In the hope of recovering additional misplaced or stolen items, amnesty was declared for people who might have taken property illegally or by mistake. Scavenging among the ruins yielded items that were relatively undamaged or at least usable, especially precious and base metals that had melted. Although some merchants had no hope of such finds, the loss to booksellers was probably the most spectacular. Estimated at £150,000, it represented total ruin for a number of prominent merchants, and many scarce and rare titles were destroyed, leading to a substantial increase in the price of certain desirable volumes. Some contemporaries claimed that the price of paper doubled after the fire. Another commodity that rapidly increased in price was coal, especially as cold weather would be coming in the following months; accusations of price gouging were common. Because of the massive destruction of housing and the large number of homeless people, competition for housing space was fierce, and rents quickly escalated, as they did for tradesmen seeking to relocate their businesses. Because of the massive destruction, which left only a few recognizable landmarks standing, people had a completely clear view of the city from west to east, and the Thames River could be seen from Cheapside in the center of the city. The rebuilding of London was a daunting undertaking that started slowly. The London Common Council ordered inhabitants to clear the debris from the streets. Tradesmen and craftsmen were resettled, city offices were relocated, churchwardens were to report those who were in need of assistance, and donations came in from wealthy citizens who were either spared 366
1666: The Great Fire of London by the fire and from other cities. Because most charitable contributions for other previous disasters had come from London’s citizens, the collection of donations was rather modest—£16,201 coming from collections in 1666 and 1668. Some provincial cities were concerned that the source of money to aid their plague victims would be reduced because that money had come from London, which was now in dire straits itself. Rain on Sunday, September 9, helped dampen the embers, and contemporaries noted that the attendance at church was greatly increased. Ten days of heavy rain in mid-October brought additional misery to the homeless but helped extinguish remaining hot spots. On Monday, September 10, Charles II ordered Wenceslaus Hollar, the prominent landscape designer, and Francis Sandford, a historian and author, to make a survey of the city, and their report formed the basis for most of the statistical information about the extent of the damage caused by the fire. Their work was completed and published later in 1666 and showed a before-and-after perspective to visually indicate the extent of the destruction. The king issued another royal proclamation on Thursday, September 13, 1666, mandating rebuilding with brick and stone and allowing authorities to pull down houses built contrary to regulations. Streets were to be wide and a wharf, which was to be free from houses, was to run along the Thames River. October 10 was established as a day of fasting by royal proclamation. Also on that day, contractors or surveyors were appointed to prepare a list of all the properties destroyed and their owners or renters in preparation for delineating the path and layout of streets. Within days of the end of the fire, several influential citizens, including John Evelyn and Christopher Wren, had submitted plans for rebuilding the burned area. Town planning was developed as a more serious undertaking in the seventeenth century, and the fire and such widespread physical damage in a major city offered an unprecedented opportunity to put it to the test. Wren was appointed Deputy Surveyor of His Majesty’s Works, and he drew up a plan for rebuilding London, which improved access to London Bridge, developed a wharf from the Temple to the Tower along the Thames, set the Royal Exchange as the center of town, and redesigned St. Paul’s Cathedral and 51 other churches. Legislation established a special fire court, which first met on Feb367
1666: The Great Fire of London ruary 27, 1667, to settle disputes over land, rents, and rebuilding. The judges’ verdicts were final, and they did not have to abide by ordinary court procedures. They could even order new leases and extend existing ones. The Rebuilding Act (1667) provided for the seizing of any land not built upon after three years and its sale to someone who would rebuild. Four types of houses were permitted: two-story houses built on lanes, three-story houses on streets, four-story houses on larger streets, and four-story “mansion houses” for wealthy citizens. For each style of home the thickness of walls and heights from floor to ceiling were specified. Guild regulations were set aside in order to facilitate rebuilding, and wages and prices of materials were fixed. The revenue for supporting this law was to be financed by a tax on coal of 1 shilling per ton, which was raised in 1670 to 3 shillings per ton. This was London’s first major set of building codes. Despite regulations and legislation, the actual rebuilding went slowly because of the increased cost resulting from the specifications set forth in the codes and the disputes that arose over the widening of streets, which caused a loss of property or a reduction in the size of property. Other factors that caused delay were the difficulties in obtaining building materials such as lead, timber, brick, tile, and stone. This did open up new trade opportunities in the Baltic Sea area, a major producer of timber. By 1667 the streets had been laid out, but only 150 houses had been rebuilt. Almost 7,000 had been completed by 1671, although as late as the 1690’s there were fewer houses in London than before the fire. An important development in the rebuilding was Charles II’s laying of the first stone for the reconstruction of the Royal Exchange on October 23, 1667, which was completed by September, 1669, when the merchants occupied it. Ironically, the Royal Exchange was destroyed by fire again in 1838. Another major project was the straightening of the Fleet River and the building of quays on its banks, which became the location for numerous warehouses. The monument to the fire, a 202-foot high Doric column of Portland stone, was erected between 1671 and 1677 and stood 202 feet from where the fire started. An inscription that blamed the fire on Catholics was removed during the reign of Catholic king James II (ruled 1685-1688), the former duke of York. The rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral began in 1675 and was completed in 1710. 368
1666: The Great Fire of London A number of positive developments resulted from the Great Fire. It destroyed a substantial portion of a very unsanitary city, fire insurance was developed, new fire equipment was purchased, and fires received quicker responses. The London Common Council developed a plan that divided the city into four fire districts, each of which was to provide buckets, ladders, axes, and water engines. In addition, the various merchants’ companies were to store firefighting equipment. Such plans were copied by other English towns and cities, and London’s redesign influenced the layout of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Savannah, Georgia, in the United States. Mark C. Herman For Further Information: Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Edited by E. S. DeBeer. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 2000. Hanson, Neil. The Great Fire of London: In That Apocalyptic Year, 1666. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Picard, Liza. Restoration London. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Porter, Roy. London: A Social History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. Porter, Stephen. The Great Fire of London. Phoenix Mill, Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2002. Tinniswood, Adrian. By Permission of Heaven: The Story of the Great Fire of London. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004.
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■ 1669: Etna eruption Volcano Date: March 11, 1669 Place: Sicily, Italy Result: More than 20,000 dead, 14 villages destroyed, 27,000 homeless
F
or three days in March of 1669, earthquakes shook Sicily’s Mount Etna. Such seismic activity was not unusual. People who lived on the slopes of Sicily’s highest mountain had experienced them frequently before, but they were aware that such tremors often preceded what they most feared: a devastating and catastrophic eruption of the smoldering volcano, whose frequent eruptions date to prehistoric times. On March 11, 1669, the worst fears of the peasants who lived near the towering mountain became realities. Etna exploded in a series of eruptions stronger than anyone then alive could remember. The sky blackened as ash from the explosions rose toward the stratosphere. Debris fell over the eastern half of Sicily, even making its way well up into the southern Italian province of Calabria, across the Strait of Messina. The eruptions were not confined to a single day. Two weeks after the first series, on March 25, the sky was still ominously dark and ash was falling everywhere. A wide river of molten lava was flowing relentlessly down Etna’s south side, glowing orange in the subdued atmosphere. It hungrily devoured everything in its path, wiping out 14 villages in its course. Directly in the volcano’s path lay the seaside town of Catania, whose population of about 20,000 people made it one of Sicily’s largest cities. It lay just over 18 miles (29 kilometers) from Mount Etna’s summit, and its sole protection against the oncoming lava flow were the city’s defensive walls that dated back to the feudal era and surrounded the city. These walls would prove useless against an adversary as enormous as the river of fire now lumbering toward the ill-fated town. By the time Etna returned to a quiescent state, it had reduced Catania’s pop370
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ulation from 20,000 to about 3,000. Another 3,000 people who lived in villages on Etna’s slope died, mostly from suffocation, as the noxious fumes from the hot lava engulfed them. A Towering Giant. On a clear day, nearly everyone in eastern Sicily can see Mount Etna, rising almost 11,000 feet above sea level and towering over the plain below. The highest active volcano in Europe, it dominates the eastern half of Sicily, which is Italy’s largest island. Sicily is situated to the east and slightly to the south of Italy’s 371
1669: Etna eruption toe. A mere 2 miles across the Strait of Messina directly across from the town of Reggio in Calabria, Sicily was in prehistoric times a part of Italy’s land mass. As the oceans rose, however, it came to be separated from what is now the lower part of the Italian mainland. Mount Etna, named Aitne by the ancient Greeks and Aetna by the ancient Romans, is classified as a greenhouse type of volcano. Such volcanoes constantly belch gases out into the atmosphere, with Etna sending more than 25 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air above it every year. These emissions contribute significantly to the phenomenon of global warming. The typical products of the greenhouse type of volcano, besides carbon dioxide, are methane, ozone, nitrous oxides, chlorofluorocarbons, and water vapor. The first recorded eruptions of Etna occurred in 475 b.c.e. They were noted and described in some detail by both the poet Pindar and the dramatist Aeschylus. Since then, over two hundred eruptions have been documented, but none so great or so devastating to human life as the one that occurred in 1669. Mount Etna covers a substantial geographical area, a total of some 460 square miles. The Catania plain that lies below it is the largest lowland in Sicily. Around Etna’s base runs a railway. Small villages and terraced fields in which vegetables are grown still dot its slopes. From the cone of the volcano, the area around which is usually covered with snow, rise thin ribbons of smoke. Travelers ascending the mountain first pass through cultivated areas, where produce grows well in the rich, volcanic soil available on the mountain’s lower twothirds. At higher levels, pine forests extend almost to the top of the mountain, where the landscape becomes more bleak and where strong winds usually blow and snow often falls. The Looming Threat. Rumblings that occurred on Etna on March 8, 1669, alerted those who lived on its slopes to a possible eruption. Those who lived in villages below the volanco’s summit had frequently experienced such rumblings in the past. They were concerned by them but generally were not unduly alarmed. They had survived such seismic activity before and had continued to grow their produce in the fertile soil that Etna’s previous eruptions, dating to prehistoric times, provided for them. It was three days before Etna finally erupted, with a force that had not been equaled by any of the previous recorded eruptions. Lava 372
1669: Etna eruption flows began to course down the mountain, hot rivers of molten lava that obliterated everything in their paths. Pine forests were quickly leveled. Small settlements disappeared, often with most of their inhabitants. Suddenly, the south side of the huge mountain turned into a cauldron of intensely hot molten rock that slid down its sides and seemingly could be stopped only by the Ionian Sea, which stretched out to the east of Catania. The flow continued for more than two weeks, resisting every effort to thwart it. Trying to Divert the Lava Flow. Desperate peasants whose dwellings were in villages that lay in the path of the great river of fire now advancing down the mountain had no defenses against the fiery onslaught. The air they breathed was poisoned by the fumes that rose from the volcano. Most fell helpless upon the ground, unable to breathe. They usually were dead before the molten lava reached their prostrate bodies. The city of Catania, which from ancient times had endured Mount Etna’s eruptions, was now threatened as it seldom had been before. Although some of the city’s populace took the few possessions they could carry and tried to flee before the lava reached the city walls, a stalwart group of 50 men, led by Diego de Pappalardo, sought to divert the course of the flow. These men donned cowhides soaked in water to protect them from the incredible heat that the flow produced. Carrying long iron rods, picks, and shovels, they ascended the mountain toward the slowly moving flow, which by now had created a well-defined central channel down the mountainside. High walls of cooling lava lined the channel through which the molten material was flowing. Working under extremely adverse conditions in air that was almost too polluted and fetid to sustain life, this stalwart band of brave men hacked an opening in one of the high lava walls, thereby diverting the flow of material down the central channel through which the molten lava was heading relentlessly toward Catania. This heroic act of civil engineering appeared to be working. The flow in the central channel diminished considerably as a new channel formed outside the break in the lava wall. Keeping that break open, however, became a major problem. The Catanians were jubilant at the seeming success of their prodigious efforts, but their jubilation was short-lived. 373
1669: Etna eruption Almost immediately, a group of 500 desperate citizens from the village of Paterno, noticing that the newly created flow was aimed directly at their village, assaulted the Catanians, forcing them away from the breaches in the lava walls that they had created with such great difficulty. Soon these breaches filled in, and the molten lava resumed its inexorable course down the central channel. A consequence of the assault of the infuriated people from Paterno on the Catanians was the issuance of a royal decree stating that in the future no one was to interfere with the natural flow of molten lava from a volcano. Anyone doing so was to be held responsible for any damage that ensued from such efforts. This decree, in effect since 1669, was officially ratified in the nineteenth century by the Bourbon monarchy then in command. It was in force until 1983, when another eruption caused advanced engineering efforts to be employed in order to minimize the damage. The law was suspended so that these efforts could be carried out. Actually, opening vents in the lava wall was not a viable long-term solution to controlling the lava flow during the 1669 eruption. At an elevation of about 2,600 feet, vents had been opened by the Catanians near the village of Nicolosi, but within less than twenty-four hours, the lava had flowed on and destroyed another village in its path about 2 miles farther downhill. A century after the 1669 eruption, the devastating event was still prominently discussed by scientists. Sir William Hamilton, who published what is considered the first modern work on volcanology, Campi Phlegraei, in 1776, visited Mount Etna before he wrote his book, drawn there by what he had heard about the devastation in 1669. The Destruction of Catania. Thirty-three days elapsed between the eruption of Etna on March 11, 1669, and the arrival of its lava flow at the feudal gates of Catania. Remarkably few of the city’s citizens had fled as the oncoming lava approached the venerable walls, which accounts for the loss of some 17,000 Catanians in the disaster that followed. Typically, as a lava flow proceeds on its downward journey, it builds up lava walls on both sides but also creates a lava roof, resulting in a tube through which the molten material passes. The result is that the lava stays blisteringly hot because it is not exposed to the outside air, which would reduce its temperature. This is what happened as the 374
1669: Etna eruption lava from the 1669 eruption flowed toward Catania and the sea. This eruption was not the first to devastate Catania. In 1169, an estimated 15,000 Catanians were lost when an eruption of Mount Etna followed a huge tectonic earthquake that leveled most of the buildings in Catania and left many people dead in the rubble long before the lava flows reached the city. This disaster was on a scale comparable to that of the 1669 eruption. R. Baird Shuman For Further Information: Bonaccorso, Alessandro, et al., eds. Mt. Etna: Volcano Laboratory. Washington, D.C.: American Geophysical Union, 2004. Chester, D. K., et al. Mount Etna: The Anatomy of a Volcano. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985. Rosi, Mauro, et al. Volcanoes. Buffalo, N.Y.: Firefly Books, 2003. Scarth, Alwyn. Volcanoes: An Introduction. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1994. _______. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Sparks, R. S. J., et al. Volcanic Plumes. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Sutherland, Lin. The Volcanic Earth: Volcanoes and Plate Tectonics, Past, Present, and Future. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995. Wohletz, Kenneth, and Grant Heiken. Volcanology and Geothermal Energy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
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■ 1692: The Port Royal earthquake Earthquake and tsunami Date: June 7, 1692 Place: Port Royal, Jamaica Magnitude: X on the Modified Mercalli scale (estimated) Result: About 3,000 dead, more than 1,000 homes and other structures destroyed
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n the late seventeenth century, the Jamaican city of Port Royal was a major trade center for the New World. Situated on a cay, or small low island, off the Palisadoes sands on Jamaica’s southern coast, this Caribbean seaport owed its prosperity largely to smuggling and plundering. By the 1690’s, Port Royal boasted at least 6,500 inhabitants and more than 2,000 densely packed buildings, some of which were constructed on pilings driven into the harbor. Formerly a popular haunt for pirates, the city retained a reputation for hedonism and godlessness. Typical contemporaneous accounts called it “the most wicked and sinful city in the world” and “one of the lewdest [places] in the Christian World, a sink of all filthiness, and a mere Sodom.” Those citizens who warned that Port Royal’s widespread drunkenness, gambling, and debauchery were inviting divine retribution believed their fears were realized when, in the spring of 1692, a devastating earthquake destroyed most of the city. Earthquakes were nothing new to Port Royal. Jamaica lies along the boundary between the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates and is seismically active. Since 1655, when England captured Jamaica from Spain and founded the port, settlers had reported earth tremors almost every year. However, most of these quakes caused little or no damage. One of the more severe quakes, which occurred in 1688, was large enough to destroy 3 houses and damage many other structures. The major earthquake that would follow it four years later was to prove far more destructive. On Tuesday, June 7, 1692, between 11 a.m. and noon, a series of three strong earthquakes struck Port Royal within a period of a few 376
1692: The Port Royal earthquake minutes. After the third and most severe quake, a large tsunami pounded the seaport, snapping the anchor cables of ships moored in Kingston Harbor, smashing those ships nearest the wharves, and pouring into the city. In this case, not the crest but the trough of the tsunami struck land first, pulling out the harbor waters, then sending them back to finish off the town. The tsunami submerged half the town in up to 40 feet of water, pulling down what remained of the structures, causing hundreds more fatalities, and capsizing the vessels at anchor in the harbor. One of Jamaica’s two warships, the HMS Swan, had recently had its ballast removed during maintenance; the tsunami tossed this relatively light ship from the harbor into the middle of town and deposited it upright on top of some buildings. Such a ride through the city would have revealed streets littered with corpses, of those killed by both the quake and the tsunami, and those washed out of tombs by the waves. While the ship’s masts and rigging were lost and its cannons dislodged, the Swan remained intact enough to serve as a refuge for more than 200 people who survived the devastation by clinging to the boat. Multiple eyewitness accounts of the disaster describe the earth swallowing up whatever or whoever stood upon it, leading modern researchers to conclude that liquefaction played a major role in the devastation of Port Royal. In liquefaction, a process observed in loose, fine-grained, water-saturated sands subjected to shaking, the soil behaves like a dense fluid rather than a wet solid mass. This phenomenon is believed to be what caused “the sand in the streets [to]
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1692: The Port Royal earthquake rise like the waves of the sea,” as one witness reported, and many of Port Royal’s buildings to topple, partially sink, or disappear entirely. Much of the city’s population was also engulfed by the flowing sands. The disaster killed roughly 2,000 people in Port Royal and left almost 60 percent of the city submerged below Kingston Harbor. Of those buildings left standing, most were uninhabitable. Two of the city’s three forts, which had been heavily manned in anticipation of French attack, sank beneath the harbor. Several ships that had been moored in the harbor disappeared. Fill material that English settlers had dumped in the shallow marshy area between Port Royal and the Palisadoes to connect the cay to the sandspit was washed away. In Kingston Harbor, the bodies of the drowned floated with corpses the tsunami tore from the cemetery at the Palisadoes. The devastation in Jamaica was not confined to Port Royal. In the settlement of Spanish Town, located 6 miles inland from Kingston Harbor, almost no buildings were left standing. On the island’s north coast, roughly 1,000 acres of woodland slid into St. Ann’s Bay, killing 53 Frenchmen. Plantations and sugar mills throughout Jamaica were damaged or destroyed. The island suffered about 1,000 fatalities in addition to those killed at Port Royal. The evening of the disaster, with aftershocks still rattling Port Royal, pillaging and stealing began among the ruins of the city. Looters had free run of the seaport for almost two weeks. During this time, law-abiding citizens took refuge aboard ships in Kingston Harbor. With few doctors and limited medical supplies, many of the injured soon died. Still more survivors succumbed to illness spread by unhealthy conditions aboard the crowded rescue ships. Injury and sickness claimed about 2,000 more lives in the weeks immediately following the disaster. Survivors hesitated to return to Port Royal and rebuild. What was left of the city appeared to be sinking gradually into Kingston Harbor, and there was concern that the entire island would slip beneath the water. Aftershocks large enough to feel persisted for at least two months after the June 7 disaster, contributing to the people’s doubts concerning Port Royal’s safety. Members of the Council of Jamaica (who were in Port Royal for a meeting on the day the quake struck) and Port Royal’s remaining residents decided to establish a new town across the harbor, a settlement that later became Kingston. 378
1692: The Port Royal earthquake While Port Royal was too important strategically for the English to abandon entirely, it never regained its importance as a commercial center. It became primarily a base for the British navy, and for the remainder of Jamaica’s history as a British colony its civilian population remained small. Karen N. Kähler and David M. Soule For Further Information: Briggs, Peter. Buccaneer Harbor: The Fabulous History of Port Royal, Jamaica. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970. Marx, Robert F. Pirate Port: The Story of the Sunken City of Port Royal. Cleveland: World, 1967. Pawson, Michael, and David Buisseret. Port Royal, Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2000. Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle, and Donald Theodore Sanders. Earthquakes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Seismic Disruptions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005.
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■ 1755: The Lisbon earthquake Earthquake Date: November 1, 1755 Place: Lisbon, Portugal Magnitude: In the 8.0 range on the Richter scale (estimated), X for the central city and IX for the outskirts on the Modified Mercalli scale (estimated) Result: 5,000-50,000 or more dead
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uring the eighteenth century Portugal enjoyed one of its greatest periods of wealth and prosperity. Gold had been discovered in its colony of Brazil, which held the largest deposits then known of this precious metal. Moreover, extensive diamond fields were also found there. The greater part of this wealth flowed to the mother country and concentrated principally in the capital, Lisbon. The population of Portugal was almost 3 million, with about 10 percent residing in Lisbon. This city, on the north bank of the Tagus River, was situated where the river, flowing from the northeast, bent gradually to the west and entered the Atlantic. The city was shaped like an amphitheater. It was flat in its central area, where the ports, together with the major commercial and royal government buildings, were located. In the low hills rising and arching around the center were houses, shops, churches, monasteries, and convents. A magnet of world trade, the city housed a cosmopolitan population. In addition, an exceptionally large proportion of its populace were members of the Catholic clergy and religious orders. Quake, Fire, Flood. The serenity and assurance of this city were irrevocably shaken on November 1, 1755, the holy day of All Saints. An earthquake of unprecedented strength and consequences struck the city, leaving it by dusk a broken ruin of its former self. For about ten minutes during midmorning the earth shook, rolled, and collapsed underneath the city three times. The shaking was so severe that the damage extended throughout southern Portugal and Spain and across the Strait of Gibraltar into Morocco. 380
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Near the port area, the quake leveled numerous major buildings and destroyed the royal palace. The king was not, however, in residence. Many of the city’s over 100 religious buildings were damaged or leveled. Because it was a holy day and Lisbon was known for its religious fervor, most churches were filled with morning worshipers. They were crushed under the crashing walls and roofs. Aftershocks at almost hourly intervals caused further damage. Indeed, aftershocks of less frequent intervals but great violence would continue well into the next year. Fires began to appear in the city, progressively becoming a general 381
1755: The Lisbon earthquake conflagration fed by a northeast wind. Lasting for almost a week, these fires charred part of the outskirts and the entire central part of the city. Their damage was the costliest because they destroyed the contents of opulent churches and palaces, consuming paintings, manuscripts, books, and tapestries. In a final assault, three seismic waves from the sea struck the central harbor and coastal area just before midday. Some of these tsunamis towered at over 20 feet. What the quake had not shaken nor fires destroyed, water in crashing cascades now leveled. Thus, within a few morning hours, quake, fire, and flood had destroyed one of the major ports of Europe. Deaths from this destruction were, in the days immediately following the events, estimated to be as high as 50,000 or more. A systematic, contemporary attempt through parish surveys to account for the dead was unsuccessful due to its uneven application. Modern estimates now go as low as 5,000 or 15,000 for the fatalities from this disaster. However, not only death but also fear, hunger, and disease followed the destruction. To flee the conflagration and repeated tremors, thousands tried to escape the city for the countryside, struggling over blocked roads and passages. Prisoners escaped from jails and assaulted the living and the dead. Food could not be brought into the city. The thousands who had been injured but not killed languished without care, hospitals having been destroyed and caregivers having fled or been killed. Infectious diseases began to spread. Rebuilding. The king’s principal minister, Sebastião de Carvalho, later known as the Marquis of Pombal, energetically took control of recovery and rebuilding. Public health needed immediate attention. Bodies that had not burned in the fires were collected onto boats that were sunk in the Tagus. The army was called in to put out fires and clear streets and passages of debris. Anyone caught stealing was immediately executed. Prices for food and building materials were fixed. Field tents for shelter and feeding were erected. The reconstructors of the city gave priority to replanning its layout. The new plan eliminated the old twisting, narrow streets. The flat central part of the city was redesigned to have straight streets that crossed at right angles in a grid pattern. These streets were 60 to 40 feet wide. Near the harbor area a spacious plaza was built, called Commerce Square. 382
1755: The Lisbon earthquake To expedite construction, buildings were prefabricated. The sizes of doors, windows, and walls were standardized. To protect these buildings against future earthquakes, their inner frames were made of wood that could sway but not break under pressure. The style of building for these structures was a kind of simple or plain baroque and came to be known as “pombaline.” These buildings were made according to the most advanced standards of hygiene so that there was adequate circulation of air and measures for sanitation. Because of the great wealth that Portugal commanded from its colonies, principally Brazil, Lisbon and other Portuguese cities recovered relatively quickly. Consequences. One consequence of the Lisbon earthquake was that as the result of the extensive rebuilding, the city’s port and central area came to be among the best planned and constructed in eighteenth century Europe. Another consequence affected economic nationalism. Great Britain dominated Portuguese imports of manufactured goods. Indeed, much of the wealth that Portugal received from Brazil passed to English hands due to these purchases of British goods. To pay for the rebuilding, a tax was placed on the import of certain British products. This measure sought not only to raise reve-
A 1755 engraving titled The Ruins of Lisbon shows a tent city outside the quakeravaged port, criminal activity, and wrongdoers being hanged.
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1755: The Lisbon earthquake nue for reconstruction but also to make British goods more expensive and thereby encourage the production of native Portuguese products at a relatively lower price. The consequences of the earthquake were felt not only in terms of engineering and economics but also in theology and philosophy. In fact, it was in these areas that the quake had its most resonant social significance. No sooner had the quake struck than the clergy of Lisbon began preaching that the disaster represented the wrath of God striking against the city’s sinful inhabitants. So strong was the fervor of these preachers that they aroused parts of the populace into paroxysms of hysterical fear. This hysteria made dealing with the crisis in an organized, rational manner difficult. The civil authorities begged the clergy not to preach such fear, but their admonitions were only somewhat successful. Western Europe as a whole was in the midst of a period known as the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason. Pombal, with his rational, utilitarian views of government, was representative of this movement. Confronting the religious hysteria, reasonable men argued that the Lisbon earthquake needed to be studied not as a supernatural event but as a natural one. They demonstrated that thunder and lightning were known to be natural events, so an earthquake should also be considered as such. The Lisbon earthquake thus prompted a great debate between the emerging rational forces of the modern age and the declining religious emotions of the medieval. A further philosophical debate also occurred among those who were followers of the Enlightenment. Many of them believed that in a reasoned, organized world everything happened for the best. Thus, they explained that while the earthquake in Lisbon was a horrible disaster, it nonetheless resulted in a rebuilt and modernized city. Others argued that one could not be so sanguine and optimistic about the world. Among the leading voices of this point of view was the French philosopher and poet Voltaire. In a long poem written immediately after the earthquake and in a later, famous novel, Candide (1759; English translation, 1759), he argued that the Lisbon tragedy proved the existence of irrational, totally unbeneficial evil in the world. Voltaire’s hero, Candide, voyages the world, traveling throughout Europe, America, and Asia, encountering perils and dangers at every 384
1755: The Lisbon earthquake corner. He is in Lisbon during the earthquake. Numerous times he or his friends are tortured or almost killed. People around them lead miserable lives. He pursues a girl for a love that is ultimately futile. Accompanying Candide is a teacher, the philosopher Pangloss, who believes that everything that happens in the world happens for the best. Pangloss adheres to this belief to the end of the novel, despite all the horrors he witnesses. Ultimately, therefore, the reader of Candide learns that the superficiality and rigidity of the thought of Pangloss and people like him betray the inherent error of their position. Voltaire maintained that it was naïve and self-serving to say that evil was always balanced by good. There were people everywhere who suffered for no reason and who would never be compensated for their suffering. He argued that those who believed that everything that happened was for the best were those who wanted to keep things as they were, who wanted acceptance of the status quo. Such an attitude ignored those who suffered under the conditions of the present and failed to respond effectively to alleviate their suffering. If ignored over a long period, such suffering could prove unbearable and violent. In relation to these arguments it should be noted that less than half a century after the Lisbon earthquake, the suffering and outrage of these masses burst forth against the Old Regime in the French Revolution. The Lisbon earthquake resounded in Europe not only as a physical event but also as a cultural one. Its force shook not only the earth but also men’s minds, in terms of old and new ideas. Edward A. Riedinger For Further Information: Braun, Theodore E. D., and John B. Radner, eds. The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755: Representations and Reactions. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 2005. Brooks, Charles B. Disaster at Lisbon: The Great Earthquake of 1755. Long Beach, Calif.: Shangton Longley Press, 1994. Davison, Charles. Great Earthquakes, with 122 Illustrations. London: Thomas Murby, 1936. Dynes, Russell Rowe. The Lisbon Earthquake in 1755: Contested Meanings of the First Modern Disaster. Newark: Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, 1997. 385
1755: The Lisbon earthquake Kendrick, T. D. The Lisbon Earthquake. London: Methuen, 1956. Laidlar, John, comp. Lisbon. Vol. 199 in World Bibliographical Series. Oxford: ABC-Clio Press, 1997. Mullin, John K. “The Reconstruction of Lisbon Following the Earthquake of 1755: A Study in Despotic Planning.” Planning Perspectives 7 (1992): 157-179.
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■ 1783: Laki eruption Volcano Date: June, 1783-February, 1784 Place: Southern Iceland Result: Gaseous volcanic haze and its effects killed over two-thirds of the nation’s livestock and caused a year of famine, resulting in 10,000 dead
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celand is an island nation that sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the north Atlantic Ocean. As the ridge and seafloor spread apart here at the rate of 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) per year—at the rift where the North American Plate is drifting westward and the Eurasian Plate is drifting eastward—Iceland is also on top of a hot spot of magma (molten rock) in the mantle below. It is thus one of the world’s most volcanically active locations, on an island plateau formed primarily of basaltic lava rock. It is a land of volcanic fire and glacial ice, which is regularly reminded of the power and challenge of natural events—volcanoes, earthquakes, glacial flooding, and severe weather. There are over 150 volcanoes in Iceland that have been active since the last ice age—ending about ten thousand years ago—and about 30 of them have erupted since settlement of the island, primarily by Vikings of northern Europe, eleven hundred years ago. Iceland has an eruption, on the average, every five years or so. The 1783 Eruption. It was here in 1783 that the largest lava eruption and flow of humankind’s recorded history occurred. This geologic event devastated the agricultural environment, resulted in an ensuing famine in which over one-fifth of the nation’s people died, and even altered the climate of the Northern Hemisphere for a couple of years. That latter consequence—the effect of volcanism on climate change—was speculated on for the first time in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin, then was seriously studied and explained after the 1980’s, two hundred years later. In early June of 1783, there were a number of small earthquakes in the region of the volcano Laki in southern Iceland. Its crater peak 387
1783: Laki eruption was undistinguished, rising only about 656 feet (200 meters) above its surroundings. Trending up to the northeast was a volcanic zone of fractured earth’s crust where the plate-tectonic spreading of Iceland was inexorably occurring. About 30 miles (50 kilometers) to the northeast, now under the large Vatnajökull (“Vatna glacier”), was the occasionally active volcanic region called Grimsvotn. On June 8, fissures from Laki and extending to the southwest began erupting lava, which flowed down the Skafta River Valley. There was little explosive venting of ash. In the area, fairly remote and sparsely settled, the event was termed the Skaftareldar (“Skafta fires”). Then fissuring and erupting lava appeared from Laki toward the northeast, with the lava flowing down the Hverfisfljot River Valley. Lava flowed southward as far away as 37 miles (60 kilometers) before cooling enough to congeal and then solidify to rock. The zone of fissures and the 110 to 115 erupting volcanic craters and vents extended 15 miles (25 kilometers) in total, with Mount Laki about in the middle. By the time of the cessation of lava flows, eight months later in February, 1784, the Lakagigar (“Laki craters”) eruption had produced a volume of basaltic lava of 434,368 cubic feet (12.3 cubic kilometers), mostly erupted in June and July, plus 10,594 cubic feet (0.3 cubic kilometers) of ashfall. The latter is solid-rock equivalent; the actual volume was about 30,017 cubic feet (0.85 cubic kilometers). That volume of lava is the largest of any eruption in recorded history. The volume of ashfall, while only a small part of this event, is itself about the same as the ashfall from the Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington State in 1980. The lava flow covered 217 square miles (565 square kilometers), to an average depth of 72 feet (22 meters). That volume of lava would fill Yosemite Valley, California, to a depth of 984 feet (300 meters), or cover Washington, D.C. (61 square miles), to a depth of 256 feet (78 meters), or the state of Delaware (2,000 square miles) to a depth of 21 feet (6.3 meters). The Icelandic lava field from Lakagigar is now a jagged, jumbled plain of lava. It is mostly covered by a growth of lichens and moss, the only vegetation that can establish itself even after a couple of centuries because of the northern-latitude climate and slowness of rock weathering to soil there. Aftereffects. The massive eruption itself caused no deaths and little damage. However, it did produce the most severe environmen388
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tal effects, and threat to health and life, that Iceland has experienced in its one thousand years of documented human history. The huge lava outpouring of the summer of 1783 was accompanied by some ashfall, which could be carried farther afield to affect crops and grasslands for grazing. More significant was the enormous amount of gas vented. The gases included carbon dioxide and water vapor, as well as unusually large quantities of the toxic gases sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, and fluorine. It is estimated from chemical analysis of the volcanic products that 130 million to 490 million tons of sulphur dioxide and 5 million tons of fluorine were released into the atmosphere. Sulphur dioxide reacts with water vapor to produce sulphuric acid, a prime component of acid rain. Ejected high in the atmosphere, the result can be a sulphuric acid aerosol of tiny droplets. As a result of the gas-rich eruption, a bluish haze or “dry fog” enveloped Iceland and drifted eastward over northern Europe for the winter months. In Iceland, the combination of volcanic ash and gases stunting grass and ruining pastures and fluorine contaminating the grass caused grazing livestock to be both starved and slowly poisoned. Half the nation’s cattle and three-quarters of the horses (used for transportation) and sheep (used for wool and meat) perished. The 389
1783: Laki eruption loss of livestock, the damage to croplands, the short growing season in this northerly climate, and a severe winter combined to produce a devastating famine in the country. In the next couple of years, 10,000 people died—over one-fifth of the total population of 49,000—from starvation and disease, as well as the effects of the haze. As a postscript to the great “haze famine” of 1783-1784, it might be noted that almost a century later, in 1875, Mount Askja—northeast of Laki in central Iceland—had an explosive eruption. Its 6.2-milediameter crater showered 70,629 cubic feet of ash over much of eastern Iceland. The resulting near-famine prompted many Icelanders to immigrate to the United States and Canada. Long-Term and Global Effects. There was to be a more widespread, and unexpected, consequence of the massive 1783 eruption; it was a precursor to modern discussions of atmospheric conditions and global climate change. The sulfur-dioxide-produced acidic aerosol “dry fog” that reached Europe was more annoying than poisonous there, but it was present for much of the summer and fall of 1783. While it and some ash were carried over Europe by the prevailing winds—giving Scotland the “Year of the Ashie” and dropping ash dust in Italy, 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Iceland—haze was spread as far as central Russia. Benjamin Franklin was American representative to France and the court of King Louis XVI from 1778 to 1785. A scientist, as well as an author, printer, statesman, diplomat, philosopher, and contributor to the cause of the recent American Revolution and its subsequent government, Franklin noted the prevalent blue haze and the abnormally cold and severe winter in Europe in 1783-1784. He speculated on a possible link between the “smoke” (fine ash and haze), perhaps being from the Iceland eruption the preceding year, and the cooling effect it might have on weather. He wrote a paper, “Meteorological Imaginations and Conjectures,” which was subsequently delivered for him at a learned conference in Manchester, England, in December, 1784. It included the following: During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when the effect of the sun’s rays to heat the Earth in these northern regions should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America. The fog was of a permanent
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1783: Laki eruption nature; it was dry . . . [The rays of the sun] were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it, that when collected in a burning glass [lens] they would scarce kindle brown paper. . . . The cause of this unusual fog is not yet ascertained . . . whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing to issue during the summer from Hecla in Iceland [Mount Hekla, a well-known volcano not erupting at the time, is just to the west of the Laki area], and that other volcano which arose out of the sea near that island [there had been a new volcano erupt and emerge from the sea off southwest Iceland in the spring of 1783], which smoke might be spread by various winds over the northern part of the world is yet uncertain.
The scenario now understood is that some major volcanic eruptions can eject enough sulphur dioxide to produce a sulphate (sulphuric acid) aerosol layer into the stratosphere, where it can reside for months or even a few years. This acts to absorb, or backscatter, the warming radiation from the sun, so there is less heating of the underlying troposphere—our zone of weather. This can result in global climate cooling in at least a belt of latitudes by a couple of degrees for many months, and thus in cooler local weather. Volcanic ash can also help to screen out incoming solar radiation, but except for an extraordinary explosion (such as dust from a large meteorite impact on Earth) it usually does not rise high enough or last in the stratosphere long enough to have a significant climate effect. The Lakagigar eruption may be the most dramatic example in historical time of this connection between volcanically induced atmospheric change and the resulting climate cooling. In addition to the pronounced cooler winter in Iceland and much of Europe, the winter temperature during 1783-1784 in the eastern United States was 7 degrees Fahrenheit below the 225-year average there. Similar detectable, but more modest, climate-cooling effects—by a degree or two for a couple of years, from ash and gas producing a high-altitude “mist”—were noticed for the eruptions of Krakatau in Indonesia in 1883, El Chichón in southern Mexico in 1982, and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. It is believed that the magma for the Laki eruption had migrated and flowed laterally through crustal cracks opened by the ongoing tectonic rifting as Iceland spread apart astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. 391
1783: Laki eruption The origin was probably the large active hot spot under the volcano Grimsvotn, under the Vatnajökull glacier. If the great 1783 Laki eruption had been localized under the glacier, the eruption would have been much more explosive—producing more ash as well as the gas— and would have created great ice melting and massive flooding. In early October, 1996, there was a modest subglacial eruption near Grimsvotn, not far from the Laki eruption site. This one lasted for two weeks, caused subsidence of the overlying glacier over a fissure zone about 4.4 miles (7 kilometers) long, and produced a glacier burst of subglacial meltwater that flooded out and caused $15 million in damage to bridges, roads, and utility systems. A similar event had occurred there in 1938. Robert S. Carmichael For Further Information: Jacoby, Gordon, and Rosanne D’Arrigo. “The Laki Eruption and Observed Dendroclimatic Effects of Volcanism.” In Volcanism and the Earth’s Atmosphere, edited by Alan Robock and Clive Oppenheimer. Washington, D.C.: American Geophysical Union, 2003. Decker, Robert, and Barbara Decker. Volcanoes. 4th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Scarth, Alwyn. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Sigurdsson, H. “Volcanic Pollution and Climate—the 1783 Laki Eruption.” EOS/Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, August 10, 1982, 601-602. Thorarinsson, S. “The Lakagigar Eruption of 1783.” Bulletin Volcanologique 33 (1969): 910-927. Witham, C. S., and C. Oppenheimer. “Mortality in England During the 1783-4 Laki Craters Eruption.” Bulletin of Volcanology 67 (2005): 15-26. Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle, and Donald Theodore Sanders. Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002.
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■ 1811: New Madrid earthquakes Earthquakes Date: December 16, 1811-March 15, 1812 Place: Missouri; also Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee Magnitude: Estimated 8.6 (December 16, 1811), 8.4 (January 23, 1812), 8.8 (February 7, 1812), with other quakes estimated up to 7.0 Result: 1,000 estimated dead, 5 settlements and 2 islands destroyed
I
n 1811, the New Madrid region encompassed the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as the territories of Missouri, Mississippi, Indiana, and Illinois. Within this sparsely populated region, the town of New Madrid, Missouri, with a population of about 1,000, dominated boat traffic on the Mississippi River from the mouth of the Ohio to Natchez, Mississippi. Founded in 1789 by Colonel George Morgan, New Madrid was the third-largest city between St. Louis and New Orleans. It was situated at a point where high banks seemingly would protect it against even the highest flood and at a point where the current brought river traffic close to the western bank on which the town stood. Farmers, hunters, and fur trappers came to the town for supplies; riverboats stopped to buy and sell provisions. New Madrid County stretched from the Mississippi River to within 30 miles of what would become the Missouri state western border. It included land 60 miles deep into what became Arkansas. Settlers in the entire county numbered only 3,200, but census figures did not include unknown numbers of slaves and Native Americans. These figures also would not have included isolated hunters and fur trappers. The Earthquakes. In 1811, scientific knowledge could not have provided information about the New Madrid seismic zone, which includes northeastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois, western Tennessee, and western Kentucky. The towns of Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Carbondale, Illinois; Paducah, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; and Little Rock, Arkansas, mark the boundaries of the zone; only Cape Girardeau existed in 1811. The unique events of 393
1811: New Madrid earthquakes 1811 and 1812 brought this zone, later, to national attention. The number of earthquakes and tremors, the length of time they continued, and the geographic area affected made the New Madrid earthquakes unique in U.S. history. The sparse population and the absence of multistory buildings were credited for the low death rate, about 1,000, during the quakes. In addition, many settlement residents had moved from log homes into tents after the initial quake. The death rate, however, may have been far higher than contemporary or later estimates. Deaths among Native Americans, slaves, and travelers on the Mississippi are not known. The first tremors were felt about 2 a.m. on December 16, 1811. According to an anonymous New Madrid resident writing to a friend, the earth moved, houses shook, and chimneys fell, to the accompaniment of loud roaring noises and the screams and shouts of frightened people. At 7:15 a.m., a more serious shock occurred. The shocks would continue. The Richter scale for measuring earthquake intensity had not been invented, but, in Louisville, Kentucky, engineer and surveyor Jared Brooks devised an instrument to measure severity, using pendulums and springs to detect horizontal and vertical motion. Working in Louisville, hundreds of miles from the probable epicenters, he recorded 1,874 separate shocks between December 16, 1811, and March 15, 1812. In New Madrid, according to eyewitness reports, quakes were an almost daily occurrence until 1814. The most violent shocks were felt on December 16, 1811; January 23, 1812; and February 7, 1812. Epicenters for the first two quakes were probably in northeastern Arkansas, about 60 miles south of New Madrid; the last was most likely in southern Missouri. Eyewitnesses reported experiencing nausea and dizziness, sometimes severe, from the constant motion, saying that they could not maintain their balance during the worst of the quakes. Fissures, some as long as 600 to 700 feet, appeared in the earth. Various accounts told of eerie lights, dense smog, sulfurous smells, and darkness at the time of the quakes. Many pointed to unusual animal behavior before the quakes. Naturalist John Jacob Audubon, riding in Kentucky, was one of several people who found that horses refused to move for moments before the quakes. Bears, wolves, panthers, and foxes appeared in some of the settlements. After the quakes, panicked animals presented problems. 394
1811: New Madrid earthquakes General Geographic Effects. Settlements along the Mississippi River were obliterated by quakes and subsequent flooding or landslides. Other settlements were abandoned. Little Prairie, Missouri, was destroyed on December 16, 1811. As water rose, almost the entire population of the town fled, wading through waist-deep water, carrying children and belongings. They were surrounded by wild animals and snakes also struggling for their lives. Among humans and animals alike, the sick and injured had to be abandoned. The Little Prairie refugees finally reached New Madrid on Christmas Eve, only to find that town in ruins. New Prairie eventually was entirely flooded by the Mississippi River. Big Prairie, Arkansas, near the later town of Helena, was destroyed the same day, also by flood. Point Pleasant, Missouri, was destroyed by bank slides into the Mississippi on January 23, 1812, and in January and February, Fort Jefferson, Kentucky, was lost to landslides. New Madrid itself suffered serious damage from December through February and was finally obliterated by floods in April and May, 1812. Decades later, New Madrid was reestablished north of the original site. Other settlements, such as Spanish Mill, Missouri, were abandoned when their economic base was destroyed. As the configurations of river channels changed, Spanish Mill was left without enough water to run its mill and without direct access to river traffic. The land was also changed by the formation of many new lakes, some of them large, during the course of the quakes. These included Big Lake, on the Arkansas-Missouri border, 10 miles long and 4 miles wide, and Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, 65 square miles when first formed. Native Americans reported that their villages were destroyed and that many persons drowned in the formation of the lakes. Elsewhere, large tracts of ground sank. Near Piney River, Tennessee, 18 or 20 acres sank until treetops were level with surrounding ground; the same thing happened to a smaller tract on the Illinois side of the River near Paducah, Kentucky. Ultimately, the earthquakes were felt over an area of about 1 million square miles, including two-thirds of what were then the United States and its territories. Residents of St. Louis, approximately 200 miles from the epicenter, felt the first shocks around 2:15 a.m. on December 16, 1811. Windows and doors rattled, some chimneys were destroyed, and some stone buildings fell. At Natchez, Mississippi, 300 miles south, four shocks were felt on December 16. Tremors were felt 395
1811: New Madrid earthquakes from Washington, D.C., to Boston, Massachusetts; and from Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, north to upper Canada and south to Mexico and Cuba. To the east, considerable damage was reported in Louisville, Kentucky. In Cincinnati, Ohio, the first quake tore down chimneys; the quake of February 7, 1812, destroyed brick walls. Almost 800 miles away, in Washington, D.C., residents woke on December 16, 1811, to the slamming of doors and the rattling of furniture and dishes. Dolley Madison, wife of U.S. president James Madison, was awakened by the shock, which also caused scaffolding around the U.S. Capitol to collapse. The quakes triggered landslides in North Carolina, where, at the statehouse in Raleigh, legislators adjourned, alarmed by the building’s motion. In Charleston, South Carolina, clocks stopped, furniture moved, and church bells rang. During the severe quake of February 7, bells rang in Boston, more than 1,000 miles from New Madrid. The River and River Traffic. While damage to the Mississippi River and to river traffic was probably more severe than to the land itself, the extent is unknown. The number of boats, workers, and passengers and the amount of cargo on the river is impossible to gauge. Traffic probably was heavy, however, since the Mississippi was the only efficient means of transportation between the midwestern United States and the Gulf of Mexico. Contemporary accounts point to dramatic effects of the earthquakes. One anonymous traveler saw violent movement of boats at the moment of the first quake. As the traveler watched, massive trees snapped in two. Another, hearing the crash of trees and the screaming of waterfowl, watched as riverbanks began their fall into the water. Eyewitnesses reported that the water changed from clear to rusty brown and became thick with debris tossed up from the bottom. Dead trees shot up from the riverbed into the air. Fissures, opening at the river’s bottom, created whirlpools; water spouted. The quakes also created great waves, which overwhelmed many boats. The largest of the quakes caused the river to heave and boil. The Mississippi was too dangerous to navigate after dark. River maps were unreliable; stumps and sandbars could shift. Thus, boats moored for the night. Those moored to river islands remained relatively safe, but many boats moored to the western shore were crushed by falling banks. 396
1811: New Madrid earthquakes The most terrifying experience occurred on February 7, 1812, when the most violent of the quakes caused a huge series of waves in the river, in a phenomenon called a fluvial tsunami. This began about 3:15 a.m., when boats were still moored. Flooding New Madrid, the tsunami caused the Mississippi to run backward for a period that seemed, to observers, to last several hours. Lakes were created as the river poured into newly formed depressions, and thousands of acres of forest were dumped into the turbulent water. The quake created temporary waterfalls, one about half a mile north of New Madrid and the other 8 miles downstream. A boatman, Captain Mathias Speed, had experienced the tsunami. Forced to cut his boat loose from the sinking bar to which it was moored, he found himself moving backward up the river. Safe on shore, he watched the disastrous effects of the waterfalls. River pilots had no way to anticipate the new hazards. Speed and his men counted 30 boats going over the falls. Twenty-eight capsized in the three days before the falls vanished as the river bottom settled. Those on shore could do nothing except listen to the screams for help. There were few survivors. The first of the quakes, however, helped prove the value of steamboats. The New Orleans, commanded by Nicholas Roosevelt, was making its initial Mississippi River voyage in December of 1811. Provided with 116 feet of length, a 20-foot beam, and a 34-cylinder engine, as well as intelligent navigation, the boat arrived safely at New Orleans, despite the pilot’s despair because all the normal navigation markers of the river had vanished. Since no one along the river had previously seen steam-driven craft, some blamed the subsequent disasters on the steamboat. By the end of the quakes, the configuration of the river was altered. Many small islands vanished without a trace. Of the larger islands, some several miles in length, two were lost. Island No. 94, known as Stack or Crows Nest Island, inhabited by river pirates, disappeared on December 16, while island No. 32, off the Tennessee shore, disappeared on the night of December 21 while the New Orleans was moored there. Elsewhere, dry land became swamp, and wetlands were uplifted and dried. Smaller rivers that had flowed into the Mississippi were diverted, the shape of New Madrid Bend was changed, and three inlets to the Mississippi were destroyed. Betty Richardson 397
1811: New Madrid earthquakes For Further Information: Bagnell, Norma Hayes. On Shaky Ground: The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996. Fuller, Myron L. The New Madrid Earthquake: A Scientific Factual Field Account. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912. Logsdon, David, ed. I Was There! In the New Madrid Earthquakes of 18111812 (Eyewitness Accounts by Survivors of the Worst Earthquake in American History). Nashville: Kettle Mills Press, 1990. Page, Jake, and Charles Officer. The Big One: The Earthquake That Rocked Early America and Helped Create a Science. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Penick, James, Jr. The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812. Rev. ed. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981. Stewart, David, and Ray Knox. The Earthquake America Forgot: 2,000 Temblors in Five Months. Marble Hill, Mo.: Guttenberg-Richter, 1995.
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■ 1815: Tambora eruption Volcano Date: April 5-11, 1815 Place: Sumbawa, Indonesia Volcanic Explosivity Index: 7 Result: 92,000 dead
T
ambora is located on Sumbawa Island near the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. For at least five thousand years prior to its great 1815 eruption, the volcano had exhibited only minor activity. This prolonged dormant period, however, set the stage for what is, to date, the world’s largest known historic eruption and also its most deadly. Tambora, even today, is relatively remote and was much more so when the eruption took place. Nevertheless, a chronology of the events of that time have been pieced together by correlating the volcanic layers deposited during the eruption with eyewitness observations as reported by Sir Thomas Raffles, who in 1815 was the Dutch East Indies’ temporary lieutenant governor. Tambora began showing signs of life in the form of minor rumblings and earthquakes several years prior to the 1815 eruption, but the events that quickly led to the cataclysmic eruption began with an enormous explosion on the evening of April 5, 1815. The eruption produced a column of ash that raced upward 20.5 miles (33 kilometers) into the atmosphere. Although this was only a preliminary stage to the main eruption and it lasted just two hours, more ash was produced than during the entire Vesuvius eruption of 79 c.e., which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. Following this brief, violent outburst Tambora fell relatively silent until the evening of April 10, 1815, when, at about 7 p.m., an extremely violent explosion sent a plume of ash to an altitude of about 27 miles (44 kilometers). Observers reported columns of flame rising to a very great height from the crater and a rain of ash and pumice. As the violent eruption continued, the throat of the volcano became increasingly cleared of debris and grew wider, allowing it to 399
1815: Tambora eruption S tr a i
PALAU PHILIPPINES
t o f
M
al ac
Kuala MALAYSIA Lumpur
Pacific Ocean Malucca Islands
ca
Medan
BRUNEI
Manado
Singapore
Aceh
Borneo
Pontianak
Sumatra
Celebes
Samarinda
Jayapura
Palembang
Banjarmasin
Indian Ocean
Irian Jaya
Jakarta Java Sea
Java
Bandung Yogyakarta
Makasar Surabaya Lombok
INDONESIA
Tambora Bali Sumbawa
Lesser Sunda Islands
Arafura Sea
Kupang Timor
Timor Sea
PAPUA NEW GUINEA Port Moresby
Gulf of Carpentaria
eject ever-increasing amounts of ash, pumice, and rock. By about 10 p.m., three hours into the climactic event, the volcanic plume became so loaded that its density exceeded that of the surrounding atmosphere. At this point parts of the volcanic cloud began collapsing under their own weight to produce an incandescent cloud known as an ignimbrite flow. Survivors of the eruption reported this phase of the eruption as appearing like a flowing mass of liquid fire, and high winds attending the ignimbrite flows destroyed building and uprooted trees. The ignimbrite plunged down the volcanic slopes in all directions and out across the sea, where it interacted with water to produce steam explosions. These detonations hurled fine ash upward, dispersing it widely and plunging the region into two to three days of darkness. Ignimbrite flows entering the sea are also believed to be responsible for the mild tsunamis of from 3.3 to 13 feet (1 to 4 meters) in height that were recorded in the eastern Indonesian area during the eruption. Tambora continued in violent eruption for about twenty-four hours with repeated explosions that were heard up to 1,616 miles (2,600 kilometers) away. About 1.8 million cubic feet (50 cubic kilometers) of magma was expelled from beneath Tambora and exploded into the atmosphere as some 5.3 million cubic feet (150 cubic kilometers) of porous ash and pumice. As a result, the unsupported central part of the volcano collapsed, reducing the volcano’s height from an estimated 14,107 feet (4,300 meters) to 9,383 feet (2,860 meters), and forming a caldera 3.7 by 4.4 miles (6 by 7 kilometers) in diameter and more than 3,609 feet (1,100 meters) deep. Tambora’s caldera is similar in size to Crater Lake, Oregon, but it contains only a 400
1815: Tambora eruption small lake that comes and goes with the seasons and vents that still send vapors up along the caldera walls. About 92,000 people, the greatest loss of any volcanic eruption to date, are estimated to have died on Sumbawa and the nearby island of Lombok. At least 10,000 people are believed to have perished directly from the volcanic blast and from the tsunamis it generated. Most of these fatalities occurred on the island of Sumbawa, where ignimbrite flows covered all but the western coast of the island. An estimated additional 38,000 people on Sumbawa and 44,000 on nearby Lombok died as a result of starvation and disease following the eruption. Moreover, the lingering effects of Tambora’s fine ash and sulfur dioxide are believed to have had an affect on global weather patterns during the following year or two. As with the caldera-forming eruption of Krakatau sixty-eight years later, spectacular sunsets and prolonged twilights were noted as far as England in the months following the Tambora eruption. The stars appeared less bright, and sunlight was dimmed to such an extent that sunspots were visible to the naked eye, even when the sun was well above the horizon. The geographic location of Tambora, only slightly south of the equator, allowed its eruption cloud to be dispersed in the stratosphere above both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres. Although an examination of temperature records and sunlight reduction suggests that the eruption of Tambora reduced global average temperatures in 1816 by less than 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius), much colder weather was experienced in eastern Canada and New England. The summer of 1816, in fact, brought such misery to parts of North America and Europe that it became known as the Year Without a Summer. Snow fell as far south as western Massachusetts in June of 1816, and northern New England experienced frost in July and again in August. Warm-weather birds were killed, and crops, particularly corn, were lost to the freezing weather. Cold, wet weather also affected Western Europe, where there were crop failures and famine. Ireland’s famine led to a typhus outbreak, which by 1819 had become a European epidemic afflicting 1.5 million people and killing 65,000. The European wine harvest was unusually late, food was in short supply, and there was public violence related to food shortages. Those who could pursued indoor activities during the dank, dark, and 401
1815: Tambora eruption stormy summer of 1816, but they too were affected. In Geneva, Switzerland, for example, Lord Byron produced a gloomy poem entitled “Darkness,” while his acquaintance Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley worked on the famous gothic horror novel Frankenstein (1818). Eric R. Swanson For Further Information: Fagan, Brian. The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Francis, Peter, and Clive Oppenheimer. Volcanoes. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Harington, C. R., ed. The Year Without a Summer? World Climate in 1816. Ottawa, Ont.: Canadian Museum of Nature, 1992. Oppenheimer, Clive “Climatic, Environmental, and Human Consequences of the Largest Known Historic Eruption: Tambora Volcano (Indonesia) 1815.” Progress in Physical Geography 27, no. 2 (2003): 230-259. Stommel, Henry, and Elizabeth Stommel. Volcano Weather: The Story of 1816, the Year Without a Summer. Newport, R.I.: Seven Seas Press, 1983. Stothers, Richard B. “The Great Tambora Eruption of 1815 and Its Aftermath.” Science 224 (June, 1984): 1191-1198.
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■ 1845: The Great Irish Famine Famine Also known as: The Great Hunger, the Great Starvation Date: 1845-1849 Place: Ireland Result: 700,000-1.1 million dead
T
he Great Irish Famine was the worst famine to occur in Europe in the nineteenth century and the most severe famine in the history of European agriculture. Indeed, some scholars argue that it was one of the greatest human ecological disasters in the history of the world. In addition to mass starvation, the Great Irish Famine changed the social and cultural structure of Ireland through eviction, mass emigration, and a heightened sense of Irish national awareness. It also hastened the end of the centuries-old agricultural practice of dividing family estates into paltry plots capable of sustaining life only through the potato crop. This natural disaster, caused by a disease known as late blight (Phytophthora infestans) resulted in the country’s potato-crop failure in successive years between 1845 and 1849. Ireland’s population of almost 8.5 million people in 1844 plummeted to 6.5 million by 1850. Although historical sources differ (250,000-2 million dead), during the famine about 1 million people died from starvation, typhus, and other famine-related diseases. In addition, as many as 1.5 million of Ireland’s people immigrated to English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia, because of the famine. Historical Background. When the New World white potato (Irish potato), native to the Andes Mountains in South America, was introduced into Ireland in the seventeenth century, the new crop flourished in the damp Irish climate, quickly becoming the country’s major food source. Before the introduction of the potato, beef, milk, butter, and buttermilk were the staples of the Irish diet. The potato grew in ever-increasing importance during the 1600’s and 1700’s, and the population exploded. The lower classes became more and 403
1845: The Great Irish Famine
Londonderry
Letterkenny Lifford
Ballymena
NORTHERN
Ardara Donegal
Lough Neagh
(U.K.)
Omagh Lower Lough Erne Upper Armagh Lough Monaghan Erne
Sligo Bangor Erris
Ballina
Lough Conn
Lough Allen Carrick on
Charlestown
Castlebar Westport Claremorris Lough Mask
Shannon
Banbridge
Drogheda
Irish Sea
Trim Mullingar
Athlone
Lough Corrib
Galway
Dublin
Tullamore
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Lough Derg Nenagh
Ennistimon
North Atlantic Ocean
Lurgan
Navan
Lough Ree
Roscommon
Bangor
Belfast
Dundalk
Cavan Lough Sheelin
Longford
Tuam
Clifden
Newtownabbey
IRELAND
Donegal Bay
North Channel
Coleraine
Creeslough
Ennis
Naas Port Laoise Wicklow Roscrea
Kilkee
Durrow
Carlow
Arklow
Kilkenny
Limerick Tipperary Caher
Tralee
Clonmel Waterford
Mallow
Bantry
Macroom
Rosslare
Fermoy Dungarvan
Kilarney Kenmare
Wexford
Cork
Youghal
Saint George’s Channel
more reliant on the potato they called the “lumper.” Before the famine, an average Irish man consumed daily between 7 and 15 pounds of potatoes. Children ate potatoes for their school lunch. Since many did not own knives, one thumbnail was grown long to peel the potato. After the potatoes were boiled, they were strained in a basket. The family would gather and sit around the basket in the middle of the floor. Potatoes, accompanied with buttermilk or skim milk, composed the entire meal, which peasant families ate at every mealtime gathering. The historical record leading up to the Great Irish Famine, arguably Europe’s worst natural disaster of the nineteenth century, must 404
1845: The Great Irish Famine be examined so the impact of this tragedy can be understood. Since its colonization of Ireland in the twelfth century, Britain’s primary economic goal was to extract the greatest amount of resources from its colony for the benefit of British and Anglo-Irish landowners. With the loss of its American colonies in 1775, and with the depression that resulted at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Britain’s attempts to increase agricultural profits in Ireland escalated. Seeking to force the Irish into greater submission, the British legislated penal laws that denied the Irish the freedom to speak their own language (Gaelic), to practice Catholicism, to attend school, to hold public office, or to own land. A tenant system was introduced into Ireland that gave British and Anglo-Irish landlords control of 95 percent of Ireland’s land. Landowners who, for the most part, resided in England became known as absentee landlords and rented land to their Irish tenants, providing each tenant family with a cottage. Each cottage was surrounded by an acre and a half of land. Some historians blame the ultimate depopulation of Ireland on the Malthusian notion of overpopulation, arguing that because the Irish population was too high, there was not enough food to feed everyone when the potato crops failed. After 1815, the expanding population increased the competition for land and forced peasant holdings to be divided and subdivided into ever-decreasing lots, eventually forcing many people to move to less fertile areas, where only potatoes would grow. The potato crop needed little labor to harvest, and a small acreage furnished a large crop yield. Some families had to survive on a quarter of an acre of land, and the potato was the only crop that would feed many mouths. Even before the famine, during the 1840’s, it was common for laborers to hunger in the late summer before harvest. In addition, before the famine, housing and clothing were inadequate, and huts and rags were often the norm for the Irish peasants; a bed or a blanket was a luxury. By the beginning of the 1840’s, almost one-half of the Irish population, especially the poor agricultural communities, relied almost solely on the potato—which supplied vitamin C, amino acids, protein, thiamin, and nicotinic acid—for sustenance. In addition, the other half of the population consumed the starchy vegetable in massive amounts. Researchers explain that because of the nutritive value of the potato, Ireland’s population had increased rapidly and 405
1845: The Great Irish Famine reached 8 million by 1841. By then, two-thirds of the population depended on agriculture for sustenance. The Irish economy became completely dependent on the potato, and the failure of the potato crop in 1845 had disastrous results. Causes of the Famine. The causes of famine are numerous and include drought, heavy rain and flooding, unseasonably cold weather, typhoons, and disease. In the late summer of 1845, the Phytophthora fungus, an airborne fungal pathogen that destroys both the leaves and roots (the actual potato) of the potato plant, and which originated in North America, established itself in Ireland, where it commenced to destroy the potato crop. The summer of 1845 also saw unusually cool, moist weather. Blight thrives in such climatic conditions and drastically affects even stored crops. In that season, the potato blight destroyed 40 percent of the Irish potatoes. After it struck in 1845, even more potatoes were planted because the pestilence was not expected to strike again. Unfortunately, the potato crop did fail again in 1846, and the results were even worse in 1847, when 100 percent of the crop was ruined. That year, 1847, when suffering reached its climax, is referred to as “Black ’47.” In all, the potato harvest failed four years in a row, and the peasants had no food reserves. The famine situation continued unabated because of a deficiency of seed potatoes for new crops and the insufficient quantity planted for fear of continued blight. Unfortunately, the availability of only two genetic varieties of potato in Ireland at that time greatly increased the odds of crop decimation by famine. In hindsight, had other varieties of potato been available in Ireland the entire crop might not have failed. Potato blight was not unknown in Ireland before 1845. A famine in 1740-1741 killed a quarter of a million people. The island nation struggled through crop failures and subsistence crises throughout the nineteenth century, including 14 partial and complete famines between 1816 and 1842. Because the Industrial Revolution never reached most of Ireland, there was little opportunity for employment other than agriculture. Effects of the Famine. Although at the beginning of the blight the potato plants appeared green, lush, and healthy, as they did most years, overnight the blight struck them down, leaving acre upon acre of Irish farmland covered with black rot. Leaves curled up and shriv406
1845: The Great Irish Famine eled, black spots appeared on the potatoes, and an unbearable putrefying stench that could be smelled for miles lay over the land. When the fungus had run its course, Irish farmers saw that the crop they relied on for life was destroyed. Ireland was not the only country hit by hardship. Although infected crops were present the United States, southern Canada, and Western Europe in 1845-1846, the results were not nearly as severe or deadly as in Ireland. While other countries turned to alternative food sources, the Irish were dependent on the potato, so the results of the blight were disastrous. As harvests across Europe failed, the price of food soared. The hardest hit were the landless laborers who rented the small plots of land to feed themselves and their families. When their crops failed, they had to buy food with money they did not have, and prices continued to rise. Although in 1845 only part of the entire Irish potato crop rotted in the fields, as the years went on the blight continued unabated. When much more devastating crop failures followed in 1846 and 1847, millions lost everything: their homes, their few belongings, their families, and eventually their lives. The hardest hit regions were the south and the west of Ireland. During this time, roughly 1 million people, previously well fed on a diet made up primarily of potatoes, died. Peasants forced to eat the rotten potatoes fell ill. People died of starvation in their houses, in the fields, and on the roads. Disease became rampant and widespread, and most who suffered from long starvation finally surrendered to typhoid, cholera, dysentery, or scurvy. Entire villages fell victim to cholera and typhoid. Indeed, more people died of disease than of starvation. Money became so scarce that the dead were often buried without coffins. Some sources record that during the worst of the famine, peasants died in the night and their bodies would be found in the morning partially devoured by rats. As time went on, unmarked mass graves became the resting place for many Irish. At the worst in 1847, the dead were being buried in trenches. The famine together with the accompanying plagues became known as the Great Famine to the British, the Great Hunger to the Irish middle class, and the Great Starvation to the Irish peasantry. Results of the Famine. Before the famine struck, nearly half of all rural families lived in windowless, one-room cottages owned by 407
1845: The Great Irish Famine landlords who were often ruthless. Also before the famine, some peasants were able to grow plots of oats or raise pigs to pay for the rent to their British landlords. After the famine, families who relied on the potato to keep themselves alive were left with nothing and had to choose between either selling their food to pay the rent or eating the food and facing eviction. If tenants failed to pay the landlord, the family was thrown out on the road and their homes were immediately burned to the ground so they could not return. During the Great Hunger, approximately 500,000 people were evicted, many of whom died of starvation or disease, while many others were relocated to poorhouses. The British government legislated the Coercion Act in support of landlords who evicted those who failed to pay their rent. It also provided British soldiers and a police force to oversee the eviction of tenant farmers. Landlords evicted hundreds of thousands of starving peasants, who then flocked to disease-infested workhouses or perished on the roadside. Many times only grass made up their last meal. The streets swarmed with wretched, unsightly, half-naked beggars or, as they have been called, “the living skeletons” of the Irish. Villages were demolished; Cottages crumbled in ruins, abandoned by their tenants. Britain provided financial assistance to Ireland in the form of loans amounting to 365,000 pounds sterling. In an effort to encourage an infrastructure to promote industrialization and modernize Ireland and avoid public revolt, the British government set up public works projects. However, these schemes proved useless because they were designed to not interfere with private enterprise. For instance, bridges were built over nonexistent rivers. Today, roads built by impoverished peasants—going from nowhere to nowhere—can still be viewed as part of the Irish landscape. For their efforts, the laborers received such low wages that they could hardly buy enough food to live on. In addition, this work was available to only a small percentage of the population. For example, in one Irish county, Kerry, in 1846, 400,000 people applied for 13,000 public works jobs. In March of 1847, the public works schemes were abandoned. The responsibility to feed and house the poor fell to various charities. During the famine, 173 workhouses, built adjacent to dangerous fever hospitals, were constructed throughout Ireland. Some were so 408
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In this 1880 Harper’s Weekly cover, a woman on the Irish shore beckons for help with her starving family at her feet and the specter of death looming over the country. (Library of Congress)
overcrowded and inadequate that one workhouse in County Limerick, built to accommodate 800 occupants, housed over 3,000 destitute people. Workhouse residents were fed watery oatmeal soup and were forced to wear prisonlike uniforms. Families were split 409
1845: The Great Irish Famine apart into male and female dormitories. Soup kitchens were set up throughout Ireland by religious groups such as the Quakers. However, many times the soup was so weak that it was of little nutritional value. Even this inferior food did not meet the demand as crowds waited for hours outside the distribution centers. By August, 1847, as many as 3 million people accepted food at soup kitchens. Although soup was given free to the infirm, widows, orphans, and children, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1847 maintained that no peasant with a holding of one-quarter of an acre or more was eligible for relief, which resulted in tens of thousands of farmers parting with their land. In its own efforts to alleviate Ireland’s famine, the United States imported cornmeal, or Indian corn, which somewhat eased the food shortage, but the Irish found it unpalatable. The Emigration of the Irish. Emigration was the only alternative to eviction or the poorhouse. Although the practice predated the famine, emigration rose to over 2 million from 1845 to 1855. When landlords began to issue notices to their tenants to appear in court for nonpayment of rent, the fear of imprisonment caused families to flee their homes for English towns and cities, and if they had the money, to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Most who emigrated did so at their own expense and sent money back to their relatives to follow them. Although during the famine more than 1 million Irish fled their country, many of the Catholic peasantry remained in their native land. The Catholic Church in part discouraged emigration out of fear that the Irish would lose their faith if they lived in Protestant Britain and America. The famine, however, continued to drive new waves of emigration, thus shaping the histories of the countries where Irish immigrants found new homes. The peak rate of emigration occurred in 1851, when 250,000 left Ireland, continuing through the 1850’s and into the 1860’s. Centuries after the famine, the far-reaching impact and results are evident in the number of Irish descendants scattered throughout the globe. Even emigration proved no remedy for the plight of the starving Irish. According to British Poor Laws, landlords were responsible for 12 pounds a year support for peasants sent to the workhouses. Instead, some landlords sent their tenants to Canada at a cost of 6 410
1845: The Great Irish Famine pounds each. Many of those who survived later made their way across the Canadian border into the United States. Desperate Irish often crowded onto structurally unsafe, overcrowded, understocked, disease-ridden boats called “coffin ships.” Thousands of fleeing Irish carried diseases aboard or developed fever on the voyage. Many never saw land again or died shortly after they reached their destination. In several cases, these vessels reached the end of their voyage after losing one-third to one-half of their passengers. The survivors arrived in North America hardly able to walk, owing to sickness and starvation. The streets of Montreal, Canada, were filled with impoverished emigrants from Ireland, many with typhoid. The Grosse Île, Quebec, fever hospital was overrun with sick and dying infants. In August of 1989, during an address on Grosse Île, Dr. Edward J. Brennan, Ireland’s ambassador to Canada, called the Great Famine Ireland’s holocaust and the Irish people the first boat people of modern Europe. Irish Anger Rises. The famine convinced Irish citizens and Irish Americans of the compelling necessity for intensified national awareness and political change. The poor did not readily accept their fate; food riots broke out, and secret political and militant societies increased their activity. Some greatly alarmed Irish believed that the potato would be permanently destroyed. Spiraling crime and disobedience were countered with repression and violence. The unemployed roamed the country, begging and sleeping in ditches. Fifty thousand British soldiers occupied the country, backed up in every town and village by an armed police force. Landlords were shot. During one of the worst famine years, landlord Major Denis Mahon was assassinated by his tenants following his attempt to mass-evict 8,000 of his destitute tenants from his 30,000-acre estate. Ireland was in ruins. Although the British government spent an estimated £8 million on Irish relief, ineffective measures aimed at alleviating its neighboring island’s distress resulted in deep and increased hostilities against British rule. Particularly disturbing was the increased exportation of Irish grain and meat to Britain during this time of famine because the starving Irish people could not afford to purchase these provisions themselves. Landowners continued to make profits through the export of Irish food as well as wool and flax. Historical records show that all through the famine, food—wheat, oats, barley, butter, eggs, beef, 411
1845: The Great Irish Famine and pork—was exported from Ireland in large quantities. In fact, eight ships left Ireland daily carrying food that could have saved thousands of lives. About 4,000 shiploads of food sailed into Liverpool alone in the darkest famine year, 1847. Despite famine conditions, taxes, rents, and food exports were collected in excess of £6 million and sent to British landlords. During the famine, an average of 2 million tons of wheat were annually shipped out of Ireland, an amount that could have fed the whole population. One scholar claimed that for every ship that came to Ireland with food, there were six ships sailing out. The British government’s Coercion Act ensured that British soldiers and a police force were used to protect food for export from the starving. Responsibility for the Famine. Many historians still place blame on Britain for allowing so many of Ireland’s population to die. After all, Ireland was at this time part of the United Kingdom, the wealthiest empire in the world. Although the British government provided relief for Ireland’s starving, it was severely criticized for its delayed response; their efforts to relieve the famine were insufficient. For instance, the first step the British took to relieve the catastrophic situation was to send a shipload of scientists to study the cause of the potato failure. The British were further condemned for centuries of political oppression of Ireland as the underlying cause of the famine. Starvation among the peasants was blamed on a colonial system that made Ireland financially and physically dependent on the potato in the first place. The Irish patriot labor leader James Connolly argued that the British administration of Ireland during the famine was an enormous crime against the human race. No doubt insensitivity toward the Irish contributed to Britain’s failure to take swift and comprehensive action in the force of Ireland’s disaster. Charles Trevelyn, secretary of the British Treasury during the famine, claimed outright that the government’s function was not to supply food, and Lord Clarendon, Viceroy of Ireland during the famine, referred to the evictions and emigrations that resulted from the famine as a blessing for the Irish economy. Additionally, although Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel attempted relief efforts in 1845 and early 1846 by repealing the Corn Laws (protective tariffs that enabled the Irish to import grain from North America), his successor, the liberal Lord John Russell, supported a policy of 412
1845: The Great Irish Famine nonintervention, in keeping with the laissez-faire philosophy that dominated the era’s British economic policy. Government officials maintained the belief that it was counterproductive to interfere in economics and placed the burden of relief for the starving peasantry unto the Irish landowners. Historians today are attempting to shed light on the reasons behind the famine, stressing that although the potato crop failed, a state of famine per se did not exist in Ireland, because other food, such as grain, poultry, beef, lamb, and pork, was available. Basically, there was no shortage of food. Profits, some scholars stress, came before people’s needs, and while the blight provided the catalyst for the famine, the disaster was essentially human-made—the Irish people were the victims of economics, politics, and ignorance. Well-known Irish short-story writer Frank O’Connor once observed that “famine” is a useful word used instead of “genocide” or “extermination.” The author John Mitchell in 1861 declared that the Irish people died of hunger in the midst of food they themselves had created, and in 1904 Michael Davitt, the founder of the Irish Land League, called the Irish famine a holocaust. Long-Term Consequences of the Famine. The famine proved to be a watershed in the demographic history of Ireland. Ireland’s population continued to decline in the decades following the famine, owing to emigration and lower birth rates, which ultimately allowed for increased landholdings. By 1900, 2.5 million more of Ireland’s people had crossed the Atlantic. By the time Ireland achieved independence in 1921, its population was barely half of what it had been in the early 1840’s. In their new homes, emigrant men were provided with manual labor jobs on construction sites, roads, and railways, while Irish women were hired as domestics. In time, Irish emigrants found opportunities for success never known in their homeland. For instance, automobile tycoon Henry Ford’s grandfather was one such Irish famine emigrant, as was twenty-six-year-old Patrick Kennedy, the great-grandfather of President John F. Kennedy. The famine was the most tragic and significant event in Irish history. Mary Robinson, the president of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, described the famine as the instrumental event in shaping the Irish as a people, defining their will to survive and their sense of human vul413
1845: The Great Irish Famine nerability. No one can fully voice the extent or the severity of the suffering endured by the Irish people from 1845 to 1850. M. Casey Diana For Further Information: Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Donnelly, James S., Jr. The Great Irish Potato Famine. Phoenix Mill, Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2001. Gray, Peter, and Sarah Burns. The Irish Famine. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. Kinealy, Christine. The Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52. New York: Roberts Rinehardt, 1995. O’Cathaoir, Brendan. Famine Diary. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998. Tóibín, Colm, and Diarmaid Ferriter. The Irish Famine: A Documentary. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Valone, David A., and Christine Kinealy, eds. Ireland’s Great Hunger: Silence, Memory, and Commemoration. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2002. Woodham-Smith, Cecil, and Charles Woodham. The Great Hunger: Ireland, 1846-1849. New York: Penguin, 1995.
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■ 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire Fire Date: October 8, 1871 Place: Peshtigo, Wisconsin Result: At least 1,200 dead, 2 billion trees burned
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t 9 p.m. on October 8, 1871, a forest fire that had developed into a rapidly moving firestorm swept over the small lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The fire began almost at the same minute as the Great Chicago Fire, which was raging some 240 miles to the south, and a similar forest conflagration burning to the east in Upper Michigan. Within half an hour Peshtigo was destroyed. The fire that engulfed and destroyed Peshtigo, Wisconsin, ranks as the deadliest fire in United States history to date. More than 1,200 people perished in the fire, and over 2 billion trees covering 1.25 million acres were destroyed. By the morning of October 9, 1871, the Peshtigo and Michigan fires combined to destroy 3.5 million acres of forest lands. Peshtigo was a company town. The Peshtigo Company sawmill was owned by Chicago entrepreneur William B. Ogden and ran 97 saws, averaging a daily cut of 150,000 board feet of lumber. In addition, Ogden was principal owner of a three-story woodenware factory in Peshtigo. At the time it was the largest woodenware factory in the United States, producing thousands of wooden tubs, pails, shingles, clothespins, and broom handles daily. Lumber company officials, concerned for the safety of the factory and lumber mills located in the area, convened a management council to discuss the possible fire danger, but no decisive plan of action was agreed upon other than to clear a 30-foot-wide firebreak along the north side of the Peshtigo River and to fell trees in the immediate vicinity of the mills. Conditions Leading to the Fire. During the late 1800’s, the practice of clearing scrub brush and slash-and-burning in grassland regions of the eastern Dakotas, compounded by a year of regional drought and atypical meteorological conditions, established an environmental condition that started a chain reaction of unchecked prai415
1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire
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rie fires that burned through the weeks of August and September, 1871. Driven by the prevailing westerly winds, the fires crossed the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers into drought-inflicted areas of oldgrowth timberlands to the east and north. These forest fires spread rapidly by crowning, or traveling between treetops, then dropping to the ground and starting more intensive fires from the additional fuel on the forest floor. Strong thermal updrafts then carry sparks and firebrands to ignite more fires. Communications in this region of the country were almost nonexistent. It was not uncommon for major fires to take a minimum of several days, and often several weeks, to be reported in metropolitan newspapers. The only warning of swift-moving fires was often issued by stagecoach and railroad passengers, or by those fleeing the fire’s 416
1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire rapid advance. As a result, these great fires moved eastward unchecked and relatively unannounced. By September 1, 1871, a series of great interlinked prairie fires stretched from the Canadian border through Iowa and remained unreported to the communities far ahead. By the end of the first week of September, 1871, the sky from the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan, throughout northern Wisconsin, and as far south as Chicago, Illinois, and South Bend, Indiana, were choking under a cloud of smoke. During the early days of September several small jump fires, caused by burning firebrands carried high into the sky by fire-generated convection currents and then blown downrange by prevailing winds, had occurred west of Peshtigo. The forests surrounding Peshtigo were thick-barked, old-growth timber, which were usually not harmed by ordinary forest fires. Fires were often considered a nuisance rather than a threat. On September 23, 1871, a jump fire came within several miles of Peshtigo. A firebrand from this fire ignited the main sawdust pile of the Peshtigo Company, but the fire was extinguished by a bucket brigade of 60 men. After this episode the management of the Peshtigo Company, now mindful of the potential danger of the advancing range and forest fires and the unchecked spread of smaller slash fires caused by nearby railroad construction, ordered large barrels of water placed by the side of every business establishment, bunkhouse, and hotel. Flammable goods were packed in crates, moved from company-owned stores to the riverside, and covered with dampened earth. As a lumber town, Peshtigo was constructed almost entirely of timber-frame buildings, wood-shingle roofs, and wooden sidewalks. The roads were covered with sawdust and wood chips to control mud formation and dust. Workers at the local bank dug holes in the soil beside their buildings into which they could dump money and valuables if fire reached Peshtigo. Many families soaked woolen blankets and laid them over their cedar-shingled cabin roofs. However, by September 25, the winds abated, veered to the southeast, and the direct fire threat to Peshtigo was removed. With the exception of a small fire the next week, ignited by careless railroad workers, mill operations and daily life returned to normal in Peshtigo. Autumn weather in the U.S. upper tier states is dominated by shifting winds as advancing cold fronts plunge southward 417
1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire from the Arctic and meet moist tropical winds moving northward from the Gulf of Mexico. The clash of these air masses typically results in cold rains and churning winds, until winter snows begin. In 1871, however, the autumn rains did not arrive; drought conditions existed throughout the central United States. In the east, as far as New York City and Boston, the air was smoke-laden from the great fires burning unchecked to the west. Great Lakes shipping traffic was being negatively affected by the thick smoke because ships were unable to safely enter harbors due to poor visibility. Yet the fires continued to burn unchecked. The Fire Reaches Peshtigo. Just prior to 9 p.m. on the evening of October 8, 1871, a fine ash began to drift over Peshtigo. There was no wind, and the ash settled like a fine snow. Residents noted that as the ash fell wild birds and pet animals began to utter noises and act in frantic bursts of behavior. Then the sky to the southwest began to turn a dark red color, silhouetting the surrounding trees against the dark of night. Unknown to the residents of Peshtigo, over 300 families in the nearby Sugar Bush communities were being engulfed in a raging firestorm with flames estimated to have reached a height of over 200 feet. There is no record of what happened in Sugar Bush; nearly every resident of the communities perished in a matter of minutes as they tried to flee the advancing firestorm along the road to Peshtigo. There was no warning in Peshtigo. The firestorm raced northeastward, spreading in all directions as it consumed old-growth trees and drought-ridden underlying ground cover. Winds accompanying the advancing fire, and driving it forward, are estimated to have been of hurricane velocity, swirling in gusts of over 100 miles an hour and even higher in the center of the firestorm. Survivors of the fire reported that the previously still evening air suddenly developed a slight breeze, at which time the air instantly became very hot; survivors equated the rush of heat to that of a blast furnace. This was accompanied by a low moaning sound from the southwest, which grew louder, building to a deep rumbling roar like a train approaching from the distance. It was reported that as the roaring sound escalated, the sky to the west of Peshtigo flashed a brilliant red color almost blinding in its intensity, then faded to a glowing yellow as bright as the sun. Within seconds a violent wind struck the 418
1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire town, and the forest surrounding Peshtigo was engulfed in a wall of rolling and tumbling flames hundreds of feet high, moving at tremendous velocity. The rushing wind was so strong that trees were uprooted, roofs were lifted off of houses, and chimneys blew over. The Effects of the Fire. Many of the buildings in Peshtigo were reported to have simply exploded into flames; one second they were standing, the next they were blown apart into flaming pieces of debris. The tremendous heat of the oncoming firestorm ignited the wooden bridge and the wooden railroad trestle crossing the Peshtigo River while still nearly a mile away. It has been estimated that the forward edge of the firestorm may have been close to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As Peshtigo erupted into flames the glow could be seen as far away as Menominee and across Green Bay to Door County. The mill, wooden structures, sawdust-covered streets, and pineplank sidewalks leapt into flames, cutting off the escape routes of many Peshtigo citizens. Many people tried to seek shelter within buildings. Though the Peshtigo River was being engulfed by walls of
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
A drawing of the Great Peshtigo Fire that appeared in an 1871 issue of Harper’s Weekly. (Wisconsin Historical Society/#3728)
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1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
A deer carcass and charred tree trunks are all that remain of the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, following the fire. (Wisconsin Historical Society/#1859)
flame and jammed with toppled burning logs, it was the only location to offer any hope of safety. Humans, pets, draft and farm animals, and forest denizens all rushed to reach the river’s waters. It was impossible to flee from the fire—it was moving too fast. Survivors reported seeing humans and animals running toward the river simply burst into flames. Other eyewitness accounts describe the thermal updrafts and convection currents of the fire as twisting like tornadoes. Others reported that the air seemed to be aflame as balls of fire would appear out of nowhere and suddenly disappear or as hot gases struck a supply of oxygen not yet consumed by the advancing firestorm. The Peshtigo River was deep, and many of those who reached it drowned quickly. Others were injured by panicked animals, carried away by the current, or struck by logs and debris. Those citizens who 420
1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire reached the river slapped their hands on the water’s surface and splashed each other in an attempt to cool their skin and hair. Many stripped off clothing and wrapped it around their heads to keep their hair from bursting into flames from the intense heat. Even with a continuous soaking of water, skin and cloth dried out almost immediately from the terrific heat. Flaming debris falling into the river burst into steam. When the woodenware factory exploded, it showered those in the river with flaming tubs, pails, shingles, and broom handles. Within the town, anyone who sought shelter in a structure died. In one tavern, over 200 victims were trapped and incinerated. Only those who found refuge in the river and several more who struggled to a nearby marsh survived the inferno. Within twenty minutes, the town of Peshtigo had been obliterated, and at least 1,200 citizens had perished. After nearly six hours, the few survivors climbed out of the water and waited until dawn for the ashes to cool so the search for possible survivors and noncremated bodies could begin. Three victims were found in a large water tank near the mill, but the water had become so hot that all of them died. Several people were found dead under similar circumstances at the bottom of a well. Many of the bodies were found huddled at the bases of trees. Most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. As a result, 350 victims of the fire were buried in a mass grave. Many victims who were not cremated died of suffocation as oxygen was sucked out of the air and into the firestorm. While the Peshtigo fire was the most deadly fire in American history, its destruction was overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire that raged out of control the same night. For weeks after the disaster, the nation’s press paid little attention to Peshtigo while devoting major coverage to the Chicago fire. The governor of Wisconsin was eventually forced to issue a special proclamation begging the nation to divert their charity and gifts from Chicago to Peshtigo. Though much is known about the existing meteorological and environmental conditions at the time of the tragic Peshtigo fire, a new theory was offered in the late 1990’s concerning the cause of the super outbreak of firestorms the night of October 8, 1871. Based on eyewitness accounts, regional observations, damage patterns, and 421
1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire the curious circumstance of several large conflagrations all igniting at approximately the same time over a wide, yet confined, geographic area, some investigators suggested the firestorms may have resulted from a Tunguska-like atmospheric meteor explosion. Randall L. Milstein For Further Information: Gess, Denise, and William Lutz. Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History. New York: Henry Holt, 2002. Lyons, Paul R. Fire in America. Boston: National Fire Protection Association, 1976. McClement, Fred. The Flaming Forests. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969. Pernin, Peter. The Great Peshtigo Fire: An Eyewitness Account. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1999. Soddens, Betty. Michigan on Fire. Thunder Bay, Ont.: Thunder Bay Press, 1998. Wells, Robert W. Fire at Peshtigo. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
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■ 1871: The Great Chicago Fire Fire Date: October 8-10, 1871 Place: Chicago, Illinois Result: 250 dead, more than 17,420 buildings destroyed, more than 100,000 left homeless, more than $200 million in damage
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ndoubtedly one of the most crushing catastrophes ever to strike the city of Chicago, Illinois, was the Great Chicago Fire that raged for three days, from October 8 until October 10, 1871, twice jumping the Chicago River and igniting buildings on the other side. The city, tinder-dry after a virtually rainless summer and early autumn, had grown very rapidly as the United States experienced a great western expansion. Buildings erected quickly to house the heavy influx of new residents and to meet the requirements of the city’s burgeoning industrial and commercial enterprises were often flimsy structures that served an immediate and pressing need but could not withstand the ravages of a raging fire propelled by strong winds. When the final tally was in, 250 people lay dead, thousands were homeless, an estimated 17,420 buildings had been destroyed, and property damage was set at over $200 million, an inconceivably large sum at that time, representing about one-third of the city’s total worth. The fire put the mettle of the city to an extreme test. Many thought this catastrophe would mark the death knell of Chicago as a major transportation crossroads and industrial hub. The city, however, soon emerged stronger than ever, fully meeting the challenge posed by its great loss. The Chicago of 1871. In 1871, Chicago was unquestionably a boomtown. A decade earlier, it had been the site of the 1860 Republican National Convention, at which longtime Illinois resident Abraham Lincoln was nominated to run for the presidency of the United States. By 1870, its population of 334,000 exceeded that of St. Louis, Missouri, the only other contender in the Midwest for the title of metropolis. The city, intersected by the Chicago River, with Lake Michi423
1871: The Great Chicago Fire gan on its eastern border, enjoyed a virtual monopoly in transportation, with ships coming from the eastern United States by way of the Great Lakes and railroads from the East converging in Chicago with those serving the West. The city’s industries produced meat, lumber, shoes, farm machinery, and scores of other items. Chicago was also among the country’s largest distributors of farm products. In the year of the fire, Chicago sprawled over some 23,000 acres, on which nearly 60,000 buildings had been erected. The overall property value of the city at that time was slightly more than $600 million. Prosperity was evident on every hand, and an ebullient optimism was in the air. People had flocked to Chicago because it offered them a better life than they could find almost anywhere else in the United States, certainly better than they could anticipate anywhere else in the Midwest. Immigrants from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Italy, and Greece poured into the city, which could offer them the immediate opportunity of employment. Beginning and Spread of the Fire. Shortly after 9:00 on the evening of October 8, 1871, a fire broke out in a barn behind the cottage of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary at 137 De Koven Street in the southwestern part of the city, a working-class neighborhood whose humble structures were mostly wooden. Close to De Koven Street were planing mills, lumberyards, and furniture factories, all of which could add fuel to any flames that might rage near them. When the alarm was sounded, the fire brigade rushed to the scene, realizing the danger that any such fire might pose when the town was so dangerously dry following a prolonged drought. A mere 2.5 inches of rain had fallen between July 3 and October 8, whereas normal rainfall for that period was between 8 and 9 inches. Only the night before, nervous spectators watched as 5 acres burned violently very close to the O’Leary barn, the site of the new fire. Persistent legend has it that the fire in the O’Leary barn began when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern that ignited some nearby hay. This bit of lore has never been substantiated, although it is altogether possible that this was the actual origin of the fire. What is known for sure is that when the fire bells sounded, the firefighters, exhausted from having fought a blaze that destroyed four blocks of the city the day before, arrived to find an inferno that was spreading rapidly. It was hoped that when the flames reached the four blocks 424
1871: The Great Chicago Fire
Chicago in Flames—The Rush for Lives over Randolph Street Bridge. (John R. Chapin)
that had been devastated the night before, the fire would be brought under control, but this was not the case, although this four-block barrier prevented the flames from spreading to the west, which was spared the worst of the damage during the conflagration. By 10:30 on the evening of October 8, less than two hours after the first alarm was sounded, the fire on De Koven Street was declared out of control. Nearby residents were urged to evacuate their homes, but many, accustomed to hearing the fire warnings several times a week, paid little heed to the admonitions to flee, convinced that the danger was not great. The fire raged so strongly that by 11:30 a wall of flames had jumped the Chicago River and advanced into the business district. What made the fire of October 8 an extraordinary one was that it was fed by gale-force winds out of the southwest that soon caused the great bursts of flames to become walls of fire. The air quickly became superheated; blinding ash and swirling dust were blown into people’s faces by the fierce winds, blinding them and making breathing all but impossible; the force of the flames created a roar like that of a runaway locomotive. Soon those who had gone to their beds blandly assuming that this was just another fire found themselves facing a situation from which many could find no escape. The wind was so 425
1871: The Great Chicago Fire strong that no one could outrun it. Turmoil and confusion gripped all of those downwind from the fire as it proceeded in a northeasterly direction. Before it was over on October 10, the fire, driven by the strong winds, had twice leaped across the Chicago River, proceeding as far as Fullerton Avenue, the city limits, and stopping only when it reached Lake Michigan to the east. It left a burned area 4 miles long and 0.66 mile wide. An estimated 1,687 acres had been burned by the fire, and nearly everything on those acres had been reduced to ash.
Frightened residents of Chicago flee the flames of the Great Fire, carrying what possessions they can. (Library of Congress)
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1871: The Great Chicago Fire Great Peshtigo and Western Michigan Fires. It is a matter of mere coincidence that as the Great Chicago Fire was raging, another fire brought on by the dry conditions and high winds that plagued the Midwest on October 8, 1871, was raging north of Chicago in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a small lumbering community north of Green Bay. This fire, once ignited, spread with such rapidity that there was no way to control it. The pine forests that surrounded the town provided ample fuel for the conflagration. As the flames hit the trees, they actually exploded, their sap igniting like gasoline. As it turned out, the Peshtigo fire, although it is less well known than the Great Chicago Fire, was the most devastating in the history of the United States. It resulted in over 1,200 deaths. Everyone in its path perished. The Chicago fire received more publicity than the Peshtigo fire merely because Chicago was a commercial and transportation center through which many Americans had passed, thereby becoming familiar with it. The Peshtigo fire wiped out an entire small community; the Chicago fire almost destroyed a major metropolis. On the evening of October 8, yet another fire erupted in western Michigan. This forest fire in a sparsely populated area claimed few lives, but it left nearly everyone in the area homeless, some 15,000 people losing their residences to the advancing flames. All sorts of rumors circulated about these three coincident fires. In each case, a parched landscape had somehow been ignited. Any parched landscape is vulnerable, sometimes being set ablaze by a lightning strike. Some thought that a comet had struck the earth or a meteor had exploded in the atmosphere. Extent of the Damage. Despite the vast destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire, a few buildings in the city’s central part remained in its wake, among them the Chicago Water Tower, which stands to this day as a city landmark. Ironically, the De Koven Street residence of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary was spared by the fire, although almost nothing was left standing around it. The famed Palmer House was completely destroyed, but the Michigan Avenue Hotel, whose panicked owner sold it for what he could get as the fire advanced, came through unscathed, much to the gratification and profit of its new owner, John B. Drake. It was saved because buildings adjacent to it were demolished before the fire arrived. Only two of the exclusive residences on the elegant north side of 427
1871: The Great Chicago Fire Chicago, home to such notable families as the Ogdens, the Ramseys, the McCormicks, and the Arnolds, remained standing after the fire. The courthouse, which had been built at a cost of $1 million and whose bell had announced such memorable and historic events as the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, was destroyed, its bell crashing down from its dome at 2:30 a.m. on October 9. Crosby’s Opera House, Hooley’s Theater, and the Washington Street Theater also went up in flames. The celebrated Field and Leiter Department Store on State Street was soon consumed by the advancing fire, along with some $2 million worth of merchandise with which it was stocked. One of the major problems posed by the fire was that the wind propelled it in such unpredictable directions that firefighters often found themselves caught by a raging inferno in front of them and another such inferno behind them. The speed with which the flames spread was phenomenal. The dry, wooden buildings that lay in its path virtually exploded when the fire reached them. Early Warnings About Flimsy Construction. Chicagoans had been warned well in advance about the dangers inherent in many of the buildings that had been built in great haste to accommodate the city’s rapid expansion. The Chicago Tribune, whose own headquarters were completely destroyed by the fire, had warned its readers in a blistering editorial a month before the disaster that many of Chicago’s brick buildings were only one brick thick. Their facades frequently crumbled and fell into the streets below. The cornices on many stone buildings had collapsed as the buildings weakened, sometimes crashing into the street and injuring pedestrians who happened to be in their paths. Some of Chicago’s most imposing buildings were impressive shells whose construction was so substandard that, had the fire not consumed them, they would surely have collapsed in the normal course of everyday use. The city’s cast-iron buildings were not well secured on their foundations, so that even they were rapidly deteriorating and in some cases rusting away. If the buildings in the business district were shoddy, residential construction throughout the city, particularly in the working-class neighborhoods such as De Koven Street, was even worse. Residential construction on the tonier north side of Chicago around Dearborn, 428
1871: The Great Chicago Fire Rush, Ontario, Cass, and Huron Streets seemed elegant at first glance, but most of the mansions in these exclusive neighborhoods had been built more for show than for safety. The houses on the north side of town were filled with valuable furniture, oriental rugs, paintings, statuaries, and tapestries, but these priceless treasures were displayed in buildings that would go up in flames instantly in the sort of dire situation that marked the Great Chicago Fire. It took just flames and a strong wind to turn Chicago’s most illustrious neighborhood into a field of smoldering rubble. Firefighting Methods in 1871. Certainly, given the firefighting equipment of that day, there was little chance of controlling a fire that advanced as quickly as the Great Chicago Fire. Much fire fighting at that time was done by bucket brigades, lines of people who passed buckets of water toward a fire. This meant that those fighting the fire, which generated a killing heat and which moved so rapidly as to threaten everything in its path, had to stand close enough to the conflagration to throw water upon it. By 1871, Chicago was more advanced than many cities in its firefighting equipment. It had fire engines with steam-powered pumps to direct water onto fires that were burning out of control. However, these pumps were no match for the walls of flame that stretched nearly a mile wide in some places during the Great Chicago Fire. By 3:00 on the morning of October 9, the pumps of Chicago’s waterworks on Pine Street had failed, so the steam fire engines had little or no water to use in fighting the blaze. The only salvation now seemed to be Lake Michigan in the east, where the fire would necessarily stop. This natural barrier was some 4 miles from the fire’s origin on De Koven Street. Looting and Drunkenness in the Face of Disaster. As the Great Chicago Fire advanced, chaos broke out in the city. Distraught citizens poured into the streets. The owners of saloons, fearing that the advancing crowds would ransack their establishments, rolled barrels of whiskey into the streets, where the assembled crowds drank freely from them. Soon the streets were filled with drunkards, many of whom thought that the end of the world was nigh. Soon wholesale looting began as the less honest of the spectators broke into shops and residences, taking from them anything of value that they could carry away. Some of these miscreants, running away 429
1871: The Great Chicago Fire with their loot, misjudged the extent and speed of the fire and were burned in their tracks as they tried to escape. It was not until October 11 that Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan led five companies of infantry, which had been rushed from Omaha and Fort Leavenworth, into the city where, declaring martial law, they were accorded all of the authority of the police department. The city’s most respected citizens welcomed Sheridan and his troops after living for three days in a lawless and chaotic environment. These troops maintained order in the city for the next two weeks. The imposition of martial law was deemed necessary because, although there was little left in the city to loot, many citizens feared that professional criminals and confidence men might flood into town trying to rifle buried safes and vaults and trying to exploit the homeless. Some thoughtful citizens, however, feared that it was dangerous to place a city under martial law in peacetime because soldiers had not been trained to deal with urban populations. They had been schooled to deal with enemies, and it was feared that they might now, under martial law, act as though innocent citizens were the enemies. End of the Fire. On the morning of October 10, the fire was beginning to burn itself out. At its northeastern extreme, it had been stopped by Lake Michigan. On the morning of the 10th, a steady rain fell upon the city, quenching most of the lingering flames. As survivors straggled along the shores of Lake Michigan trying to find friends and family, they found that people, blackened by the smoke, were virtually unrecognizable. Many who had fled toward the lake as the flames moved in an easterly direction sought refuge on the beaches, but these beaches became so overheated that the only way for people to survive was to immerse themselves in the freezing waters of the lake, sometimes staying immersed for hours. The morning was brisk and damp. Survivors of the fire huddled in shock in a cemetery near Lake Michigan that had recently been emptied of its corpses so that a park, eventually to become Lincoln Park, could be built. As they began to take stock, they realized not only that some 250 lives had been lost and many of the city’s business establishments and residences destroyed but also that art museums, archives, public records, libraries, and other valuable and irreplaceable assets had been lost to the flames. Much personal property entrusted to bank vaults for safekeeping 430
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The corner of Dearborn and Monroe Streets after the Great Chicago Fire.
had been destroyed. The Federal Building at the northwest corner of Dearborn and Monroe Streets, which housed a major post office and a customs house, was no more. Inside it, over $1 million in currency had been incinerated. It is not surprising that some people thought Chicago could not rise from its ashes, but those who thought the matter through realized that its ideal location as an inland port would assure its endurance as a city of considerable note. Aftermath. Remarkably, despite the massive havoc that the Great Chicago Fire wreaked, the city’s infrastructure remained virtually intact. The water and sewer systems continued to operate, despite the temporary disabling of the Chicago Waterworks during the fire. Transportation facilities, both ports and railways, still connected Chicago with the rest of the country. 431
1871: The Great Chicago Fire Had the sewer system been destroyed by the fire, epidemics might have broken out. Had the water system been severely compromised, the city would have been brought to its knees. As it turned out, however, Chicago was in an excellent position to rebuild. Before rebuilding, however, the legislature would pass ordinances that imposed stringent building codes upon those who were to reconstruct the city. One of the outcomes of the fire was the election the next month of Joseph Medill as mayor of Chicago. Medill ran on a platform of stricter building codes and fire prevention and won handily, although one might question the validity of the vote—voting records had been lost in the fire so that allowing people to vote was a matter of faith. People who showed up at the polls and claimed to be registered voters were permitted to vote as long as they met two requirements: They had to be male and they had to be or appear to be of age. The central business district of Chicago was laid waste by the fire. This main part of the city was built south and west of the Chicago River and extended as far as the railroad that ran along Lake Michigan to the east. Besides being the city’s main shopping district, with its array of department stores and specialty shops, it was the home of a number of national corporations and of the renowned Chicago Board of Trade. This part of the city was now a shambles. A total of 3,650 buildings were destroyed in the central part of the city alone. Some 1,600 stores went up in flames, and 60 factories that employed thousands of people were totally destroyed. Temporary headquarters had to be set up for many businesses as plans were made to rebuild, this time with structures that passed the strict new fire codes that had been put into place as a result of the recent disaster. Six thousand temporary structures were quickly erected to house the thousands of homeless and to provide at least minimal shelter for the businesses whose buildings had been destroyed. The elegant north side of Chicago accommodated almost 14,000 dwellings before the fire, ranging from the lakeside mansions of the rich to the humble cottages of those who served them. This section of town incurred the most substantial damage from the fire. When the flames had subsided, only 500 structures were left standing. Rebuilding Chicago. Before long, a postfire building boom was under way. Such architects as Dankmar Adler, Daniel H. Burnham, and Louis H. Sullivan worked tirelessly to create a new Chicago that 432
1871: The Great Chicago Fire would be the architectural envy of the rest of the nation. The Home Insurance Company Building, opened in 1885, was the first of many steel-frame skyscrapers to be built. Within the next decade, 21 new steel-frame buildings ranging from twelve to sixteen stories in height graced the downtown area, which now has some of the highest buildings in the world, including the famed Sears Tower that rises more than a hundred stories above the street. As an aftermath of the fire, Chicago’s public transportation system also underwent a great revitalization. Trams—horse-drawn, cabledrawn, and electric—began to appear on city streets. The elevated train, which serves thousands of commuters every day, was erected to provide rapid transportation to the Loop. Within three years of the fire, Chicago had rebuilt sufficiently to regain its stature as the preeminent city in the midwestern United States. Workers poured into the devastated city to help rebuild it. It was not unusual to see hundreds of new houses being built simultaneously in a given area. About 100,000 construction workers raced to build some 10,000 houses as quickly as they could. R. Baird Shuman For Further Information: Balcavage, Dynise. The Great Chicago Fire. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2002. Bales, Richard F. The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002. Lewis, Lloyd, and Henry Justin Smith. Chicago: The History of Its Reputation. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Lowe, David, ed. The Great Chicago Fire: In Eyewitness Accounts and Seventy Contemporary Photographs and Illustrations. New York: Dover, 1979. Murphy, Jim. The Great Fire. New York: Scholastic, 1995. Pauly, John J. “The Great Chicago Fire as a National Event.” American Quarterly 36 (Fall, 1985): 668-683. Sawislak, Karen. Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 18711874. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Waskin, Mel. Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet! Cosmic Explanations for the Great Chicago Fire. Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1984.
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■ 1872: The Great Boston Fire Fire Date: November 9-10, 1872 Place: Boston, Massachusetts Result: 13 dead, 776 buildings destroyed, $75 million in damage
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he Great Boston Fire originated in the basement of a warehouse on the corner of Kingston and Summer Streets near the bottom of an elevator shaft that extended to the attic. The warehouse was about 72 feet high, including a wooden mansard roof, and covered an area of 50 by 100 feet. As soon as the flames entered the shaft, they were carried upwards with tremendous convective force and burst through the roof shortly afterward. The fire spread from the original building throughout the downtown area of the city by five major mechanisms. The primary mechanism of fire spread was from roof to roof by firebrands. A firebrand is a piece of burning material from a building that is carried by convective forces, such as wind, to a nearby building. The firebrands would land on the flammable wooden mansard roofs of adjacent buildings and spread the fire. The second method of fire spread was large tongues of flame that burst through window openings and spread the fire across narrow streets. Third, gas mains exploded in buildings and started new fires in adjacent buildings. It was not until hours into the fire that the gas mains were finally turned off. Fourth, heat was transferred by radiation from buildings on fire across the narrow streets. The fifth means of fire spread was explosions used by untrained personnel in an attempt to make firebreaks. From Summer Street the fire raged north, consuming large areas of Franklin, Milk, Water, and State Streets before being stopped at the doors of historic Faneuil Hall. To the east it spread rapidly along High and Purchase Streets, destroying the waterfront area. The help of fire departments from 30 cities from as far away as New Haven, Connecticut, and Biddeford, Maine, was needed to bring the fire under control. This finally happened at 4 p.m. on Sunday, when it reached Washington, Broad, and State Streets because the engines 434
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The Great Fire at Boston, November 9 & 10th 1872, by Currier & Ives. (Library of Congress)
could draw their water supply directly from the large water mains located there. A large number of water streams could finally be directed at the tops of the burning buildings with adequate pressure to reach the mansard roofs and penetrate through the windows into the interior of the buildings to extinguish the fire. The factors that contributed to the conflagration can be placed into four major categories: urban planning and infrastructure, building and construction, natural factors, and fire service. The streets were very narrow, with relatively tall buildings on all sides. Fire can spread across the narrow openings by convection and radiation once one building is fully involved in a fire. The height of the buildings limited the angle at which hose streams could be projected at them. There was an insufficient water supply in the district where the fire occurred. The area had originally been a residential neighborhood, and the water mains and hydrants were drastically undersized for the amount of combustibles present in the warehouses. Water reservoirs were located under some of the streets, but their capacity was not adequate either. The hoses and hydrants had couplings of different sizes, 435
1872: The Great Boston Fire which prevented the many fire departments assisting in the fire from coupling directly to the hydrants without using adapters. The pipes, which were only 6 inches in diameter to begin with, were restricted to 5 inches in diameter due to corrosion in the aging pipes. The hose streams projected at the buildings could not reach the upper stories or the roofs because of the limited pressure and the older-style hydrants. This was a major factor in the spread of the fire. Once an adequate quantity and pressure of water were available, the fire could be extinguished. The mansard roofs were constructed of wood rather than the stone of the French buildings from which they were copied. The wood frame on the roof presented a large combustible surface to the fire, allowing it to spread rapidly above the heads of the firefighters. Wood trim around windows and doors, as well as timber floors, contributed combustible material to the fire. The granite veneers used on many buildings heated up and broke off or split apart, and the facades collapsed as the veneers separated from the main structure. The warehouse buildings were large, open-plan structures that were filled with great amounts of flammable contents. Compartmentation of the warehouses would have reduced the spread of the fire within the buildings. Another problem was the warehouses’ continuous vertical openings from the basement of the buildings to the roof. Once a fire begins in an open shaft, convective forces will naturally push the fire upwards. The fire will then spread onto intervening floors, moving horizontally as well as vertically, finally penetrating the roof. Natural factors also existed. There was a 5- to 9-mile-per-hour wind the evening of the fire. Currents of air created by the fire gave the appearance of a firestorm or fierce wind. Large amounts of oxygen were drawn into the fire, creating local convective currents. There was a critical delay in sounding the alarm for the fire because the policemen were between shifts. This allowed enough time for the fire to become fully developed in the building of origin before fire department personnel arrived on the scene. Many of the horses used to pull the fire engines were sick, and the engines and pumpers had to be pulled by firefighters from the stations to the fire. The firefighters became fatigued after fighting the fire for over twentyfive hours. The chief engineer could not command the entire fire front on foot. 436
1872: The Great Boston Fire As a result of the hearings held after the fire, the department was reorganized and placed under the Board of Fire Commissioners. All companies in high-value areas were staffed with full-time personnel. A number of new companies, including a fireboat company, were placed in service. Modern equipment was purchased, and additional hydrants were installed on larger pipes to improve water pressure. The fire-alarm system was transferred to the fire department, and district chief positions were made permanent. The board instituted a training program and a separate maintenance department. In 1871 a bureau for the survey and inspection of buildings was established as the first agency to regulate building in Boston. Its authority was greatly expanded after the fire. Strict regulations were put into effect with regard to the thickness of walls and the materials to be used on the exposed portions of buildings. The fire service was reorganized. Boston thus entered the modern age of fire protection for its citizens after learning a valuable lesson in fire prevention from the disaster of 1872. Gary W. Siebein For Further Information: Bugbee, James M. “Fires and Fire Departments.” The American Review, July, 1873, 112-141. Coffin, Charles Carleton. The Story of the Great Fire in Boston, November 9 to 10, 1872. 1872, Reprint. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2005. Lyons, Paul R. Fire in America! Boston: National Fire Protection Association, 1976. Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. The Great Boston Fire of 1872. Dover, N.H.: Arcadia, 1997. Schorow, Stephanie. Boston on Fire: A History of Fires and Firefighting in Boston. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions, 2006.
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■ 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic Epidemic Date: August 13-October 29, 1878 Place: Memphis, Tennessee Result: Over 100,000 cases of yellow fever, over 20,000 dead in the lower Mississippi Valley
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he summer of 1878 was wet and hot in the lower Mississippi Valley. The climate provided the ideal breeding grounds for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which dwelt up and down the Mississippi River. The female Aedes aegypti mosquito is the carrier, or vector, of the yellow-fever disease. When the female mosquito bites a person whose blood contains the yellow fever virus, subsequent bites infect susceptible individuals. However, in 1878, yellow fever, also known as Yellow Jack or the yellow plague, was still a mysterious disease of unknown cause. Yellow fever is endemic to West Africa, and it traveled to the Americas aboard trading ships importing slaves from Africa. With the open water casks on the ships, the mosquitoes easily survived the ocean crossings. Yellow fever then flourished wherever its vector could—where the temperature remained above 72 degrees Fahrenheit and where there was still water for the female mosquito to lay eggs. The symptoms of yellow fever appear three to six days after the bite of an infected mosquito and range from mild, flulike symptoms to a severe, three-stage course of infection. Most Africans and their descendants exhibit mild to moderate symptoms of headache, fever, nausea, and vomiting. However, most victims recover within a few days. For Caucasians, Native Americans, and Asians, the first stage of the infection begins with a fever of 102 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. The fever lasts three to four days and is accompanied by severe headache, backache, nausea, and vomiting. It is during this first stage that the patient is infectious and can pass the virus to a mosquito. In the second stage, which may last only a few hours, a remission of the fever 438
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occurs, the headache disappears, and the patient feels better. Thereafter, in the third stage, the temperature rises rapidly again and the pulse rate drops. The first-stage symptoms recur but in a more severe form. Liver injury from the infection disrupts normal blood clotting, and some patients vomit blood, or a black vomit, and may also bleed from the nose, gums, and spots on the skin. Jaundice from liver and renal failure may yellow the skin, but the color is seldom as pronounced as the name “yellow fever” may suggest. Liver, heart, and renal failure often result in delirium. Most deaths occur on the sixth or seventh day after the reappearance of symptoms. Survivors remain ill for another seventeen to thirty days. Reports of outbreaks of yellow fever in North American port cities began to appear in the late seventeenth century. The plagues in northern port cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, occurred only in the summer because the Aedes aegypti mosquito does not survive after a frost. It was in the tropical climates of the southern United States that the mosquito flourished and caused repeated epidemics. New Orleans’ first reported epidemic occurred in 1796, and over the next century epidemics occurred regularly. Once people knew of the devastation of yellow fever, they lived in dread of its return. For people of the nineteenth century, the greatest fear of yellow fever came from a fear of the unknown—how it came about and how it was spread. What was known about yellow fever was that once it entered a city, it spread rapidly and easily among the people. Yellow Fever Strikes Memphis. Before the Civil War, Memphis had a population of 22,000. By 1878, the population had risen to 48,000. At that time, Memphis was a major hub of cotton production in the United States. The city was located on the Mississippi River—a 439
1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic major trade route—and had three railroad lines. Yellow fever was no stranger to the citizens of Memphis. It had visited Memphis three times before, killing 75 people in 1855, 250 people in 1867, and 2,000 in 1873. As the city grew, the people realized that the attacks of yellow fever were growing worse. Although the disease was not spread from person to person by direct contact, it was understood that people fleeing from a city where yellow fever had struck could spread the disease to another community. Realizing that yellow fever patients must be isolated from other patients, staff members of a British hospital dressed the segregated patients in gowns with yellow patches to warn of their disease. The patients were nicknamed “Yellow Jackets” and the yellow flag flown over the quarantined area was known as the “Yellow Jack.” Cities would also attempt to prevent escapees from other diseased communities from entry and prohibit their own inhabitants from entering affected areas. When outbreaks of yellow fever in the West Indies, islands involved in trade with cities along the Mississippi River, were reported in the late spring of 1878, Memphis began to fear the possibility of another epidemic. Physicians and board of health members argued for quarantine measures. The city council rejected the quarantine so as not to interfere with Memphis’s lucrative trade. In protest, the president of the Memphis board of health resigned his position. Outbreaks of yellow fever were reported in New Orleans by late July; however, a Memphis newspaper reassured the public that the sanitary conditions of the streets and private premises would prevent the arrival of the disease as long as the sanitary laws were enforced. When yellow fever was reported in Vicksburg, only 240 miles away from Memphis, on July 27, Memphis established quarantine stations for goods and people from cities south of Memphis on the Mississippi River. On August 1, 1878, William Warren, a hand on a quarantined steamboat, slipped into Memphis and stopped at a restaurant located in Front Row along the Mississippi River. This small establishment was run by Kate Bionda and her husband, whose main trade was to cater food and drink to riverboat men. On August 2, William Warren became sick and was admitted to the city hospital. His illness was diagnosed as yellow fever, and he was moved to a quarantine hospital on President’s Island, where he died on August 5. Fear began to spread through Memphis as rumors of the riverboat 440
1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic hand’s death multiplied, and on August 9, yellow fever was reported in the city of Grenada, Mississippi—only 90 miles south of Memphis. Again, newspapers tried to calm the public, cautioning them to avoid patent medicines and bad whiskey and to be cheerful and laugh as much as possible. By this time, Kate Bionda, age thirty-four, had become ill. On August 13, in her rooms above the snack shop, she died. A physician saw her, noted her symptoms and her jaundice and, after consulting with other physicians, diagnosed her as the first official case of yellow fever in Memphis in 1878. On August 14, an additional 55 cases of yellow fever were announced. By August 15 and 16, the city of Memphis was in full panic. Thousands of people began to leave the city. There were processions of wagons piled high with possessions. Railroad companies attached extra cars, yet these were not enough for all of the people trying to flee the city. The city council members fled, and one-third of the police force deserted the city. By August 17, four days after Kate Bionda’s death, more than 25,000 people, over half the population of Memphis, had fled the city. However, news of the Memphis epidemic had spread just as swiftly. Other communities established quarantines against those coming from Memphis. Barricades were enforced with shotguns. Railroad trains from Memphis were refused by many cities, and refugees on riverboats were forced to stay on board for months as port after port denied them permission to land. The refugees camped in forests and fled to small towns along the Mississippi River as well as to St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, East Tennessee, and Virginia. Many did carry the yellow-fever virus, and over 100 Memphis citizens died outside the city. When the infected refugees entered areas where the Aedes aegypti mosquito lived, they continued the spread of the disease. Of the 20,000 citizens who remained in Memphis, approximately 14,000 were African Americans and 6,000 were Caucasians. Through the first half of September of 1878, at least 200 people died per day. Survivors of the epidemic described some of the terrible conditions in the city. Carts would be loaded with 8 or 9 corpses in rough-hewn boxes, and the coffins were piled in tiers on the sidewalk in front of the undertaker’s shop. Entire families were wiped out, and many victims died alone, covered with the black vomit characteristic of the disease. 441
1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic Survivors recalled sights of piles of burned clothing and bedding outside houses—each a reminder that someone had died there. At first funeral bells tolled continuously, but the custom was suspended so as not to upset the sick and the dying. The stillness in the streets was occasionally broken by loud blasts of gunpowder, and at night burning tar barrels lit the streets—both futile attempts to clear the air of yellow fever. The weather remained unseasonably hot and humid for September and October, and ironically, one newspaper editor remarked that the mosquitoes were as vigorous and desperate as ever. The African American population, which is usually resistant to the disease, also succumbed to the infection as never before. More than 11,000 African Americans in Memphis were infected, approximately 77 percent of their population. Of those infected, 946 died—a 10 percent mortality rate, considerably higher than in other epidemics. For Caucasians, the mortality rate was around 70 percent, with more than 4,000 deaths among the 6,000 that remained in the city. Other states quickly sent supplies and funds. Aid to the Victims. Volunteer agencies arose to take care of the government and of the sick. The Citizen’s Relief Committee was formed, composed mostly of prominent and wealthy citizens. Their first act was to establish a camp outside the city in an effort to remove any uninfected persons. About 1,000 persons occupied Camp Joe Williams, named for a Memphis physician who died of yellow fever in 1873, and only a few people died in the camp. The committee also assumed command of what remained of the police force. Under command of the African American janitor and cook, thirteen other African Americans were added to the police force. Fear of looting prompted them to call up the local militia, with both white and black companies guarding the city. Because business and commercial activity had ceased, people began to fear starvation. With donations of money and supplies from Memphis and elsewhere, the committee set up a welfare and rations program. The difficult task of medical care was assumed by the Howard Association. Formed in Memphis in 1867, it was patterned after a similar group founded in New Orleans during the yellow fever epidemic of 1837. Its membership was composed mostly of businessmen, and its sole task was to serve in yellow fever epidemics. The members met on the day of Mrs. Bionda’s death and assembled a corps of nearly 3,000 442
1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic nurses and 111 physicians. Seventy-two of those physicians came from other states, because physicians in Memphis had enormous loads of patients. To treat yellow fever, many physicians relied on heavy medication, such as purges of calomel, rhubarb, or jalap (a plant root). Others used cold bath treatments, dousing the patients with cold water and then covering them with blankets to induce perspiration. Most physicians, however, came to realize they could not cure yellow fever but could only alleviate its symptoms. Deeply frustrated, most Memphis physicians could only reduce fevers with sponge baths, alleviate warm chills with blankets, and give medicine to calm delirium. Few patients were admitted to hospitals as there were not enough beds for the thousands who were sick. Most of the sick were cared for in their homes by nurses. Both Caucasian and African American, male and female, most of the nurses were residents of Memphis. Nursing was not yet a recognized profession, and their function was mainly to sit with the patient. Much criticism was directed at the nurses. Although their motives ranged from a selfless devotion to the sick to a desire to make money, reports of theft, drinking, and misconduct by the nurses were common. Despite physical and mental exhaustion, the physicians made attempts to understand the disease and performed about 300 autopsies. Yet afterward, they knew no more than they had before except that they probably had been confronted by a new and deadlier strain of the virus. More than 60 percent of these physicians gave their lives caring for the victims of the epidemic. When the frosts of October 18 and 19 came, so did a decrease in the rate of yellow fever infection. On October 29, 1878, eleven weeks after the first reported case, the epidemic was declared over. Those who had fled the city returned home, and on November 28, Thanksgiving Day, the city held a mass meeting to praise the heroes of the epidemic, to thank the nation for its assistance, and to mourn their dead. The Results of the Epidemic. The yellow fever epidemic of 1878 had begun in New Orleans. It traveled up the Mississippi River to Vicksburg, then to Memphis, and to Cairo, Illinois, eventually reaching St. Louis. It was carried up the Tennessee River to Chattanooga, and up the Ohio River to Louisville and Cincinnati. Throughout the Mississippi Valley, over 100,000 had yellow fever, and more 443
1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic than 20,000 died. It was Memphis with its large population that felt the worst impact, however. Of the fewer than 20,000 who remained in the city, over 17,000 had yellow fever. Of the 14,000 African Americans, roughly 11,000 contracted the disease and 946 died. Of the 6,000 Caucasians, 4,204 died of yellow fever. The future of Memphis was now in doubt, as it was considered an incurable pesthole. The value of lives lost was incalculable. Loss of trade was estimated as high as $100 million. Some outsiders suggested that the city be abandoned. However, under the direction of a new and more powerful board of health, Memphis began to clean itself up and accomplished remarkable improvements in public sanitation, with the creation of a waste-disposal system, approved water supply, street-paving program, and rigid health ordinances. Although still unaware of the cause of the disease, these cleanup measures did reduce the risk of yellow fever by eliminating the open sewers and outside privies where the mosquitoes bred. The epidemic of 1878 also generated widespread interest in public health. The U.S. Congress instituted the National Board of Health, and a full-scale research program was also prompted by the epidemic. However, it would be another twenty-two years before members of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission would discover that yellow fever was transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and that the agent of the disease was a virus. The impact of the epidemic would be felt by Memphis for many years. The population had declined drastically, many businesses left the city, and others were dissuaded from moving to Memphis. Meanwhile, other cities such as Atlanta and Birmingham attracted new wealth and population in the South. Yet the city of Memphis would not forget the devastation of the 1878 epidemic nor the heroes who stayed to help its victims. Dr. John Erskine was the Memphis Health Officer in 1878. His fearlessness and tireless work to treat the plague victims were inspirational to his fellow physicians, yet he himself died of yellow fever. In 1974, the city of Memphis named one of its libraries in his memory and filled its shelves with accounts of the city’s health disasters and triumphs. In 1990, St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis established an annual lectureship to honor his memory. Mary Bosch Farone
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1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic For Further Information: Bloom, Khaled J. The Mississippi Valley’s Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878. Baton Rouge: Louisana State University Press, 1993. Crosby, Molly Caldwell. The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History. New York: Berkley, 2006. Gehlbach, Stephen H. American Plagues: Lessons from Our Battles with Disease. New York: McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing, 2005. Hall, Randal L. “Southern Conservatism at Work: Women, Nurses, and the 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Memphis.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 56, no. 4 (Winter, 1997). Oldstone, Michael B. A. Viruses, Plagues, and History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pierce, John R., and Jim Writer. Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Secrets. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.
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■ 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster Explosion Date: September 8, 1880 Place: Sunderland, England Result: 164 dead
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nder the rolling countryside of Durham County, located in the northeast corner of England, rested great coal fields. Evidence suggested that the early Romans who occupied England mined and burned coal in this region. The first recorded report of coal mining, however, came in the twelfth century. In 1183, Bolden Buke wrote of a coal miner providing coal for use at the ironworks of Coundon, a town located in Durham County. In the western part of the Durham coalfield, the coal seams were close to the surface of the earth and were relatively easy to mine. Most of the early mines were located along the bank of the Tyne River. The Explosion. Coal mining in northeast England included a long history of disasters. One of the worst disasters occurred at Seaham Colliery on September 8, 1880. “Colliery” is the British term for “mine.” Seaham Colliery, located near Durham and Sunderland, consisted of five seams of coal, one on top of another. These seams were between 38 and 600 yards below the surface. Three separate shafts connected the seams to the surface. The explosion occurred at 2:20 a.m., and it was loud enough to be heard by people on ships in the harbor and at a neighboring mine. Clouds of dust blowing skyward spewed from the shafts. The first people to arrive at the scene discovered that all three shafts of the mine were blocked. Cages used to raise and lower men from the mine were fastened in each shaft, blocking them. A rope was tied around Mr. Stratton, a mine supervisor, and he was lowered a small distance down into the main seam. Although he was unable to proceed very far, he could hear men talking in the highest seam; they were believed to be safe and were later recovered alive. At 446
1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster Edinburgh Glasgow
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the time of the explosion, roughly 230 men and boys were working in the mine. In 1880, it was against the law for boys younger than twelve years of age to work in mines. Initial rescue attempts were hampered by the debris in the shafts. Twelve hours went by before volunteers could be lowered into the shafts. A kibble, an iron bucket, was used because the cages were out of action. The main rescue work was conducted from what was called the High Pit shaft. From this shaft, 48 men were rescued alive and 447
1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster brought up in the kibble, while 19 survivors were brought up from the Low Pit shaft. Therefore, by midnight, twenty-one hours after the explosion, 67 men had been rescued alive. Tragically, 164 men and boys, some as young as fourteen, died in the explosion; 181 pit ponies, which were used to haul coal underground, were also killed. Vast scenes of destruction met the rescue teams when they were finally able to reach the lower seams. Piles of stones were mixed with the mutilated bodies of miners and pit ponies. Several fires burning near the shafts needed to be put out before rescue attempts could continue. The potential for new explosions remained an everconstant danger. As bodies were recovered, they were wrapped in flannel and canvas and numbered. Each miner’s lamp was placed with his body, which was then transported to the surface by the kibble. Since the lamps were numbered, they aided in the process of identifying the bodies. Recovering the bodies was a slow and difficult procedure. By October 1, 1880, 136 bodies had been recovered. The final body was not retrieved until a full year after the explosion occurred. Inquiry and Outcomes. In the seven months following the explosion, the Londonary Institute conducted an official inquiry. An official report was presented to Parliament in 1881. Two different theories were proposed regarding the cause of the explosion. The first theory stated that stones fell and released gases, which came into contact with a miner’s safety lamp and triggered the explosion. The second theory focused on shots fired in the mine where holes were being enlarged. In the final report, the jury that studied the findings of the inquiry did not designate which theory was the actual cause. The report also stated that the issues of firing shots and clearing the dry coal dust, also considered a possible contributing factor to mine explosions, were best left to the mine managers. The miners were unhappy that the report did not push for further study into the dangers of firing shots in mines and the presence of dry coal dust. Through their lawyer, Atherley Jones, the Miners Association—a union—requested that experimental chemists test the Seaham Colliery’s coal dust. The miners’ request was granted, and a series of experiments was initiated by Sir Frederick Abel at the Institute of Chemistry. Professor Abel amassed a document that included results of experiments conducted by him, as well as experiments 448
1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster from other countries. His work stressed the potential danger caused by large amounts of dry coal dust lying around. Despite this evidence, no new laws regarding mine safety were enacted until 1887. Louise Magoon For Further Information: McCutcheon, John. Troubled Seams. Reprint. Durham, England: County Durham Books, 1994. Mitchell, William Cranmer. A History of Sunderland. Reprint. Manchester, England: E. J. Morten, 1972. The New York Times, September 9-11, 1880. Steinberg, S. H., and I. H. Evans, eds. Steinberg’s Dictionary of British History. 2d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971. Sunderland Daily Echo (England), September 8-10, 1880. Wright, R. S. “Report on the Explosion Which Occurred at the Seaham Colliery on the 8th September 1880.” Durham Mining Museum. http://www.dmm.org.uk/reports/2924-01.htm.
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■ 1883: Krakatau eruption Volcano Date: August 26-27, 1883 Place: Indonesia Result: 36,417 dead, 165 villages and towns destroyed, 132 towns and villages damaged, two-thirds of island destroyed
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n 1883, Krakatau (or Krakatoa) was a small, uninhabited island covered in lush vegetation. Lying in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, then part of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), it was known to be volcanic but was thought to be extinct or at least insignificant. Native legends existed about an eruption there in 416 c.e., as well as a secondhand report from a Dutch official about another eruption in 1680, but the 1680 eruption was not widely reported and had been virtually forgotten by 1883. Thus on May 20, 1883, when windows rattled and a noise like cannon fire was heard in the capital city of Batavia (now Jakarta) on Java, almost 100 miles away, no one’s first thought was that the source was Krakatau. Some people thought they were experiencing an earthquake, but the noise was not coming from the ground. A volcanic eruption was then suspected, but still no one thought the source was Krakatau; when it was discovered that the volcano Karang, a much larger volcano than Krakatau in western Java, was not erupting, the thought was that perhaps one of the volcanoes across the strait in Sumatra was the source. When some native fishermen reported to Dutch officials that they had been on Krakatau gathering wood and that while they were there an eruption had started beneath their feet, they were not believed at first. Reports soon came in to confirm their story: Krakatau was in eruption, producing clouds of steam, smoke, fire, and ash rising 6 or 7 miles high, along with lightning flashes, sulfurous fumes, and deposits of pumice on the surface of the sea. The eruption cloud looked like “a giant cauliflower head,” according to one eyewitness, the chaplain aboard the German warship Elisabeth, which was sailing through the Sunda Strait at the time. This wit450
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ness also provided a striking account of the effect of ashfall; by May 21 it had turned a newly cleaned ship into something that looked “like a floating cement factory.” All surfaces were covered with a gray, sticky dust more than 0.5 inch thick, which was aggravating to the eyes and lungs. Ash continued to fall on the Elisabeth until it was more than 300 miles away. Ash also fell on other ships in the area and on the neighboring island of Verlaten (now Sertung), destroying the vegetation there. Vegetation on Krakatau itself was also destroyed. Ash fell as well on the two other islands in the Krakatau group, Lang (now Panjang) and Polish Hat, but did not destroy the vegetation there. On May 22, the ship Sunda reported a heavy fall of ash when it was 7 miles from Krakatau; at a distance of 10 miles from the island it reported pieces of pumice floating in the sea, and at a distance of 30 miles the pumice was so thick that a bucket lowered into the sea came up filled almost entirely with pumice and hardly any water. The May eruption caused no casualties and stimulated more interest than alarm. In fact, on May 27 a group of sightseers took a pleasure trip to the island and looked into the smoking crater of Perboewatan, one of Krakatau’s three volcanic cones (the other two being Danan and Rakata). With steam billowing around them and explosions sounding periodically, some of the sightseers even clambered into the crater to pick up pieces of pumice and lava as souvenirs. One of them took photographs, the only ones that exist of Krakatau in eruption in 1883. Volcanic activity decreased at the end of May but picked up again after mid-June. Explosions were heard on Java and Sumatra. One wit451
1883: Krakatau eruption ness described a thick cloud of smoke and ash hanging over the volcano for five days in late June; when this cleared away, two dense columns of rising smoke could be seen. In mid-August, ships passing by Krakatau reported heavy ashfalls that turned the sky black, along with columns of smoke, rumbling noises, and flashes of lightning. The First August Eruption. The eruption for which Krakatau is famous began early in the afternoon of Sunday, August 26, 1883. R. D. M. Verbeek, a Dutch geologist who later wrote the first fulllength study of the eruption, reported that at 1:00 p.m. he heard a rumbling sound at his home in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), a town on Java about 100 miles from Krakatau. The director of the Batavia Observatory noted that the sound was first heard there at 1:06 p.m. At first it was mistaken for thunder and, as in May, even after residents realized that they were hearing a volcanic eruption, they assumed that some volcano other than Krakatau was producing the increasingly violent explosions. Closer to Krakatau, there was no mistaking the sounds. The ship the Charles Bal, which passed within 10 miles of Krakatau, reported hearing explosions from the volcano that sounded like heavy artillery. The ship later reported “chains of fire” and white balls of fire at the volcano, along with continued explosive roars, choking sulfurous fumes, and a hail of pumice stone and ash which covered the decks to a thickness of 3 or 4 inches. The captain of the Medea, 76 miles away, recorded two explosions from Krakatau at 2 p.m. that shook his ship, and he noted a black eruption cloud above the volcano, calculated to be 17 miles high. Later estimates put the height of the cloud at between 15 and 50 miles. Reports from the Javanese port of Anjer, about 30 miles from the volcano across the Sunda Strait, noted that by 2 p.m. Krakatau was enveloped in smoke, and it had become so dark that people could not see their own hands. One witness said a column of steam rose above Krakatau, looking like thousands of large white balloons, and added that the sea looked agitated. Another witness said the eruption cloud kept shifting color between black and white; he, too, noticed the agitation of the sea, which he said was turning an inky black color. A third witness reported a fiery glare above the volcano and said that the explosions grew louder after nightfall. Houses shook, and panic 452
1883: Krakatau eruption set in. Residents of Anjer and other towns and villages gathered their belongings and prepared to flee. There was panic even in Batavia. Even that far from Krakatau, the noise was so loud that the sound of the regular evening gun was almost inaudible. Doors and windows rattled, walls shook, and at 2 a.m. a powerful explosion knocked out the city’s gas lighting system. Residents woke and rushed into the streets. However, there were very few casualties in Batavia. Most of the deaths occurred in coastal towns and villages closer to the volcano, and most were caused not directly by the eruption or the fall of ash and stone but from the massive tsunamis that ensued on Monday morning. The Second August Eruption. Overnight, ash continued to fall, and unusual electrical phenomena were reported on ships in the strait. The Berbice, about 50 miles to the west, reported hot ash falling, which burned holes in the sailors’ clothes and the sails, and which was soon piled 3 feet deep on the deck. The ship was also struck by fireballs and flashes of lightning, and several members of the crew received electric shocks. On the Gouverneur General Loudon, 40 or 50 miles to the northwest, a mud rain fell, and lightning struck several times, creating phosphorescent effects (Saint Elmo’s fire) on the masts and rigging. Saint Elmo’s fire was also reported on the Charles Bal; its captain said “a peculiar pink flame came from fleecy clouds which seemed to touch the mast-heads and yard-arms.” He also reported that the sky alternated between being pitch black one moment and ablaze with light the next. It was not until after dawn on Monday, August 27 that the full force of Krakatau was felt. There had been numerous explosions before this, including a large one just after 5:00 p.m. on the 26th, but between dawn and 11:00 a.m. on the 27th there were four mammoth explosions (at 5:30, 6:44, 10:02, and 10:52) that dwarfed the earlier ones. The first three of these, especially the one at 10:02, were followed by tidal waves that caused most of the destruction associated with Krakatau. Sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. a wave 33 feet high struck Anjer. The town was destroyed. All who did not flee died. The next day, a messenger sent to investigate returned from Anjer with the report that “there was no longer any such place.” The houses and other buildings were gone, except for ruined remnants of the town fort; 453
1883: Krakatau eruption the trees were all uprooted, except for a few leafless ones covered in ash; the Anjer lighthouse had vanished; and all the monuments in the town’s cemetery had been washed away. The situation was summed up by one witness in a few brief words: “All gone,” he wrote. “Plenty lives lost.” An even bigger wave struck at about 10:30 a.m. and destroyed the town of Merak, about 7 miles north of Anjer along the Java coast. All but 2 or 3 of the approximately 2,700 inhabitants died, even though many of them had taken shelter on a hill behind the town, where they had survived earlier waves. The 10:30 wave seems to have been higher at Merak than anywhere else, perhaps because of the funnel-shaped strait there formed by a tiny island just offshore. Estimates put the wave height at 135 feet; elsewhere the wave attained heights estimated at between 50 and 100 feet. In Merak, as at Anjer, all the buildings vanished, except for the floor of the house of the resident engineer on top of the hill. The railroad line leading to the Merak quarry was torn up and twisted, and locomotives and railcars were battered and tossed aside. One locomotive was carried out to sea and lay 50 yards from the beach, a battered wreck with the waves breaking over it. The area around Merak was similarly devastated. It was a “scene of desolation,” according to one witness, who added: “For miles there was not a tree standing, and where formerly stood numerous campongs (native villages), surrounded by paddy fields and cocoanut
The island of Krakatau before the eruption of 1883. (Library of Congress)
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1883: Krakatau eruption groves, there was nothing but a wilderness, more resembling the bottom of the sea than anywhere else.” He saw rocks of coral that the wave had deposited several miles inland, some of them weighing as much as 100 tons. Closer to Merak he noted remnants of bedding and furniture, along with shreds of clothing. All together, in the Merak-Anjer area the death toll was set at 7,610. In the neighboring district of Tjiringin, another 12,022 perished, 1,880 of them in the town of Tjiringin, which was swept away by the 10:30 wave. Corpses lay on the ground in Tjiringin for days, and there was much looting. Sumatra. Parts of Sumatra, to the north of Krakatau, are closer to the volcano than Java and were directly in line with its blasts. In these areas, unlike the situation elsewhere, there were deaths from the volcano’s hot ash and pumice in addition to deaths from the tidal waves. About 1,000 residents in the area north of Katimbang, on the southeast point of Sumatra 25 miles from Krakatau, died of burns; another 2,000 were burned but survived. The ash here struck not only from above but also, according to one witness, from below: spurting up like a fountain through cracks in the floor of the hut in which she had taken shelter on the slopes of Mount Radjah Bassa, north of Katimbang. Besides causing human casualties, the ash killed vegetation and, through its weight on roofs, destroyed many houses. Even in Sumatra, however, most deaths were caused by the waves. Waves struck Katimbang as early as Sunday night, throwing small boats up on the shore. The whole town was washed away by the same wave that destroyed Anjer at 6:30 a.m. Monday. Waves also struck farther west, at Teluk Betong on Lampong Bay, about 50 miles from Krakatau, beginning at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 26. These early waves damaged a bridge and a pier and cast some boats on the shore. The real damage came the next day, primarily from the wave that struck at 10:30 a.m. Half an hour earlier the largest of Krakatau’s eruptions had been heard in Teluk Betong; then ash and mud began to fall on the town, and it became dark as night, so dark that the effects of the wave that followed were not seen until the next day. Those who went to inspect then found only ruins, corpses, and iron government cash boxes. One witness described the scene by saying “there was no destruction. There was simply . . . nothing.” One of the most remarkable episodes in this area involved a 455
1883: Krakatau eruption Dutch gunboat, the Berouw, which had been anchored in Teluk Betong harbor. Early Monday morning one of the big waves tore the Berouw from its moorings and carried it into the Chinese quarter of the town. The big wave at 10:30 a.m. lifted the Berouw again and deposited it almost 2 miles inland amid some palm trees. All 28 of its crew members died. Altogether 2,260 people died in the Teluk Betong area, and it was difficult to send relief to the survivors because pumice in Lampong Bay made it impossible to reach the area by sea for weeks. However, amid all the devastation and suffering, one witness did note a positive result: All the mosquitoes in the area had been destroyed, by ash or mud. Survivors’ Tales. In the midst of death and destruction, some people made miraculous escapes. The telegraph master at Anjer managed to outrun the tidal wave. “Never have I run so fast in my life,” he said later, “for, in the most literal sense of the word, death was at my heels.” An elderly Dutch pilot in Anjer told an even more remarkable tale. He was unable to outrun the wave but found himself swept by it into a palm tree. He stayed in the tree watching corpses float by him and later made his way to safety. One resident survived by riding on the back of an alligator. A Dutch auctioneer in a small village near Batavia survived by climbing on a dead cow that floated by, where he stayed until encountering a tree onto which he climbed. A Dutch official in Beneawang on Semangka Bay in Sumatra floated for hours, first on a shelf and then on a tree trunk, after his house collapsed around him. Aftermath. In addition to the deaths and damage caused on Java and Sumatra, Krakatau caused much damage to itself. After the eruption, it was discovered that the northern two-thirds of the island had disappeared, apparently sunk beneath the sea. All that remained was a sheared-off part of one of the three volcanic cones, Rakata, and one tiny rock 10 yards square sometimes called by the name Bootsmanrots. The neighboring islet of Polish Hat also disappeared. On the other hand, the nearby island of Verlaten tripled in size due to rock landing on it from the volcano, and two new islands formed: Steers and Calmeyer. However, the latter two, being composed entirely of pumice, were washed away by the sea within months. All plant and animal life on Krakatau seems to have perished in 456
1883: Krakatau eruption
A drawing of Krakatau in eruption. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
the eruption, although some scientists have argued that seeds, insect larvae, and earthworms may have survived below ground. In any case, life did return to Krakatau fairly quickly: By 1889 plant life, bugs, and lizards were reported on the island. Volcanic activity returned as well, in 1927, with the appearance of 457
1883: Krakatau eruption a new volcanic island where the northern two-thirds of the old island used to be. Anak Krakatau (“child of Krakatau”), occupying a small but growing portion of what used to be the northern part of Krakatau, has erupted periodically since its first appearance. Causes of the Waves. Besides the dispute over the survival of life after the eruption, there has been disagreement among scientists over the process that caused the massive tidal waves, or tsunamis, at Krakatau. Several theories have been put forward: that the pumice and other ejected materials landing on the water caused the waves, that some underwater explosion caused them, that they were caused by a “lateral blast” from the side of the volcano, that a pyroclastic flow of ash and heated volcanic gases was responsible, and that the collapse of two-thirds of the island into the sea produced the effect. The last view, which posits that by ejecting masses of material into the atmosphere Krakatau created a void beneath itself into which it eventually collapsed, seems to have the most support, but scientists remain divided because the evidence is inconclusive. One scientist, in discussing this issue, has remarked that Krakatau, though one of the best-known, is also one of the least-understood volcanic eruptions. Long-Term and Long-Range Effects. Even after the end of the eruptions, late at night on Monday, August 27, effects of Krakatau’s blast continued to be felt. Darkness lingered for fifty-seven hours within 50 miles of the volcano and for twenty-two hours up to 125 miles away. Pumice choked the bays of Java and Sumatra until December and floated as far away as South Africa, nearly 5,000 miles distant, over the next two years. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, in December, 1883, the steamer Bothwell Castle encountered a vast field of pumice that stretched for 1,250 miles and was so thick upon the sea that the sailors were able climb onto it in some places and walk about. The sounds of Krakatau also traveled to distant parts. In Singapore, over 500 miles from the volcano, vessels were sent out to investigate what sounded like the firing of a ship’s guns. The explosion was also heard in Saigon (1,164 miles away), Borneo (1,235 miles away), Bangkok (1,413 miles away), Manila (1,800 miles away), and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and western Australia (up to 2,000 miles away). The most distant report came from Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean, 2,968 miles from the source of the blast. The waves produced 458
1883: Krakatau eruption by Krakatau also traveled long distances. High waves struck the coast of India on August 27, about 2,000 miles from the volcano. Tidal disturbances were also reported in New Zealand and even as far away as the English Channel. The atmospheric effects of the eruption were among the most startling and long-lasting. Dust thrown up by Krakatau circled the globe and remained suspended in the atmosphere for two or three years. As a result, much of the globe was treated to spectacular, bloodred sunsets and a very odd-looking sun, which sometimes appeared blue or green. At times the sun also appeared with a pinkish halo around it; this halo, described at the time by the Reverend Sereno Bishop, has since been seen after other volcanic eruptions and is referred to as Bishop’s ring. Blue suns were reported in September in the Virgin Islands, Peru, and points in between. A green sun was reported in Hawaii, Panama, and Venezuela. In November the fire departments of Poughkeepsie, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut, were called out because a red glare in the sky convinced onlookers that a great fire was underway. There were so many fiery sunsets and brilliant after-sunset glows, especially in the winter of 1883-1884, that letters poured into the magazine Nature, which began a special department in its pages called “The Remarkable Sunsets.” Another probable consequence of the dust in the atmosphere was a cooling in the world’s climate. There has been some scientific debate over this, but it is generally agreed that the volcanic dust reduced solar radiation reaching the earth by as much as 10 percent and that as a result world temperatures over the next three years dropped by 0.25 to 0.5 degrees Celsius. Cooler temperatures were especially noticeable in the Northern Hemisphere. Reputation and Misconceptions. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau was one of the largest, loudest, and most devastating in recorded history. Perhaps as a result it captured the popular imagination, giving rise to numerous legends and erroneous reports. The very earliest newspaper stories contained wild statements about millions dying and sixteen volcanoes being in eruption. Years later, in 1969, Hollywood was equally inaccurate in producing a motion picture called Krakatoa, East of Java (Krakatau is west of Java). It is also not true, at least according to the scientific consensus, 459
1883: Krakatau eruption that Krakatau blew off its top or decapitated itself and completely disappeared. Rather than blowing itself up into the air, Krakatau, as most scientists see it, collapsed into the sea. Moreover, not all of it disappeared; one-third of the original island survived. The fact that Krakatau was uninhabited is also not widely known. It is true that Krakatau had been inhabited at earlier times in its history. Captain James Cook’s ships landed at the island in the 1770’s and discovered a village and cultivation; a village was also reported on the island in 1809, and there are reports of a penal settlement there. However, by the time of the eruption the island was completely deserted, except for local fishermen who occasionally visited it. The popular view of volcanic destruction through ash and rock and fast-flowing lava also does not apply to Krakatau, which produced most of its deaths indirectly by tidal waves. On the other hand, the tidal waves resulted from volcanic processes; there was no simultaneous earthquake. Finally, Krakatau was not located in some obscure, out-of-the-way region. On the contrary, it was right in the middle of a major shipping route, the Sunda Strait, not far from heavily populated coastal regions with access to the rest of the world by telegraph. It may be, in fact, that it is precisely because Krakatau was well connected to the rest of the world that its eruption has become world-famous. Sheldon Goldfarb For Further Information: Bullard, Fred M. Volcanoes of the Earth. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Francis, Peter, and Clive Oppenheimer. Volcanoes. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Francis, Peter, and Stephen Self. “The Eruption of Krakatoa.” Scientific American 249, no. 5 (November, 1983): 172-187. Scarth, Alwyn. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Simkin, Tom, and Richard S. Fiske, eds. Krakatau, 1883: The Volcanic Eruption and Its Effects. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983. Thornton, Ian. Krakatau: The Destruction and Reassembly of an Island Ecosystem. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. 460
1883: Krakatau eruption Winchester, Simon. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Woolley, Alan, and Clive Bishop. “Krakatoa: The Decapitation of a Volcano.” In The Making of the Earth, edited by Richard Fifield. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
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■ 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 Blizzard Also known as: The Great White Embargo, the White Hurricane Date: March 11-14, 1888 Place: Northeastern United States Result: 400 dead, $7 million in property damage
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he Great White Embargo, the Great Blizzard of 1888, the White Hurricane—whatever name the folklore legends give it, the March 11-14, 1888, snowstorm was one of the biggest to hit the northeastern United States. A roaring blizzard, sustained for four days by hurricane-force winds, extended from Maryland to Maine. It claimed 400 lives and caused $7 million in property damage. Two hundred boats off the coast and in harbors were swamped and sunk, taking the lives of about 100 seamen. Countless numbers of wild birds, animals, and livestock froze to death. New York was hardest hit, with 200 deaths reported there alone. The stock exchanges on Wall Street closed for three days. The day before the blizzard, March 10, was unusually mild. At 9:30 p.m. the thermometer registered in the mid-50’s. It had been the warmest day of the year, during one of the mildest winters in seventeen years. However, the following afternoon—Sunday, March 11—a drizzling rain turned to a downpour, and the temperature steadily fell. If the meteorological equipment of the time had been more sophisticated, and communication between Washington, D.C., and New York more efficient than telegraph messages, perhaps the U.S. Signal Service’s weather observatory in New York could have been warned about a severe storm brewing off the coast of Delaware. There, two massive weather systems were headed for collision. Frigid Arctic air, coming from northwestern Canada, was traveling south along the eastern coast of North America at 30 miles per hour. Warm, moisture-packed air from the Gulf of Mexico headed north, into the Arctic air. The two huge systems clashed, resulting in a winter hurricane saturated with moisture and fueled by violent winds. As the system turned to travel northwest, it picked up speed. 462
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The first winds of the storm reached small craft and fishing boats on Chesapeake Bay late Sunday afternoon. The mercury plummeted, and the downpour quickly changed to a blinding wall of snow. Anchor cables on boats snapped, causing them to run aground or smash into each other. Vessels in the open waters were overtaken by the churning waters and sank. The storm, dubbed “The White Hurricane,” moved from Chesapeake Bay north to Boston. By midnight in New York, the rain had been replaced by snow, and the winds were gusting to 85 miles per hour. To qualify as a blizzard, the wind must blow at 35 miles per hour or more. During a hurricane, winds near the eye range from 74 miles per hour to as much as 150 miles per hour or more. The Great Blizzard of 1888 was virtually a hurricane with blizzard conditions. According to an eyewitness account from Arthur Bier, recorded in Great Disasters (Reader’s Digest 463
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper devotes an issue to the Great Blizzard of 1888 in New York City. (Library of Congress)
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1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 Association, 1989), “The air looked as though some people were throwing buckets full of flour from all the roof tops,” sometime after midnight on March 12, 1888. Disaster in New York City. New Yorkers awaking Monday, March 12, found 10 inches of snowfall with drifts as high as 20 feet. In many areas one side of the street was blown free of snow, while the other side had snow piled to the second-story windows of buildings. Used to heavy snowfalls and trying to go about their business as usual, many New Yorkers bundled up against the weather and headed off to work. As the temperature continued to drop, and the snow showed no sign of letting up, the city slowly ground to a halt. Horse-drawn street cars struggled to remain on snow-covered tracks. The elevated trains ran very slowly, eventually coming to a standstill on frozen tracks. Commuters waited in vain, among the swirling snow and falling temperatures, on elevated-train platforms for trains that did not arrive. An estimated 15,000 passengers were stranded in the trains, elevated above the streets, across the city. With no way to get down they were at the mercy of enterprising “entrepreneurs” who carried ladders to the train cars but charged a steep fee of one dollar per passenger for the short climb down to the street. One train, stalled on the tracks between stations, was hit by another from behind. The collision killed an engineer and injured 20 passengers. Winds picked up to nearly 100 miles per hour. Abandoned streetcars were pushed over in these winds. Fire stations were also immobilized. Many people tried lighting fires in their homes to keep warm. When the fires raged out of control, fire trucks could not reach the victims, and the raging winds spread the fire. Property damage from fire alone was estimated at several million dollars. Those left homeless or trying to survive with walls or roofs missing from wind or fire damage often succumbed to the elements and died of exposure. The financial district on Wall Street actually shut down for three days, something unheard of even today, because only 30 of 1,100 members of the stock exchange showed up Monday morning. People braving the elements on foot were later found frozen to death in snowdrifts along the sidewalks. One such victim was George D. Barremore, a merchant from the financial district. Finding the elevated trains closed down, he decided to walk to work. He apparently 465
1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 collapsed in a snowdrift and froze only four blocks from his home. Those who did make it to work found the buildings deserted and the return trip home too hazardous to make. Many people camped out in hotel or business lobbies. By Monday evening New York City was at a standstill. Thousands were stranded in a city with hotels so overcrowded that cots were set up in hallways and even bathrooms. Author Mark Twain was one such reluctant visitor. Having come in from Hartford, Connecticut, Twain is said to have sent word to his wife that he was “Crusoeing on a desert hotel.” Some blizzard-tossed refugees found shelter on cots in the city’s public buildings. One such location was the city’s jails. At Grand Central Station an estimated 300 people slept on benches, since normal passenger traffic was immobilized. Business was brisk at pubs and places of entertainment, such as Madison Square Garden, where circus man P. T. Barnum performed to crowds of more than one hundred. On Tuesday the East River was frozen. The ice bridge, connecting Manhattan and Queens, rarely formed because of the flowing waters of the river. Some adventurers bravely used the ice bridge as a shortcut between the two cities. When the tide changed, however, the ice bridge shattered, tossing some foolhardy travelers into the freezing waters of the river. Nearly 100 other adventurers were trapped on the ice floes and narrowly escaped with their lives. On Tuesday afternoon the snow tapered off and the winds died down. By midday the thermometer began climbing from its 5-degreeFahrenheit low. Wednesday, March 14, saw the snow yield to flurries. In the aftermath, a total of 20.9 inches had fallen, with drifts as high as 30 feet in Herald Square. This snowfall record would exist for at least the next sixty years. Other Locations. New York saw light snowfall compared to other locations such as New Haven, Connecticut, which accumulated 45 inches. The driving winds there had also packed the snow into hardened drifts. Of the eastern cities, only Boston managed to avoid the worst of the storm. Alternating rain and sleet eventually led to an accumulated 12 inches of snow, but it did not bring the city to a standstill. Traveling from Maryland to Maine, the Great Blizzard of 1888 affected one-quarter of the American population. High winds toppled telegraph poles from Washington, D.C., north to Philadelphia. Rail 466
1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 lines were blocked by the mangled cabling. In Philadelphia, freezing rain glazed the streets on March 12. When snow did fall, the iceglazed streets were buried beneath 10 inches of drifts. Keene, New Hampshire, was blanketed in 3 feet of snow, and nearby Dublin received 42 inches. New York’s state capital, Albany, received 47 inches, and Troy, New York, recorded 55 inches of snowfall—perhaps the largest amount of the Great Blizzard of 1888. City officials ordered paths plowed through the snow rather than having the snow completely removed. In New York City, men and boys eagerly worked at the drifts—using axes and picks on those of hard-packed snow—and earning between $2 and $10 for shoveling people out. An estimated 700 wagons and 1,000 workers cleared away the snow, dumping it along the piers of the Brooklyn Bridge. The public bill for the cleanup came to $25,000. Aftermath. By Friday, New York City was that back to nearly normal. Bonfires lit to warm pedestrians, as well as the warming March sun, soon melted the mounds of snow piled alongside buildings and sidewalks. Cleaning up, restoring power, and counting the dead was a
A man stands next to a snow hut in Washington, D.C., following the Great Blizzard of 1888. (Library of Congress)
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1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 long task for the citizens. Melting snow revealed not only frozen bodies and dead animals but also heaps of debris discarded during the heavy snowfall. In areas outside New York hit by the blizzard, the melting snow revealed the bodies of thousands of dead birds, animals, and livestock. The search for survivors was intense. In Brooklyn, at least 20 postal workers were pulled from the snow unconscious. New York’s Republican Party leader, Roscoe Conkling, had collapsed in the snow from exhaustion. He became ill and died on April 18, making him the final victim of the White Hurricane. Despite the devastation and loss of lives as a result of the Great Blizzard of 1888, it did have a positive impact on the largest cities shut down by the storm. To ensure that communications networks in the Northeast would never again be disrupted, the U.S. Congress decided that telegraph and telephone wires and public transit routes would be moved underground. Vulnerable gas lines and water mains, located above ground, were also redirected underground to safety. Within a quarter century, the subway systems for New York and Boston were proposed. New York’s subway system was approved in 1894, with construction beginning in 1900. Lisa A. Wroble For Further Information: Allaby, Michael. Dangerous Weather: Blizzards. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Cable, Mary. The Blizzard of ’88. New York: Atheneum, 1988. Davis, Lee. Natural Disasters: From the Black Plague to the Eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. New York: Facts On File, 1992. Erickson, Jon. Violent Storms. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Tab Books, 1988. Laskin, David. The Children’s Blizzard. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Murphy, Jim. Blizzard! The Storm That Changed America. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000. Ward, Kaari, ed. Great Disasters. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Association, 1989. Watson, Benjamin A. Acts of God: “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” Unpredictable Guide to Weather and Natural Disasters. New York: Random House, 1993. 468
■ 1889: The Johnstown Flood Flood Date: May 31, 1889 Place: Johnstown, Pennsylvania Result: About 2,209 dead, 1,600 homes lost, 280 businesses destroyed, $17 million in property damage
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trictly speaking, the Johnstown Flood of 1889 was not a natural disaster. Nature was only partly responsible; neglect and human error also contributed. Without the latter two, the disaster would not have occurred. Flooding in the narrow valley of western Pennsylvania was a common occurrence, and while creating a certain amount of water damage in buildings, it also led to a casual attitude about these natural events. The great loss of life, however, was the result of a tremendous wave caused by the breaking of a dam 14 miles upstream from Johnstown. Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The first white settlers came to the valley around 1771, but the area was abandoned several times before it became a backwoods trading center. Population started growing when the canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was finished, and by 1889, ten thousand people lived in Johnstown, with a total of thirty thousand crowded in the narrow valley. Johnstown was built on a nearly level floodplain at the confluence of the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek Rivers in Cambria County. In the early 1800’s, Pennsylvania’s canal system, when completed, had too little water in the summer to be usable; in 1836 the state legislature appropriated $30,000 for a reservoir dam on the South Fork River. The final cost was $240,000, and it was completed in 1852, six months before the Pennsylvania Railroad was built from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, making the canal obsolete. The canal system was put up for sale in 1854 and in 1857 was bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad for $7.5 million. In June, 1862, the dam broke after heavy rains. Little damage resulted downstream as the reservoir was only half-full, and a watchman 469
1889: The Johnstown Flood had opened the valves and released much of the pressure before the break. The reservoir, then only about 10 feet deep, was abandoned until Congressman John Reilly bought it in 1875 for $2,500. Four years later he sold it to Benjamin F. Ruff, a onetime railroad tunnel contractor, coke salesman, and real-estate broker, for $2,000. Before selling it, Reilly removed the cast-iron discharge pipes and sold them for scrap. The dam had been constructed according to the best engineering knowledge of the day. It was composed of layers of clay covered with an inner and outer coating of stones. A spillway, 72 feet wide, was cut at the eastern end of the rock of the mountain. The dam breast was more than 900 feet long and 20 feet wide, and the dam itself was 850 feet high with a 270-foot base, at the center of which were five castiron sluice pipes, each 2 feet in diameter and set into a stone culvert. These pipes were controlled from a nearby wooden tower. It was these sluice pipes which had been removed by Reilly, and the control tower burned in 1862. In 1879, Ruff persuaded fifteen Pittsburgh men to buy shares in the venture, and on November 15 the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was chartered in Pittsburgh. Members, eventually numbering 61, included Andrew Carnegie; Henry Clay Frick, the coke king associated with him; several other Carnegie associates and officials; banker Andrew Mellon; Robert Pitcairn, the powerful head of the
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1889: The Johnstown Flood Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and other industrial, commercial, and political leaders from Pittsburgh. Named president, Ruff boarded up one side of the stone culvert and dumped rock, mud, brush, hay, and anything else he found, including horse manure, into the hole left by the pipes; lowered the height of the dam several feet to provide a roadway wide enough for two carriages to be driven abreast on its top; installed a bridge over the spillway and under it a screen of iron rods to keep in the fish with which the lake was to be stocked; and built a clubhouse, boathouses, and stables. Sixteen members added private summer homes. Renamed Lake Conemaugh, 450 acres, 1 mile across and 2 miles long, it drained 60 square miles of mountainside, including many creeks, was 70 feet deep in the spring, and contained water weighing 20 million tons. Watching this activity with some concern was Daniel J. Morrell, head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream, which had about $50 million invested in the valley. In November, 1880, Morrell sent John Fulton, an engineer and his designated successor, to look over the dam. Fulton’s report, a copy of which Morrell sent to Ruff, noted that “repairs were not done in a careful and substantial manner, or with the care demanded in a large structure of this kind.” He reported that the lake had no discharge pipe nor any other method to reduce or take the water out of the lake, and that it had been repaired badly, leaving a large leak at its center. In a brusque answer, Ruff maintained that there were no leaks, the weight of the water had been overestimated by Fulton, and the Iron Works was in no danger from the dam. He was later to declare that the “leaks” were springs at the base of the dam. Still unsatisfied, Morrell, in a second letter, offered to cooperate in the work, helping financially to make the dam safe. The offer was declined, with renewed assurances of safety. Morrell died in 1885 and Ruff in 1887; two years later, Colonel Elias J. Unger, a retired Pittsburgh hotel owner, was named club president and manager and took up full-time residence at the lake. In February, 1881, heavy rains had caused serious damage, and in June of the same year during a flash flood rumors flew that the dam was about to break. These rumors were renewed each year but for the next eight years proved groundless, leading to an attitude of complacency on the part of everyone in the area. 471
1889: The Johnstown Flood The first record of a flood in Johnstown is from 1808, when a small dam across Stony Creek, put in as a millrace for one of the first forges, was breached. As the years went by, floods became more serious because timber was being stripped off the mountainsides to provide lumber for building, and the river channels were narrowed to make room for buildings and bridges. Thus, there was less river to handle more runoff. From 1881 to 1888, seven floods were recorded, three of them serious. The Year of the Johnstown Flood. In April of 1889, 14 inches of heavy snow fell, then melted rapidly in the warm weather. In May rain fell for eleven days. On May 28 a storm that had originated out of Kansas and Nebraska caused hard rains over a wide area. On May 29 the U.S. Signal Corps warned the mid-Atlantic states that they were in for severe local storms, and parts of Pennsylvania had the worst downpour ever recorded; at the South Fork Club 7 inches fell. On Thursday, May 30, a fine rain fell for most of the day, but by 4 p.m. the sky was lighter and the wind was up. People who lived in areas that had been flooded assumed the storm was over and the waters would recede. However, by 11 p.m. heavy rain and high winds had returned. During the night, families in the valley heard “rumbling and roaring” sounds as the heavy storm water tore big holes in the saturated ground. Crops washed away, roads became creeks, and little streams rampaged torrents. By Friday morning the rain had eased off, but the sky was very dark and a thick mist hung in the valley. Rivers were rising faster than 1 foot an hour, and by 7 a.m., when men arrived for their shift at the Cambria mills, they were told to go home and take care of their families. By 8 a.m., much debris was observed in the lake, and it was rising rapidly. At 10 a.m. schools were let out. The Chicago and Pittsburgh trains arrived on time at Johnstown, but some areas of track were already in precarious condition, and at 11 a.m. a log boom burst up the Stony Creek, sending logs to jam against the massive Johnstown stone railroad bridge. By noon the water level in Johnstown was at a record high, and after the Stony Creek ripped out the Poplar Street and Cambria City bridges, George T. Swank, editor and proprietor of the Johnstown Tribune, started a running log of events. Meanwhile, at the dam, young John G. Parke, Jr., new resident engineer for the South Fork Club, was busy that morning supervising 472
1889: The Johnstown Flood twenty Italian laborers who were installing a new indoor plumbing system. Parke noted about 7 a.m. that the water level of the lake was only about 2 feet from the top of the dam, while the previous day it had been 4 to 6 feet below. He heard a sound from the head of the lake like “the terrible roaring as of a cataract.” He went inside to have breakfast and then with a young workman took out a rowboat and surveyed the incoming creeks, finding the upper quarter of the lake filled with debris. When Parke returned to shore, he was told he was needed at the dam immediately, and he saddled his horse to ride there. He found nearly fifty people observing the sewer diggers trying without much success to throw up a ridge of earth to heighten the dam. At the west end a dozen men were trying to cut a new spillway through the tough shale of the hillside but succeeded in providing a trench only kneedeep and about 2 feet wide. Local onlookers advised Colonel Unger, who was directing the work, to tear out the bridge and the iron-mesh spillway, but he did not want to lose the fish. At 11 a.m., the lake water was at the level of the dam, eating at the new ridge, and there were several large new leaks at the base. Around 12:15, when Unger ordered the spillway cleared, it was too late: Debris had piled up to the extent that the bridge and mesh were jammed in, and the spillway was virtually blocked. At 12:30, Parke considered cutting a new spillway through one end of the dam, but he did not want to take the responsibility for ruining the dam. He reasoned that there would be no way later to prove the dam had been about to break. He went into the clubhouse for dinner. By 2 p.m. the water was running over the center of the dam, at its lowest point. The Flood Itself. The dam gave way at 3:10 p.m. John Parke insisted it did not break, it “just moved away.” It took about forty minutes for the entire lake to empty. Civil engineers later calculated the velocity was akin to “turning Niagara Falls into the valley.” They blamed the lack of outlet pipes, the lowered height of the dam in relation to the spillway (which was itself crammed with debris), and the fact that due to earlier damage the dam was weakest and lowest at its center. The men stood and watched as huge trees were snapped off the ground and disappeared and the water scraped the hill down to bedrock to a height of 50 feet; the farmhouse and buildings belonging to 473
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The aftermath of the Johnstown Flood. (Library of Congress)
George Fisher vanished in an instant, and Lamb’s Bridge and the buildings of George Lamb climbed the 60-foot crest, then rolled and smashed against the hill. Then the valley turned sharply to the right and blocked their view. The Fisher and Lamb families had escaped minutes before, but at South Fork, Michael Mann, who lived in a shanty on the creek bank, was the first casualty. His body was found a week later, 1.5 miles downstream, stripped of all clothing and half buried in mud. South Fork Village, stacked on the hillside in a bend in the valley, suffered little damage: About 20 buildings, a planing mill, and the bridge were swept away and then deposited about 200 feet upstream by the water’s backwash as it slammed into the mountain on the north side of the Little Conemaugh River. However, the 40-foot “mountain” of water, moving about 10 to 15 miles per hour, claimed another 3 lives. For the first mile of its 14-mile journey to Johnstown, the river had only railroad tracks and equipment to swallow up. As the valley nar474
1889: The Johnstown Flood rowed and twisted, the water height grew to over 60 feet. As it hit the tremendous stone viaduct built fifty years earlier and still used for the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, there was a booming crunch as debris piled up and momentarily formed another lake. Then the bridge collapsed all at once, and the water exploded with concentrated power down the valley, taking with it the entire small village of Mineral Point. Fortunately, most of the inhabitants had left earlier in the day as the water rose due to normal flooding, but the death toll reached 16 as those left went racing off downstream on their own rooftops or were caught in the maelstrom. As the water advanced down the valley (average decline in elevation, 33 feet per mile), the debris caught in various places, damming up the water and then releasing it to flow more violently. The debris and the friction with the hillside also caused the top water to travel more rapidly, so that a “surf” effect developed, pounding debris and bodies deep into the mud and making later retrieval difficult. Now several hundred freight cars, a dozen or more locomotives, passenger cars, nearly a hundred more houses, and quite a few corpses were part of the wave that surged on down the valley. Past East Conemaugh, the flood was on a straightaway, and it began to gather speed. Woodvale with its woolen mill was wiped out, along with 314, or 1 of every 3, people in town. Miles of barbed wire from Gautier Works were added to the wreckage, which swept into Johnstown at 4:07 p.m. In Johnstown, the floodwaters had actually begun to recede. Most people, perched in upper stories, never saw the water coming, but they heard it. It began as a deep, steady rumble and accelerated into a roar. Those who actually saw the wall of water, now an estimated 40 feet high, remembered “trees snapped off like pipestems” and “houses crushed like eggshells.” Most impressive was the cloud of dark spray that hung over the front of the wave. Preceding the spray was a high wind. The water hit Johnstown harder than anything it had encountered in its 14-mile course from the dam. It bounced off the mountain in its path and washed back up it 2 miles, carrying debris and people with it. The devastation took just ten minutes. However, the suffering and loss of life were more protracted. The massive stone-arched Pennsylvania Railroad bridge on the downriver side of Johnstown had been protected by a curve in the 475
1889: The Johnstown Flood river and held. Debris piled up 40 feet high against it, to an area of 40 acres, and as night came on it caught fire. Editor Swank, who had been watching everything from his Johnstown Tribune office window, wrote that the fire burned “with all the fury of the hell you read about—cremation alive in your own home, perhaps a mile from its foundation; dear ones slowly consumed before your eyes, and the same fate yours a moment later.” The finest and newest hotel in town, the Hulbert House, had been used as a place of refuge by many people seeking safety. It collapsed almost the instant it was hit by the flood. Of the 60 people inside the building, only 9 got out alive. It was later wondered if so many lives were lost because no warning was given. Most of the blame for loss of life can be placed on the fact that flooding was common in the valley, and each year brought rumors that the dam was going to fail, but in the nine years since the lake had been filled no major upsets had occurred. Unger sent Parke to South Fork at 11:30 a.m. with a warning of danger, but two local men who had just gone to the dam said there was nothing to worry about. Sometime before 1 p.m., the East Conemaugh dispatcher’s office received a message to warn the people of Johnstown that the dam was liable to break. He set it aside without reading it; his assistant read it and laughed. An hour later another message was sent to East Conemaugh, Johnstown, and Pittsburgh, and in thirty minutes another. Still, no one was unduly alarmed. The only meaningful warning was received in East Conemaugh, when a railroad engineer whose crew was repairing tracks just upriver heard the water coming. He jumped into his engine, tied down the whistle and steamed down the tracks. Nearly everyone in East Conemaugh heard the whistle and understood almost instantly what it meant. Otherwise, as one telegraph operator noted of the messages, people paid no attention to the few warnings. As a matter of fact, the common attitude was that anyone taking any precautions was at best gullible and at worst a coward. Aftermath and Cleanup. Dawn on Saturday, June 1, was dark and misty, and the river was still rising. A few random buildings stood amid the wreckage that was piled as high as the roofs of houses. Every bridge was gone except the stone bridge, and against it lay a good part of what had been Johnstown, in a blazing heap. Below the bridge 476
1889: The Johnstown Flood
A house in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, lies on its side, pierced by a large tree trunk. (Library of Congress)
the Iron Works, though damaged, still stood, but at least two-thirds of the houses in Cambria City had been wiped out, and a tremendous pile of mud and rock had been dumped the entire length of the main street. 477
1889: The Johnstown Flood Amid the wreckage were strewn corpses and portions of corpses of horses and humans. Rescue parties had worked through the night to free people trapped alive in the burning pile, but an estimated 80 died. Now others helped bring the marooned down from rooftops and searched among the ruins for signs of life. Roads were impassable. The railroad had been destroyed. Every telegraph and telephone line to the outside was down. There was no drinkable water, little food, and no stores from which to obtain either. Five Pittsburgh newspapers had sent journalists, and the first newspapermen arrived on foot at about 7 a.m. on June 1. The presence of reporters at the scene the following day and for several weeks to come, as well as later remembrances by people who lived through the event, provided records of individual experiences. Many of the contemporary newspaper accounts, however, were sensationalized and based on rumor as much as fact. By noon rafts were built; people on the hillsides whose homes had escaped harm and farmers from miles out in the country began coming into town, bringing food, water, and clothing; unclaimed children were looked after. At 3 p.m., a meeting was called at the Adams Street schoolhouse. Arthur J. Moxham, a young, self-made, wealthy, and popular industrialist was put in charge of business. He immediately organized committees to establish morgues, remove dead bodies from the wreckage, establish temporary hospitals, organize a police force, and find supplies and funds. A fear of typhoid as well as concern for the survivors made retrieval, identification, and burial of the bodies imperative. Those who were not identified were numbered, their descriptions recorded, and they were buried. One out of every 3 bodies would never be identified. Hundreds of people who were lost would never be found; it is supposed that some simply walked away and never came back. Not for months would there be any realistic count of the dead, and there would never be an exact, final count. Two bodies were found as late as 1906. Ninety-nine whole families had been wiped out, 98 children had lost both parents, and hardly a family had not suffered a death. The flood had killed about 1 out of every 9 people. On Sunday the weather eased off. Bodies were taken across the Little Conemaugh in skiffs and buried in shallow graves. A post office was set up, and all survivors were instructed to register. The first pa478
1889: The Johnstown Flood tients were cared for in a temporary hospital, and the first train came through. Supplies and volunteers, more newspapermen and police, doctors and work crews, a shipment of tents, an eleven-car train containing nothing but coffins with more to come, and a Pittsburgh fire department arrived, extinguishing the fire at the bridge by midnight. At the end of the day more than 1,000 people had arrived to help the 27,000 who needed aid. Thousands more were on their way. On Tuesday, Moxham resigned, and James B. Scott, head of the Pittsburgh Committee, took over as civilian head of the area. From Washington, D.C., came nurse Clara Barton and her newly organized American Red Cross to set up tent hospitals and six hotels with hot and cold running water, kitchens, and laundries. In five months she distributed nearly half a million dollars worth of blankets, clothing, food, and cash. Upon her departure she was presented with a diamond locket by the people of Johnstown, and she was later feted in Washington at a dinner attended by President Benjamin Harrison. By the end of the month a book on the disaster had been published, and within six months, a dozen would appear. Newspapers carried sensational stories for weeks and published extra editions, all of which sold out. Songs were written about the flood, several of which became best sellers. Sightseers with picnic baskets arrived and bought souvenirs. In all, cash contributions from around the world would total more than $3.7 million. In spite of assiduous cleanup, including the sprinkling of four thousand barrels of lime over the area, typhoid broke out, affecting 461 people and killing 40. Everyone took it for granted that Johnstown would be rebuilt, and on its original site, and so it was. John Fulton made public the faults of the dam. In Pittsburgh, members of the South Fork Club met and officially decided that it would be best to say nothing about their role in the disaster. Suits were brought against them, but the club had nothing except the now-worthless site and widespread negative publicity; no one was awarded anything. Cyrus Elder, who had lost his wife and daughter and his home, and who was the only local member of the club, concluded, “If anybody be to blame I suppose we ourselves are among them, for we have indeed been very careless in this most important matter and most of us have paid the penalty of our neglect.” Erika E. Pilver 479
1889: The Johnstown Flood For Further Information: Degen, Paula, and Carl Degen. The Johnstown Flood of 1889: The Tragedy of the Conemaugh. Philadelphia: Eastern Acorn Press, 1984. Evans, T. William. Though the Mountains May Fall: The Story of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889. New York: Writers Club Press, 2002. Johnson, Willis Fletcher. History of the Johnstown Flood. Reprint. Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books, 2001. McCullough, David. The Johnstown Flood. Reprint. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. _______. “Run for Your Lives!” American Heritage Magazine 16, no. 4 (1966): 5-11, 66-75. Walker, James Herbert. The Johnstown Horror!!! Or, Valley of Death. Philadelphia: H. J. Smith, 1889.
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■ 1892: Cholera pandemic Epidemic Date: 1892-1894 Place: India, Russia, Asia, the United States, Great Britain, Europe, and Africa Result: Millions dead, development of health departments and infectious disease surveillance
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holera epidemics plagued humankind for most of the nineteenth century. The final worldwide cholera epidemic of that century occurred between 1892 and 1894. This epidemic was similar to the cholera epidemics that had preceded it in that it caused great devastation; millions of people died. The 1892 to 1894 epidemic was unique, however, in that it occurred just at the time when science was determining beyond a doubt that the cause of cholera was bacterial infection passed through contaminated water. Cholera is caused by the organism Vibrio cholerae. It lives in various marine animals, which are consumed by humans, and it is present in contaminated water. Most humans become infected by eating raw fish or shellfish, or by drinking contaminated water. Not all people infected with cholera show symptoms, and they can spread the disease unknowingly. Cholera causes severe diarrhea and vomiting, which leads to a drastic loss of fluids within the body. Dehydration, collapse of the circulatory system, and death occur if the fluids are not replaced. Without treatment, cholera kills 20 to 50 percent of its victims and death occurs within hours. Today, prompt treatment can bring the death toll down to 1 percent. Ancient Sanskrit writings from 2,500 years ago described a disease with symptoms that were similar to cholera. Although cholera existed before the 1800’s, it remained primarily in the area of Bengal, with some brief occurrences in China. Originating in the Bengal basin at the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, V. cholerae lived in the shellfish present in the waters. Hindu pilgrimages drew crowds of faithful to the Ganges River for ceremonies, where many were in481
1892: Cholera pandemic fected with cholera. Some died promptly; others carried the disease back to their villages, causing local infestations. These outbreaks of cholera remained local; thus, when cholera made its appearance throughout the world in the early 1800’s, it was described as a new disease. In 1817, cholera spread from Bengal to other parts of the world. Over the next one hundred years the world would suffer six major outbreaks of cholera. The spread of cholera was closely linked to the increase in international commerce, military actions, the increase in travel, and the increase in immigration of people. When cholera broke out in India in 1817, English ships and troops were stationed there. They carried cholera overland to Nepal and Afghanistan. Far more critically, their ships passed cholera along to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Indonesia, China, Japan, Arabia, and Africa. The Industrial Revolution and an increase in urban population and crowded living conditions also contributed to the spread of cholera. The devastation caused by cholera was so great that port towns made attempts to control it by mandating quarantines. Ship were not allowed to disembark for weeks until they were determined to be free of disease. Scientists struggled to find the cause of the dreaded disease. Although Robert Koch, one of the great microbiologists of the nineteenth century, had found the bacillus that caused cholera back in 1883, his explanation was not accepted by other experts of the time. In 1887, the federal government of the United States ordered a study of cholera to begin. Dr. Joseph Kinyoun directed the program, which later evolved into the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Kinyoun’s research became more urgent in 1892, when an Asiatic cholera epidemic reached the United States. When the cholera epidemic of 1892 struck the city of Hamburg, Germany, a unique situation within the area gave credence to Koch’s theory that germ-contaminated water was responsible for spreading cholera. Hamburg obtained its water directly from the Elbe River, which was untreated. An adjacent town, Altona, had installed a waterfiltration plant, so its citizens drank treated water. When the epidemic hit, the people in Hamburg succumbed, but the people of Altona were spared. The street that divided the towns experienced cholera on one side and none on the other side. Since the air was the 482
1892: Cholera pandemic same on both sides of the street and the ground was the same, it was apparently the water that made the difference. The cholera epidemic of 1892-1894 appeared in India, Russia, Asia, the United States, Great Britain, Europe, and Africa. In Russia alone, over 1 million people died, including the great composer Peter Tchaikovsky. The exact circumstances surrounding his death were unclear. Some speculate that Tchaikovsky committed suicide by drinking water known to be contaminated; others believe that he took a poison that mimicked the symptoms of cholera. Tchaikovsky’s doctor, however, pronounced him dead of cholera on November 6, 1893. One result of the cholera epidemic of 1892 was the improvement in sanitation measures taken by the large cities. Water-treatment systems were instituted, and sanitation was greatly improved. Even in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where resources were not available to provide sanitary water and sewage systems for all citizens, simple precautions like boiling drinking water made it possible to avoid exposure to waterborne infections. Cholera epidemics prompted the formation of public health departments, which conducted surveillance and reporting of the disease. In the international classification of diseases, the code for cholera is 001 because it was the first disease for which public health surveillance was developed. Although cholera is still present in various parts of the world, improved sanitation, increased surveillance, and modern medical treatment have helped prevent the occurrence of new, widespread epidemics. Louise Magoon For Further Information: Bollet, Alfred J. Plagues and Poxes: The Impact of Human History on Epidemic Disease. New York: Demos, 2004. Clemow, Frank G. The Cholera Epidemic of 1892 in the Russian Empire. London: Longmans, 1893. Evans, Alfred S., and Philip S. Brachman. Bacterial Infections of Humans: Epidemiology and Control. 3d ed. New York: Plenum Medical Book Company, 1998. Evans, Richard J. Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. 483
1892: Cholera pandemic Karlen, Arno. Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times. New York: Putnam, 1995. McNeill, William H. Plagues and Peoples. New York: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1998. Markel, Howard. Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
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■ 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 Tornado Date: May 27, 1896 Place: St. Louis, Missouri Classification: F4 Result: 306 dead, 2,500 injured, 311 buildings destroyed, 7,200 other buildings severely damaged, tremendous damage to river boats and railroad lines
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ecause the previous three weeks had witnessed violent weather across the United States, it must have come as a relief to St. Louis that the weather report for Wednesday, May 27, 1896, called for a partly cloudy day with only a chance of local thunderstorms. No one would have suspected that St. Louis could suffer the ravages of a tornado; it was considered common knowledge that tornadoes do not strike large cities. The tornado that nearly hit St. Louis on March 8, 1871, was believed to be as close as a tornado could come. Until 3 p.m. on May 27, 1896, it was a hot, humid, and sunny day in St. Louis, just as the newspapers predicted. The city was a booming metropolis whose population already exceeded 500,000—it was the fourth-largest city in the United States. Union Station was in its second year of operation as the mid-America passenger hub of an increasingly mobile nation. Crowning its new status in industrialized America, preparations were well under way to house the Republican presidential nominating convention, scheduled for June. Across the mighty Mississippi River, East St. Louis had become a commercial railroad center with a rapidly growing population. After 3 p.m. the sky slowly began to darken as the barometer and thermometer began to fall. By 4:30 p.m. large black and green cloud masses could be seen approaching the city. By 5 p.m. many parts of the city were enveloped in darkness, except for forked lightning illuminating the sky. Sizzling telegraph wires and burning telegraph poles cast an eerie bluish light pattern in the streets below. People scurried for the relative security of temporary shelter wherever they 485
1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 could find it, a fact substantiated by the location of bodies found after the storm. Shelter in cellars offered the best protection, providing that an individual was not crushed by the upper floors caving in. At about 5:15 p.m. the tornado struck at the southwest edge of St. Louis. It widened into a 0.5-mile-wide complex of tornado and downburst wind, heading due east toward the central city area. Along its path it demolished 311 buildings and severely damaged 7,200 others. Stone and brick houses of the affluent were smashed almost as easily as the flimsy wooden houses of the poor. The tornado devastated 6 churches and damaged 15 others. Several city hospitals suffered varying degrees of destruction. The storm cut a 10-mile path, leaving in many places a mile-wide swath of devastation. Witnesses described the tail of the storm as being like the lash of a whip, moving north to south, while the massive body of the storm slowly moved on its eastern path of destruction.
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1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 Entire neighborhoods, such as the Soulard area, were left in shambles. Nearly 500 workers were building a thirteen-building complex for Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company when the storm hit. Structures collapsed, and miraculously, only 13 workers died. However, at Seventh and Rutgers Street 17 people died when a three-story brick tenement collapsed. The new Ralston Purina Mill was also destroyed. However, a bank loan would allow the new headquarters to be rebuilt. The storm reached maximum intensity when it came to the Mississippi River. Because of a slight turn in the storm, the tall buildings of downtown St. Louis were spared the test of whether or not they could survive tornadic winds. However, poverty-stricken families living in houseboats disappeared into the river. Sixteen boats moored in St. Louis harbor were wrecked. By the time they hit the Eads Bridge, tornadic winds were strong enough to drive a 2-by-10-inch wood plank through the 5 16 -inch thick wrought-iron plate of the bridge. The great tornado then tore into East St. Louis, leveling half of the city. Thirty-five people died in the Vandalia railroad freight yard in East St. Louis. It took about twenty minutes for the worst single disaster in the history of the St. Louis metropolitan area to take its deadly and destructive toll. The storm system left 306 dead, over 2,500 injured, and 600 families homeless. Drenching rains and lightning continued in St. Louis until about 9 p.m. Because the Edison Plant was destroyed, the city was without electricity. Rescue workers worked through the night by torchlight and through the sunshine of the next morning. Survivors were still being pulled from the rubble two days later. Meanwhile, long lines of friends, relatives, and the curious waited at the city morgue as the dead wagons unloaded their crushed and mutilated human cargo. Many bodies were blackened and unrecognizable. Others had been turned into human pin cushions as splintered wood and other debris had been hurled at tremendous speeds into their bodies. As news of the disaster spread, the weekend brought tens of thousands of sightseers to St. Louis, anxious to see firsthand the destruction that was wrought. Among their number were hundreds of thieves, eager to uncover valuables from demolished homes and stores. On the Sunday following the “great tornado” over 140,000 people crammed through Union Station into the streets of St. Louis. Tours had already 487
1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 been organized to see the destruction. For weeks after the storm St. Louis newspapers were filled with stories of miraculous escapes, tearful tragedies, and tales of heroic citizens coming to the aid of other citizens. These accounts and others were pieced together by the Cyclone Publishing Company, a group of newsmen who copyrighted their work in Washington, D.C., only nine days after the storm. An eager American public read in awe and horror about the powers of nature and the human dimensions of natural disasters. Irwin Halfond For Further Information: Curzon, Julian, comp. and ed. The Great Cyclone at St. Louis and East St. Louis, May 27, 1896: Being a Full History of the Most Terrifying and Destructive Tornado in the History of the World. 1896. Reprint. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997. Montesi, Albert, and Richard Deposki. “The Great Cyclone of 1896.” In Soulard, St. Louis. Images of America. Chicago: Arcadia, 2000. O’Neil, Tim. “The Great Cyclone of 1896.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 26, 1996. “The Top Ten US Killer Tornadoes—#3: The St. Louis/East St. Louis Tornado of 1896.” The Tornado Project Online. http://www .tornadoproject.com.
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■ 1900: The Galveston hurricane Hurricane Date: September 8, 1900 Place: Galveston, Texas Classification: Force 12 on the Beaufort Scale; Category 4 Speed: At least 84 miles per hour, estimated 110-120 miles per hour Result: 3,000-12,000 dead
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he hurricane that swept in from the Gulf of Mexico and devastated Galveston, Texas, on Saturday, September 8, 1900, killed more people than any other natural disaster in the history of the United States at the time. It was a turning point in the lives of the people of the Upper Texas Gulf Coast. Galveston Island was a low sand-barrier island, almost 28 miles long and from 1.5 to 3.5 miles wide. Its surface at that time rose to an average height of 4 to 5 feet above mean tide level. The average rise and fall of the tide at Galveston was 1.1 feet. The harbor at Galveston, on the bay side, served Texas and the Trans-Mississippi West Railroad. Rail connections, including those of the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe along with smaller rail lines, focused upon Galveston. The Formation of the Hurricane. In the first week of September, 1900, an air mass from the north cooled the island after a stifling period of heat. The weather front was known as a “norther.” It was accompanied by a line of dark clouds from the northwest. At the same time a hurricane was reported first in the Caribbean Sea and then across Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico. It moved across Key West and then turned in a westerly direction, headed almost straight for Galveston. The cool front kept the slow-moving hurricane out over the Gulf of Mexico, where it gathered strength. Until September 4, the storm had not developed a very destructive force. It did cause rough seas and heavy rains, however, dropping 12.5 inches of rain in twenty-four hours as it passed over Santiago, Cuba. On September 6, the center of the storm was reported a short distance northwest of Key West. In 1900, the Weather Bureau relied solely on information from its stations ashore. There were no reports 489
1900: The Galveston hurricane radioed from ships at sea. Not until December 3, 1905, did a ship radio a weather observation to be received by the U.S. Weather Bureau. Not until August 26, 1908, was a hurricane report radioed from a ship, the SS Cartago off the coast of Yucatán. The central office of the Weather Bureau ordered storm and hurricane warnings from Port Eads, Louisiana, on the Gulf to Cape Hatteras on the Atlantic. On Friday morning, September 7, the center of the hurricane was estimated to be southeast of the Louisiana coast. The hurricane flags were hoisted in Galveston that morning. Increasing swells were observed to the southeast, and cirrus clouds marked the blue sky. The Effects of the Storm. By noon of Saturday, September 8, it was evident that the hurricane was bearing down on Galveston. The hurricane flags flew over the Levi Building, which held the Weather Bureau offices, and across the island. Families along the beachfront boarded up their residences and moved to higher ground in the city. The winds were rising constantly, and it rained in torrents. By 3 p.m. the waters of the Gulf and the bay met, covering the low areas across the island. By evening the entire city was submerged. Gigantic waves destroyed the houses nearest the beach first. Debris from these structures was then hurled into the next rows of houses. The wreckage from each street was then thrown by the pounding surf into the next. These buildings also fell and offered more wreckage for the storm to cast against the next block of buildings. The east and west portions of Galveston for three blocks inland were swept clean of residential and commercial structures. Slate from the roofs flew through the air to endanger anyone out in the torrent. A disastrous fire in 1885 had destroyed a large section of the city, so slate roofs became a requirement in building construction. In the storm these were lethal weapons, but so were falling bricks and wood carried by 100-mile-per-hour winds. From 5 p.m. until midnight, the people were caught where they were, in homes and in buildings, until these collapsed around them under the pressure of the hurricane-force winds. The public buildings, courthouse, customs house, and hotels offered apparent safe refuge. They rapidly became overcrowded, however. Telephone, telegraph, and electriclight poles snapped, and the wires were strewn across the streets, which were becoming impassable. Corpses of people, horses, mules, 490
1900: The Galveston hurricane
A house upended by the Galveston hurricane. (Library of Congress)
and pets began to float through the streets. The collapse of buildings and the cries for help could not be heard above the roar of the wind. Nearly 1,000 people gathered in the large Ursuline Convent, two blocks from the beach. A 10-foot wall around the convent crumbled. People, animals, and debris were being washed against the walls of the building. Four expectant mothers gave birth during the storm in the nuns’ cells. The babies were baptized immediately, for no one knew if they would make it through the night. Shortly after 8:30 p.m., the wind blowing from the southeast shattered the east windows on the top floor of the city hall. The crowd that had gathered there nearly stampeded. The front part of the building collapsed shortly thereafter. Police Chief Edwin Ketchum was able to quiet the crowd at first, then lost control. Only music 491
1900: The Galveston hurricane could quiet those who remained in the building. A few blocks away in the Telephone Building, the telephone operators were frantic until they began to sing. Strangely enough, one song was heard repeatedly—“My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.” The operators moved from room to room as the windows were smashed and the plaster began to give way. Between 8 and 9 p.m., the water reached its maximum depth over Galveston Island. It was 15.6 feet deep above mean tide on the east side of the city at St. Mary’s Infirmary. Downtown, the depth was 12.1 feet at the YMCA Building and 10.5 feet at the Union Passenger Station. Of the sick in St. Mary’s Infirmary, together with the attendants, only 8 survived. St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Orphans’ Home on Fiftyseventh Street fell in portions—the east wing collapsed and then the roof and remaining part of the structure fell—during the height of the storm. All the children and the nuns, along with two workmen, perished. Many of the bodies were tied together with ropes, one nun to several children, in an apparent attempt to survive the storm. The numbers of dead children and refugees were never accurately ascertained. Fort Crockett on the west side of the city near the beach was flooded. It held a heavy battery of 10-inch guns, a battery of eight 10inch mortars, and a rapid-fire battery. Manning these guns were Battery 0 soldiers of the First Artillery. The men there rode out the first part of the storm in the barracks, but most soon left for higher ground and the safety of the Denver Resurvey School; three drowned on the way. The barracks building was destroyed, and the other men were lost. The shoreline at Fort Crockett had moved back about 600 feet. All fortifications except the rapid-fire battery at Battery 0’s Fort San Jacinto on Fort Point, on the eastern bay side of the island, were practically destroyed. At the fort every building except the quarantine station was swept away. Twenty-eight men of the Battery 0 were lost in the storm. Damage to Ships. The 2-mile channel between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island was the only passage for ocean-going ships into Galveston harbor. The channel was protected by two jetties extending from the peninsula and the island. Moored in the Bolivar Roads across from Fort San Jacinto and the quarantine station were three English steamships—the Taunton, the Hilarious, and the Mexican—in 492
1900: The Galveston hurricane quarantine. The American City of Everett was also anchored in the Bolivar Roads. The federal government dredge boat General C. B. Comstock was tied up at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers coal wharf, which was built out into the water from the south jetty near the quarantine station on Galveston Island. Twelve other steamers were in port at Galveston, moored along the wharf on the bay side of the city. Among them was the English steamship Kendal Castle at Pier 31, on the west of the port facility. The American ship Alamo was docked at Pier 24, the Norwegian Guyller at Pier 21, the English ships Benedict and Roma, as well as the Norna, at Pier 15. The Comino was moored at Pier 14, and the Red Cross rested at Pier 12 on the east side of the wharf front. By midday, most of the ships were ordered to put out extra mooring lines. Later, the water on the rising tide began to submerge the wharves. The bay was rough, and a drenching rain soaked everything. Smaller craft—shrimpers, tugs, barges, and schooners—were dashed against the wharves. Every ship in port battled for survival. The Taunton was driven by the wind 30 miles to Cedar Point on the mainland. The Roma broke its last moorings when the anchors parted from the chains. The ship was carried up the channel broadside to the current. The Roma careened into the Kendal Castle, then went broadside into the three railway bridges. It finally came to a stop between the last railroad bridge and the 2-mile-long wagon bridge that ran from Virginia Point to the island. Galveston’s rail traffic was cut off from the mainland for several days. The Guyller also plowed into the Kendal Castle, which began to drift when its lines broke. The ship was blown across Pelican Island, which was completely submerged, into the shallow water at the port of Texas City on the mainland. After the storm the Kendal Castle rested in 3 feet of water in the wreckage of the Inman Pier. The Guyller became stranded between Pelican Island and Virginia Point. The Alamo and the Red Cross broke loose and were driven across the channel to run aground on the eastern edge of Pelican Island. The Comino and the Norna stayed in their berths but were extensively damaged. For 10 miles inland from the shore on the mainland it was common to see small craft such as steam launches, schooners, and oyster sloops. At the Bolivar Point Lighthouse, near the entrance to the harbor, 493
1900: The Galveston hurricane people began to gather, because it was the best-built structure across the channel on the Bolivar Peninsula. About 125 people sought refuge from the storm there Saturday evening. The supply of fresh water was exhausted in a short time. An effort was made to collect rainwater in buckets tied to the top of the lighthouse. The lighthouse was 115 feet high, but the saltwater spray was blown over 100 feet in the air, mixing with the rainwater that fell into the buckets. At 5:15 p.m., the U.S. Weather Bureau’s anemometer blew away. The last recorded velocity was 84 miles per hour for the five-minute period the Weather Bureau accepted as official. The weathermen estimated winds later at a velocity of 110 or 120 miles per hour during the period from 6 p.m. to 10:45 p.m., after which they began to subside. Gusts were much higher. At 7:30 p.m. the barometer fell to 28.05 inches. It then began to rise slowly. Galveston was awash in flood tide and debris; the water reached a depth of 8 feet on Strand Street, the heart of the financial district, by 10 p.m. The wind was in a southerly direction and diminishing. Then the water began to ebb and ran off very rapidly. By 5 a.m. of the next day, the center of the street was free of water. Slime an inch thick covered everything. People emerged, trying to find their loved ones. Others just wandered aimlessly through the streets. Recovery Efforts. Death estimates ranged from 3,000 to 12,000 people. A partial list of the dead compiled by the Galveston Daily News after the storm comprised more than 4,200 names. Hundreds more were never identified. The best estimate is that more than 6,000 people lost their lives in Galveston and approximately 2,000 died on the coastal mainland. Morrison and Fourmey, publishers of the Galveston City Directory, also gave a figure of approximately 6,000 people dead. Great piles of corpses, uprooted vegetation, household furniture, and fragments of buildings themselves were piled in confused heaps in the main streets of Galveston. Along the Strand close to the bayfront, where the big wholesale warehouses and stores were situated, great piles of debris lay in massive heaps where the tide had left them. The warehouses became tombs, holding human bodies and animal carcasses. The masses of debris were not confined to any one particular section of the city. There was hardly a family on the island whose household did not suffer loss or injury. In some instances en494
1900: The Galveston hurricane tire families were washed away or killed. Hundreds who escaped from the waves did so only to be crushed by falling structures. The days following the storm were ones of privation and sadness. There were enough provisions on hand to feed the remaining population in Galveston for a week, but the problem was in properly distributing the supplies. There was an immediate rush to obtain food and water, but this slacked off in time. After finding food and water, attention turned to the wounded and the dead. All pretense at holding inquests was abandoned. More than 2,000 bodies were carried by barge, weighted, and thrown into the Gulf. Hundreds were taken to the mainland and buried at Virginia Point. Ninety-six bodies were buried at Texas City, all but 8 of which had floated to the mainland from Galveston during the storm. Cases were known where people buried their dead in their yards. As soon as possible, the work of cremating bodies began. Vast funeral pyres were erected, and the fire department personnel supervised the incineration. An estimated 4,000 houses were destroyed, as were many commercial, religious, and public buildings. The first three blocks closest to the water, running the entire length of the city, were completely destroyed on the Gulf side of the island. The water works’ powerhouse was ruined, as was the electric plant, so that the city recovered from the storm without fresh water and in the dark. Every structure in the city suffered some storm damage, as the seawater completely covered the island to a depth as much as 15.2 feet above the mean tide. The highest elevation on the island at that time was about 8 to 10 feet above sea level. After the railway bridges were repaired in a few days, Houston served as the center of relief distribution. It also served as the way out of Galveston for people seeking inland shelter over the next few weeks. Hundreds of refugees passed through every day. Free transportation was furnished to any point in Texas, provided people had relatives who would care for them. Clara Barton, head of the American Red Cross, came to Galveston to personally direct the Red Cross relief effort in cooperation with other agencies, such as the Salvation Army. She wrote during that first week: It would be difficult to exaggerate the awful scene that meets the visitors everywhere. . . . In those parts of the city where destruction was
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1900: The Galveston hurricane the greatest there still must be hundreds of bodies under the debris. At the end of the island first struck by the storm, and which was swept clean of every vestige of the splendid residences that covered it, the ruin is inclosed by a towering wall of debris, under which many bodies are buried. The removal of this has scarcely even begun.
This description written by a lady who had witnessed many disasters provided a singular image of a city in desperate straits. The 1900 hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast caused a reduction in the volume of business in the South. Prices of staple commodities were higher during the weeks following the storm. There was a sharp rise in the price of cotton, which reached a ten-year high. There was little change in the price of manufactured products, however. Mayor W. C. Jones took decisive measures in the days immediately following the storm. He organized the General Committee of Public Safety, which took charge of the early restoration of services in Galveston. The water-supply system was put back into order and was cleared of contamination. The mayor imposed price controls. Laborers were brought into the city to replace skilled mechanics in deposal of the bodies; they were then free to return to their regular jobs and repair of the industrial and residential structures and the infrastructure. The work of opening the streets and disinfecting them was pursued vigorously—the debris and garbage were removed by 250 vehicles of every description. They carried the waste out of the city, and it was burned. Eleven hundred tents were received by the Board of Health. All except 300, which were retained for hospital purposes, were distributed through the various ward subcommittees to shelter the homeless. As the rail bridges were repaired, Thomas Scurry, Adjutant General of the State of Texas, arrived with 200 volunteer guardsmen. The governor placed Galveston under martial law. Galveston civic leaders had organized the Deepwater Committee in the late nineteenth century to promote the port facilities. In the first days after the storm, the Deepwater Committee was able to gain the attention of the Texas state legislature. Leaders such as I. H. Kempner proposed that Galveston be ruled by a commission system of government. The old mayor and ward system did not seem able to 496
1900: The Galveston hurricane marshal the confidence and strength to start the reconstruction of Galveston. With the new system, each of four commissioners had control over one city department: finance and revenue, water and sewers, streets and public property, and fire and police departments. The Galveston model became one for the progressive movement in combating the “political machines” that ran many city governments at the time. Looking to the Future. The new city government hired General Henry M. Robert and two other engineers, Alfred Noble and H. C. Ripley, to devise some means of protecting Galveston from future storms. Robert had recently retired from the Army Corps of Engineers and had gained fame as the author of Robert’s Rules of Order (1876). Their recommendation included a seawall and a grade raising of the city’s elevation. Galvestonians approved a bond issue to raise the money to begin the work on the seawall. The state also agreed to rebate taxes for thirty-five years to help them finance the grade raising. The seawall was to extend from the east end of the island to Fort Crockett. The work began on October 27, 1902, and was
A man stands on a portion of the seawall constructed to protect Galveston, Texas, after the 1900 disaster. (Library of Congress)
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1900: The Galveston hurricane finished on July 30, 1904. The seawall, 16 feet wide at the base and 17 feet high, was constructed of cement and stone around a network of steel pilings and reinforcement bars. Large blocks of granite from central Texas comprised a stone breakwater on the beach side of the wall. The United States Army also planned to construct a protective seawall at Fort Crockett. Galveston County gave land to the federal government that expanded the fort by 25 acres. This allowed the Army seawall to connect with that on the Gulf side of the city. The Army agreed to fill in the gap and extend the seawall to Fifty-third Street. When completed, the seawall connected with the south jetty at the channel entrance to Galveston harbor at Eighth Street and Avenue A, angled to Sixth and Market, followed Sixth to Broadway, angled again from Broadway to the beach, then ran along the beachfront to Fifty-third Street. The Goedhart and Bates engineering firm started work on raising grade level on the island around the time the first section of the seawall was completed. The contractors dredged a canal into the heart of the city, then built dikes around sections of the city. They filled the sections with silt their dredges had acquired from the bottom of the bay and the Gulf. Each existing structure was jacked up into place. The filled areas took weeks to dry. Residents had to walk to and from their houses on frame catwalks. The fill simply spread under the houses that had been raised above ground level. Houses, churches, and commercial buildings all went through this process at the owners’ expense. Some sizable masonry buildings were jacked up to new elevations. The grade raising took six years and was finished in July, 1910; all the streets had to be rebuilt. Utilities had to be relocated, and all the planting of trees and shrubs had to be done after the grade raising. The Galveston City Railway Company reestablished public transportation, completing the conversion to electricity from mule-drawn trolleys in 1905. There was talk of restoring the wagon bridge after its destruction in 1900. Instead, the Texas Railroad Commission condemned the wooden railway trestle and ordered the construction of a causeway to carry rail traffic and automobiles, which were coming into widespread use. The causeway was modeled on a viaduct along the Florida Keys, utilizing twenty-eight concrete arches with 70-foot spans. In the 498
1900: The Galveston hurricane center, a rolling lift gave a stretch of 100 feet for boat traffic to pass through. The bridge accommodated two railroad tracks, interurban rails, a highway for cars, and a 30-inch water main for Galveston from mainland wells. The causeway opened in 1912. The population of Galveston increased again in the first decade of the twentieth century. The census of 1910 placed the total at 36,981, making Galveston the sixth largest city in the state. Its port facilities continued to be of importance to the U.S. Southwest. Galveston also grew as a popular tourist resort. All the rail lines serving Galveston ran excursions from Houston on Sunday mornings; there continued to be three sets of rail tracks. The railroads cut back on their excursion schedules when the Galveston-Houston Interurban service started in 1911. The Galvez Hostel opened in 1911 to provide visitors with beachfront accommodations on a grander scale than previously known in Galveston. Twenty-six passenger trains were going in and out of Galveston every day by 1912. Thus, in the twelve years after the great Galveston hurricane, the people of the city had completed a massive seawall, raised the level of the city, continued to compete as a deep-water port, and strengthened transportation links with the mainland. A hurricane in 1915 proved to be of comparable strength to that of the 1900 storm. Tides were slightly higher, and the wind velocity was about the same. The storm came ashore on August 16, 1915, and the winds and tides continued to buffet the city through the next day. The hurricane washed away the earthen approaches to the causeway and broke the water main; every ship in the harbor suffered damage. At Galveston 8 people died, while elsewhere on the mainland the death toll was 267—compared to the 1900 storm, the loss of life was minimal. The protective devices built after the 1900 hurricane were successful in protecting the city in the 1915 storm. Flooding did take a toll, but this was almost entirely from the bay side. The seawall and the grade raising kept the storm losses at a bearable level. Other major hurricanes in 1943, 1961, and 1983 caused considerable damage but little loss of life. Technology had ensured that Galveston would continue to thrive as a city. Howard Meredith
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1900: The Galveston hurricane For Further Information: Bixel, Patricia Bellis, and Elizabeth Hayes Turner. Galveston and the 1900 Storm: Castastrophe and Catalyst. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Coulter, John, ed. The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror. New York: United Publishers of America, 1900. Emanuel, Kerry. Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Green, Nathan C., ed. Story of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2000. Greene, Casey Edward, and Shelly Henley Kelly, eds. Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000. Halstead, Murat. Galveston: The Horrors of a Stricken City. New York: American Publishers’ Association, 1900. Larson, Erik. Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History. New York: Crown, 1999. Lester, Paul. The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times. Reprint. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2000.
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■ 1900: Typhoid Mary Epidemic Date: 1900-1915 Place: New York State Result: 3 dead, more than 50 ill from contact with “Typhoid Mary” Mallon
M
ary Mallon, an Irish immigrant who served as a cook for various families and institutions, unwittingly spread typhoid fever to more than 50 people between the years of 1900 and 1915, and three deaths are linked directly to her. Typhoid fever is a highly infectious disease caused by Salmonella typhosa bacteria and spread through contaminated food and water. Typhoid fever was a common epidemic until the early twentieth century, due to poor sewage and sanitation methods. The most common way of contraction was through contaminated drinking water. Symptoms include a high fever lasting a few weeks, pains, headache, cough, drowsiness, and chills. The bacteria lodge in the small intestine, where they proliferate and in severe cases may perforate the intestine or cause hemorrhaging. Typhoid ranges from mild, flulike symptoms to severe cases resulting in death within one or two weeks. About 3 percent of individuals who have suffered from typhoid become carriers, which means that although they appear healthy and show no symptoms of the disease, their bodies contain the bacteria and they may spread it to others. Such is the case with Mallon, who either had typhoid before she could remember or had such a slight case in her early life that she thought it to be a minor influenza. Mary Mallon was born in Ireland in 1869 and immigrated to the United States in 1883, where she began working as a domestic servant, cooking and cleaning in the homes of wealthy New Yorkers. In the summer of 1906, Mallon was working as a cook for a New York banker. When 6 of the 11 members of the household contracted typhoid fever, the house’s owner hired George Soper, a sanitary engineer and specialist in typhoid fever outbreaks, to investigate the possible cause. Soper determined that Mallon had begun working for 501
1900: Typhoid Mary
Development of Typhoid Fever Salmonella typhi bacteria enter digestive system after ingestion of contaminated water or food.
Phase 1 (2 weeks): Bacteria invade intestines’ lymphoid tissue. Usually no symptoms.
Blood Phase 2 (10 days): Bacteria invade bloodstream, vessels often causing toxemia. Fever, immune system response.
Spleen
Liver
GallPhase 3: bladder Bacteria are localized in intestines’ lymphoid tissue, mesenteric nodes, gallbladder, liver, spleen, occasionally bones. Lesions are caused by local tissue death (necrosis).
Intestine
the family shortly before the outbreak began. He traced Mallon’s work history back through eight families she had worked for and discovered that seven of the families had been affected by the fever. All totaled, Soper found 22 cases of typhoid that he believed were linked to contact with food that Mallon had prepared. The idea of a disease carrier was new to doctors and scientists, and the general public knew nothing about it. Soper believed Mallon 502
1900: Typhoid Mary to be a carrier but needed laboratory proof of his hypothesis. He approached Mallon, telling her she was spreading typhoid fever through the food she prepared, and that samples of her urine, blood, and feces were needed for testing. Mallon refused, and after further unsuccessful attempts the New York City Health Department called in the police to remove her. Laboratory tests showed high levels of typhoid bacilli in her feces, and Mallon was moved to an isolated cottage on North Brother Island, close to the Bronx in New York City and the site of Riverside Hospital. Mallon was kept in isolation in the cottage for two years. In 1909 she sued the health department for release; the judge was sympathetic but sent Mallon back to the island. In 1910 a new city health commissioner allowed her to leave, on the promise that she would no longer work as a cook. Around 1914 the health department lost track of Mallon. She most likely had trouble making a living outside her expertise and returned to cooking. In 1915, after a typhoid fever breakout in Manhattan’s Sloane Maternity Hospital, Mallon was found working in the kitchen, under the pseudonym “Mrs. Brown.” She had infected 25 more people, 2 of whom died. She was apprehended and returned to the island, where she lived for the rest of her life. Mallon came to be known as “Typhoid Mary,” a term that began among the medical community as a descriptive term, perhaps to protect her identity, but came to signify anyone who is a public health threat. News reporters sensationalized “Typhoid Mary,” turning her into a further outcast. Although the popular view in society declared that Mallon purposely infected others, there is no evidence to show this is true. Rather, her refusal to believe that she was a carrier was probably an extreme disbelief in new scientific thought. She denied the accusations until the end of her life, convinced that health officials were picking on her. Mallon resented her imprisonment and was extremely distrustful of the health personnel involved in her case. Her feces and urine were tested frequently, at times on several occasions per week, which added to her reportedly sullen and irritable nature with doctors. Mallon was one of hundreds of healthy typhoid carriers tracked over a period of time in New York City, but she was the first to be monitored and the only one to be isolated for life. At the time of her first capture, the number of typhoid cases was greatly expanding. In New 503
1900: Typhoid Mary York City alone, it was estimated that about 100 new carriers were added each year between 1907 and 1911, and this became the main cause of infection. New York State began following those who had recovered from typhoid but was able to find fewer than 20 of the estimated number of carriers. The state had more success through epidemiological investigations into typhoid outbreaks, such as Soper’s. Once a potential carrier was identified, their feces were tested for the presence of typhoid bacilli. If a person tested positively, the health department opened an individual record for the carrier, keeping close contact and checking to make sure carriers were not involved in food industries, teaching, or nursing. This was time and labor intensive and relied on much cooperation by the carriers themselves, most of whom were living under free conditions but had to submit to frequent testing. Some carriers became lost or refused to be tested, and some were traced to outbreaks and deaths as severe as those linked to Mallon. The problem of typhoid carriers continued on well into the 1920’s. Michelle C. K. McKowen For Further Information: Bourdain, Anthony. Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical. New York: Bloomsbury, 2001. Gordon, Richard. An Alarming History of Famous (and Difficult!) Patients: Amusing Medical Anecdotes from Typhoid Mary to FDR. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Graf, Mercedes. Quarantine: The Story of Typhoid Mary. New York: Vantage Press, 1998. Leavitt, Judith Walzer. Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
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■ 1902: Pelée eruption Volcano Date: May 8, 1902 Place: Martinique Result: Estimated 30,000 dead, city of St. Pierre destroyed
P
elée rises 4,583 feet above sea level. It is located at 14.8 degrees north latitude and 61.1 degrees west longitude. The name pele, meaning “bald,” implies that the volcano was so named because its summit was, as it is now, an unvegetated dacitic lava dome. A lava dome was built during the eruption of the volcano in 1902, only to be destroyed by a subsequent eruption, then built up again. A stratovolcano composed mainly of pyroclastic rocks, Pelée is at the north end of the island of Martinique. It stands high over the coastal city of St. Pierre. The island is part of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc formed by the subduction of the North American Plate under the Caribbean Plate. Pelée is best known for the May 8, 1902, eruption, which destroyed Martinique’s major city of St. Pierre, killing over 30,000 people. No other twentieth century eruption caused as large a number of casualties, resulting in the Pelée eruption being called the greatest killer volcano of the century. A nuée ardente, or “glowing cloud,” type of pyroclastic flow and ash-cloud surge caused the destruction on the island. This nuée ardente detached from the lava dome and, pulled by gravity, flowed down the sides of the volcano. Pyroclastic flows, also known as volcanic hurricanes, are made up of hot incandescent solid particles; the term “pyroclastic” comes from pyro (fire) and clastic (broken). Of six volcanic eruption styles identified by volcanologists, the most violent and extremely destructive type is Peléan volcanism. It is identified by glowing avalanches that spread down the mountain and over the ground, heavy with ash and pumice, at up to 62 miles (100 kilometers) an hour. Peléan volcanoes can flow over water as well as land. Sometimes described as a hot cloud traveling at tremendous speed, the volcanic hurricane can carry particles the size of boulders. 505
1902: Pelée eruption It may move silently and more swiftly than any atmospheric hurricane, reaching intensely hot temperatures. In fact, the heat is so intense that pyroclastic fragments can remain warm for over a year after the eruption. This type of volcano was named for the 1902 Pelée eruption, which was the culmination of an eruption cycle that had been building for a few years. This cycle involved small eruptions that sent ash up from the volcano in a cloud to around 10,000 feet but that did not threaten to overflow the city. It can be assumed that the repeated activity had created an atmosphere of complacency that meant, in this case, that the population of 1902 assumed that the new volcanic activity was more of the same they had experienced over the past few years. Pelée Erupts. The first hint that there was activity in the volcano occurred on April 2, 1902, when new, steaming vent holes were seen in the upper part of a ravine called La Rivière Blanche. The ravine is on the south side of the mountain, facing St. Pierre, and leads from a secondary crater named L’ tang Sec to the coast. Then, three weeks following the discovery of the holes, there were some tremors, ash clouds arose from the mountain’s summit, and volcanic ash fell onto St. Pierre, the city at its base. The smell of sulfur filled the air as the volcano rumbled and shook. Known as the Paris of the Caribbean, St. Pierre was a city of rows of well-built stone houses and downtown buildings, including an opera house, and served as the main port city for Martinique. The city rests on a large, open bay on the west coast of the island. St. Pierre was involved in an election campaign and ill prepared for the disaster about to befall it. Some people left as the ash began to fall, but most stayed so they could support the candidate of their choice in the election about to be held. Others came into the city from surrounding towns and villages to see the phenomenon of an active volcano. By May the ash had thickened to the point that it blocked roads. Businesses were forced to close, and birds and small animals began to die from the ash and poisonous gases. On May 3 the newspaper Les Colonies wrote that the raining-down of ashes on the city “never stops.” It reported that the ash was so thick that the wheels of moving carriages were silent as they passed through it, and the wind blew the ash from roofs and awnings into any open window. The volcanologists of the time possessed only a primitive knowl506
1902: Pelée eruption
Portsmouth
Marigot
DOMINICA Roseau
La Plaine
Atlantic Ocean Pelée
BassePointe
St. Pierre
MARTINIQUE
Fort-de-France
Le Vauclin Sainte-Anne
Caribbean Sea Castries Soufrière
SAINT LUCIA Vieux Fort
edge of the volcanic process and thus did not predict the disaster that was to occur. They were not aware of the existence of volcanic hurricanes and so did not urge people to leave the area. In fact, Gaston Landes, a professor at the St. Pierre high school, had said that the city could expect very little damage from the ash and the smell of sulfur. Even if there were lava flows, he told the city, they would be stopped by the ridges and valleys that lay between Pelée and the city. He assured them that even if the volcano should erupt, little damage would ensue. He was correct in that there was no lava in the flow that spewed out of Pelée. However, with the limited knowledge of volcanoes of that time, he was not aware of pyroclastic flows and of the heat they contained. Early on May 8, ash clouds were still rising from Pelée. It seemed to the residents of St. Pierre to be just another day of ash falling on their roofs and streets. Suddenly, however, at 7:50 a.m. the volcano erupted with four blasts, sending a black cloud, which lit up with sharp lightning flashes, into the sky. The cloud of steaming hot gases reached temperatures of between 2,370 and 3,270 degrees Fahrenheit (1,300 and 1,800 degrees Celsius). Within five minutes a fifth blast sent an avalanche of boiling ash and gases down the mountainside. Glowing 507
1902: Pelée eruption at 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius), the avalanche flowed so rapidly that in a few minutes the buildings and people of St. Pierre were buried and burned, covered by searing ash and gases. Roughly 30,000 people were killed almost instantaneously, some perhaps surviving the initial avalanche until the fires claimed them. Others who survived the force of the flow died from inhaling the ash and gases that seared their respiratory systems. It is said that two people survived. One was a prisoner named Auguste Siparis, who was confined in an underground jail cell; the other was a shoemaker who managed to escape the fires. The story continues that the former prisoner became a performer in a circus sideshow as a survivor of the Pelée disaster.
In May, 1902, Pelée erupted in Martinique, causing 30,000 deaths—the most caused by a volcano in the twentieth century. (Library of Congress)
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1902: Pelée eruption All that remained of the city was rubble and some partially standing walls. The heat had been enough to soften glass and windows, but copper remained unmelted. No clear volcanic deposit was found on the rubble because of the speed and violence of the flow and its makeup of ash and gases. On the volcano itself, the vegetation was stripped off, and any animals in the path of the flow were killed. The hot ash had continued its flow to the sea, and 15 ships moored in the harbor capsized. The British steamer Roddam was torn free of its anchor and managed to flee to St. Lucia. It arrived with 12 dead crewmen and 10 suffering severe burns. One survivor from the Roraima stated that he watched red flames leap up from the top of the mountain, comparing it to the biggest oil refinery in the world burning on the mountaintop. It seemed to him that the mountain had blown apart without warning, its side ripped open, and he saw what seemed to be a solid wall of flame coming at those on the ships. Subsequent Activity and Effects. Two months after the May 8 volcanic eruption, a second occurred. At that time two British scientists from the Royal Society were sailing past St. Pierre, studying the ruins of the city. They watched as a red glow surrounded the summit of Pelée, followed by an avalanche of heat and stones that poured down the mountain and across the ruins of St. Pierre. It took only a minute for the avalanche to reach the sea. They saw the black cloud, which seemed to consist of lighter particles of volcanic matter rising as heavier pieces fell to earth. The scientists described the cloud as globular, with a surface that bulged out. In fact, they said, it was covered with rounded bulging masses that swelled and multiplied, containing and moving with tremendous energy. It rushed forward toward them, over the waters, continually boiling up and changing its form. They saw it sweep over the sea, surging and moving while giving off brilliant flashes of lightning. The scientists reported that the black cloud slowed its movement and faded, ash settling onto the surface of the sea. It then rose from the surface and passed over their heads, dropping stones and pellets of ash back down onto the sea. They smelled sulfuric acid and watched as the cloud moved out to sea, where it appeared to cover the sky—except for the horizon, which remained clear. The major treatise on the eruption of Pelée, written by Alfred Lacroix of the French Academy of Sciences, named the phenome509
1902: Pelée eruption non that destroyed St. Pierre a nuée ardente, or glowing cloud. Other terms are now used: glowing avalanche, ash flow, ignimbrite, fluidized flow, and base surge. Lacroix wrote that the pyroclastic eruption clouds move along the ground as hot, dense hurricanes, or “glowing clouds.” It is suspected that a pyroclastic flow travels on a cushion of air, which allows it to rise from the surface of the land or water, and in some instances can even leave portions of the surface untouched by its destructive effects. This is why the scientists in a boat on the sea could escape unscathed by the avalanche that flowed over the water. There had been two prior recorded eruptions of Pelée: one in 1792 and another in 1851. However, the 1902 eruption was unique in its destructiveness. The violence of the 1902 eruption drew attention to pyroclastic flows and opened a new area of research for volcanologists, in which they are still engaged. Recalling the serious effects of Pelée’s eruption, in 1976 the French government evacuated the entire population of the island of Guadeloupe, fearing a similar eruption might occur from the volcanic mountain La Soufrière. It did not happen, but the memory of the destruction of St. Pierre in evidence on the island of Martinique, also French-owned, is strong in the French West Indies. On Martinique, evidence of the killer volcanic eruption of 1902 still remains. Where volcanic ash was deposited, the land is a wasteland. The sand on that side of the island is black as a result of the black cloud of ash and gases that struck with such fury. The summit of Pelée was forever changed, with a large crater that formed from the explosion. It is now filled in by lava domes that, in an explosive volcanic eruption, form near the hole where the eruption occurred. The summit is a large garden of flowers and ferns surrounded by a heavy mist. The city of St. Pierre never completely recovered from the explosion, and a small, quiet town exists where once there had been a bustling seaport. There is a volcanological museum with pictures and artifacts from the 1902 eruption of the volcano. The ruins of the opera house and other buildings are still visible. Colleen M. Driscoll
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1902: Pelée eruption For Further Information: Fisher, Richard V., Grant Heiken, and Jeffrey B. Hulen. Volcanoes: Crucibles of Change. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Morgan, Peter. Fire Mountain: How One Man Survived the World’s Worst Volcanic Disaster. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Scarth, Alwyn. La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Eruption of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. _______. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Zebrowski, Ernest. The Last Days of St. Pierre: The Volcanic Disaster That Claimed 30,000 Lives. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
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■ 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake Earthquake Date: April 18, 1906 Place: The northern coast of California, from King City to Humboldt Bay Magnitude: About 8.3 Result: Approximately 700 dead, 400 injured, 200,000 homeless, 28,188 buildings burned in San Francisco, and about $500 million in damage
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n 1906, fifty-seven years after the 1849 gold rush, San Francisco was an active up-to-date city of 400,000. Although its central business district still included a handful of Spanish and Mexican adobe structures and comparatively few wooden buildings, the city comprised masonry and brick structures and newer multistory, steel-framed office blocks. Churches and public buildings of diverse construction were scattered throughout the city, while most residences, primarily wooden, were either closely spaced or shared common walls. In addition, most of the central business district, the waterfront, and the warehouse district was built on filled-in marshes, mudflats, and shallow water. Some newer commercial development and most of the residential district were perched on steep bedrock hills. Before the 1906 earthquake, effective public utilities and fire and police departments served the bustling city. Numerous ferries crisscrossed the bay, steamers connected the city with Sacramento, and many railroad lines radiated from the busy city in all directions. The private Spring Valley Water Company pumped water through wrought iron or cast iron pipelines from the Crystal Springs, San Andreas, and Pilarcitos lakes, all impounded along the San Andreas fault, to University Mound, College Hill, and Lake Honda reservoirs inside the city. In turn, these reservoirs discharged water into the city’s water mains. Additional water from Alameda Creek and Lake 512
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake Merrit entered the city via a pipeline beneath the South Bay. Several hundred firefighters manned 41 fire engines, 9 trucks, and 7 “chemical” engines as well as monitor and ladder trucks. Seven hundred police officers were assisted by sheriff’s deputies, state militia, and the army’s garrison at the Presidio. Reasons for the Earthquake. Most San Franciscans in 1906 did not expect a major earthquake. Prior to the 1906 earthquake, frequent small earth tremors caused trivial damage and occasional consternation. Spanish records from the second decade of the nineteenth century describe memorable earthquakes at the Presidio. A strong quake damaged City Hall and downtown buildings in October, 1865. In 1868, a severe earthquake across the bay at Hayward caused damage in downtown San Francisco and resulted in 5 deaths. Milder earthquakes occurred in 1890 and 1898. As a result, advanced construction codes had been adopted in San Francisco, and many buildings were designed to be fireproof. Thus, San Franciscans on the eve of the 1906 major earthquake judged the city well prepared to resist damage, but geologists and insurers were deeply concerned. Earthquakes result from sudden, instantaneous lurches in a fault’s movement, thought to be caused by temporary “freezing” of the fault that is followed by rupture. If the fault does not “freeze,” movement is continuous and there are no major earthquakes. The San Andreas fault, responsible for the 1906 earthquake, is a right lateral transform fault separating the Pacific Ocean Plate from the North American Plate between Cape Mendocino and Baja California. This fault began shifting in the latest Cretaceous period, and by the present epoch cumulative movement has totaled about 370 miles. Thus, California as far north as Point Reyes and Santa Cruz was part of northern Baja California about seventy million years ago. Today, movement on the San Andreas fault ranges up to 1.5 inches per year, requiring continual small repairs to structures spanning the fault trace. During the Great San Francisco Earthquake, apparently more than 240 miles of the San Andreas fault broke loose and shifted. Fissures with displacements mark the San Andreas fault from Point Arena, 100 miles northwest of San Francisco, to San Juan Bautista, 85 miles southeast. Severe damage at Priest Valley, 60 miles farther southeast, suggests an additional 60 miles of fault movement that failed to crack the surface. In addition, submarine observations 513
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake in the later twentieth century traced fault-line topography to the San Andreas fault’s juncture with the Mendocino Fracture Zone, a westward-trending fracture system passing far into the Pacific Plate. Wherever displacement could be observed on the fissure, land southwest of the fault trace moved northward relative to the northeastern block. Just north of Tomales Bay this horizontal displacement was about 16 feet. Here the southwest block was lifted about 1 foot relative to the northeastern block. These displacements decrease to the north and south. Earthquakes along the San Andreas fault in historic time include 1812, Wrightwood (estimated magnitude, 7.0); 1838, San Francisco peninsula (7.0, estimated); 1857, Fort Tejon (8.0, estimated); 1906, San Francisco (8.3, estimated); and 1989, Loma Prieta (7.1, recorded). The Earthquake. The Great San Francisco Earthquake struck central California with a magnitude of about 8.3, on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, at 5:12 a.m. Fortunately, most people were still safely at home. In and around San Francisco, severe shaking lasted for about one minute. Before the main shocks, however, many observers noted two substantial preliminary shocks lasting several seconds. More than 1,000 aftershocks of intensity as great as V on the Modified Mercalli scale were recorded between April 18 and June 10 by a seismograph in Berkeley, California. Oscillatory ground movement during the main shock was principally horizontal and was estimated, in the city, at more than 2 inches on bedrock or firm ground. This was greatly amplified, however, on unconsolidated soil or sediment. Damage was substantial in a belt 20 to 40 miles wide paralleling the San Andreas fault from Eureka to Priest Valley. Thus, Santa Rosa, Salinas, San Mateo, Oakland, Berkeley, Vallejo, Petaluma, San Rafael, San Mateo, Palo Alto, and San Jose, in addition to San Francisco, suffered damage. Destruction was greatest adjacent to the fault trace, decreasing with distance from the trace. Indeed, the shock was felt as far away as Coos Bay, Oregon (390 miles); Los Angeles, California (350 miles); and Winnemucca, Nevada (340 miles). In addition, minor damage occurred 90 miles away on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley. As far away as Steamboat Springs, Nevada, wells and springs were affected by rising or falling water, interruption, stoppage and initiation of spring flow, and incursion of mineralized water. Damage to buildings differed greatly according to construction 514
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake
A house on Howard Street in San Francisco that was tipped by the 8.3magnitude earthquake. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
type and quality. Least damaged were buildings with solid foundations set on bedrock. Solidly built and well-braced one- or two-story wooden buildings suffered relatively little. The steel frames of structures as high as nineteen stories generally did not collapse, but masonry walls and cornices often shook loose. Most, however, were gutted by fire that caused poorly insulated beams to soften and crumple. 515
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake Heavy, well-constructed brick or stone buildings were also relatively resistant to damage, but poorly constructed masonry, or masonry with lime mortar, collapsed or disintegrated. Brick and stone clamped or braced by steel endured, as did massive concrete and brick fortifications. Finally, the single reinforced concrete building in the city of San Francisco, the Bekin Storage warehouse, survived with minor damage, as did the reinforced concrete portion of the Stanford University Museum. Federal buildings, such as the mint and post offices, along with well-built churches, suffered least among masonry structures. However, shoddily constructed local governmental buildings, victims of low-bid and perhaps corrupt construction practices, such as the San Francisco and Santa Rosa city halls, the Agnews Insane Asylum, and the San Jose hall of records, were demolished. Private buildings differed greatly in their resistance. Many spires and towers collapsed. The amount of damage was also greatly affected by the distance from the fault trace, topography, and the substratum, or soil foundation. For example, buildings straddling the fault trace were sheared. Although strong wood or steel-frame buildings generally did not break apart, they were twisted or rotated. Incredibly, a few stayed put, allowing the earth to shift beneath them, while larger structures either bent or were sliced apart but still stood. Concrete and earth-fill dams resisted damage. The earthen dams of the San Andreas and Pilarcitos reservoirs, built across the fault trace, survived the shearing. The massive concrete dam of the Crystal Springs Reservoir, immediately adjacent to the fault trace, also was undamaged. Buildings on weak or insecure foundations slid down slopes, while adjacent buildings with firm foundations attached to bedrock were relatively unharmed. Structures in the path of landslides and mudflows were severely damaged or destroyed. Buildings not set on firm foundations reaching bedrock either collapsed or were severely damaged. For example, the Ferry Building, which rested on piles that reached bedrock, did not collapse; buildings on bedrock hills downtown and in the Western Addition were not very damaged. Approximately 20 percent of San Francisco, including the waterfront, the South of Market District, and most of the central business district, was built on filled-in mudflats and marshes. There, shaking was amplified by the soft, semiliquid substra516
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake tum and generated actual wave movement; outright liquefaction also removed support for the buildings. The earthquake reshaped the landscape in many ways. Fissures opened along the fault trace were, perhaps, most striking. Characteristically, these open rifts were generally about 5 feet wide and 10 feet deep. They sometimes occurred in zones as big as 50 feet wide. They were discontinuous, in many places consisting of a series of overlapping individual ladder breaks and somewhat inclined to the trace of the fault. In some places fissures did not open, and the fault trace was identifiable only by offset structures. Mudflows and landslides also occurred wherever blocks of surficial material shifted during the shock. These were concentrated along stream channels, where unstable land slumped into stream channels or on steep hillsides. In a landslide a coherent block of ground moves downhill in a more or less coherent mass, while in a mudflow, the dislodged material behaves as a liquid and flows. In addition, liquefaction of water-soaked, unconsolidated subsoil was widespread. Parts of the mudflats in Tomales Bay simply flowed off into deep water. Here and at Bolinas, waves of compression, generated by shock along the fault trace, sent concentric giant ripples outward on the surface of the liquefied, unconsolidated material. After the shock passed, stability was restored in the liquified material and the ripples froze in place. Such frozen waves disrupted buildings, streets, and car tracks on the filled land in San Francisco. Compression at depth also spewed liquified sediment up to form mud volcanoes or craters on the surface. The Fire. Although the event is referred to as the Great San Francisco Earthquake, the principal devastation was inflicted by the resultant fire. American cities of the time, including San Francisco, were largely built of wood. Consequently, nineteenth century American history records many great fires, such as the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. Actually, downtown San Francisco had been gutted by fire six times prior to 1906. As a consequence, most commercial builders favored brick, stone, and steel, but wood remained predominant in housebuilding. Immediately after the major earthquake shock, at least 10 large fires started among the closely spaced wooden buildings south of Market Street and in Chinatown, north of Market Street. Shattered chimneys, broken gas lines, and scattered fires readily ignited houses. 517
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake About 57 fires were reported before noon, despite the destruction of the city’s modern alarm system. Also, Fire Chief Dennis Sullivan’s fatal injury complicated the department’s response. The capacity of the fire department to respond was far exceeded, and when an engine reached a fire, the firefighters found little or no water in the hydrants. The earthquake had broken the large mains bringing water into the city as well as the network of mains serving the hydrants from the subsidiary reservoirs. Thus, San Francisco’s large, well-equipped fire department remained essentially unable to throw water on fires beyond reach of hose lines from the Bay Shore or one of the relatively undamaged reservoirs. Mayor Eugene Schmitz and Fire Chief John Doughty implemented Chief Sullivan’s emergency plan to pump water up Market Street through linked hoses, to establish a fire line along the city’s broadest street. The already-blazing South of Market District was thus abandoned. Unfortunately, with Chinatown already ablaze and flames already jumping the street in a few places, the Market Street fire line soon failed. At the same time, a determined effort was made
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 caused Union Street to buckle and become offset. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake to check the westward advance of flames out of the South of Market District and into the Mission District. Frederick Funston, commanding the garrison at the Presidio in the temporary absence of his superior officer, General Adolphus Greeley, immediately ordered his troops into the city to fight fire and maintain order. Since he acted without official orders and without consulting his superior officers or civil authorities, his unconstitutional act was privately deplored by the War Department. The disciplined work of most of his men, however, as well as that of naval reinforcements, prevented looting and the breakdown of order. Thus, Funston, who eventually met with Mayor Schmitz and established cooperation with the police and fire departments, became a public hero and escaped discipline. Strong measures were imperative to check the fire’s spread. At 2 p.m., Mayor Schmitz obtained an opinion from a judge to clear the way for dynamiting buildings. Then, around 3 p.m., nine hours after the earthquake, he posted a proclamation announcing that gas and electricity had been cut off and warned people of the fire danger from damaged chimneys, gas pipes, and fixtures. Furthermore, he authorized summary execution of looters or persons defying the police or military. To enforce all of this, Schmitz also swore in 1,000 armed volunteer patrolmen. Although the proclamation of summary execution was illegal, Funston’s men continued shooting looters and people ignoring orders. In this they were joined by police, the militia, and Schmitz’s volunteers. Although the shootings effectively prevented civil disorder, there were many accusations of unwarranted, summary execution by rifle or bayonet. Most of this agitation was directed against relatively undisciplined militia and vigilantes, but controversy over the Army’s role persisted. In addition, Schmitz organized a committee of 50 prominent citizens to advise and assist him in fighting the fire. This committee first met at the Hall of Justice but relocated to Portsmouth Square when the building burned. By 8 p.m. on the first day, the fire front was a 3mile-long crescent, and light from the flames was visible for at least 50 miles. Also by this time, Funston had met with the mayor and his committee at the Fairmount Hotel to outline plans to control the fire with a barrier of dynamited buildings. Thereafter, his troops set up a cordon along Van Ness Avenue, preventing entrance into the area to the east as troops forced all civilians out of the same area. Troops were 519
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake also set to guard property west of Van Ness, and the dynamiting began on the east side of the avenue. Funston had made himself the de facto military governor of the city. The fire continued spreading for a second day. On Thursday, April 19, the mansions on Nob Hill, the Fairmount Hotel, and the Barbary Coast below Telegraph Hill burned before 6 a.m. By 11 a.m., the U.S. Navy Pacific Squadron arrived, including the hospital ship the Preble and a water tender that immediately went to work bringing water to the city’s fire engines. Sailors landed for demolition work, and Marines were deployed to protect waterfront property. In contrast to the Army, the militia, and the volunteers, they drew no criticism for misbehavior or wanton shooting. The Army, with the active participation of Funston’s wife, Eda, set up a refugee camp on the grounds of the Presidio and in Letterman Hospital. Additional rations were ordered from Army stocks in Los Angeles and Seattle. Ultimately, 20,000 people were estimated to be camping out in the Presidio. Other refugees, including the staff and patients from many of the city’s hospitals, camped out in even larger numbers in Golden Gate Park. The inhabitants of St. Mary’s hospital, however, escaped en masse on the steamer Medoc, which then stood offshore, eventually docking in Alameda. President Theodore Roosevelt requested that the Red Cross, insofar as possible, supervise relief operations at San Francisco. This first such effort established the Red Cross as the principal responder to mass disaster relief in America. By Thursday afternoon, thousands of people had gathered along the waterfront, where the fire department, aided by a Navy firefighting detachment and using more than 20 engines to pump water from the bay, had succeeded in saving almost all of the dock area. Every six minutes the Southern Pacific Railroad sent ferries loaded with refugees across the Bay without charge. In addition, a large number of Bay Boatmen also evacuated many, in some cases at exorbitant fees. Ultimately, the railroad transported 300,000 people across the Bay by ferry or onward by train to any point in North America. In time the wind changed, and by 4 p.m. the fire front was no longer wind-driven. Also, the water mains from Lake Honda had been repaired so that some water became available to the fire department. A small group of troops managed to organize a successful defense of part of the Russian Hill neighborhood. At 5 p.m., the Army, with the aid of a naval demolition 520
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake squad, began blasting houses on the east side of Van Ness Avenue. This was soon supplemented by artillery fire. The third day of the fire began with flames jumping the Van Ness Avenue fire line at midnight, but the fire department successfully checked this advance, and the firebreak was essentially maintained. At 5 a.m., Mayor Schmitz confronted Funston and ordered the cessation of dynamiting. One last blast, however, spread burning debris into an unburned area north of Green Street, and the fire, driven by the wind, expanded north and east. In the absence of troops to drive them away, Russian Hill residents successfully saved their neighborhood using water gathered in bathtubs, wet sheets, and even wine on the flames. At 5 p.m., Funston defied the mayor and ordered artillery bombardment along the Van Ness Avenue fire line. At 5:30 p.m. firefighters reported that the fire along Van Ness Avenue was out, and at 6 a.m. the following Friday morning, the Mission District was declared safe. At 7:15 a.m., the last flames were extinguished along the waterfront—seventy-two hours after the fire started. Ultimately the fire was extinguished by a combination of factors. Fire lines established along Van Ness, Dolores, Howard, and Twentieth Street finally held when the wind either died down or shifted to oppose the fire’s advance. Restoration of water service from the Honda Reservoir enabled firefighters to hold at Van Ness Avenue, and water pumped from the bay enabled firefightershters to save the waterfront. Ultimately, 4.7 square miles burned. Only a few isolated spots within the outer bounds of destruction survived: the south half of Russian Hill, a few downtown blocks, and part of Telegraph Hill. The strongly built mint, which contained a well in the basement, was successfully defended. The post office, thanks to thick walls and a determined crew of postal employees, managed to stave off the fire. The Palace Hotel also survived for six hours, until its cisterns were emptied and the roof sprays were cut off. Several additional buildings with solid walls and fire-resistant shutters or wired glass also stood unburned in the midst of the burned-out area. After the Fire. Because of the total confusion, actual enumeration of casualties was impossible, and many corpses were totally consumed by fire. Casualty estimates range from 450 to 1,000, with 700 the generally agreed estimate. While General Adolphus Greeley’s official report listed 458 dead in San Francisco, only 315 dead were 521
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake cited by city authorities. Four hundred injured were treated by medical authorities that kept records, and approximately 200,000 were left homeless. Subsequent to the fire, an outbreak of bubonic plague, caused by rats driven throughout the city, caused at least 160 recorded deaths. Insurance companies were overwhelmed. The Fireman’s Fund, for example, incurred liabilities of $11.5 million against total assets of $7 million. Companies reorganized under bankruptcy and paid claims, 55.6 percent cash and 50 percent in company stock. Only six major companies were able to pay claims without delay and in full. Fifty-nine companies spent months or even years fighting legal battles to avoid meeting their commitments. Rebuilding San Francisco began immediately and, in the rush, plans that would have made the city more fire- and earthquakeresistant were essentially ignored. By December, 1906, plans were under way for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. By that year the city was rebuilt. Building codes were revised following publication of the California Earthquake Commission report. The codes curbed use of brickwork, outlawed heavy ornamental cornices, required improved bracing of steelwork, specified integration of walls and frames of buildings, and required installation of automatic sprinkler systems. In addition, a supplementary fire main system of saltwater, additional reservoirs within the city, refurbished cisterns, and acquisition of fireboats were recommended. Earthquakes and other great disasters give rise to fanciful stories that persist in popular memory. The motion picture San Francisco (1936) dramatically shows a crevice suddenly opening in a crowded city street. Panicked people fall into it, to be engulfed when it promptly slams shut. This event never occurred. Also, a picture of dead cows in an open fissure at the south end of Tomales Bay has been published repeatedly as evidence of animals dying by falling into a fissure. In actuality, a rancher used the crevice to dispose of a dead cow, but the more dramatic story persists. Folklore also has it that the San Francisco fire was stopped through heroic efforts by the Army to dynamite firebreaks, when in reality the dynamited wreckage of a building burns just as easily as the building, and even more readily if the building has stone or brick walls. Sober analysts of the California Earthquake Commission and 522
1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake of the Fire Underwriters heavily discount blowing up buildings as a way of stopping fires. A rumor that the U.S. mint was assaulted during the fire by an armed gang intending to rob it was repeated as historical fact in a San Francisco paper as late as 1956. Another incident wherein the carcass of a bull shot while charging and taken to Letterman Hospital to help feed refugees led to a rumor that dead horses from all over the city were being fed to unsuspecting victims. Perhaps the most important result of the 1906 earthquake was that it made Californians actively conscious of the inevitability of periodic major earthquakes and the need for preparation. Thus, after every major quake, the California Uniform Building Code has been strengthened where found lacking. Also, continuing research on earthquake prediction provides growing understanding of what to expect and how to react. In spite of this, San Francisco again suffered severe damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, escaping a major fire only because, fortuitously, winds were calm. M. Casey Diana For Further Information: Bolt, Bruce A. Earthquakes. 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Collier, Michael. A Land in Motion: California’s San Andreas Fault. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Colvard, Elizabeth M., and James Rogers. Facing the Great Disaster: How the Men and Women of the U.S. Geological Survey Responded to the 1906 “San Francisco Earthquake.” Reston, Va.: U.S. Geological Survey, 2006. Fradkin, Philip L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Kurzman, Dan. Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. New York: William Morrow, 2001. Smith, Dennis. San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires. New York: Viking, 2005. Winchester, Simon. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
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■ 1908: The Tunguska event Meteorite or comet Date: June 30, 1908 Place: Tunguska, Siberia Classification: 8 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale; energy equivalent to at least 10 to 20 megatons of TNT released Result: 2 dead, several nomad camps destroyed, more than 1,000 reindeer killed, 811 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of forest flattened
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arly on the morning of June 30, 1908, witnesses along a 621-mile (1,000-kilometer) path saw a fireball streak across the sky from the east-southeast. It was as bright as the Sun and cast its own set of shadows in the early morning light. The object exploded at 7:14 a.m., local time. Based upon seismic and barographic records, and upon the destruction caused, the explosion released energy equivalent to that of 10 to 20 megatons of TNT, making it the most devastating cosmic event on Earth during historical times. Depending upon the altitude of the explosion and the composition of the object, the energy released may have been as high as 50 megatons. Had the explosion occurred over New York City, fatalities would have been in the millions. As it was, the object exploded over a sparsely inhabited forest in Siberia, roughly 43.5 miles (70 kilometers) north of Vanavara, a small village on the Stony Tunguska River. The region is one of primeval forests and bogs inhabited by nomads who tend large herds of reindeer. Near the epicenter (ground zero), trees burst into flame. Farther out, a great shock wave felled trees over an 811-square-mile (2,100-square-kilometer) area, pointing them radially outward, bottoms toward, and tops away from the epicenter. Right at the epicenter where the force of the blast wave was directly downward, a bizarre grove remained. Trees were left standing upright, but they were stripped of all their branches, like telephone poles. An eyewitness in Vanavara said the sky was split apart by fire and 524
1908: The Tunguska event that it was briefly hotter than he could endure. Because it was just after the summer solstice, the Sun remained above the horizon twentyfour hours a day north of the Arctic Circle. Dust, lofted high into the stratosphere, reflected so much sunlight back to the ground that even south of the Arctic Circle, in northern Europe and Asia, nights were not really dark for three days. People were amazed that they could read, or even take photographs, in the middle of the night. At least 1,000 reindeer were killed, and several nomad camps were blown away or incinerated. Some nomads were knocked unconscious, but remarkably, there are only 2 known human fatalities. An old man named Vasiliy was thrown 39 feet (12 meters) through the air into a tree. He soon died of his injuries. An elderly hunter named Lyuburman died of shock. Scientists supposed that the seismic waves had been caused by an earthquake, but no scientists went immediately to investigate because of the remoteness of the site. It was not until 1927 that Leonid Kulik, the founder of meteorite science in Russia, reached the site after spending many days plunging through trackless bogs on horseback. Expecting to find a huge crater and a valuable nickel-iron mountain, Kulik and his assistant were amazed to find only a shattered forest stretching from horizon to horizon. Careful research has since shown that the Tunguska object shattered about 5.3 miles (8.5 kilometers) above the ground. If it were a small comet, it must have been inactive, for there is no credible evidence of a tail. It must have been at least 328 feet (100 meters) in diameter and had an asteroidal core, because microscopic metallic particles were recovered that are more closely associated with asteroids than with comets. Russian scientists favor this hypothesis. The object’s trajectory and timing are consistent with it being a fragment of Comet Encke. Western scientists favor the possibility that it was a small, dark, rocky asteroid, perhaps 197 feet (60 meters) in diameter. When a solid object of this size plunges into the atmosphere, it piles up air in front of it until the air acts like a solid wall. The object shatters, its kinetic energy is converted to heat, and the object vaporizes explosively. Microscopic globules form as the vapor condenses. Such globules have been recovered from peat bogs and tree resin at the site, as well as from ice layers in remote Antarctica. The cosmic 525
1908: The Tunguska event dust cloud truly spread worldwide. These globules have more of the elements nickel and iridium than normal Earth rocks do—clear signatures of their cosmic origins. Charles W. Rogers For Further Information: Chaikin, Andrew. “Target: Tunguska.” Sky and Telescope, January, 1984, 18-21. Fernie, J. Donald. “The Tunguska Event.” American Scientist, September/October, 1993, 412-415. Gallant, Roy A. “Journey to Tunguska.” Sky and Telescope, June, 1994, 38-43. Verma, Surendra. The Tunguska Fireball: Solving One of the Great Mysteries of the 20th Century. Cambridge, England: Icon Books, 2006. Zanda, Brigitte, and Monica Rotaru, eds. Meteorites: Their Impact on Science and History. Translated by Roger Hewins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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■ 1908: The Messina earthquake Earthquake Date: December 28, 1908 Place: Strait of Messina, near Messina, Italy Magnitude: 7.5 Result: 120,000 dead, numerous communities destroyed or severely damaged
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n 1900 the Italian island of Sicily in the Mediterranean had a population of 3.8 million people. The island is separated from the province of Calabria on the Italian mainland by the 20-mile-long Strait of Messina. The strait is only 2 miles wide in the north, near the city of Messina, but expands to 10 miles in the south, near Reggio di Calabria. Even though much of the population of both Sicily and Calabria was employed in agriculture, one-fourth of it was concentrated in towns with populations of over 25,000, which proved disastrous during the earthquake in 1908. The Sicilian port city of Messina, which is located on the northern coast of the strait, claimed a population of 158,812 in 1905. It became Italy’s fourth largest port, from which much of the citrus export was shipped to northern Europe. Ten miles southeast of Messina across the strait in Calabria is Reggio, another important Italian port city, with a population of 45,000 in 1908. Sicily and the southern Italian region of Calabria are on the edge of the line that marks the collision between the European and the African continental plates. The mountain range that runs down the length of Italy and curves in southern Italy becomes the Calabrian Arc. The Messina Strait is on the southern point of the Calabrian Arc. The severe curvature of the Calabrian Arc causes lateral stretching of the earth’s crust under the strait. Most of the earthquakes in Sicily and Calabria result from movement along the Messina fault, a fracture in the earth’s crust that is 43 miles (70 kilometers) long and almost 19 miles (30 kilometers) wide. Between 1793 and 1908, twenty different earthquakes racked Messina and Reggio, although many were minor disturbances. 527
1908: The Messina earthquake Quake. Earthquakes that reached at least magnitude 7 on the Richter scale have occurred repeatedly in Sicily and Calabria. An earthquake in 1783 resulted in 29,515 casualties, and another one in Calabria on September 8, 1905, produced property damage in excess of $10 million (1905 value). The most devastating earthquake to strike this region after 1783, however, occurred on December 28, 1908. The epicenter of this magnitude 7.5 earthquake was in the Messina Strait. The focus of the earthquake was 5 miles (8 kilometers) below the strait. Several weeks before December 28, shock waves were recorded in the region. The day before the catastrophe was a mild day in Messina. That evening Giuseppe Verdi’s opera A da was being performed at the local theater. People came from Reggio di Calabria, across the strait, to attend the performance, and the hotels in town were completely full. At 5:21 a.m., while it was still dark and most people were sound asleep, the ground moved for thirty-five seconds and destroyed or damaged an area from Terresa to Faro on the Sicilian coast and from Lazzaro to Scilla on the Calabrian coast. The shock, which some survivors compared to the noise of a fast train going through a tunnel, was most intense at the northern entrance to the strait, but it was felt in an area 100 miles in radius. The earthquake’s 30-mile path of destruction directly affected 40 communities north and south of Messina on both sides of the strait. The devastation was greatest in large towns, such as Messina and Reggio. Aftershocks were felt as late as early January, 1909. The initial shock was followed by a tsunami, or tidal wave, which reached heights of 8 feet in Messina and 15 feet in Reggio. The waves extended 219 yards (200 meters) inland and reached the island of Malta 115 minutes after the earthquake. In Messina the force of the water pushed a 2,000-ton Russian steamer from a dry dock into the bay. On the shore, embankments collapsed 6 feet under water, and cracks appeared on the ground 109 yards (100 meters) long and half a yard (0.6 meter) deep. In Reggio the wharf was wrecked, and freight railroad cars near a major ferry station overturned. Few deaths resulted from either the tsunami or fires. Most of the 120,000 people who perished died because poorly constructed houses collapsed in the densely populated towns of Messina and Reggio. One-third of the population living in the 30-mile impact area 528
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perished. In Messina the dead included soldiers of the local garrison, who died when their military barracks collapsed, and the U.S. Consul and his wife. The last survivors, a boy and two siblings, were rescued from the ruins eighteen days after the earthquake. Until order was restored by the Italian military, a number of criminals, who were freed when the prison in Messina collapsed, added to the carnage by pillaging. Witnesses claimed that former prisoners cut off fingers and ears of earthquake victims in order to collect wedding rings and other jewelry. 529
1908: The Messina earthquake Gauged by the Modified Mercalli scale, the epicentral intensity of the destruction measured XI, which is only one level below the highest measurement possible on this scale. Both housing and infrastructure came down in clouds of dust and stones. The quake immediately destroyed the region’s municipal electric, gas, and water facilities. Ports and banks were damaged or destroyed, and the telegraph cable was cut. The principal street in Messina, Corso Cavour, was demolished. In addition, 87 of Messina’s 91 churches were destroyed, including the famous Norman cathedral. More than 1 million tons of debris had to be removed from Messina alone. In addition to the destruction of the towns’ infrastructure, in Messina and Reggio a majority of housing was completely destroyed. The most important reason for the extent of the destruction was the fact that most buildings were poorly built. In this poverty-stricken land, housing had to be constructed by local labor using available local material. Most walls were erected using rounded stones held together with weak mortar. Walls had weak girders and unsupported cross beams to support the weight of heavy roofs. These shortcomings of local construction had a long tradition. They were well known to French geologist Déodat de Gratet de Dolomieu, who described the poorly constructed housing in Messina in the aftermath of the earthquake of 1783. After that natural disaster, the Bourbon government of the kingdom of Sicily recommended construction of twostory timber-frame houses with the space between the timbers filled with stone embedded in mortar. This type of construction, called baraccata, was not enforced. Only the very rich could afford houses that were constructed adequately. A few of these baraccata buildings actually survived the earthquake of 1908 in Messina and in Castiglione. A doctor’s house in Messina stood through the quake because its foundations were nearly 5 feet thick and the masonry was made of expensive lime and puzzolan mortar. Response. Predictably, immediate reaction to the misery caused by the earthquake varied. The historian Gaetano Salvemini, a professor at the University of Messina who lost his whole family, lamented that he should have killed himself too. In one small Sicilian community that was not destroyed by the shock, people gathered in the church after the tremor. From there they followed their priest, who was carrying a statue of a saint to the center of the village in order to 530
1908: The Messina earthquake seek divine protection for the community. Journalists who visited destroyed communities reported that the population was apathetic, not religious, and gave the appearance of stupefaction and “mental paralysis.” Outside Italy, the Russian poet Aleksandr Blok, reflecting on the achievements of modern civilization, asked whether fate was attempting to show how elemental forces could humiliate humankind, which in its hubris thought it could control and rule nature through technology. Messina received foreign assistance two days before Reggio, where communications were interrupted longer. At first, help came from a variety of foreign ships, although one Italian warship in the region appeared soon after the catastrophe. The north German steamer Theropia left Naples on the afternoon of December 28 and reached the strait by daybreak the next day to offer assistance. By December 30, Russian and British warships were actively involved in rescue work. The injured were sent to Naples by ship and to Palermo and Catania by train. Because of the initial lack of communication, the Italian government in Rome reacted slowly. Early reports suggested the loss of a few thousand people. Only after receiving a report from the prefect of Messina twenty-four hours after the disaster did the government appreciate the seriousness of the situation. King Victor Emmanuel III arrived in Messina by December 30. The pope offered financial assistance, but, because of health reasons, he could not make the journey to the stricken area. Systematic relief work did not come until a week later, when the Italian premier sent soldiers and imposed martial law. On January 9, 1909, the army secured Messina and helped in the rescue work. Looters were shot on sight. Military control lasted until February 14. The world community reacted to the catastrophe with both an outpouring of sympathy and massive financial aid. By February 27, 1909, forty-three foreign countries, including even Peru, had provided assistance to this Italian region. The United States Congress voted for an assistance package of $800,000, and the Red Cross donated $1 million to the relief work by April, 1909. Additional funds were raised by a variety of papers and journals, ranging from the Christian Herald to The New York Times. The New York paper devoted front-page coverage to the earthquake from December 29, 1908, to 531
1908: The Messina earthquake January 6, 1909. In addition, it published appeals for help from various American organizations, particularly the Italian American community. In Italy a Committee to Aid was organized to assist the victims and to guide reconstruction. This committee included a number of politicians who wanted the aid to benefit primarily landowners and professionals rather than the masses. Peasants were urged to return to work on local citrus-fruit farms rather than rely on welfare in other parts of Italy. The duke of Aosta suggested that because of their poverty, the poor had lost little in the earthquake. The most extreme solution to the problem of recovery was suggested by the journalist Giuseppe Piazza, who thought that the Italian navy should bombard the ruins of Messina to the ground so that the city could be abandoned. Nonetheless, the population recovered and reached 177,000 by 1921. Also, by 1912, commerce in Messina reached 1909 levels and its port was again Italy’s fourth-largest. Still, the earthquake left reminders. In 1958, 10,000 inhabitants of Messina still lived in “temporary” housing that had been built in 1909. One long-term consequence of the earthquake was that it stimulated scientific studies on earthquake engineering. In early 1909 a committee was appointed, composed of nine engineers and five professors of engineering. Its task, as defined by the Ministry of Public Works, was to recommend earthquake-resistant buildings, which could be afforded by rural communities that had to rely on local raw material. The committee published its findings in Rome in 1909. Like many earlier studies after previous earthquakes, it summarized the weakness of housing construction in Messina and Reggio, ranging from poor mortar quality to unrestrained support beams. The committee recommended two-story wood-frame houses with walls filled with masonry. Based on these and subsequent findings, the Italian government between 1923 and 1930 passed more stringent construction laws, which in 1930 were more rigorous than those issued in earthquake-ridden Japan at that time. The task of meeting the challenge of earthquakes in this region is not finished. In 1970, the Italian government initiated studies on how to build a 2-mile (3-kilometer) single-span bridge across the Strait of Messina. Johnpeter Horst Grill
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1908: The Messina earthquake For Further Information: Bosworth, R. J. B. “The Messina Earthquake of 28 December 1908.” European Studies Review 11 (1981): 189-206. Hobbs, William H. “The Latest Calabrian Disaster.” The Popular Science Monthly 74 (February, 1909): 134-140. Hood, Alexander Nelson. “Some Personal Experiences of the Great Earthquake.” The Living Age 43 (May 8, 1909): 355-365. Mulargia, F., and E. Boschi. “The 1908 Messina Earthquake and Related Seismicity.” In Earthquakes: Observation, Theory, and Interpretation, edited by E. Boschi and H. Kanamori. Amsterdam: NorthHolland, 1983. Neri, G., et al. “Tectonic Stress and Seismogenic Faulting in the Area of the 1908 Messina Earthquake, South Italy.” Geophysical Research Letters 31 (2004). The New York Times. December 28, 1908-January 6, 1909. Perret, Frank A. “The Messina Earthquake.” The Century: Illustrated Monthly Magazine 55 (April, 1909): 921-928. Wright, Charles W. “The World’s Most Cruel Earthquake.” National Geographic 10 (April, 1909): 373-396.
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■ 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster Fire Date: November 13, 1909 Place: Cherry, Illinois Result: 259 dead
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he Cherry Mine is about 100 miles southwest of Chicago at Cherry, Illinois. Opened in 1904 by the St. Paul Mining Company, a subsidiary of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, the mine existed solely to supply fuel for the railroad. Cherry, named for James Cherry, the railroad engineer in charge, was built to house miners. Almost all of the town’s approximately 2,500 inhabitants consisted of miners and their families. On the morning of the disaster, 484 men went underground in the mine. Up-to-date, well-managed, and prosperous, the Cherry Mine was a sought-after place to work. It was dry, gas-free, and, with the railroad as its owner, largely immune from seasonal layoffs. Also, the Cherry Mine was one of the first lit by electricity. Unfortunately, however, the electrical system shorted out three weeks prior to the disastrous fire, and oil torches were put temporarily into use. Such torches were, at the time, widespread in coal mines. The Layout of the Mine. The Cherry Mine was entered through two shafts. The “second vein” (Illinois Springfield Number 5 Coal), a 5 foot, 2 inch seam mined at 316 feet, was the principal coal source when the mine burned. Beneath this, the lowermost of the three horizontal coal seams in the mine, the 3.5-foot “third vein” (Illinois Colchester Number 2 Coal) was mined at a depth of 486 feet. The “first vein” (Illinois Number 7, Streator Coal) at 271 feet was not mined in the Cherry Mine. On both levels, miners were isolated far from the shafts. The main shaft hoist connected the second level to the tipple, or head frame, but did not run down the shaft to the third seam. A second hoist in the ventilation and escape shaft connected the second and third seams but did not reach the surface. Thus, men and cars from the lower level were lifted to the second level, proceeded 200 feet past 534
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1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster the mule stables to the main hoist and, at this point, were lifted to the tipple. There was no hoist in the air shaft above the second level, but an enclosed wooden stairway and ladders allowed miners to climb from the bottom to the top of the shaft. Two tunnels, mined through coal, passed around the stables to connect the shafts. These passages were propped with pine timbers and were partially lined with pine planks. About 75 mules were used to haul wooden mine cars between the working faces and the hoist landings. A “pillar” of unmined coal surrounded and supported the two shafts, stables, and entries. The second level of the Cherry Mine was worked by the room-andpillar method. Nearly a mile of “main entries,” or tunnels, extended in an east-west direction from the shaft. Additional entries crossed the main entries at right angles to outline rectangular panels for mining. As coal was mined, “pillars,” left in a rectangular arrangement, supported the “back,” or roof. The third seam was mined by the long-wall method because the seam was so thin that rock had to be excavated from the roof to permit men and mules to pass. Haulage entries radiated outwards from the shaft, and working tunnels branched out at acute angles. Here men had to crouch under a 3.5-foot “back.” As the coal mining pro-
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
Smoke billows from the Cherry Mine after a fire there killed 259. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster ceeded, the roof was allowed to collapse behind the miners, with only the tunnels remaining open. Miners on both levels were dependent on messengers for communication. The Fire. At about 1:30 p.m. on November 13, 1909, a carload of hay was apparently ignited by kerosene dripping from the open torch at the second vein air-shaft landing. This small fire was ignored by miner Emil Gertz as he hurried to catch the 1:30 hoist. “Cagers,” or hoist operators, Alex Rosenjack and Robert Dean continued hoisting coal for several minutes after they knew about the fire. Minutes later, Rosenjack and two others tried unsuccessfully to dump the burning car down the air shaft. Eventually, aided by a group of miners from the third vein, they pushed the car into the air shaft, where the fire died in the water-filled “sump” at the shaft bottom. Meanwhile, however, timbers in the second level entries had ignited, and dense smoke already prevented miners from reaching the only water supply in the mine—a hose in the stables that supplied water for the mules. The fire raged out of control. At least forty-five minutes—too late for many to escape—passed before all men at the remote mining faces heard the warning. One cageload of men came up from the lower level before the cager fled, and a few additional men climbed the escape shaft stairs. Some second-vein men reached the hoist shaft from the side opposite the fire and escaped before smoke and flame blocked the shaft. Pit boss Alex Norberg then ordered the fan reversed to draw air down the main shaft, and mine manager John Bundy organized twelve volunteers to go down on the hoist to rescue trapped miners. After six successful trips, the seventh ended when the rescuers burned to death in the cage. Tragically, the hoist engineer, John Crowley, delayed lifting the men because signals from below were confused. At 8 p.m. the mine was sealed to smother the fire. Recovery Efforts. Soon mine inspectors, firefighters, and rescue experts arrived to supervise further rescue and recovery. On November 14, R. Y. Williams and his assistant, from the University of Illinois, were lowered to the second level in the ventilation shaft wearing oxygen helmets and suits, but smoke and steam forced them out, and the shafts were again covered. The next day temperatures were fairly comfortable, but there was still too much smoke and steam underground. In an attempt to use the main shaft hoist, the fan was re537
1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster paired to pull air down the main shaft. Ventilation, however, revived the fire, so both shafts were once again covered. On the fourth day, although the main shaft still retained excessive temperatures, a decision was made to enter the air shaft, and a temporary cage was constructed. The next day, November 18, the “helmet men” retrieved a body from the air shaft. Also, a hose was lowered down to the second level late in the day, and fire fighting began. Chicago firefighters led the effort west of the main shaft all that night, and on November 19 they recovered four more bodies. Also, explorers got around cave-ins to reach the south entry and penetrated east almost to the air shaft. Repairs to timbering and removal of roof falls were done on these passages during the night. By the end of the first week, the fire was apparently under control in areas accessible from the main shaft landing. Finally, on November 20, when the workings (tunnels and shafts) were stabilized and it appeared that no live men remained underground, the remaining mining inspectors left at 10:30 a.m. However, shortly after noon, 21 survivors, led by George Eddy and Walter Waite, were found on the second level. These men had sheltered behind barriers they erected to preserve breathable air, and all but one eventually recovered. After survivors were found, the mine inspectors hastily returned. Rooms east of the main south entry were explored that night and through Monday the 22nd, without finding additional living miners: About 100 bodies were removed. On November 23 and 24, the northwest entries were searched without recovering men or bodies. Northern workings east of the shaft, where many men had been employed, remained inaccessible. At this point, smoke began issuing from the main passageway connecting the west shaft with the air shaft. This passage was temporarily blocked by a roof fall and a temporary barrier. Exploration of the northwest section immediately ceased, the barrier was removed, and a hose was turned into the passage, dousing the fire. Also on November 24, four men reentered the third vein for the first time since the fire began and found 3 to 4 feet of water in the workings. Groups of bodies were discovered in dry places. However, pumping preparations halted when fire began encroaching behind the shaft lining south and east of the main shaft. These fires could not be suppressed, so smoke spread west, practically driving out the res538
1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster cuers. In addition, dense coal smoke from burning pillars aroused fear of noxious gases. Thus, after a unanimous decision that no survivors remained in the mine, both shafts were sealed with steel rails and concrete in order to smother the fire on November 25, 1909, two weeks after the fire began. During the crisis, the Red Cross sent supplies and workers. The Catholic Church sent nuns to help the bereaved, and other churches organized relief committees. The Chicago Tribune gathered money and contributed food. The Aftermath. Restoration began February 1, 1910, after temperatures dropped to normal and the mine was ventilated. Finally, the fire was extinguished, and the lower level was drained. By March 5, 82 bodies had been recovered from the second level, and on April 12, 51 bodies were removed from the third level. Up to 6 men remained unaccounted for. Next, the second level was walled off, everything of value removed, and it was abandoned. By September 3, some third-level entries were cleared to the coal face, and the mine was expected to reopen October 10, 1910—one year and thirty-one days after the fire. Results of the Cherry Mine disaster were many and varied. Public indignation made it necessary to bring in the militia to guard mine officials. Also, cagers Rosenjack and Dean fled the town, and hoist engineer Crowley was placed under protection. In all, 187 bodies were found on the second vein: 51 on the third vein and 12 victims burned to death during rescue efforts. Three of 256 dead listed in the state mining inspector’s report were “American,” 233 of diverse nationalities, and 20 of unreported nationality. The youngest miners were only fifteen and working in violation of the Factory Act, which prohibited those under sixteen from mining. The Cherry Relief Commission collected a total of $256,215.72 from the state legislature and death benefits from the United Mine Workers, as well as money from the railroad, from churches, and from many individual donors. Also, an additional $400,000 settlement was negotiated with the mining company. These funds provided widows with lump-sum payments and, until they remarried, modest pensions, as well as child support for children too young to work. In 1910 and 1911 the Illinois state legislature passed several bills in response to the Cherry disaster. These required improved 539
1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster firefighting and prevention measures, telephones connecting the faces and cages with the surface, improved workers’ compensation laws, and establishment of regional fire and rescue stations. The Cherry Disaster also was crucial in establishment of the Federal Bureau of Mines. Cherry’s annual memorial services and museum continue to draw large attendance. After the disaster, the St. Paul Mining Company continued with many of the original miners until 1927. By then unmechanized long-wall mines were obsolete, and the mine closed. In 1928, Mark Bartolo reopened the mine until its final closure during the Depression. Bartolo salvaged buildings and equipment and began to farm the site. M. Casey Diana For Further Information: Buck, F. P. The Cherry Mine Disaster. Chicago: M. H. Donohue, 1910. Burns, Robert Taylor. “The Cherry Mine Disaster.” Outdoor Illinois 8, no. 4 (1967): 36-40. Curran, Daniel J. Dead Laws for Dead Men. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. Hudson, Thomas. “The Cherry Mine Disaster.” In Twenty-ninth Annual Coal Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics. Springfield: Illinois State Journal, 1911. Tintori, Karen. Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster. New York: Atria Books, 2002. U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety, and Health Administration. National Mine Health and Safety Academy. Historical Summary of Mine Disasters in the United States. Beaver, W.Va.: Author, 1998. Wyatt, Edith. “Heroes of the Cherry Mine.” McClure’s Magazine 34, no. 5 (March, 1910): 473-492.
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■ 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster Explosion Date: April 28, 1914 Place: Eccles (near Beckley), Raleigh County, West Virginia Result: 181 dead
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he Eccles Number 5 Mine was opened in 1905. It was owned by the Guggenheim family of New York City and managed by the New River Collieries Company until the Stoneage Coke and Coal Company took over operations in 1923. Stoneage operated the mine from 1923 until 1928. Eccles was a gaseous mine, as noted in the 1911 annual report of the Department of Mines of West Virginia. However, the ventilation required for gaseous mines was adequate and appeared to be up to standards. The Department of Mines was not expecting a major tragedy at Eccles. At 2:10 p.m., an explosion in the Number 5 Mine killed every man among the 172 who were working there. While working the seam in the Number 6 mine, above the Number 5 Mine, 8 men were killed by the afterdamp from the Number 5 Mine explosion. Afterdamp is an asphyxiating gas left in a mine after an explosion of firedamp. Firedamp is a gas, largely methane, formed in coal mines and is explosive when mixed with air. Sixty-six men managed to escape from the Number 6 Mine. The explosion that originated in the Number 5 Mine produced heat and violence so great that few of the 172 men in the mine workings could have lived any real amount of time after the explosion. About ten minutes after the first explosion in the Number 5 Mine, a second and less violent explosion occurred, which carried debris out of the Number 5 Mine’s shaft. The first and more violent explosion, accompanied by flame, carried timber and quantities of mud up both mines’ shafts and blew off the explosion doors of the fanhouse at the Number 5 Mine’s shaft. The explosion did not, however, damage the fan. The explosion wave in the Number 5 Mine traveling toward the Number 6 Mine’s shaft blew a large quantity of water from a depression up the Number 5 Mine’s shaft. This quenched the flame and 541
1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster prevented it from entering the Number 6 Mine. Rescue workers entered through the Number 6 Mine’s shaft. Reasons for the Explosion. The official report filed by the mine inspectors gives the cause of the explosion as a barrier of coal being breached a short time before the explosion occurred. A contractor working on the south side of the coal barrier had been notified not to take out the barrier, as that would disrupt the ventilation in that portion of the mine. This barrier was intact on the morning of the explosion, as testified to by the night boss who examined it. After the explosion the body of [Seth] Combs [the contractor] was found on the north side of the barrier . . . while his work was on the south side, and it is assumed that some time during the day he had blasted out a hole in the barrier that he might have a shorter travel way to the north section of the entry. In doing so, practically one-third of the mine was left without ventilation and it seems that the explosion originated in the main south sections of the mine.
The mine was known to liberate explosive gas, and the coal in this section, varying in thickness from 8 to 10 feet, would allow the gas to accumulate next to the roof. Conditions suggested that this explosion was caused by the ignition of gas and its propagation throughout the various parts of the mine. This was aided, to some extent, by the presence of coal dust, as the force of the explosion traveled in all directions. It dropped the Eccles Number 5 Mine 500 feet down into the Beckley coal seam. The Aftermath. Of the 181 dead, 62 were positively identified. Of those, 15 percent were African American and 23 percent were of Italian descent. Some had Slavic surnames. Many of the dead miners were immigrants. About 39 percent were married. Those who could be identified were buried in family cemeteries if they were locals. Some of the Catholic immigrant miners were taken to Saint Sebastian cemetery in nearby Beckley. Those who were not identified were buried in the “Polish cemetery” above the tipple, where coal was emptied from the mine cars at the Eccles mines. In 1976, the bodies were moved to a new cemetery at the request of the Westmoreland Coal Company, which was then working the Eccles mines. Dana P. McDermott 542
1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster For Further Information: Dillon, Lacy A. They Died in the Darkness. Ravencliff, W.Va.: Coal Books, 1991. Humphrey, Hiram B. Historical Summary of Coal-Mine Explosions in the United States, 1910-1958. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Bureau of Mines, 1959. U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety, and Health Administration. National Mine Health and Safety Academy. Historical Summary of Mine Disasters in the United States. Beaver, W.Va.: Author, 1998. Wood, James L. Raleigh County, West Virginia. Beckley, W.Va.: Raleigh County Historical Society, 1994.
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■ 1914: EMPRESS OF IRELAND sinking Fog Date: May 29, 1914 Place: St. Lawrence River, Canada Result: More than 1,000 dead in sinking of Canadian liner Empress of Ireland following collision with Norwegian freighter Storstad in heavy fog
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he fame and historical significance of some disasters certainly overshadow other tragedies and accidents. Such is the case regarding the loss of the Empress of Ireland. The nationality, location, and date of the disaster all contributed to a general lack of knowledge about the ship’s loss, despite the fact that more passengers lost their lives in the accident than in more famous incidents. Empress of Ireland (completed in 1907) and its sister ship Empress of Britain were constructed by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Glasgow as flagships of the Canadian Pacific Line. At 14,200 tons, Empress of Ireland carried more than 1,000 passengers—310 first class, 350 second class, and 800 third class—on the Quebec-to-Liverpool route. For eight years the ship enjoyed a distinguished reputation for service and reliability and never once was involved in any sort of accident. Empress of Ireland, with 1,057 passengers and 420 crewmen aboard, left Quebec on May 28, 1914. Many of its passengers were prominent leaders of the Canadian Salvation Army, on their way to Europe to attend the organization’s worldwide convention. At approximately 1 a.m., Captain Henry Kendall, commanding the Empress of Ireland for the first time, paused to drop off pilot Adelhard Bernier at Rimouski, Quebec, at the point where the St. Lawrence River widens before the approach to the open sea. At about the same time, the Norwegian Storstad, a coal freighter, was approaching Rimouski to take on its pilot before entering the narrow portion of the river. The Storstad’s 7,000-ton displacement was further burdened by 11,000 tons of coal scheduled to be unloaded in Quebec the next day. On the Storstad’s 544
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bridge First Mate Alfred Toftenes stood watch, peering into the darkness as intermittent fog began to develop over the river. Not long after passing Rimouski, the two ships sighted each other. In the darkness without any visual references, both ships misjudged the bearing and speed of the other, with disastrous results. Before signals could be launched and positions verified, a blanket of fog obscured both vessels’ view of the other, leaving the ships groping toward each other in the darkness. Both officers then took actions intended to prevent a collision, but which in retrospect proved the opposite. First Mate Toftenes, obeying the established maritime rules, proceeded on his original course and speed, presuming the other ship would do the same and pass cleanly to port. Captain Kendell, however, did almost the opposite. He initially ordered all his engines to stop in order to allow the other vessel to pass ahead of him. The immense mass of the ship, however, carried the vessel forward anyway. To compensate, Kendall ordered the engines 545
1914: Empress of Ireland sinking to full reverse to halt the Empress of Ireland’s forward momentum, announcing his intent to the unseen ship by three long blasts from his steam whistle. When First Mate Toftenes heard the whistle, he realized the danger of his situation. He immediately reduced forward speed and called the Storstad’s commanding officer, Captain Thomas Anderson, to the bridge. Anderson had just arrived on the bridge when the massive starboard side of the Empress of Ireland suddenly appeared out of the fog less than 100 yards dead ahead. Captain Anderson immediately reversed engines, while Captain Kendall went to full speed to avoid a collision, but their efforts were in vain. Storstad rammed the Empress of Ireland amidships, nearly cutting it in two. Captain Kendall, realizing his ship was doomed, immediately ordered the helmsman to turn the ship toward shore and prepare the passengers for evacuation. Despite direct action, the Empress of Ireland and many of its passengers had no chance. The deep wound caused by the Storstad had flooded the boilers, and the Empress of Ireland came to a dead stop in the channel. Electrical power also failed, plunging the ship into darkness and disabling the public address system needed to alert sleeping passengers and crew. The gash in its side also admitted tons of water into the ship. Only ten minutes after the collision, the Empress of Ireland capsized, floated bottom up for several minutes, then sank in 150 feet of water. Because of the loss of power and the quick demise of the ship, the death toll was staggering. Of 1,057 passengers, only 217 survived. More crewmen survived the tragedy because they were awake and working, but 172 of the 420 crewmen lost their lives. An additional 20 crewmen aboard the Storstad also died. Eager to place blame, a Canadian court of inquiry cleared Captain Kendall of all responsibility for the disaster. A Norwegian inquiry subsequently cleared the Storstad of any fault. In actuality both were to blame. Captain Kendall had acted indecisively and had not followed established maritime rules by failing to maintain his course. First Mate Toftenes also deserved blame for not summoning his commanding officer until the situation had deteriorated. The loss of the Empress of Ireland has slipped into obscurity for several reasons. First, its loss was overshadowed by the sinking of the Titanic two years earlier. Empress of Ireland also sank in the St. Lawrence River instead of on the higher-profile passenger routes in the North 546
Atlantic. Finally, the growing war scare in Europe that would result in World War I only three months after the loss of Empress of Ireland dominated the news more than the loss of a passenger liner on a Canadian river. Steven J. Ramold For Further Information: Bonsall, Thomas E. Great Shipwrecks of the Twentieth Century. Baltimore: Bookman, 1988. Croall, James. Disaster at Sea: The Last Voyage of the “Empress of Ireland.” New York: Stein & Day, 1980. McMurray, Kevin F. Dark Descent: Diving and the Deadly Allure of the “Empress of Ireland.” Camden, Maine: International Marine, 2004. Marshall, Logan. The Tragic Story of the “Empress of Ireland.” 1914. Reprint. London: Patrick Stephens, 1972. Wood, Herbert P. Til We Meet Again: The Sinking of the “Empress of Ireland.” Toronto: Image, 1982. Zeni, David. Forgotten Empress: The “Empress of Ireland” Story. Tiverton, N.Y.: Halsgrove, 1998.
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■ 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic Epidemic Date: 1916 Place: 26 states, particularly New York Result: At least 7,000 deaths, 27,000 reported cases
N
early all Americans coming of age during the first half of the twentieth century have childhood memories that include the apprehension each summer brought, when polio epidemics could begin without warning, leaving many paralyzed or dead in their wake. Although poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis, as it was also called, had existed for hundreds of years, the first large-scale epidemic of the disease hit the United States in 1916. An earlier outbreak had occurred in Stockholm in 1887, with 44 cases reported. There were also outbreaks in New York City in 1907, New York City and Cincinnati in 1911, and Buffalo, New York, in 1912, but none approached the horror and severity of the 1916 epidemic. Indeed, the 1916 polio epidemic set the pattern for polio epidemics through the middle of the twentieth century, both in the virulence of the disease and in the public’s response. Rate of Infection. Typically, in the early years of the twentieth century, the rate of polio infection in the United States was less than 7.9 cases per 100,000 people. In 1916, that figure rose dramatically, topping out at 28.5 cases per 100,000. People in 26 states were affected by the disease. All told, between roughly July of 1916 and October of 1916 some 27,000 cases were reported. Of these, about 7,000 people died. In New York City, the hardest hit area of the country, there were about 9,000 cases, and nearly all of these cases occurred in children younger than sixteen years of age. During the week of August 5, 1916, at the height of the epidemic, there were 1,151 cases reported in the city and 301 deaths. Many cases went unreported because the families of victims feared that they would be quarantined and unable to leave their homes. Many victims of the disease suffered mild or no symptoms, often only complaining of a low-grade fever. However, others complained 548
1916: The Great Polio Epidemic of stiff necks and backs and increasingly painful limbs. Sometimes, this muscular distress grew more severe, with the limbs becoming paralyzed. In the worst cases, the virus destroyed the nerves controlling the muscles responsible for breathing, leading inevitably to death. The swift onset of the disease, the often dire consequences, the mysterious nature of transmission, and its predilection for attacking adolescents and young adults in the prime of life made polio a terrifying word. During epidemics, horrified populations submitted to intrusive public health regulations that they never would have endured otherwise, all in the hope of quelling the infection’s spread. Polio Becomes Epidemic. Ironically, some researchers believe that the improved sanitation in American cities in the twentieth century changed the way the population experienced the virus. The improved sanitation, while a boon in preventing many forms of illnesses, may have contributed to polio becoming a typically epidemic
During the Great Polio Epidemic of 1916, quarantines were enforced in cities.
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1916: The Great Polio Epidemic disease. In the years before the twentieth century, human feces containing large amounts of polio virus were the most common form of transmission. Water contaminated with feces led to many cases. Thus, before the twentieth century, polio infected almost all babies. These babies only suffered a mild reaction, generally no more than a lowgrade fever or cold symptoms. Sometimes babies who were infected did not exhibit symptoms at all. They were, nonetheless, immune to future infection by the virus. Further, polio had always been a far more serious disease in adults than in infants. Improved sanitation meant that fewer babies were exposed to the virus. As a result, more adults were susceptible to the disease. When the virus struck the largely unprotected population, it reached epidemic proportions as adolescents and adults passed the disease to other adolescents and adults, often with disastrous consequences. The illness this population suffered was of a far more serious nature, often leading to paralysis or death. Although the cause of polio had been identified as a virus as early as 1909, no vaccine existed in 1916. Further, the medical community was uncertain how the disease was passed from person to person, and they did not know why the disease always peaked in the summer, only to ease in the winter. At the time of the 1916 outbreak, popular wisdom attributed polio to wildly different sources. Many believed that the disease was caused by poisonous caterpillars or moldy flour. Others thought that gooseberries or contaminated milk could cause polio. Still others thought that contact with human spit or sewage odors might be the culprit. In spite of popular opinion, in 1916 medical researchers generally subscribed to the germ theory. That is, they believed that disease was passed from person to person via invisible germs. Much of the general public and some epidemiologists, however, still believed that most disease was caused by dirt. If there were such a thing as germs, they reasoned, then they must be spread by dirty people. Such reasoning led to the extreme measures to enforce quarantine and isolation that characterized the 1916 epidemic, particularly in New York City. Public Health Response. Public health officials undertook many measures to try to slow the spread of the disease in the summer of 1916. They placed quarantine signs on the doors of victims, in550
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In an effort to control spread of the disease, interstate travelers were required to carry a health certificate verifying the absence of polio.
structed that all bed clothing be disinfected, and required nurses to change their clothing immediately after visiting with patients. In the mistaken notion that dogs and cats could spread the disease, pets were not permitted to go into rooms with people suffering from polio. As the epidemic wore on, public health officials gathered up and destroyed many dogs and cats. On July 14, 1916, New York officials announced a new regulation forbidding travel in or out of parts of the city stricken with the epidemic. Further, New York City children had to carry identification cards certifying that neither they nor anyone in their families had polio before they were allowed to leave the city. The public reaction in New York to the 1916 epidemic is particularly interesting because it reveals the deep resentment the upper and middle classes bore toward the poor and immigrant populations. When most public health and elected officials attributed the epidemic to dirty people, they did not have far to look in New York City, with its large, poverty-stricken immigrant population. As a group, the poor were generally ill educated and did not wield political clout. 551
1916: The Great Polio Epidemic Consequently, public officials took restrictive measures that were directly aimed at this population. For example, a New York City law required that any sick child living in a home without a private toilet and whose family could not provide a private nurse must be hospitalized. Thus, virtually any sick child who also had the misfortune to be poor was hospitalized. Since hospitals were often the sites of secondary infections, such hospitalization was not always in the best interest of the child. Even more extreme, poor children without symptoms were also quarantined, due to the public’s belief that such children spread the illness to their middle-class and upper-class neighbors. Residents attributed the large outbreak of polio in New Rochelle, New York, to its immigrant population. Indeed, the immigrant population was looked upon with growing suspicion as the epidemic dragged on through the summer. Immigrant children were banned from city functions and camps. In contrast, middle-class and wealthy children were sent out of the city for the summer, to places their parents deemed were “safe,” often meaning to places that had low immigrant populations. More than 50,000 children were sent out of New York City over the course of the summer. Several wealthy New York suburbs isolated themselves from the rest of New York, forbidding nonresidents from entering their towns. Hastings-on-Hudson, for example, refused to admit 150 families who wanted to summer there, and police intervention was needed to send them away. Some communities closed their beaches to nonresidents. The polio epidemic of 1916, then, shows clearly how a public health issue can quickly become an issue of politics, race, economics, and class. In some places, such as Oyster Bay, a summer resort town, the interests of the less wealthy permanent residents were at odds with the wealthier summer guests. J. N. Hayes, in The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History (1998), cites a study by Guenter Risse of the public reaction in Oyster Bay during the time of the epidemic. The permanent residents, many of whom made their living by supplying the summer residents with services, did not want a quarantine imposed that would destroy their livelihoods. At the same time, they did not want to pay through their taxes for health services for the rich guests. That many of the permanent residents were of Irish or Polish descent further convinced the summer guests that they were at risk in the resort. 552
1916: The Great Polio Epidemic As the epidemic continued, it became clear that the transmission model that most middle-class and upper-class members held was not accurate. Contact with poor and immigrant populations did not lead to the transmission of the disease; victims seemed randomly chosen. Some public health officials began to advocate for the eradication of the fly, on the grounds that flies spread filth and disease. Once again, the public backed these measures because it gave them a sense that there was something they could do. Nonetheless, killing flies did not stop the spread of polio. Conclusions. While such reactions seem extreme, it is difficult to overestimate the panic the population felt with a serious epidemic underway, an epidemic that seemed impervious to modern medicine, and to all contemporary public health measures. During the 1916 epidemic, parents began keeping their children indoors and away from crowds, a pattern that repeated itself each summer until a vaccine was discovered. During the polio epidemic of 1916, federal health officials kept many records and statistics in their efforts to better understand the cause and transmission of the disease. It took over two years to assemble and analyze the data and to release their report. The results of the report did nothing to allay public fear over future epidemics. The report said that the quarantine efforts had been a failure, and the federal health officials were unable to establish the way polio moved through communities. There was no indication that the disease was linked to family socioeconomic status or ethnic background. The report did raise hope that a cure or vaccine could be found if research efforts were focused on those people who had contracted the disease but had not become ill. The polio epidemic of 1916 was only the first of a series of major polio epidemics that raced through the nation in the subsequent summers. This epidemic, along with the influenza epidemic of 1918, undermined public trust in modern medicine, which had held out such hope for the eradication of disease just a few years earlier. It would not be until nearly 1960 before children would once again populate beaches and pools in the heat of summer. Diane Andrews Henningfeld
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1916: The Great Polio Epidemic For Further Information: Daniel, Thomas M., and Frederick C. Robbins, eds. Polio. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 1997. Gehlbach, Stephen H. American Plagues: Lessons from Our Battles with Disease. New York: McGraw-Hill Medical, 2005. Gould, Tony. A Summer Plague: Polio and Its Survivors. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995. Hayes, J. N. The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Kluger, Jeffrey. Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004. Oshinsky, David M. Polio: An American Story. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Rogers, Naomi. Dirt and Disease: Polio Before FDR. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Smith, Jane S. Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine. New York: William Morrow, 1990.
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■ 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic Epidemic Also known as: The Spanish Flu Pandemic Date: 1918-1920 Place: The United States, Europe, Africa, India, Japan, Russia, South America, and the South Seas Result: 550,000 dead in the United States, more than 30 million dead worldwide
I
nfluenza, an illness caused by a highly contagious, highly mutable virus, has been a part of human history for many years. It has been described as the kind of illness a doctor loves: everyone ill, but no one dying. Also known by a variety of names, including the grippe, catarrh, and knock-me-down fever, influenza generally kills only the very young and very old. However, in the spring of 1918, a new influenza virus began spreading throughout the world. Before the pandemic burned itself out sometime in late 1919 or early 1920, it had circled the globe and killed more people in less time than any other illness in recorded history. Even more frightening, it had targeted young, robust people in the prime of their lives. Symptoms for most influenza viruses mimic a bad cold. The 1918 strain, however, devastated the human body, causing hemorrhages in the nose and in the lungs. People who were exposed to the disease came down with it in under three days and were often dead within three days of their first symptoms. Contemporary doctors at first doubted that they were dealing with influenza at all, thinking perhaps that the world was seeing a new plague of hemorrhagic fever. Background. Influenza is caused not by one virus, but rather by several related viruses, which attack the respiratory system and are highly contagious. In general, influenza symptoms include sore throat, fever, sniffles, cough, and aches and pains. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate influenza from the common cold; however, when large numbers of people in a given population begin to suffer the symptoms in a very short period of time, it is nearly always an influenza virus causing the problems. 555
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic One of the most troubling aspects of the flu virus is its ability to mutate quickly. Indeed, as it replicates itself, it makes small changes in its surface genetic material. Eventually, enough changes take place to render the virus impervious to the human immune system. That is, although the immune system produces enough antibodies to protect the person from further attacks by the same virus, once the virus mutates sufficiently, it is no longer the same strain that the person has become immune to. The immune system simply does not recognize the virus. In 1889, the world saw the first influenza pandemic in history. Across the globe, many people suffered from the same strain of the virus. The pandemic reflected both the increased amount of travel and the increased speed of travel that the late nineteenth century technological revolution provided. As people moved around the globe, they carried their viruses with them. Overview. It is likely that the 1918 influenza pandemic began in the midwestern United States. Many researchers believe that a widespread illness among the pig population of Iowa (a population that vastly outnumbered the human population of that state) presaged the human epidemic. Pig farmers fell ill, as did many sheep, bison, moose, and elk. Although the 1918 influenza is generally known as the Spanish Flu, all evidence points to an American origin. Beginning in the United States in the spring of 1918, the pandemic spread to Europe and on to Africa, India, Japan, Russia, South America, and the South Seas, returning to the United States for a second, more deadly, round of illnesses. By very conservative estimates, some 30 million people died worldwide, with as many as 20 million dying in India alone. Many have argued that World War I was the cause of the pandemic’s devastating sweep of the world. While it is not possible to attribute the influenza epidemic to the war itself, certainly the war created conditions conducive to the spread and the virulence of the disease. Young, healthy men, a favorite target for this strain of influenza, were housed in close quarters as part of the armies of the combatants. In addition, they moved across the globe, pursuing their countries’ political and military objectives. Consequently, they spread their viruses with them to each country they visited. Social upheaval and poor economic conditions also contributed to the high death rates in some nations. 556
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic Spring and Summer, 1918. In the spring of 1918, Europe was in the heat of combat. The United States had recently entered the war, and American troops were being rushed to the western front to fight a German offensive. Between March and April, over 200,000 troops left for Europe. These were the topics that grabbed the headlines in the spring of 1918; few noticed a flu epidemic that made its way across the United States. At that time, flu was not a reportable illness. As a result, although cases of influenza occurred in virtually every corner of the United States, the lack of a coordinated informationgathering system meant that health care workers could not assess the wave of flu for what it was: the first shot across the bow of what would become the worst pandemic in history. While there are few records from civilian sources, military and prison records suggest a pattern to the illness that was striking the country at large. First, many of the cases of influenza were followed by pneumonia. Second, the virus seemed to strike and kill not only children and the elderly but also young, healthy adults. While there was not a high death rate during March and April, the death rate for the latter group was considerably higher than one would expect. Perhaps even more significant was the high rate of infection among men being prepared to fight the war in Europe. For example, an epidemic of influenza struck the Fifteenth U.S. Cavalry while en route to Europe. Consequently, the flu began to appear in and around the ports of disembarkation of American troops. By May, the virus was firmly entrenched in Europe. It had appeared in British and German troops in April. Not surprisingly, the German troops with the closest proximity to American and British troops were the earliest victims. It was widespread among French troops by May. From there, the virus spread to Italy and Spain. At this point, the influenza was named “Spanish influenza,” not because it had originated in that country but because Spain did not censor the news from its borders, as did the countries actively involved in the war. Consequently, news of the European epidemic was largely limited to the cases reported by the Spanish, and people began to identify the influenza as a Spanish disease. Indeed, along with its many other nicknames, this flu was known as “the Spanish Lady.” Soon, the disease appeared in the civilian populations of Europe. Like the epidemic in the United States, the virus did not kill many of 557
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic its victims at this time; however, a surprising number of the mortalities were among the young and healthy, a group that would be expected to survive an influenza epidemic. By June, the virus seemed to be dying out in the United States. However, it had appeared in Russia, North Africa, India, Japan, China, New Zealand, and the Philippines. In the following month, it appeared in Hawaii, the Panama Canal Zone, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. The first cases were nearly always reported in port towns, where ships from nations already infected with the virus made landfall. Frequently, the sailors on the vessels were infected when their ships landed. From the port towns, the disease fanned rapidly outward among the indigenous populations. Roughly four months after its first appearance in the United States, the flu had circled the world. The disease, although widespread, was fairly mild. Nonetheless, estimates suggest that it had killed more than 10,000 people by the end of the summer. August, 1918. By August, the death rates for respiratory illnesses began to inch upward in the United States, something that could not have been predicted by actuarial tables. Further, the virus had mutated as it traveled around the globe, sometimes manifesting itself in a milder form, sometimes in a horrifying, virulent form. During the third week of August, the flu exploded on three different continents, at three different ports. Alfred Crosby, one of the foremost historians of the pandemic, suggests that at this time, the milder form of the illness was homegrown. For example, English people who contracted the disease in England generally developed mild cases. On the other hand, when a British ship landed at Freetown, Sierra Leone, with 200 sailors ill with mild flu, the local workers who entered the ship became violently ill. On August 27, 500 out of 600 dock laborers in Freetown were unable to come to work due to illness. The Sierra Leone workers then passed the virus back to the British on a different ship. This time, the British sailors were violently ill, and 59 died. Meanwhile, the civilian population of Sierra Leone became sicker and sicker. By the time this wave of influenza retreated, 70 percent of the population had flu and about 3 percent of the entire population had died. A second port affected by the mixing of the flu virus through hosts of different nationalities was Brest, France, where most members of 558
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic the American expeditionary force disembarked. Here, ill French soldiers and ill American soldiers passed the virus back and forth. Between August 22 and September 15, 370 had died and 1,350 had been hospitalized. Boston, Massachusetts, was the first American city to experience the second wave of the flu virus. In the course of two weeks, the flu swept through 2,000 sailors before moving out into other military installations and to the civilian population. September, 1918. In 1918, the American army was as healthy as it had ever been. New sanitation methods and improved nutrition meant the army suffered far fewer illnesses. However, the ranks of the Army were swelling in 1918, as the United States sent an ever-growing number of young men to fight in World War I. Consequently, many Army bases were grossly overcrowded, in spite of relatively good conditions for the men. In September of 1918, an illness began striking men in Camp Devens, Massachusetts, and then quickly spread to other camps. At first, the disease was not even recognized as influenza; it bore little resemblance to the flu that had become epidemic during the previous spring. The illness the Camp Devens soldiers contracted came on abruptly and devastated its victims. In addition, many of the men contracted pneumonia. Between September 7 and September 23, 12,604 soldiers out of a total population of 45,000 contracted influenza. Even as the number of new cases of flu went down, the number of cases of pneumonia went up, and many were dying. The hospital at the base and the medical staff were completely overwhelmed, as was the morgue. When doctors performed autopsies on the dead, they discovered that the lungs of men who had been healthy and robust just days before were filled with bloody liquid. Some doctors speculated that this was some new form of hemorrhagic fever before they realized that it was a new, more deadly strain of influenza causing the illness. In any event, the doctors were horrified by the scope and the devastation of the disease. The Epidemic in the United States. The influenza spread rapidly throughout the United States. In general, while the U.S. Navy tended to spread the infection at the ports and at training centers, such as Great Lakes Naval Training Station, the Army moved across the interior of the United States by rail, infecting civilian populations 559
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A soldier suffering from influenza in a New York Army hospital. (American Red Cross)
along the way. The overcrowded conditions on troop trains meant that a highly contagious, airborne infection would spread rapidly to all those on the train. In addition, the camps the new soldiers were moving to were overcrowded. To make the situation even worse, the country was gripped by patriotic fervor. The United States, in need of more money to support 560
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic the war effort, kicked off a Liberty Loan war-bond drive on October 4, 1918. Across the country, cities planned and carried out largescale parades and systematic door-to-door solicitations in order to draw attention to the sale of bonds. While the sale of the bonds certainly raised money for the war effort, it also had the effect of spreading the influenza virus at a rapid rate. The waves of influenza sweeping the country moved at different rates in different populations. The week ending September 28 marked the high point of the pandemic in the Navy, with 880 deaths due to influenza and pneumonia reported. In the Army, the peak occurred about two weeks later. In the week ending October 11, 1918, 6,170 soldiers died of influenza and pneumonia. In general, civilian populations became part of the pandemic a bit later than did the military. Perhaps the hardest hit American city was Philadelphia. Alfred W. Crosby offers a horrifying look at the spread of the disease through that city in his book America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 (2d ed., 2003). He attributes part of the problem to Philadelphia’s proximity to Fort Dix and Fort Meade as well as the fact that the city had its own naval yard. In addition, Philadelphia had a huge Liberty Loan parade on September 28. Shortly after the parade, the virus ravaged the city. Schools, churches, and pool halls—any places that people gathered—were closed. By the time this happened, however, it was already too late, and there is little indication that the closing of public buildings did anything to prevent or ameliorate the spread of the flu. Large cities such as Philadelphia and New York often had shortages of essential medical personnel. In 1918, the situation was worse than usual, however. During the pandemic, many doctors and nurses had gone to Europe to help care for the sick and the wounded on the western front. Thus, the medical and hospital facilities of large cities during the pandemic were totally inadequate to handle the numbers of sick and dying. The infrastructure of large cities had trouble keeping up with the virus in other ways. Although by 1918 most cities had telephone services, there were too few operators healthy and on the job for the systems to work adequately. Garbage collectors stayed home sick, and garbage piled up in the streets. 561
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic The most grisly problem that large cities faced, and Philadelphia in particular, was what to do with the ever-increasing dead bodies. Crosby reports that the Philadelphia morgue was prepared to handle only 36 bodies. At the height of the epidemic, there were several hundred bodies stacked up in the corridors. Furthermore, there were not enough hearses to collect the dead bodies, and often corpses would stay in their homes or on the streets for days at a time. There were not enough coffins to bury the dead; cities that were not yet affected by the epidemic were warned by their not-so-fortunate sister cities to begin making coffins immediately in preparation for the inevitable arrival of the infection. Finally, there were not enough grave diggers to make enough graves for all the dead. Between September 29 and November 2, 12,162 Philadelphians died of influenza and pneumonia. Although the very young and the very old died in the epidemic, the largest group affected consisted of people between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four, just as they had been in the earlier, milder version of the influenza epidemic. The Epidemic Spreads. In September of 1918, a group of American soldiers were put on British troopships and sent, along with a troopship of Italians, to Archangel, Russia, an area under British control in the midst of the Russian Revolution. The soldiers brought influenza with them. Although there are no records of how many people in Russia ultimately died during the pandemic, it is estimated that about 10,000 in Archangel alone contracted the flu during October. As many as 30 people per day died during that month. The effects of the pandemic were felt worldwide. As terrible as influenza was in the United States and Europe, it was many times worse in other parts of the world. In the United States, about 5 people per 1,000 died of the flu. Outside the United States, these figures were much higher. K. David Patterson and Gerald F. Pyle, in an important study, “The Geography and Mortality of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic” (1991), provide careful estimates of deaths worldwide. In Latin America, about 10 people per 1,000 died, while in Africa 15 per 1,000 died. In Asia, researchers estimate that as few as 20 and as many as 35 people per 1,000 died. It appears that India was the most severely hit country in the world. In that country alone, researchers estimate that between 17 and 20 million people died. This works out to about 60 deaths per 562
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1,000 people. In addition, although young men were the group most hard hit by the disease in the United States and in Europe, in India a disproportionate number of deaths occurred among women. Some scholars attribute the death toll among women to the stresses put on women by pregnancy. Others argue that the death toll was due to caregiving arrangements in India. Women almost exclusively provided care for the ill and dying. This rendered them most susceptible to becoming infected with the illness. In addition, when they fell ill in large numbers, there were few remaining women to provide care for them. Colonial Africa was also hit extremely hard. The war in Europe certainly contributed to high death tolls among the indigenous people, for two reasons. In the first place, the African nations under European control had large numbers of European troops coming and going through their ports. European troops were stationed in Africa to protect these properties from other European troops. Thus, the Europeans brought their virus to Africa and exposed the civilian populations. Second, the demands of the war meant that there were few doctors or nurses available to help care for the colonial population. In addition, medical supplies, always in short supply in these areas, were diverted to the European front for use on soldiers there. As a result, the death figures were extraordinarily high. In Ghana, for example, there were about 100,000 deaths from influenza in just six months. Research on the pandemic outside of Europe and the United States reveals that the poor tended to die in greater frequency than did the wealthy. The poor tend to have inferior nutrition, less accessibility to safe water supplies, and less adequate housing than do wealthier people, and these conditions render them susceptible to the bacterial infections that followed swiftly behind the viral influenza. Furthermore, there is some indication that deaths from other sources, such as kidney disease, heart disease, and diabetes, were much higher during the influenza epidemic. This may be partially due to the lack of health care in general or to the stress on the immune system that even a mild case of the flu caused. Not only the heavily populated areas of the world and the large cities were affected, however. Often, small isolated areas fared worse than did larger countries. While the total death counts from these ar563
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic eas are not as high in total numbers as those from Philadelphia, for example, the death count per capita is often extraordinarily high. The South Pacific islands, often considered tropical paradises, became islands of death. In Tahiti, 10 percent of the entire population died in just three weeks. The influenza was brought to Tahiti by ship and immediately ravaged the civilian population. On Western Samoa, another island nation, 7,500 people died. This figure represents nearly 20 percent of Western Samoa’s total population of 38,000. In addition to these extraordinary figures, there were long-term, serious consequences for the nations involved. In most places, birth rates dropped dramatically. In India, the high death rate among women of childbearing age led to a much smaller number of women becoming pregnant. Conclusions. The second and most deadly wave of influenza burned itself out by the spring of 1919. Although influenza made one more global sweep in 1920, it was less catastrophic, in all probability because so much of the surviving population was already immune. Scientists estimate that from 1918 through 1919, about 25 percent of the population of the United States suffered from influenza. The figures could be a good deal higher, however, for several reasons. First, flu was not a reportable illness in many places until the epidemic was well underway. Second, the shortage of doctors and nurses during the peak of the epidemic made it difficult for the remaining medical personnel to spend time compiling and reporting statistics. Finally, there were, in all probability, many people who had mild cases of the flu who never saw a doctor or reported their illness. Another startling statistic to come out of the research is the number of deaths in the military due to influenza. More soldiers and sailors died of influenza than died of wounds during World War I. Crosby reminds readers that the total number of Americans killed by influenza in ten months, about 550,000, is higher than the total numbers of Americans killed in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. If it is difficult to ascertain how many Americans died in sum, it is nearly impossible to arrive at a worldwide figure. Some estimate that 30 million died; others suggest that the figures are far higher, at least 40 million or more. Even more elusive is the answer to the question of 564
1918: The Great Flu Pandemic why this influenza virus turned so deadly. Researchers continue to investigate the causes and effects of the influenza pandemic. In the 1990’s, frozen tissue from the lungs of influenza victims was scrutinized with technology unavailable in the early years of the century. Although preliminary reports suggested that the virus is a swine influenza, opinion would remain divided on the connection between the flu virus and the linked bacterial infections. Another important question is why the virus attacked young people. Some researchers hypothesize that the immune system in young adults responded too strongly to the virus and caused the buildup of fluid in the lungs. Although there are no firm answers to all the questions surrounding the pandemic of 1918, there is little question that some strain of influenza virus will return every several years. Whether or not a pandemic of the scale of 1918 will ever happen again remains to be seen. Diane Andrews Henningfeld For Further Information: Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. New York: Viking, 2004. Bollet, Alfred J. “The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919.” In Plagues and Poxes: The Impact of Human History on Epidemic Disease. New York: Demos, 2004. Crosby, Alfred W. America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Hays, J. N. The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Iezzoni, Lynette. Influenza 1918: The Worst Epidemic in American History. New York: TV Books, 1999. Kolata, Gina. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Phillips, Howard, and David Killingray, eds. The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19: New Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2003.
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■ 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake Earthquake Also known as: The Great Kanto Earthquake, the Great Tokyo Fire Date: September 1, 1923 Place: Kwanto area (including Tokyo and Yokohama), Japan, with the epicenter in Sagami Bay Magnitude: 8.3 Result: 143,000 dead
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ver the past several centuries a major earthquake has struck the Kwanto District in Japan approximately every seventy years. Early in the twentieth century, seismologist Akitune Imamura, after lengthy studies, discovered that Tokyo was sitting on a seismic gap that would be corrected only when an earthquake of substantial size occurred. He predicted that there would soon be a very strong earthquake in the Kwanto District of Japan, an area that includes Tokyo and the seaport of Yokohama, 17 miles to the south. Imamura further predicted that the quake and consuming fires that would follow would result in over 100,000 casualties. This prediction was well publicized but was dismissed as irresponsible. It was, however, shortly fulfilled. At one minute before noon on Saturday, September 1, 1923, the quake struck. Its epicenter was in Sagami Bay, 50 miles southeast of Tokyo near the island of Oshima. The initial shaking lasted for about five minutes and was followed shortly thereafter by a tsunami, or a tidal wave, that washed people and houses out to sea. In some of the smaller inlets the tsunami reached heights of up to 40 feet, resulting in many drownings. The tsunami had one advantage, however, in that it extinguished many fires that otherwise would have been uncontrollable. Immense holes appeared in the streets, and buildings were tilted at strange angles. Tokyo’s largest building, the twelve-story Asakusa Tower, split in two and collapsed. The earthquake knocked out the 566
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seismograph at the central weather bureau in Tokyo. The seismograph at Tokyo Imperial University was still functioning, however; it recorded a series of 1,700 earthquakes and aftershocks that struck the Tokyo area over the following three days. Fires followed the initial quake and in general did more damage than the quake itself. They were caused primarily by overturned charcoal braziers or hibachis that were being used to cook the noonday meal. Since the city was built largely of wood, the fires burned out of control. Gas mains ruptured by the quake and leaking oil from 567
1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake above-ground storage tanks added to the conflagration. A condition called a fire tornado was soon created, with a wind of such velocity that it would lift a person off the ground. These crisscrossed the city and either burned people alive or suffocated them with dense fumes of carbon monoxide. More than 30,000 people were reportedly killed at a single location, a park on the east bank of the Sumida River, when such a fire storm descended on refugees that had gathered there. Fire fighting was greatly hampered because much of the equipment was destroyed or could not be moved because of the rubble that blocked the roads. Water was not available to fight the fire because the water mains were ruptured by the quake. Safe havens were hard to find; bridges and narrow streets became deathtraps as fleeing people could neither go forward nor turn back. Hundreds of people who had attempted to cross one of the large bridges that spanned the Sumida River found themselves trapped and incinerated when walls of fire swept the bridge from both banks. A party of 200 children on an excursion train trip were buried alive by a falling embankment. Hundreds of people tried to escape in small boats, only to be drowned by waves caused by aftershocks or to
This view of the Kwanto area of Japan shows almost complete destruction following the 1923 earthquake. (Library of Congress)
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1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake be burned to death in burning oil slicks. The liner Empress of Australia was able to save several thousand people by loading them aboard and heading out to sea to ride out the disaster. The quake devastated a region of 45,000 square miles. In Yokohama, Japan’s chief port, eyewitness accounts tell of the earthquake announcing itself as an underground roar, followed almost immediately by a frantic shaking. Communications were completely destroyed. The city authorities finally succeeded in getting messengers through to the capital begging for help, to little avail since that capital suffered the same plight. A great cultural loss was sustained with the destruction of the Imperial University Library, which contained one of the world’s oldest and greatest collection of rare books, original documents, and priceless art objects. The typical Japanese house of wood and paper construction was well suited by reason of its flexibility to withstand shaking, but the heavy tile roofs often collapsed, trapping the occupants. For the most part, steel-framed and reinforced concrete buildings remained standing with only moderate damage, but altogether 60 percent of the buildings in Tokyo and 80 percent in Yokohama were flattened by the quake or destroyed by the fires that followed. The earthquake tested the design of the newly opened 250-room Imperial Hotel, a project of the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The hotel, financed by the royal family, was meant to be a showpiece. When the earthquake struck, many of Tokyo’s notables were attending a party to mark its opening. Although he was not a seismic engineer, Wright incorporated into his design features that he thought would safeguard his structure from earthquake damage. He ruled out a deep foundation in the alluvial mud upon which the structure was built; he intended that the structure should float like a ship. He was mistaken in this theory, as experience gained in the quake demonstrated that soft earth amplifies the seismic shocks. The solidly constructed buildings in Tokyo with deep foundations withstood the quake better than the central section of the hotel, which sank 2 feet into the ground. The hotel did survive, however, and Wright’s other safeguards proved to be quite effective. They included reinforced and tapered walls and separation joints that isolated parts of the structure. The use of a light copper roof prevented collapse, which had entombed 569
1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake so many Japanese in their homes with heavy tile roofs. Rather than embedding utility pipes and conduit in concrete, as was the practice, Wright had them laid in a trench or hung in the open so that they would flex and rattle but not break in any seismic occurrence. Fortuitously, the hotel was designed with a large reflecting pool in front. This served as a firefighting reservoir that protected the hotel from the fires that raged following the quake when water was unavailable from the municipal system. The hotel stood until 1968, when the land upon which it rested became too valuable to accommodate it. Aftermath. Aftershocks continued to shake the region following the quake. A soaking rain followed on the third day, which helped extinguish the fires that were still raging. Food shortages were rampant, and riots broke out, but there was no looting and little profiteering. Members of the Korean community were attacked as rumors accused them of setting fires and poisoning the wells. Several hundred were killed by vigilantes before the authorities could reestablish order. A week after the quake 25,000 people were still living in the open. The prince regent, who later became Emperor Hirohito, tried by his presence to calm the terrorized citizens. He led relief operations and ordered the gates of the Imperial Palace opened to refugees. Many of the refugees returned to their homes looking for loved ones. Messages seeking missing family members were posted on public buildings, and collection centers for stray children were set up around the city. One of the biggest problems was disposing of dead bodies, many of which lay undiscovered in the rubble. Usually when located they would be piled up and cremated. The Sumida River was full of bloated and discolored corpses. Within forty-eight hours of the earthquake, ships of the U.S. Pacific fleet arrived in Japanese ports, laden with water, food, and medicine. The American Red Cross set a goal of $5 million for relief supplies. Japan’s low foreign debt and good credit rating made funds for rebuilding readily available. The most immediate effect on the economy was unemployment. An estimated 9,000 factories were destroyed. Massive reconstruction operations somewhat alleviated the unemployment problem, but the drain on the Japanese economy was ruinous. Foreign exchange dwindled, leading to a tight monetary policy that stifled growth. A master plan for reconstruction was formulated under the lead570
1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake ership of the new home minister, Shimpei Goto. Narrow streets were to be replaced with broad avenues that would provide better access in and out of the area in a future quake and also act as firebreaks. Flammable wooden structures were to be banned in favor of fireproof structures limited in height. Before these plans could be implemented, however, those rendered homeless by the quake went to work rebuilding their houses in the old manner, resulting in the flammable and congested neighborhoods reappearing. Despite the threat of future earthquake damage, high-rise buildings, refineries, and chemical plants have been built on soft reclaimed land beside Tokyo Bay. Even a nuclear power station has been constructed at Shizuoka, about 100 miles from the center of Tokyo. Plans and Forecasts. Seismologists were of one mind that there would be a major earthquake in Tokyo or adjoining areas in the early twenty-first century. They cited as the most likely area the heavily industrialized Tokai region down the coast from Tokyo, which had not experienced a great quake since December 24, 1854. Studies indicate that tectonic forces have accumulated, and strains of these forces have deformed the adjacent land, indicating that the breaking points are inevitable. Following a historical pattern, this may be triggered by a sizable quake near Odawara, which is located a few miles south of Yokohama. The Japanese government designated this area for intensive civil defense measures. When a quake strikes, Tokyo will receive considerable damage but the industrial heartland in the Shizuoka prefecture will be devastated both by the quake and the tsunami that will follow. Another place of concern is directly under Tokyo itself, where a choka-gata (“directly below”) quake is likely to strike. A quake of this type struck in 1988, but because it was 55 miles under the surface, there was little damage. Japan is the world leader in planning for earthquake survival. Disaster teams are trained and at the ready; stores of food, water, and blankets are on hand. Clearly marked evacuation routes have been laid out and reinforced against quake damage. An extensive public education campaign has instructed the population as to what to do in the event of a quake. Earthquake drills in schools and places of employment are a usual practice. Lines of apartment complexes are strung out to act as firebreaks in the event of a major conflagration 571
1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake among the crowded wooden houses behind them. The Tokyo fire department has detailed emergency plans to deal with a quake. Because a major quake will rupture water mains, it is likely that water will not be available from hydrants to fight the inevitable fires, so earthquakeresistant fire cisterns and underground water storage areas have been constructed. Measures have been taken to deliver water from the sea and streams for firefighting use. On a national level, if unusual seismic activity is detected, six members of the Earthquake Assessment Committee are contacted immediately. They then analyze data and decide whether or not to advise the prime minister to warn the nation that a major earthquake is imminent. Gilbert T. Cave For Further Information: Davison, Charles. The Japanese Earthquake of 1923. London: T. Murby, 1931. Hadfield, Peter. Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World: The Coming Tokyo Earthquake. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle, 1991. Hammer, Joshua. Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire That Helped Forge the Path to World War II. New York: Free Press, 2006. Poole, Otis Manchester. The Death of Old Yokohama in the Great Japanese Earthquake of September 1, 1923. London: Allen & Unwin, 1968.
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■ 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Tornado Date: March 18, 1925 Place: Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana Classification: F5 Result: 689 dead, more than 2,000 injured, $16-18 million in damage
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he storm that spawned the Great Tri-State and several other tornadoes on March 18, 1925, was from a northeast Pacific storm. The depression was over western Montana on March 16. On the morning of the 18th, it was over northwestern Arkansas and was moving to the northeast at about 40 miles per hour. It was over southern Illinois during the early afternoon and southeastern Indiana by 8 p.m. The U.S. Weather Bureau described 7 distinct tornadoes in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois generated by the storm. Thomas P. Grazulis, in Significant Tornadoes: 1680-1991 (1993), describes the same 7 but adds an earlier one in Kansas and a later one in Kentucky on that date. All but the Kansas tornado were killers. Fortunately, the death toll was 4 or less for all but 2 of these tornadoes. One tornado started in Summer County, Tennessee, and traveled 60 miles to Metcalfe County, Kentucky, killing 39 and injuring 95. It was of F4 force and had a path width of about 400 yards. The Great Tri-State Tornado caused 689 deaths—741 deaths for the total storm, with the death toll for the other 6 tornadoes at 13, with 164 injuries. The Tri-State Tornado was the most deadly and the most destructive. The Weather Bureau noted that it was different in another way. Most tornadoes occur in the southeast part of a storm system along a squall line or cold front. Seldom is a tornado formed in the center of a storm center, as the Great Tri-State Tornado was. It was especially devastating as it traveled on the ground along a ridge of mineral resources and parallel to a railroad. Thus, several mining and railroad towns were in its path. 573
1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Missouri. The tornado first touched down north of Ellington in southeast Missouri about 1 p.m. It traveled northeast to damage Leadanna, a mining town. It continued northeast to engulf Annapolis, 2 miles north of Leadanna. Annapolis was devastated, with 90 percent of the town destroyed and 2 dead. All but 7 of the 400 structures in Leadanna and Annapolis were badly damaged; the damage total was about $500,000 in the two towns. Fortunately, one schoolhouse that held 300 students was undamaged. The damage in and near Annapolis was 3 miles wide. Survivors remember that the sky became dark, and something like a smoky fog swept through the town. A funnel cloud was not seen. The next damage occurred in and near the small towns of Lixville, Biehle, Frohna, and Altenburg. At least 32 children were injured in two county schools in Bollinger county. Deaths occurred in Biehle and Altenburg, 30 miles north of Cape Girardeau. In Biehle, there were 4 dead and 11 injured out of 100 villagers. For 3 miles near Biehle there were evidence and sightings of two parallel funnel clouds, which reunited later before passing into Illinois. A child was killed in a wooden schoolhouse 5 miles north of Altenburg. The toll in Missouri was 11 to 14 dead, 63 injured, and $564,000 in damage (in 1925 dollars). Illinois. The damage in Illinois was much worse. In Gorham, it had been dark and gloomy; the drizzle increased to pouring down a flood, then the air was filled with flying debris. The town of 500 was virtually wiped out. There were 34 deaths, and over half of the town’s population was killed or injured. Seven of the deaths occurred at the school. Communications were cut off such that although the tornado struck at 2:35 p.m. no aid came until 8 p.m. There was not even a healthy doctor present until aid arrived. The doctor in town was giving an injection when the tornado hit; the patient was killed, and the doctor received a broken collarbone. Murphysboro, population 11,000, was next to be decimated. The 234 deaths were the largest number in one city in U.S. history at the time. About 800 were injured and $10 million was incurred in damage. Three schools, built of brick or stone with little reinforcement, were caved in, crushing at least 25 people. The tornado affected 152 city blocks—72 percent of the residential section and 60 percent of the city. About 1,200 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving 574
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A school in Murphysboro, Illinois, where 17 children where killed by the tornado. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
8,000 people, or two-thirds of the city, homeless. Fires ravaged the destroyed area and 70 more blocks in a residential district, demolishing homes still standing and burning victims caught under collapsed buildings. Fires could be seen as far as 60 miles away. The tornado had destroyed the water plant, as well as many of the hydrants. A “rigged” system restored water pressure to fight the fires. Other casualties of the tornado were the 2,000 jobs lost due to the destruction of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad shop, the Brown’s Shoe Company, the Isco-Bautz silica plant, and other industries. Businesses sustained almost $1 million in damage but had only $122,000 in insurance. The next town hit was DeSoto, a hamlet of 600, where 33 were killed at one school, setting the record for school deaths in a tornado. A total of 69 were killed in or around DeSoto. The town itself was obliterated. Only a dozen houses were left standing, none left undamaged. An outbreak of fires caused more damage to the ravaged town. The hamlet of Bush was next in the storm’s path; there, the tornado left 7 dead and 37 injured. It also left only one building stand575
1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado ing in Hurst, a town of 200. The rural area between DeSoto and West Frankfort suffered 24 deaths. Even the Illinois Central railroad bridge on the Zeigler branch was shifted by 6 feet. One of the rescue jobs after the tornado was to clean the debris off of farmland so that planting could be done within the next few weeks. Between West Frankfort and Orient was a small school attended by Mavis Flota. It was a warm day, but late in the afternoon it became so dark that the students could not read by lamplight. The clouds became streaked with lightning, and thunder boomed. A roar like the sound of a train told the teacher that there was a tornado coming. It tore off one room, spilling Flota onto the ground and into the golfball-size hail. When she stood, she was picked up by the storm and carried 2 miles, landing scratched and bruised but otherwise unhurt, except for the soles of her new shoes being pulled off. The tornado cut across the northwest part of West Frankfort, the largest town in its path, with 20,000 people. This part of town was composed mostly of small residences, many of them miners’ homes. Sixty-four blocks of houses were damaged in the 0.25-mile-wide path, and 13 blocks were wiped out. The 925 damaged or destroyed houses left 3,000 homeless and $500,000 in damage. There were 127 dead, 450 injured, and 117 hospitalized, with a total $800,000 in damage. Almost 800 miners were 500 feet below the earth’s surface when they lost electrical power. They had to climb out a narrow escarpment and then face the damage and injuries caused by the tornado; many of the dead and wounded were women and children. A small community, called Eighteen because it was near Number 18 Mine, was devastated. Nearby Parrish contained about 40 buildings, but only 3 were left after the tornado. Although the population was only 300, there were 46 deaths and 100 injured. There, the tornado was preceded by thunder and a violent succession of lightning flashes, and the funnel cloud was seen by Parrish inhabitants. It struck Parrish at 3:15 p.m. Hailstones the size of apples came after the tornado. Parrish never rebuilt, existing only as a few older homes. In the forty-five minutes required for the tornado to travel through Gorham to Parrish, 541 people were killed. Leaving Parrish, the path of the tornado went through rural areas in Hamilton and White Counties before reaching Carmi, near the Indiana border. The destruction and death in the rural areas was unprecedented, as 576
1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado many farms were completely destroyed and 65 people were killed. At least three different White County schools claimed deaths from the tornado. It was estimated that 1,500 farms needed debris cleaned off of the land so that they could be planted. Indiana. The town of Carmi had 2 deaths and the border town of Crossville reported 1 before the tornado crossed into Indiana. In Illinois the tornado caused 606 deaths, about 1,600 injuries, and $13 million in damage. Just beyond the Wabash River was the small town of Griffin. The tornado did not leave a habitable structure out of the 150 homes in Griffin. Two children on a bus were killed; the total death toll there was 34, with 200 injured out of 375 inhabitants. Identifying victims was difficult, as mud was embedded into their skin. Fires occurred in the ruins and added to the destruction and agony. Leaving Griffin, the path of the tornado, 0.75-mile wide, veered north by 9 degrees. The new path would include Owensville and Princeton. At Owensville, 17 deaths occurred, including three generations of one family. In this rural area, 85 farms were totally destroyed. Princeton, the county seat of Gibson County, was caught, like most other towns, unaware. A blackness moved over the south side of town, killing 45 and injuring 152 and causing $1.8 million in damage. One-fourth to one-half of the town was located in the devastated area, so after 200 homes were destroyed and 100 were damaged, 1,500 people were left homeless. The two largest industries, the $2 million Southern Railway shops and the H. T. Heinz factory, were demolished, as was the village of workers’ homes nearby. Fortunately, only 3 people lost their lives at the industries (2 at Southern, 1 at Heinz). Luckily, the Princeton school had let out about twenty minutes earlier, and the children were out of the tornado’s path; the school was caved in. An estimated 100,000 people visited Princeton to view the damage. The deadly tornado finally lost its steam and lifted near Petersburg, 16 miles northeast of Princeton, about 4:30 p.m. East of Princeton, irregular-shaped chunks of ice as large as goose eggs were reported to fall. In Indiana, the tornado had appeared as three funnels for part of its path. Many people described it as a turbulent, boiling mass filled with debris. It often looked like a big black mass, similar to 577
1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado a thunderstorm. The tornado had killed 30 people in Indiana, injured 354, and caused $2,775,000 in damage. Conclusions. The Great Tri-State Tornado is considered the single deadliest tornado in U.S. history to date. It maintained contact with the ground for the longest distance (219 miles) and for the longest time (3.5 hours). It was moving quickly for a tornado, at an average of 62 miles per hour—73 miles per hour in Indiana. The intensity did not vary as much with this tornado as with others; it simply destroyed everything in its way. Its path was wide, varying from 0.25 mile to 1 mile, with much of the path 0.75 mile in width. It traveled an exact heading of 69 degrees northeast for 183 of the 219 miles. The killer moved so quickly that many were not able to seek shelter. Country residents indicated that only about five minutes passed after noticing the cloud before the tornado struck. However, shelter in the form of basements, which are usually places of safety, were deathtraps to several people. In some cases, the tornado caved the house into the basement, and the wood or coal stove then set the ruins on fire, burning the trapped survivors. Nine people were found around a stove in a Griffin restaurant. C. Alton Hassell For Further Information: Akin, Wallace E. The Forgotten Storm: The Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2004. Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book. 3d ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982. Felknor, Peter E. The Tri-State Tornado. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992. Flora, Snowden D. Tornadoes of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953. Grazulis, Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes: 1680-1991. St. Johnsburg, Vt.: Environmental Films, 1993. _______. The Tornado: Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
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■ 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane Hurricane Date: September 15-22, 1926 Place: Miami, Florida Classification: Category 4 Result: 243 dead, about 2,000 injured
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ith winds approaching 138 miles per hour and a barometric pressure measured at a low 27.61 inches of mercury, the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 is considered one of the most powerful storms to strike the U.S. mainland in the twentieth century. The hurricane began as a Cape Verde-type storm and initially was detected on September 11, 1926, as it moved nearly 1,000 miles east of the Leeward Islands. On September 16 it was located near the Turks Islands, where its winds were recorded at approximately 150 miles per hour. Passing north of Puerto Rico, the storm reached the Bahamas on the following day. Because no sophisticated tracking system was in existence at the time, residents of the Miami area were mostly unaware of the approaching storm. On the morning of September 17, the Miami Herald carried a small story on its front page noting the existence of the storm but indicating it was not expected to strike Florida. The U.S. Weather Bureau received its last report on the storm’s location from Nassau in the Bahamas in the early afternoon of September 17, which prompted storm warnings to be issued for the Florida coast from Key West to Jupiter Inlet, 80 miles north of Miami. That same afternoon the Miami Daily News published a front-page story alerting residents to a “tropical storm.” The paper also reported a warning issued by the Weather Bureau’s chief meteorologist that late evening “destructive winds” could be expected in the area. It was not until the late hours of September 17, as winds began to build, that citizens of Miami realized a major storm was about to pummel them. Until that point many of the area’s residents, most of whom had recently settled in the region, either were unfamiliar with hurricanes or simply chose to ignore them. For the next eight hours, 579
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hurricane-force winds battered the Miami region. The average wind velocity during this period was approximately 76 miles per hour. Never, in recorded weather history, had a hurricane sustained its winds for such a long duration. The persistent storm dumped nearly 10 inches of rain on the city and generated a storm surge that exceeded 13 feet. The deluge inundated Miami Beach and swept ocean waters across Biscayne Bay into the city of Miami. All types of watercraft, from schooners to dredges, were blown onto shores, sunk, or capsized, including a steam yacht that was once owned by William II of Germany. Thousands of homes and office buildings were destroyed or damaged. A major contributing factor to the destruction was the fact that many of the buildings were constructed at substandard lev580
1926: The Great Miami Hurricane els as a consequence of nonexistent or inferior code restrictions in effect during the real estate boom of the previous decade. What was once considered the “playground” of America was left a scene of devastation as pleasure resorts were converted into temporary hospitals and morgues and office buildings into refugee centers. Water and debris were everywhere, transforming the appearance of an entire stretch of the Miami waterfront into something macabre. With roads washed out and causeways underwater, relief efforts were slowed considerably. Moreover, the persistent winds and absence of landing sites discouraged airplane pilots from attempting to enter the damaged areas. Instead, at least a dozen trains loaded with physicians, nurses, food, water, and other supplies descended on the city to help with the relief efforts. Following its strike on the city, the storm moved on a northwesterly course toward the Lake Okeechobee area, where it proceeded to unleash its fury on the small community of Moore Haven, located on the southwestern side of the lake. In 1922 and 1924 heavy rains had raised the water level of the lake, which precipitated substantial flooding in the surrounding farm districts, though no lives were lost. As a result, the town’s citizens decided to construct a muck dike to protect
Cars drive by boats washed ashore by the Great Miami Hurricane. (Courtesy, The Florida Memory Project)
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1926: The Great Miami Hurricane the region from future flooding, but local and state officials greatly underestimated the impact a major hurricane would have on the lake. In due course the relentless winds drove the waters over and through the dike, inundating the area to a depth of up to 15 feet and taking a heavy toll in death and property. A lone watchman assigned to patrol the dike in order to give warning in the event of potential danger was on patrol when the dike succumbed to the rising water. Washed away by the initial overflow, he managed to escape and immediately attempted to alert others. However, his warnings either went unheard or were disregarded in the midst of the chaos. The rush of water drowned scores of residents and left the town without food, water, or power. Nearly every structure in Moore Haven was destroyed, except for a row of brick buildings in the town’s central commercial district. Several homes were swept almost 2 miles from their foundations. At one point, 34 bodies were lying in the town’s old post office building, which served as an emergency morgue. Rescuers attempting to reach the stricken city were met by an exodus of people fleeing the area in small boats to points where they could continue on foot to safe ground. Entire families, forced to carry all of their remaining possessions in bundles, were seen straggling along open roads. In the aftermath many residents of the district launched an organized protest against government officials, whom they blamed for keeping the lake’s water above reasonable levels prior to the storm. They pointed out that if the state had permitted the locks to be opened during the storm season and allowed the water level to remain near the specified minimum depth of 15 feet instead of 19 feet above sea level, the damage caused by the floodwaters would have been considerably less. After striking Moore Haven, the storm continued on its northwesterly course, eventually dumping large amounts of rain on Pensacola before moving further inland, over interior Alabama and sections of Mississippi and Louisiana, before dissipating. All together, the storm left 243 people dead and nearly 2,000 injured in its wake. William Hoffman
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1926: The Great Miami Hurricane For Further Information: Barnes, Jay. Florida’s Hurricane History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. “Cities Built on Sand.” Weatherwise, August/September, 1996, 20-27. Kleinberg, Howard, and L. F. Reardon. The Florida Hurricane and Disaster, 1926. Miami: Centennial Press, 1992. Williams, John M., and Iver W. Duedall. Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, 1871-2001. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2002.
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■ 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse Flood Date: March 12, 1928 Place: Near Saugus, California Result: About 450 dead; 1,200 homes and other buildings severely damaged or destroyed; almost 8,000 acres of farmland stripped of livestock, orchards, crops, and topsoil; $15 million in damage
T
he St. Francis Dam, named after the San Francisquito (little Saint Francis) Canyon and Creek where it was located, was designed and built by William Mulholland, chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) from 1886 to 1928. Its purpose was to create a 600-acre reservoir as a reserve water supply for the city of Los Angeles. Mulholland had devoted much of his life to making sure his beloved city had enough water to grow and prosper. Los Angeles had never had a reliable water supply until 1913, when Mulholland achieved world renown with the completion of the Owens Valley Aqueduct, at that time the longest aqueduct in existence. Its series of tunnels and concretelined channels transported 258 million gallons of water every day from the green Owens Valley south to the thirsty city of Los Angeles. A boon to the growth of Los Angeles, the aqueduct brought death to the Owens Valley as the drought-plagued city sucked the Owens River dry. Owens Valley residents fought to prevent Los Angeles from taking all of their water. When peaceful means failed, a few desperate ranchers resorted to violence. The first dynamiting of the aqueduct occurred in May, 1924, and it continued sporadically throughout the remainder of the decade. Understandably, Mulholland began to worry about the fate of Los Angeles if the water supply were cut off for long periods of time. Because the aqueduct crossed the San Andreas fault, it was not just vulnerable to sabotage—potential earthquakes were another hazard. Mulholland’s solution was the St. Francis Dam, with a reservoir big enough to hold an emergency supply of water capable of meeting the city’s needs for at least one year. In fact, to ensure an adequate supply in drought years, the original 175-foot 584
1928: St. Francis Dam collapse height of the dam was increased by 11 feet to allow for additional water storage eleven months after construction had begun. The base of the dam was not widened, however, a risky oversight in a gravity dam like St. Francis, which resists the enormous pressure of its pentup waters through sheer weight alone. The dam was completed in May, 1926. The St. Francis Dam was a massive curved concrete wedge about 200 feet high and 700 feet long. It was 156 feet thick at its base and 18 feet thick at its crest, and it contained over 134,000 cubic yards of concrete. Despite its imposing size, leaking cracks appeared in the dam during its initial filling in 1926-1927. Mulholland claimed they were caused by the curing of the concrete and had them sealed. In February, 1928, as the water level rose again with winter rains, fresh leaks appeared, which increased in intensity with the spring runoff. The Dam Breaks. On March 7, 1928, the dam reached its maximum holding capacity of 38,168 acre feet (over 12 billion gallons), with water lapping within 3 feet of the parapet and wind-driven waves breaking over the spillways near the top. The previous year’s leaks reopened, keeping Mulholland’s work crews busy. By Monday, March 12, the dam had been holding up its towering wall of water for five days. That morning, Tony Harnischfeger, the damkeeper, phoned Mulholland to report a new leak. Mulholland arrived at 10:30 a.m. with his assistant, inspected the dam for the next two hours, and left after assuring the damkeeper that the dam was safe. The damkeeper and his small son would be the first victims of the dam’s collapse twelve hours later. Their bodies were never recovered. The St. Francis Dam burst at 11:57 p.m., unleashing a 185-foot wave of destruction into the canyon below. About 50 miles to the south in Los Angeles, night owls who noticed their lights flicker momentarily had no idea they were witnessing the first signs of the deadliest disaster in Southern California history. Closer to the dam, at the Saugus substation of the Southern California Edison Company, the local electric power utility, one of the transmission lines shorted out, blowing up a switch and triggering an emergency alert. Edison personnel had no idea what had happened either. At the electrical powerhouse directly below the dam, workman Ray Rising, a native of the Midwest’s “Tornado Alley,” awoke to the sound of what he thought was a tornado. Running to the door, he saw 585
1928: St. Francis Dam collapse a 140-foot-high wave loom out of the darkness. He managed to resist being engulfed by climbing onto a rooftop that he rode like a raft through the twisting canyon, calling for his wife and children, until it dashed against the canyon wall, where he jumped to safety. Only 3 people survived out of 28 workmen and their families at the powerhouse. The powerhouse itself, a 65-foot concrete structure, was crushed like an eggshell by the wave 10 stories high. Rolling over the Harry Carey Ranch near Saugus, the deadly tide, now 80 feet high, swept up miles of barbed wire ripped from the ranch’s pastures. By 12:40 a.m. Tuesday, Edison employees at the Saugus substation knew the dam had failed and tried to phone a warning to an Edison work camp of 150 men 8 miles downstream from the dam on the banks of the Santa Clara River. The phone rang, but there was no answer, and then the line went dead. They knew what had happened this time. The flood arrived in Castaic Junction, a little town 40 miles from Los Angeles, at 12:50 a.m. and wiped it off the face of the earth. The lone survivor, George McIntyre, lived by grabbing the branches of a cottonwood tree. The bodies of his father and brothers were found near Santa Paula, 30 miles downstream. At 1:30 a.m., highway patrol officer Thornton Edwards got an emergency call that would make him the Paul Revere of Santa Paula as he set out on his motorcycle with screaming sirens to warn the townspeople to evacuate. To his horrified amazement, he reached the Willard Bridge spanning the Santa Clara River only to see it crammed end to end with excited people waiting for the show to begin. He ordered the bridge cleared, posted a guard at either end, and drove on. The flood reached the bridge by 3 a.m. As the flood surged over the top of the bridge, the latter snapped in half and disappeared. Meanwhile, Deputy Sheriff Eddie Hearne responded to his call by racing his squad car up the Santa Clara Valley toward the oncoming flood with both sirens wailing and lights flashing, first to Santa Paula and then to Fillmore. He got as far as crossing the Pole Creek bridge on the edge of Fillmore when he saw the road ahead inundated by a wide expanse of water, mud, trees, wreckage from buildings and vehicles, and other debris. He immediately raced back to Fillmore to phone a warning to evacuate the city of Oxnard and the adjacent plain. 586
1928: St. Francis Dam collapse
Some of the debris remaining in San Francisquito Canyon after the St. Francis Dam collapsed in 1928, killing 450 people. (Courtesy, SCV Historical Society)
The entire Santa Clara Valley was awake by now and evacuating to higher ground. At Saticoy, a rancher woke 19 transients sleeping under a bridge to warn them. One refused to head for higher ground, saying there was not enough water in Southern California in which to take a bath, much less fill up the dry bed of the Santa Clara River. His body was found soon after daylight. By now, the speed of the water 587
1928: St. Francis Dam collapse had decreased from 18 to around 5 miles per hour, but the flow had spread out to about 2 miles wide, consisting of about half water and half mud and trash. The flood narrowly missed Oxnard as it flowed to the sea. As dawn broke, hundreds gathered on the hills above Ventura to watch the final leg of the flood’s journey. It left a dirty gray streak all the way out to the Channel Islands, over 20 miles from shore. After the Flood. Within an hour of the St. Francis Dam’s collapse, the entire reservoir had emptied, with a peak discharge rate of over 1 million cubic feet per second. The flood swept a path of devastation 55 miles through the Santa Clara Valley from the dam in San Francisquito Canyon to the Pacific Ocean between the towns of Ventura and Oxnard. The death toll from the flood—comparable to California’s greatest natural disaster until that time, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire—would have been much higher in a more populated area. However, the damage was still awesome. The land lay in ruins. Bodies, both human and animal, were strewn everywhere. Forests had vanished, buried in silt. Orange, lemon, and walnut orchards were flattened. Towns were in shambles. Many valley residents staring at the wreckage the flood had left behind that Tuesday morning had never even heard of the dam that had wreaked such unbelievable carnage. Many wandered around aimlessly in shock. Fortunately, the Red Cross and other relief agencies had begun to arrive by 3:45 a.m. Doctors, nurses, and emergency equipment poured in from Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the doctors and nurses had little to do because there were very few people injured, aside from some suffering from exposure after being outside all night with little or no clothing. Fortunately or unfortunately, this unusual situation was due to the violent nature of the flood. Once caught in the floodwaters, most victims perished. The majority of survivors were either lucky or alert enough to escape before the deadly tide reached them and thus avoided injury. Many victims were never found, forever buried under tons of mud; the mounting number of mud-encrusted corpses was overwhelming to the survivors. Bodies were transported from the lowlands in farm trucks, unloaded and stacked in piles near mortuaries, and washed down with garden hoses to make identification possible. One valley resident was so angry and disgusted that she stopped trying to shovel the mud 588
1928: St. Francis Dam collapse from her home long enough to paint a sign she stuck in her front yard for all to see. The sign said, Kill Mulholland! Did the state’s greatest human-made disaster have to happen? Although William Mulholland accepted full responsibility for the tragedy that ruined his career, many DWP officials and others, including Mulholland himself, suspected that the dam might have been dynamited by Owens Valley terrorists. However, the overwhelming consensus is that the collapse was due to human error in the construction of the dam. To avert further criticism, city officials decided to settle all claims for damages and loss of life as soon as possible without going through the courts. The city council passed an ordinance providing $1 million—an enormous amount of money in 1928—to start rebuilding and settling claims. About 2,000 workers with hundreds of tractors and other heavy equipment tackled the huge mess. It took ninety days working around the clock to finish the cleanup. All that remained were the broken pieces of the dam itself. Fourteen months after the disaster, an eighteen-year-old boy fell to his death while climbing on the ruins, and the city decided to demolish them. Mulholland’s most infamous engineering project thus became an unremarkable pile of concrete rubble lying just upstream of where the dam once stood. Despite the tragic proportions of the flood, the disaster had some positive outcomes. Among them were the formation of the world’s first dam-safety agency, the adoption of uniform engineering specifications for testing of dam materials still in use around the world, a reassessment of all DWP dams and reservoirs, and an extensive retrofitting of the St. Francis Dam’s twin, Mulholland Dam (renamed Hollywood Dam after the 1928 flood destroyed Mulholland’s reputation). Perhaps most beneficial was the development of an efficient process for settling wrongful-death and damage suits that influenced disaster-relief legislation used extensively by victims of later floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural calamities. Sue Tarjan For Further Information: Davis, Margaret Leslie. Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles. Chicago: Olmstead Press, 2001. 589
1928: St. Francis Dam collapse Jackson, Donald C., and Norris Hundley, Jr. “Privilege and Responsibility: William Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam Disaster.” California History 82, no. 3 (2004). Nichols, John. St. Francis Dam Disaster. Chicago: Arcadia, 2002. Nunis, Doyce B., Jr., ed. The Saint Francis Dam Disaster Revisited. Los Angeles: Historical Society of Southern California, 2002. Outland, Charles F. Man-Made Disaster: The Story of St. Francis Dam—Its Place in Southern California’s Water System, Its Failure, and the Tragedy in the Santa Clara River Valley, March 12 and 13, 1928. Rev. and enlarged ed. Los Angeles: Historical Society of Southern California, 2002. Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. New York: Penguin, 1993.
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■ 1928: The San Felipe hurricane Hurricane Also known as: Lake Okeechobee hurricane Date: September 10-16, 1928 Place: Florida and the Caribbean Classification: Category 4 Result: About 4,000 dead, 350,000 homeless
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he San Felipe hurricane, also known as the Lake Okeechobee hurricane, was a ferocious Category 4 storm that claimed over 4,000 lives as it roared across the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, St. Kitts, and Montserrat; the Virgin Islands; and Puerto Rico before inflicting its full fury on Florida. The Caribbean. The storm was spotted first by the crew of the ship SS Cormack in the Cape Verde Islands region in the eastern Atlantic in early September, 1928. By September 10, it had reached the mid-Atlantic, at which time it was classified as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 135 miles per hour. The powerful storm crossed the islands of Guadeloupe, St. Kitts, and Montserrat on September 12. Its barometric pressure was recorded at 27.76 inches with winds between 160 and 170 miles per hour. The hurricane devastated the three islands. Buildings were destroyed, and roads were quickly inundated as 30-foot waves lashed against the shorelines. An estimated 520 people lost their lives, many of them in the flash floods spawned by the heavy rains accompanying the storm. The hurricane then proceeded south of St. Croix after dealing substantial damage to the Virgin Islands. In the early morning hours of San Felipe Day on September 13, 1928 (the saint’s commemoration day for which the storm received its name), the hurricane struck Puerto Rico near the port city of Arroyo, 32 miles southeast of San Juan, with the intensity of a Category 4 storm. Winds were registered at 135 miles per hour, with gusts up to 170 miles per hour, and blew steadily for four or five consecutive hours. In San Juan the wind reached its peak strength at about midafternoon. A short time earlier the Weather Bureau’s anemometer 591
1928: The San Felipe hurricane registered 132 miles per hour, but the instrument was swept away by a gale. The storm threw the city of San Juan into complete darkness and totally isolated it from the remainder of the island. All telegraph and telephone lines were destroyed, and all transportation was halted. Ships suffered extensive damage as a 19-foot storm surge swept ashore. The freight steamer Helen was ripped from its anchor during the peak of the storm, as were numerous smaller boats, and drifted onto rocks near the entrance of the harbor. The storm flattened the governor’s palace and blew out its doors and windows, leaving it completely exposed to the torrential rains that soon flooded the building. The hurricane wrought massive damage across the island. More than 19,000 buildings, representing 70 percent of the capital’s homes and 40 percent of its businesses, were destroyed, leaving nearly 284,000 people without food or shelter. Trees by the thousands were uprooted, many of them smashing into homes or falling into streets. Rainfall associated with the storm system was heavy and was a major contributing factor to the damage that occurred inland. Rain gauges recorded up to 30 inches of precipitation during the storm, which initiated mudslides and flash floods in the island’s mountainous central regions. Whole villages were reported to have been destroyed by the onslaught. Altogether, over 1,400 people were killed in Puerto Rico during the storm that caused nearly $50 billion in damage to the island. On September 15 the storm swept through the Bahamas, bringing heavy rains and 119-mile-per-hour winds to the eastern islands. Residents along Florida’s east coast prepared to receive the full force of the approaching storm. On September 15 the Weather Bureau issued a warning that the hurricane was moving northwestward at a rate of 300 miles per day. Storm warnings were issued from Miami to Titusville, Florida. Forecasters believed the storm could follow one of three paths: through the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba and out into the Gulf of Mexico, to the north up along the East Coast, or straight ahead on a northwesterly direction that would take it to a point between Miami and Palm Beach. Florida. On September 16, the hurricane approached to within 200 miles of Miami. Storm warnings were posted from Miami to Jack592
1928: The San Felipe hurricane
A statue commemorates the San Felipe hurricane of 1928. (Courtesy, The Florida Memory Project)
sonville, an indication that forecasters believed the storm would move in a northeasterly direction across the state once it made landfall. The Naval Radio Compass Station at Jupiter Inlet on the eastern coast, about 90 miles north of Miami, reported to the Navy Depart593
1928: The San Felipe hurricane ment that the storm was blowing with winds of more than 90 miles per hour and that the tide at Jupiter was more than 5 feet above normal. The compass station rode out the storm until early evening, when it reported that its radio tower had been blown down. It also sent a message informing the Navy Department that the barometric pressure had dropped to 28.79 inches and was still falling. On the evening of September 16, the hurricane struck the coast near West Palm Beach, with winds estimated at over 100 miles per hour and a barometric pressure of 27.43 inches. An 11-foot storm surge, combined with over 10 inches of rain during the hurricane’s passage, washed out numerous coastal roads. Many of the plush Palm Beach resorts and mansions perched along the shoreline received heavy damage. Close to 8,000 homes were either destroyed or damaged. Nearly 700 people were reported killed in Palm Beach County alone, many of them victims of the storm surge passing over the barrier island upon which the city is situated. The fashionable New Breakers Hotel was damaged severely when a tall chimney crashed through the roof, as was another elegant hotel, the Royal Poinciana, whose roof was torn. From Boynton Beach to Lake Park, structures of all kinds were ripped from their foundations and carried for distances of hundreds of yards. Damage to the south in Miami was confined to broken windows and the scattered ruin of frail buildings, though some water destruction was also reported. As predicted, the storm moved inland toward the Lake Okeechobee region. The storm that had brought devastation to the Palm Beach area was about to wield greater devastation. Lake Okeechobee is the third largest freshwater lake within the United States. Located approximately 40 miles northwest of Palm Beach, it has a diameter of 40 miles and a maximum depth of 15 feet. Acting as a catch basin for the overflows produced by the rainy seasons, the lake served at the time as the chief water supply for central Florida. Dikes built around the lake were designed to restrain the overflows in order to protect the adjacent farming communities. Almost totally unaware of the severity of the storm headed their way, residents of the tiny communities surrounding the lake, many of them migrant workers, carried on with their daily work routines. From the moment the storm struck, its exact path and the damage it 594
1928: The San Felipe hurricane was bringing were, for the most part, mysteries to inland inhabitants. There was no sophisticated communication system, so local residents had only rumors over the radio or unreliable wire communications to guide them. As the storm moved across the lake’s northern shore, driving all the water to one side of the lake, it caused the shallow waters to exceed the maximum height of 15 feet. In about thirty minutes the surge of water, combined with the heavy rainfall, overpowered the dikes protecting the lowlands at the lake’s southern end. Hundreds of migrant workers were killed as a wall of water rushed through the region. Others clung to the tops of trees, houses, or any other objects they could grab hold of to ride out the surge. Several hundred women and children who sought safety on barges survived the storm when the two boats carrying them were washed ashore by the surge at South Bay. Some people had to walk as much as 6 miles through water higher than their waists before they were able to reach safety. It was nearly midnight before the storm began to lose some of its fury. Aftereffects. Relief was slow in coming to the isolated region, since the attention of the country was focused on the damage done to the state’s eastern shore. However, as relief workers battled their way into West Palm Beach over water-covered roads, they quickly spread the word of the enormity of the destruction that had occurred inland. The hurricane leveled every building in the nearly 50-mile stretch between Clewiston and Canal Point, except for a hotel which was converted into a shelter for fleeing refugees from the nearby towns of Belle Glade, Ritta, Bayport, Miami Locks, and other farming and fishing villages. A section of State Road 25 that connects Palm Beach and Fort Myers was left several feet under water. The Ritta Islands, located in the lake itself, were swept nearly clean by the winds. No survivors could be found on the islands following the storm. The devastation from the storm was total. An expanse of land that stretched from the lake south into the Everglades was left in ruin. Eyewitnesses reported wreckage and debris scattered in every direction and numerous bodies floating in canals. The Red Cross placed the death toll in the region at 1,836, though there was no way to know the exact toll for certain. It was impossible for relief workers to gather the remains of the dead, and the original idea of sending individual coffins to dry areas such as Sebring and West Palm Beach had to be aban595
1928: The San Felipe hurricane doned. Instead, funeral pyres were arranged to dispose of the bodies. Domesticated animals and wildlife also suffered. Much of the lake’s abundant fish supply was destroyed when washed over the dikes and left to die as the water receded. The surge also wiped out some farmers’ entire stocks of cattle, pigs, horses, and chickens. Following its strike on Lake Okeechobee, the hurricane curved north-northeast and skirted the city of Jacksonville. Trees in the city were uprooted by winds of 50 to 60 miles per hour, and several small shacks were toppled, though the major business and prominent residential sections escaped with minor damage. A roller coaster in Jacksonville Beach, 18 miles away, was toppled by the winds, and a portion of a dancing pier collapsed. There were indications the hurricane was diminishing in intensity on its trail north, but it still carried enough strength to destroy communication wires between Tampa and Jacksonville. At one stage in the course of the storm, an entire portion of the state located below a diagonal line running from Palm Beach northward to the town of Brooksville was cut off from the outside world. As the storm curved back toward Jacksonville, another large section of the central part of the state as well as a portion of the East Coast became isolated. The storm eventually moved up the Georgia and South Carolina coast toward Hatteras, North Carolina, where it passed back into the sea. Despite losing much of its strength, tremendous amounts of rainfall accompanied the remnants of the storm on its way north. Savannah, Georgia, reported 11.42 inches of rain and winds of 50 miles per hour, while Charleston, South Carolina, registering 7.18 inches of precipitation and winds of 48 miles per hour, reported its shoreline strewn with the wreckage of small boats and piers. Both cities were nearly isolated by broken communication lines. The Lake Okeechobee hurricane is considered the most catastrophic storm to hit the state of Florida in terms of lives lost. The enormity of the disaster led federal and state officials to develop a plan to rebuild the dikes that failed on the lake’s southern shores so that a similar disaster would not occur in the future. In the three decades that followed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a 150mile dike constructed from mud, sand, rock, and concrete. It is named for President Herbert Hoover. William Hoffman 596
1928: The San Felipe hurricane For Further Information: Barnes, Jay. Florida’s Hurricane History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Kleinberg, Eliot. Black Cloud: The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. Longshore, David. Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones. New York: Facts On File, 1998. Mykle, Robert. Killer ‘Cane: The Deadly Hurricane of 1928. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002. Williams, John M., and Iver W. Duedall. Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, 1871-2001. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2002.
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■ 1932: The Dust Bowl Drought and dust storms Date: 1932-1937 Place: Great Plains and the southwestern United States Result: 500,000 homeless
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ix years of severe drought combined with overuse and improper exposure of the soil in the semi-arid and arid prairie regions of the southeastern United States led to Dust Bowl conditions, wind erosion of the soil, and the displacement of 500,000 farmers and townsfolk in the region. Dust Bowl conditions include extensive and prolonged lack of rainfall extending over several years; depletion of soil moisture to the point where plant life cannot be sustained; increased heat in summer and increased cold in winter due to the effect of airborne dust particles on atmospheric heating and cooling; the transformation of soil into particles of dust, sand, and minerals; and an increase in the frequency and intensity of wind due to the combined effects of rapidly fluctuating daily air temperature, low humidity, and a decline in the vegetative barriers and ground covers. Homesteaders Arrive. Before settlement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, natural, deep-rooted prairie grasses held the soil in place. The grasses that established themselves on the prairie soil were able to survive severe and prolonged drought, hot summers, and cold winters. During most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the region of the Great Plains was known to most citizens as “The Great American Desert.” In the postCivil War period, railroads were given government land grants to encourage the western expansion of rail services. Promotional literature produced by the railroads and the national government encouraged settlement in the Great Plains, either along railroad lines or in homestead areas established in the western territories by the government. The older idea of the Great Plains as a desert was replaced by a new myth of an agricultural empire in the “Garden of the World” and a new marketing dictum that “rain follows the plow.” This mistaken 598
1932: The Dust Bowl idea that settlement could change the climate encouraged farmers to continue plowing and planting their lands as the years of drought progressed, and discouraged the use of new agricultural techniques for semiarid soils even after these techniques were developed. A period of western migration encouraged eastern, midwestern, and European immigrant farmers to relocate to the area. Government land-grant and homesteading programs, land marketing schemes by railroad companies, national policies encouraging increased agricultural production, and the invention of mechanized farming tools and tractors encouraged and supported this migration to the previously untilled land. The native grasses were plowed under, using the agricultural techniques of the day, exposing the newly turned soil to potential erosion. Most settlement and soil exposure occurred during periods of normal or increased rainfall, and the growing crops replaced the prairie grasses as protectors of the soil. Many farmers enjoyed bumper yields in the years preceding the drought. The settlement of the American Great Plains was similar to the patterns experienced in semiarid areas of Australia, South Africa, and the Russian steppes. The settlers were primarily individuals with agricultural experience limited to the humid agricultural conditions of Western Europe or the eastern half of North America. The settlers began with an inaccurate perception of the possibilities and limitations of agricultural production in these arid and semiarid areas and lacked an adaptive technology to cope with extended drought. A severe drought in the Great Plains in the 1890’s did not deter optimism concerning the agricultural potential of the region. Years of Drought. The drought beginning in 1932 led to agricultural failure and to the repeated exposure of the land to wind erosion. Once tilled lands began to suffer wind erosion, the blowing dust together with the drought conditions caused the natural grasses on untilled land to wither and die, exposing more soil to erosion. Left unprotected, topsoil was lifted into the air, creating “black blizzards” of dust. The previously rich topsoil was blown away. On many farms, topsoil was eroded down to the clay base or to the bedrock. In many cases, even the clay began to fragment and become airborne in the wind. The loss of land fertility plus repeated crop failures led to the bankruptcy of thousands of farmers and the townspeople who provided services to the farmers. Many of these people became displaced 599
1932: The Dust Bowl migrants, with many traveling farther west to California or returning to the East in search of jobs and new land. The harvest of 1931 produced a bumper crop of wheat, depressing the market price in the midst of the Great Depression, a national and worldwide decline in economic activity which began in the 1920’s and which had already depressed prices for agricultural products. Farmers responded by increasing the acreage under cultivation hoping to restore lost income by increasing output, thus further reducing prices and exposing more land to potential erosion. The 1932 agricultural year began with a late freeze followed by violent rainstorms, a plague of insects, and a summer drought affecting 50 million acres in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Drought conditions continued without relief until 1937 and gradually extended east, west, and north, involving most of North America in some form of drought. Lakes Michigan and Huron dropped to their lowest levels on record. Black Blizzards. The first great dust storm, or black blizzard, occurred in November, 1933. Vast quantities of dust particles were carried thousands of feet into the atmosphere by winter winds, block-
A collage of headlines about the Dust Bowl. (Library of Congress)
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1932: The Dust Bowl ing out the sun for several days at a time. Gritty dust and dirt blew into houses and other buildings under windowsills or through door jambs, covering and contaminating floors, food, bedclothes, furniture, and drinking water and damaging machinery and tools. Dust storms continued to occur regularly during the next few years. In parts of Texas and Oklahoma as many as 100 separate dust storms were recorded in a single year. In March of 1936, there were twentytwo days of dust storms over the Texas Panhandle. In April, 1935, twenty-eight days of dust storms occurred in Amarillo, Texas. Storms in April, 1934, and February, 1935, were so severe that they darkened the skies over the entire eastern half of the United States, with dust from the Dust Bowl falling on Washington, D.C., New York City, and ships at sea. The finest dust particles were carried as far as Europe. An estimated 350 million tons of topsoil was blown away from what had been one of the world’s richest agricultural areas. Within the most severely affected areas of the Dust Bowl, crops sprouted only to wither and die. Drifts of dirt and sand smothered the remaining prairie grasslands, killed trees and shrubs, and blocked roads and railroad lines. Blowing dust scrubbed the paint off buildings and automobiles, caused human respiratory sickness, and created massive dry-weather electrical storms generating substantial wind gusts but no rainfall. Hundreds of people died of respiratory ailments. Cattle and wildlife starved or died of thirst. Birds found it impossible to nest successfully. Government Action. In 1936-1937, Congress debated and eventually enacted a Soil Conservation Act, intended to relieve the economic impact of the Dust Bowl conditions and prevent future wind or water erosion of the soil. Dr. Hugh Hammond Bennett, working with the Roosevelt administration as the chief proponent of the bill, encouraged a congressional vote on the bill just as dust from a Dust Bowl black blizzard shrouded Washington, D.C., in a brown haze. The act allocated $500 million to subsidize farmers who converted from growing grain crops, such as corn and wheat, to soil-building crops, such as hay and legumes. These measures both helped stabilize the soil and helped reduce grain production, resulting in agricultural prices rising to pre-Depression levels. The Soil Conservation Act called for the establishment of agricultural and conservation education programs, the planting of trees around farms and along 601
1932: The Dust Bowl roads as windbreaks, and establishment of Soil Conservation Districts in each state. Later renamed Soil and Water Conservation Districts, these units of local government, encouraged by the national government and established in each state by acts of the state legislature, are an important force in encouraging farmers to add “best management practices” to their farming techniques, constructing vegetative barriers to reduce wind and water erosion of the soil, and protecting the soil and water resources of America. Actions by the national government came too late for many farmers forced off the land due to mortgage foreclosures or the near-total loss of topsoil from their lands. Many migrated west to California or returned east to the industrial cities with only a few clothes and possessions and no money. Those with no skills other than farming worked as migrant farm laborers wherever they could find a harvest to work. These migrants put strains on the already overburdened government-welfare programs in these states and increased labor competition pressures. The migrants experienced anger and discrimination in the areas to which they migrated. Several states and many local governments enacted laws intended to prevent the migration and settlement of Dust Bowl migrants into their areas. In 1937, the drought ended, and those who could return to agricultural production did, using new farming methods designed to protect the soil from both wind and water erosion. The 1937 crop yield nationwide was the largest on record. The good weather continued throughout the critical years of World War II, and the improved agricultural methods continued to protect the soil. Gordon Neal Diem For Further Information: Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Lookingbill, Brad D. Dust Bowl, USA: Depression America and the Ecological Imagination, 1929-1941. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001. Saarinen, Thomas F. Perception of the Drought Hazard on the Great Plains. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Stallings, Frank L. Black Sunday: The Great Dust Storm of April 14, 1935. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2001. 602
1932: The Dust Bowl United States Great Plains Committee. The Future of the Great Plains. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s. 25th anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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■ 1937: The HINDENBURG Disaster Explosion and fire Date: May 6, 1937 Place: Lakehurst, New Jersey Result: 36 dead (22 crew members, 13 passengers, and 1 person on the ground), travel by airship comes to an end
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n May 3, 1937, the huge airship Hindenburg took off from Frankfurt, Germany, headed for Lakehurst, New Jersey. On board were 97 people—61 passengers and 36 crew members. The Hindenburg had already completed more than thirty ocean crossings in its first year of operation, having safely delivered more than 2,000 passengers and 375,000 pounds of mail and freight. The Hindenburg was a Nazi propaganda showpiece, with large black swastikas displayed prominently on its tail fins. Over the years, German-built airships (lighter-than-air aircrafts), often called zeppelins, had acquired an excellent record for safety and dependability. An earlier airship, called the Graf Zeppelin, had logged more than 1 million miles without mishap on regular transatlantic flights from 1930 until it was retired in 1936. The Creation of Airships. Ferdinand von Zeppelin (18381914) was born into a wealthy German family. As an army officer, he was sent to the United States in 1861 to observe military maneuvers during the Civil War. He had the opportunity to take a ride in a hotair balloon, which can only drift with the air currents because it has no mechanism for steering or propulsion. That experience gave Zeppelin a lifelong motivation to design a lighter-than-air vehicle whose direction of flight could be controlled by a pilot on board. Other inventors had the same goal, but Zeppelin had the persistence and the financial resources to carry out his plan. By the time he died in 1914, Zeppelin had a fleet of thirty airships with a regular schedule of passenger flights between major cities in Europe. The Hindenburg had the designation LZ-129, the one hundred twenty-ninth airship to be built by the Zeppelin factory since the first successful flight on the LZ-1 took place in the year 1900. The Hinden604
1937: The Hindenburg Disaster burg looked like an enormous sausage, 803 feet long and 135 feet in diameter. Most of its bulk consisted of a metal framework that held sixteen large gas bags filled with hydrogen. Hydrogen is much lighter than air, even lighter than the helium that is used in balloons. The total weight of the airship, including the framework, the gas bags, the passenger gondola, and the propulsion and steering apparatus must be less than the weight of air that it displaces in order for the airship to become buoyant. Like a submarine, which gets its buoyancy from the surrounding water, the airship literally floats in the air. Propulsion was provided by four 1,150-horsepower diesel engines that turned two relatively small propellers. Cruising at an average speed of 80 miles per hour, the transatlantic trip took only three days, less than half the time taken by the fastest ocean liners of the 1930’s. The passenger gondola, about 60 feet long, was fastened to the bottom of the main balloon near its front end. It was designed for wealthy patrons who were accustomed to luxury. The sleeping cabins had comfortable beds and modern bathroom fixtures. The dining room had
The German airship Hindenburg explodes into flame over Lakehurst, New Jersey. (Courtesy, Navy Lakehurst Historical Society)
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1937: The Hindenburg Disaster elegant furnishings, adjacent to a promenade deck with large observation windows. There was a dance floor with a stage for the band. The guest lounge was furnished with card tables and easy chairs. Because hydrogen gas is highly combustible, elaborate safety precautions were needed to prevent any open flame or sparks. Smoking was permitted only in a special smoking room, where the cigarette lighters were chained to the furniture. No cigarettes or matches were allowed anywhere else. The hallway walls had a rubberized coating to prevent buildup of static electricity. Riding in the gondola was very smooth compared to ocean liners because the great bulk of the balloon smoothed out any local air turbulence. Because hydrogen gas is flammable, Germany had tried to buy helium gas from the United States. Helium is a lightweight, inert gas that provides almost the same amount of buoyancy as hydrogen. The U.S. government opposed exporting helium to Germany because Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party had come to power in 1933 and the threat of war was coming closer. During World War I, the German military had used zeppelins to drop bombs over London and other cities in Great Britain. In some fifty air raids, large buildings had been destroyed and over 500 people were killed. The terror caused by these air attacks left a lasting memory that firmly opposed selling helium to Germany as it was rearming itself. The HINDENBURG Explodes. On May 6, 1937, after a routine threeday flight across the Atlantic, the Hindenburg passed over New York City. Just after 7 p.m., the airship arrived at its landing field at Lakehurst, New Jersey. As it hovered above the mooring tower, ropes were dropped from the front of the ship to tie it down for unloading. A radio announcer and a newsreel photographer were on hand to report on the arrival because the passenger list frequently included international celebrities. Without warning, the tail section of the Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames. The fire spread very quickly, and the airship sank down toward the ground because of the loss of hydrogen. Some of the panicked passengers jumped from the gondola and survived, but others were killed upon impact with the ground. Some waited too long to jump and died when their clothing and hair caught fire. The radio announcer spoke into his microphone, where his eyewitness words of shock were recorded: “It’s burst into flames! Get out of the way! . . . 606
1937: The Hindenburg Disaster It’s falling on the mooring mast and all the folks between us. . . . This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed!” Only thirty-four seconds after the initial explosion the Hindenburg lay on the ground with its metal skeleton twisted and wrecked. The fire did not last long because after the hydrogen had escaped, there was not much combustible material left to burn. A circus performer named Joseph Spah was one of the miraculous survivors from the Hindenburg disaster. He was sitting in the dining room when the explosion happened. He smashed one of the windowpanes and climbed out through the broken window, dangling from the ledge by his hands. He realized that he was too high to let go, so he waited for the burning airship to drop closer to the ground. The window ledge became very hot, searing his hands. When he thought he was about 40 feet from the ground, he let go, dropped to the ground, landed on his feet, and ran away from the fire. His only injury was a fractured heel. There were some extraordinary acts of heroism during the disaster that helped to save lives. Some of the ground crew remained underneath the burning airship long enough to catch passengers who had jumped. Captain Max Pruss, who was in the control room, helped 7 crew members to escape through a window. He dragged an unconscious man to safety even after his own clothes had caught on fire. One of the casualties was Ernst Lehman, who had been in command of the Hindenburg on earlier flights. He was able to walk away from the blazing wreckage but died of burns later. The Hindenburg disaster made headlines in all the major newspapers. Like the tragic sinking of the cruise ship Titanic, another technological marvel had come to a spectacular end, in spite of extensive safety precautions. In the 1930’s, television was not yet available, but newsreel photography of major events was commonly shown at movie theaters before or after the feature film. Because a cameraman was all set up to film the landing of the Hindenburg, he was able to capture the whole disaster from beginning to end. Together with the voice of the radio announcer, it was shown to horrified audiences. It was the first major disaster with eyewitness photography. Pictures of burning victims trying to run away from the flaming wreck left an indelible image that travel by airship was too dangerous. The age of the airships came to an end with the Hindenburg disaster. 607
1937: The Hindenburg Disaster Reasons for the Explosion. What caused the Hindenburg to explode? As is customary after a major disaster, there was a formal inquiry, at which some of the survivors were able to tell their stories. Three possible scenarios emerged from the investigation. One was that an electric discharge from the atmosphere had initiated the explosion. Although no one had seen any lightning, there is frequently a buildup of static electricity between low-lying clouds and the ground. It had been raining earlier that day in Lakehurst, and newsreels did show a cloudy sky above the airship as it was landing. A second possibility was an electric discharge inside the balloon itself, perhaps produced by friction between gas bags rubbing against each other. It was almost impossible to prevent some leakage of hydrogen through the rubberized fabric of the bags, so a spark could have ignited the gas. The third possibility, more of a speculation, was that it was an act of sabotage. Perhaps a member of the crew who was strongly opposed to Adolf Hitler’s militarism and persecution of Jews had set a bomb that would bring a spectacular end to this airship that symbolized the dominance of German technology. However, no evidence of bomb material could be found in the wrecked remains of the Hindenburg. Hans G. Graetzer For Further Information: Archbold, Rick. Hindenburg: An Illustrated History. Secaucus, N.J.: Chartwell Books, 2005. Botting, Douglas. Dr. Eckener’s Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel. New York: Henry Holt, 2001. De Syon, Guillaume. Zeppelin! Germany and the Airship, 1900-1939. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Dick, Harold G. The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships: “Graf Zeppelin” and” “Hindenburg.” Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Mooney, Michael M. The Hindenburg. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972. Robinson, Douglas H. Famous Aircraft: The LZ-129 “Hindenburg.” Dallas: Morgan, 1964. Tanaka, Shirley. The Disaster of the “Hindenburg”: The Last Flight of the Greatest Airship Ever Built. New York: Scholastic/Madison Press, 1993. 608
■ 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 Hurricane Date: September 21, 1938 Place: Northeastern United States Classification: Category 3 Result: About 680 dead, more than 1,700 injured, nearly 20,000 requests for aid, $400 million in damage
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ome analysts call the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 a triple storm: hurricane, flood, and tidal surge. Unusually heavy rains beginning September 18, 1938, caused rivers and streams to rise and flood low-lying areas, and the rain that accompanied the up to 100-mile-per-hour winds during the brief course of the hurricane added to these conditions. In shoreline areas and cities on tidal rivers additional flood conditions were caused by the tidal surges common to hurricanes, when the high winds drive the tide upon itself. Several towns and cities also suffered from fires that were started when electrical wires were short-circuited by water or by ships that were driven by high winds and the tide into buildings along the coast. The Formation of the Storm. June of 1938 was the thirdwettest June in New England weather records, followed by an abnormally wet and mild summer. It is suggested that a French meteorological observation at the Bilma Oasis in the Sahara Desert on September 4 noting a wind shift would, with modern radar tracking and satellite imagery not available then, have given the first hint of trouble. The shift resulted in an area of storminess off the west coast of Africa, entering the Atlantic in the Cape Verde region. On September 16 a storm of hurricane strength was reported northeast of Puerto Rico by a lightship and the Jacksonville office of the U.S. Weather Bureau. The bureau followed the storm’s rapid progress westward, issuing a hurricane warning for southern Florida on September 19. The storm slowed and turned north, sparing Florida, and initially it was assumed to be heading out to sea. 609
1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 This hurricane was abnormal in that it traveled northward at an average speed of 50 miles per hour rather than the more usual 20 to 30 miles per hour. In twelve hours it moved from a position off Cape Hatteras to southern Vermont and New Hampshire. More important from the standpoint of criticisms of inadequate warning by the Weather Bureau is the fact that less than six hours elapsed from its leaving the Florida area, traveling over water, until it hit Long Island, New York. Because of its rapid progress, the hurricane had destructive winds about 100 miles east of its center, while there was relatively little damage to property on the west side. Therefore, the worst of the destruction was concentrated on Long Island, Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, central Massachusetts, and southern Vermont and New Hampshire. High winds lasted only about an hour and a half in any one area.
A storm surge causes giant waves to crash against a seawall during the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 The Aftereffects. In spite of its brief tenure, the hurricane had tremendous temporary and some important lasting economic impact. Whole seaside communities along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts were wiped out by wind and tides, which ranged from 12 to 25 feet higher than normal. New beaches were cut, islands were formed as the water ran through strips of shore, and navigational charts of the time became worthless. Roads and railroad tracks along the shore were undermined, buckled, and tossed. Railroad service was interrupted from seven to fourteen days while crews removed trees, houses, and several good-sized boats from the tracks. Inland, bridges were wiped out, roads buckled where undermined by usually small streams, and trees fell on roads and buildings. Winds blew roofs, walls, and often top stories off brick and wooden buildings. Dams were breached by the high waters. Apples ready for harvest were blown off the trees, and whole groves of maples were snapped, affecting the maple-syrup industry for years to come. It was a rare church whose steeple escaped being torn down, and village greens were permanently altered by the toppling of stately mature elms and oaks that had lined the streets. Most important, some mills upon which a town’s economy depended were never rebuilt after the damage. In New England, all old mills were originally powered by water, so they were located on dammed rivers. Although not as hard hit, portions of northern Vermont and New Hampshire also suffered from fallen trees and flooding. Maine was the least affected, escaping flooding and damaged only by diminishing, although still high, winds. Boats were driven ashore from Portland south, and train schedules were disrupted and road traffic affected by downed trees. Examination of the Storm. The major New England rivers were already at flood stage before the hurricane struck. The wet summer meant that the heavy rains in the three days preceding the high winds did not soak into the ground but ran off into streams, which in turn fed the rivers. Tributaries most affected were the Farmington, Chicopee, Millers, Deerfield, and Ashuelot Rivers of the Connecticut; the Quinebaug and Shetucket of the Thames; and the Contoocock and Piscataquog of the Merrimack. New England is not often subjected to serious floods or hurricanes and is even less affected by tornadoes. Accounts of the 1938 hurri611
1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 cane are compared to the Great Colonial Hurricane of August 14 or 15, 1635 (as recorded by Increase Mather in his Remarkable Providences of 1684); the Great September Gale of September 23, 1815, recorded by Noah Webster and others; the ice storm of 1921; and floods of 1927 and 1936, the latter providing benchmarks for high water two years later. The 1938 storm was termed “unique,” “unusual,” and “most interesting” by meteorologists, and a “freak,” the “worst in the history of the northeast” by Dr. Charles C. Clark, acting chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau. It was not a tropical hurricane in the strict sense of the word because before it reached the northeastern states it was transformed into an extra-tropical storm, with a definite frontal structure and two distinct air masses—tropical maritime and polar continental, a peculiar temperature and wind distribution in the upper atmosphere. Although winds of 60 miles per hour were common at the hurricane’s worst, geographic conditions contributed to winds up to 100 miles per hour in some areas. At slightly higher elevations, weather devices recorded much higher velocities: 186 miles per hour at the Harvard Meteorological Observatory at the top of Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts, and 120 miles per hour at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City. The Extent of the Destruction. Statistics, especially the count of dead and injured, vary considerably. An estimated 680 to 685 lost their lives. Estimates of those injured range from 700 to over 1,700. Nearly 20,000 applied for aid. There is no uncertainty, however, in the assessment that the $400 million in total damage was the highest for any storm to its date. One account lists 4,500 homes, summer cottages, and farm buildings destroyed; 2,605 boats lost and 3,369 damaged, with a total $2.6 million estimated in fishing boats, equipment, docks, and shore plants destroyed; 26,000 cars smashed; 275 million trees broken off or uprooted; nearly 20,000 miles of power and telephone lines down; and numerous farm animals killed. Some 10,000 railroad workers filled 1,000 washouts, replaced nearly 100 bridges, and removed buildings and 30 boats from the tracks. Bell System crews came from as far away as Virginia, Arkansas, and Nevada to help restore service. About half the estimated 5 million bushels of the apple crop was unharvested and destroyed. On Fire Island, New York, the tide crossed from the ocean to the 612
1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 bay side over the land, sweeping everything from its path. In Westhampton, Long Island, only 26 of 179 beach houses remained, and most were uninhabitable. Every house in Watch Hill, Rhode Island’s Napatree Point-Fort Road area was swept into Naragansett Bay, and only 15 of the 42 occupants in the 39 houses survived. Downtown Providence, Rhode Island, was flooded under 10 feet of water. New London, Connecticut, suffered $4 million in damage from water, 98-mileper-hour winds, and the worst fire since General Benedict Arnold’s troops burned the city in 1781. The fire was started by electrical wires short-circuited when a five-masted schooner was driven into a building. The town of Peterborough in southern New Hampshire also suffered from fire as well as wind and water damage when wires were short-circuited by floodwater. In one instance along the Connecticut shore, a railroad engineer nudged a cabin cruiser and a house off the tracks, loaded all his passengers into the dining and first Pullman cars, disconnected the remainder of the train, and brought his riders to safety. In several towns and cities, including Ware and North Adams, Massachusetts, and Brandon, Vermont, rivers changed their courses and took over main streets. While portions of Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, were flooded, these cities were not damaged as much as might have been expected because of dikes built after the 1936 flood and sandbag walls added by volunteers in 1938. On September 23, two days after the storm had passed, the Connecticut River crested at 35.42 feet. This was 2 feet below the 1936 record, but nothing else approaching this had been recorded since 1854. A total of 17 inches of rain had fallen in the Connecticut Valley in four days. However, the amount of rain varied greatly from one area to another, as did the velocity of the wind. Electrical, telephone, and railroad services were interrupted for up to two weeks, and other services and activities were disrupted as well. Flooding and wind damage to buildings in town and city centers made food and provisions hard to find for days. Roads were blocked as well while crews removed the trees that had fallen across them, interrupting school activity and preventing many from reaching their homes. Business and public buildings as well as churches and homes had to be repaired or rebuilt. The disruption to lives cannot be adequately reflected in any of these statistics. Erika E. Pilver 613
1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 For Further Information: Allen, Everett S. A Wind to Shake the World: The Story of the 1938 Hurricane. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions, 2006. Burns, Cherie. The Great Hurricane—1938. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005. Cummings, Mary. Hurricane in the Hamptons, 1938. New York: Arcadia, 2006. Goudsouzian, Aram. The Hurricane of 1938. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions, 2006. Minsinger, William Elliott, comp. and ed. The 1938 Hurricane: An Historical and Pictorial Summary. East Milton, Mass.: Blue Hill Observatory, 1988. Scotti, R. A. Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. Vallee, David R., and Richael P. Dion. Southern New England Tropical Storms and Hurricanes: A Ninety-Eight-Year Summary (1909-1997). Taunton, Mass.: National Weather Service, 1998.
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■ 1946: The Aleutian tsunami Tsunami Also known as: The April Fools’ Day Tsunami Date: April 1, 1946 Place: Primarily Hilo, Hawaii Result: 159 dead in Hawaiian Islands (179 dead total), $25 million in damage on Hawaiian Islands
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t was 7 a.m. on the morning of April 1, 1946, at Hilo, on the northeast coast of the big island of Hawaii, which is at the southeast end of the Hawaiian Island chain. Locally based ship pilot and U.S. Navy Captain W. Wickland was on the bridge of a ship moored in Hilo Bay. Sea level in the port began falling and rising and repeated this pattern twice more—much faster than would happen with any normal tidal variation. Then, as he would later report, “I looked out and saw what looked like a low, long swell at sea; way out, but coming in awfully fast. Seemed like three separate waves, each behind the other, came together in one monster wave. I was on the upper bridge, some 46 feet above the waterline. That wave was just about eye-level and probably two miles long.” The Origins of the Tsunami. A tsunami was rapidly but stealthily approaching Hilo and was about to wreak destruction. It had originated with an earthquake under the seafloor, which itself was at a depth of about 13,123 feet (4,000 meters) at the Aleutian trench. Its epicenter was about 81 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Unimak Island, the latter being at the western end of the Alaskan peninsula. At the epicenter, with location 52 degrees 80 minutes north latitude and 162 degrees 50 minutes west longitude in the North Pacific, the seafloor disturbance had generated a sea wave that was now spreading outward in all directions. The earthquake, having a magnitude of 7.4, occurred at 1:29 a.m. local time. Within several minutes, the long-length wave had grown in height as it rapidly approached the shallowing shore of Unimak Island, and a wave 98 feet (30 meters) high crashed onto the coast. It destroyed a lighthouse at Scotch Cap that was 32 feet (10 meters) 615
1946: The Aleutian tsunami above sea level, killing the 5 inhabitants. The tsunami wave was also spreading southward. In the open, deep ocean, the distance between wave crests is typically greater than 62 miles (100 kilometers), the amplitude (wave height) about 3.3 feet (1 meter), and speed about 373 to 497 miles (600 to 800 kilometers) per hour; 497 miles (800 kilometers) per hour is about the speed of a jet airliner. Four and a half hours after the earthquake, the waves were approaching the Hawaiian Islands, 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) to the southeast. As the seafloor shallows toward shore, the wave speed typically slows to perhaps 30 miles per hour and the amplitude of the wave crests builds dramatically. Hilo. It was now about 7 a.m. local time—Hawaii being in the adjacent time zone to the east of Unimak Island. The first wave of the sequence emptied the harbor of water at Hilo Bay, so that ships were now unexpectedly sitting on the newly exposed seafloor amid the coral reefs and some floundering fish. Then the large crest returned, uprooting and slamming the seaside buildings inland and against other buildings, taking out 7,500 feet of a 10,000-foot-long breakwater. With a great sucking sound it retreated out to sea, carrying with it much debris and several people. Twice more this process of retreat and destructive return was repeated. According to Captain Wickland, this tsunami had a crest that “broke, and tore up everything it touched. Some Coast Guard boats flew by, and a yacht was thrown up to the main highway. Every structure, building, and piece of equipment on shore seemed to take off.” The Aftereffects. One-third of the town of Hilo vanished. The steel span of a railroad bridge across the Wailuku River was swept 328 feet (100 meters) inland. Heavy masses of coral were ripped up from the usually submerged reefs and strewn onto the beaches. The height of the tsunami waves had been from 23 to 32 feet (7 to 10 meters) at Hilo, as much as 59 feet (18 meters) locally elsewhere on the coast of the island of Hawaii, and up to 39 feet (12 meters) on the island of Oahu to the northwest. Hilo reported 96 dead, and another 63 were killed in other parts of the Hawaiian Islands—a total of 159. Twentysix of the total died at the village of Laupahoehoe, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) up the coast northwest of Hilo, where the tsunami destroyed a schoolhouse and killed the 25 students and their teacher inside. Property damage in Hawaii was estimated to be $25 million. 616
1946: The Aleutian tsunami
Kapaa Kekaha
Kalaheo Lihue
H AWA I I
KAUAI NIIHAU
P a c i f i c
OAHU
Honolulu
O c e a n
MOLOKAI Kaunakakai Napili-Honokowai Lahaina Lanai
LANAI
Wailuku MAUI Kahului Kihei
Makawao Pukalani
KAHOOLAWE
HAWAII
Hilo Captain Cook
Twenty other persons died elsewhere from this tsunami; many of the deaths in Hawaii occurred when people—not aware that a tsunami was in progress—went down to the shore with curiosity after the first wave’s water had withdrawn out to sea. The following day in Hilo, bodies of a dozen people, recovered from the sea or from the wreckage on shore, were laid along the sidewalk under blankets. In the words of local resident Kapua Heuer, “You lifted the blanket to see if you could find those who you were looking for. The stark terror in their eyes—they died in terror.” The tsunami wave train continued spreading through the Pacific, at close to 497 miles (800 kilometers) per hour. It arrived at Valparaiso, halfway down the coastline of Chile, eighteen hours after the earthquake—and over 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) away from the epicenter—and resulted in a shore wave that was still 6 feet (2 meters) high. Tide gauges showed that the seismic sea waves were reflected back from Pacific coasts and hit the south side of Hawaii another eighteen hours later, then sloshed around the Pacific basin for the next couple of days. 617
1946: The Aleutian tsunami Other Hawaiian Tsunamis. The Hawaiian Islands were hit by 7 tsunamis between 1924 and 2000, having waves at least 16 feet (5 meters) high. This includes the very early hours of May 23, 1960, when an earthquake the previous day off the coast of Chile generated a tsunami that resulted in waves at Hilo up to 23 feet (7 meters) high; 61 persons were killed, and 229 buildings were destroyed or severely damaged. On November 29, 1975, an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the island of Hawaii, 28 miles (45 kilometers) south of Hilo, created enough seafloor disturbance to produce waves up to 13 feet (4 meters) high at Hilo. Tsunami-prone areas can reduce potential property damage by restricting building in low-lying coastal areas or at immediate portside. Hilo, after the destructive tsunamis of 1946 and 1960, limited commercial structures near the harbor. The area has been converted to a waterfront park that helps serve as a natural buffer for future high waves. Warning Systems. The best means of reducing danger and losses, particularly of life and injury, would be adequate warning of an oncoming seismic sea wave that could grow into a destructive tsunami. This shore-impacting growth into one or more walls of water depends in part on the local seafloor topography (bathymetry) and on the shoreline’s shape and orientation with respect to the wave. Such a warning system is now in place for the Pacific region. In 1948, after the destructive Aleutian-generated tsunami that hit Hawaii in April, 1946, the U.S. government set up a Seismic Sea Wave Warning System. It is now known as the Pacific Tsunami Warning System and is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). With coordination and data processing at a Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, it quickly activates when any of its 30 participating seismic observatories, which are located around and on islands throughout the Pacific basin, detect an earthquake or other disturbance that could potentially generate a spreading tsunami. Another 78 stations have tide gauges for monitoring unusual changes in sea level, in order to detect a tsunami as it passes by. If such a wave is indeed spreading, an alert is issued, with prediction of arrival times, to Pacific nations, islands, and territories in the region. The Warning System can typically issue a reliable Pacific-wide warning in about an hour after the occurrence of the source (such as 618
1946: The Aleutian tsunami an earthquake or volcanic eruption). This allows notice of an approaching tsunami for locations more than 466 miles (750 kilometers) from the source, because the wave train travels at about 750 miles per hour. This is adequate for trans-Pacific sites, as the tsunami travel time from, for example, Chile to Hawaii is about fifteen hours, and from the Aleutians to Northern California is about four hours. The first use of the Warning System was on November 4, 1952, when an earthquake, detected as occurring off the Kamchatka Peninsula of eastern Russia, created a spreading sea wave. The Honolulu center predicted a time of arrival at the Hawaiian Islands about six hours from the time the earthquake occurred. People were evacuated inland, and ships or small boats were taken out to sea to ride out the subdued waves far offshore, and no lives were lost. There are now regional systems of more localized monitoring stations and rapid data analysis, which give early cautionary warnings about ten minutes or so after an earthquake. This can be timely in reaching people and sites as close as 62 miles (100 kilometers) to a potential tsunami source. Such regional systems are in place in Hawaii, Alaska, Japan, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and French Polynesia. Before the Japanese regional system was established, there had been more than 6,000 people killed by tsunami waves in 14 events; after the system became operational, only 215 died from the next 20 tsunami events. Robert S. Carmichael For Further Information: Dudley, Walter C., and Scott C. S. Stone. The Tsunami of 1946 and 1960 and the Devastation of Hilo Town. Marceline, Mo.: Walsworth, 2000. Dvorak, J., and T. Peek. “Swept Away: The Deadly Power of Tsunamis.” Earth 2, no. 4. (July, 1993): 52-59. Judson, Sheldon, and Marvin E. Kauffman. Physical Geology. 8th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990. Karwoski, Gail Langer. Tsunami: The True Story of an April Fools’ Day Disaster. Plain City, Ohio: Darby Creek, 2006. Satake, Kenji, ed. Tsunamis: Case Studies and Recent Developments. New York: Springer, 2005. Shepard, F. P., G. A. Macdonald, and D. C. Cox. The Tsunami of April 1, 1946. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950. 619
■ 1947: The Texas City Disaster Explosion Date: April 16, 1947 Place: Texas City, Texas Result: 581 dead, 3,500 injured, 539 homes damaged or destroyed, $100 million in property damage in explosion of the freighter Grandcamp
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arious cargoes, including sisal twine, peanuts, cotton, tobacco, small arms ammunition, and ammonium nitrate fertilizer were being loaded into the French Liberty ship Grandcamp as it lay alongside a pier at Texas City, Texas. Under certain conditions, ammonium nitrate can explode violently, but this fact was not widely known at the time. As a result, the longshoremen loading the ship failed to take proper precautions as they handled this dangerous cargo. Smoking was forbidden, according to signs posted on the dock and on the ship, but this rule was often violated. The longshoremen not only often smoked while working in the ship’s hold but also sometimes laid lighted cigarettes down on the paper bags containing fertilizer. On April 14, two days before the disaster, a cigarette started a small fire among the bags. Luck was with the workers that day, and the fire was put out quickly. Events Leading to the Explosion. On the morning of April 16, 1947, longshoremen resumed loading ammonium nitrate into hold number 4 of the ill-fated ship. About 2,300 tons had already been loaded on previous days. Shortly after loading resumed at 8 a.m. someone saw smoke. It appeared to be coming from several layers deep in the hold. First the men poured a gallon jug of drinking water on the fire. Next, two of the ship’s fire extinguishers were discharged. Unfortunately, neither of these measures did much good. A fire hose was lowered into the hold, but the captain refused to turn on the water because he knew the water would ruin the cargo. As a precaution the captain instructed the longshoremen to remove the small arms ammunition from hold number 5. As the fire worsened the workers left the hold, and the hatch cov620
1947: The Texas City Disaster Missouri Enid Tulsa
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ers were reinstalled. This meant laying long wooden boards across the deck opening and covering them with tarpaulins. The ventilating system that circulated fresh air through the hold was turned off, and the steam-smothering system was turned on. Steam was admitted to the hold in the hope that it would displace all air and deprive the fire of the oxygen it needed. This did not work, because ammonium nitrate contains oxygen in its molecules. This oxygen is released as the fertilizer decomposes during a fire. As steam pressure built up in the hold, it blew off the hatch covers at about 8:30 a.m. A photograph of the scene shows a fire hose spraying water onto the ship at about 8:45. Flames erupted from the open hatch around 9:00; at 9:12 there was a tremendous explosion that was 621
1947: The Texas City Disaster heard as far as 150 miles away. Two small airplanes flying overhead were knocked out of the sky. A wall of water 15 feet high surged across the harbor and carried a large steel barge up onto dry land. Everyone still aboard the ship and in the immediate area on the dock was killed instantly. The ship’s anchor, which weighed 1.5 tons, was later found about 2 miles from the site of the explosion. Results of the Blast. Near the port area in Texas City were oil refineries, petroleum tank farms, and the Monsanto Chemical Company. Red-hot pieces of the exploding ship caused widespread damage at these facilities. Tanks of highly flammable chemicals exploded at various locations ashore. A residential area, inhabited mostly by poor African Americans and Hispanics, was just half a mile from the ship. Many homes in this area were damaged or destroyed, and many people were killed and injured. The Monsanto plant was only about 350 feet from the explosion site; three-quarters of this facility was heavily damaged or destroyed. Monsanto’s steam plant and powerhouse were destroyed. There were 574 people working at Monsanto that day. Of these, 234 were killed immediately or died of their injuries, and another 200 were injured. Half of Texas City’s firefighters, including its chief, and all of its firefighting equipment had been sent to fight the shipboard fire. These personnel and their equipment were wiped out by the explosion, seriously hampering efforts to extinguish the fires ashore. Another Liberty ship, High Flyer, was tied up near Grandcamp. This ship was also loading ammonium nitrate fertilizer. When Grandcamp exploded, High Flyer was torn loose from its moorings and driven across the harbor, where it lodged against the Wilson B. Keene. The explosion killed one member of High Flyer’s crew. The others tied up their ship to the Wilson B. Keene and climbed over that ship to a dock. High Flyer’s hatch covers were blown off by the force of the explosion, which meant flying debris could fall into its holds and start fires. Because the entire area was blanketed by heavy black smoke, officials were not aware that High Flyer was on fire. During the evening of April 16, a Coast Guard vessel discovered the burning ship, but the captain decided it was too dangerous to try to tow it out to sea. At about 1 a.m. on April 17, High Flyer exploded with a force at least as great as the earlier explosion of Grandcamp. It appears that 2 deaths 622
1947: The Texas City Disaster and 24 injuries resulted from this second explosion. Casualties were relatively light because most people had left the port area. Rescue Efforts. Texas City’s police chief, William Ladish, was in his office when the first explosion occurred. He was knocked to the floor by its force even though he was more than a mile from the ship. The police radio was knocked out by the blast, so Chief Ladish ran to the telephone exchange and called Captain Simpson of the Houston Police Department. Telephone-company officials called the National Guard and hospitals in Galveston and Goose Creek. Chief Ladish dispatched some of his men to set up roadblocks and some to assist the rescue efforts on the docks. Mayor Curtis Trahan issued a disaster declaration and ordered the city’s health officer, Dr. Clarence Quinn, to set up first-aid stations.
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
The explosion of the freighter Grandcamp in Texas City, Texas. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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1947: The Texas City Disaster Fred Dowdy, the assistant fire chief, was out of town when the explosion occurred. When he returned, he took charge of what was left of the fire department. George Gill and a group of volunteers from the Carbide and Carbon Chemical Company, located at the edge of town, rushed to the scene with firefighting equipment from their plant. About two hours after the blast, officers and enlisted men from the Galveston office of the Army Corps of Engineers arrived on the scene with trucks and heavy equipment. Texas City’s three medical clinics were immediately overwhelmed with injured people in urgent need of medical care. The nearby city of Galveston activated the part of its hurricane relief plan having to do with emergency medical care. Galveston’s three large hospitals and its Red Cross chapter were put on alert. Ambulances and city buses assembled at the hospitals; doctors and nurses carrying medical supplies boarded these vehicles and were transported to Texas City. An unused army hospital at Fort Crockett in Galveston was reopened and used to treat the wounded. More than 500 seriously injured people were transported from Texas City to Galveston by ambulance, bus, truck, taxi, and private car. About 250 were taken to hospitals in Houston. It was impossible to keep accurate records of the names of the injured and where they were sent. As a result it was hours or days before families knew whether loved ones who had been in the port area were dead or alive. Both the Red Cross and Galveston radio station KGBC tried to collect this information, but they met with little early success. A variety of law enforcement personnel converged on Texas City to help maintain order. The Texas Highway Patrol set up roadblocks. Texas Rangers kept order within the city, and a Houston police captain was responsible for order in the port area. Local police departments, sheriff’s departments, and the state police also sent personnel. Efforts to control the situation after the explosion were poorly coordinated because there was no emergency plan for the port. Port officials, city officials, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army, Red Cross, and other organizations dispatched teams of people to help. Unfortunately, these groups were unable to communicate with each other. Telephones were knocked out by the explosions, and portable radio communications were not compatible between groups. Although the mayor of Texas City and the chief of police tried to establish a com624
1947: The Texas City Disaster mand center, they were unable to get a clear picture of the situation. Each individual group of rescuers did what seemed best at the time, and many heroic acts were performed, but no overall system of priorities was established. Cause and Effects. Certainly the immediate cause of the disaster was careless handling of a very dangerous material, ammonium nitrate. During World War II this chemical was produced and transported under the supervision of the U.S. Army, and it was used as an explosive. The army insisted on very careful handling of the material. When the war ended factories continued to produce ammonium nitrate and sell it as fertilizer. Army supervision ended, and the people who handled the transportation of the fertilizer seem to have been unaware of its danger. The U.S. Coast Guard, which is responsible for the safety of ships, did not assume an active role. It appears that port officials and ship’s officers did not know the potential for danger. In the aftermath of the disaster some 273 lawsuits on behalf of 8,484 persons were filed against the United States government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. These suits were consolidated into a single case referred to as Dalehite v. United States. Early in 1950 Judge T. M. Kennerly of the U.S. District Court, Southern Division of Texas, found in favor of the people who sued. The judge’s opinion stated, All of Said Fertilizer stored on the Grandcamp and High Flyer was manufactured or caused to be manufactured by Defendant [the U.S. government], shipped by Defendant to Texas City, and caused or permitted by Defendant to be loaded into such Steamships for shipment abroad. . . . All was done with full knowledge of Defendant that such fertilizer was an inherently dangerous explosive and fire hazard, and all without any warning to the public in Texas City or to persons handling same.
This decision was, however, overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court. In 1953 the Supreme Court voted four to three to uphold the action of the Fifth Circuit Court. Clark Thompson, U.S. Representative for Galveston, introduced a bill in Congress to compensate the victims. Enacted in 1955 this bill resulted in payments of almost $17 million to 1,394 individuals. Perhaps some good came of this terrible event. It caused officials 625
1947: The Texas City Disaster at many levels to reevaluate safety regulations and disaster plans. A hospital was finally built in Texas City in 1949. The National Red Cross, not satisfied with its ability to provide assistance to Texas City, revised its entire disaster relief program. Refineries and chemical plants upgraded their firefighting capabilities, and they entered into mutual assistance agreements. In 1950 the Coast Guard established a new port safety program, and in 1951 it reestablished the security provisions for handling dangerous cargoes, which had been in effect during World War II. These rules prohibited the handling of dangerous cargo near populated areas, required the stationing of trained guards, and restricted welding, smoking, and the movement of motor vehicles when such cargo was being handled. Texas City recovered quickly from the disaster. Most of the people who fled were back in their homes within a few months. Retail businesses resumed normal operation, and many new homes were built. Refineries and chemical plants were rebuilt, and the city’s population grew steadily. Port operations resumed, but cargo loading was limited to petroleum products. Ammonium nitrate was never shipped through Texas City again. Edwin G. Wiggins For Further Information: Barnaby, K. C. Some Ship Disasters and Their Causes. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1968. Chiles, James R. Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology— an Inside Look at Catastrophes and Why They Happen. New York: HarperBusiness, 2001. Cross, Farrell, and Wilbur Cross. “When the World Blew up at Texas City.” Texas Parade, September, 1972, 70-74. Mabry, Meriworth, et al., eds. We Were There: A Collection of the Personal Stories of Survivors of the 1947 Ship Explosions in Texas City, Commonly Referred to as the Texas City Disaster. Texas City, Tex.: Mainland Museum of Texas City, 1997. Minutaglio, Bill. City on Fire: The Forgotten Disaster That Devastated a Town and Ignited a Landmark Legal Battle. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Stephens, Hugh W. The Texas City Disaster, 1947. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. 626
■ 1952: The Great London Smog Smog Date: December 5-9, 1952 Place: London, England Result: More than 4,000 dead
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he city of London is situated along the valley created by the Thames River. On the afternoon of Thursday, December 4, 1952, a high-pressure air mass encompassed the Thames Valley in which the city is located. Cold air moving westward from the European continent displaced a warm air mass that had settled over much of London, creating an inversion in the atmosphere and trapping the gases created both by industry and by coal-burning heaters in homes. That evening the chill resulted in many Londoners piling extra soft coal in their furnaces. The result was an increased buildup of smoke, soot, and sulfur dioxide in the air. By the morning of the 5th, a dense pall had settled over most of the city. As the day progressed, the smog became so thick that public transportation was suspended, even in the suburbs. Traffic backed up, and motorists began to abandon their cars. All river traffic came to a halt. Because of the cold temperatures, most people continued to burn coal fires in their homes, creating even more smoke and pollutants in the now completely still air. By Sunday the 7th, the cover had become so dense that sunlight could not even penetrate most areas. The smog was situated over an area covering hundreds of square miles; all traffic remained at a halt as visibility was reported to be less than 5 yards on most roads. In addition to the difficulties in breathing for many individuals, the heavy smog contributed to numerous accidents. A commuter train ran over a gang of workmen, killing 2. On Monday, December 8, two commuter trains collided near London Bridge. The first evidence for the deadliness of the smog came on Friday, December 5. At the London livestock exhibition, it became necessary to slaughter a prize heifer that began to suffocate from the soot-laden 627
1952: The Great London Smog air. Other cattle were saved only when their owners placed over their faces improvised gas masks made from whiskey-soaked grain sacks. By that evening, physicians began to observe a sharp rise in patients suffering respiratory distress, usually presenting as an irritating cough, but sometimes including vomiting and black phlegm expelled while coughing. Hospital admissions rose to four times the normal level by the third day of the smog. Coroners began to report a significant increase in the number of deaths they were called to investigate; an unusual number involved persons who were either sleeping or sitting quietly while reading or sewing. On both Sunday and Monday, the reported number of deaths in the city was triple the normal average. By Tuesday the 9th, the smog began to lift as fresher air entered the city. Nevertheless, delayed effects from the smog continued to result in an increase in the number of deaths. A conservative estimate as to the total number of deaths directly attributable to the smog was approximately 4,000. However, excess deaths continued for some twelve weeks after the Great London Smog, and the total number of dead may have reached as high as 8,000. In response to the tragedy, London began to set in place a smogcontrol program. The Clean Air Act, passed in 1956, allowed local governments to take emergency measures to quickly deal with potential disasters. Coal as a source of heat was gradually replaced. Although heavy buildup of smog would continue to occur at intervals, the number of deaths that occurred in the 1952 disaster was never approached again. Richard Adler For Further Information: Davis, Devra L., Michelle L. Bell, and Tony Fletcher. “A Look Back at the London Smog of 1952 and the Half Century Since.” Environmental Health Perspectives 110, no. 12 (December, 2002). Dooley, Erin E. “Fifty Years Later: Clearing the Air over the London Smog.” Environmental Health Perspectives 110, no. 12 (December, 2002). Lewis, Howard. With Every Breath You Take: The Poisons of Air Pollution, How They Are Injuring Our Health, and What We Must Do About Them. New York: Crown, 1965. 628
1952: The Great London Smog Nagourney, Eric. “Why the Great Smog of London Was Anything but Great.” The New York Times, August 12, 2003. Wise, William. Killer Smog: The World’s Worst Air Pollution Disaster. New York: Ballantine, 1970.
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■ 1953: The North Sea Flood Flood Date: February 1, 1953 Place: The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Belgium Result: 1,853 dead
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lthough the greater portion of the devastation wrought by the North Sea storms and flooding of late January to early February of 1953 occurred in the southwestern provinces of the Netherlands, considerable damage and loss of life also took place in the low-lying coastal regions of eastern Great Britain and coastal Belgium. The people of the Netherlands, though seasoned through a centuries-old history of progress and setback in their struggle with the North Sea and prepared for ordinary emergency situations, were confronted in February, 1953, with an unprecedented set of circumstances that unleashed overwhelming natural forces on their coastal defenses. The Flood in Great Britain. By the early hours of January 30, 1953, an exceptionally severe atmospheric depression had developed in the North Atlantic Ocean roughly 250 miles northwest of the Isle of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. It gave rise to formidable gale winds, which had moved into the North Sea by the morning of January 31 and had assumed a south-southeasterly course. After having caused gale-force winds and high tides in Scotland and along the Irish coast, the storm shifted to the northern sector of the North Sea, pushing large masses of water southward. Such depressions, with severe storms, are not an unusual occurrence in the North Sea region. The difference in this instance was that, whereas most depressions pass across the North Sea itself quite rapidly, the 1953 depression moved very slowly. This allowed the buildup of an exceptionally massive amount of water that, driven southward by the gale winds and coinciding with the high, seasonal spring tides, led to an unforeseen calamity. Along the coast of east England, gales were recorded at the high630
1953: The North Sea Flood est velocity up to that date for Great Britain—113 miles per hour. The evening of January 31 and the morning of February 1, 1953, is when most of the destruction and resultant deaths occurred. In Great Britain the areas most devastated were the coastal regions and the lowlands of the main river estuaries, stretching roughly from the Humber in Yorkshire to the Thames, a distance of approximately 180 to 200 miles. Particularly vulnerable low-lying areas were totally submerged, including the tourist resort towns of Mablethorpe and Sutton-on-Sea, and nearly the entire Lincolnshire coast. Sea walls were breached at Heacham, Snettisham, and Hunstanton, while those at Salthouse, Cley, Great Yarmouth, and Sea Palling were heavily damaged. Massive evacuation was undertaken, with at least 32,000 individuals being removed, including virtually the entire population (13,000) of Canvey Island in the Thames estuary and all the inhabitants of Mablethorpe and Sutton-on-Sea along the coast. In Norfolk, east England, the Ouse River overflowed its banks, covering the historic town of King’s Lynn with over 7 feet of water. Farther south, where the Orwell River overflowed, Felixstowe was also inundated. In Suffolk, property damage was most extensive at the ferry port of Harwich, as well as at Tilbury, Great Wackering, and Jaywick Sands. Foulness Island in Essex was completely submerged. In the Thames region, severe pollution problems occurred when the three major oil refineries at Coryton, Isle of Grain, and Shellhaven suffered substantial damage. Spreading south down the Kentish coast, the gales and tides submerged parts of Gravesend, Herne Bay, Dartford, Margate (where the harbor lighthouse was destroyed), and Birchington. Sheerness’s naval dockyard and facilities were also rendered useless. Aftereffects. On February 2, 1953, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared the storm to have created a state of “national responsibility.” Attempts at collecting relief funds and supplies for the afflicted coastal and river areas were spearheaded by the London Lord Mayor’s appeal fund, which raised some £5 million. The death toll in Britain reached 307, 156,000 acres were flooded (one-third of the total acreage went under salt water), and the total for lost livestock—mainly cattle and sheep—was estimated in the hundreds of thousands. About 500 residences were completely de631
1953: The North Sea Flood molished and another 25,000 damaged. Monetary loss through damage was estimated at between £40 and 50 million. On March 5, 1953, a special committee under the chairmanship of Lord Waverly was appointed to investigate the causes for the catastrophe and issue recommendations. The Waverly Committee released its findings and recommendations in August of 1953. The decision was made to implement an early gale warning system along the east coast to be in effect from September 15 to April 30 each year. The tragedy led to the passage of the Coastal Flooding (Emergency Provisions) Act on May 20, 1953. Special river boards throughout the east coast were appointed and then granted extraordinary powers in case of emergency. The minister of agriculture was further granted the authority to compensate and otherwise provide relief to farmers and farm families whose property had sustained damage as the result of flooding. The Flood in Belgium. In Belgium between January 30 and 31, 1953, the same tidal storm caused 22 deaths and wreaked devastation in the low coastal plain between the ferry port of Ostend and the Dutch border. The Schelde River overflowed its banks, breaking the dike at Antwerp and flooding a part of the metropolitan area. Massive damage was inflicted upon the town and harbor of Ostend as well as Zeebrugge, where the lock of the sea canal was battered. Although the dikes at Malines were breached, damage to the town itself was not as extensive as elsewhere. The greater proportion of the domiciles in the towns of Knokke, Blankenberge, and La Zoute were heavily damaged. The disaster in Belgium had serious political repercussions as King Baudouin had made a trip to the French Riviera in order to recuperate from a bout with influenza. His absence during a time of national emergency was much resented and vehemently criticized in the Belgian press. The royal family, and the monarchy itself, were in considerable jeopardy in the wake of the 1951 abdication crisis centering around former king Leopold III. The political atmosphere was so charged that King Baudouin felt compelled to return for a threeday tour of the devastated area before going back to the Riviera on February 12. The Netherlands. By far the most massive blows dealt by this catastrophe fell on the Netherlands, which had been waging a contin632
1953: The North Sea Flood ual, centuries-old battle to reclaim its low-lying agricultural land (polders) from the North Sea and was particularly vulnerable to the inroads of storm tides because of the large amount of land lying below sea level. Of these, the spring tides had usually been the highest and the most dangerous. Storm tide depredation had been a recurring peril along the lower islands of Zeeland Province and the estuaries of the Meuse, Rhine, Schelde, and Ijssel Rivers. The most destructive of these storm tides had occurred in 1421-1424, 1570, 1682, 17151717, 1808, 1825, 1863, and 1916. The 1953 storm tide would surpass all others since 1570 in the sheer scope and dimensions of its devastation. The potential for future danger had been acknowledged in the 1930’s, when plans were formulated for the construction of a more modernized series of protective dikes, dams, and bridges along the estuaries of both the Schelde and the Meuse. These plans had been interrupted by the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in June, 1940, and the subsequent German occupation from 1940 to 1945. By 1953, the construction schemes were virtually forgotten. The combination of the delayed, northeasterly gale winds causing the North Sea to rise to unprecedented levels and the spring tides led to most of the inundation. Estimates of the dead and missing vary slightly, but the figure of 1,524 is conventionally accepted (for a total of 1,853 when tallied with the tolls for Britain and Belgium). An estimated 988,400 acres of land were saturated, some 50,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged, 89,000 to 100,000 individuals were evacuated, and 300,000 were left homeless. In monetary terms the damage was estimated to have totaled 1.5 billion guilders. Nearly 6 percent of the farmland in the Netherlands, mainly in the provinces of Zeeland, Brabant, and South Holland, was left under water. The loss of enormous numbers of cattle, chickens, and sheep brought forth major concerns over the danger of epidemics caused by rotting carcasses and wastes. Almost entirely inundated were the islands Schouwen and Duiveland, Overflakkee, Walcheren, Tholen, North Beveland, and South Beveland. Flushing Town suffered flooding of up to 9 feet in its center, after the sea wall had fractured in five separate places. The largest urban centers effected were Rotterdam and Dordrecht, which had extensive flooding in the outlying districts, though not in the center. 633
1953: The North Sea Flood At Rotterdam, the Hook of Holland Canal was destroyed, as was the Moerdijk Bridge. North Holland Province sustained far less damage and loss of life but nevertheless experienced substantial coastal flooding in resort areas. The Netherlands’ largest and most popular seashore resort, Scheveningen, was flooded, and much of its beach was temporarily washed away. As a general rule most of the fatalities occurred in situations where either there was no warning or the reports of danger were taken too lightly. Many remembered wartime flooding in 1944-1945, which was not as severe as had been feared, and therefore downplayed the magnitude of the 1953 storm and underestimated the perilous nature of their situation. The village of Goedereede (population 2,000) proved to be a model of vigilance and cooperation. The majority of the villagers fled to the upper rooms of their houses, reacted calmly, and assisted one another in the survival and evacuation processes. Goedereede sustained no casualties as a result of the tragedy. Relief Efforts in the Netherlands. Relief efforts were directed from the Zeeland center of Middelburg, which had escaped the flooding, by the Dutch Red Cross through communications with the local burgomasters (mayors) and other available authorities. The speed and effectiveness of the assistance varied according to the degree of damage and isolation of a given village or community. Helicopter units of the British Royal Air Force, the U.S. Air Force, and the Swiss air force were sent in to assist the Dutch military in its rescue efforts. Some 2,000 stranded individuals, many trapped on the roofs of their houses, were rescued. Ironically, the Dutch government, only days prior to the flooding disaster—on January 27, 1953—had informed the United States government that the Netherlands had sufficiently recovered from the ravages of World War II and had no further need for U.S. financial assistance, thus terminating the Marshall Plan in that country. On February 6, 1953, the Dutch requested a temporary resumption of U.S. aid under the Marshall Plan to recoup from the storm-tide catastrophe. February 8 was proclaimed by Queen Juliana a day of official mourning, and on February 16 the state of emergency was lifted. In the wake of the disaster the schemes of the 1930’s were revived 634
1953: The North Sea Flood in the form of the Delta Plan. The Delta Commission, appointed to recommend and accelerate improvements, rendered its report on July 10, 1953. By the end of the year, setbacks in April and November due to high tides notwithstanding, there had been remarkable progress made in the region’s recovery. The last of the breaches in the dikes were closed in September, the Schouwensee Dike had been raised 16 feet, and a mobile storm defense was set up at the mouth of the Ijssel estuary, just east of Rotterdam. Reclamation of polderland, augmented by the efforts of a motley collection of international student volunteers and the use of concrete caissons of World War II vintage, was completed by early December. Raymond Pierre Hylton For Further Information: Lamb, Hubert. Historic Storms of the North Sea, British Isles, and Northwest Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. McRobie, A., T. Spencer, and H. Gerritsen, eds. “The Big Flood: North Sea Storm Surge.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A363 (2005): 1261-1491. Pollard, Michael. North Sea Surge: The Story of the East Coast Floods of 1953. Suffolk, England: Terence Dalton, 1978. “SEMP Biot #317: The Catastrophic 1953 North Sea Flood of the Netherlands, January 11, 2006.” SEMP (Suburban Emergency Management Project). http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_317.html. Studies in Holland Flood Disaster 1953. 4 vols. Washington, D.C.: National Research Council, 1955.
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■ 1957: Hurricane Audrey Hurricane Date: June 27-30, 1957 Place: Louisiana and Texas Classification: Category 4 Speed: Maximum wind unofficially 144 miles per hour, officially 105 miles per hour Result: More than 500 dead, about $150 million in damage
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n June 17, 1957, the U.S. Weather Bureau predicted the hurricane season that year would begin early. Only a week later, on Monday, June 24, the prediction came true, as a tropical depression developed west of the Yucatán Peninsula in the southernmost part of the Gulf of Mexico. At 10:30 that night, the Weather Bureau issued its first advisory about the storm; at noon on Tuesday, June 25, the wind having already reached hurricane speed, the Weather Bureau declared a hurricane watch for the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. By 4 p.m., Hurricane Audrey was moving north, its rotating wind increasing in speed. On Wednesday, June 26, at 10 a.m., the Weather Bureau issued a hurricane warning, which said in part: “Tides are rising and will reach 5 to 8 feet along the Louisiana coast and over Mississippi Sound by late Thursday. All persons in low exposed places should move to higher ground.” Although a revised warning, issued twelve hours later, mentioned tides of 9 feet, many people of Cameron Parish, in the marsh country of the southwest corner of Louisiana, thought they could safely spend Wednesday night in their homes. Furthermore, adults from Acadia and other families that had long lived in that part of Louisiana tended to think that their houses, built on sandy ridges called chênières, stood on the “higher ground” to which the Weather Bureau referred, because previous storms had not flooded the houses; newcomers to the parish, however, generally evacuated. When the families that had remained in or near the towns of Cameron, Creole, and Grand Chenier tried to leave at dawn on Thursday, June 27, rapidly rising water, combined with unexpectedly 636
1957: Hurricane Audrey early hurricane wind and rain, made driving away virtually impossible, and the disaster began for them before 8 a.m., the hour when the eye of the hurricane reached the coast about halfway between the town of Cameron and the Texas state line. Height of Water. Before Audrey arrived in Cameron Parish, its wind and the resultant waves of 45 or 50 feet in the Gulf of Mexico had already sunk a fishing boat and capsized an oil rig. On shore, or on what ordinarily would have been shore, it was not the wind directly, not even the several tornadoes generated by the hurricane, but the storm surge—the high tide with huge waves—that caused the most harm. For a shoreline at which normal tidal variation is small, the tides produced by Audrey were enormous, reaching 10.6 feet above mean sea level in Cameron itself, 12.1 feet on the beach due south of that town, 12.2 feet at Grand Chenier, 12.9 feet near Creole, and 13.9 feet midway between Creole and Grand Chenier. The onshore waves rose at times from 10 to 15 feet above the high-tide mark and smashed almost every building in their path. Although no other area suffered as much as Cameron Parish did during Audrey, the hurricane brought flooding in Louisiana from the Texas border in the west to the Delta of the Mississippi River in the east. In western Louisiana, floodwaters reached as far north as Lake Charles. Even in east Texas, located west of where Audrey’s eye met land and generally less damaged by Audrey than southwest Louisiana, significant water damage occurred. Property Damage. In Port Arthur, Texas, storm rain accumulating on the roof of a nine-story building led to massive structural collapse. In Louisiana, a huge supply barge rammed into a storage tank on land. The fishing schooner Three Brothers washed ashore, as did many other vessels, including the shrimp boat Audry. At Grand Chenier, the hurricane totally destroyed about one-tenth of the houses; at Creole, it left only one building on its foundation; and in Cameron, where about 3,000 people had lived before June 27, only two buildings remained mostly intact—the parish courthouse, which served as a shelter during the storm, and an icehouse, which served briefly as a morgue in the storm’s aftermath. Death, Survival, and Heroism. Because Cameron Parish was rural, property damage was small in proportion to what it would have been had Audrey struck a low-lying urban area like metropolitan New 637
1957: Hurricane Audrey Orleans. What made Audrey especially horrible was the toll in human lives. Not since the hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas, in 1900, had so many people in the western half of the U.S. Gulf Coast died because of a tropical storm. Some people apparently died alone, like thirty-five-year-old Harry Melancon of Broussard, Louisiana, who happened to be driving an oil tanker truck in Cameron Parish when Audrey arrived and whose body was not found for five months. Others died after having taken what shelter they could with members of their family; eight-year-old Thelma Jo Gibbs, whose body was found in 1958, was one of those. Some families lost only one member; others lost many. Eighteen members of one family died after they had taken shelter in the home of Robert Moore on the Front Ridge, southeast of Cameron. Ironically, some members of the family would have lived had they remained in the house of Susan Rose Moore, Robert Moore’s mother, because it remained intact. Robert Moore’s house, though newer, was swept off its foundation and broken apart by the storm surge. Among the men in Robert Moore’s house was Albert January, whose story suggests the struggle and terror common as hurricane victims fought for their own lives and those of their loved ones. When the house broke apart, January, his wife, their three children (ages eight, seven, and two years), and many other people held onto the roof while it floated away. Three times waves shoved Mrs. January and the children off, and three times Mr. January rescued them. A fourth wave, however, proved deadly for Lucy LaSalle January and her children, Arthur Lee, Annie Lee, and John Randall, when Mr. January’s rescue effort failed. The story of Dr. Cecil Clark presents a similar sorrow but another kind of heroism. Thirty-three years old, Clark was the only physician in Cameron, where he had charge of the Cameron Medical Center. He and his wife, Sybil Baccigalopi Clark, a nurse-anesthetist, had five children: John (eight years), Joe (seven years), Elizabeth Dianne (three years), Celia Marie (eighteen months), and Jack Benjamin (three months). John and Joe had spent Wednesday night at the home of Dr. Clark’s mother in Creole; they survived Audrey the next day by being tied to tree tops. Meanwhile, early Thursday morning, to try to evacuate patients from the twelve-bed hospital at the medical center, Dr. and Mrs. Clark 638
1957: Hurricane Audrey had left their three younger children at their presumably safe home in the care of Zulmae Dubois, their housekeeper. Their trip thwarted by rising water on the road, they returned, but Dr. Clark tried to go back again, this time without his wife but with a neighbor. Still unable to get through, Dr. Clark eventually had to ride out the storm in the concrete-block house of Mr. and Mrs. Philbert Richard, from which, after the storm had abated, he waded amid debris to the courthouse and began long hours of treating hundreds of sick or injured persons, among whom were the patients from the little hospital, whom nurses and deputy sheriffs with boats had evacuated in Dr. Clark’s absence.
A common grave in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for unidentified dead from Hurricane Audrey. (Library of Congress)
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1957: Hurricane Audrey Not until Friday evening did Dr. Clark learn that his wife and their two older children had lived through the disaster. Although knocked unconscious momentarily, Mrs. Clark had swum and then drifted on wreckage until people in a little boat had rescued her from driftwood miles from where her house had stood. Late that night, during a short respite at a friend’s home in Lake Charles, Dr. Clark learned of the deaths of his three younger children and Mrs. Dubois, who had all drowned when the waves destroyed the Clarks’ house. Despite his own grief, he soon returned to Cameron to treat survivors. By late 1957, Dr. and Mrs. Clark had had the Cameron Medical Center rebuilt, and in December the American Medical Association awarded Dr. Clark a gold medal as “General Practitioner of the Year.” Not all of Audrey’s more than 500 fatalities drowned. Some probably died of heart attacks under the stress of the storm, although the exact number of heart-attack deaths will never be known because the great number of dead bodies made performing routine autopsies virtually impossible. Similarly, some people probably died from snakebites, although only one such case was confirmed. Seven-year-old Steve Broussard, Jr., of Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish, immediately east of Cameron Parish, survived the floodwaters that took the lives of his sisters Larissa, Veronica, and Estelle when their house floated into White Lake and then broke apart. In the dark of the morning of Friday, June 28, however, while he was floating on a part of the roof of his family’s home, one of the thousands of water moccasins dislodged and infuriated by the hurricane crawled onto the wreckage and bit him on the ear. Hours later, after his father had braved hundreds of other snakes and fought off a maddened cow in an attempt to get help, the child died on his way to a hospital in Abbeville. Aftermath. Lessening in intensity as it moved inland, Audrey nevertheless brought strong wind and much rain from the Gulf Coast all the way up through the Ohio Valley states, New York, and New England and Canada. The storm damaged more property and caused more deaths, including four in Canada, before it ended. In the United States, President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared the severely affected communities disaster areas. In southwest Louisiana, where the death toll was the worst, thousands of people joined in an effort to rescue and comfort survivors; to find, identify, and bury the dead; to retrieve sealed concrete tombs washed out of low-lying 640
1957: Hurricane Audrey cemeteries; to clear away the big, innumerable piles of debris; to round up hungry and often hostile cattle and return them to their owners; to restore telephone service, electricity, gas, and safe drinking water; to rebuild homes and businesses; and to help victims resume something resembling ordinary life. Amid heat, mosquitoes, and water moccasins, rescuers searched on foot and by boat for the living and the dead. Helicopters crisscrossed the sky. Military personnel, including members of the Coast Guard and the National Guard, were among the relief workers, as were men and women from the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Responding to reports that Audrey had impoverished some survivors, Governor Earl Long pressured insurance companies into paying great claims to Louisiana citizens for wind damage, despite the companies’ contention that the insured had no flood coverage and that it was water that had caused most of the damage to homes and businesses. Of the approximately 40,000 persons whom Audrey drove from their homes, about 22,000 went to Lake Charles, where many stayed at McNeese State College. In Lake Charles was the big, makeshift morgue that replaced the original one at the icehouse in Cameron and another one at a Lake Charles hospital. In shed 5 at the dockyard, hundreds of survivors walked calmly past the dead bodies cooled with blocks of ice and tried to identify those whom they had lost. The unidentified dead were eventually buried in special plots in several cemeteries. Only slowly did some grieving people accept their loss. For a time after Audrey, one Cameron Parish resident reported, mothers would go to the border of the marsh, listen to the calls of the nutria (semiaquatic rodents), and hear in those mammalian sounds the cries of their missing babies, victims of the storm. Victor Lindsey For Further Information: “Disasters: Audrey’s Day of Horror.” Time, July 8, 1957, 12. Harris, D. Lee. Hurricane Audrey Storm Tide. Washington, D.C: U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, 1958. “In the Wake of Disaster.” Newsweek, July 8, 1957, 22-24. Menard, Donald. Hurricanes of the Past: The Untold Story of Hurricane Audrey. 2d ed Rayne, La.: Author, 1999. 641
1957: Hurricane Audrey Post, Cathy C. Hurricane Audrey: The Deadly Storm of 1957. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2007. Ross, Nola Mae Wittler, and Susan McFillen Goodson. Hurricane Audrey. Sulphur, La.: Wise, 1997. “Story of Hurricane Audrey—and the Warnings That Many Ignored.” U.S. News & World Report, July 12, 1957, 62-63. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Descriptions of Hurricanes.” In History of Hurricane Occurrences Along Coastal Louisiana. Rev. ed. New Orleans: U.S. Army Engineer District, 1972.
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■ 1959: The Great Leap Forward famine Famine Date: 1959-1962 Place: The People’s Republic of China Result: Casualties so vast they can only be estimated at between 15 million and 50 million dead
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he greatest famine—and perhaps the greatest natural disaster—in the twentieth century occurred virtually unnoticed in the outside world. So tight was the control of information coming out of the People’s Republic of China in the late 1950’s that the Great Leap Forward famine was unpublicized. The starving millions in China knew that something was wrong in their area, but the national press was reporting on the spectacular success of the government’s programs and acknowledging only food shortages due to bad weather in some localities. It is hard to say how much knowledge even the Chinese leaders had of this tragedy. Surely the government knew that many of its citizens were hungry, but the lack of a free press meant each leader had to rely on limited personal experience or on government reports from village to county to province to the capital that were inflated every step of the way. In many cases, these reported on bountiful harvests, when the villagers had in fact already eaten the seed needed to plant the next year’s crop before the onset of the harsh unproductive winter season. One year the government reported total grain production of 375 million tons when only about 200 million tons had been produced. In the Great Leap Forward famine, the losses were so great not even the numbers of victims—let alone their names—are known. So far is the world from knowing the exact number of casualties that they can be estimated only by a demographic analysis of the number of “excess deaths.” Scholarly estimates of the number of deaths range from a low of 15 million to a high of 50 million, a measure so imprecise as to give a range of deaths that could be off by a factor of 3 or as 643
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much as 300 percent. Thirty-five million people could have died without any record of it. Geography—both physical and human—contributed to this catastrophe. Since ancient times, China has been home to the world’s largest population and today has well over 1.3 billion people, or about a quarter of the world’s total population. China also has the world’s third-largest land area—trailing only Russia and Canada. This might seem to be adequate, but well over two-thirds of Chinese land is virtually uninhabitable desert and mountains, so China must feed 25 percent of the world’s people with only about 7 percent of the world’s arable (farmable) land. Even in good times, avoiding hunger in China is difficult. With so large a land area, China has too much water (flooding) in some regions and not enough water (drought) in others in any given year. 644
1959: The Great Leap Forward famine The key to a good national harvest is to have relatively fewer floods and droughts than normal. In 1959-1961, the odds turned against the Chinese in that a higher number than usual of both floods and droughts occurred. The 1960 weather conditions are considered the worst in twentieth century China. Yet weather is only part of this story, and perhaps not even the most important part. Some scholars attribute only 30 percent of the catastrophe to the weather, reserving the brunt of the blame for failed government policies. To the outside world, the late 1950’s antiWestern Chinese Communist system seemed monolithic, and China
Food for starving Chinese is unloaded from a ship during the Great Leap Forward famine. (National Archives)
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1959: The Great Leap Forward famine was thought to have only minor differences with its ally the Soviet Union. In truth, there was a massive split between the two countries, with corresponding differences among the Chinese leaders. They were torn between a highly bureaucratized central planning system recommended by the Russians and a chaotic, voluntaristic path recommended by China’s Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong. While Mao’s plan seemed to prevail, conflicts marred its execution in many areas. Mao’s Great Leap Forward plan was supposed to stimulate Chinese production so dramatically that China would overtake the British in fifteen years by fostering an ongoing revolutionary fervor among the Chinese. Many Chinese did respond enthusiastically, even accepting Mao’s idea that steel production could be stimulated by having villages build backyard iron furnaces. This idea led many to melt down perfectly good iron skillets and dismantle highquality steel train rails, throw them into backyard furnaces, and turn out third-rate pig iron. While peasants were busy with this unproductive activity, they often failed to plant crops or to harvest ripe yields at the right time, further compounding the catastrophe. In reality, neither of the paths was suitable for the crisis China faced. While industrial production slipped, grain production plunged disastrously, to about 75 percent of the level before the Great Leap Forward. Worse, much of this grain was siphoned off to pay for “aid” the Chinese were receiving from the Soviets. This meant that the grain available to feed the Chinese people became even less, exposing those most at risk—the sick, elderly, and children—to the horrors of this massive famine. The government’s policies clearly aggravated this unprecedented natural disaster. Richard L. Wilson For Further Information: Becker, Jasper. Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. Blecher, Marc. China Against the Tides. London: Pinter, 1997. Christiansen, Fleming, and Shirin Rai. Chinese Politics and Society: An Introduction. London: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996. MacFarquhar, Roderick. The Coming of the Cataclysm, 1961-1966. Vol. 3 in The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 646
1959: The Great Leap Forward famine _______. The Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960. Vol. 2 in The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Yang, Dali L. Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996. Zhao, Kate Xiao. How the Farmers Changed China: Power of the People. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.
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■ 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster Landslide Date: October 9, 1963 Place: Belluno, Italy Result: Almost 3,000 dead
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uring the early 1960’s a magnificent concrete dam (Diga del Vajont) was constructed about 10 miles (16.2 kilometers) northeast of Belluno, an Italian town along the Piave River. The dam spans the Vaiont gorge, an old glacial trough in the heart of the spectacular Italian Alps. The area is within the southern part of the majestic Dolomites of the northern Italian region. This region is characterized by near-vertical cliffs composed mostly of massive carbonate rocks. The dam, which cost approximately $100 million to build, is 11 feet (3.4 meters) wide at the top and 74 feet (22.7 meters) wide at the base and stands 875 feet (265 meters) high at the highest point. It was designed to create a large lake for the generation of hydroelectric power. The dam impounded a reservoir of 316,000 cubic feet (8,943 cubic meters) of water. The curved, thinarch dam still stands as an engineering marvel and a testament to humanity’s ingenuity. Downstream from the dam, the gorge intersects the Piave River Valley near the mountain villages of Pirago and Longarone. Casso, a small highland village, is along the northern edge of the valley on Mount Pul. This farming community overlooks the Vaiont dam and reservoir. Upstream from the dam, the village of Erto is situated along the highland area of the Vaiont Valley. Local Geology. The stratigraphic sequence in the area consists mostly of Mesozoic rocks. The Jurassic Dogger epoch formation creates steep cliffs along the valley. These rugged rock walls consist mostly of dolostone, a rock composed of the mineral dolomite, calcium magnesium carbonate. The Dogger stratus is underlain by Triassic rocks; the subjacent Cretaceous and Tertiary strata are composed mostly of limestone but contain some argillaceous units. These clay-bearing layers represent potential zones of weakness in the rock 648
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column. Limestone near the dam site has been weakened by solution features, such as joint fissures, sinkholes, and underground caverns. Structurally, the dam is situated along an east-west-trending asymmetrical syncline designated the “Erto Syncline.” This fold plunges to the east, or upstream. The limbs of the syncline dip from 25 degrees to 45 degrees toward the Vaiont Valley. The steep dips and fractured strata, as well as the weak layers within the stratal packet, render the area landslide-prone. There is evidence of earlier slope failure at 649
1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster some places, and in 1960 a large slide block composed of 916,000 cubic yards (700,000 cubic meters) of debris moved downslope from Mount Toc into the reservoir. Although the slide did no significant damage because of the low water level, it did alert local citizens and scientists associated with the project to a potential problem. Geologists investigated the slide area and determined that it was part of a much larger landslide block. The slide block was about 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometers) long and 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) wide. The total volume of the block was estimated to be more than 787 million cubic feet (240 million cubic meters), much larger than originally suspected by engineers. A landslide results from the movement of a mass of rock and soil downslope in response to gravity. This movement can be either slow or rapid. If infinitesimally slow, the movement may not be evident to the casual observer but can be recorded by sensitive instruments placed within the unstable mass. During 1960 and 1961 monitoring stations within the slide at times recorded 10 to 12 inches (up to 25 to 30 centimeters) of creep per week; the rate of creep slowed to 0.5 inch (about 1 centimeter) per week during 1962 and 1963. This reduced level of creep led most scientists to the conclusion that the imminent danger of mass movement was probably over. However, heavy rains occurred at times during the late summer and early fall of 1963. This precipitation soaked into the slide area, adding weight to the mass and hydrating some of the clay layers. Data recorded at Erto indicated that more than 90 inches of rain fell in the area from February to early October in 1962 and 1963. This excessive rainfall was probably the trigger that led to the major disaster in the area. The Vaiont Disaster. On October 9, 1963, instruments within the slide mass recorded as much as 32 inches (80 centimeters) of movement per day. The creep rate had become dangerously high, and people in local villages were warned of possible flooding. Animals grazing south of the reservoir probably sensed the movement and abandoned the area a few days before the disaster. Late on the evening of October 9, at 10:41 p.m., disaster struck. During a heavy downpour, about 350 million cubic yards (270 million cubic meters) of rock and soil slid off the flank of Mount Toc and moved at a rate of 68 miles per hour (30 meters per second) into the reservoir. 650
1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster Initially, there was a loud noise and rush of air that caused damage to some homes in Casso; water from the reservoir was lifted 792 feet (240 meters) up the north slope of the gorge and more than 325 feet (100 meters) vertically above the top of the dam. The displaced water rushed down the valley and entered the Piave River, where it moved both upstream and downstream. The wave that flowed upstream engulfed most of the town of Longarone. A photograph taken after the flood shows almost total destruction of the southeast part of the village. The strip along the river was swept clean of buildings and trees. In less than five minutes the raging waters destroyed most of the village and left more than 2,000 people dead. Some water was diverted downstream along the Piave more than 1.4 miles (2 kilometers). In the uppermost part of the reservoir the wave bypassed the town of Erto but hit with full force the village of San Martino at the northeast end. In all, nearly 3,000 lives were lost, including engineers, technicians, and workers living in barracks along the crest of the dam. Aftermath. According to author Patrick L. Abbott, the event has been called the world’s worst dam disaster. The final tragedy was played out when the chief engineer of the dam project, Mario Pancini, packed his bags for a trip to court at L’Aquila in southern Italy and “taped the cracks around the doors of his Venetian room and turned on the jets of his gas range.” The dam stands today not only as a stark monument to humankind’s engineering expertise but also as a grim reminder of its ineptness in selecting a geologically safe site for construction. Donald F. Reaser For Further Information: Abbott, Patrick L. Natural Hazards. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1996. Coch, Nickolas K. Geohazards. New York: Prentice Hall, 1995. Kiersch, G. A. “The Vaiont Reservoir Disaster.” In Civil Engineering, Vol. 34. New York: American Society of Civil Engineers, 1964. McCully, Patrick. “When Things Fall Apart: The Technical Failures of Large Dams.” In Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams. New York: Zed Books, 2001. Montgomery, Carla W. Environmental Geology. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1989. 651
■ 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake Earthquake Also known as: The Good Friday Earthquake, Black Friday Date: March 27, 1964 Place: Alaska Magnitude: 8.3-8.6, possibly as high as 9.2 Result: 131 dead, $500 million in damage
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he 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake was one of the highest in magnitude ever recorded, between 8.3 and 8.6 on the Richter scale. This magnitude has since been revised to 9.2, making it the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America. It released as much as eighty times the energy of the 1906 earthquake of San Francisco. The quake took place 125 miles below the earth’s surface but near the shore, so that most of the damage was caused by waves heaving up onto the land and sweeping away whatever was in their path. Reasons for the Earthquake. Normally the Pacific Plate moves in a northwesterly direction at a rate of about 5 to 7 centimeters per year. The continents, the ocean basins, and everything else on the surface of the earth move along on these plates that float on the underlying convecting material. However, where the plates come together, as is the case in southern Alaska, the movement causes the earth’s crust to be compressed and warped, with some areas being depressed and others uplifted. As far as scientists can understand, in 1964 the Pacific Plate subducted, or slid under, the North American Plate at the head of Prince William Sound, 56 miles (90 kilometers) west of Valdez and 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Anchorage. It caused the earth under the water in the harbor to split open and crack. A tsunami, or harbor wave, resulted. Water rushed in at great force to fill the open areas and was pushed up by the section of the seafloor that was uplifted. In the Alaska earthquake, 100,000 square miles of earth uplifted or 652
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dropped. Areas north and northwest of the epicenter subsided as much as 7.5 feet. Areas south and southeast rose, over wide areas, as much as 6 feet. Locally, the uplift was much greater: 38 feet on Montague Island and more than 50 feet on the seafloor southwest of the island. The Homer Spit and all the coastline of the Kenai Peninsula sank 8 feet. Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay protected Seward, but the Seward area dropped 3.5 feet. Tsunamis devastated every town and village along the outer coast and the Aleutian Islands. Also, horizontal movements of tens of feet took place in which the landmass moved southeastward relative to the ocean floor, moving more earth farther than any other earthquake ever recorded, both horizontally and vertically. The area of crustal deformation stretched from Cordova to Kodiak Island. Beginning in Prince William Sound, it moved toward Kodiak at 10,000 feet or about 2 miles per second. The shock was felt over a range of 50,000 miles. The strong ground motion caused many snowslides, rockfalls, and landslides both on land and on the ocean floor. It smashed port and harbor facilities, covered plants and salmon beds with silt, disturbed and killed salmon fry, leveled forests, and caused ocean saltwater to invade many coastal freshwater lakes. In areas where the land sank, spawning beds, trees, and other vegetation were destroyed. In areas 653
1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake where the seafloor rose, marine animals and plants that need water for survival were forced above ground. It is thought that the duration of the quake was three to four minutes; however, no seismic instruments capable of recording strong ground motion were in Alaska at the time. The quake served as a test of manufactured structures under extreme conditions and as a guide to improvements in location and design. An earthquake sends out waves known as aftershocks. There were 52 large aftershocks in Alaska, which continued for a year after the quake. The first 11 of these occurred on the day of the quake, and 9 more happened in the next three weeks. The aftershock zone spanned a width of 155 miles (250 kilometers), from 9 miles (15 kilometers) north of Valdez, for 497 miles (800 kilometers) to the southwest end of Kodiak Island, to about 34 miles (55 kilometers) south of the Trinity Islands. Geography. South central Alaska and the Aleutian Islands compose one of the most active seismic regions in the world. One thousand earthquakes are detected every year in Alaska, thirty-seven of which measure 7.25 or more on the Richter scale. Anchorage itself rests on a shelf of clay, sometimes called “Bootlegger Clay,” named
A boat beached by the tsunami that followed the Great Alaska Earthquake. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake for Bootlegger Cove, once a rendezvous for rumrunners. This clay assumes the consistency of jelly when soaked with water. In 1959 the U.S. Geological Survey cited a number of places along the bluffs of Anchorage where the clay had absorbed water. However, people did not attend to the report, and the geologists were referred to as “catastrophists” because they predicted a catastrophe where seemingly there was none. When the quake hit, many homes and businesses, especially on the west side of city, sank out of sight. Thanks to the Good Friday holiday, there were very few fishing boats on the water at the time of the quake. However, one boat, the Selief, had been sailing toward the harbor with $3,000 worth of Alaskan king crab in its hold. The captain of the ship heard warnings on the radio, but, unable to avoid the tsunami, he found himself uplifted by the waters and deposited about six blocks inland from the shore. Another boat, a freighter, was docked in the harbor and unloading its cargo in Valdez. When the quake hit, 31 men, women, and children, who were standing by and watching, were swept away and killed by the wave. The boat rose about 30 feet and then dropped, rose again, and dropped. The third time it was able to get free from its mooring and move out to sea. Two men died of falling cargo, and another died of a heart attack. Effects of the Earthquake. The Alaska earthquake has been called the best-documented and most thoroughly investigated earthquake in history. Within a month, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed a Federal Reconstruction and Development Commission for Alaska, a commission that thoroughly researched every aspect of the disaster. The committee divided itself into panels, each representing the major disciplines involved in the data gathering: engineering, geography (human ecology), geology, hydrology, oceanography, biology, and seismology. Each of these panels gathered scientific and technical information. Other prevention measures for the future included the establishment of the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (ATWC) in 1967, located in Palmer. Strong-motion seismographs and accelerographs were installed in Anchorage shortly after the quake. Risk maps for Anchorage, Homer, Seward, and Valdez, based on extensive geological studies, were prepared by the Scientific and Engineering Task Force of the Reconstruction Commission and were used as a basis for 655
1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake
The Great Alaska Earthquake caused this bridge over the Cooper River to fall. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
federal aid to reconstruction and as guides to future builders. The earthquake provided seismologists with a rich field of study, but it also turned the nation’s attention again, and sharply, to the problems of improving the elements of a national natural-disaster policy: zoning and construction codes, prediction and warning systems, rescue and relief organizations, disaster data collection and analysis, and disaster insurance and reconstruction aids. There were 131 lives lost in the earthquake, a very small number for so great a catastrophe. There are several reasons for this. First, the earthquake happened on a holiday, when the schools were empty and most offices were deserted. Second, it was an off-season for fishing, so there were very few boats in the harbors. Third, there were no fires in residential or business areas, and fourth, there was a low tide at the time, which left some room for water to flow. Most people who died were swept away by tsunamis, 16 of whom were in Oregon and California. The extensive military establishment provided resources that reduced the loss of life, eased some of the immediate suffering, and restored needed services promptly. The office of Emergency Planning, under the provisions of the Federal Disaster Act, provided additional aid. This included transitional grants to maintain essential public services, an increase in 656
1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake the federal share of highway reconstruction costs, a decrease in the local share of urban renewal projects, debt adjustments on existing federal loans, federal purchase of state bonds, and grants for a state mortgage-forgiveness program. In all, the earthquake generated $330 million of government and private funds for rescue, relief, and reconstruction. Because Anchorage is the most populated and most developed area in Alaska, most of the financial losses occurred there. A J. C. Penney building was destroyed, and a Four Seasons apartment building, which was under construction and not yet occupied, totally collapsed. Many other buildings were damaged beyond repair. The Denali Theater on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage was showing a late afternoon matinee when the entire building sank 15 feet. All the children in attendance were able to crawl out, once the building stopped shaking. Almost all the schools in Anchorage were demolished. Railroads twisted, and a diesel locomotive was thrown 100 yards from the track. Oil storage tanks at Valdez, Seward, and Wittier ruptured and burned. Many bridges, ports, and harbor facilities were destroyed. An incredible 75 percent of Alaska’s commerce was ruined—$750 million worth. A landslide at Turnagain Heights destroyed about 130 acres of residential property, including 75 houses. Another landslide at Government Hill caused severe destruction. A wide area outside the state of Alaska also felt the effects of the quake. Buildings in Seattle, 1,000 miles away, swayed. The tsunami hit Vancouver Island, California, Hawaii, and even Japan. Water levels jumped abruptly as far away as South Africa; shock-induced waves were generated in the Gulf of Mexico. An atmospheric pressure wave was recorded in La Jolla, California. The day became referred to as Black Friday, because of the death and destruction. Winifred Whelan For Further Information: Cohen, Stan. 8.6: The Great Alaska Earthquake March 27, 1964. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories, 1995. Herb, Angela M. Alaska A to Z: The Most Comprehensive Book of Facts and Figures Ever Compiled About Alaska. Bellevue, Wash.: Vernon, 1993. Hulley, Clarence C. Alaska: Past and Present. Portland, Oreg.: Binsfords & Mort, 1970. 657
1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake Lane, Frank. The Violent Earth. Topsfield, Mass.: Salem House, 1986. Murck, Barbara W., Brian Skinner, and Stephen C. Porter. Dangerous Earth: An Introduction to Geologic Hazards. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. National Research Council Committee on the Alaska Earthquake. The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. Vols. 1 and 2. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1969-1970. Paananen, Eloise. Earthquake! The Story of Alaska’s Good Friday Disaster. New York: John Day, 1966. Ward, Kaari, ed. Great Disasters: Dramatic True Stories of Nature’s Awesome Powers. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Association, 1989.
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■ 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak Tornadoes Date: April 11, 1965 Place: Parts of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin across a path 350 miles long and 150 miles wide Classification: 2 tornadoes—in Elkhart, Indiana, and Strongsville, Ohio—estimated as definitely F5; 17 of the other 49 tornadoes estimated as F4 or F5 Result: 271 dead, 3,148 injured, more than $200 million in damage
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he Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of April 11, 1965, was the most devastating, until that time, in the United States. As of 2006, it was second in size and destruction to the 1974 Jumbo Outbreak. The Palm Sunday disaster resulted when a mass of cold dry air rapidly moving down from western Canada collided with a mass of warm moist air moving up from the Gulf of Mexico. The colliding air masses produced large storms in Texas and Oklahoma, which grew in intensity as they rapidly moved northeast. These storms followed an unusually intense jet stream that took them to the upper Midwest. A Pleasant Sunday. In the six states that were struck in the Midwest, it was a warm and balmy Palm Sunday. It seemed like a good day for puttering in the garden or preparing for Easter celebrations. However, it was obvious to some weather experts that conditions were also ideal for the formation of tornadoes, a fact that troubled the U.S. Weather Bureau early that morning. Consequently, tornado warnings were issued throughout the morning. Yet many radio and television stations were closed for Palm Sunday or had a skeletal staff. The forecasts were not widely or adequately communicated. Investigations after the tornado revealed that most areas had between thirty-five minutes and five hours of warning time, a situation that revealed an additional problem. The public was slow to react and dulled by the numerous tornado watches in “Tornado Alley.” Also, many were outside enjoying the warm spring temperatures on a balmy Palm Sunday and were away from their radios. Lack of ade659
1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak quate communication and lack of response was underscored by government investigators as a major cause of the high fatality rate. Devastation. The first small tornado struck at 1:20 p.m. south of Dubuque, Iowa. An hour later six other tornadoes were reported in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. By 3:15 weather forecasters in Chicago were able to see a 100-mile-long line of thunderstorms stretching from De Kalb, Illinois, to Madison, Wisconsin, with tornadoes, and even colonies of tornadoes, spewing forth. One tornado near Crystal Lake, Illinois, leveled the Crystal Lake Shopping Center and Colby Estates housing subdivision, wreaking havoc on a path 1 mile wide and 10 miles long. The scene was repeated throughout the day. Fifty-one tornadoes over a twelve-hour period occurred along a path 300 miles long and 150 miles wide, leaving 266 dead. More than half of the dead were in Indiana. In Russiaville, Indiana (population 1,200), every building was damaged, while in Goshen over 100 trailers were crushed into masses of torn metal. Lower Michigan also was hit hard. Two powerful tornadoes tore through Branch, Hilsdale, Lenawee, and Monroe Counties, killing 44 and causing more than $32 million in damage. Half an hour apart, the tornadoes followed a similar course. Ohio was the third state to bear the brunt of the tornadoes. Devastation was particularly severe south of Cleveland in Strongsville, Ohio. Near Toledo, 370 homes were destroyed along a 10-mile path. Every home in Toledo’s Creekside neighborhood was destroyed. Most tornadoes result in stories of miraculous escapes and pitiful tragedies. In the Palm Sunday tornado there were a number of fortuitous escapes. In Crystal Lake, insurance man Charles Swanson was sucked out of his shower and into the street as his house crashed in around him. Seventeen-year-old Dan Avins was asleep at home near Cleveland when the tornado hit; he awoke to find himself still in bed, 35 feet from his house. James Petro, Jr., an eight-month-old baby living in Strongsville, was hurled 175 feet from his demolished house, suffering only a black eye. Unfortunately another baby in Strongsville was ripped from his mother’s hands, along with her wedding ring, and sucked out of the house. Only the mother survived. The Aftermath. In the aftermath of the destruction, President Lyndon B. Johnson toured the devastation and walked among the twisted steel and rubble of Dunlap, Indiana, which had been torn 660
1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak apart by twin tornadoes. Federal disaster relief was issued rapidly, and insurance agents swarmed into the wreckage. In general, insurance companies received praise for the rapidity at which claims were paid. Among the productive activities was the work of one weather expert who traveled 7,500 miles in four days to make an aerial survey of the tornadoes’ destruction. Professor Theodore Fujita of the University of Chicago noticed from the air that tornado tracks paralleled each other and seemed to move in clusters. Where one tornado destruction path would end, another would begin nearby. He also noticed cycloidal marks in open fields, providing indications of a parent tornado with rotating funnels attached to and revolving about the child tornado. These observations helped piece together the Fujita scale of tornado intensity, which has been in use since 1971 as a standard means of classifying tornadoes. The failure of the public to respond to what seemed to be ample tornado warning was an issue seriously studied by National Weather Service investigators. In succeeding years, recommendations for improved telecommunications and siren warning systems were enacted in many localities vulnerable to one of nature’s great cataclysms. Irwin Halfond For Further Information: Bluestein, Howard. Tornado Alley: Monster Storms of the Great Plains. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. “Disasters: Up the Alley.” Time, April 23, 1965, 29. “First the Wind, then the Waters.” Newsweek, April 26, 1965, 25-26. Grazulis, Thomas P. The Tornado: Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Rosenfeld, Jeffrey. Eye of the Storm: Inside the World’s Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards. New York: Basic Books, 2003. “When 35 Tornadoes Hit 6 States ‘Like Bombs.’” U.S. News & World Report, April 26, 1965, 50-52.
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■ 1966: The Aberfan Disaster Landslide Date: October 21, 1966 Place: Aberfan, Wales, United Kingdom Result: 147 dead (116 children, 31 adults), 32 injured, a school and 8 houses destroyed
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he tightly knit mining village of Aberfan lies in the valley of the Taff River, one of many steep-sided valleys that cut through the mountains of Wales. The area had been the site of coal mining for two hundred years. During that time, huge tips (dumps or stockpiles) of mining waste, debris, and ashes piled up on the mountain slopes. The coal mine that was served by the miners of Aberfan had produced such tips, one of which was 700 feet high by 1966, after thirty years of continuous use, and which was being added to by some 36 tons each day. The coal mine in question, the Merthyr Vale Colliery, had been in private hands until 1947, when, with the nationalization of the British coal industry, it passed into the hands of the National Coal Board, which then assumed responsibility for its working safety. The miners came largely from the village of Aberfan and surrounding villages. The younger children of the village attended Pant Glas Primary (Elementary) school, which was sited on Moy Road and lay directly under the 700-foot tip. On the other side of Moy Road were houses. Between the foot of the tip and the back of the school lay a small farm and the schoolyard. Heavy rain had fallen in October of 1966, with almost continuous rain on October 19 and 20. Tip workers had noticed some cracks at the top of the tip, caused, it was believed, by the crane or derrick that upended the waste trucks as they were hauled up from the colliery on the valley floor. The crane was ordered moved back, which it was. The Slide. The morning of Friday, October 21, was a dark, foggy, damp morning. It was the last day for Pant Glas school before the usual midterm break. The 7:30 a.m. shift at the colliery began as normal, with the tip workers setting out for the top. By the time they had 662
1966: The Aberfan Disaster
U. K.
Belfast
Dublin
Manchester
Liverpool
IRELAND Waterford
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Birmingham
Aberfan London
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Atlantic Ocean
reached it, around 9 a.m., and peered through the fog, they saw only a crater in front of them. The whole side of the tip had slipped down onto the school, the farm, and the houses opposite on Moy Road. In fact, a solid wall of mud and sludge, made up of water, ash, and coal waste, had crashed down on the school and other buildings and, like an avalanche, engulfed and filled them, as well as demolished parts of their structures. The resulting deaths were therefore as likely to have been caused by suffocation as by the impact of falling debris and collapsing buildings. At the same time, a black dust engulfed the village. The school itself was a solid Victorian brick edifice, two classrooms in depth, consisting of an assembly hall, some six juniors’ classrooms, and two infants’ classrooms. The landslide hit those juniors’ classrooms facing toward the tip, largely demolishing them. Those facing Moy Road were less severely affected. The two infants’ classrooms, being at one end of the school, were largely undamaged. Opposite the school, several houses had also been demolished. At one point, it was estimated that the sludge lay 45 feet deep in the schoolyard. The Children’s Experience. For the children attending the school, at 9:15 a.m. assembly had just finished and classes had just be663
1966: The Aberfan Disaster gun. One of the surviving children in one of the worst-affected classrooms described her experiences: They first heard a tremendous rumbling sound; the whole school seemed to go dead, and everyone was terrified. The sound grew louder and louder until they could see the blackness descending outside the window. After that she was knocked unconscious, waking to find her leg trapped and broken under a huge radiator that had been ripped from the wall but which had saved her from suffocation. Most of her classmates were not so fortunate. Another student described the landslide like water pouring down the hillside. She saw two boys run right into it and be sucked away. It hit the school like a huge wave, splattering everywhere, crushing the buildings. Another child, the last one to be brought out alive, had been completely buried but had managed to stick her fingers through a gap and to call out. Some surviving children suffered horrific injuries. One boy lost three fingers and suffered a fractured pelvis and an injured leg. He would have bled to death because of his internal injuries, but the mud caked around him. As it was, his ear was ripped off and had to be sewn back on. A few children were more fortunate. One fourteenyear-old boy was late for school. He arrived just as the head teacher was letting all the unscathed children go home. The first rescuers, who included many of the mothers, climbed through the windows and began to pass children back out. Hearing so many cries, they worked frantically, deep in mud, which was up to 5 feet deep in some classrooms, trying to find those buried. Some of the children managed to escape on their own. The rescuers did not dare move anything, however, in case there was further collapse. Some of the rescuers were themselves injured and needed hospital treatment. As soon as the colliery was informed, the shift was halted and the miners rushed to the scene, to be joined by other miners from a nearby colliery. The slide was still moving, the fog on the valley floor still persisted, and the road was narrow and a dead-end, so rescue conditions were very difficult, though, in a community used to mining disasters, never chaotic. The dead and injured had to be evacuated, and the sludge had to be dug through and cleared to allow access and to find bodies. Some 25 houses were evacuated by the police. Engineers with heavy bulldozers were brought in to try to halt the 664
1966: The Aberfan Disaster flow of the slag, a move made more urgent by the fear of further rain. However, by the time they arrived the chances of finding anyone else alive were slim. In fact, the last person to be found alive was rescued at 11 a.m., less than two hours after the initial impact. Nevertheless, it took a further six days to recover all the bodies. Many of the truck drivers worked up to six hours at a time clearing the debris; some miners worked for ten hours at a time. The police also joined in the initial digging. Of 254 children on the school roll, 74 had been declared dead by the end of the first day. Another 2 children had been killed in the farm, together with their grandmother. Eight other adults had been identified as dead, including 3 teachers. About 36 people were in the hospital, and some 80 people were still missing. The deputy head teacher, Mr. D. Beynon, was found clutching 5 children in his arms, dying as he tried to protect them. All of the 38 children in his class appeared to have died. As badly affected was the senior class, those studying for the examinations to gain entrance into high school, where Mrs. M. Bates and 37 children had been killed. In the other senior class, the teacher had been brought out safely, but some 27 children were unaccounted for. Immediate Aftermath. The engineers had been unable to halt the flow of sludge on the first day. On the next day, Saturday, military rescue units arrived. By the end of the day, the torrential flow of water finally ceased its ferocity. At its height, the tip had been discharging 100,000 gallons of water per hour. By the end of the day 137 bodies had been recovered—106 children and 16 adults being identified, and a further 15 still unidentified. At least 32 people were still in the hospital. Most of the school had been cleared, but it was feared that up to 60 people could be buried in the surrounding rubble. In fact, there were 8 bodies recovered the next day, Sunday, and 1 body a week later, bringing the final toll to 147, plus 1 of the injured, who died in hospital. Twenty-six rescuers were injured. Almost the entire age range of nine- to eleven-year-old children of the village had been wiped out. The whole nation was deeply shocked by the disaster. The same day as the accident, the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, promised a high-level independent inquiry, and he himself traveled to Merthyr Tydfil, the nearest town, to meet with local officials. The 665
1966: The Aberfan Disaster next day, Saturday, the duke of Edinburgh, the queen’s husband, visited the disaster. An appeal fund was immediately set up that day, which grew later to tremendous proportions. Princess Margaret, the queen’s sister, appealed for toys for the injured and bereaved children. Also on that day, the public inquiry, which was to become one of the biggest ever held in the United Kingdom, was set up under the Tribunals of Enquiry Act of 1921, to be conducted by Lord Justice Edmund Davies, a respected lord justice of appeal, who had been born only 2 miles from Aberfan and who had known the area all of his life. The speed of such moves was unparalleled. The necessary legislation for the tribunal was put before Parliament and cleared by October 25. One unfortunate repercussion of this was that all comment on the tragedy was banned by the attorney general, as the affair was now in the hands of the law. Many felt uneasy about this, believing that fair comment was being censored. However, legal aid was granted to all who had been affected, so that they could be legally represented at the inquiry. An inquest was opened on Monday, October 24, in a small chapel vestry. Over 60 relatives crowded in, and feelings ran high. “Our children have been murdered,” was a common cry. The coroner gave the causes of death as asphyxia and multiple injuries but had to explain that it was not his job to apportion blame; that was for the tribunal of inquiry. The first funerals were held on Thursday, October 27. At the Baptist Church, the minister performing the service had lost his own son. A mass burial was arranged for the Friday, to which an estimated 10,000 people came. Two 8-foot trenches were dug for the coffins, and a 100-foot-tall cross was made from the wreaths sent. It was said that there was little weeping. Some years later, the appeal fund constructed a memorial garden and cemetery for the victims on the site of the demolished school. On Saturday, October 29, the queen and the duke of Edinburgh visited the village, and flags were flown at halfstaff throughout the nation. Long-Term Aftermath. The psychological scars on the surviving children and their parents remained for a generation; many needed medical and psychological rehabilitation. The survivors had to be moved to other schools; finally, a new school was built nearby. 666
1966: The Aberfan Disaster The village remained in deep shock for many years but never lost its cohesiveness. The nation as a whole was also deeply affected for months, even years. For some, it became a crisis of faith. The inquiry lasted five months and took statements from 136 witnesses. The National Coal Board was held legally liable for not maintaining their property, the disaster being the result of waste materials being allowed to block an original watercourse. The water, instead of escaping out at the bottom of the tip, as was normal, soaked into the tip and built up enormous pressure within it. The rains of the preceding few days finally rendered the whole tip unstable, and it had therefore collapsed with considerable force. As a result of the tribunal report, the Mines and Quarries Act of 1989 was passed by the British Parliament, giving the government wide-ranging powers to supervise the safety of mines, quarries, and tips. An earlier act, the Industrial Development Act of 1966, which was designed to help reclaim derelict land but whose implementation had been hampered by lack of funds, was reenergized, especially in Wales. By 1967, the secretary of state for Wales had published a policy document that in future years led to large-scale reclamation of mining sites in South Wales. In July, 1968, it was decided to remove all the tips of the Merthyr Vale Colliery, though the colliery itself did not cease working until 1989, as part of the overall decline of the Welsh coal-mining industry. The forestry commission replanted much of the wasteland, and the area became a recreation site, which attracts visitors from around the world. The appeal fund was used not only to relieve the suffering of the families affected but also to build new facilities for the village, as well as fund educational research. David Barratt For Further Information: Austin, Tony. Aberfan: The Story of a Disaster. London: Hutchinson, 1967. McLean, Iain, and Martin Johnes. Aberfan: Government and Disasters. Cardiff, Wales: Welsh Academic Press, 2000. Madgwick, Gaynor. Aberfan: Struggling out of the Darkness—A Survivor’s Story. Blaengarw, Wales: Valleys and Vales Autobiography Project, 1996. 667
1966: The Aberfan Disaster Miller, Joan. Aberfan: A Disaster and Its Aftermath. London: Constable, 1974. Morgan, Louise, and Jane Scourfield, et al. “The Aberfan Disaster: 33-Year Follow-up of Survivors.” The British Journal of Psychiatry 182 (2003): 532-536. Rapoport, I. C. Aberfan: The Days After—a Journey in Pictures. Cardigan, Wales: Parthian, 2005.
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■ 1969: Hurricane Camille Hurricane Date: August 15-18, 1969 Place: Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia, and West Virginia Classification: Category 5 Result: 258 dead, $1.5 billion in damage
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acking winds of nearly 200 miles per hour and a barometric pressure of 26.84 inches, Hurricane Camille was a storm of immense intensity and at the time only the second on record to strike the U.S. mainland with Category 5 force. From the time it was first designated a hurricane on August 15, 1969, as it moved from south of Cuba to its point of dissipation over the North Atlantic, Camille left a staggering amount of devastation, including 258 stormrelated deaths and an estimated $1.5 billion in damage, much of it concentrated in the Gulf Coast regions of Louisiana and Mississippi. The Beginnings. For several days in its early stages, Camille moved at a leisurely pace across the Atlantic as a relatively disorganized tropical system. The storm was spawned on August 5 by a tropical wave moving off the coast of Africa. By August 9 it had reached tropical disturbance level, approaching the northern Leeward Islands, before passing through them on the following day. The same day a satellite photograph indicated it was no more than a weak cloud mass. On August 11 satellite imagery revealed the system had become an isolated block of clouds located between Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles and that it had broken into two circular air masses. For a brief time officials at the U.S. Weather Service believed the tropical disturbance was unlikely to reach the status of a major storm. A hurricane hunter who flew into the tropical wave reported little organization in the cloud formation. However, after reaching the warm waters of the Caribbean, the disturbance rapidly intensified and was designated a tropical storm as it moved within 350 miles of Cuba. Camille’s central pressure had dropped dramatically to 29.50 inches, and its sustained winds topped 65 miles per hour. Coursing through the Caribbean, the storm continued its rapid 669
1969: Hurricane Camille intensification, with winds climbing to over 80 miles per hour and its barometric pressure falling to 28.67 inches. On August 15, the storm was upgraded to hurricane status, as it moved through the Yucatán Straits on its way northwest. Maximum winds were recorded at 115 miles per hour, with gales extending out 125 to 150 miles to the north of the storm’s center and 50 miles to its south. Its forward movement was measured at 7 miles per hour. Camille swept over the western tip of Cuba with 115-mile-per-hour winds, driving hundreds of residents to higher ground with its torrential rains. The weather station at Guane, center of a rich tobacco area, reported winds of 92 miles per hour. As the storm meandered toward the eastern Gulf of Mexico, it dumped nearly 10 inches of precipitation on the Isle of Pines, immediately south of the Cuban mainland. At the time, the U.S. Weather Bureau placed the storm’s center about 250 miles south-southwest of Key West. The region of Cuba struck by the storm is an area highly vulnerable to flooding owing to the runoff of rain that rushes down the mountainsides to the sea. The sugar crop and tobacco crop, both mainstays of the Cuban economy, suffered extensive damage during the storm’s passage. In the central town of Puerto Cortes, 50 houses were destroyed. In many communities along the coast, power and telephone communications were cut off and large ranches and farms were isolated by the flash floods. Camille Continues to Intensify. Camille continued on a track that took it through the Yucatán Channel, and on August 16 its eye moved into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm’s forward movement was measured at 12 miles per hour. It was located 400 miles south of the Florida panhandle and moving in a north-northwest direction. Camille’s winds covered 80-mile-wide circles and buffeted across 200 miles of Gulf waters. Its barometric pressure tumbled to 27.13 inches. Hurricane Camille not only continued to intensify but also surprised storm watchers by changing its course to a more northwesterly direction toward the Louisiana-Mississippi-Alabama coastlines. On August 16 a hurricane watch was put into effect, stretching from Biloxi, Mississippi, to St. Marks, Florida. As the storm moved to within 250 miles of Mobile, Alabama, Camille’s winds were estimated at 160 miles per hour and its speed at 12 miles per hour. The storm continued its on its track toward the mouth of the Mississippi River, prompt670
1969: Hurricane Camille ing officials to extend the hurricane warning as far west as New Orleans. Late in the evening on August 16, Camille’s eye crossed into the Pass Christian, Mississippi, area with winds up to 200 miles per hour, accompanied by a monster tide 24 feet above normal. The hurricane skirted the mouth of the Mississippi River some 90 miles southeast of New Orleans in an area lined with small islands, bays, and harbors. On August 17, a final Air Force reconnaissance flight recorded a barometric pressure of 26.61 inches with maximum surface winds at more than 200 miles per hour. The barometric reading was second only to the 26.35 reading for the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the lowest ever recorded at the time. Later in the day, at 9 p.m., the National Hurricane Center issued a warning that Camille was “extremely dangerous” and was bringing 15- to 20-foot tides with it along the Mississippi-Alabama coast. Areas along the coast were advised to evacuate immediately. Evacuation and Landfall. The main damage inflicted by the storm throughout the low coastal region was from the floods produced by the high tides and heavy rainfall. In Gulfport, Mississippi, all evacuation centers had run short of food and water even before Camille’s arrival. The storm’s track along the coastline was marked by a series of local communication and power failures. In a clear sign of the severity of the storm, the Mississippi River Bridge at New Orleans was closed to traffic, and the world’s longest bridge, the causeway that crosses Lake Pontchartrain, was shut down. Camille’s winds lashed the causeway at more than 60 miles per hour and churned the lake’s water into a caldron of violent waves. Evacuations were ordered all the way from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to the Florida Panhandle. Over 100,000 people spent the night of August 17 in Red Cross shelters, in the area extending from New Orleans to Pensacola. Residents of the fishing villages of Louisiana’s marshlands evacuated by the thousands. Nearly 90 percent of the population left their homes to take refuge. The Red Cross announced it had set up 394 evacuation centers in the Mississippi Delta area, with over 40,000 people reported in shelters as far away as Alexandria, Louisiana, 200 miles to the north, and Lafayette, located in the southwestern corner of the state. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters had to risk the storm’s winds to rescue 30 men stranded on an oil rig 671
1969: Hurricane Camille in the Gulf of Mexico. Waves of 12 to 14 feet were reported at a rig located offshore from Timbalier Island, which is situated about 40 miles west of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Following its swipe at southern Louisiana, Camille washed ashore near Gulfport just before midnight on August 17. Its barometric pressure stood at 26.84 inches, and its winds continued to whirl at 180 miles per hour. When ranked by size, Camille was a relatively small hurricane, with an eye less than 5 miles in diameter. Its hurricaneforce winds reached out 45 miles in all directions, with gales extending out 150 miles. Mobile, located nearly 95 miles east of the storm’s center, registered 44-mile-per-hour winds, while New Orleans, situated nearly 45 miles closer to the storm’s core, received sustained winds of 52 miles per hour. The Damage. Camille’s lethal combination of high winds and high tides brought almost total destruction to the coastal areas from southeastern Louisiana to Biloxi. Because of the many shapes and sizes of the bays and inlets, surge heights varied at different locations. In several places in Louisiana, from the Empire Canal south to Buras, Boothville, and Venice, the surge poured over the levees on both the east and west banks of the Mississippi River, only to be trapped by the back levees, leaving the built-up areas between the embankments flooded with up to 16 feet of water. The east-bank levees were nearly destroyed as the wave action of the water severely eroded the landside slope before reaching the back levees. The regions within the levees were almost totally destroyed. Few structures survived intact, and those that did ended up floating about until dumped between or on the levees. The waves nearly wiped the small community of Buras off the map when the town was inundated with 15 feet of water in a matter of minutes. In one bizarre incident, a 200-foot barge loaded with combustible solvents was dumped by the waters in the middle of a highway running through the center of the town. As the storm surge swept over the river’s east-bank levee, a swift influx of tidal waters disrupted the normal flow of the river, elevating its water level for a considerable distance upstream. Close to 66 percent of the total land area in Plaquemines Parish, representing about 414,000 acres of land, was flooded. Along the coast, fires raged out of control, as firefighters were 672
1969: Hurricane Camille unable to reach them in the wake of the inundating tides. Buildings in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, a scenic coastal town located 15 miles west of Gulfport near the Mississippi line, burned furiously. Its business district, comprising mainly a lumber mill and seafood packing center, was concentrated on a single street, half of which caved into the bay. An estimated 95 percent of the homes in the city were damaged. Thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were left homeless as the storm made its way across the coastline. The destruction wrought by Camille stretched along 50 miles of beach from Waveland, Mississippi, to Pascagoula, near the Alabama state line, and three or four blocks inland. The storm raised the Gulf of Mexico nearly 3 feet higher than normal as far as 125 miles east of Pass Christian, Mississippi, and 31 miles to the west. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers later estimated that 100,000 tons of debris had to be cleared away in order to make passable nearly 530 miles of road. U.S. Highway 90, the main coastal road, was covered with sand in many sec-
Hurricane Camille was one of few storms to achieve Category 5 status at landfall. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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1969: Hurricane Camille tions; piled high with lumber, furniture, refrigerators, mattresses, and other debris in some stretches; and completely washed away in others. Nearly one-third of the Bay St. Louis Bridge and one-half of the Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge were damaged when the high tides shoved the spans off their supports. An estimated 50 percent of the resort properties in the Biloxi area were damaged and the other half destroyed. Fourteen counties in Mississippi suffered electrical power failures, some lasting for several days. Telephone service also was affected, as nearly 15 percent of telephones were put out of service, with the number jumping to 67 percent along the Gulf Coast. Pascagoula faced a problem of another kind when it was invaded by hundreds of poisonous cottonmouth snakes seeking higher ground. One woman reported hundreds of black water moccasins and cottonmouths in her mother’s backyard. Homes and buildings that had withstood previous hurricane-level storms proved no match for Camille. Water stood 10-feet deep in the lobby of the plush Broadwater Beach Hotel. A wave of 22 feet inundated Pass Christian Isles, including the Richelieu apartment complex, where a decision by a group of people to ignore the warnings and ride out the storm with a “hurricane party” ended in tragedy when 23 of them died in the onslaught. Along with the storm surge, heavy precipitation, between 5 and 10 inches, moved inland with Camille. Rainfalls from 2 to 6 inches extended to portions of southeast Louisiana, central and northern Mississippi, and northwest Florida. Stately oak trees that had also survived previous hurricane-force winds fell victim to Camille. Pine trees were blown down in forests nearly 70 miles inland. Roofs were torn from barracks at Camp Shelby, an Army base located more than 65 miles from the coastline. Wind Speeds and Tides. Based on wind speeds measured at reconnaissance flight levels and measured surface pressure, maximum surface winds reached 201.5 miles per hour near the center of Camille on August 17. As the storm moved inland, many of the recording instruments were damaged or destroyed. The highest actual wind reading was taken on a drilling rig recorder, located about 15 miles from the storm’s center, which registered a gust of 172 miles per hour. An Air National Guard Weather Flight unit located at Gulfport Municipal Airport estimated sustained winds at over 100 miles per hour with gusts ranging between 150 to 200 miles per hour. 674
1969: Hurricane Camille Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi measured winds at 81 miles per hour with gusts up to 129 miles per hour. In Pascagoula, sustained winds of 81 miles per hour were recorded at a shipyard, while a local radio station reported winds at 104 miles per hour before it was knocked off the air. Wind speeds west of Camille’s center were lower than those extending east. Although Lakefront Airport reported sustained winds of 87 miles per hour with gusts of 109 miles per hour, winds at New Orleans generally ranged from 40 to 60 miles per hour with gusts up to 85 miles per hour. On the other hand, eastern portions of St. Tammany and Washington Parishes were raked by winds estimated at well over 100 miles per hour. As Camille moved ashore, sustained hurricane-force winds were generally confined to the storm’s center, extending east of New Orleans to Pascagoula, with gusts reaching from New Orleans to Mobile Bay. Enormous tidal surges marked Camille’s arrival. The small towns of Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, and Waveland were all but destroyed by a giant wave generated by the storm’s backlash. Record-breaking tide levels were recorded from Waveland to Biloxi. Tides in some areas were measured up to 24 feet. Generally, they ran from about 15 to 22 feet above normal. The storm generated tides as high as 3 to 5 feet above normal as far away as Apalachicola, Florida. West of the storm’s center, tides ranged from about 10 to 15 feet above normal but then dropped off substantially, running only 3 to 4 feet above normal west of the Mississippi. Grand Isle, located only 60 miles west of the hurricane, reported a tide of 3.6 feet. The Death Toll and Aftereffects. Many of those who perished in the surge were found lashed together, usually family members or husbands and wives who were attempting to survive the rising waters. Every home in Pass Christian, a town of 4,000 people, was damaged. Nearly 100 bodies were discovered in the debris, including all 13 members of one family. At a local high school where residents had gathered, rescuers found a cluster of parents holding their children overhead to protect them from the raging floodwaters below. Generally, buildings located on hills of about 20 feet survived the high winds and storm surge, while structures situated around the 10foot level were overwhelmed. As the winds diminished, National Guard troops in amphibious vehicles rushed in to rescue survivors clinging to trees and remnants of houses. 675
1969: Hurricane Camille All together, 143 people were killed along the coast from Louisiana to Alabama. The storm also took a toll on fish and wildlife, especially in the estuary region lying east of the Mississippi River. Many deer and muskrats were killed. Only 40 to 50 of a deer herd of 500 roaming the area were believed to have survived. Millions of fish were killed, as were some shrimp, and oyster seedbeds located in the bays and inlets received considerable damage from debris deposited on them during the storm. The storm caused little intrusion of saltwater into the lower reaches of the Mississippi River. Samples taken at the water supply intakes at New Orleans and Port Sulphur did not reveal any significant increases in salinity, though some locations along the eastern Louisiana coast did experience brief periods of additional salinity during Camille’s passage. Camille dealt a severe blow to the region’s commercial shipping industry. A surveyor noted that 24 vessels, ranging from tugs to freighters, were found aground. Among the boats was the container ship Mormacsun, which only recently had been launched and was being outfitted at a shipyard when its mooring lines snapped, driving it aground. The storm caused the collision of two vessels set adrift in the waters, the 4,459-ton Greek freighter Lion of Chaeronea and the 10,648-ton U.S.-flagged Windsor Victory. Both ships suffered only minor damage. Three cargo ships in Gulfport harbor, the Alamo Victory, the Hulda, and the Silver Hawk, were severely damaged and washed ashore. A tug, the Charleston, in the process of towing the barge City of Pensacola, was in danger of sinking and had to be beached. Another victim, the 10,250-ton U.S.-flagged freighter Venetia V, docked in Mobile, was ripped from its moorings and set adrift. The storm also inflicted severe damage on the area’s petroleum industry, particularly in the offshore areas east of the Louisiana delta. Installations at South Pass, Main Pass, and Breton Sound were battered by the storm, as were facilities situated in the marshes and shallow bays, including Quarantine Bay, Cox Bay, and Black Bay. Two large oil slicks formed south of New Orleans, one a result of a leaking offshore well in Breton Sound, the other from a ruptured storage tank near the town of Venice in Plaquemines Parish. Because Venice was still under water from the high tides, the oil riding the top of the water lapped at the inundated houses and other buildings. 676
1969: Hurricane Camille Facilities located west of the Mississippi River fared better, receiving only light damage. At least 4,000 oil wells, stretching from the Mississippi Delta to the St. Bernard Parish line, representing close to 10 percent of Louisiana’s wells, were shut down and 3,000 employees evacuated prior to the storm’s arrival. As a result of the precautionary measures, there were no reported injuries to petroleum industry personnel, despite direct hits on the facilities. All together, Camille destroyed 4 platforms, 3 drilling rigs, and 7 wells. In addition, 2 platforms, 7 drilling rigs, and a well suffered heavy damage. An aerial survey by the U.S. Forest Service of 14 counties in southern Mississippi indicated that nearly 1.9 million acres of commercial forestland sustained damage. The storm completely defoliated some of the area’s hardwood forests, with the pine forests suffering somewhat less damage. Agricultural and timber losses in Louisiana included 8,000 cattle and 150,000 orange trees in Plaquemines Parish, oyster beds in Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes, and over $40 million in damages to tung oil trees and timber in St. Tammany and Washington Parishes. Camille Moves Inland. As Camille moved inland across Mississippi, its strength diminished, and on August 18 it was downgraded to a tropical storm. By the time it reached the northern Mississippi border, it had been downgraded to a depression, though its rainy core remained surprisingly intact and its eye clearly visible on satellite photographs after more than a day over land. Its remnants finally merged with a moisture-filled air mass to produce record amounts of rainfall, in some cases more than 25 inches, throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. As it moved through West Virginia, the storm deposited nearly 5 inches of rain in the southern portions of the state. The combination of weather factors produced rainfall amounts that rank with other record rainfalls throughout the world. Some amounts exceeded 25 inches, and totals in excess of 4 inches fell in an eight-hour period over a region 30 to 40 miles wide and 120 miles long. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ study later underscored the improbability of the rainfall amounts in Nelson County, Virginia, which totaled 27 inches within eight hours. The study concluded the probable maximum rainfall that was possible for the area was 28 inches in six hours and 31 inches in twelve hours. An unofficial 31inch total that was recorded is believed by meteorologists to repre677
1969: Hurricane Camille sent the probable maximum rainfall to be theoretically possible for Virginia during this period of the year. As a measure of the storm’s uniqueness, it is estimated that rainfalls of this magnitude occur only once every thousand years. Ironically, a severe drought had plagued Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky for much of the summer before Camille’s arrival, reducing soil moisture content far below normal levels. As a result, pasture conditions and crops were in poor shape, and though the rains alleviated some of the conditions, they were too late to overcome much of the drought damage. Virginia experienced what many authorities considered was one of the worst natural disasters in the state’s history. Thousands of families in the mountainous sections of west-central Virginia were left homeless by rains of 10 inches or more, as walls of water washed down mountain slopes and through countless homes, businesses, and industries located in valley communities. Many of the residents of the tiny mountain towns and hamlets were asleep when the floodwaters struck. The swollen streams and landslides precipitated by the torrential rains uprooted trees and hurled them down the mountainsides with enough force to smash houses and overturn automobiles. Entire families were swept away by the waters, while others climbed onto trees and roofs and waited until rescue helicopters could reach them. In some areas whole sections of mountainside tumbled down like mudslides, dumping tons of silt on houses and their occupants. The entire downtown area of Glasgow, Virginia, was inundated by over 14 feet of water, which flooded nearly 75 percent of its homes. Among the hardest hit regions was Buena Vista, Virginia, located at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where some buildings stood 30 feet underwater. In Louisa County, an earthen dam broke, collapsing a 500acre human-made lake. Camille’s remnants washed out close to 200 miles of primary and secondary roads and damaged or destroyed 133 bridges in Virginia, 92 of which were located in Nelson County. Route 29 between Amherst and Charlottesville suffered severe damage, with 5 major washouts and 30 landslides. At one point during the storm, only one highway crossing the state remained open for its entire length. The James River, a placid stream that normally runs 100 feet to a few hun678
1969: Hurricane Camille dred yards wide above Richmond, turned into a sprawling wet plain a mile wide in places. More than 80 bridges spanning major highways and secondary roads were washed away by the rampaging waters. Railroad routes throughout the state fared little better, as several railroad bridges were destroyed and long stretches of track put out of operation. Camille regained tropical storm status when it crossed back into the North Atlantic but dissipated when it was absorbed by a cold front as it moved about 175 miles southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Based on its path of destruction, Hurricane Camille ranks as one of the most devastating storms to strike the U.S. mainland in the twentieth century. William Hoffman For Further Information: Dikkers, R. D., and H. C. S. Thom. Hurricane Camille—August 1969. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, National Bureau of Standards, 1971. Hearn, Philip D. Hurricane Camille: Monster Storm of the Gulf Coast. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004. “Hurricane Camille.” Weatherwise, July/August, 1999, 28-31. Longshore, David. Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones. New York: Checkmark Books, 2000. Wilkinson, Kenneth P., and Peggy J. Ross. Citizens’ Responses to Warnings of Hurricane Camille. State College: Mississippi State University, Social Science Research Center, 1970. Zebrowski, Ernest, and Judith A. Howard. Category 5: The Story of Camille, Lessons Unlearned from America’s Most Violent Hurricane. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
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■ 1970: The Ancash earthquake Earthquake Date: May 31, 1970 Place: Northern Peru Magnitude: 7.7 Result: Approximately 70,000 dead, 140,000 injured, 500,000 homeless, 160,000 buildings destroyed or damaged
T
he scene of this disaster is known for its rugged beauty. Towering, snow-capped mountains with steep, rocky slopes overlook the valley of the Santa River, which flows to the north through the Department of Ancash and then turns west until it empties into the Pacific Ocean. This narrow valley—about 5 miles at its widest point—runs for 125 miles parallel to Peru’s Pacific shore and is dotted by a series of towns and small cities. For example, Yungay, an old town with roots in the colonial era, was by the 1960’s a forwardlooking community with an interest in tourism. One of the region’s greatest assets is its physical environment. Looming 14,000 feet above the valley floor are the twin peaks of Mount Huascarán, which measure 22,190 and 21,860 feet above sea level. The peaks are prominent in a section of the Andes Mountains that also includes glaciers and, at lower altitudes, cold lakes drained by streams that feed the Santa River. The monumental Huascarán attracts mountain climbers from around the world because of the extraordinarily steep slopes that rise at angles of 45 to 90 degrees. At the base of these mountains are large boulders, evidence of the area’s geological instability. The Santa River Valley, also known as the Callejón de Huaylas, has a long record of human settlement. Archaeologists have found remains of the Chavin culture that date back as far as 800 b.c.e. The Inca Empire reached into the area in the 1460’s, only to be superseded by the Spanish conquistadors in the 1530’s. The Spanish controlled most of the agriculture in the valley during the colonial period (1530’s-1820’s), but the population became heavily mestizo—a mixture of Native Americans and Europeans. 680
1970: The Ancash earthquake Quito
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Huancayo
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Cuzco
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La Paz
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BOLIVIA
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The independence of Peru from Spain brought few changes in the society and the economy, with much of the best land in the valley in the hands of a few landowners well into the twentieth century. Yungay, an important political center, was also a leading market for the peasant farmers who bought and sold foodstuffs and textiles. By the 1960’s, however, a new dynamism took hold in Yungay. A paved highway provided easy access to people and goods outside the region. Yungay had a dependable source of electricity, and plans were 681
1970: The Ancash earthquake in place for the construction of a large hotel for visiting mountain climbers and tourists. In spite of its location in the Andes, a mountain chain well known for earthquakes, the Callejón de Huaylas had experienced relatively few cataclysmic events before 1970. The three most serious events, however, did furnish forebodings of geological conditions that harbored the potential for a major disaster. The large avalanche of 1725 that destroyed the colonial city of Ancash was caused by the breaking of a high mountain glacier that sent tons of ice hurtling downward, picking up rocks and debris as it crashed into the unsuspecting city in the valley below. Another city, Huaraz, was inundated by the bitterly cold waters of a mountain lake that spilled into the valley in 1941. In 1962 another large avalanche overran the community of Ranrahirca. These events all involved loss of life, injuries, and property damage, but, in comparison with the earthquake of 1970, they also served as warnings of a disaster of much greater magnitude. Earthquake and Avalanche. The Sunday afternoon of May 31, 1970, was a time of relaxation for the people of the valley, with extended family visits, casual strolls through town plazas, and leisurely meals at local restaurants. This pleasant scene ended abruptly at 3:23 p.m. with the first rumblings in the ground. The Callejón de Huaylas and, indeed, all of Peru rests on or near the place in the earth’s crust where two major tectonic plates come together. The Nazca Plate, gradually moving beneath the Pacific Ocean, tends to push under the South American Plate, causing the latter to rise. On May 31, the Nazca Plate’s movement become sudden and intense, pushing the edge of the South American Plate upward. This extraordinary tectonic shift broke off a large section of Huascarán overlooking the Callejón de Huaylas—probably 0.5 mile wide and 0.75 mile long. The huge mass crashed down upon a glacier, adding large chunks of ice to the avalanche that, because of the steep slope, accelerated as it moved downward, reaching a speed of approximately 200 miles per hour. The rock and ice collided and shattered into smaller segments that, in spite of the fragmentation, weighed tons when they reached the valley floor. Yungay was in the path of the avalanche. Within four minutes a great mass of rock, ice, soil, and water covered the 10 miles from Huascarán to the town. Eyewitnesses described the mass as being as 682
1970: The Ancash earthquake high as a ten-story building as it roared across the valley floor to bury Yungay and nearby villages beneath a sea of mud and rock that, after settling for several days, was over 15 feet deep. Approximately 3,500 of Yungay’s population perished beneath the huge avalanche. Only an estimated 200 survived. A portion of the avalanche veered to the north along the Santa River, crushing virtually everything in its path. Included in the debris of this mass were bodies and houses from Yungay. Another section, or lobe, of the avalanche crossed the river bed and rolled about 200 feet up the mountain slope on the western side of the valley. As these lobes of the avalanche moved to the north and west, they carried boulders the size of automobiles and deposited them considerable distances from Huascarán, some reportedly as far north as the Canón de Pato, approximately 25 miles from Yungay. The earthquake that caused the avalanche also produced devastating results in areas not reached by the mass of rock, ice, and debris. For example, the city of Huaraz, about 35 miles south of Yungay, experienced the collapse of many of its structures, including portions of the cathedral on the main plaza and the homes of both rich and poor. All through the valley, walls made of adobe crumbled and roofs caved in. In Huaraz and other communities, some cemeteries were so severely shaken that monuments collapsed and tombs broke open. Recently built highways and bridges that linked towns and cities in the Santa River Valley were destroyed. The violent shaking of the earth also destroyed the region’s electric-power grid, as well as water and sewer lines. Within a few minutes most of the human-made structures in the Callejón de Huaylas were in ruins or covered by thick layers of rock and mud. Surveys after the earthquake indicate that more than 160,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged—approximately 80 percent of the structures in the area. Although the impact of the earthquake was most intense in the Callejón de Huaylas, buildings collapsed throughout the Department of Ancash, including those in cities and villages along the Pacific coast. Aftermath. Seismographic records made clear to the outside world that a powerful earthquake had struck the Callejón de Huaylas, but the survivors in the devastated valley had to struggle without external aid for four days. Airplanes and helicopters dispatched by the Peruvian government encountered billowing clouds of dust that 683
1970: The Ancash earthquake extended as high as 18,000 feet, blocking visual observation of most of the valley. The destruction of telephone lines and highways prevented communication and the movement of people. Meanwhile, the survivors attempted to care for themselves. The only hospital in the valley was in the city of Huaraz, and it quickly became the gathering place for the injured. The hospital structure was damaged but remained standing as five doctors attended to a steady stream of hundreds of patients over the four-day period between the earthquake and the arrival of outside aid. Finally, on June 5, the atmosphere cleared enough for pilots to find relatively clear drop zones and landing strips. The Peruvian air force dropped 70 tons of food and other supplies by parachute and transported over 400 injured residents to outside medical facilities by helicopter. Later on the same day, a landing field near Huaraz was sufficiently repaired to accommodate small transport planes. By June 9, Peruvian engineers had repaired highways into the valley, opening the way for emergency vehicles. On the same day, Peruvian president Juan Velasco Alvarado established the Committee for the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of the Affected Zone (CRYRZA), a government agency that was responsible for supervision of efforts to supply material aid and the implementation of long-term plans for the rebuilding of communities. Soon military and other emergency aircraft from Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Canada, France, and the Soviet Union arrived not only with much-needed supplies but also with experienced crews who soon joined with the Peruvian air force to provide a continuous flow of relief and evacuation missions. Medical personnel, engineers, government officials, and volunteers worked with the survivors on the necessary tasks: the burial of the dead, the erection of shelters for the living, and the distribution of food and medicine throughout the valley. Recovery. The reconstruction of communities began within weeks after the earthquake, but the complicated processes of reestablishing the physical infrastructure, such as roads, public buildings, private homes, and commercial establishments, as well as the institutions of local government and private businesses, required many months and, in some cases, years. For example, Yungay had virtually disappeared, buried beneath the avalanche, but, within a year, approximately 1,800 people had moved into its vicinity to build a new 684
1970: The Ancash earthquake community with the same name. By the middle of 1971, Yungay had a functioning local government, primary and secondary schools, and a revived commercial sector. Huaraz also rebuilt quickly, highlighted by the construction of a modern airport with the capacity to handle small jet aircraft. By 1980, all the valley’s cities were linked to a modern electric power grid and the new highway system that ran down the Santa River Valley to the Pacific coast. This recovery, although impressive in many ways, was not free of acrimony and accusations. The distribution of aid was more prompt in some areas than in others, causing angry complaints from those who felt neglected. Some of the materials to be used in home construction were not suitable for the mountain environment. Finally, frustrated locals accused government officials of incompetence and corruption as some reconstruction projects dragged on for months and, in a few cases, years. Much uncertainty remained about the future safety of the inhabitants of the valley. The geological conditions that had caused the disaster remained: an unstable land prone to earthquakes surrounded by steep-sided mountains with high-altitude glaciers and lakes. A key to the safety of the region was the Santa Corporation, a government agency charged with the responsibility of monitoring the buildup of ice and snow on the mountain summits and changes in the conditions of glaciers and lakes. The Santa Corporation was primarily responsible for avoiding another disaster soon after the events of May 31, 1970. The earthquake had thrust a large boulder into the stream that customarily drained Lake Orkococha, located on the flank on Mount Huascarán. As a result, the level of that lake was much higher than normal and threatened to spill over its banks, causing a flood on the valley floor. Working furiously, an international team of mountain climbers cut a new drainage channel for the lake by June 7, thereby averting a second disaster for the people of the valley. The Santa Corporation’s duties were taken over by a new government agency called Ingeomin in 1977. John A. Britton For Further Information: Bode, Barbara. No Bells to Toll: Destruction and Creation in the Andes. New York: Scribner, 1989. 685
1970: The Ancash earthquake “Death by Glacier.” Scientific American 223, no. 2 (August, 1970): 46. Dorbath, L., A. Cisternas, and C. Dorbath. “Assessment of the Size of Large and Great Historical Earthquakes in Peru.” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 80, no. 3 (June 1, 1990): 551-576. Levy, Matthys, and Mario Salvador. Why the Earth Quakes: The Story of Earthquakes and Volcanoes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. Lomnitz, C. “The Peru Earthquake of May 31, 1970: Some Preliminary Seismological Results.” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 61, no. 3 (June, 1971): 535-542. Machado, Jesús Ángel Chávez. “Remembering the Worst Earthquake in Latin America: The Day the Apus Turned Their Backs on Peru.” ISDR Informs—Latin America and the Caribbean, no. 1 (2000). Oliver-Smith, Anthony. The Martyred City: Death and Rebirth in the Andes. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
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Indexes
■ Category List Avalanches Avalanches (overview) 1999: The Galtür avalanche, Austria Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail (overview) 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888, U.S. Northeast 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster, Nepal Comets. See Meteorites and Comets Cyclones. See Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones; Tornadoes Droughts Droughts (overview) 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains Dust Storms and Sandstorms Dust Storms and Sandstorms (overview) 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains Earthquakes Earthquakes (overview) 526: The Antioch earthquake, Syria 1692: The Port Royal earthquake, Jamaica 1755: The Lisbon earthquake, Portugal 1811: New Madrid earthquakes, Missouri 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake 1908: The Messina earthquake, Italy 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake, Japan 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake 1970: The Ancash earthquake, Peru 1976: The Tangshan earthquake, China 1985: The Mexico City earthquake XXI
Category List 1988: The Leninakan earthquake, Armenia 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake, Northern California 1994: The Northridge earthquake, Southern California 1995: The Kobe earthquake, Japan 1999: The Ezmit earthquake, Turkey 2003: The Bam earthquake, Iran 2005: The Kashmir earthquake, Pakistan El Niño El Niño (overview) 1982: El Niño, Pacific Ocean Epidemics Epidemics (overview) 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens 1320: The Black Death, Europe 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic 1665: The Great Plague of London 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, Memphis 1892: Cholera pandemic 1900: Typhoid Mary, New York State 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic, United States 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1976: Ebola outbreaks, Zaire and Sudan 1976: Legionnaires’ disease, Philadelphia 1980’s: AIDS pandemic 1995: Ebola outbreak, Zaire 2002: SARS epidemic, Asia and Canada Explosions Explosions (overview) 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster, England 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster, West Virginia 1947: The Texas City Disaster Famines Famines (overview) 1200: Egypt famine XXII
Category List 1845: The Great Irish Famine 1959: The Great Leap Forward Famine, China 1984: Africa famine Fires Fires (overview) 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome 1657: The Meireki Fire, Japan 1666: The Great Fire of London 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire, Wisconsin 1871: The Great Chicago Fire 1872: The Great Boston Fire 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster, Illinois 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster, New Jersey 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire, Northern California 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003, Southern California Floods Floods (overview) 1889: The Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse, Southern California 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Fog Fog (overview) 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking, Canada Freezes. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Glaciers. See Icebergs and Glaciers Hail. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Heat Waves Heat Waves (overview) 1995: Chicago heat wave 2003: Europe heat wave XXIII
Category List Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones (overview) 1900: The Galveston hurricane, Texas 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane 1928: The San Felipe hurricane, Florida and the Caribbean 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1969: Hurricane Camille 1970: The Bhola cyclone, East Pakistan 1989: Hurricane Hugo 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1998: Hurricane Mitch 2005: Hurricane Katrina Ice Storms. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Icebergs and Glaciers Icebergs and Glaciers (overview) Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides (overview) 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster, Italy 1966: The Aberfan Disaster, Wales 2006: The Leyte mudslide, Philippines Lightning Strikes Lightning Strikes (overview) Meteorites and Comets Meteorites and Comets (overview) c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater, Atlantic Ocean 1908: The Tunguska event, Siberia Mudslides. See Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Rockslides. See Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Sandstorms. See Dust Storms and Sandstorms XXIV
Category List Smog Smog (overview) 1952: The Great London Smog Tornadoes Tornadoes (overview) 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, St. Louis 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak, U.S. Midwest 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak, U.S. South and Midwest, Canada 1997: The Jarrell tornado, Texas 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak Tsunamis Tsunamis (overview) 1946: The Aleutian tsunami, Hawaii 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Typhoons. See Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Volcanic Eruptions Volcanic Eruptions (overview) c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption, Aegean Sea 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption, Italy 1669: Etna eruption, Sicily 1783: Laki eruption, Iceland 1815: Tambora eruption, Indonesia 1883: Krakatau eruption, Indonesia 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption, Washington 1982: El Chichón eruption, Mexico 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster, Cameroon 1991: Pinatubo eruption, Philippines 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat Wind Gusts Wind Gusts (overview) XXV
■ Geographical List Africa. See also individual countries 1984: Africa famine 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Alabama 2005: Hurricane Katrina Alaska 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake Armenia 1988: The Leninakan earthquake Asia. See also individual countries 2002: SARS epidemic 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Atlantic Ocean c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Austria 1999: The Galtür avalanche Bahamas 1992: Hurricane Andrew Bangladesh. See also East Pakistan 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Belgium 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 California 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake XXVII
Geographical List 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire 1994: The Northridge earthquake 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 Cameroon 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster Canada 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak 2002: SARS epidemic Caribbean 1692: The Port Royal earthquake, Jamaica 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1928: The San Felipe hurricane 1989: Hurricane Hugo 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat Central America. See also individual countries 1998: Hurricane Mitch China 1959: The Great Leap Forward Famine 1976: The Tangshan earthquake 2002: SARS epidemic East Pakistan 1970: The Bhola cyclone Egypt 1200: Egypt famine England 1665: The Great Plague of London XXVIII
Geographical List 1666: The Great Fire of London 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster 1952: The Great London Smog Ethiopia 1984: Africa famine Europe. See also individual countries 1320: The Black Death 2003: Europe heat wave Florida 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane 1928: The San Felipe hurricane 1992: Hurricane Andrew 2005: Hurricane Katrina France 2003: Europe heat wave Great Britain. See also England; Ireland; Wales 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Great Plains, U.S. 1932: The Dust Bowl Greece 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens Hawaii 1946: The Aleutian tsunami Hong Kong 2002: SARS epidemic Iceland 1783: Laki eruption
XXIX
Geographical List Idaho 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Illinois 1871: The Great Chicago Fire 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado 1995: Chicago heat wave India 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Indian Ocean 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Indiana 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Indonesia 1815: Tambora eruption 1883: Krakatau eruption 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Iran 2003: The Bam earthquake Ireland 1845: The Great Irish Famine Italy 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome 79: Vesuvius eruption 1669: Etna eruption 1908: The Messina earthquake 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster
XXX
Geographical List Jamaica 1692: The Port Royal earthquake Japan 1657: The Meireki Fire 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake 1995: The Kobe earthquake Kenya 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Louisiana 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1992: Hurricane Andrew 2005: Hurricane Katrina Martinique 1902: Pelée eruption Massachusetts 1872: The Great Boston Fire Mediterranean c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption, Aegean Sea 1669: Etna eruption, Sicily Mexico 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic 1982: El Chichón eruption 1985: The Mexico City earthquake Midwest, U.S. 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Mississippi 2005: Hurricane Katrina
XXXI
Geographical List Mississippi River 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Missouri 1811: New Madrid earthquakes 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, St. Louis 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Montana 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Montserrat 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption Nepal 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster Netherlands 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 New England 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 New Jersey 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster New York 1900: Typhoid Mary North Carolina 1989: Hurricane Hugo North Sea 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Oklahoma 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak XXXII
Geographical List Pacific Ocean 1982: Pacific Ocean El Niño Pakistan 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Papua New Guinea 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami Pennsylvania 1889: The Johnstown Flood 1976: Legionnaires’ disease, Philadelphia Peru 1970: The Ancash earthquake Philippines 1991: Pinatubo eruption 2006: The Leyte mudslide Portugal 1755: The Lisbon earthquake Russia 1908: The Tunguska event Siberia 1908: The Tunguska event South, U.S. 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak South Carolina 1989: Hurricane Hugo Sri Lanka 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami
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Geographical List Sudan 1976: Ebola outbreaks 1984: Africa famine Syria 526: The Antioch earthquake Tennessee 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, Memphis Texas 1900: The Galveston hurricane 1947: The Texas City Disaster 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1997: The Jarrell tornado Thailand 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Turkey 1999: The Ezmit earthquake United States. See also individual states and regions 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Wales 1966: The Aberfan Disaster Washington State 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption West Indies 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1928: The San Felipe hurricane XXXIV
Geographical List 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat West Virginia 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster Wisconsin 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire Worldwide 1892: Cholera pandemic 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1980: AIDS pandemic Wyoming 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Zaire 1976: Ebola outbreaks 1995: Ebola outbreak
XXXV
Notable Natural Disasters
MAGILL’S C H O I C E
Notable Natural Disasters Volume 3 Events 1970 to 2006 Edited by Marlene Bradford, Ph.D. Texas A&M University Robert S. Carmichael, Ph.D. University of Iowa
SALEM PRESS, INC. Pasadena, California Hackensack, New Jersey
Copyright © 2007, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or in the copying of images deemed to be freely licensed or in the public domain. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.481992 (R1997). These essays originally appeared in Natural Disasters (2001). New essays and other material have been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Notable natural disasters / edited by Marlene Bradford, Robert S. Carmichael. p. cm. — (Magill’s choice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58765-368-1 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-369-8 (vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-370-4 (vol. 2 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-371-1 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. Natural disasters. I. Bradford, Marlene. II. Carmichael, Robert S. GB5014.N373 2007 904’.5—dc22 2007001926
printed in canada
Contents Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xliii ■ Events 1970: The Bhola cyclone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Ebola outbreaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Legionnaires’ disease . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: The Tangshan earthquake. . . . . . . . . 1980’s: AIDS pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption . . . . . . . . 1982: El Chichón eruption. . . . . . . . . . . . 1982: Pacific Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1984: African famine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1985: The Mexico City earthquake . . . . . . . 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires . . . . . . 1988: The Leninakan earthquake . . . . . . . . 1989: Hurricane Hugo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake . . . . . . . 1991: Pinatubo eruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1992: Hurricane Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 1994: The Northridge earthquake . . . . . . . . 1995: The Kobe earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Ebola outbreak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Chicago heat wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster . . . . . . . . 1997: The Jarrell tornado . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption . . . . . . . . . . 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami . . . . . . . . 1998: Hurricane Mitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Galtür avalanche . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak . . . . 1999: The Ezmit earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . xli
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Notable Natural Disasters 2002: SARS epidemic. . . . . . . . 2003: European heat wave . . . . . 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 . . . . 2003: The Bam earthquake . . . . 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami . 2005: Hurricane Katrina . . . . . . 2005: The Kashmir earthquake . . 2006: The Leyte mudslide . . . . .
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■ Appendixes Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976 Time Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019 Organizations and Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039 ■ Indexes Category List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXXIX Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XLV Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LV
xlii
Complete List of Contents Volume 1 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv ■ Overviews Avalanches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Droughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dust Storms and Sandstorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Earthquakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Epidemics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Explosions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Famines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Fires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Floods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Heat Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Icebergs and Glaciers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Lightning Strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Meteorites and Comets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Smog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Tornadoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Tsunamis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Volcanic Eruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Wind Gusts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 ■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX xliii
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Volume 2 Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii Complete List of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix ■ Events c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater . . . c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption . . . . . . 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens . . . . . 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome . . . . . 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption . . . . . . . . 526: The Antioch earthquake . . . . . . 1200: Egyptian famine . . . . . . . . . . 1320: The Black Death . . . . . . . . . . 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic . 1657: The Meireki Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1665: The Great Plague of London . . . 1666: The Great Fire of London . . . . . 1669: Etna eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1692: The Port Royal earthquake . . . . 1755: The Lisbon earthquake . . . . . . 1783: Laki eruption . . . . . . . . . . . 1811: New Madrid earthquakes . . . . . 1815: Tambora eruption . . . . . . . . . 1845: The Great Irish Famine . . . . . . 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire . . . . . . 1871: The Great Chicago Fire . . . . . . 1872: The Great Boston Fire . . . . . . . 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic . 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster . . . 1883: Krakatau eruption . . . . . . . . . 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 . . . . 1889: The Johnstown Flood . . . . . . . 1892: Cholera pandemic . . . . . . . . . 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896 . . . . 1900: The Galveston hurricane . . . . . 1900: Typhoid Mary . . . . . . . . . . . 1902: Pelée eruption . . . . . . . . . . . xliv
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Complete List of Contents 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake . . . . 1908: The Tunguska event . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1908: The Messina earthquake. . . . . . . . . . . 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking . . . . . . . . . . . 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic . . . . . . . . . . 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic. . . . . . . . . . . 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake . . . . . . . 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado . . . . . . . . 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane. . . . . . . . . 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse . . . . . . . . . . . 1928: The San Felipe hurricane . . . . . . . . . . 1932: The Dust Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1946: The Aleutian tsunami . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947: The Texas City Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . 1952: The Great London Smog . . . . . . . . . . 1953: The North Sea Flood. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1957: Hurricane Audrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1959: The Great Leap Forward famine . . . . . . 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake . . . . . . . . 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak . . . . . . . . . 1966: The Aberfan Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969: Hurricane Camille . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1970: The Ancash earthquake . . . . . . . . . . .
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■ Indexes Category List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXI Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXVII
xlv
Notable Natural Disasters
Volume 3 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xli Complete List of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xliii ■ Events 1970: The Bhola cyclone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Ebola outbreaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: Legionnaires’ disease . . . . . . . . . . . 1976: The Tangshan earthquake. . . . . . . . . 1980’s: AIDS pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption . . . . . . . . 1982: El Chichón eruption. . . . . . . . . . . . 1982: Pacific Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1984: African famine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1985: The Mexico City earthquake . . . . . . . 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster . . . . . . . . . . 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires . . . . . . 1988: The Leninakan earthquake . . . . . . . . 1989: Hurricane Hugo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake . . . . . . . 1991: Pinatubo eruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire . . . . . . . . . . 1992: Hurricane Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 1994: The Northridge earthquake . . . . . . . . 1995: The Kobe earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Ebola outbreak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1995: Chicago heat wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster . . . . . . . . 1997: The Jarrell tornado . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption . . . . . . . . . . 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami . . . . . . . . 1998: Hurricane Mitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Galtür avalanche . . . . . . . . . . . 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak . . . . 1999: The Ezmit earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . xlvi
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Complete List of Contents 2002: SARS epidemic. . . . . . . . 2003: European heat wave . . . . . 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 . . . . 2003: The Bam earthquake . . . . 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami . 2005: Hurricane Katrina . . . . . . 2005: The Kashmir earthquake . . 2006: The Leyte mudslide . . . . .
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■ Appendixes Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976 Time Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019 Organizations and Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039 ■ Indexes Category List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXXIX Geographical List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XLV Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LV
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Notable Natural Disasters
■ 1970: The Bhola cyclone Cyclone Date: November 12-13, 1970 Place: Ganges Delta and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) Speed: More than 100 miles per hour Result: 300,000-500,000 dead, 600,000 homeless
O
n November 13, 1970, only minutes after midnight, after being tracked by satellite and radar from its birth a thousand miles to the south some two and a half days earlier, a massive cyclone struck the coastal region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Laying waste to the delta formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, this cyclone wiped away entire villages, drowned an incalculable number of Bengalis, and compromised the agricultural production of the region. The response of the government of Pakistan, from its capital some 2,000 miles away, was perceived by the Bengalis of East Pakistan to be inadequate in substance and spirit. In addition to causing enormous physical damage, the cyclone and its aftermath contributed to the growing rift between the people of East Pakistan and the government that ruled them, thereby acting as a catalyst in the formation of the nation of Bangladesh the following year. The Geography. The particular geography of this delta, where the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers meet and pour out into the Bay of Bengal after their long journeys from the Himalayas in the north, is both a blessing and a curse. The geography both makes the delta extremely productive and leaves it susceptible to destructive and alltoo-frequent cyclones. This is the largest delta in the world, composed of a broad, low-lying, alluvial plain—interlaced with a network of smaller rivers, canals, swamps, and marshes—and, further downriver, a jumble of alluvial islands lying barely above sea level. The soils of this region are renewed every year during monsoon season, when the rivers, swollen with meltwater from the Himalayas and excess rainwater, overflow their banks and spread their nutrient-rich sediment over the plains and islands. This process makes the delta soils rich enough to support three harvests per year, providing a large per687
1970: The Bhola cyclone centage of the foodstuffs necessary to feed the country, one of the most densely populated on earth. As an area of low-lying islands and plains it is entirely defenseless, however, against flooding, especially that brought from the south by cyclone-driven storm surges. The Ganges Delta is frequently visited by some of the most destructive cyclones on earth. In 1737, for example, a cyclone took the lives of at least 300,000 people. In 1991 another killed 200,000 people in Bangladesh. In numerous other years (there were eight cyclones in the 1960’s) lesser cyclones have caused tens of thousands of fatalities. These cyclones are spawned every late spring and autumn north of the equator in the warm tropical waters of the Indian Ocean. The cyclones produced there are inherently no more pow-
CHINA
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Kathmandu
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put hma
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ive ra R
r
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Khulna Calcutta
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1970: The Bhola cyclone erful or intense than those produced in other regions of the world, but the geography of the Bay of Bengal in general, and of the Ganges Delta in particular, makes the cyclones especially destructive. The Bay of Bengal, shaped like a funnel, forces the cyclones, as they move north toward the Ganges Delta—which lies exactly at the northernmost point of the bay—into an increasingly narrower area, thereby concentrating the energy of the cyclone and the storm surge produced underneath. The Cyclone. The cyclone that caused such havoc in East Pakistan in the autumn of 1970 was first identified by satellite at 9 a.m. on November 10 as a low-pressure area over the Indian Ocean, southeast of Madras, India, a coastal city on the western shores of the Bay of Bengal, and therefore some 1,000 miles to the south of East Pakistan. Moving northward, the low-pressure area evolved into a cyclonic storm with wind velocities of 55 miles per hour. The following morning the storm had reached a point some 650 miles south of Chittagong, East Pakistan’s second-largest city and most important port, located just east of the Ganges Delta. The storm progressed northward into the increasingly narrow, funnel-like Bay of Bengal, its winds now at hurricane force of 75 miles per hour. The accelerating winds and low-pressure area surrounding the eye of every cyclone tend to raise the water level of the ocean underneath by 1 or 2 feet, providing the basis of the storm surge associated with these storms. The approach of a cyclone to a coast forces the storm surge underneath into increasingly shallower water, thereby bringing it to ever-greater heights above normal sea level. This phenomenon is made worse at the top of the Bay of Bengal, where the coast nearly encircles the oncoming cyclone, concentrating, and hence raising, the storm surge even higher. Finally, as the cyclone strikes the very northern tip of the bay, its winds literally drive the storm surge into the extremely shallow water of the Ganges Delta and up and over its low-lying islands and plains. As this particular hurricane made landfall just after midnight on November 13, 1970, it brought to the delta winds over 100 miles per hour and a storm surge with waves that measured up to 30 feet high. It did so at the worst possible moment: high tide, ensuring swift and sure destruction. The wind-driven storm surge literally flowed over the islands, removing everything in its path. Many islands were de689
1970: The Bhola cyclone nuded of houses, crops, animals, and people. The storm surge, combined with the high tide and the quickly overflowing rivers—swollen with the torrents of rain delivered upriver by the cyclone—brought floodwaters up to 30 feet high in some places. Fully half of the 242 square miles of Hatia Island remained under 20 feet of water for eight hours. In the trees, above the maximum floodwater line, clung many of the survivors, those delta residents fast enough and strong enough to latch onto trees and climb higher and higher as the waters continued to rise. Below them, at floodwater level, caught in the same trees, floated the corpses of drowned animals and individuals who did not reach safety. The death toll of Bengalis was set officially at 300,000. Unofficially, it was thought to be much higher—500,000 or even 1 million. Observers attributed the higher death toll to three factors. Once the relief operations were underway, an untold number of corpses were cremated at the place and time they were found in order to lessen the possibility of epidemics. The cyclone struck at harvest time, when the population of this rich agricultural region swells with an influx of migrant workers helping to bring in the harvest. Uncounted and unknown, a large number of these people were assumed to be drowned. Finally, many of those who survived the immediate devastation died soon after of hunger, diseases, or injuries. While the geographical characteristics and tidal circumstances made for an especially devastating cyclone, the particular socioeconomic characteristics of East Pakistan made it even worse. East Pakistan had one of the highest population densities in the world. At the time of the cyclone, it measured more than 1,300 people per square mile. Under the best of circumstances, evacuating such a large concentration of people under threat of imminent natural disaster would be enormously difficult. East Pakistan possessed, moreover, neither a transportation network nor, even more basic, a warning and evacuation system adequate to the task. Soon after the disaster it was noted that while Calcutta Radio had reported from India about the cyclone and issued repeated emergency bulletins for hours before its arrival, Dhaka Radio—the only source of information for those living on the distant offshore islands of the Ganges Delta—had made only general reference to an arriving storm, failing to stress to its listeners the danger on the horizon. Hav690
1970: The Bhola cyclone ing no radio at all, many other islands and villages received no news or warning whatsoever and were thus caught completely by surprise. The Aftermath. For those who did survive the cyclone and its aftermath, daily life and long-term reconstruction alike would be enormously difficult. It was estimated that the cyclone and its storm surge destroyed the houses of 85 percent of the families in the affected region, leaving some 600,000 survivors homeless. The storm also seriously damaged the agricultural sector of the region, depleting food supplies throughout the country. Hundreds of fishing and transport vessels, including one freighter weighing over 150 tons, were washed inland or otherwise destroyed. Over 1 million head of livestock were drowned. At least 1.1 million acres of rice paddies, holding an estimated 800,000 tons of grain, were destroyed. The storm also incapacitated some 65 percent of East Pakistan’s coastal fisheries, thereby seriously compromising the country’s most important source of protein for years to come. A disaster of this magnitude visited upon a poor region such as East Pakistan required enormous immediate and long-term relief, necessitating both international aid and the concerted efforts of the Pakistani government. Within less than a month some $50 million of relief supplies had been delivered to East Pakistan, contributed by foreign governments, international organizations, and private volunteer agencies. The League of Red Cross Societies expected, however, that East Pakistan would need direct foreign assistance at least until April of 1971. The World Bank had also devised a long-term reconstruction plan to the amount of $185 million, to be administered by governmental authorities with the advice of World Bank specialists. The delivery and distribution of such aid, especially emergency relief, was not without problems. The floodwaters, teeming with decaying corpses and excrement, made perfect breeding grounds for typhoid and cholera, thereby hindering the establishment and staffing of distribution stations. The real relief problems were human-made and contributed to problems between East Pakistan and the central Pakistani government in Karachi. Before the end of the month of November, East Pakistani political and social leaders began to accuse the governing authorities of “gross neglect, callous inattention, and utter indif691
1970: The Bhola cyclone ference” to the suffering of the survivors of the cyclone; this criticism was not unwarranted. Two days before that announcement the League of Red Cross Societies had decided to postpone further delivery of aid because of the increasingly large stockpiles of relief supplies that remained in Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, awaiting final distribution. A team of Norwegian doctors and nurses reported that it had been idle for two days, still waiting for instructions from the governmental authorities. The relief effort of the government of Pakistan itself, from its capital in Karachi, over 2,000 miles away on the other side of India, was perceived to be slow and insufficient. Only after the embarrassment of international pressure and publicity did the government of Pakistan respond to the plight of the East Pakistanis. Meanwhile, people continued to die of starvation and disease by the tens of thousands, and refugees continued to stream across the border into the already overcrowded Indian city of Calcutta. Two days after the disaster, General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, the commander in chief of the armed forces and effective ruler of Pakistan, which at the time was under martial law, visited Dhaka briefly after a visit to Beijing. He left the next day: The people of East Pakistan and their political leaders perceived this as evidence of official indifference to their suffering. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of modern Bangladesh, commented from jail, “West Pakistan has a bumper wheat crop, but the first shipment of food grain to reach us is from abroad. . . . We have a large army, but it is left to the British Marines to bury our dead.” On December 7, 1970, less than a month after the cyclone struck the Ganges Delta, elections for the Pakistani National Assembly were held; for the first time East and West Pakistanis would elect their representatives directly. The results were telling; the Awami League, the political party calling for the independence of East Pakistan, won 160 out of 162 seats allotted to East Pakistan. In April of 1971, East Pakistan would rename itself Bangladesh and declare independence. By December, after civil war and the defeat of the Pakistani army in Bangladesh by the army of India, Bangladesh became recognized as an independent nation. Rosa Alvarez Ulloa
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1970: The Bhola cyclone For Further Information: Cornell, James. “Cyclones: Hurricanes and Typhoons.” The Great International Disaster Book. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976. Frazier, Kendrick. “Hurricanes.” In The Violent Face of Nature: Severe Phenomena and Natural Disasters. New York: William Morrow, 1979. Heitzman, James, and Robert Worden. Bangladesh: A Country Study. 2d ed. Area Handbook Series DA Pam 550-175. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989. Whittow, John. “High Winds.” Disasters: The Anatomy of Environmental Hazards. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979.
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■ 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Tornadoes Also known as: The Super Outbreak Date: April 3-4, 1974 Place: 11 states in the U.S. South and Midwest, as well as Ontario, Canada Classification: 6 tornadoes rated F5 Result: 316 dead, nearly 5,500 injured, $1 billion in damage
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he largest tornado outbreak (several tornadoes in one day) to date in the United States resulted from the unusual collision of cold, dry air from the west upon warm, moist air extending east through the Ohio River Valley. The storm cell created was carried by strong, fast-moving winds common for systems in the early spring—a front moved from Colorado to Detroit in only a few hours, reaching the speed of 60 miles per hour near St. Louis. However, when the storm cell met the jet stream, events ceased to be common. Three parallel lines of squalls began to form shortly after noon on Wednesday, April 3, 1974. These squalls were more than 11 miles high and eventually a total of 2,598 miles long. They moved at an average rate of 50 miles per hour. At 2:08 p.m. in Lincoln, Illinois, the squall line from St. Louis to Lake Michigan spawned the first of what would be 148 tornadoes in all before the activity ended at 5:20 a.m. on April 4. Meanwhile, a tornado in the second and more violent line from central Tennessee to southern Michigan touched down in Cleveland, Tennessee, at 2:10 p.m., with additional tornadoes in Jonesville and Depauw, Indiana, ten minutes later. The third line, along the Tennessee-North Carolina border, did not fully form until the early evening of April 3 but ultimately birthed just over one-third of the tornadoes in the outbreak and left 100 people dead. The Jumbo Outbreak—or Super Outbreak, as a number of survivors have also termed it—was not only more extensive than all other known instances to date but also unusually intense, with tornado path lengths and widths one order of magnitude greater than those 694
1974: The Jumbo Outbreak associated with average tornadoes. Natural barriers were thus no impediment to the powerful funnels. One of the worst storms moved continuously over 51 miles in Alabama, including across a lake. Among other damage, this tornado destroyed a mobile home park with its winds of 260 miles per hour. Another tornado climbed the 3,300-foot peak of Rich Knob in Georgia to ravage the valley below, while another of the Alabama funnels continued on after jumping a 200-foot cliff. Yet the tornadoes did not form in any major population centers, while many people in the tornadoes’ paths survived remarkably. For example, in Branchville, Indiana, a school bus rolled 400 feet off the road, killing the driver and his wife. Another bus driver nearby, though, evacuated the children on board and had them lie in a ditch. The bus blew over them, but no one else was seriously hurt. In another tornado, the winds caused the car of a man driving home from work to somersault twice and land in his neighbor’s yard. Although he was badly cut by glass, the man found his family huddled safely in the basement beneath the rubble of his home. There were also the freakish stories typically created by tornadoes, such as that of the pet rabbit in a hutch behind a home in Dawson County, Georgia, that ended up safe in the kitchen while 3 of the 5 human members of the family perished. Overall, 11 states—Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia—and over 50,000 people experienced the outbreak in the United States. Eight people also died and more than 10 were hurt in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The National Guard was called out in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. All three states, as well as Indiana, Georgia, and Alabama, were later named federal disaster areas. Eight hundred Red Cross workers served the stricken communities. The power system of the Tennessee Valley Authority suffered the worst damage of its forty-year history, while 90 percent of Huntsville, Alabama, was left without electricity and nine towns in Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio, were among municipalities that lost phone service. At the height of activity, 15 tornadoes were on the ground simultaneously. Thirteen tornadoes were rated at an intensity of F1, 22 at F2, 30 at F3, 22 at F4, and 6 at F5 through a combination of decisions by local weather offices and aerial pictures. The strongest tornadoes oc695
1974: The Jumbo Outbreak curred at Xenia, Ohio; Depauw, Indiana; Sayler Park, Ohio; Brandenburg, Kentucky; First Tanner, Alabama; and Guin, Alabama. Etowa, Tennessee; Cleveland, Tennessee; Tanner, Alabama; Harvest, Alabama; Huntsville, Alabama; and Livingston, Tennessee were all struck twice by funnels. In Huntsville, one injured man went to a church to wait for an ambulance, only to be killed by the second tornado ten minutes later. There were two cases of family tornadoes, or several tornadoes spawned from one funnel: near Monticello, Indiana, where 150 homes and 100 businesses valued at $100 million were destroyed, and along the Indiana-Kentucky border near Cincinnati, Ohio. During the outbreak, a moderate earthquake centered in Springfield, Illinois, occurred coincidentally. There were no injuries or damage caused by the tremor, though. The two communities hit hardest during the Jumbo Outbreak were Xenia, Ohio, and Brandenburg, Kentucky. Xenia, Ohio. In Xenia, near Dayton, the storm began around 4:30 p.m. Eastern time on April 3 as two small funnels twisting around each other. These funnels intensified as they approached Xenia, creating suction vortices that spun over the city of 25,000 for the next forty-five minutes. One vortex moved from west to east at speeds nearing 200 miles per hour. As a whole, the Xenia tornado was composed of a dust column between 30 and 40 feet wide, probably spinning at 100 miles per hour. There were no weather sirens in Xenia at the time, so many people had no idea the weather was deteriorating until the tornado was on top of them. By the time the tornado moved through Xenia, 35 people had died and 1 of every 25 residents (or 1,150 total) was injured. The dead included 2 National Guardsmen fighting a fire in the aftermath of the tornado and 5 people found at the A&W drive-in restaurant. Fortunately, the elementary and secondary schools had all finished classes for the day, and students from Wilberforce College and Central State College were out of town on spring break, since there was almost no warning when the tornado first hit. Three schools were completely ruined, and three more were seriously damaged. At the high school, the drama troupe took refuge in a classroom outside the auditorium shortly before the roof collapsed and three school buses were tossed onto the stage. One family with 5 children miraculously 696
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To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
One of the tornadoes of the Jumbo Outbreak, this funnel cloud struck Xenia, Ohio, which suffered major damage. (AP/Wide World Photos)
survived despite having to take refuge in a glass shop, which exploded around them. Half of the city’s homes were damaged or destroyed. Typically, all the houses on one side of a street collapsed while the other side suffered less damage. This was because the wind blew in the garage doors on one side of the street, and the homes collapsed once the wind blew inside. All 3 power lines into Xenia were blown down, and 5 of the 7 supermarkets were demolished. Besides the National Guard, personnel from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base lent support to tornado cleanup efforts and supplied fresh water to Xenia. Damages in Xenia were estimated to be three-fourths of the $100 million total repair costs for Ohio. It took three months of 200 trucks per day to haul away the rubble. Brandenburg, Kentucky. At 3:40 p.m., a tornado touched down near Hardinsburg, Kentucky. Half an hour later, it had grown to 500 yards across and struck Brandenburg in the most serious of the 26 tornado touchdowns in Kentucky during the Jumbo Outbreak. 697
1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Thirty-one of Brandenburg’s 1,700 residents were killed when a tornado struck there, and 250 were hurt. This was a substantial percentage of the 71 dead and 280 injured reported in all of Kentucky as of April 4. Many tornado victims were apparently children playing outside after school. Soldiers from Fort Knox provided assistance with rescue and recovery, bringing searchlights the night of April 3 to search for the dead. Brandenburg’s five-block downtown area was completely demolished. Total damages were estimated at $22 million. Learning from the Jumbo Outbreak. The spring of 1974 had already shown some penchant for storms. For example, 20 tornadoes were recorded on April 1, killing 2 and injuring 51 in ten states, while damaging or destroying 72 aircraft worth $1 million at North Metropolitan Airport in Nashville (now Nashville International Airport). Meteorologists knew that the weather patterns remained volatile, yet none of them could have predicted that within three days the United States would be on its way to suffering the most tornado deaths in one year since 1953. No one guessed that the previous record for tornadoes over a twenty-four-hour period would be smashed, either. That mark was the more than 60 funnels recorded on February 19, 1884, in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. That tornado outbreak destroyed 10,000 buildings, killed 800, and injured 2,500. However, tornado researcher Theodore Fujita was determined to use the events of April 3-4, 1974, to better understand tornadoes and to improve preparedness and safety. He flew over 10,000 miles after the outbreak in a joint survey with the University of Oklahoma and the National Severe Storms Laboratory, gathering a vast amount of useful data. In fact, nearly half of the tornadoes studied by Fujita and his assistants at the University of Chicago during his career were the ones from this outbreak. Fujita accumulated evidence from the Jumbo Outbreak—a phrase he coined based on the 747 “jumbo jet” (“74” for 1974 and “7” from the sum of April 3 and 4)—to support two of his theories. First, in one forest, Fujita photographed a peculiar starburst pattern, where the fallen trees pointed out from one spot. This helped him argue for the existence of microbursts, phenomena that can push a tornado off its path. Second, Fujita was able to demonstrate the presence of suction 698
1974: The Jumbo Outbreak vortices, small vortices within a tornado that seem to suck the debris together. Three motions coincide in the suction vortex—the motion of the tornado, the rotation of the suction spot around the tornado, and the spin of the vortex—and can result in a circular area of damage with a diameter of up to 20 feet. Because the Xenia tornado was transparent and its funnel did not extend all the way from the ground to the cloud, Fujita could show the motion of suction vortices by the movement of dust and debris in home movies from Xenia. Fujita’s research into the Jumbo Outbreak helped scientists distinguish between damage caused by tornadoes and by strong winds. They thus learned more about the conditions under which tornadoes occur so that the public can be warned earlier. In addition, the outbreak encouraged meteorologists to continue trying to improve their radar systems. By the late 1990’s, tornadoes that were merely “green blobs” in 1974 could be seen clearly on Doppler screens. Meteorologists also urged towns to invest in weather sirens. For example, Xenia installed a system of ten alarms. Finally, many of the communities devastated by the outbreak took pride in rebuilding their homes and making them better than before. Amy Ackerberg-Hastings For Further Information: Ball, Jacqueline A. Tornado! The 1974 Super Outbreak. New York: Bearport, 2005. Burt, Christopher C. Extreme Weather: A Guide and Record Book. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Butler, William S., ed. Tornado: A Look Back at Louisville’s Dark Day, April 3, 1974. Louisville, Ky.: Butler Books, 2004. Fujita, T. Theodore. “Jumbo Tornado Outbreak of 3 April 1974.” Weatherwise 27 (1974): 116-126. Rosenfield, Jeffrey. Eye of the Storm: Inside the World’s Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards. New York: Basic Books, 2003. U.S. Department of Commerce. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Widespread Tornado Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974: A Report to the Administrator. Rockville, Md.: Author, 1974. Weems, John Edward. The Tornado. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991.
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■ 1976: Ebola outbreaks Epidemics Date: Late June-November 20, 1976, in Sudan and September 1October 24, 1976, in Zaire Place: Southern Sudan and northern Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) Result: 151 dead out of 284 cases (53 percent mortality), 280 dead out of 318 cases (88 percent mortality)
I
n 1967, 23 commercial laboratory workers were hospitalized in Marburg, Germany, for a hemorrhagic fever that was traced to the handling of vervets (African green monkeys) imported from Uganda. Six more medical workers in Frankfurt, Germany, who were involved in the treatment of these patients, also became sick. At the same time, a veterinarian who handled monkeys and his wife were infected in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Electron microscopy work determined that the disease agent was an unusual-looking ribonucleic acid virus. It had a unique, slender filamentous comma shape or branched shape and caused 23 percent mortality. Relatively few detected recurrences of this disease have occurred since its discovery. However, a serologically distinct but related virus with similar effects, now known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), was identified during two almost simultaneous epidemics during 1976. The diseases begin four to sixteen days after infection as an increasingly severe influenza-like illness, with high fever, headaches, chest pains, and weakness for about two days. This is followed in the majority of cases by severe diarrhea, vomiting, dry throat, cough, and rash. Bleeding from body openings is very common, and patients can become aggressive and difficult to manage. The virus reaches high levels in the blood and other body fluids, and the resulting tissue infections are so extensive that organ damage can be widespread. Within seven to ten days the patient is severely exhausted and dehydrated and often dies of shock. The natural animal reservoir for this virus is not known, and human-to-human transmission mostly results from close, intimate contact. There is presently no known treatment. 700
1976: Ebola outbreaks LIBYA
EGYPT Port Sudan
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NIGER
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Nil
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Atbarah Khartoum ERITREA SUDAN Al Fashir
CHAD
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Wh
NIGERIA
SOMALIA
Wau
CAMEROON
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
ETHIOPIA Juba
Bangassou Bumba Co
GABON
Kisangani ngo River
Matadi
KENYA
Lake Victoria
ZAIRE (CONGO) BURUNDI Kananga Kalemi Kamina
Atlantic Ocean
UGANDA
RWANDA
Mbandaka
CONGO (Brazzaville) Kinshasa Cabinda (Angola)
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TANZANIA
Indian Ocean
Likasi ANGOLA ZAMBIA
Sudan. The epidemic started in Nzara township, where most residents live in mud-walled, thatched-roof houses in the thick woodlands adjacent to the African rain forest zone. The first persons infected with Ebola hemorrhagic fever are believed to be three employees of a cotton factory, part of an agricultural cooperative, in Nzara; local raw cotton is converted to cloth by the 455 employees of this factory. A factory storekeeper became ill on June 27, 1976, with a high fever, headache, and chest pains. He bled from the nose and mouth and had bloody diarrhea by the fifth day, was hospitalized in Nzara on June 30, and died on July 6. His brother nursed him and also became sick but recovered after two weeks. Another storekeeper who worked with the deceased storekeeper entered the hospital on July 12 and died July 14. His wife took ill and died on July 19. Another factory worker employed in the cloth room next to the store where the two deceased employees worked became sick on July 18, entered the hospital on July 24, and died on July 27. None of the men lived near each other nor socialized together, and 701
1976: Ebola outbreaks their lives were very different. Eventually associates of the third employee became ill, and one individual who managed the jazz club, a social center in Nzara, journeyed to the Maridi hospital, where he died. Forty-eight cases and 27 deaths in Nzara could be traced to the third employee. By July, September, and October, additional factory employees were getting sick but could not be tied directly to previously infected individuals. Most were cared for by family members in isolated homesteads. This helped limit the spread of the disease. The individual who died in Maridi was cared for by close friends and several hospital employees, all of whom came down with the fever. They were cared for by others, who managed to spread the disease to various regions around the Maridi township. An additional source of infection arrived when a nurse from Nzara came in for treatment. Many of the hospital staff were also infected. By the time the World Health Organization (WHO) team arrived in Maridi on October 29, the situation was dire there but improving in Nzara. The Maridi hospital was virtually emptied of patients; 33 of the 61 on the nursing staff had died, and 1 doctor had developed the disease. Eight additional people associated with hospital maintenance also died. Thus, the local community viewed the hospital as the source of their woes. Isolation measures were quickly adopted, and protective clothing was distributed within the hospital. Five teams of 7 individuals each, including schoolteachers and older school boys led by a public health official, were to visit every homestead and identify infected individuals in the community, who were then requested to come to the hospital. If they preferred to stay at home, relatives were warned to restrict contact with the patient. Funeral rituals also hastened the spread of the disease because ritual called for the body being prepared for burial by removing all food and excreta by hand. Local leaders were apprised of the situation, and they encouraged people to bring their dead to Maridi, where medical personnel would cleanse the bodies. Their support accelerated the work of the surveillance teams, which expanded their efforts to include a 30-mile radius around Maridi by November 17. The final count of 284 cases was distributed as 67 in Nzara, 213 in Maridi, 3 in Tembura, and 1 in Juba. Epidemiological analysis indicated that Nzara was the source of the epidemic, and the cotton factory was studied most intensively. Infections developed in the cloth 702
1976: Ebola outbreaks room and nearby store, the weaving areas, and the drawing-in areas only. There were no infections in the spinning area, where most of the employees worked. Zaire. The focus of the epidemic in Zaire was in a region where more than three-quarters of the 275,000 people of the Bumba zone live in villages with fewer than 5,000 people. This region is part of the middle Congo River basin and is largely a tropical rain forest. The Yambuku Catholic Mission was founded by Belgian missionaries in 1935 and provided medicines to a region of about 60,000 people in the Yandongi collectivity (county). In 1976 there were 120 beds supervised by a medical staff of seventeen, including a Zairean medical assistant and three Belgian nuns who worked as nurses and midwives. Around 6,000 to 12,000 people were treated monthly. Five syringes and needles were distributed to the nursing staff every morning for use at the outpatient, prenatal, and inpatient clinics. Unfortunately, they were only rinsed in warm water between uses, unlike in the surgical ward, which had its own equipment that was sterilized after every use. The first person to exhibit definitive signs of the Ebola virus was a forty-four-year-old male teacher at the Mission School who had recently toured the most northern areas of Zaire, the Mobayi-Mbongo zone, by automobile with other Mission employees from August 10 to August 22. His fever was suggestive of malaria, so he was injected with chloroquine on August 26 at the outpatient clinic. His fever disappeared and then reappeared on September 1, along with other symptoms. He was admitted with gastrointestinal bleeding to the Yambuku Mission Hospital (YMH) on September 5. The medical staff gave him antibiotics, chloroquine, vitamins, and intravenous fluids but nothing worked. He died on September 8. Records for the outpatient clinic were too incomplete to trace easily possible earlier cases, but there may have been one individual with EHF treated on August 28, who was described as having an odd combination of symptoms: nosebleeds and diarrhea. He may have been the source of the infection, but he left the clinic and was never found. Nine additional conclusive cases occurred in people who had received treatment for other diseases at the outpatient clinic at YMH. A sixteen-year-old female was given transfusions for her anemia. An adult woman was given vitamin injections so that she could care for 703
1976: Ebola outbreaks her husband recovering from hernia surgery. Another adult woman was recovering from malaria, tended by her husband. All later succumbed and died of EHF, and soon those who had nursed these individuals or prepared their bodies for burial also came down with the disease. The disease struck 21 family members and friends of the first patient, and 18 died. This new, mysterious disease that caused people to bleed to death and to go crazy was soon causing a panic in the local villages. On September 12 a nun became sick, and other nuns radioed for help. The provincial physician arrived on September 15 and, equally baffled, gathered as much information as he could and then returned to Bumba, where he requested help from administrators in Kinshasa. On September 19, the nun died; by then, the bleeding illness was responsible for deaths in more than 40 villages. Two professors of epidemiology and microbiology from the National University of Zaire were sent to Yambuku. They arrived on September 23, expecting to study the situation for six days, but left after a day of collecting blood and tissue samples from cadavers and patients. The professors also took two nuns and a father back with them to Kinshasa for treatment. Thirteen of the 17 staff members at YMH had become infected and 11 had died, so the hospital was closed on October 3. At least 85 out of 288 cases, where transmission could be traced, had received injections at YMH. Another 149 patients had had close contact with infected patients, and 49 had been subject to injections and patient contact. The former physician of Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko, Dr. William Close, was contacted by the Minister of Health in order to gain assistance from the United States. He contacted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, which provided laboratory support. By mid-October medical authorities had imposed a quarantine on the Bumba zone. Village elders requested their community members to stay in their homes, and all activities stopped. By now officials were aware that there was a similar epidemic in southern Sudan, and blood samples from both locales were shipped to the virus unit of the WHO in Geneva, which then forwarded them to the CDC. On October 15, the WHO reported the presence of a new virus, later named Ebola for a local river. What followed was an internationally coordinated investigation of 704
1976: Ebola outbreaks both Zaire and Sudan by at least eight nations, several international organizations, and Zaire’s entire medical community. The most upto-date isolation strategies were used, and patients were attended by personnel in protective suits. A complete epidemiological investigation was conducted, studying 550 villages and interviewing 34,000 families. Scientists took blood samples from 442 people in the communities where the infection was most prevalent. They also collected local insects and animals, with no success at finding the animal reservoir. Although geographically and chronologically close, the two epidemics appear to have been independent events. There were relatively few travelers and no Ebola cases between the two locales. Molecular analyses also indicated the two strains of Ebola were different. The Nzara virus is relatively more infectious, and the Yambuku virus is more lethal. Both Ebola virus strains were placed in the new filovirus family. It was not until 1995 that another major Ebola epidemic occurred, this time in Kikwit, Zaire. EHF outbreaks before 1995 were sporadic and small, including 1 death in Tandala, Zaire, in 1977; 34 cases and 22 dead in Nzara and Yambio, Zaire, in 1979; and 1 case in Tai, Ivory Coast. There may have been a near miss when macaque monkeys from the Philippines residing in a facility in Reston, Virginia, died from an Ebola-like filovirus in 1989. The virus did not affect humans. Scientists continued to search for a cure, knowing that the prevention of future epidemics hinges on identification of the animal reservoir and the presence of adequate health care facilities in some of the poorest regions of the world. Joan C. Stevenson For Further Information: Garrett, Laurie. The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance. New York: Penguin Books, 1994. Klenk, Hans-Dieter, ed. Marburg and Ebola Viruses. New York: Springer, 1999. Murphy, Frederick A., and Clarence J. Peters. “Ebola Virus: Where Does It Come from and Where Is It Going?” In Emerging Infections, edited by Richard M. Krause. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1998. 705
1976: Ebola outbreaks Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone. New York: Random House, 1994. Simpson, D. I. H. Marburg and Ebola Virus Infections: A Guide for Their Diagnosis, Management, and Control. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 1977. Smith, Tara C. Ebola. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2006. WHO/International Study Team. “Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever in Sudan, 1976. Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever in Zaire, 1976.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 56, no. 2 (1978): 247-293.
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■ 1976: Legionnaires’ disease Epidemic Date: July 21-August 4, 1976 Place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Result: 29 dead, 221 infected
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earlong U.S. bicentennial celebrations reached a peak on July 4, 1976, in the city of Philadelphia. Philadelphians proudly displayed American flags on the porches of their row houses, welcoming the thousands of visitors who came to witness the United States celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. President Gerald Ford gave a speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia to record the occasion for posterity. Later that afternoon, the historic Liberty Bell monument, which had been silent for many decades, was struck. Bells in towns across the country simultaneously echoed the toll of the Liberty Bell. By nightfall the excitement escalated. The light from red, white, and blue fireworks lit up skies from coast to coast. Less than three weeks later, after so many jubilant festivities, Pennsylvanians were stunned and helpless when the city witnessed a major event in medical history and found it was again the focus of media attention. The stifling July heat and drizzling rain that fell during the legionnaires’ parade added to the sticky humidity but did not offer much relief to spectators and legionnaire families lining the center city streets in Philadelphia. The veterans with the American Legion held parades to kick off their annual gatherings. The BellvueStratford Hotel, a national and historic Philadelphia landmark built in the early 1900’s, hosted the fifty-eighth Pennsylvania State American Legion Convention, where an outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness mysteriously occurred among a group of attendees. More than 4,000 delegates attended the four-day convention at the hotel, which lasted from July 21 to 24, 1976. One week after the convention, American Legion officials in Pennsylvania began receiving calls from members statewide: They reported several legionnaires had died and dozens of others were hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Leaders from 707
1976: Legionnaires’ disease the American Legion quickly alerted city and state health department personnel and media to the rapidly increasing number of legionnaires stricken by the mysterious illness. The epidemic pneumonia that emerged following the American Legion convention was subsequently described as “one of the most publicized epidemics” in which the elite Centers for Disease Control (CDC) medical investigators had participated. State and national newspapers covering the story reported the link of the illness to legionnaire members, calling the mysterious pneumonia “Legionnaires’ disease,” and they constantly pressed researchers for information on the official death tolls and progress reports on the investigation of the outbreak. Ten days after the convention concluded, publishing a brief account in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of August 6, 1976, researchers from the CDC in Atlanta stated 22 people had died from pneumonia caused by Philadelphia Respiratory Disease. State and city physicians and epidemiologists investigating the cause of the illness that was later officially named Legionnaires’ disease were not initially able to identify the agent responsible because it mimicked other illnesses and could not be cultured using standard laboratory techniques. Four months passed before investigators were able to find the answers and to unlock the mystery that accompanied the sometimesfatal infection. Then, on January 14, 1976, Joseph McDade, a CDC research microbiologist, isolated a bacterium that caused the epidemic. The bacteria responsible for the disease was named Legionella pneumophila (lung-loving). It was difficult to isolate and culture, and the patterns seen in chest X rays of the victims resembled patterns that had previously been associated with viral infections. Eventually, in this outbreak legionellosis caused 29 deaths (various sources list 29-34 deaths) and sickened 221 people, some of whom were not directly associated with the convention. Classification and Definition. In 1999, scientists characterized Legionella pneumophila as a naturally occurring aquatic microorganism. Legionella species are now recognized as a leading cause of community-acquired pneumonia. The CDC has estimated that 17,000 to 23,000 cases of Legionnaires’ disease occur annually in America, with less than 1,000 of these cases being confirmed and reported. The resulting mortality rate, which ranges up to 25 percent in 708
1976: Legionnaires’ disease untreated immunity-compromised patients, can be lowered if the disease is diagnosed rapidly and appropriate antimicrobial therapy instituted early. Legionella pneumophila is estimated to be responsible for 80 to 85 percent of reported cases of Legionella infections, with the majority of cases being caused specifically by Legionella pneumophilia. Risk Factors, Symptoms, and Treatment. Those at risk for Legionnaires’ disease include people fifty years of age and older, smokers, and those with pulmonary disease. People with weakened immune systems, such as organ transplant patients, kidney dialysis patients, and those suffering from cancer and AIDS, are also at risk, as are those who are exposed to water vapor containing L. pneumophila. Males are 2.5 times more likely to contract the disease than females. People with legionellosis usually first display a mild cough and low fever and, if untreated, can quickly advance through progressive pneumonia and coma. The incubation period for L. pneumophila is two to ten days. Other early symptoms of this disease include malaise, muscle aches, and a slight headache. In later stages, victims have displayed high fevers (105 degrees Fahrenheit); dry, unproductive coughs; and shortness of breath. Gastrointestinal symptoms observed include vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal pain. Since identification of L. pneumophila, clinicians have reported it is effectively treated with either erythromycin or a combination of erythromycin and rifampin. Reservoirs and Amplifiers. Scientists sampling lakes, ponds, streams, marine and fresh waters, and soils have isolated the L. pneumophila bacterium in nature. Amplifiers are defined by scientists as any natural or human-made system that provides suitable conditions for the growth of the bacterium. Controversy still surrounds the exact location of the bacterial agent responsible for the Philadelphia outbreak; however, most articles list the hotel air conditioner water cooling tower as the source. Scientific publications after 1978 reported the isolation of L. pneumophila from human-made plumbing systems, including showers, faucets, hot-water tanks, cooling towers, evaporative condensers, humidifiers, whirlpools, spas, decorative fountains, dental water units, grocery produce misters, and respiratory-therapy equipment. The plumbing systems of hotels, dental offices, hospitals, grocery stores, 709
1976: Legionnaires’ disease gymnasiums, and homes have also been documented as sources for the bacterium. Environmental factors associated with survival of this bacterium are water temperatures between 68 and 122 degrees Fahrenheit (20 and 50 degrees Celsius), stagnant water, pH ranges of 2.08.5, microbiotically nutrient sediments, and host microorganisms (algae, protozoa, flavobacteria, and Pseudomonas bacteria). Transmission. In 1980, CDC investigators published six key events required for the transmission of Legionella. The first three events— survival in nature, amplification, and aerosolization—are influenced by environmental parameters (reservoir temperature and pH, microorganism populations, climate, humidity, and biocides). In contrast, the last three events—susceptible exposure, intracellular multiplication in human phagocytes, and diagnosis of Legionnaires’ disease— are clinical parameters (patient risk factors, virulence, symptoms, laboratory testing, and diagnosis). Anthony Newsome and Mary Etta Boulden For Further Information: Fraser, David W., et al. “Legionnaires’ Disease: Description of an Epidemic of Pneumonia.” New England Journal of Medicine 297 (1977): 1189-1197. Katz, Sheila Moriber, ed. Legionellosis. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 1985. McCoy, William F. Preventing Legionellosis. Seattle: IWA, 2005. Shader, Laurel. Legionnaire’s Disease. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2006. Stout, Jane E., and Victor L. Yu. “Legionellosis.” The New England Journal of Medicine 337 (1997): 682-687. Thomas, Gordon, and Max Morgan-Witts. Anatomy of an Epidemic. New York: Doubleday, 1982. Yu, Victor L. “Resolving the Controversy on Environmental Cultures for Legionella: A Modest Proposal.” Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology 19, no. 12 (1998): 893-897.
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■ 1976: The Tangshan earthquake Earthquake Date: July 28, 1976 Place: Tangshan, northeastern China Magnitude: 8.0 Result: About 250,000 dead (the highest death toll for a natural disaster in the twentieth century), 160,000 seriously injured, almost the entire city of 1.1 million people destroyed
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hina has a long recorded history of earthquakes. Geologically, it is a region of complex tectonic relationships. The Indian Plate is pushing northward in the southwest, forming the Himalayas and elevated Tibetan Plateau, and oceanic plates are approaching and colliding in the southeast and east. Historically, China is a vast region that has had a large population for millennia, as well as a relatively advanced culture, with recorded history extending back well over two thousand years. When the Communist Party took power in 1949 and the People’s Republic of China began, a search was initiated by 130 historians to document the history of seismic activity. They found that there had been more than ten thousand earthquakes recorded in China in the previous three thousand years—over five hundred of them of disaster proportions. Setting. Tangshan is a large, thriving industrial city at 39.4 degrees north latitude and 118.1 degrees east longitude in Hebei Province of northeast China, 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of the capital of Beijing. It is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Gulf of Chihli, on the Yellow Sea. Its name derives from the T’ang dynasty (618-907 c.e.) and the word for mountains, “shan.” In the early 1970’s it had a population of 1.1 million, much industrial production, and China’s largest coal mine, at nearby Kailuan. There was little expectation that Tangshan was to become the site, in terms of death and destruction, of the worst natural disaster of the twentieth century, with the second highest death toll in the recorded history of earthquakes—exceeded only by a great earthquake in January, 1556, 711
1976: The Tangshan earthquake in Shaanxi (or Shensi), central China, in which 830,000 died when buildings and caves collapsed at night. The important Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region of northeast China was being intensely studied for potential seismic risk. By the early 1970’s the Chinese government had begun a major effort to investigate earthquake prediction, using the State Bureau of Seismology, other agencies, and an extensive network of field stations to monitor various geophysical and geological properties of the local earth, which were thought to be possible precursors that might herald an impending earthquake. This effort resulted in a spectacular success in 1975, when seismologists detected an increasing frequency of minor earthquakes in the region of Haicheng, northeast of Tangshan, along with some regional ground deformation. They thought this could indicate an upcoming, larger earthquake. On February 4, 1975, their warning resulted in the evacuation of well over 1 million people from their homes, factories, and other workplaces—into the cold, without civil resistance. A few hours later, at 7:36 p.m., the Haicheng area was hit by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, which destroyed 90 percent of the buildings of Haicheng as well as nearby towns and villages. There were only 1,328 deaths, however, compared to the doubtless tens of thousands who would have died without the advance warning and evacuation. A later report noted that the seismologists who had predicted the quake were “worshipped as saviours.” Unfortunately, nature would not easily yield its secrets and intentions. Despite much work in earthquake prediction in seismically active areas in the United States, Japan, Russia, and China, Haicheng remained the only major earthquake that had been predicted correctly—or with a short-term notice—by the year 2000. After the Haicheng event, various seismic stations in China issued their own predictions for local earthquakes, but none occurred. The Tangshan area had likewise been monitored since 1974 for changes in such conditions as microseismicity (number and location of very small earthquakes), ground elevation, local sea level, gravity and magnetic fields, radon gas in groundwater, and even drought conditions. There was sufficient concern that on July 15, 1976, there was a meeting of technical experts in Tangshan. However, it was felt that there was no indication of potential seismic activity exceeding 712
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magnitude 5, which was the threshold at which it would be reported to the civil authorities. Some thought an earthquake might be possible in the next few years, but there were no minor precursory foreshocks warning that a quake was imminent. There were also meetings in Beijing of the State Bureau of Seismology on July 24 and 26, regarding the possibility of a future earthquake in the Beijing-TianjinTangshan area. While there was no technical reason for immediate concern, it was also true that an alert leading to evacuation would be very disruptive to life, production, and other economic activity in the large cities in the region. Since the area is of intraplate nature, which is far away from the seismically and tectonically active margins of the crustal plates, earthquakes there are expected to be infrequent and of only moderate size. Human knowledge of crustal fracturing, stress, and potential for 713
1976: The Tangshan earthquake faulting (slippage, which causes earthquakes) is imperfect. There had been major earthquakes in the general region of Tangshan in September, 1679, and in September, 1290 (with 100,000 deaths). The Quake. Without warning, at 3:42 a.m. on July 28, 1976, a massive earthquake struck the Tangshan area. There was a loud rumbling and roaring sound, followed by violent jerking back and forth. The earthquake (including subsequent aftershocks) leveled 20 square miles (50 square kilometers) of the densely populated industrial center of the city, flattened or severely damaged 97 percent of the buildings and three-quarters of Tangshan’s 916 multistory structures (only 4 remained essentially intact), and left a ruin of crumbled buildings, fallen smokestacks, and rubble. Falling buildings, cement floor slabs, and beams immediately crushed thousands of people. Most of the disaster’s victims survived the initial shock only to suffocate or succumb to injuries after hours and days trapped in the dusty wreckage. There was no electrical power, no water, no telecommunication systems, no functioning hospital, no transport routes, and no imme-
The aftermath of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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1976: The Tangshan earthquake diate search and rescue help. With 300 miles of railroad track ruined, 231 highway bridges damaged, and rivers without crossings, relief could not arrive quickly. It was over a day before the first of an eventual 100,000 army troops and 50,000 others could arrive. For ten days the workers did not have the necessary heavy equipment and cranes to clear the rubble and retrieve many people. The city was initially shrouded in total darkness (it being nighttime) and a dense gray fog of soil, coal dust, and smoke. According to the local Chinese authorities, 242,769 people died and 164,851 were seriously injured. Other reports and international databases listed the official death toll as 250,000 to 255,000, and early estimates by visitors placed it even higher. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.8 as determined by Chinese seismologists, and 8.0 in the international database maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey/National Earthquake Information Center. Its focus, where rupture began, was at a relatively shallow depth of 14 miles (23 kilometers), and its epicenter was calculated at 39.5 degrees north and 117.9 east—virtually right under Tangshan. Later that same day, at 6:45 p.m. on July 28, there was a major aftershock, with magnitude 7.4 at the same focal region. It finished off most of the buildings that had survived the first shock. Within forty-eight hours of the initial earthquake, there were more than nine hundred aftershocks having magnitude of at least 3.0, including sixteen with magnitude at least 5.0. Aftereffects. A second disaster was averted at the large Douhe River reservoir 9 miles (15 kilometers) northeast of Tangshan. The embankment dam was cracked and weakened, and if it collapsed it would have flooded the city. Furthermore, after the earthquake a heavy rain started, and the water level was rising. The floodgate could not be opened quickly to let out the reservoir water gradually and unstress the dam, because its electrical power was disabled. Fortunately, troops working manually for eight hours managed to get the floodgate open. At the large coal mine complex, about 10,000 people were in the underground workings when the earthquake struck. The surface buildings were destroyed, but the large-amplitude surface wave vibrations—usually the most damaging of the seismic waves—became less intense with depth, and the deep workings were somewhat less 715
1976: The Tangshan earthquake affected. However, there was no electricity, no hoist cages for workers, and no water pumps to keep the workings from flooding with groundwater. Remarkably, only 17 mine workers died; the others managed to dig through the rubble and climb to safety or be rescued. Five men were brought up alive after fifteen days, having no food and only filthy water to drink. Relief and Reconstruction. The search and recovery of bodies was a slow and difficult task, with the stench of decaying bodies of people and animals, lack of clean water and sanitation, and increasing danger of an epidemic. Relief aid (clothing, tents, heavy equipment, and medical supplies) was offered by the United Nations, the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and others, but the Chinese government declined it. In retrospect, this denied timely and useful assistance. However, at the time, China was in its Cultural Revolution— a decade-long era which would last until September, 1976, when Chairman Mao Zedong died—and the Chinese wanted to display their self-reliance and not engender a dependent mentality and considered any outsiders and their assistance to be “interference by others.” It was also not an easy time for the State Bureau of Seismology and those engaged in earthquake monitoring and prediction. When the earthquake occurred, the recording seismographs in Beijing were driven off the scale by the large vibrations, and others around the country could not pinpoint the epicenter other than being somewhere around Beijing. So, with much of the telecommunication systems in the area disabled, scientists set out in vehicles in all directions to try to find the epicenter and greatest damage. After being credited with the success of predicting the Haicheng earthquake the previous year, the seismologists became ridiculed, and the failure to predict the devastating Tangshan event became blame for negligence. Anger and abuse were directed at those identified locally as earthquake experts, as if the inability to reliably predict one of nature’s great uncertainties was somehow willful and deserving of punishment. Within two years, a massive reconstruction effort had restored the city’s industrial production to what it had been. By 1986, ten years after the earthquake, restoration was mostly complete, although some citizens were still in temporary shelters, and the population of Tangshan had increased to 1.4 million. Because it was now recog716
1976: The Tangshan earthquake nized that the city was on a major crustal fault, reconstruction was carried out to make structures more earthquake-resistant. Water pipes were made with flexible joints so they could withstand vibration, embankments were reinforced around nearby reservoirs, and hazardous industries were moved outside of town. One factory that had been destroyed in the great earthquake has been left as a memorial to the thousands lost. Robert S. Carmichael For Further Information: Chen, Yong, et al., eds. The Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976: An Anatomy of Disaster. New York: Pergamon Press, 1988. De Blij, H. J. Nature on the Rampage. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1994. Housner, George W., and He Duxin, eds. The Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976. Pasadena: California Institute of Technology, 2004. Qian Gang. The Great China Earthquake. Translated by Nicola Ellis and Cathy Silber. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1989. Reese, Lori. “Tangshan: Earthquake, July 28, 1976—An Ominous Rumbling.” Time Asia 154, no. 12 (September 27, 1999). Sun, Youli. Wrath of Heaven and Earth: Chinese Politics and the Tangshan Earthquake of 1976. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
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■ 1980’s: AIDS pandemic Epidemic Date: Originating perhaps in the 1940’s or 1950’s, at pandemic levels by the 1980’s Place: Worldwide, especially Africa Result: Millions dead and infected
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t the beginning of the twenty-first century, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was infecting 6 million new individuals and killing about 2 million each year. Most of the 40 million infected during the 1990’s were expected to die in the first decade of the new century. Prospects for a vaccine were poor, and chemotherapeutic drugs were too expensive for most. Science. HIV causes the almost total destruction of CD4 helper T lymphocytes (CD4 lymphocytes). These cells are necessary for the development and maintenance of the immune response against myriad viruses and microorganisms. A person infected with HIV who has a very low CD4 lymphocyte count and one or more severe infectious diseases has acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). HIV, like all viruses, is unable to proliferate on its own. The only way it can reproduce is to get its hereditary information into an appropriate host cell. The hereditary information subsequently directs the synthesis of viral proteins and new hereditary information. New viruses “self-assemble” as they bud from the cell. One of the proteins in the viral envelope, a glycoprotein called GP120, attaches the virus to an appropriate host cell. The viral attachment protein is designated GP120 because it has sugars attached to it and a molecular weight of 120 daltons. GP120 attaches the virus to the primary cellular receptor, CD4, embedded in the membranes of macrophages and CD4 lymphocytes. Cells are distinguished by cluster differentiation (CD) molecules in their membranes. After attaching the virus to CD4, the viral attachment protein binds a coreceptor, usually CCR5 on macrophages but CXCR4 on CD4 lymphocytes. Viral attachment to a coreceptor results in the subsequent fusion of the viral membrane with the host’s membrane. Upon membrane fusion, 718
1980’s: AIDS pandemic the viral core diffuses into the host’s cytoplasm, and a viral enzyme trapped inside the core converts the viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) into double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The conversion of RNA into DNA is called reverse transcription and is carried out by the viral enzyme reverse transcriptase. The newly synthesized viral DNA is transported into the nucleus, where another viral enzyme called integrase modifies the DNA and promotes its integration into one of the host’s chromosomes. The integrated viral DNA, called the provirus, functions as a template for the synthesis of new viral RNA. Some of this viral RNA serves as messenger RNA (mRNA), which directs the synthesis of viral proteins. Full-length RNAs also serve as new hereditary information. HIV is transmitted from one person to another in body fluids: blood, mothers’ milk, semen, and vaginal secretions. Although the virus can be found in saliva and tears, it is present in such low concentrations that it is almost never transmitted through these fluids. Generally, in adults, HIV is transmitted during sexual intercourse. Viruses containing vaginal fluid deposit viruses on the mucous membranes of the mouth and genitals. Similarly, virus-laden semen may introduce viruses on the mucous membranes of the mouth, vagina, uterus, and colon. All these tissues are protected by macrophages that engulf the viruses and degrade them. If there are too many viruses, however, some of the macrophages become infected and the virus reproduces in them. Usually, CD4 lymphocytes are not infected until GP120 mutates to a form that binds the coreceptor on CD4 lymphocytes. A fetus sometimes becomes infected when the virus passes through the placenta from infected mother to fetus; however, most infections in babies occur at birth because of exposure to contaminated blood or soon after birth because of drinking mother’s milk. Viruses in the blood and milk are deposited on the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat, where they infect macrophages. About one-quarter of the blood used for medical purposes (mostly transfusions) in nonindustrialized countries is contaminated with HIV. In Africa and Southeast Asia, medical quacks and unprofessional doctors may infect their patients with HIV by reusing contaminated needles. Transfused or contaminated blood releases viruses in the circulatory and lymphatic systems. Circulatory and lymphatic 719
1980’s: AIDS pandemic macrophages destroy most of the introduced viruses, but a few of the macrophages become infected. In some countries, as many as 50 percent of those who become infected with HIV have shared contaminated hypodermic needles when abusing cocaine, heroine, or opium. Once HIV infects skin or circulatory and lymphatic system macrophages, it spreads rapidly to other macrophages in the lymph and blood. Four to six weeks after the initial infection, there may be as many as 1 million viruses per milliliter of blood produced each day. A person infected with this many viruses usually develops a headache, fever, enlarged lymph nodes, muscle aches, pharyngitis (sore throat), and a rash that may last a week or so. Some individuals experience an outbreak of oral candidiasis, caused by the yeast Candida albicans. CD4 lymphocytes sustain heavy casualties because of the high viral concentration. Typically, CD4 lymphocytes drop from about 1,000 cubic millimeters of blood to 500 cubic millimeters of blood, but in some cases the numbers may go as low as 250 cubic millimeters of blood. The destruction of 50 to 75 percent of blood CD4 lymphocytes is caused by the massive binding of viruses or viral attachment proteins (GP120) to the lymphocyte receptors (CD4). This extensive binding of proteins to CD4 induces CD4 lymphocytes to commit suicide. Programmed suicide is used to eliminate cells that might be dangerous or that are no longer needed. This early in the infection, almost no CD4 lymphocytes are infected. Thus, their destruction is not caused by viruses infecting the cells or an immune system attack by CD8cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD8 lymphocytes). Macrophages are not significantly killed by viral or GP120 binding because they have very few CD4 molecules on their surface in comparison to CD4 lymphocytes. About six weeks after the initial infection, the immune system begins to reduce the number of circulating viruses and the number of infected macrophages. Antibodies secreted by plasma cells into the lymph and blood link viruses together. Antibody-linked viruses are readily engulfed by macrophages and destroyed. CD8 lymphocytes, on the other hand, destroy infected macrophages. The number of circulating viruses goes from a high of about 1 million to as few as 1,000 per millileter of blood. This decline in viruses results in a par720
1980’s: AIDS pandemic tial recovery of CD4 lymphocytes. The number of CD4 lymphocytes may go from about 500 to 700 cubic millimeters of blood. The immune system is unable to eliminate all the viruses and infected macrophages. Proviruses are able to hide in Langerhans cells in the skin, glial cells and astrocytes in the brain, and dendrites in the testes and lymph nodes. Often, infected macrophages in these tissues fail to attract the attention of CD8 lymphocytes. A balance between the immune system and the proliferating virus may exist anywhere from three years to fifteen years. During this period, the infected person may show little or no signs of disease and is said to be asymptomatic. Although a person may appear to be well, they are infective because viruses are produced by some infected Langerhans cells. During the asymptomatic phase of the disease, genetically diverse populations of the virus evolve. Some populations gain the ability to infect CD4 lymphocytes. As viral clones become increasingly more efficient at infecting CD4 lymphocytes, the viral populations gradually increase in number. The more viruses there are, the more binding of viruses (and/or GP120) to CD4 lymphocytes occurs. CD4 lymphocytes once again commit suicide at an increasing rate. Generally, the new clones of HIV able to infect CD4 lymphocytes cause these cells to fuse together and form giant multinucleated cells called syncytia. The efficiency of the immune system decreases drastically as syncytia-inducing HIV appear. Although CD8 lymphocytes attack and destroy infected CD4 lymphocytes, this only accounts for about 1 percent of the CD4 cell loss each day. Most of the CD4 lymphocytes lost to viral (and/or GP120) binding and subsequent formation of syncytia are not infected. The destruction of uninfected CD4 lymphocytes increasingly weakens the immune system. The weakened immune system is no longer able to check HIV or fight off opportunistic pathogens. Thus, individuals infected with the new HIV clones begin to develop severe forms of common and less common diseases. HIV infected individuals that suffer from these various diseases are said to have AIDS. Without vigorous chemotherapy, death usually occurs within a year of an AIDS diagnosis. The diseases most frequently seen in adults with AIDS are tuberculosis induced by Mycobacterium avium or M. intracellulare (10-68 percent); Pneumocytis carinii pneumonia (14-62 percent); Candida albi721
1980’s: AIDS pandemic cans (yeast) infections of the mouth, pharynx, lungs, and vagina (1050 percent); bacterial and viral diarrheas (45 percent); Kaposi’s sarcoma, induced by human herpesvirus-8 (5-36 percent); cold sores, induced by human herpesvirus-1 and -2 (30 percent); HIV-associated central nervous system disease (15-30 percent), which includes HIVassociated dementia (15-20 percent) and cognitive/motor disorder (30 percent); Toxoplasma gondii infections of the central nervous system (3-27 percent); cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections of the intestines and eyes induced by human herpesvirus-5 (10-25 percent) and CMV pneumonia (6 percent); bacterial pneumonias (20 percent); shingles or varicella-zoster virus, induced by human herpesvirus-3 (15 percent); Cryptosporidium-caused diarrhea (10 percent); and Cryptococcus neoformans-induced meningitis (5 percent) and pneumonia (1 percent). The percent infected varies significantly when different populations are considered. For example, about 5 percent of persons who acquire HIV through intravenous drug abuse also become infected by human herpesvirus-8, whereas more than 30 percent of those who acquire HIV through sexual intercourse become infected with human herpesvirus-8. This accounts for the higher incidence of Kaposi’s sarcoma in male homosexuals with AIDS as compared to intravenous drug abusers with the disease. Origins. A growing body of evidence suggests that the virus responsible for the AIDS pandemic appeared in the 1940’s or 1950’s in one of the African countries dominated by rain forests and chimpanzees: Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, or Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). HIV-1 arose when a chimpanzee retrovirus, simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVcpz), infected a human. As HIV-1 spread, it evolved into ten distinct subtypes, designated MA through MJ. The viruses responsible for the AIDS pandemic belong to the “major” group of HIV-1, designated HIV-1:M. One of twelve hundred frozen blood samples taken in 1959 from a native of Zaire was positive for antibodies against HIV-1 and contained a portion of the viral hereditary information. Analysis of this information suggests that the virus existed just after HIV-1 began to diverge into distinct subtypes. The 1959 virus is most closely related to HIV-1:MD subtype but is also very closely related to HIV-1:MB and HIV-1:MF. During the early 1970’s, some of the evolving subtypes became established in prostitutes along the highways that link Zaire to East Afri722
1980’s: AIDS pandemic can countries. Truckers and military personnel spread HIV-1:MA, HIV-1:MB, HIV-1:MC, and other subtypes from Zaire into Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and Kenya. The HIV-1:MC subtype spread north from Kenya into Ethiopia and south from Tanzania into Zambia. In the 1990’s, HIV-1:MC was most frequently detected in heterosexuals of South Africa. At about the same time, subtype HIV1:MD spread from Zaire as far west as Senegal. In the early 1970’s, subtype HIV-1:MB spread from central Africa to Europe and to the United States, where it became the predominant subtype in homosexual and bisexual men. Thousands of men from America and Europe visited Kinshasa, Zaire, in late 1974 to view the heavyweight boxing championship bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Because of this event, HIV-1:MA and HIV1:MB had many chances to spread to America and Europe. The first two deaths from AIDS in homosexual men were reported in the United States in 1978; a four-year incubation period is not unusual. In North America and in Europe, HIV-1:MB became associated with homosexual and bisexual males and their sex partners. On the other hand, in South America and in the Caribbean, HIV-1:MB became dominant in heterosexuals. In the 1980’s, various subtypes of HIV-1:M spread throughout the world. HIV-1:MA from East Africa, HIV-1:MB from North America and Europe, HIV-1:MC from South Africa, and HIV-2 from West Africa entered India to begin at least four separate AIDS epidemics. From India, HIV-1:MC spread north into China and south into Malaysia. From America and Europe, HIV-1:MB and HIV-1:MBs spread to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia. HIV1:MB became the subtype associated with homosexual and bisexual men, whereas the HIV-1:Bs became the subtype associated with intravenous drug abuse. A number of epidemics raged in Southeast Asia during the 1990’s. In this region of the world, HIV-1:MC and HIV1:ME were dominant in heterosexuals, whereas HIV-1:MB and HIV1:MBs were dominant in homosexual men and intravenous drug abusers. Two strains of HIV-1 were discovered in central Africa during the 1990’s which were so different from pandemic HIV-1:M that they could not be detected by the standard antibody tests. HIV-1:O circulated in Zaire, Congo, Gabon, and Cameroon but infected only a few 723
1980’s: AIDS pandemic thousand individuals. This virus originated from another chimpanzee virus very similar to the one that gave rise to pandemic HIV-1:M. The small number of individuals infected with HIV-1:O suggested that it might have appeared in the 1980’s, but its great evolutionary distance from SIVcpz indicated that it has been around much longer than pandemic HIV-1:M (the “major” group). Possibly, HIV-1:O (the “old” group) first infected humans at the beginning of the twentieth century. HIV-1:N (the “new” group), designated YBF30, was found in Congo and Gabon. The small number of infections by HIV-1:N and the short evolutionary distance from SIVcpz suggested that this virus may first have infected humans just a little bit later than pandemic HIV-1:M. HIV-2 is closely related to monkey retroviruses that infect macaque monkeys (SIVmac) and sooty mangabey monkeys (SIVsm). It is distantly related to the retroviruses that infect African green monkeys (SIVagm) and those that infect mandrill baboons of West Africa (SIVmnd). In the 1990’s, HIV-2 was found predominantly in West Africa, from Ghana to Senegal. The variability of HIV-2 subtypes is nearly as great as that seen for HIV-1:M subtypes. This indicates that HIV-2 jumped from monkeys to humans in the late 1940’s or 1950’s. By the 1980’s HIV-2 had spread to Western Europe; it was responsible for about 10 percent of the AIDS cases in Portugal. HIV-2 also managed to reach India a few years later. Although AIDS induced by HIV-2 usually does not develop for ten to twenty years after the initial infection, it eventually kills. HIV-2 does not spread as efficiently as HIV-1:M through heterosexual intercourse or through mother’s milk. Clearly, the infectivity of HIV-2 is much less than pandemic HIV-1:M. Nevertheless, approximately 200,000 West Africans were infected with HIV-2 during the 1990’s. In fact, HIV-2 infections out numbered HIV-1 infections in Guinea Bissau, Senegal, and Gambia. In 1992, more people were infected with HIV-2 in Guinea Bissau than in any other country. Up to 13 percent of young men between fifteen and thirty-five years of age were infected. Many people in West Africa were infected with both HIV-1 and HIV-2. AIDS came into prominence quietly in the United States. In 1978, AIDS was reported in two homosexual men who were suffering from multiple infections, extreme loss of weight, swollen lymph nodes, and malaise. It is estimated that these individuals were infected some724
1980’s: AIDS pandemic time in the early 1970’s. This was the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. By 1985, 72 percent of the AIDS cases were in homosexual or bisexual men, and 17 percent were heterosexual intravenous drug abusers. These two risk groups accounted for 89 percent of the AIDS cases. In addition, about 4 percent were transfusion recipients and hemophilia patients. Approximately 4 percent of the cases were in heterosexual men and women, and 2 percent were in heterosexuals of African descent, mostly from Haiti. The AIDS epidemic continued to expand in the United States. By 1995, AIDS cases totaled more than 400,000, whereas deaths added to more than 200,000. The numbers were getting so high that new AIDS cases and deaths per year were being reported instead of totals. In 1995, there were approximately 60,000 new cases and 50,000 deaths. The risk groups for contracting AIDS were changing. Many more heterosexuals were developing AIDS. In 1995, homosexual and bisexual men accounted for 50 percent of the AIDS cases, whereas heterosexual intravenous drug abusers accounted for 30 percent. Heterosexuals having sexual intercourse with HIV-infected persons became a major risk group, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the AIDS cases. Although education, medical treatments, and new chemotherapies reduced the number of new cases of AIDS and the number of deaths by the late 1990’s, most of this reduction occurred in Caucasians. The percent of white AIDS patients in 1986, 1996, and 2005 decreased—61 percent to 38 percent to 29 percent, respectively. However, the percent of black or Hispanic AIDS patients went up or stayed the same in 1986, 1996, and 2005—for blacks, 24 percent to 42 percent to 50 percent, respectively, and for Hispanics, 14 percent to 19 percent to 19 percent, respectively. The uninformed and poor were disproportionally developing AIDS and dying. Treatment. By 1985, researchers in France and the United States developed a test for antibodies against HIV-1. All persons diagnosed with AIDS had antibodies against HIV-1 and were presumably infected with the virus. Persons not in high-risk categories were free of the antibodies and the virus. The antibody test for HIV-1 is important because it can be used to determine if asymptomatic people are infected many years before they develop AIDS. Early treatment prevents significant damage to the immune system, inhibits the spread of HIV-1, and delays the onset of AIDS. Nearly 100 percent of those 725
1980’s: AIDS pandemic infected with HIV-1 without aggressive chemotherapy die of AIDS. A drug called azidothymidine (AZT), also called zidovudine, a nucleoside analog that blocks viral DNA synthesis, was introduced in the mid-1980’s. In most cases, AZT was found to be useful for less than six months because of its toxicity and because of the rapid rate at which the viral reverse transcriptase becomes resistant to the drug. Beginning in 1996, AZT was used in conjunction with certain other nucleoside analogs (such as 3’sulfhydryl-2’deoxycytidine, abbreviated 3TC) that blocked viral reverse transcriptase. Resistance to the two-drug-combination therapy did not occur for a year or two. By 1997, there was a significant drop in the number of new AIDS cases and deaths in the United States. In 1998, the use of three-drug combinations (usually AZT, 3TC, and a protease inhibitor) effectively reduced HIV to undetectable levels in most people. The protease inhibitors blocked the viral protease needed for viral protein synthesis. The number of AIDS cases and deaths in the United States dropped more because of the three-drug therapy. The first three-drug combinations had serious side effects. Some patients developed disfiguring fat deposits on their bodies (stomachs, chests, and neck) and lost excessive fat from their faces and limbs. The first protease inhibitors were also linked to an increase in diabetes. In some cases, patients with diabetes became sick, and their lives were threatened by continued use of the protease inhibitors. Impact. Approximately 30 percent of babies born to HIV-infected mothers become infected. During the early 1990’s, the number of babies infected per year in the United States amounted to more than 2,000. Treating infected mothers with AZT for a month before birth reduced the number of infected babies by 67 percent. In 1999, a study demonstrated that AZT treatment of the mother combined with cesarean delivery of the baby would reduce the number of babies born to HIV-infected mothers to less than 2 percent. Worldwide at the beginning of the twenty-first century, more than 500,000 babies were infected each year. About 300,000 of these infections could have been prevented by treating the infected mothers with AZT for a month before birth and supplying the babies with a virusfree milk substitute. Almost all nonindustrialized countries failed to provide their poor with therapeutic drugs or milk substitutes. A massive educational effort during the late 1980’s and early 726
1980’s: AIDS pandemic 1990’s alleviated the AIDS epidemics in the industrialized countries of North America and Western Europe, yet 100,000 new persons were infected during each of the last few years of the twentieth century. Male homosexual practices accounted for more than 25,000 of the new cases, whereas intravenous drug abuse was the cause of nearly 50,000. Although most older male homosexuals became monogamous and used condoms conscientiously, up to 50 percent of younger homosexuals had numerous sex partners and failed to use condoms regularly. More education might have convinced some of these young men to protect themselves by entering monogamous relationships with HIV-free partners and by using condoms conscientiously. A number of studies demonstrated that education, drug rehabilitation programs, and the distribution of clean needles and bleach for sterilizing used needles reduced the number of persons infected by intravenous drug abuse. Education and services brought the death rates down in affluent communities in the United States; however, education, medical services, and chemotherapeutic drugs did not reach the poor blacks, Hispanics, whites, and Asians. Because these poor could not afford the $15,000-per-year treatment, their rates of infection, progression to AIDS, and death continued to increase as the twenty-first century began. In the year 2000, four regions of the world accounted for more than 35 million (93 percent) HIV-infected persons: 25 million in subSaharan Africa, 8 million in Southeast Asia, 2 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 1 million in Asia). Each year, these four regions accounted for more than 5.5 million new infections and more than 2 million deaths. The large number of persons infected and dying of AIDS at the beginning of the twenty-first century required massive worldwide intervention by the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO). However, these organizations were not up to the task of saving millions because they had myriad other agendas and lacked the tremendous amounts of money needed for education, medical services, and drugs to inhibit HIV. The Future of the AIDS Pandemic. Greed and the struggle for power played an important role in the developing AIDS pandemic. Western governments, international corporations, politicians, drug lords, and rich profiteers backed dictators, civil wars, and attacks on 727
1980’s: AIDS pandemic indigenous peoples to gain control of cheap labor, markets, and natural resources (land, wood, water, and precious metals). Western governments and corporations are particularly interested in markets. For example, in the late 1990’s, 41 international pharmaceutical companies blocked attempts by African countries to make or obtain inexpensive chemotherapeutic drugs to treat the growing number of HIV-infected persons. These companies were protecting their drug patents and royalties worth billions of dollars. The U.S. government, in support of these companies, gave South Africa a sample of what would happen if they violated U.S. intellectual property rights; the U.S. government denied preferential tariff treatment for a number of South African imports and restricted foreign aid to the country. Nearly all the 40 million persons infected by HIV during the 1990’s were expected to experience severe illnesses and painful deaths during the first ten years of the twenty-first century because they lacked the money for treatment. Secondary diseases from those dying of AIDS may spread and cause numerous localized epidemics that will further stress medical services. If anything substantial is to be done to save the uneducated and poor of the world from AIDS, everyone must realize how those in positions of power in the world are involved in the AIDS pandemic. Jaime S. Colome For Further Information: Barnett, Tony, and Alan Whiteside. AIDS in the Twenty-first Century: Disease and Globalization. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Goudsmit, Jaap. Viral Sex: The Nature of AIDS. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Mann, Jonathan M., and Daniel J. M. Tarantola, eds. AIDS in the World II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Mayer, Kenneth H., and H. F. Pizer, eds. The AIDS Pandemic: Impact on Science and Society. San Diego, Calif.: Elsevier/Academic, 2005. Piel, Jonathan, ed. The Science of AIDS: Readings from “Scientific American.” New York: W. H. Freeman, 1989. World Health Organization. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. AIDS Epidemic Update: December, 2005. Geneva, Switzerland: UNAIDS, 2005. 728
■ 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption Volcano Date: May 18, 1980 Place: Washington State Result: 57 dead, estimated 7,000 big-game animals killed, nearly 200 homes and more than 185 miles of road damaged or destroyed, 4 billion board feet of timber blown down, detectable ashfall on 22,000 square miles
A
lthough increased volcanic activity indicated an impending explosion, and in spite of intense efforts to anticipate its magnitude, scientists and government officials were unable to predict the catastrophic force of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Before the eruption, the cone of the mountain had been so symmetrical that it had often been compared to Mount Fuji in Japan, but when the ash cloud cleared, only a hollowed-out, lopsided crater remained. The mountain had shrunk from the fifth highest in Washington State at 9,677 feet to the thirtieth highest at 8,364 feet, losing about 1,300 feet of its summit. In the first seconds of the explosion, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake on the Richter scale caused by pressure from a magma intrusion triggered the collapse of one side of the mountain. This set off an enormous “debris avalanche” of large rocks and smaller particles, all moving at speeds of 70 to 150 miles per hour—the largest avalanche in recorded history. As the weight of the north face of the mountain slipped downward, the hardened rock cap over the “cryptodome,” the hot magma intrusion, was pushed aside, releasing a huge lateral explosion. Within one minute a vertical eruption column developed, and within ten minutes the ash in the column had risen more than 12 miles into a mushroom cloud 45 miles across. The successive explosions equaled the force of 27,000 atomic bombs detonated in rapid sequence, at a rate of one per second for nine hours. Lava, rock fragments, and gases stripped off nearby layers of topsoil and leveled most vegetation within a 12-mile arc to the south, west, and north of the volcano. 729
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption Fire in the Cascades. Mount St. Helens is the youngest and most active volcano in the Cascade range, the only volcanic mountains to have erupted in the contiguous United States in recorded history. These mountains form the eastern side of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” series of volcanoes. Volcanologist Stephen Harris reports 14 ash or lava eruptions from eight different Cascade peaks in the twohundred-year span between 1780 and 1980. Only Mount Baker and Mount Rainier showed as much activity as Mount St. Helens during these years. Legends among the indigenous cultures of the Northwest often featured Mount St. Helens, which was known as Loo-wit (“keeper of the fire”), Lawelatla (“one from whom smoke comes”), or Tah-onelat-clah (“fire mountain”). These names were descriptive of the volcano’s continuing activity. George Vancouver became the first European to document an observation of the mountain in 1792, when he charted inlets of Puget Sound near what is now Seattle. He named the peak St. Helens after the title given a recently appointed ambassador to Spain. A major eruption occurred in 1800, between Vancouver’s sighting and the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark expedition sighting in 1805. An 1847 painting by the artist Paul Kane known as Mount St. Helens Erupting conveys the active nature of the volcano during the middle of the nineteenth century. Mount St. Helens has built up a symmetrical cone and then transformed it to rubble at least three times, the cone of 1980 being less than 2,000 years old. Geologists believe that the rounded summit dome formed about 330 years ago. Mount St. Helens is a stratovolcano, a volcano that repeatedly grows a composite cone made up of layers of lava, ash, and other materials. Through tree-ring dating, geologists are certain that Mount St. Helens has been dormant for only two long periods since 1480, several decades between the late 1700’s and the 1800 eruption and a 123-year period between 1857 and 1980. During the dormant periods the growing silica content of the magma increased its viscosity, making it resistant to flowing and more active in dome building and fragmenting. Both activities contribute to eruptions of pyroclastic materials—combinations of incandescent rock fragments and hot gases. Using modern techniques to map old mudflows and ash deposits, geologists established the active history of Mount St. Helens in 1960, 730
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption
Cutaway View of Mount St. Helens Scenario
Ash Clouds
Summit
New Magma Magma Tunnel (Vent)
Section Blasted Away
Ruptured Side Vent Internal bulge (Old Magma) Fractured Rock Landslides
long after exploration and exploitation had begun. The first ascent of Mount St. Helens was led by Thomas J. Dryer in 1853. Timber cutting began in the Toutle River Valley in the 1880’s, and mining claims were staked north of the volcano near Spirit Lake as early as 1892. Although most mining companies had ceased operations by 1929 because of declining profits, logging continued to increase and prosper. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest was established to augment logging and manage the forest. Meanwhile, mountain-climbing enthusiasts and campers had discovered the beautiful recreation area. A Portland, Oregon, mountainclimbing group began regular ascents of Mount St. Helens shortly after 1900, and in 1909 the Portland YMCA built a summer camp on Spirit Lake, which lies at the base of the mountain on the north side. Use of the area continued to increase, so that by the 1970’s as many as five hundred people might climb the summit of the volcano on a typical weekend. Spirit Lake itself offered fishing, swimming, canoeing, and other popular activities. The mountain lies about 45 miles northeast of Vancouver, Washington, between Seattle and Portland, the two largest cities in the Northwest. Thus its symmetrical dome had been an inspiring feature 731
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption of the landscape visible from many locales and observation points— including skyscrapers. After a March 20, 1980, magnitude 4.2 earthquake suggested that the sleeping volcano had awakened, officials were unable to discourage crowds of enthusiasts. Not only people who loved the mountain but also scientists, reporters, photographers, and others from all over the world wanted to witness the action. On May 18, 1980, 57 of them died. Potential for Disaster. Native American legend discouraged travel to Mount St. Helens and the other fire mountains. Tribes believed that the belching smoke, steam, and ashfalls were warning signals either of the Great Spirit’s displeasure with human activities or evidence of wars between the gods. Male youths aspiring to become braves would climb to the tree line or slightly above and spend a tense night alone, subjecting themselves to the power of the Great Spirit. On their return to the tribe they would be accepted as men and braves. Few, if any, members of the public who visited or worked on or near the mountain, or in the surrounding area, regarded the peak as threatening to their lives or lifestyles. After scientific confirmation of the dangerous patterns of volcanic activity in the Cascade Mountain Range in 1960, continued volcanic study focused on the volatility of Mount St. Helens. In a United States Geological Survey (USGS) pamphlet entitled Potential Hazards from Future Eruption of Mount St. Helens (1978), by Dwight R. Crandell and Donald R. Mullineaux, the authors warned of future volcanic eruptions. The work mapped out regions likely to be affected by pyroclastic flows, mudflows, floods, and ashfalls. Warning signs of eruptions were described in detail. The report was carefully evaluated before potential hazard warnings were issued, then a letter was sent to Washington State informing its government of the study’s findings. Awareness of the USGS report spread among officials during 1979, but their planning efforts later proved to be inadequate to the size of the event to come. Initial Volcanic Activity. Small earthquakes began in the Mount St. Helens area on March 16, 1980. On March 20 a magnitude 4.2 earthquake signaled that the mountain’s 123-year dormancy had ended. Seismic activity slowly increased, then rose dramatically on March 25. There followed a two-day series of shocks, 174 with magnitudes greater than 2.6. On March 27 came a booming explosion of 732
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption steam and ash. This, the first volcanic eruption since 1857, carried pulverized ash from old rock inside the volcano and opened a small oval vent about 250 feet across. Earthquake swarms continued as a series of steam explosions shot ash 10,000 to 11,000 feet above the summit. Many of the early eruptions were single, burstlike events, some of which carried ash as far south as Bend, Oregon, 150 miles away, and as far east as Spokane, 285 miles away. In recognition of the danger signaled by the March 20 earthquake, officials initiated a hazard watch that took effect the same day as the first steam eruption, March 27. Two hundred copies of the 1978 USGS report were distributed to key personnel. In Vancouver, Washington, the United States Forest Service (USFS) headquarters for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest quickly became the Emergency Coordination Center (ECC). Arrangements were made to monitor the volcano, prepare for a possible eruption, and dispense information to the public. The Mount St. Helens Contingency Plan, based on forest fire models, was developed by the USFS and others, including local officials. The Washington State Department of Emergency Services (DES), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Washington National Guard were also involved in formulating plans for their roles in the action in the case of a major eruption. Throughout the preparations, officials believed that damage would probably be confined to the area within a 50-mile radius of the mountain. Activity at the volcano continued, with some eruptions lasting for several hours. A graben, a depression in the ground, indicated that a large fault was opening below, nearly cutting in half the remaining snow and ice within the crater. A second crater had begun to appear by March 29, and a blue flame had been observed flickering and arching from one crater to the other. Ashes rolling down the sides of the mountain generated static electricity that flashed in lightning bolts, some of which were nearly 2 miles long. On March 30 ninetythree eruptions were recorded. On April 1 the first harmonic tremor further excited and alarmed scientists and other officials. Harmonic tremors, usually lasting from ten to thirty minutes, indicate that magma is moving or erupting underground. These dynamic events electrified the public, and, as a result, members of the watch group in Vancouver found themselves involved in 733
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption public relations efforts as well as in monitoring the volcano activity and evaluating the current hazard. The scientists most able to predict volcanic behavior were harried and tired, often working around the clock. The first hazard map of the danger zones around the mountain was drawn up between 1 and 5 a.m. because it was the only time the ECC office was quiet enough. Public Information Officers from the USFS held numerous press conferences, but phones continued to ring constantly. Everyone wanted what proved to be impossible— stating when a major eruption would occur, who would be affected by it, and how extensive the damage would be. Meanwhile, the ashfalls blackening the snow of the mountain provided constant reminders of the activity inside. Public interest did not deter the essential work of monitoring the activity in the mountain. Instruments set up by University of Washington seismologist Steve Malone, USFS geologist Don Swanson, and other scientists contributed to making the Mount St. Helens event the best-recorded volcanic eruption in history. In addition to seismometers, tiltmeters and gravity meters tracked changes in size and shifts in position of portions of the mountain. Samples of gas from the summit were collected for sulfur-dioxide testing, while surveillance planes and satellites gauged temperatures with infrared photography. In addition to geologists and photographers, volunteer ham radio operators joined in the effort to track volcanic activity and were allowed into newly restricted areas. The USFS exercised legal control over public access to federal lands, but its jurisdiction was shared with Burlington Northern, a company that owned most of the mountain itself, and Weyerhauser, owner of a large logging operation, on the nearby Toutle River. Agreements were reached, and public access to a “red zone”—all areas above timberline—was closed on March 25. A more extensive “blue zone” restricted access to an even larger area surrounding the red zone, beginning March 28. Neither zone was completely evacuated, and many individuals completely underestimated the dangers from floods, mudslides, and ash. Official warnings were discounted, and avoiding National Guard roadblocks became a game for curious or concerned spectators, especially after local residents began selling maps of the old logging roads that crisscrossed the area. Under Siege. Mount St. Helens’s normal runoff fills the tributar734
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption ies of three river systems: the Kalama to the west, the Lewis to the south and east, and the Toutle with two forks on the north and northwest. The forks of the Toutle River join and flow into the Cowlitz River before it in turn enters the Columbia. Spirit Lake, north of the mountain, drains west into the North Fork of the Toutle. The road to Spirit Lake had been paved in 1946, and there were summer homes along the Toutle River road approaching the lake. Building had also taken place around the lake. After the public-access closure and evacuation, angry and persistent landowners demanded to be allowed into the area to bring out personal property. On the South Fork of the Toutle, Weyerhauser Company’s 12-Road logging camp continued its operations, choosing to equip employees with ash-measuring devices as warning systems. Had the major eruption not occurred on a Sunday, 330 more workers would have been endangered. Throughout April, monitors of the activity at the volcano observed a growing bulge caused by intrusions of magma on the north flank of the mountain. The deformation grew at a rate of about 5 feet per day. Scientists believed that it indicated a possible slope failure that could trigger a major eruption, but they had no way of knowing exactly when or even if the bulge would drop off or explode. Geologists, worried that these observations might be in error and that instead the whole mountain could be tipping sideways, resorted to nailing yardsticks to tree stumps to verify their calculations. A bulge incident was clearly possible, perhaps likely, but without guarantees that were scientifically impossible, geologists were unable to persuade officials to enforce a complete evacuation. Debris avalanches, mudslides, and flooding increasingly threatened the Spirit Lake and Toutle River areas. One resident who refused to leave the lake, eighty-four-year-old Harry Truman, drew national attention via the news media. He had lived at Spirit Lake for over fifty years and had buried his wife near the guest lodge he had built there. He claimed to communicate with the mountain and believed it would never hurt him, although he had stowed provisions in a nearby abandoned mine shaft, where he planned to wait out any unforeseen danger. Truman received thousands of letters expressing admiration or concern. A batch of letters from children at Clear Lake Elementary School near Salem, Oregon, did persuade him to take a helicopter trip to the school to explain 735
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption
The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens blew off the top of the mountain. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
that his place at Spirit Lake was as meaningful to him as life itself. Other local citizens, owners of vacation homes, had more pragmatic goals and continued to demand access to the restricted area. On May 17, having persuaded then-governor and scientist Dixie Lee Ray to give them permission, twenty homeowners returned to 736
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption their vacation homes near Spirit Lake to bring out their belongings. Reporters and photographers, with a Washington State Patrol airplane in the lead, accompanied them. Aware of the risks involved, the National Guard placed fifteen helicopters nearby in case rapid evacuation became necessary. A second trip was planned for the next morning. Catastrophic Eruption. On May 18, eleven seconds after 8:32 in the morning, the eruption began. No one had been able to predict either the incredible force or the actual timing of the history-making event. Flying just east of the summit, geologists Keith and Dorothy Stoffel observed the earliest movement within the crater of the volcano from their Cessna. In the first ten to fifteen seconds of what would turn out to be a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, the entire north side of the mountain began to ripple and churn in eerie lateral movement. Then it began sliding further north. Ash clouds plumed above and burst from the fractures in the slide itself. Starting at nearly 220 miles per hour, the ash cloud accelerated to speeds near 670 miles per hour. The Stoffels snapped photographs until they realized how the eruption had sent a huge cloud of ash blossoming above them. Only by using a full-throttle, steep dive did they manage to outrun the mushrooming cloud of gas, rock, ash, and hunks of glacial ice. A debris avalanche, with an area of 23 square miles, went crashing down the mountainside. The material spread out and split into several lobes, one raising waves up to 600 feet above Spirit Lake, another reaching the 4.5 miles to Coldwater Creek, and a third burying 14 miles of the North Fork of the Toutle River to an average depth of 150 feet. Within fourteen seconds of the earthquake and avalanche, a lateral blast traveling at least 300 miles per hour blew out the north side of the mountain. The blast released 24 megatons of thermal energy, leveling everything in its path and creating a 230-square-mile fanshaped area of complete devastation. At Coldwater II, the closest observation station set by the USGS, geologist Dave Johnson had just enough time to radio in, “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!” before he was pushed over a ridge, along with his Jeep and travel-trailer monitoring station. Most of the erupting blast material, known as a pyroclastic surge, 737
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption consisted of gas and ash. As the surge turned into pyroclastic flow, old rock exploding from the summit and north area of the cone came to predominate. Between one-third and one-half of the cubic mile of material was fresh magma. The flows covered 6 square miles adjoining the crater and extended as far as 5 miles north of the crater. The composites of debris from the smashed dome and gases from the blast were incredibly hot—at least 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. Superheated air at the leading edge of the blast traveled more than 17 miles and killed millions of trees in a “scorch zone” beyond the flattened forest of the “blow-down zone.” Pyroclastic flows ranged as high as 660 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat on the mountain melted 70 percent of its snow and glaciers. Loowit and Leschi Glaciers were completely destroyed, along with parts of 7 others. When the melted snow, melted glaciers, and groundwater combined with debris from the eruption, the mixture that resulted had the consistency of wet cement, yet it was traveling at speeds from 10 to 25 miles per hour. These mudflows or lahars continued down the Toutle River to the Cowlitz, destroying homes and bridges and reducing the carrying capacity of the river at Castle Rock from 76,000 cubic feet per second to less than 15,000, a reduction of about 80 percent. Reaching farther, the flow entered the Columbia River, about 70 miles away, reducing the shipping channel depth from 40 to 14 feet. Thirty-one ships in ports above the mouth of the Cowlitz River were stranded, and another 50 were unable to travel up the river until dredging operations were completed. Up in the Air. As if the devastation to the north and west of the volcano were not enough, the vertical eruption cloud and its contents created further havoc to the east. The volcano continued generating a plume of ash for over nine hours. Prevailing winds carried significant ashfall north and east across central and eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana. The ash reached Yakima, Washington, by 9:30 a.m., an hour after the eruption began. Residents, who had not been informed of the eruption, prepared for a thunderstorm. The magnitude of the eruption had caused so much confusion in the staff at ECC that a public announcement of the event did not come until 10:30 a.m. When the ash began to fall in Yakima, townspeople did not know what it was, and many feared it would be harmful to their health. 738
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption Rapidly, the sky turned to a midnight gloom, earning May 18 the lasting nickname “Black Sunday.” Yakima was reported to have received over 600,000 tons of ash before it stopped settling. (USGS figures were much lower, estimating the total ashfall for the entire eruption at 490 tons.) Without doubt, the ash caused technological systems great problems. The ash was abrasive and electrically charged, affecting machinery. Air filters clogged, and carburetors failed. Across Washington, over 5,000 motorists were stranded; planes could not fly. One town, Ritzville, was inundated with talc-like ash that kept the highway closed for three days. The 1,800 residents of the town had no choice but to look after the 2,000 motorists stranded there when the highway closed. By 2:00 on the afternoon of the eruption, the ash plume hung 300 miles east over Spokane, Washington, and visibility decreased to 10 feet, closing the airport there. By 10:15 p.m. the ashfall reached West Yellowstone, Montana. On May 19 it fell visibly as far away as Denver and later in Minnesota and Oklahoma. Aftermath. Following the catastrophic eruption on May 18, Mount St. Helens experienced five more explosive incidents, but the major damage had been done. After two years of searching and study, the official death count was fixed at 57. About 200 endangered individuals escaped the volcano’s impact, including 25 tree planters who were on the east face of the volcano when it erupted. Autopsies of 25 of the dead revealed that most had suffocated, dying within minutes. Some burn victims walked several miles before dying. Other victims were found still clutching cameras, and, when developed, the film from one recorded the approaching blast that killed its owner. Searchers were unable to find 27 of the presumed dead, and some people believe that there were many more casualties than the official count. Visitors may view a memorial for Harry Truman near the site of the former guest lodge; Spirit Lake Memorial Highway also commemorates the victims. The Mount St. Helens Visitor Center near Silver Lake has made information on the eruption and its effects available. Mount St. Helens continues to be an active volcano, and the risks of damage from another major eruption increase as human activities nearby also increase. Economic recovery from the May 18, 1980, eruption was successful due to rebuilding through disaster relief funds, insurance settlements, and renewed tourist trade. Weyer739
1980: Mount St. Helens eruption hauser harvested over 850 million board feet of lumber from downed trees. However, the volcano has produced ashfalls four times greater than the 1980 eruption several times in the past and may again. Winds blowing to the west would carry ash clouds to centers of population along the coast. Mudflows may once again rush downriver, destroying rebuilt dams and roads, filling river channels, and washing out seedling trees. Nearly $1 billion has been spent on efforts to reduce flood hazards. Scientists monitoring volcanic activity can measure and warn of new activity, but they must continue working to develop methods that will predict the time and magnitude of the next eruption. Margaret A. Dodson For Further Information: Carson, Rob. Mount St. Helens: The Eruption and Recovery of a Volcano. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2000. Findley, Rowe. “Mount St. Helens: Mountain With a Death Wish.” National Geographic 159, no. 1 (January, 1981): 3-33. Harnly, Caroline D., and David A. Tyckoson. Mount St. Helens: An Annotated Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1984. Harris, Stephen L. “Mt. St. Helens: A Living ‘Fire Mountain.’” In Fire Mountains of the West: The Cascade and Mono Lake Volcanoes. Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press, 1988. Parchman, Frank. Echoes of Fury: The 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens and the Lives It Changed Forever. Kenmore, Wash.: Epicenter Press, 2005. Pringle, Patrick T. Roadside Geology of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument and Vicinity. Rev. ed. Olympia: Washington State Department of Natural Resources, 2002. Scarth, Alwyn. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Tilling, Robert I., Lyn Topinka, and Donald A. Swanson. Eruptions of Mount St. Helens: Past, Present, and Future. Reston, Va.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 1990.
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■ 1982: El Chichón eruption Volcano Date: March 28-April 4, 1982 Place: Mexico Volcanic Explosivity Index: 5 Result: About 2,000 dead, hundreds injured, hundreds left homeless, thousands evacuated, 9 villages destroyed, over 116 square miles of farmland ruined
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n obscure and forgotten volcano erupted in 1982, becoming one of the most lethal eruptions to date. El Chichón (also known as Chinhónal) is located in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, about 416 miles east southeast of Mexico City. Prior to the eruptions in 1982, El Chichón was a heavily vegetated hill with an elevation of 4,429 feet and a height of about 1,640 feet. It had a shallow crater partly filled with water and a dome 1,312 feet high. After the eruption the elevation of the volcano was 3,478 feet with a height of 689 feet, making it now lower than the surrounding nonvolcanic hills. Although aware of the hot springs and steaming fumaroles (openings from which volcanic gases escape), the people living in villages at the base of the volcano did not consider it a hazard; the volcano had been quiet for at least 130 years. The fertile volcanic soil provided the farm families their only livelihood. They would not leave their land, especially when there was no indication of danger. History. The volcano was “discovered” in 1928 during a geological survey by Fred Mullerried. The lush vegetation cover of the volcano indicated that there had been no eruptions for years, and the memories of the local inhabitants indicated that the most recent activity was a minor air deposition of volcanic debris around 1852. In his 1932 publication, Mullerried reported on solfataras (fumaroles that emit sulfurous gases) and seismic activity in the vicinity of the volcano in 1930. Considering these observations, he concluded that the volcano was capable of renewed activity. There was increased earthquake activity in 1964 and again in 1982 prior to the eruptions. 741
1982: El Chichón eruption Two geologists of the Comisión Federal de Electricidad felt earthquakes while investigating the geothermal potential of the area and correctly concluded that the volcano might be near eruption. Unfortunately, the Comisión was not responsible for safety, and their report, released only a few months prior to the explosion of El Chichón, did not allow time for appropriate agencies to be made aware of the potential danger. Radiocarbon age dates determined since 1982 indicate that El Chichón erupts about every six hundred years. Despite scientific terminology, one of the world’s “extinct” volcanoes erupts about every five years, and these volcanoes, with repose intervals of hundreds of years, produce the most violent volcanic eruptions. Destruction. It is estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 persons were killed and hundreds injured during the eruption of El Chichón. In terms of death, the 1982 eruption of El Chichón was the most destructive volcanic explosion to take place in Mexico to date. In fact, this eruption was one of the thirteen most destructive eruptions worldwide to date and one of the two most destructive volcanic eruptions in the twentieth century. Early reports indicated that 153 people were killed by the collapse of house roofs and fires ignited by incandescent volcanic debris and that only 34 were killed by pyroclastic flows (flows of hot volcanic particles and gases). Ultimately, probably 90 percent of the 2,000 to 3,000 fatalities were the result directly or indirectly of pyroclastic flows. Over 116 square miles of arable land was covered by volcanic debris, leaving it useless. As a result, the survivors lost not only their homes but also the means to sustain themselves. The land could not be farmed for years. Eruption Size. There are several ways to describe the size of a volcanic eruption: the amount of erupted material, the energy involved in the eruption, and the volcanic hazard. The 1982 eruptions of El Chichón produced enough pyroclastic material to cover nearly 6,000 American football fields to a depth of 328 feet (about 88,286 cubic feet). The energy released by the 1982 eruptions of El Chichón was about 8,000 times that liberated by a 1-kiloton atomic bomb. The amount of energy released by a volcano is not necessarily directly correlated with the degree of volcanic hazard. For example, enormous volumes of lava have flowed quietly from Hawaiian volca742
1982: El Chichón eruption UNITED STATES
Tijuana
Hermosillo
Chihuahua
MEXICO
La Paz
Culiacán Durango
Gulf Monterrey
of
Zacatecas San Luis Potosí
Mexico Yucatan
León Guadalajara
Pacific
Peninsula Querétaro
Mexico City
Puebla
San Cristóbal de las Casas
Mérida
Campeche
El Chichón
Ocean
Oaxaca
Tuxtla Gutiérrez Chiapas
BELIZE
GUATEMALA HONDURAS EL SALVADOR
noes and have not been a major hazard despite releasing about one thousand times more energy than the eruption of El Chichón. A simple descriptive measure for volcanic hazard is provided by the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). This index combines total volume of materials erupted, height of the eruption column, duration of the main eruptive phase, and several descriptive terms into a simple 0-8 scale of increasing explosivity. Most volcanoes have a VEI of 3 or greater, none has been assigned an 8, and only one has been assigned a 7 to date. In the light of these observations, El Chichón’s VEI of 5 is a rather high value. Stage 1 Eruptions. In the autumn of 1981, dogs became restless, earthquakes rattled dishes in the kitchens of the local inhabitants, and breezes occasionally wafted the rotten-egg odor of hydrogen sulfide gas. Although these were items for discussion in the village plazas, the villagers continued with life as usual, not knowing that the tremors and hydrogen sulfide were precursors to an eruption. After the eruption, study of seismograph records indicated that earthquake activity had increased in early 1982 and the centers of the earthquakes had risen from a depth of 3 miles to 1 mile. The eruptions began near midnight on March 28, 1982, but on 743
1982: El Chichón eruption March 29, at 5:15 a.m. local time, the morning quiet was shattered by an enormous roar and nearly continuous earthquakes. Massive explosions caused by hot gases ejected a huge ash cloud about 10,499 feet thick to a height of 59,054 to 68,241 feet, where the ash cloud was then driven northeastward by high-altitude winds. Volcanic particles deposited near the mouth of the crater were as large as 4 inches in diameter. This Plinian eruption continued for six hours, with lightning dancing in the ash cloud, accompanied by a deafening roar. (The term “Plinian” describes an explosive eruption caused by a tremendous uprushing of gas that results in a large eruption cloud.) The March 29 eruption of El Chichón removed much of the center of the volcano, converting the domed hill into a barren 0.6-mile-wide crater 984 feet deep. Rooftops were punctured by falling rocks and collapsed by layers of ash. The morning of March 31, 1982, automobiles in Austin, Texas, 994 miles away, were covered with a light coating of volcanic ash from El Chichón. Stage 2 Eruptions. After minor explosions on March 30 and 31 and April 2, 1982, two additional major eruptions occurred on April 3 and 4 from the newly created crater. Volcanic dust from this eruption reached the height of 82,020 feet; however, the eruption column could not be maintained, and the column collapsed onto the volcano summit, dropping tons of volcanic debris from ash to block size (less than .0025 to greater than 2.5 inches in diameter, respectively). This material had great momentum and flowed downhill with hurricane speed toward the villages. Trees and buildings were ripped apart by the pyroclastic flows. What little of the villages remained was covered by ash. The flows followed the courses of stream valleys radiating from the volcano. One flow covered 38.6 square miles. The volcanic debris not only covered the land but also temporarily dammed streams. When these dams burst, the hot volcanic mud (lahars) moved down the streams, causing additional damage. All the eruptions of El Chichón produced as much pyroclastic material (about 7 billion tons) as the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State. The surge activity of April 4 resulted in the death of more than 2,000 people, and at least 9 villages within a 5mile radius were destroyed. The villagers who had remained in their homes found some cover from the ashfall, but the homes were useless protection from the strong pyroclastic currents. Pyroclastic de744
1982: El Chichón eruption bris typically has a temperature between 392 and 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit (200 and 800 degrees Celsius). Two months after the eruption the pyroclastic flow deposits were still too hot to touch. Minor eruptions occurred on April 5, 6, 8, and 9. Effect on Climate. Some especially cold years, for example 1783 and 1816, have been linked to major volcanic eruptions. Volcanic dust reflects solar radiation, resulting in cooler temperatures, but has a relatively short-lived impact on the earth’s weather because these particles settle out of the atmosphere in less than two years. The dust cloud from the El Chichón eruptions circled the earth from south of the equator to as far north as Japan, producing brilliant red sunsets for months after the eruptions. The greatest impact that volcanoes have on our weather results from the sulfur-dioxide gas they produce. In the lower atmosphere, solar energy converts the gas to sulfuric-acid aerosols, which can remain in the atmosphere for years. Sulfuric-acid aerosols reaching the stratosphere absorb infrared radiation, which cools the troposphere and scatters the solar radiation back into space, warming the stratosphere. These impacts were confirmed, in part, by data, which showed high concentrations of sulfur, collected after the eruption of El Chichón. Compared to the Mount St. Helens 1980 eruption, the El Chichón eruptions were more gas-rich—especially regarding sulfurous compounds—resulting in more spectacular pyroclastic eruptions and producing more sulfuric-acid aerosols. Any cooling caused by the El Chichón eruptions was apparently more than compensated for by the warming from a following El Niño. Some scientists think that El Niños may be triggered by explosive volcanic eruptions such as El Chichón. 1996-1998 Observations. In 1998 fumaroles surrounded the yellow, sulfur beaches of El Chichón’s shallow crater lake. Investigation of the site from 1996 to 1998 reported changes in hydrothermal activity. The surface temperature of the lake (average depth 4.3 feet) is very uniform, and even above submerged fumaroles it did not exceed 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius). This uniformity of temperature suggests that the lake water is not significantly influenced by underlying magma and is highly affected by seasonal variations in precipitation and ambient air temperature. Temperatures of 745
1982: El Chichón eruption water from springs on the slope of the volcano ranged from 124 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit (51 to 71 degrees Celsius), whereas water discharging from a boiling spring called Soap Pool inside the crater had a temperature of 208 degrees Fahrenheit (98 degrees Celsius). From 1997 to 1998 the flow of very saline water from Soap Pool decreased from about 44 to 13 pounds per second. Future. Although El Chichón appears to be entering a sixhundred-year cycle of repose, this may not be the situation because of poor accuracy in the determination of the eruption cycle. Also, there is an indication that at least a minor eruption occurred as recently as 1852. Monitoring of the volcano’s seismic records, changes in fumaroles for release of hydrogen sulfide, and hydrothermal activity should provide a means of predicting future eruptions, regardless of the repose cycle. It is tragic that the scientific reports by Mullerried and the Comisión Federal de Electricidad were not available to the appropriate government agencies so that evacuations could have been made before the eruptions. It is difficult to say how many of the people would have responded to encouragement to evacuate since no one would have expected such a violent explosive eruption. Nonetheless, even with incomplete data and understanding, a warning could have saved hundreds of lives. Kenneth F. Steele, Jr. For Further Information: Bullard, Fred M. Volcanoes of the Earth. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Chester, David. Volcanoes and Society. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1993. Duffield, W. D., R. I. Tilling, and R. Canul. “Geology of El Chichón Volcano, Chiapas, Mexico.” Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 20 (1984). Fisher, Richard V., Grant Heiken, and Jeffrey B. Hulen. Volcanoes: Crucibles of Change. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Sigurdsson, Haraldur, ed. Encyclopedia of Volcanoes. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 2000. Tilling, R. I. “The 1982 Eruption of El Chichón, Southeastern Mexico.” Earthquake Information Bulletin 14 (1982). 746
■ 1982: Pacific Ocean El Niño Date: June, 1982-August, 1983 Place: Equatorial Pacific Ocean and bordering continents Result: More than 2,000 dead, $13 billion in damage
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efore 1982, “El Niño” was a term known almost exclusively to scientists studying the ocean, atmosphere, and weather. After 1983, so widespread and serious were El Niño’s destructive consequences that the phenomenon became known worldwide as the largest force disrupting world weather patterns. The El Niño of 1982 developed anomalously. Previous El Niños had begun in April with waters warming off the Peruvian coast and spreading westward. In this case the temperature rise started in the central Pacific and flowed eastward in June and August, and the barometric pressure increased in the western Pacific. Moreover, while the warm water moved slowly eastward toward South America, the westerly trade winds continued blowing unabated; normally they weaken. Volcanic dust lofted into the atmosphere from the eruption of El Chichón in Mexico masked some of these developments from satellites, and partly because of this, the beginning of a full-blown El Niño in November took observers by surprise. Before it ended in August, 1983, five continents had suffered its devastating effects. Its intensity was unheralded. The Southern Oscillation—indicated by the difference in air pressure between Darwin, Australia, and Tahiti—was never before so great. Sea surface temperatures off the South American coast soared to almost 8 degrees Celsius above normal, another record. The mass of warm water increased evaporation, which fueled storms that lashed the coasts and Pacific islands near the equator. Six hurricanes swept over Tahiti and nearby Tuamotu archipelago in the central Pacific; the area had not seen a hurricane for seventyfive years. More than 7,500 houses were flattened or lost their roofs, and 15 people died. The destruction ended tourism for the season, a main source of income. A hurricane also hit the Hawaiian Islands, 747
1982: Pacific Ocean which otherwise had a drought. Elsewhere in the Pacific scientists noticed that millions of seabirds deserted their nests and the warm water damaged reefs. Ecuador and Peru were first hurt economically, then physically. The planktonic nutrients that normally rise from the seafloor with upwelling cold currents dwindled when El Niño’s warm water arrived. Schools of commercial fish vanished. Fishermen were idled, as were industries dependent upon fishing, such as fishmeal production. Because the coast of both countries is very arid, when El Niñospawned storms arrived, their torrential rains turned into floods that swelled rivers and raged through canyons. As a result, thousands of houses, mostly in rural towns or urban slums, were washed away, along with sections of roads and more than a dozen major bridges. At least 600 people were killed in the process. Important export crops— particularly rice, cacao, and bananas—also were heavily damaged, further crippling the national economies. The west coasts of Central and North America soon experienced similar conditions. California was especially hard hit. Salmon and other cold-water fish departed north, hurting the local fishing industry, while seabirds died and tropical fish, such as barracuda, invaded the coastal waters. High sea levels, as much as 8 inches above normal, combined with storm-propelled waves, battered the coast. Wind gusts damaged houses, and a tornado even tore the roof off the Los Angeles Convention Center before ravaging the Watts district. Rain fell until rivers overflowed and hillsides were so soaked that mudslides occurred at record rates. In the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains, snowpacks reached record depths. Altogether, more than 10,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and the economic toll on the West Coast, which included extensive damage to roads and agriculture, was estimated at $1.8 billion. Meanwhile, in the American South, heavy rains fell, nearly pushing the Mississippi River over its levees. The Atlantic hurricane season, however, was short and mild. Across the Pacific, under the abnormally high pressure over the Indonesia-Australia region, conditions were dry. The drought in Australia starved thousands of livestock and wild animals and turned brushland parched and dusty. Immense dust storms dumped tons of dirt on cities, Melbourne most spectacularly, and brush fires raced out of control. At least 8,000 people were made homeless in the fires, and there 748
1982: Pacific Ocean were 75 fatalities. Late in the El Niño, downpours in eastern Australia led to flooding that drowned yet more livestock. Indonesia saw crops fail in the drought. In one area 340 people starved because of it. On the island of Borneo, forest fires, spread from land burned off by farmers, expanded unchecked. The smoke fouled cities, endangered air traffic, and caused one port to close temporarily. The fires were called one of the worst environmental disasters of the century. Record drought also came to Africa, hurting the southern and Sahelian regions most. In some areas of South Africa 90 percent of cattle died as the grassland turned to barren hardpan. Tens of thousands of wild animals, from rodents to elephants, perished. To escape famine, the poor countries of the region had to rely on food shipments from North America. Many other effects, such as delayed monsoons in southern India and droughts in Brazil and Mexico, were teleconnections to El Niño. Scientists suspect that a cold snap in Europe and droughts in the Midwest, northern China, and central Russia might also have occurred because of El Niño, at least in part. In addition to bringing the El Niño phenomenon forcefully to public awareness, the 1982-1983 event had three consequences. It spurred much scientific research aimed at making predictions of future El Niños reliable. It encouraged farmers in affected areas to reconsider how they manage their crops and livestock. Finally, it demonstrated dramatically that coastal cities, which are growing increasingly crowded, are vulnerable to El Niño-related natural disasters. Roger Smith For Further Information: Babkina, A. M., ed. El Niño: Overview and Bibliography. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science, 2003. Canby, Thomas Y. “El Niño’s Ill Wind.” National Geographic, February, 1984, 144. D’Aleo, Joseph S. The Oryx Resource Guide to El Niño and La Niña. Westport, Conn.: Oryx Press, 2002. Fagan, Brian. “El Niños That Shook the World.” In Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilization. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Nash, J. Madeleine. El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master WeatherMaker. New York: Warner Books, 2002. 749
■ 1984: Africa Famine Date: 1984-1985 Place: Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Sudan Result: 2 million dead, millions more displaced
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hen four-year-old Mamush Mekitew reached the American aid camp at Gehowa, Ethiopia, he weighed only 15 pounds. He suffered from acute diarrhea and vomiting and was so weak that he had to be given liquid through a nasal drip. His blind, widowed mother and an elderly uncle crooned to him day and night until he died. “He should not have been alive at all,” said a nurse. “It was a miracle he held out for so long.” In many areas, the famine reduced the birthrate, as hungry adult women simply stopped ovulating. A United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) relief expedition mounted on camels toured the Sudan’s remote Red Sea province and found that childbearing was almost a thing of the past. In a settlement called Bet Utr, not one of the women in thirteen families had given birth during the past year. Three women had died in childbirth, and one had miscarried. In a society where most women give birth every year, Bet Utr should have been teeming with children. In this time of troubles, however, only eight youngsters were left. At a relief station in the southern town of Doba, Chad, a procession of mothers, their breasts dry and withered, their bodies caked with trail dust, pleaded for food and medicine for the children slung around their shoulders and backs. Doba was in the middle of a war zone, however, and there were few supplies. Two hundred children died from malnutrition in only two weeks. In the harsh semidesert wastes of eastern Chad, hardy desert nomads were reduced to eating the leaves of savonnier trees. Some died because they could not digest the leaves properly. Like outcasts from the Bible, they trudged out of Tigre, Ethiopia (now a province of Eritria), escaping a parched, rebel-controlled 750
1984: Africa province that was starved of food supplies by the Ethiopian government. Nearly 200,000 Tigreans fled to camps in neighboring Sudan. There were women too weak to finish the journey on foot, children who listened for water on makeshift hose lines, and children who arrived only to die. Impact. The famine had two “belts” across sub-Saharan Africa. One belt ran from Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. The other belt ran from Somalia on the horn of Africa to Angola, Botswana, and Zambia in southern Africa. As of November, 1984, 50,000 people were dead from famine in Senegal, and 50,000 more were at risk. More than 150,000 cattle had been lost in the previous two years. In Mali, more than 1 million children were suffering from malnutrition, cholera, and measles. A total of 2.5 million people were at risk from famine. In Chad, at least 4,000 people, mostly women and children, had died from famine during the three months preceding December, 1984. Half a million more had been displaced by drought, and relief efforts were hampered by a civil war. In the Sudan, more than 1 million people were threatened by the famine. There had been a great influx of refugees from Chad and Ethiopia, which added to the civil strife already existing in the southern Sudan. Like much of Africa, Ethiopia has always been subject to ecological disaster. Droughts and famines were reported as early as 253 b.c.e. In the great drought of 1888, a third of the population was said to have died from malnourishment and disease. This calamity in 19841985 was part of a thirty-year pattern. The rains have repeatedly failed along the Sahel, the wide swath of land that lies just below the Sahara Desert. As a result, this time there had already been at least 300,000 famine deaths in Ethiopia. A million more people may have been at risk and as many as 6 million people were facing food shortages. In Mozambique, perhaps 200,000 people may have already died from famine. Four million more were in danger largely due to a severe drought and a civil war. Root Causes. Aside from the lack of rain, these peoples’ greatest enemies have been deforestation, booming population, primitive agricultural methods, war, and governmental mismanagement. Black Africa is the world’s poorest area, and it is the only region in which the population is growing faster than the food supply. Agriculture never fully recovered from the devastating drought of the early and 751
1984: Africa mid-1970’s. In 1982, Ethiopia’s per capita food production was only 81 percent of what it was in 1969-1971. In Mozambique, the figure was at 68 percent. Chad’s food harvest in 1983 was a disaster. Cereal production plummeted to 315,000 tons, well short of the 654,000 tons needed for minimum living needs. On average, African governments spend four times as much on armaments as they do on agriculture. Primitive farming, in turn, has devastated the environment. Under increasing pressure for production, traditional fallow periods have been shortened, wearing out the soil. Most farmers have no chemical fertilizers, and the animal dung that they once used to enrich the soil is being burned for fuel, because so many trees have been cut down. In the mid-1960’s, 16 percent of Ethiopia’s land area was covered by forest. In the mid-1980’s, the figure was just 3 percent. “With deforestation, the soil loses much of its capacity to retain moisture and consequently its productivity and resistance to drought,” said a U.N. environmentalist. In the twenty years leading up to the mid-1980’s, Mauritania lost more than three-quarters of its grazing land to the encroaching sands of the Sahara. Rainfall became another forgotten luxury. The rainfall in 1983 was the lowest in seventy years, and most of the grain crop failed. In some areas, 90 percent of the livestock died. Ethiopia’s leader at the time, Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, was warned of impending famine in 1982, in a report from a group of experts headed by Keith Griffin, an Oxford University economist. The Griffin team recommended immediate food rationing and heavy emphasis on rural development. Mengistu ignored the advice. Instead, Mengistu poured 46 percent of Ethiopia’s gross national product into military spending, buying at least $2.5 billion worth of arms from the Soviet Union. What investment he did make in agriculture was concentrated on building Soviet-style state farms. Meanwhile, as hundreds of thousands starved in 1984 and 1985, Ethiopian officials spent more than $100 million sprucing up their capital, Addis Ababa, and erecting triumphal arches. This expenditure and construction were for the September, 1985, tenth anniversary of the military coup that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie I. In Chad before and during the famine, Libya occupied the entire northern half of the country. Meanwhile, a guerrilla conflict in the south rendered that area impervious to relief efforts. At that time, the country had only 60 miles of paved road. The rest of the roads 752
1984: Africa were mostly impassable dirt tracks. The 1984 cotton harvest was the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of the cotton was planted, however, at the expense of food crops. Since no one anticipated the severity of the drought, little of the profit from the abundant cotton crop was saved for emergency food aid. So the cotton money was gone, providing no relief from the killer famine. The Long-Term Effects. The long-range damage of the famine was the potential effects upon the children who survived. An American child of four to six years old typically consumes 1,600 to 1,800 calories in a daily diet. In the African famine belts, a child the same age took in less than 800 calories per day, a starvation diet. At refugee camps, the basic ration consisted of gruel made from wheat, plus beans, other grains, and vegetable oil. That was not a balanced diet but was far better than anything outside the camps. After months or even years of malnutrition, African children were prey to a host of ailments. Iron-deficiency anemia was prevalent, and in some places a shortage of iodine in the diet caused a mini-epidemic of goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid gland. For children born and raised at the peak of the famine, blindness was one of the more severe consequences. A lack of vitamin A— which comes from butterfat, eggs, liver, carrots, and leafy vegetables—leads to a condition called xerophthalmia (literally, “dry eye”). Night blindness is an early symptom. Later, sunlight becomes painful. The eyes stop lubricating themselves with tears, and their protective mucous cells dry out. The corneas are scarred and pitted until the victim becomes blind. Physicians working in famine areas predicted that countless thousands of African children would emerge from the famine with some kind of damage to their mental capacities. Malnutrition can stop the growth of brain tissue, a loss that cannot be made up later in life. The belief was expressed that the thousands of orphans created by the famine would pour into towns and cities to scratch out a living as beggars or thieves. Whatever their work would be, many believed that these children would be so handicapped by the famine’s effects that they would not be able to compete or make a living for their families. Relief. Although the rains did eventually arrive in the spring of 1985, the more pressing matter was to get food and medical supplies to relief areas and refugee camps. Getting food into Ethiopia was 753
1984: Africa only half the problem. A moonscape scarred with treacherous canyons and inhospitable mountains, the country is a logistical difficulty. Half its people normally lived a two-day walk from the nearest road. In 1985 there were only about 6,000 trucks in the entire country. At that time only a few hundred of the trucks had been used for relief. Relief supplies did finally begin to show up in quantity. The first food trucks reached the northern town of Korem in a military convoy, for protection against rebels. More than 50,000 people were waiting at the camp for food, and there was not enough to go around. Before the convoy came in, about 100 people were dying every day. Afterward the average dropped to somewhere between 30 and 50 a day. Doctors were forced to perform a gruesome act of triage, selecting only the hardiest refugees to receive food and clothing. The physicians would work their way through crowds. They used pencils to place marks on the foreheads of those who seemed most likely to survive. Aid was not to be wasted on the weak. A Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere (CARE) official once described Chad as having nightmarish logistical problems, even worse than Ethiopia’s. Chad is a landlocked nation in which the nearest ports are 1,200 miles away, in Cameroon and Nigeria. At that time, food trains took at least three weeks to travel from the seacoast to Chad, and the transport depended on the cooperation of foreign governments. Also, the civil war and the Libyan occupation of Chad continued. The rains themselves brought a new flood of trouble. Thousands of people in Ethiopia may have died of cold and disease in the rain and hail. Roads and bridges were destroyed, delaying food shipments to many of the country’s 8 million famine victims. The rains ruined about 5,500 tons of precious grain at the port of Aseb in Ethiopia. Twenty thousand famine victims in Ethiopia lost their homes to the flooding Shebelle River. Storms also destroyed flimsy shelters in many feeding centers, increasing the threat of epidemics; thousands of people had already died of cholera in Ethiopia. The rains in Mozambique in southeastern Africa destroyed vital food crops, aggravating an already grim situation. By the beginning of May, 1985, more than 200,000 people had died in Mozambique, and 2.5 million people were still in urgent need of food. Dana P. McDermott 754
1984: Africa For Further Information: Curtis, Donald, Michael Hubbard, and Andrew Shepherd. Preventing Famine: Policies and Prospects for Africa. London: Routledge, 1988. Scott, Michael, and Mutombo Mpanya. We Are the World: An Evaluation of Pop Aid for Africa. Washington, D.C.: InterAction, 1994. Tekolla, Y. The Puzzling Paradox of the African Food Crisis: Searching for the Truth and Facing the Challenge. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: UNECA, 1997. Varnis, Stephen. Reluctant Aid or Aiding the Reluctant: U.S. Food Aid Policy and Ethiopian Famine Relief. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1990. Von Braun, Joachim, Tesfaye Teklu, and Patrick Webb. Famine in Africa: Causes, Responses, and Prevention. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Webb, Patrick, and Joachim von Braun. Famine and Food Security in Ethiopia: Lessons for Africa. New York: John Wiley, 1994.
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■ 1985: The Mexico City earthquake Earthquake Date: September 19, 1985 Place: Mexico City, Mexico Magnitude: 8.1 Result: 10,000 estimated dead, 30,000 injured, 2,850 buildings destroyed, 100,000 units damaged
M
exico City, the nation’s capital, is located in the Valley of Mexico, situated between two towering mountain ranges, the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sierra Madre Oriental, in the south central part of the country. The city itself is situated on a plateau surrounded by a series of mountains that include a string of volcanoes. The valley proper has an altitude ranging from 6,800 to 7,900 feet above sea level. Its floor, on which the modern city has been built gradually over the past five hundred years, is not geologically stable. Beneath the massive concentration of highrise buildings, extensive freeways, and the marginal dwellings of the poor lies a weak foundation of watery shale rather than a firm base of bedrock, for the city was extended over areas that in precolonial times were lakes. Contributing to the lack of stability has been the continuous pumping of water from the city’s subterranean underpinnings, resulting in a constant shifting and weakening of its buildings’ foundations. Structural engineers have developed techniques utilizing permanent hydraulic jacks to keep new high-rises level, but much of the older construction must be subjected to constant adjustment and realignment of its foundations in order to keep buildings from sustaining serious damage. The same is true for transportation and communication facilities—the freeways and the power and water lines. Hundreds of earthquakes have been recorded in the past five centuries, since the Spaniards first entered Mexico. However, many of the low-lying edifices, built during the colonial era, have managed to 756
1985: The Mexico City earthquake survive the recurrent quakes better than the multistory buildings constructed in later times. In the case of relatively new construction, only the high-rises built in accordance with the latest scientific knowledge on quake resistance have weathered the tremors to which the city is constantly exposed. The People. Archaeologists state that primitive tribes lived in the Valley of Mexico as early as fifteen thousand years ago. The area’s appeal can be traced to the availability of fresh water, attracting humans and animals alike. The surrounding mountains also acted as a natural trap for game, making their capture less difficult to the prehistoric hunter. As the number of humans increased, the availability of this wild game dwindled. The shortage led ultimately to the evolution of an agricultural society, one that grew its sustenance from planned crops rather than depending entirely on the vagaries of the hunt. The area’s rich soil, combined with regular rainfall, led to the development of a substantial society, capable of building impressive stone structures for use as palaces, temples, and granaries. Civilizations such as the Teotihuacán and Toltec empires flourished for centuries, followed by that of the Aztecs, who held sway throughout central Mexico until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. The precolonial city constructed by the indigenous peoples dazzled the Spaniards on their arrival in the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs had organized the city’s functions in a manner superior to that which the Europeans had experienced at home. The treatment of sewage, for example, far exceeded in sophistication that found in European cities at the time. In the process of their conquest of the Aztecs, the Spaniards laid waste to much of what was precolonial Mexico City, but they retained the location as the capital of what they called New Spain. A European-styled city rose from the ashes of the Aztec empire. Despite frequent fires and earthquakes—more than 340 quakes had been registered in the capital since the beginning of the colonial era—many examples of the initial Spanish colonial architecture can still be found throughout the city. The Spaniards intermingled with the indigenous population from the beginning of their occupation. The conquistadores married into the noble families of the native peoples or made the Indian women their concubines. Today Mexico City’s population is an amalgam757
1985: The Mexico City earthquake ation of European and Amerindian strains, giving the society a heterogeneous character. More than 20 million people lived in greater Mexico City as early as 1986. This area includes the city itself and also the surrounding federal district. More than a quarter of the country’s total population is crammed into the Valley of Mexico and its environs. Because the capital contains Mexico’s economic and political seats of power, a constant influx of citizens seeking political advantage and employment opportunities pours into Mexico City in a continuous stream, many condemned to eke out a precarious existence. During the second half of the twentieth century, Mexico’s society became more urban than rural. Living in the cities became the goal of the country’s rural poor. As a result, virtually any open space within greater Mexico City became home to economic refugees. These poverty-stricken families from the countryside seized small plots of land wherever they could, built shacks from any material they could find, and fought the local authorities to retain custody of them. The new arrivals sought work of any type in order to sustain themselves; thus, factories throughout the crowded city and its surrounding area often employ workers under illegal and unsafe conditions. These poorly paid workers are crowded into poorly constructed commercial buildings that constantly threaten their health and wellbeing. Congestive traffic conditions and the accompanying pollution have made the capital a poor-quality residential area for many, if not most, of its inhabitants. Moreover, only roughly one-third of its citizens can afford to rent or own homes in its formal real-estate market. The Quake. At 7:18 on the morning of September 19, 1985, Mexico City experienced a devastating earthquake. Technical experts described the event as a clash between two opposing seismic forces, the Cocos and the North American tectonic plates. The epicenter was determined to be deep in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 250 miles west of the Mexican coastline. Mexico City sits on what has been termed the “Ring of Fire” surrounding the Pacific Ocean and extending to Australia, Japan, Alaska, the western United States, Central America, and the western coasts of the countries of South America. While some general damage occurred throughout Mexico’s smaller southern cities and its rural areas, the capital itself experienced the greatest destruction. The quake measured 8.1 on the Rich758
1985: The Mexico City earthquake ter scale. The tremor itself lasted over three minutes, shaking the city to its core. The damage was concentrated in the north, central, and eastern parts of the city. The very nature of the ground beneath the city, with its lack of a solid rock base, resulted in extensive damage throughout its many districts, but especially in its very center. Dozens of the older hotels that lacked earthquake protection in the city’s center collapsed, killing and injuring thousands of visitors. The Regis, the Diplomático, the Versailles, the Romano (all of its occupants were killed), and the De Carlo were among those most seriously affected. While the upscale Del Prado survived the quake itself, it was rendered uninhabitable. The Regis, formerly a luxury hotel but over time one that had deteriorated to second-class status, was 90 percent occupied when the quake struck. A few guests managed to jump to safety from the second floor. The stairway between the first and second floor as well as the front of the building had collapsed in the initial tremor. A few minutes later the rest of the edifice blew up as a result of accumulated gas within its ruins. Both the Navy ministry nearby, as well as a secondary school, the National College of Professional Education, suffered major damage. Navy personnel dug with their hands to try to free their fellow sailors. Several hundred students at the school were entombed in the ruins of their classrooms. They had been in class for only twenty minutes. The poorly constructed, overcrowded factories in the city suffered major damage as well. Four hundred production centers were destroyed, over 800 garment workers were killed, and thousands were left without work once the tremors had ceased. The factories proved to be particularly vulnerable to quakes for two reasons: the poor construction of the buildings in which they were housed, and the fact that the floors of the buildings themselves were stressed by the heavy loads of machinery and rolls of material that they bore. Several major high-rises in the Tlatelolco complex failed to survive the first tremors. In 1968 Tlatelolco had been the scene of the massacre of an estimated 300 students by the army at the instigation of the government. This 103-building housing development, containing the living quarters of many government workers, suffered major damage, leaving the hundreds that survived the initial quake 759
1985: The Mexico City earthquake without shelter. Forty-three of the 103 buildings were rendered immediately uninhabitable. The development’s thirteen-story Nuevo León Building ended up in ruins, with more than half of its 3,000 residents trapped in the wreckage. The remaining rubble alone stood four stories high. Prior to the quake, many of its occupants had complained to authorities about the poor condition of the building. Some of the accusers claimed that the builders had paid bribes to government inspectors to overlook the inferior quality of the materials used in its construction. Survivors from the surrounding buildings dug with their hands in an effort to free the Nuevo León’s victims. Famous tenor Placido Domingo had relatives trapped on the sixth floor in one of Tlatelolco’s high-rises. He led a brigade of volunteers that banded together to pull people from the rubble and provide food and water for survivors and volunteers. When aid workers using public and private vehicles took the victims of the Tlatelolco disaster to the National Medical Center they were turned back. All of its major buildings had been devastated. Seventy of the center’s physicians, nurses, and other employees had been killed. Several hundred patients had been crushed at the site as well. Some experts maintained that the medical buildings themselves were of substandard construction and that building regulations had been ignored during their erection. Five major hospitals within the city were destroyed, and an additional 22 were heavily damaged. The loss of hospital beds alone numbered 4,200, about 30 percent of the city’s existing capacity. Following the quake, a number of complaints arose about the marginal construction of many of the recently built government structures. The material used proved to be inferior to what had been specified in the contracts between the government and the builders. The headquarters of the television station Televisa suffered immense damage. More than 77 of its employees perished in the building’s collapse. Nevertheless, the station managed to get back on the air after five hours of broadcast suspension. The station could not send filming units into the streets since many were blocked by debris, but the station did manage to report on the quake utilizing helicopters flying over the city. A second—less severe, but still powerful—earthquake occurred 760
1985: The Mexico City earthquake
The Mexico City earthquake reduced many buildings to rubble. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
less than thirty-six hours after the initial temblor. Technicians rated this subsequent quake 5.6 on the Richter scale. The tremor resulted in the postponement of rescue efforts. Further loss of life occurred among injured and trapped victims from the first disaster. The Pino Suárez high-rise building at Tlatelolco, damaged in the earlier quake, collapsed in the second, killing many rescue workers. The statistics at the end of the first day showed the following: The quake had contaminated the city’s water supply, and it had severed both electrical and telephone service. The telephone center on Victory Street was destroyed, effectively closing down telephone communications from and to Mexico City. Initially, news concerning the quake could be transmitted only by some of the city’s 1,800 licensed ham-radio operators. More than 250,000 citizens found themselves temporarily without shelter. Adequate food supplies still existed, but getting them to the needed areas presented serious logistical problems. However, groups of citizen volunteers set up kitchens and tents in the streets next to excavation sites and began preparing food and drink for both victims and volunteers. Five days after the initial quake, officials at Mexico’s national university began to assemble a list of the missing, because the computers 761
1985: The Mexico City earthquake there were more sophisticated than those available to the government. Nevertheless, the delay in initiating a program seeking to identify the missing, dead, and injured led to a great deal of confusion for friends and relatives trying to locate those whose whereabouts were unknown. No program had been prepared for the government’s computer facilities to be utilized in such an emergency. The Government. After 1929 Mexico’s federal, state, and regional governments were controlled by a single political entity, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The party has been accused of maintaining continuous control of the government by engineering elections, not only at the federal level but also in state and regional political contests. At the time of the 1985 earthquake, it was left to the country’s president to personally appoint Mexico City’s mayor, who was also named to the presidential cabinet. The responsibility for governing the city and providing for the welfare of its citizens lay with the office of the president. Despite its claim to have a disaster plan for Mexico City to be implemented in the event of an emergency, when the earthquake struck, the Mexican government officials, initially at least, seemed to be helpless in the face of the tragedy. The extensive nature of the damage rendered previous planning inoperable. The city had an insufficient number of firefighters to meet the emergency. It also lacked the heavy construction equipment needed to begin removal of the thousands of tons of masonry rubble. The police and the army did little more than cordon off the damaged areas; they did not respond to the plight of the injured or aid in the removal of the dead. Some police were accused by onlookers of looting the damaged structures or taking bribes to allow businessmen to recover their records without addressing the need for first aid for injured employees. The police expelled a reporter on the scene who had observed the pilferage and who planned to expose the corruption. More scandals involving the police surfaced with the unscheduled release of some prisoners held in local jails damaged by the quakes. They testified to the use of torture by their captors during interrogations. Corpses of prisoners killed by the quake also bore evidence of systematic brutalization after the rescuers exhumed the bodies from a building occupied by the office of the attorney general. When the manual laborers assigned by the government to aid in 762
1985: The Mexico City earthquake rescue efforts arrived on the scene, their equipment proved to be totally inadequate to meet the formidable task of removing the huge piles of debris resulting from the demolished buildings. Only when private contractors moved their own bulldozers and tractors to the sites could any meaningful shifting of the debris be accomplished. Immediately following the quake, Mexican president Miguel de la Madrid announced publicly that Mexico had adequate resources to meet the emergency and that foreign aid would not be needed. In one instance, a team of French rescue workers with trained dogs was prevented by Mexican officials from beginning search operations at a devastated building. The president reversed his decision two days later; the delay cost the lives of many of the trapped and injured who could have been rescued by the many teams of foreign workers who then entered the country. President de la Madrid, essentially a bureaucrat, lacked the necessary leadership characteristics needed in the president of a stricken country facing this type of catastrophe. Ultimately, 60 foreign countries aided in the rescue effort. Thirteen specialty brigades from outside the country, with tools and bloodhounds, worked tirelessly at the sites of devastation to find both the injured and the dead. The Israelis sent a team of 25 along with 17 tons of equipment. Because of the constant threat of quakes in their own country, they had developed special equipment for locating and recovering those who had been trapped. In total, some 250 foreign governments, international relief agencies, and nongovernmental organizations of various types offered their services to Mexico. To complement these high-profile efforts, a group of young students from El Salvador drove several hundred miles from their Central American country in a battered passenger car, seeking to help in whatever capacity they could. Airplanes from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Algeria, Switzerland, Colombia, Canada, Peru, Italy, Cuba, Spain, and Panama brought in tons of relief supplies for distribution to the injured and homeless. Rescue. The citizens of Mexico City themselves became the major participants in the rescue effort. Forming brigades of volunteers similar to the one led by Placido Domingo, working with a modicum of tools acquired from local hardware stores, and sometimes with only their bare hands, the teams sought to save the lives of their trapped 763
1985: The Mexico City earthquake and injured fellow citizens. They formed human chains and passed debris and broken concrete from hand to hand. In most cases the brigades consisted of friends or coworkers. Some slightly built rescuers, nicknamed moles, crawled through tiny openings in the ruins, risking their own lives, in an effort to aid the living and to recover the bodies of the dead. One of these heroes, Marcos Efrén Zariñana, slightly over 5 feet in height, became known as “the Flea.” Observers credited him with personally saving a number of lives. The diminutive rescuer edged his way through tunnels too small for other workers to enter in order to pull out victims. Citizens formed their own committees to distribute food, clothing, and blankets directly to the survivors. They did not trust government officials to carry out even these tasks. They continued to upbraid the police and the soldiers for failing to take a positive role in the rescue efforts. The army defended itself vociferously, maintaining that it had been given orders only to secure the afflicted areas and to prevent looting. Consequences. There were many economic and political consequences of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. The government immediately began a rapid updating of building codes. It established for the first time a centralized national civil defense system. Nongovernmental organizations such as the Mexican Red Cross and the Catholic Church began to coordinate with one another their plans for addressing major emergencies such as the Mexico City earthquake. The quake dealt Mexico a serious economic blow. The final estimate of the country’s financial loss amounted to the equivalent of at least 4 billion U.S. dollars, possibly as much as $10 billion. The city lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in its normally lucrative tourist revenue. Moreover, hundreds of millions of dollars in wages literally disappeared when local businesses ceased to function. Reconstruction and rehabilitation costs were equivalent to 6 percent of the whole country’s annual gross national product. The World Bank alone provided over half a billion dollars in reconstruction loans. The paid insurance losses exceeded any previous earthquake catastrophe except for those occurring in San Francisco in 1906 and Tokyo in 1923. The heavy concentration of industry in the capital further demonstrated that the nation’s economic structure was ill 764
1985: The Mexico City earthquake served by allowing the bulk of its industry to locate in such narrow confines. Some events developed after the catastrophe that the government had not foreseen. The PRI, although still the foremost political organization throughout Mexico, lost the support of many citizens of Mexico City. The general public saw the party as closely aligned with the government itself. Initially at least, the two together were seen as to have failed to contribute effectively to the rescue effort. Eventually a citywide organization of ordinary citizens was formed to protest the manner in which the country’s political leadership responded to the quake. Named the United Victim Network, its leaders pressured the office of the president to meet the needs of the homeless. The government, in an effort to regain support, and faced with a series of street demonstrations by this disaffected group of citizens, sometimes numbering in the thousands, took over some 600 acres of downtown real estate and, with the financial help of the World Bank, constructed dwellings for some 70,000 local citizens who were without housing. It added some small parks and playgrounds as well. Despite this highly publicized program, the government failed to win back the allegiance of most of the city’s population. The PRI’s presidential candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, barely won the national election held in 1988, three years following the quake. The opposition accused the government of fraud in tallying the votes. No questions of closeness arose in the case of the Mexico City vote, however—75 percent of the capital’s voters backed his two opponents, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas of the leftist Partido Democratico Revolucionario (PDR) and Manuel Clouthier of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN). In the years immediately following the quake, Mexico City’s citizens continued to demonstrate their opposition to the existing political system. They had come to resent the country’s president unilaterally selecting their mayor, a resentment kindled by the ineffectual handling of quake relief by the mayor’s office. Finally, under pressure from an aroused and increasingly vociferous citizenry, the federal government capitulated and acquiesced to legislation enfranchising the city’s residents. Over a decade later, a further example of the rejection of the government’s direct control of the reins of city government occurred 765
1985: The Mexico City earthquake when, in 1997, its citizens elected Cárdenas of the PDR its first popularly elected mayor over Alfredo del Mazo, the candidate chosen by the government and the PRI. The 1985 earthquake had changed forever the way that Mexico City was to be governed. Carl Henry Marcoux For Further Information: Centeno, Miguel Angel. Democracy Within Reason: Technical Revolution in Mexico. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Díaz Cervantes, Emilio. The Placido Domingo Brigade: A Manual Against Disaster. Mexico City: Ediciones Castillo, 1995. Foweraker, Joe, and Ann L. Craig. Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1990. Gil, Carlos B., ed. Hope and Frustration: Interviews with Leaders of Mexico’s Political Opposition. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1992. Kandell, Jonathan. La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City. New York: Random House, 1988. Morris, Stephen D. Political Reformism in Mexico: An Overview of Contemporary Mexican Politics. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995. Poniatowska, Elena. Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexico City Earthquake. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Quarantelli, E. L. Organizational Response to the Mexico City Earthquake of 1985: Characteristics and Implications. Newark: University of Delaware Disaster Research Center, 1992.
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■ 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster Volcano Date: August 21, 1986 Place: Cameroon Result: 1,734 dead, 3,000 cattle dead, 4,000-5,000 people evacuated, 4 villages destroyed
T
he eruption of Lake Nyos in 1986 was the second time lethal gas released from a lake has claimed human lives. The first was on August 15, 1984, at Lake Monoun, another lake in Cameroon, when 37 people died. As the government had just put down an attempted coup at the time and was worried about the political overtones of the incident, the Monoun eruption received little public attention, but the eruption of Lake Nyos was so catastrophic that immediate international aid was needed. History of Lake Nyos. Both lakes lie in the northwestern part of Cameroon, a tropical, West African country about the size of California. The lakes are located on the so-called Cameroon volcanic line, a zone of crustal weakness extending 1,000 miles northeast from Annobón Island in the south Atlantic through northwestern Cameroon and into northeastern Nigeria. Young cinder cones and basaltic lava flows appear along this line, as well as flat-floored explosion craters known as maars. The maars formed when rising, gas-charged magma came into explosive contact with near-surface groundwater. More than thirty of the Cameroon maars, filled by deep crater lakes, are strung out like jewels along the volcanic trend as it stretches across the nation. The crater in which Lake Nyos lies is rimmed by vertical, bedrock fault scarps on the west, a partially collapsed volcanic cone on the east, a delta plain to the south, and an outlet spillway across the flank of an ash cone to the north. Because the ash deposits around the lake are unweathered and little eroded, geologists believe the crater in which Lake Nyos lies is only a few hundred years old. The lake itself is shaped like a lemon, with a maximum length of 1.2 miles and a maximum width of 0.7 miles. It is shallow at the south end, near the delta 767
1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster plain, but drops off steeply to a flat bottom about 680 feet deep. Prior to the eruption, the inhabitants called Lake Nyos “the good lake.” It shimmered like a fallen piece of blue sky amidst the jutting rock cliffs and lush, green vegetation. The part of Cameroon in which Lake Nyos lies is a remote, mountainous region reached only by crude dirt roads. Before the eruption, some 5,000 people lived in the 4-square-mile area surrounding the lake. They were drawn here by the deeply weathered volcanic rocks that provided rich soils for their crops of cassava, maize, and yams, as well as prime grazing land for their herds of cattle. In the villages, which were little more than a row of houses strung out along the roads, people lived in thatched huts or two-room, mud-brick homes with corrugated tin roofs. Family groups lived in clusters up in the hills. None of the inhabitants had telephones or electricity. The Eruption. The fatal eruption came without warning about 9:30 on the evening of Thursday, August 21, 1986. Although this was the rainy season, the eruption came during a lull between thunderstorms. As a result, people looked out in surprise when they heard a loud, rumbling noise, which lasted perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, coming from the direction of the lake. One observer reported hearing a bubbling sound, and from his vantage point he saw a ghostly column of vapor rising from the lake’s surface. The vapor then poured down the valley to the north, like a smoking river. He also saw a surge of water in the lake and felt a blast of air that had the odor of rotten eggs. The people who lived in the valley north of the lake bore the brunt of the tragedy. The cloud of smoking vapor, which may have been as high as 150 feet, first struck the village of Lower Nyos, which lies about 0.3 mile beyond the lake. Thursday had been market day, and many people were still eating dinner when the cloud arrived, choking them in their homes. Those who tried to flee the cloud collapsed on the muddy roads leading out of town. Others died peacefully in their sleep. In all, some 1,200 people died in Lower Nyos that evening, with only one woman and a child known to have survived. An additional 500 people perished in the villages of Cha, Subum, and Fang, which lay farther down valley as the toxic cloud rolled on for 5 more miles. A survivor from Subum said he had feelings of warmth and drunkenness before he lost consciousness, and he re768
1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster NIGER
Zinder
Lake Chad
Katsina Maiduguri
N’Djamena CHAD
Zaria Kaduna
Abuja NIGERIA
Lake Nyos
CAMEROON
Lake Monoun
San
Malabo Douala
R
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Yaounde Ebolowa
EQUATORIAL GUINEA SAO TOME & PRINCIPE Sao Tome
aga
iver
Libreville
GABON CONGO
membered an odor like that of cooking gas. Family members acted drunk and were coughing and crying as they fell to the floor, where some lay screaming or spitting up blood. Another Subum resident awoke gasping for air but managed to drag himself into a windowless shed behind the house, where he survived. A few victims revived six to thirty-six hours later. They described feelings of dizziness, warmth, and confusion before losing conscious769
1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster ness, as well as shortness of breath. Only the people living in localities more than 2 miles from the lake reported an odor of rotten eggs or of gunpowder. When morning came, survivors of the eruption found the bodies of their cattle strewn about in the fields, and the bodies of their friends and relatives where they had fallen in their homes or along the roads. It seemed as though a neutron bomb had struck. Everyone was dead, but the buildings remained untouched. Some of the victims had even stripped off their clothes, as if in a desperate attempt to escape the feelings of heat. Others lay amid scattered pots and furniture, where they writhed as the vapors strangled them. Oil lamps were snuffed out too, although they still contained oil. The animals were dead—goats, pigs, birds, small mammals, and insects down to the smallest ant. Later that day, when the bodies of the cattle began to bloat in the hot sun, they remained untouched by flies or vultures because the scavengers were dead too. Strangely enough, plant life seemed to have been unaffected. The survivors hurriedly began burying the dead, with attention to their relatives first, and no one made any attempt to inform the outside world of what had happened, because of the lack of telephones and the poor roads. Thus the first word people had of the tragedy was from a government worker who headed into the area from the city of Wum on his motorcycle the afternoon of Friday, August 22. As he approached Lower Nyos, he first saw a dead antelope lying beside the road. Congratulating himself upon his good luck, he stopped to strap the animal to his motorcycle before continuing. Soon he encountered dead cattle and then the bodies of people. Now, beginning to feel ill himself, he turned his motorcycle around and hurried back to Wum, where he alerted the authorities. Full-scale relief efforts began on Sunday, August 24, when the president of Cameroon arrived by helicopter to inspect the scene, bringing with him doctors from Israel and a disaster team from France. Scientific Analysis. Scientists came too, and, after the injured had been taken care of, they turned their attention to the lake. Just one glance revealed that the appearance of Lake Nyos had changed radically. Although the waters remained calm, the lake no longer looked like a fallen piece of clear blue sky, but rather an angry red eye festering in its crater socket. The water was stained a muddy, reddish 770
1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster brown by iron compounds that rose with the escaping gas, and mats of floating vegetation littered the lake’s surface. The lake level had dropped by nearly 4 feet as well, and water had sloshed up on the south shore to a height of 80 feet and splashed over a 250-foot-high rock promontory on the southwest. The 20-foot high outlet spillway on the north had been overtopped as well, and downstream from the spillway, brush was flattened and several large fig trees lay uprooted, presumably by the blast of vapor coming from the lake. The earliest newspaper accounts of the eruption reported that the gas expelled by the lake was hydrogen sulfide, an identification based on reports of the odor of rotten eggs. Scientists pointed out that carbon dioxide, not hydrogen sulfide, had been the culprit at Lake Monoun, and when water samples from Lake Nyos were analyzed, 98 to 99 percent of the gas still dissolved in the lake proved to be carbon dioxide. The amount of gas released by the lake during the eruption was estimated to have totaled about 1.3 billion cubic yards, based on a drop in lake level of nearly 4 feet. Because carbon dioxide weighs one and a half times as much as air, it would have hugged the ground as it moved down valley, asphyxiating its victims by forcing the breathable air aside. Scientists considered three possible sources for this gas: volcanic, magmatic, or biogenic. If the origin were volcanic, the gas would have come from a near-surface eruption and should have had a high temperature. However, if the gas had a magmatic origin, it would have come from molten rock deep within the earth and consequently been cool by the time it reached the surface; it would also have lost its reactive constituents, such as sulfur and chlorine compounds and carbon monoxide. Temperature measurements made after the eruption indicated that the lake was still cool, so a magmatic origin was favored. Biogenic gas would have been cool too, having originated from the decomposition of organic matter on the lake’s bottom, but carbon-14 tests dated the lake’s gas as more than thirty-five thousand years old. This meant that the gas expelled by the lake was magmatic, for organic decomposition on the bottom of a lake only a few hundred years old could hardly account for such gas. Springs around Lake Nyos contain high concentrations of carbon dioxide, so scientists believe the magmatic gas came into Lake Nyos with the groundwater. Once in the lake, the gas would have remained 771
1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster dissolved due to the weight of the overlying water. Because the lake was stratified, the gas would have concentrated in the cold, lowermost layers, gradually turning the lake into a time bomb waiting to go off. Any event that made the gas-rich water start to rise would have reduced the pressure on it and allowed carbon dioxide to bubble to the surface, just as a soda bottle fizzes when the cap is removed. Scientists could not be certain what made the water rise and initiate the eruption. Possibilities that were suggested include a rockfall into the lake, an earth tremor, a volcanic eruption, storm winds, or even seasonal cooling of the lake’s upper surface, which would have caused the lake’s water to overturn. Carbon dioxide gas continued to leak into the lake after the eruption was over, and scientists predicted that in another twenty or thirty years the lake could be ready to erupt again. As a result they alerted Cameroon authorities that their crater lakes were potential hazards that would have to be monitored carefully. They also pointed out that the weak, natural dam forming the outlet spillway of Lake Nyos represented a hazard as well. Failure of this dam could cause a sudden lowering of the lake’s level, triggering another explosive release of gas. As a remedy for Cameroon’s crater lakes scientists recommended reducing the gas content by controlled pumping. For an example of this, they cited an experimental project that began at Lake Monoun in 1992. Gas-rich deep water was pumped to the lake’s surface, where the carbon dioxide was harmlessly released into the atmosphere, and then the degassed water was permitted to return to the lake. Donald W. Lovejoy For Further Information: Decker, Robert, and Barbara Decker. Volcanoes. 4th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Eno Belinga, Samuel-M., and Isaac Konfor Njilah. From Mount Cameroon to Lake Nyos. Yaoundé, Cameroon: Classiques Camerounais, 2001. Kling, George W., et al. “The 1986 Lake Nyos Gas Disaster in Cameroon, West Africa.” Science 236 (April 10, 1987): 169-175. Scarth, Alwyn. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. 772
1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster Stager, Curt. “Silent Death from Cameroon’s Killer Lake.” National Geographic 172, no. 3 (September, 1987): 404-420. Tuttle, Michele, et al. The 21 August 1986 Lake Nyos Gas Disaster, Cameroon: Final Report of the United States Scientific Team to the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. Reston, Va.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 1987.
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■ 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Fire Date: Summer, 1988 Place: Mainly Yellowstone National Park, located predominantly in northwestern Wyoming and partly in southern Montana and eastern Idaho; also, surrounding national forests in the northern Rocky Mountains Result: 2 dead; approximately 1.2 million acres burned, 793,000 in Yellowstone National Park itself; more than $3 million estimated in damage
T
he summer of 1988 saw the largest forest fire complex ever recorded for the Greater Yellowstone area, the largest in the northern Rocky Mountains for decades, and one of the most severe in U.S. history. The fires, which burned 36 percent of the more than 2.2-million-acre Yellowstone National Park and a total of 11 percent of the Greater Yellowstone Area, triggered the nation’s most expensive fire-suppression effort and a heated debate about national park fire management policy. Over the millennia, many conflagrations as large as the 1988 fires have swept across the vast volcanic plateaus of Yellowstone National Park. The fires have affected mostly the large stands of lodgepole pine, which dominate the high-elevation areas. These stands constitute 80 percent of the park’s forests and cover nearly 60 percent of the park. The recurring, major fires are responsible for the mosaic landscape of different-aged pines. Tree-ring research shows that fires of this magnitude last struck in the early 1700’s. Crescendo of Fires. The 1988 fire season in the Greater Yellowstone Area began on May 24, when lightning ignited a blaze that rain quickly extinguished. Over the next six months, lightning and careless people triggered 247 more fires in the area. Early in the season, officials in Yellowstone National Park stuck to their policy, begun in 1972, of allowing lightning-ignited fires to burn in the backcountry, 774
1988: Yellowstone National Park fires under certain guidelines. From 1972 through 1987, such fires had burned only 33,759 acres, and all these blazes had died naturally. Park staff did not foresee the extreme weather conditions that would develop in the summer of 1988. The previous six summers had all been wetter than average, and rainfall in April and May of 1988 had been above average. However, the winters since 1982 had been consistently dry, and it is mainly the snowpacks in the mountains that moisten the park’s plateaus. Weather experts were saying that the period leading up to 1988 was becoming the driest since the 1930’s Dust Bowl. The summer of 1988 proved to be the driest in the park’s history. Precipitation in June, July, and August was 20 percent, 79 percent, and 10 percent, respectively, of normal. The failure of the usual June and July rains amplified the early fires. By July 15, 8,600 acres had burned; by July 21, more than 17,000 acres were ruined. The fires drew the attention of park visitors and the national media. On July 21, in a departure from policy, park officials decided to suppress all fires, whether caused by lightning or by humans. Nevertheless, within a week, fires in the park covered nearly 99,000 acres. By the end of July, dry fuels and high winds made the larger fires nearly uncontrollable. In August, with almost no rain, temperatures remaining high, and a series of dry, cold fronts bringing strong, persistent winds, there was a marked decrease in moisture in forest debris. This dry fuel engendered near-firestorm conditions. By August 15, a total of 260,000 acres had burned. On August 20, the single worst day—dubbed “Black Saturday”—winds as high as 70 miles per hour pushed fire across more than 150,000 acres in and around the park. Walls of flame reached 100 to 300 feet high. More acreage burned in a single twenty-four-hour period than had burned during any previous decade in the park’s history. Firefighters and soldiers poured into Yellowstone National Park. Aircraft, both for transporting firefighters and supplies and for dropping water and fire retardant on the flames, arrived from around the nation, and dozens of trucks were brought in. Firefighters cleared firebreaks and set backfires. National news reporters also arrived in force. Local businesses became alarmed at the prospect of lost tourist income. The park’s fire-management policy came under heated de775
1988: Yellowstone National Park fires bate, from park border towns to the U.S. Congress, as the conflagrations raged on despite the firefighting effort. Spot fires, caused by burning embers carried up in the smoke, were breaking out up to a mile and a half ahead of the fires, mocking firebreaks. Even marshes and swamps burned, as well as young, green forests, which park ecologists had not expected to ignite. Some days, the seven major fire complexes, which in the end were responsible for more than 95 percent of the burned acreage, advanced as much as 10 or 12 miles. Of these seven, three had been started by human beings, and park staff had attempted to suppress them from the outset. These three were ultimately responsible for more than half the area burned. By August 31, 550,000 acres had burned. At that point, park officials abandoned traditional, direct attacks on the fires and withdrew firefighters to developed areas, to try to protect only life and property. On September 7, 100,000 acres burned. On September 10, park authorities evacuated several towns, including Mammoth Hot Springs, the park’s headquarters. That night the wind turned north, and by morning it was snowing. The fires lost their strength, although they did not die out completely until the onset of winter, in November. After September 11, firefighters were gradually sent home. A total of more than 25,000 firefighters, as many as 9,000 at one time, fought the fires in the Greater Yellowstone Area, at a total cost of about $120 million. They hand-cut a total of 665 miles of fireline and cut 137 miles of bulldozer lines, including 32 miles in Yellowstone National Park itself. Two of the firefighters were killed outside the park, one by a falling tree and the other while piloting a plane transporting other personnel. Effects and the Recovery Process. After the fires, Congress funded the restoration of fire-damaged facilities, which included 67 destroyed structures, and studies of the long-term impact of the fires. Although the 1988 tourist season was cut short by the blazes, visitors returned in 1989. Scientists, eager to study the ecological effects of severe fire in a natural laboratory, set to work examining the impact on wildlife and plants. From the start it was clear that the 1988 Yellowstone fires burned in a heterogeneous pattern, owing to variations in fuels, winds, and terrain. Substantial areas were untouched by fire or only 776
1988: Yellowstone National Park fires lightly burned by fast-moving ground fires that left most of the trees alive. Other areas were completely blackened by fierce fires that reached into the canopy and burned the treetops. Most of the severely burned land, however, defied theories that fires of this magnitude would “sterilize” the soil by killing root systems and seeds, opening the way for invading weeds. Although flames consumed the aboveground parts of grasses and other herbaceous plants, even the hottest fires rarely burned more than the top inch of soil, leaving viable seeds, bulbs, roots, and rhizomes below that depth. By the spring of 1989, grasses and flowers were growing abundantly. The heaviest fires were in the huge stands of aging, diseased, highly combustible lodgepole pine. These fires promoted new growth by releasing nutrients long locked up in the old trees, by opening the forest canopy and permitting sunlight to reach the young plants, and by clearing deadfall. Unlike many of the park’s herbaceous plants, most trees do not regenerate by sprouting from their roots. Rather, they depend on seeds, and lodgepole pine is a master at this method in fire-affected landscapes. The cones of many, though not all, lodgepole pines are sealed by resin until the intense heat of fire melts the resin and releases seeds that have been stored in the cones for many years. This produces a large crop of young pines to take advantage of the abundant water, nutrients, and space that become available after a fire. This cone adaptation, called “serotiny,” resulted in the development of the even-aged pine stands covering much of the Rocky Mountains, where fires are frequent. By the spring of 1989, lodgepole pine seedlings were establishing themselves abundantly. Ten years after the fires, many of them were knee- to shoulder-high. Fire also affected the park’s lower elevation areas, characterized by sagebrush grasslands interspersed with forests of Douglas fir and aspen. The Douglas firs, which dominate only a small percentage of the landscape, came back more slowly than the lodgepole pines but, a decade after the fires, were emerging above the shrubs. The park’s scattered groves of aspen, the only deciduous tree common in the park and declining there for decades, sprouted profusely from the roots, but the new shoots were grazed by elk. Regeneration of willows, which typically line the streambanks, and sagebrush also may have been fire-stimulated. Ten years after the fires, grasslands had recovered to prefire conditions. 777
1988: Yellowstone National Park fires As new plants of many kinds became established, the populations and kinds of insects and larger animals feeding on the abundant new food supplies increased. The rapid rebound of plants and animals throughout the park surprised many ecologists. The fires’ toll on large animals was relatively small. Many animals survived by moving away from the flames. Postfire searchers found, both within and outside the park, carcasses of 335 elk (of a herd estimated at more than 30,000), 36 deer, 12 moose, 6 black bears, and 9 bison, mainly in areas where fast-moving flames prevented escape. Fires in the sagebrush grasslands on the park’s northern range, which supplies critical winter forage for the park’s largest herds of elk and buffalo, diminished these animals’ food supply for the winter of 1988-1989. Many of the animals starved, but their deaths were attributed more to the severe winter and to the 1988 summer drought’s effects on forage than to fire. Some birds and many small mammals were killed by the fires. A few small fish kills occurred as a result of heated water or fire retardant dropped on the streams. The fires caused physical and food-web changes in the streams, but these did not seem to affect fish adversely. Causes and Fire Policy. After much debate, many scientists concluded that the most significant factor causing the 1988 Yellowstone fires was the combination of drought and sustained, strong winds. Their position was bolstered by the dating of charcoal in park lakebeds, which indicated that, over the past fourteen thousand years, the recurrence interval of major fires is fifty to five hundred years and is related mainly to drought. According to this view, abundant fuel, in the form of accumulated deadwood and old, diseased pines, would exacerbate, but not cause, the fires. In contrast, a more traditional hypothesis holds that fuel buildup is a major factor leading to severe fires. Some scientists argued that Yellowstone National Park’s fire-suppression policy, in force from 1872 until 1972, augmented the forest fuel buildup and thus made a severe conflagration more likely. However, most think that suppression, which was effectively carried out for only some thirty years, had little effect, especially at the higher elevations. Many scientists concluded that the origin of the fires—natural or human-made—was less important than weather and fuel in determining overall fire severity. Fire experts also concluded that the mas778
1988: Yellowstone National Park fires sive firefighting effort probably did not significantly reduce the acreage burned, although it saved many buildings. As a result of the controversy over federal fire policy touched off by the 1988 Yellowstone fires, national parks and forests suspended and updated their fire-management plans. In 1992, Yellowstone National Park again had a wildland fire-management plan, but with stricter guidelines for allowing naturally occurring fires to burn. Jane F. Hill For Further Information: Baskin, Yvonne. “Yellowstone Fires: A Decade Later—Ecological Lessons Learned in the Wake of the Conflagration.” BioScience, February, 1999, 93-97. Carrier, Jim. Summer of Fire: The Great Yellowstone Fires of 1988. Salt Lake City: Gibbs-Smith, 1989. Despain, Don G. F. “The Yellowstone Fires: Ecological History of the Region Helps Explain the Damage Caused by the Fires of the Summer of 1988.” Scientific American, November, 1989, 36-45. Franke, Mary Ann. Yellowstone in the Afterglow: Lessons from the Fires. Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo.: Yellowstone Center for Resources, Yellowstone National Park, 2000. Lauber, Patricia. Summer of Fire: Yellowstone 1988. New York: Orchard Books, 1991. Sholly, Dan R., with Steven M. Newman. Guardians of Yellowstone: An Intimate Look at the Challenges of Protecting America’s Foremost Wilderness Park. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Vogt, Gregory. Forests on Fire: The Fight to Save Our Trees. New York: Franklin Watts, 1990. Wallace, Linda L. After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004.
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■ 1988: The Leninakan earthquake Earthquake Also known as: The Spitak earthquake Date: December 7, 1988 Place: Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union Magnitude: 6.9 and 5.8 Result: More than 60,000 dead, 15,000 injured, 500,000 homeless, at least 450,000 buildings destroyed, including 7,600 historical monuments, estimated $30 billion in damage
O
n December 7, 1988, devastation struck Soviet Armenia. Between 11:41 and 11:45 a.m. two tremors measuring 6.9 and 5.8 on the Richter scale destroyed or severely damaged the cities of Spitak, Leninakan (now Gyumri), Kirovakan (now Vanadzor), and Stepanakert and more than 100 villages. Erivan (now Yerevan), the capital, suffered damage, and the shock waves spread out some 150 miles into neighboring Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran. The quakes were shallow, the most destructive kind. The point on the fault between two massive subterranean tectonic plates where enough pressure was exerted to create the focus of the earthquake was approximately 13 miles below the surface. The corresponding mark of the focus on the surface of the earth, the epicenter, was about 20 miles northwest of Kirovakan, 26 miles northeast of Leninakan, and 3.25 miles from Spitak, a city of 30,000 that was virtually erased from the face of the earth. Approximately 99 percent of its population vanished, buried under the rubble. About 80 percent of Leninakan, Armenia’s second largest city, with a population of 290,000, was destroyed; 80 percent of Stepanakert, a city of 16,000, was destroyed. The quakes occurred at the worst possible time, just before noon on a working weekday. In addition, the damaged or destroyed areas had more than 150,000 unregistered refugees from neighboring Nagorno-Karabakh, a small, predominantly Armenian province in Azerbaijan that was forcibly attempting to oust the Armenians. The quakes caused a rupture 8 miles long and 2 feet wide; the force of the 780
1988: The Leninakan earthquake subterranean shock could be compared to the explosion of 100 nuclear bombs. Devastating as the quakes were, in intensity they were relatively mild. In comparison, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake registered 8.1 on the Richter scale, the 1964 Alaskan earthquake was 9.2, and the 1939 Chile quake was 8.3. On the Richter scale, a magnitude 7.0 quake is ten times more powerful than a magnitude 6.0 quake and one hundred times more powerful than a magnitude 5.0 quake. Although all of these earthquakes were of greater intensity than that of Armenia, none were as costly in terms of human life. What set the Armenian earthquakes apart is the large number of buildings the quakes either damaged or destroyed. Reasons for the Scope of the Destruction. The first reason was the nature of the quakes. Usually, major earthquakes are pre-
Caspian Sea
RUSSIA GEORGIA
Tiflis
Gyumri Vanadzor (Leninakan) Spitak (Kirovakan)
ARMENIA
NagornoKarabakh
Yerevan
AZERBAIJAN Baku Stepanakert
(Erivan)
Shushi
TURKEY
Lachin corridor
Nakhichevan (Azerbaijan)
IRAN
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1988: The Leninakan earthquake ceded by a series of foreshocks, mild tremors that give authorities time to prepare and potential victims time to seek safety. The Armenian quakes came without warning, although some people had noted beforehand peculiar animal and bird behavior. The two tremors were of about equal intensity. This meant that whereas the first tremor badly damaged buildings, the second, or aftershock, four minutes later, caused them to collapse, often on their occupants. Soviet seismologists defended their lack of preparedness, maintaining that there had been no major earthquake in the area since 1046, when the ancient Armenian capital of Arni was destroyed by a quake. However, the area had experienced a series of quakes over the years. In 1667, a quake had taken 80,000 lives. The fault at the heart of the 1988 earthquake appears on a geological map dated 1971. The Caucasus Mountain range, in which Armenia is located, is a seismic area crisscrossed by fault lines and filled with extinct volcanoes. Soviet scientists were known to have acknowledged that a major quake in the area was long overdue. A second reason was poor urban planning. In earthquake-prone areas provisions should be made for “areas of survival,” or free space to which people can escape from the danger of collapsing buildings. There was no such provision in the Armenian cities. Buildings were placed close together so that the areas between them, including the streets, were filled with debris from the earthquakes. This not only failed to afford escape but also did not provide the firm, cleared ground the Caterpillar carriages of the moveable cranes needed to lift the heavy debris. Inappropriate building design and faulty construction also contributed greatly. Substandard construction was probably the major reason for the scope of the Armenian catastrophe. Most of the newer buildings, both offices and apartment houses, eight or nine stories high, were prefabricated. Slabs of concrete rested on cement-block walls. When the quakes occurred, the unconnected elements toppled. The quality of the concrete was also inferior, unable to withstand strain and prone to crumbling. When the supports were destroyed, the slabs collapsed together like gigantic millstones, trapping many of the occupants of the buildings between them. After the quakes, lifting these huge slabs was beyond human efforts; the muchneeded cranes and other heavy equipment arrived too late to save 782
1988: The Leninakan earthquake many victims. In rural areas, many of the houses were made of mud brick, with stone roofs that collapsed on the occupants. In rebuilding the decision was made to limit the height of buildings to three or five stories and to pour concrete on the site. Another reason was ineffective assistance. The sheer scope of the tragedy, involving nearly 19 percent of the country’s population, was beyond the capability of the Armenian authorities; help was needed from outside the country. With thousands of badly injured people trapped beneath the wreckage, every hour of delay meant additional loss of life. It was only because of glasnost, or the open-discussion policy of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, that the outside world became aware of the disaster. (The 1948 earthquake in the Soviet republic of Turkmen that killed 110,000 was concealed for forty years.) Also, Soviet acceptance of outside help was unprecedented. When the outside world did become aware of the disaster, the extent of the support, especially from the 6 million Armenians scattered throughout the world, was unparalleled. The total value of aid, estimated at $500 million, was the largest international response ever to a national disaster. The day after the quakes a French team of doctors, anesthesiologists, and medical technicians—together with supplies—was ready to leave for Erivan. However, they had to wait two days before permission was given to land—two days in which thousands died. President Gorbachev was in New York at the time but canceled his trip to fly back to the Soviet Union. He visited Armenia on December 10, ostensibly to take charge of the rescue operation, which had suffered from lack of leadership. The position of landlocked Armenia surrounded by alienated states made a desperate situation even worse because the necessary heavy equipment had to come by land. The only working rail line was from Erivan to Baku, the capital of Armenia-hostile Azerbaijan. Supplies came by air in such quantities that the Erivan and Leninakan airports became bottlenecks. Meanwhile, aid workers desperately tried to free the victims whose cries and groans became ever fainter. In the end only 5,000 of as many as 80,000 were pulled from the wreckage. Most tragic was the death of more than 15,000 children, particularly in a country with a negative growth rate. By December 14, the Red Army wanted to clear all people from the damaged areas and to level the sites with bulldoz783
1988: The Leninakan earthquake ers and sow them with lime and other disinfectants to halt the possible spread of disease from the decomposing bodies beneath the ruins. Desperate intervention by survivors still searching for possible living victims delayed the decision a few more days. As late as December 15, a living person was pulled from the wreckage. By December 17, foreign relief workers were ordered to leave; by December 23, efforts to locate more survivors ceased. The injured who did survive faced another ordeal: inferior medical treatment. Relief doctors estimated Soviet medicine lagged a halfcentury behind that of the West. Not only were basic medications either in short supply or lacking but there was also a lack of sophisticated equipment, such as dialysis machines. One of the more urgent problems was to deal with “crush syndrome.” When subjected to great external pressure, the kidneys shut down and toxemia or poisoning begins. Only the use of dialysis machines that serve to cleanse the blood can keep the victim alive. At Erivan’s central hospital, 80 percent of the 600 survivors suffered from crush syndrome. Several dialysis machines were brought in by air, but not enough to save all who needed their use. There were also psychological problems to solve. In a society such as Armenia’s, where the extended family and clan take precedence over the individual, the loss of such support is emotionally devastating. There was scarcely a person in the entire republic that had not lost a relative; entire families disappeared. Hundreds wandered aimlessly with blank eyes through the ruins, clearly in need of counseling or psychiatric services, which were not readily available. The poor health of the victims was a factor in the death rate. Relief workers, especially those trained in nutrition, noted that low resistance caused by poor dietary habits raised the mortality rate among the earthquake victims. Further undermining their health was frequent evidence of alcohol and tobacco abuse. Lack of authority was also to blame. Despite its officially being called a “union” of quasi-independent republics, the Soviet Union was a dictatorship, with authority tightly controlled by Moscow. Despite Gorbachev’s pledge to “take charge” in Armenia, centralized authority to direct the complicated relief operation, especially in the distribution of supplies, was sporadic and ineffective. Relief workers often did not know where to go or what to do, and there was much 784
1988: The Leninakan earthquake duplication of effort and plundering and disappearance of supplies. A number of the bureaucrats who normally would have been available for administrative duties lay dead beneath the rubble. Units of the Red Army that had been sent to the disaster area did not participate in the relief efforts; they merely enforced curfews and blocked access to the ruined sites. Assessing the Damage. Given the secretive nature of the Soviet system it was impossible to arrive at accurate figures for the cost of the earthquakes. The Soviets estimated that 55,000 people had been killed. Relief workers estimated far more—possibly as many as three times that number. Especially devastating to Armenia was the loss of trained professionals and of children—a loss impossible to evaluate in monetary terms. More than 500,000 were left homeless; Soviet authorities indicated a wish to resettle about 70,000 in other parts of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev pledged $8.5 billion for restoration purposes, the same amount of money that was allocated to repair the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl two years before. Authorities estimated that at least triple that amount would be needed to restore the cities, using earthquake-resistant and more expensive building techniques. In addition to the buildings, extensive damage was done to the infrastructure— to light, sewer, water, and gas lines and to the transportation system. Help from Moscow never arrived. The Soviet Union was dissolved December 4, 1991. Armenia had declared its independence on September 21, 1991, to face the formidable task of rebuilding a shattered land. Nis Petersen For Further Information: Brand, D. “When the Earth Shook.” Time, December 19, 1988, 34-36. Coleman, Fred. “A Land of the Dead.” Newsweek, December 19, 1988, 19-23. Kerr, Richard A. “How the Armenian Quake Became a Killer.” Science 243 (January 13, 1989): 170-171. Novosti Press Agency. The Armenian Earthquake Disaster. Translated by Elliott B. Urdang. Madison, Conn.: Sphinx Press, 1989. Verluise, Pierre. Armenia in Crisis: The 1988 Earthquake. Translated by Levon Chorbajian. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995. 785
■ 1989: Hurricane Hugo Hurricane Date: September 13-22, 1989 Place: The Caribbean, North Carolina, and South Carolina Classification: Category 4-5 Speed: 136 miles per hour with gusts over 150 miles per hour Result: At least 75 dead (41 in the United States), $10 billion in damage
H
urricane Hugo belongs to a class of major hurricanes called Cape Verde storms. These hurricanes usually originate from strong African disturbances that intensify as they move off the West African coast and produce a tropical depression as they pass close to the Cape Verde Islands. Other hurricanes that were Cape Verde storms include Hurricane Donna in 1960 and Hurricanes David and Frederic in 1979. Hurricane Hugo began on September 9, 1989, as a cluster of thunderstorms off the coast of Africa. On September 10, 1989, it became a tropical depression when it was located approximately 125 miles south of the Cape Verde Islands. The depression continued on a duewest course over the eastern Atlantic Ocean for several days. By September 13 Hugo was located 1,200 miles east of the Leeward Islands and was moving westward at 20 miles per hour. The storm had gained sufficient strength and organization by this time to be classified as a hurricane by the National Hurricane Center, and its wind speeds were clocked in excess of 74 miles per hour. A day later, Hugo’s winds had increased to 115 miles per hour. By September 15, sustained winds of 190 miles per hour were measured by reconnaissance aircraft at 1,500 feet. This made the hurricane a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, the most intense category on the scale. Its central pressure was measured as low as 27.1 inches, which tied for the record minimum pressure in the Atlantic Ocean. The Caribbean. Hurricane Hugo first reached land on September 16, when its eye passed over Guadeloupe. At that time its winds 786
1989: Hurricane Hugo were estimated at 140 miles per hour. Its surface pressure was measured at 27.8 inches when its eye passed over the island. Approximately half of Pointe-Pitre, the capital city of Guadeloupe, was destroyed by the storm. In addition, 11 people were killed and 84 were injured. The neighboring island of Montserrat was also severely damaged. There, 10 people were killed and damages to property totaled $100 million. Hurricane Hugo’s next target was the Virgin Islands. On September 18, the eye of Hugo crossed the southwestern coastline of St. Croix. With maximum winds of 140 miles per hour the storm destroyed or damaged over 90 percent of the buildings on the island and left it without power, telephone service, or water. While the eye of the storm missed St. Thomas, the island still experienced extensive damage to buildings, utilities, and vegetation. Damage to the U.S. Virgin Islands totaled $500 million, while damage to the British Virgin Islands was estimated at another $200 million. Three people were killed by the storm, and another 7 died from storm-related causes. The damage was so extensive that in some areas of the Virgin Islands telephone service was not restored until March of 1990. After hitting the Virgin Islands, Hurricane Hugo shifted slightly northward. It passed through Vieques Sound between the islands of Culebra and Vieques. The island of Culebra experienced sustained winds of 105 miles per hour and wind gusts of 150 miles per hour. Hurricane Hugo then moved over Puerto Rico on September 18. In the capital city of San Juan there were sustained winds of 77 miles per hour and peak gusts of 92 miles per hour. In Puerto Rico tens of thousands of people lost their homes, including 60 percent of the residents of Culebra. The most severe damage was to the electrical system, especially along the northeast coast of the island. All together, 35 municipalities were without power. A week after the storm an estimated 47,500 homes and businesses were still without power; as late as September 28, 10 days after the storm, electrical service was still only 40 percent restored. Water service to the residents was also disrupted. One week after the storm, 25 percent of the island’s residents were without water. In the first 10 days following the storm the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers distributed more than 2 million gallons of water from 33 tank trucks on the island. On Puerto Rico itself damage was estimated at 787
1989: Hurricane Hugo $1 billion. In addition, there were 2 deaths directly caused by the storm and 22 hurricane-related deaths. Other islands in the Carribean affected by Hurricane Hugo were St. Kitts-Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda. Together these islands reported 2 people killed and $160 million in damages. All together it is estimated that Hurricane Hugo did a total of $3 billion in damages before it targeted the southeastern coast of the United States. The United States. Following its passage through the Caribbean, Hurricane Hugo weakened from a Category 4 to a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. On the morning of September 19, the eye of the storm had become poorly defined, and its strongest sustained winds were 100 miles per hour. As Hugo moved toward the South Carolina coast it strengthened once again to a Category 4 storm. When it came ashore near Charleston, the Charleston navy shipyard recorded gusts as high as 137 miles per hour. After hitting land, Hugo’s sustained surface winds were clocked at 87 miles per hour at the customs house in downtown Charleston. Farther north, at Bull Bay, sustained winds were estimated to be as high as 121 miles per hour. When it hit the mainland, Hugo became the first Category 4 or higher storm to strike the United States coast since Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1969. In South Carolina thousands of people voluntarily began moving inland more than twenty-four hours before Hugo made landfall. At 6 a.m. on September 21, South Carolina governor Carroll Campbell issued a mandatory evacuation order for the barrier islands and the coast of South Carolina. A subsequent mandatory evacuation of all one-story buildings in Charleston was issued by Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., because of the fear of a tremendous storm surge. It was estimated that more than 186,000 people left their homes, from Myrtle Beach to Hilton Head, South Carolina. The early warnings and evacuations were credited with saving thousands of lives. Hurricane Hugo struck the South Carolina coast on the night of September 21. The center of the storm passed over Sullivan’s Island, just north of Charleston. Sullivan’s Island had a storm surge of 13 feet above mean sea level. At Bull Bay the storm surge was 20 feet, the highest ever reported on the East Coast of the United States. The death and destruction caused by Hurricane Hugo along the immediate coast and inland were extensive. However, because of evacuations 788
1989: Hurricane Hugo and because the right side of the eyewall crossed the coast in one of the least populated reaches of South Carolina’s coast, there were only 13 deaths in the state directly attributed to the storm. Of these, 6 deaths were from drowning and 7 were wind-related. Only 2 of the drowning deaths occurred in homes. Another 14 people died of storm-related causes. The Damage. Property damage caused by Hugo was extensive. In Charleston an estimated 43 percent of the homes had at least $10,000 in damages. The roofs of Charleston city hall and the Charleston County courthouse were partially destroyed, causing significant damage to the contents of each. Several historical churches also lost their steeples. One week after Hugo only 25 percent of Charleston had electricity. The Charleston airport was closed to commercial traffic for a week due to damage to facilities and the lack of off-site power; full commercial service was not restored for eighteen days. A survey by the Red Cross showed that 9,302 homes in the state were completely destroyed, over half of which were mobile homes. Another 26,772 homes suffered major damage, and 75,702 houses had minor damage. Major structural damage included loss of roofs, collapse of single-story masonry buildings, and complete destruction of mobile homes. The majority of inland wind damage was caused by falling trees, and along the coast major damage was caused by flooding. Approximately 65 percent of the houses on Sullivan’s Island were structurally unsafe. On the barrier island to the north, the Isle of Palms, between 55 and 60 percent of the homes were deemed structurally unsafe. In addition, the Ben Sawyer Bridge, which provided the only access to the mainland from these islands, was blown out of position and tilted at a 30-degree angle. During this time the Red Cross served over 1 million meals to people. Between 1 and 1.5 million customers were without electrical power for two to three weeks; damage to power supply systems alone totaled more than $400 million. Hurricane Hugo also caused extensive beach erosion and landward transport of sand from the beach. In some coastal areas Hugo did restore a more natural profile to beaches on which steep slopes had been artificially maintained. Beachfronts that lacked natural dune systems and natural vegetation were the most heavily damaged—residents in those areas suffered significant water damage. 789
1989: Hurricane Hugo In addition to damages to homes and government property, the timber, fishing, and tourism industries sustained heavy losses. For example, Hurricane Hugo destroyed more than 6 billion board feet of timber, more than three times the total lost in the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption in 1980. The 150,000-acre Francis Marion National Forest, north of Charleston, had 70 percent of its trees damaged or destroyed. The value of the lost timber alone was estimated at over $1 billion. In North Carolina Hugo damaged more than 2.7 million acres of forest in twenty-six counties. Timber losses were valued at $250 million. Hurricane Hugo had a faster forward movement than most storms. This resulted in higher-than-normal inland wind speeds. Columbia, South Carolina, which is over 100 miles from the coast, had sustained winds of 67 miles per hour, while Charlotte, North Carolina, recorded sustained winds of 60 miles per hour. As a result, Hugo caused destruction as far as 180 miles inland. In Charlotte, Hugo caused an estimated $366 million in damages. In the North Carolina counties of Mecklenburg, Gastonia, and Union, damage was estimated at $883 million. In North and South Carolina over 1.5 million people lost power because of the storm; Duke Power estimated that at least 700,000 of its customers lost service. In the weeks following Hugo, Duke Power had 9,000 workers replacing 8,800 poles, 700 miles of cable and wire, 6,300 transformers, and 1,700 electric meters. In some parts of North Carolina power was not restored for two weeks. Property losses in North Carolina totaled over $1 billion, while South Carolina had an estimated $4 billion loss. In addition, there was 1 death in North Carolina directly attributed to Hugo and 6 other storm-related deaths. Additional death and destruction occurred as the remnants of Hurricane Hugo moved north. Virginia reported 6 storm-related deaths and damage estimated at $50 million, while 1 person died in New York. At the time Hurricane Hugo struck in 1989, it was the most expensive hurricane in United States history. While figures vary, damages caused by the storm have been estimated as high as $7 billion in the United States, $2 billion in Puerto Rico, and $1 billion elsewhere. The total number of deaths linked to the storm, directly or stormrelated, has been estimated at 75. Hugo remains one of the most de790
1989: Hurricane Hugo structive hurricanes ever to hit the Caribbean and the East Coast of the United States. William V. Moore For Further Information: Barnes, Jay. North Carolina’s Hurricane History. Rev. ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Committee on Natural Disaster Studies. Hurricane Hugo: Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Charleston, South Carolina, September 17-22, 1989. Vol. 6. Washington D.C.: National Academy of Science, 1994. Federal Insurance Administration. Federal Emergency Management Agency. Learning from Hurricane Hugo: Implications for Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1992. Fox, William Price. Lunatic Wind: Surviving the Storm of the Century. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 1992. Joseph, Gloria I., and Hortense M. Rowe, with Audre Lorde. Hell Under God’s Orders: Hurricane Hugo in St. Croix—Disaster and Survival. St. Croix, V.I.: Winds of Change Press, 1990. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Natural Disaster Survey Report: Hurricane Hugo September 10-22, 1989. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1990.
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■ 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake Earthquake Date: October 17, 1989 Place: Northern California, in an area extending from Watsonville and Santa Cruz in the south to San Francisco and Oakland in the north Magnitude: 7.0 or 7.1 on the Richter scale (U.S. Geological Survey recorded this earthquake at 7.1, but other geologists recorded it at 7.0) Result: 67 dead, more than 3,000 injured, more than $5 billion in damage
T
he worst earthquake in American history did not take place in the West, where there are many fault lines, but rather in Missouri. Although the February 7, 1812, New Madrid earthquake (one of a series in the region) took place long before the development of the Richter scale in 1935, contemporary reports by witnesses led seismologists to conclude that the New Madrid earthquake was in the range of 8.8 to 11 on the Richter scale. The 1812 earthquake caused the earth to shake over an area of 5 million square miles. Two later destructive American earthquakes were the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906, and the Good Friday earthquake of March 27, 1964, in Alaska. Although these two earthquakes resulted in extensive property damage and many deaths, they extended over smaller areas than the New Madrid quake. The Alaska earthquake was recorded at 9.2 on the Richter scale and caused shaking of the earth over approximately 500 square miles, whereas the San Francisco earthquake caused shaking of the earth over an area of 300 square miles and was estimated between 8.2 and 8.3 on the Richter scale. The populations of San Francisco and Los Angeles are now much larger than they were in the first decade of the twentieth century. Were an earthquake of the magnitude of the New Madrid earth792
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake quake of 1812 or of the Good Friday earthquake of 1964 to occur near Los Angeles or San Francisco, it is probable that the number of deaths would be in the hundreds of thousands. It is not impossible that similar earthquakes might occur in California, which has the largest population of any American state. After the terrible destruction and loss of life caused by the San Francisco earthquake, governmental officials and architects began to ask themselves what could be done to make buildings and bridges more resistant to seismic shocks caused by earthquakes, but few changes in building practices and codes were implemented until after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake near Los Angeles. In 1972, the California legislature created a Seismic Safety Commission and instructed its members to make recommendations to make California buildings and bridges more earthquake-resistant. This commission concluded that the major destruction caused by earthquakes is not generated by the shaking itself but by the aftereffects, when improperly constructed buildings, dams, and bridges collapse. The collapse of these structures and fires caused by the bursting of underground gas lines contribute significantly to property damage and the loss of life right after earthquakes. The commission demonstrated that buildings built with reinforced bricks were more quake-resistant than those built with regular bricks. The commission also demonstrated that wood-frame houses, even when constructed in conformity with existing building codes, were much more prone to quake damage than were houses built with reinforced brick. This had been known for a long period of time, but it was not financially feasible to ask people to tear down their woodframe houses and to replace them with houses built with reinforced bricks. Also, the installation of additional steel rods tends to make dams and bridges more stable. The California Seismic Safety Commission pointed out that bridges and dams built before 1972 were not sufficiently reinforced, and it recommended that the government of California begin retrofitting, or reinforcing, these structures. In addition, this commission pointed out that construction should be discouraged in areas that were highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes. This recommendation was impractical because far too much construction had already occurred in areas such 793
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake
Part of the upper level of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge failed during the Loma Prieta earthquake. It had been scheduled for reinforcement the following week. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
as the Marina District in San Francisco, which was created by filling in the land with sand, mud, and rocks. The foundation on which such construction was built was very susceptible to earthquakes—the ground tends to liquefy during severe seismic shocks. In addition, houses and businesses were built in very hilly areas, such as the Oakland Hills, during the first seven decades of the twentieth century. By 1972 it would have been impossible to move people and businesses from such areas. The government of California decided to create new building codes designed to make houses and public structures more quake-resistant and to undertake the retrofitting of existing dams, bridges, roads, and public buildings. The reinforcement of existing structures was, however, a very expensive undertaking, and large tax decreases implemented in California in the 1970’s and 1980’s left the state government with insufficient means to complete this work in a timely manner. Ironically, the Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco and Oakland, was scheduled to be reinforced just one week after the Loma Prieta earthquake. A portion of the upper level of this bridge collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake. 794
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake The Quake. Northern Californians expected October 17, 1989, to be a joyous day for the region of San Francisco and Oakland. The Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants, the two majorleague baseball teams from Northern California, had qualified for the World Series, and a game was scheduled to begin around 5:30 p.m. local time in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. The game was being broadcast live on American television. As camera operators were filming pregame activities, the transmission of images to television screens around the world was interrupted. Television viewers were not sure what was happening until reporters outside Candlestick Park began to inform the world that an earthquake had occurred. The quake occurred on a sunny day during rush hour. The roads and bridges from Watsonville to San Francisco were filled with cars and people, and others were in their homes waiting for the World Series game to begin. The epicenter of the earthquake was located on the San Andreas fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains, to the east of the cities of Santa Cruz and Watsonville. The nearest landmark to the epicenter was Loma Prieta Mountain, which is why seismologists refer to this quake as the Loma Prieta earthquake. Television reporters were already in San Francisco to cover the World Series game, so news traveled quickly. Initial reports stressed the damage done to the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, but extensive damage also occurred on the campus of Stanford University, in the nearby city of Palo Alto, in Santa Cruz, and especially in the largely Hispanic town of Watsonville, which was the closest city to the epicenter itself. Although authorities from the state and federal governments and volunteers from the Red Cross thought they were sufficiently prepared for a natural disaster, each earthquake results in unexpected problems. The situation in Watsonville illustrates this point. Effects in Watsonville. Since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the demographics of California have changed greatly. California is a much more ethnically and linguistically diverse state than it was during the first decade of the twentieth century. Like many cities throughout California, Watsonville has a large Latino population, and it is surrounded by wealthier cities such as those in the Silicon Valley and in the suburbs of Santa Cruz, where the population is largely Anglo-American. Watsonville was 60 percent Latino in 1989, and most houses were of older wood-frame construction, built long 795
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake before the implementation in the 1970’s of stricter building codes. Since it was located close to the epicenter of this accident, structural damage in Watsonville was very significant. The major industries near Watsonville are farming and food production. These labor-intense industries pay poorly, but they attract large numbers of emigrants from Mexico and Central America, who often receive even lower salaries in their native countries. Between 1984 and 1989, the population of Watsonville had increased by 38 percent, but non-Latinos still dominated the municipal government of Watsonville, since many of the recently arrived Latinos were not yet American citizens. This earthquake destroyed almost 10 percent of all apartments and houses in Watsonville, but the property damage affected the Latino neighborhoods more than the Anglo neighborhoods, largely because the structures in the Latino communities had been completed decades before and were of wood-frame construction and therefore not very resistant to seismic shocks. When soldiers in the California National Guard and representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Red Cross, and the state of California arrived in Watsonville, an immediate problem became evident to almost everyone. Those who wanted to help the survivors did not speak Spanish and could not communicate with the Latino majority in Watsonville. Since so much housing in Watsonville had been destroyed, the Red Cross had no choice but to create makeshift disaster centers and housing enclosures located far from the Latino neighborhoods in Watsonville. The threat of aftershocks in the communities of Watsonville was simply too great for people to be allowed to stay near their severely damaged homes and apartment houses, but many Spanish-speaking residents did not understand why they were being forced to leave their neighborhoods for distant regions of Watsonville; they believed that this represented yet another example of Anglo bias against Latinos. Recent antagonism between Anglo and Latino communities in Watsonville only exacerbated relationships between these two groups in the days immediately following the Loma Prieta earthquake. The various emergency organizations dealt with the problem by bringing in bilingual workers who could communicate with the Latino majority in Watsonville. The presence of bilingual workers who understood Latino culture helped to diffuse a volatile situation. The 796
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake events in Watsonville helped the Red Cross, the California National Guard, and FEMA to understand that preparation for natural disasters required them to take into account not only problems related to health and housing but also the changing linguistic and cultural fabric of states such as California. Something positive, however, did result from the traumatic events in Watsonville. Anglos and Latinos learned to cooperate with each other in order to create a more unified city and to reduce political and cultural divisiveness. In Watsonville, as in other cities affected by this earthquake, people discovered that their regular homeowner’s insurance policies did not cover earthquakes. Earthquake insurance is extremely expensive, and it often includes very high deductibles and limits on the maximum liability for insurance companies. Individuals whose homes were destroyed by this earthquake had no choice but to turn to the federal government for loans to help them rebuild their residences. Such loans had to be repaid, and this created major financial crises for affected Californians. Companies and universities also suffered financially as a result of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Stanford University. The case of Stanford University clearly indicates the gravity of the problems faced by universities and businesses. Stanford University was founded in 1885, and its campus is located near the San Andreas fault. Many of its older buildings were constructed with unreinforced bricks and are thus less quake resistant than buildings constructed with reinforced bricks. For many years Stanford University paid for earthquake insurance, but by 1985 the annual premiums became so prohibitively expensive and the coverage so limited that the trustees of Stanford University concluded that it would be inadvisable to continue coverage against earthquakes. In his book Magnitude 8, Philip L. Fradkin explains that Stanford University was offered earthquake coverage for an annual premium of $3 million, with a deductible of $100 million and coverage for a mere $125 million worth of damage above the deductible. Although Stanford University suffered damages that amounted to $160 million as a result of the Loma Prieta earthquake, the decision not to renew earthquake insurance coverage in 1985 was perfectly understandable. Universities, private businesses, and homeowners often cannot afford such extremely expensive policies that offer such limited cov797
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake erage. A typical homeowner’s policy comes with a deductible of $250 to $500 and frequently includes full-replacement coverage. With earthquake insurance, the deductible is usually at least $6,000, and full-replacement coverage is not offered. Daly City, San Francisco, and Oakland. Located almost 60 miles north of the Loma Prieta epicenter is Daly City, a bedroom community south of San Francisco. In Daly City, many people chose to live on the palisades, which offer exquisite views of the Pacific Ocean. Many houses were built on the cliffs in Daly City and appreciated greatly in value during the 1970’s and 1980’s. People were oblivious to the dangers involved in building houses on cliffs near the San Andreas fault. Many houses built on the palisades in Daly City were forced from their foundations during the Loma Prieta earthquake and were structurally destroyed. These houses had been built on an old garbage dump that had been covered with sand. The ground on which these beautiful and expensive houses had been built in Daly City was of insufficient strength to resist seismic shocks, and the ground liquefied during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Houses on the cliffs in Daly City should never have been built there because the ground was not strong enough to resist earthquakes, contributing significantly to the property damage. Those who filled in the land in Daly City did not realize that they were creating a very dangerous situation for future residents. A similar error was made in San Francisco during the late nineteenth century and especially right after the 1906 earthquake. Just north of Daly City are San Francisco and Oakland. They both suffered extensive damage during the Loma Prieta earthquake, although not because the two cities had failed to enforce new building codes or to prepare for earthquakes. Office buildings and public structures constructed with reinforced bricks and additional steel rods in both cities did not suffer structural damage during the Loma Prieta earthquake; large buildings did not collapse as they had during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The San Andreas fault runs through these two cities, and the danger of earthquakes is extremely high. Athough property damage in both Oakland and San Francisco was very extensive, especially in the Oakland Hills, the three places that suffered the greatest damage were the Marina District of San Francisco, the Nimitz Expressway in Oakland, and the Bay Bridge. 798
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake Municipal officials and developers concluded that filling in the lagoon in San Francisco would be financially advantageous because it would permit extensive growth in both housing and economic development. The area filled in was called the Marina District, which includes such famous places as Fisherman’s Wharf, Market Street, Embarcadero Street, and Candlestick Park. At first, the lagoon area was filled in with sand and rocks, but starting in 1912 municipal officials used a mixture of 30 percent mud and 70 percent sand to fill in the area. In 1915, a world’s fair was held in San Francisco’s new Marina District; afterward, the wooden buildings were taken down and buried in the mixture of mud and sand. The wood deteriorated and made the land even less earthquake-resistant. Unlike the residents of Watsonville, those who lived in San Francisco’s Marina District were mostly wealthy and Anglo. Many of the structures in the Marina District were also built well before the stringent building codes of the 1970’s. The combination of a poor ground foundation and inadequately reinforced buildings created conditions favorable for disaster. On October 17, 1989, wood frame houses
A building in the Marina District is shored up next to rubble from a collapsed apartment. (FEMA)
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1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake in the Marina District collapsed in large numbers, and gas mains and pipes burst because the ground of mud and sand was too weak to protect them. When the natural gas was released into the air, it provoked a series of dangerous fires. Although the gas supply was quickly cut off to the Marina District by the utility companies, the damage had already been done. Many houses collapsed as a result of the earthquake, but many more houses and commercial structures were destroyed by the numerous fires. Although San Francisco had a professionally trained fire department and established procedures for dealing with emergencies, their ability to deal with so many fires at the same time was severely limited. Television cameras transmitted to viewers around the world images of the fires, which lasted throughout most of the night of October 1718. Geologists determined that the way in which the Marina District ground was filled significantly increased the liquefaction of the land and made the effect of the sesimic shocks much worse in the Marina District. Sections of San Francisco that had not been developed on filled land were much more quake-resistant than the Marina District. Even after the Loma Prieta earthquake, construction continued in the Marina District, because the land there is so valuable. Builders were required to reinforce buildings and to respect stringent building codes, but there is no guarantee that the Marina District will not suffer extensive damage when the next earthquake takes place near San Francisco. Had people known in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century what geologists know today, the Marina District might never have been developed, and Stanford, near the San Andreas fault, and houses in hilly regions in Oakland and Daly City might not have been constructed. Freeway Collapses. Two other major catastrophes in the San Francisco region were the collapse of the Nimitz Expressway and a section on the upper level of the Bay Bridge. The Nimitz Expressway in Oakland was built between 1954 and 1957. It did meet construction codes in effect at that time, and its engineers thought that it was safe, but it was not sufficiently reinforced to cope with an earthquake of the magnitude of 7.0 or 7.1. A total of 41 people died, either on the two levels of the freeway or below the freeway. Many people driving on the lower level were crushed to death when the upper level collapsed on their cars. The death toll would most certainly have been 800
1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake much higher had the earthquake occurred even a few minutes later. The earthquake took place at 5:04 p.m., and by that time most commuters had not yet reached the Nimitz Expressway for their trip home from work. Had this freeway collapsed even fifteen minutes later, hundreds would probably have been killed. The two major bridges into San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge, were constructed in the 1930’s. Although the Golden Gate is the more famous of the two bridges, the Bay Bridge is used more heavily because it connects Oakland and San Francisco. In 1989, the Bay Bridge was double-deck, and people thought that it was safe. During the Loma Prieta earthquake, however, bolts that connected the east and west ends of supports came apart, causing a portion of the upper level to collapse. Amazingly, only one driver was killed, when his car fell from the upper level to the lower level. Luck and effective defensive driving by people on the upper and lower levels of the Bay Bridge prevented a large loss of life. It took a full month to restore this bridge to regular service. The damage to bridges between Watsonville and San Francisco could have been much worse: Only 18 of the more than 4,000 bridges had to be closed for repairs after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Results. The impact of the Loma Prieta earthquake on Northern California was quite significant. Economists have estimated that between $5.6 and $5.8 billion had to be spent to repair houses, roads, public and commercial buildings, and bridges damaged or destroyed by the Loma Prieta earthquake. At least 67 people were killed as the direct result of this earthquake, but it is difficult to determine how many fatal heart attacks were caused by the trauma of the event. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people were seriously injured, putting a strain on medical personnel between Watsonville and San Francisco. It is impossible to describe the psychological damage experienced by people who survived this temblor. When the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred, California was already suffering from a national economic downturn, which affected the Golden State more severely than other American states. The temporary or permanent closing of businesses in an economically important region of Northern California exacerbated an already bad economic situation. Edmund J. Campion
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1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake For Further Information: Bolt, Bruce A. Earthquakes. 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Chameau, J. L., et al. “Liquefaction Response of San Francisco Bayshore Fills.” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 81, no. 5 (October, 1991): 1998-2018. Fradkin, Philip L. Magnitude 8. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. Hanks, Thomas C., and Gerald Brady. “The Loma Prieta Earthquake, Ground Motion, and Damage in Oakland, Treasure Island, and San Francisco.” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 81, no. 5 (October, 1991): 2019-2047. Newsweek, October 30, 1989, 22-48. Reti, Irene, ed. The Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989. Santa Cruz: University of California, Santa Cruz, 2006. Schiff, Anshel J., ed. The Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake of October 17, 1989: Lifelines. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Post Office, 1998. Time, October 30, 1989, 30-51. Wells, Ray E., ed. The Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake of October 17, 1989—Geologic Setting and Crustal Structure. Reston, Va.: U.S. Geological Survey, 2004.
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■ 1991: Pinatubo eruption Volcano Date: June 12-16, 1991 Place: Luzon, Philippines Result: About 350 dead (mostly from collapsed roofs); extensive damage to homes, bridges, irrigation-canal dikes, and cropland; 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide spewed into the stratosphere up to an elevation of 15.5 miles
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s early as April 2, 1991, people from a small village named Patal Pinto, on the Philippine island of Luzon, observed steam and gases smelling of rotten eggs (indicating hydrogen sulfide) emanating from near the crest of Mount Pinatubo, along with intermittent minor explosions. Within ten weeks, these early ominous activities culminated in a volcanic eruption that has come to be regarded among the largest that occurred in the twentieth century. Pinatubo, located about 62 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Manila, belongs to a chain of composite volcanoes constituting a volcanic arc in the Philippines. It is believed to have been the result of a lava dome that formed about five hundred to six hundred years ago during the last-known eruption. Its lower slopes and foothills were composed primarily of pyroclastic and lahar (volcanic mudflow) deposits from voluminous eruptions that occurred in prehistoric times. More than 30,000 people inhabited the foothills of the volcano before the 1991 eruption. Cities and villages surrounding the base of the volcano on gently sloping alluvial plains were populated by as many as 500,000 inhabitants. Located about 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) to the east of the volcano was Clark Air Base, and 25 miles (40 kilometers) to the southwest was Subic Bay Naval Station, both belonging to the United States. Prior to the 1991 eruption, Pinatubo had the appearance of a steep, domelike spheroid that rose about 2,297 feet (700 meters) above a gently sloping apron made of pyroclastic and epiclastic materials. Such a volcano belongs to the class of stratocones, of which such 803
1991: Pinatubo eruption well-known exemplars as Fuji and Mayon are considerably larger than Pinatubo. The extensive pyroclastic apron of Pinatubo, however, indicated that the volcano was extremely active in prehistoric times. Until the collapse of the summit in the 1991 eruption, Pinatubo rose 5,725 feet (1,745 meters) above sea level, surrounded by older volcanic centers, including an ancestral Pinatubo due south, east, and northeast. The Onset of Eruption. Following the emission of hydrogen sulfide gas and steam together with a few minor, phreatic (steamcharged) explosions along a 1-mile-long chain of vents on the north side of the volcano around April 2, 1991, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) installed seismometers near the mountain, which immediately began recording several hun-
South China
Laoag
Ilocos Province
Sea
Luzon
Baguio Angeles
Pinatubo
Philippine
Manila
Bataan Peninsula
Sea
Visayas Palawan
PHILIPPINES Zamboanga BRUNEI MALAYSIA
INDONESIA
804
Sulu Archipelago
Cagayan de Oro Davao
Mindanao
1991: Pinatubo eruption dred earthquakes a day. By April 5, nontelemetered seismographs installed on the northwest side of Pinatubo about 6 to 9 miles (10 to 15 kilometers) from the summit recorded between 40 and 140 seismic events (of magnitude less than 1.0 on the Richter scale) each day. On April 23, a team of volcanologists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) arrived at the scene following a request by PHIVOLCS to assist in the monitoring of the seismic activities near the mountain. Together, the Philippine and American experts installed a radio-telemetered seismic network and tiltmeters. These devices could locate the earthquakes and detect any new ground movement, respectively. They also measured fractures that opened during the early steam and vapor emissions from the chain of vents near the summit of the mountain. Between May 13 and May 28, the geologists, with the help of the U.S. Air Force, measured a tenfold rise in the sulfur dioxide gas content of the steam plumes emanating from the summit. These and other measurements indicated that magma was rising within the volcano, and immediate preventive measures were necessary for the safety of people living in surrounding communities. The geologists established a set of alert levels ranging from 1 (implying low-level unrest) to 5 (indicating that eruption had started). On May 13, the alert level was set at 2, which meant that the seismic unrest probably involved magma. Before April 2, 1991, the available geologic information on Pinatubo was quite limited. It was known to be a dacite dome complex about 2 miles (3 kilometers) in diameter, with voluminous fans of ash-flow deposits that were geologically young (less than ten thousand years old). The volcano was known to be thermally active, however, and had previously been explored as a potential geothermal energy source by the Philippine National Oil Company. Anticipating that an eruption might be imminent, the geologists went to work designing a hazard map, in preparation for the worstcase scenario. This was an urgent matter, especially since a large number of small villages lay scattered on the northwest slope of the volcano and part of Clark Air Base and several urban communities (such as the city of Angeles, with a population of 300,000) lay within the potential range of pyroclastic and debris flows extending well beyond the volcano. Based on knowledge of the best-known distribution of 805
1991: Pinatubo eruption each type of volcanic deposit from past eruptions, a joint USGSPHIVOLCS team rapidly compiled a worst-case hazard map showing areas most susceptible to ash flows, mudflows, and ashfall. Around May 23, the hazard map was distributed to officials of the Philippine civil defense organization, the local governments in neighboring communities, and the U.S. military. Based on data obtained following the actual eruption on June 15, the predictions by the hazard map vis-à-vis areas where the impact would be most severe were proven to be fairly accurate. Near the end of May, the number of seismic events per day was fluctuating in a random fashion, and measurements of key seismic parameters such as earthquake hypocenter locations proved quite inconclusive. The likelihood of an actual eruption, though highly plausible, could not be precisely forecast. From late May until early June, indicators such as relatively long earthquake periods interspersed with periods of tremor, as well as the location of hypocenters beneath the steam vents, were clear precursors of imminent eruption. It was also observed that the emission rate of sulfur dioxide, which had dramatically increased during the preceding two weeks, had suddenly decreased. This finding was consistent with the escape vents of the gas being sealed off by magma rising within the volcano. The Eruption and Its Aftermath. During the second week of June, the east flank of the mountain became tilted by inflation, and a small lava dome extruded near the most vigorous steam vent. The tectonic earthquakes became progressively shallower and weaker, while the emission of low-level ash became continuous. PHIVOLCS raised the alert level to 3 on June 5, indicating that eruption was likely within two weeks. On June 7, the extrusion of a small dome on the north flank, accompanied by numerous small earthquakes, triggered a level 4 alert, signifying eruption within twenty-four hours. Residents of Zambales, Tarlac, and Pampanga Provinces, within 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) of the volcano, were evacuated. As the dome continued to grow and ash emissions increased to alarming levels, alert level 5 (signifying eruption had begun) was declared on June 9. On June 10, a total of 14,500 nonessential personnel and dependents were moved by road from Clark Air Base to Subic Bay Naval Station. Most of the aircraft had already been removed from Clark Air Base at this time. 806
1991: Pinatubo eruption On June 12, the first of several major explosions occurred at 8:51 a.m., spewing airborne ash to the west of the mountain and sending pyroclastic flows down its northwest slope. The ash column reached a height of 62,335 feet (19,000 meters) above sea level, according to measurements by the weather radar at Clark Air Base. Explosions continued through the night of June 12 and the morning of June 13. Part of the dome was destroyed, and a small crater was formed adjacent to it. There was intense seismic activity, with buildup periods lasting as long as several hours prior to the explosions during June 12 through 14. The long buildup periods permitted short-term notification to Philippine civil authorities and U.S. military authorities regarding impending eruptions. The city of Angeles was placed on evacuation alert. The climactic eruptive phase began around 1:09 p.m. on June 14, following an eight-hour episode of vigorous seismic activity. Explosive eruptions continued through the night and into the morning of June 15. Around 5:55 a.m., a massive lateral blast spread north, west, southwest, and northwest from the volcano, sending a broad column of ash 39,370 feet (12,000 meters) above sea level. This climactic blast was followed by six more eruptive pulses, after which the eruption became essentially continuous, lasting between the afternoon of June 15 through the early hours of June 16. Coincidentally, Typhoon Yunya approached Pinatubo around the same time. The extreme combination of hazards, including the explosive eruption, a complete loss of telemetry between the summit and the observatories, and uncertainty regarding the effect of Yunya on the flow of volcanic debris, made it necessary to rapidly evacuate all remaining USGS, Air Force, and PHIVOLCS personnel from Clark Air Base. This task was accomplished by around 2:30 p.m. on June 15. The volcano continued to erupt a column of ash rising 32,808 feet (10,000 meters) above sea level for several weeks, even though the overall seismic activity started to decline by late June 15. When the weather cleared on June 16, it was observed that the top of the volcano had been replaced by a 1-mile-wide caldera, and vast areas surrounding the volcano were covered by around 6,540 or 7,847 cubic yards (5 or 6 cubic kilometers) of pyroclastic deposits. The presence of Yunya exacerbated the volcanic mudflows and 807
1991: Pinatubo eruption the dispersal of water-saturated ash across a large number of cities and villages. Cyclonic winds spread tephra over at least 7,722 square miles (20,000 square kilometers) surrounding the volcano. The weight of the wet, heavy ash led to the collapse of many buildings, which turned out to be the leading cause of the loss of 350 or so lives from the eruption. Mudflows triggered by the typhoon and heavy rainfall destroyed homes, bridges, and irrigation-canal dikes and buried vast areas of cropland. The Pinatubo eruption was one of the largest in the twentieth century (being about ten times larger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in the United States in 1980) and potentially threatened 1 million lives. Overall, it must be concluded that the evacuation and safety procedures followed jointly by the USGS, PHIVOLCS, and the various military and civil defense organizations via effective communication and timely, responsible action, helped avert disaster of a far higher magnitude. In fact, it is estimated that timely and effective intervention saved many thousands of lives (the actual casualty figure would be much lower had it not been for the presence of the typhoon), and at least $1 billion in property which might otherwise have been lost. In terms of accurate eruption prediction and highly effective response, the 1991 Pinatubo eruption provides an important model for future volcanic eruptions and other geological cataclysms. Monish R. Chatterjee For Further Information: Fiocco, Giorgio, Daniele Fuá, and Guido Visconti, eds. The Mount Pinatubo Eruption: Effects on the Atmosphere and Climate. New York: Springer, 1996. Newhall, Christopher G., James W. Hendley II, and Peter H. Stauffer. The Cataclysmic 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines. Vancouver, Wash.: U.S. Geological Survey, 1997. Newhall, Christopher G., and Raymundo S. Punongbayan, eds. Fire and Mud: Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996. Pinatubo Volcano Observatory Team. “Lessons from a Major Eruption: Mount Pinatubo, Philippines.” EOS/Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 72 (1991): 554-555. 808
1991: Pinatubo eruption Scarth, Alwyn. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Shimizu, Hiromu. The Orphans of Pinatubo. Manila, Philippines: Solidaridad, 2001. Wolfe, Edward. “The 1991 Eruptions of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines.” Earthquakes and Volcanoes 23, no. 1 (1992): 5-37.
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■ 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire Fire Also known as: The East Bay Hills fire, the Tunnel fire Date: October 19-21, 1991 Place: Oakland Hills, California, and vicinity Result: 25 dead, 150 injured, 2,843 single-family homes destroyed, 433 apartment units destroyed, $1.5 billion in damage, 1,520 acres burned
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he area of Oakland Hills is extremely susceptible to fires for many reasons. Oakland Hills is a small community near San Francisco located between Berkeley and Oakland and the hills that surround them. The houses located there are sheltered by trees, with narrow roads leading up steep hillsides to different subdivisions. Most of the houses in the Oakland Hills area in the 1990’s were million-dollar dwellings that people had worked a lifetime to afford. The Oakland Hills area is known as a wildland-urban interface. This is where human-made developments and wildland fuels meet at a boundary that is susceptible to wildfires because of the accumulation of dense fuels. In the late twentieth century, the number of people moving to the wildlands increased dramatically. Wildfires are actually beneficial to the natural cycles of many types of ecosystems, when they are not close to human settlements. They remove the weak and dead vegetation that are potential fuels for larger fires if they are allowed to accumulate and allow for a chance for renewal in the forest. The cleansing effects of the fires present dangers when homes are built in these wild areas, however. In wildland-urban interface areas, city services such as fire protection and water supply are not always fully provided. Procedures for controlling wildfires often include sacrificing some areas in order to set up a perimeter firebreak. This procedure requires sacrificing some homes and property to save others. It is essential for communities to prohibit dangerous building practices; mandate regular inspections to ensure adequate clearing 810
1991: The Oakland Hills Fire of plants, shrubs, and trees away from homes; and seek support to implement these policies to protect people living in the wildland-urban interface. California has a law that designates hazardous fire areas as places covered by grass, grain, brush, or forest, whether publicly or privately owned, and regions that are so inaccessible that a fire would be difficult to suppress. The area of Oakland Hills was not considered hazardous because all the residences were accessible by paved roads, even though they were narrow and winding. The Oakland Hills area was well known for fires in the past. In September of 1923 a wildfire started northeast of Berkeley and spread quickly. It burned 130 acres, consuming 584 buildings and causing $10 million worth of damage. After the fire, the city council passed legislation requiring fire-resistant wood coverings for roofs but rescinded the legislation before it could take effect. Another fire started in September of 1970 southeast of the University of California Berkeley campus. It destroyed 38 homes and damaged 7 others. The total cost of damage was $3.5 million. Yet another fire began in December of 1980 just north of where the Oakland Hills fire started. This fire destroyed 6 homes and injured 3 people in only twenty minutes. In 1982, Berkeley designated a section of the city as the Hazardous Hill Fire Area after an extensive inspection program. Four months before the fire, in June of 1991, Berkeley passed an ordinance that required all houses in this area to have Class-A roofs. This ordinance did not include the area of the Oakland Hills fire. The Oakland Hills Fire. The story of the Oakland Hills fire actually begins the day before the fire started. On October 19, 1991, a fire of suspicious origin started near 7151 Buckingham Boulevard. The wind was not strong enough that day to push the fire very far. Firefighters were able to keep the blaze under control and thought they had extinguished it. The heat from the fire on October 19 that had been extinguished caused pine needles to drop from the trees, laying down a fresh layer of kindling. A type of debris called duff fell around and inside the area of the first burn. Duff is the pine needles, often up to a foot thick, that have accumulated under the trees; it is highly flammable. The water used by the firefighters extinguished the flames that burned on top of the duff, but the duff combined with ash and dust to form a crust. The fire continued to smolder un811
1991: The Oakland Hills Fire der the crust. Firefighters followed prudent procedures by leaving their hoses in place overnight and returning periodically to the fire scene to check for signs of renewed fire. At approximately 10:45 the next morning, as 25 firefighters were finishing up after the fire of the previous day, sparks burst out of the duff. They were carried by winds ranging from 16 to 25 miles per hour, with some observers estimating winds up to 65 miles per hour. The wind brought them to a tree that instantly burst into flames. Convective currents and strong winds allowed the fire to move out of the northeast region and spread to nearby vegetation. By 11:15 in the morning, the fire was raging out of control. The fire went uphill from the place of origin. The winds changed suddenly and blew the fire in many directions at once. A warm, dry wind blowing in the valleys of a mountain, called a foehn, pushed the fire back downhill just as fast as the fire was spreading uphill. Minutes later, the winds changed again. This time the fire started spreading eastward, toward the Parkwood Apartments and the Caldecott Tunnel. Another change in the wind direction sent the fire to the southwest. Many pine trees and other shrubs burst into flames. Homes were becoming threatened, and firefighters struggled to contain the fire. The fire spread across Highway 24 and headed toward Lake Temescal. At the same time, another flame front started moving northwest, toward the Claremont Hotel and the city of Berkeley. The fire turned into numerous large fires because of spotting. Firebrands were carried by the fire to areas remote from the original fire. The winds caused the fire to descend along the ridge between Marlborough Terrace and Hiller Highlands. The winds accelerated the motion of the fire down the ridge, causing it to consume everything in its path. Within one hour the fire had consumed 790 structures. The area south of Highway 24 and the area near the Caldecott Tunnel caught fire. An area called Upper Rockridge caught fire because of winds and spotting. By noon, 40 percent of the total affected area was burned. As the fire began spreading south and west, it reached flatter, more open ground and started slowing. The fire reached temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Although this temperature can boil asphalt, this fire was not as fierce or hot as most wildfires. 812
1991: The Oakland Hills Fire Attempts at Extinguishing the Fire. Weather conditions and the rapid spread of the fire in many directions at once made it extremely difficult to extinguish the blaze. The fire hoses were mostly ineffective because the wind was so strong that it bent the water streams 90 degrees on 500-gallon-per-minute hoses. For the first three hours, air attacks were also ineffective because of strong winds, heavy smoke that obscured vision, and the continuous fuel chain available to the fire. Fire units ran out of water during the fire owing to five primary factors. Large quantities of water were used by firefighters suppressing the fire; homeowners were wetting their roofs and vegetation with large quantities of water as well. Water pipes had burst, and water was freely flowing in destroyed homes. Tanks and reservoirs could not be refilled due to electrical power failures caused by the fire. There was also a problem with matching hoses to the fire hydrants. Some of the hoses from out-of-town fire brigades did not fit on the hydrants. Some had adapters that could be put on the hydrants, but many of the adapters were left on the hydrants as the fire overtook the perimeters. Many of the homes had roofs covered with wooden shingles or shakes. Flaming embers were blown by the wind from houses that were already on fire onto the roofs of nearby homes, which then caught on fire. According to observers, homes burned to their foundations in ten minutes or less. The steep hillsides presented difficulties to the firefighters. Hoses and other equipment had to be dragged up the hills. The streets were very narrow. As firefighters were moving large trucks up the streets toward the fire, homeowners were moving away from the fire to evacuate the area, causing bottlenecks. The first tactics the firefighters used were to retreat to the perimeter, attack the fire, and summon help. The fire was spreading so fast that the firefighters could not establish an effective perimeter. The units coming to assist the initial crew found other areas burning, so they stopped to fight those fires. However, they were overrun eventually by the fire. The fire departments had a difficult time communicating with other fire departments around the state because there were too many units trying to use the same radio channel and too few channels were available. The hilly terrain also caused interference with the radio signals, making it difficult to coordinate the attack. 813
1991: The Oakland Hills Fire The coordination of the firefighters improved as time passed. It was possible to establish good perimeter areas as the weather conditions became better and the fire reached areas where water was available. The firefighters were able to suppress the ignition of homes by breaking the chain of combustibles that was responsible for the earlier destruction of houses, allowing the firefighters to save many homes. The Oakland Hills fire developed firestorm conditions within fifteen minutes. Firestorms are produced when the gases, heat, and motion of a fire build up to a point that they begin to create their own convection currents independent of external conditions. Oxygen is pulled into the base of the fire in great quantities, producing large convection columns when the air is heated at the fire. When the intensity of a fire reaches firestorm levels, a fire front can develop that is able to move away from the direction the wind is blowing. The Oakland Hills and Berkeley fire departments were not the only ones to assist in extinguishing the fire. They were joined by 88 engine strike teams, 6 air tankers, 16 heliac units, 8 communications units, 2 management teams, 2 mechanics, and more than 700 searchand-rescue personnel from other municipalities. In addition, 767 law enforcement officers assisted. Effects of the Fire. As a result of the fire, Assemblyman Tom Bates introduced a bill, later known as the Bates Bill, requiring the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, along with local fire authorities, to identify places in the Local Responsibility Areas that were considered to be “very high fire hazard severity zones.” Terrain, foliage, building construction, and lack of adequate access were among the factors considered in establishing these zones. Once the hazardous areas were identified, the local authorities either adopted the state fire marshal’s model ordinance, adding or subtracting areas from the identified zones; indicated that they already met or exceeded the Bates minimum; or a combination of these responses. Most of the ordinances that were adopted required that all the dwellings in endangered areas must have at least a Class-B roof. A defensible perimeter around the home was also required. This included a 100-foot-wide area around the building where grass and ground cover could not exceed 3 inches in height. Specimen trees were allowed as long as they were at least 15 feet apart and no closer 814
1991: The Oakland Hills Fire than 15 feet from the house. Access roads must be at least 10 feet wide and have 13 feet, 6 inches vertical clearance to allow passage for firefighting apparatus. In 1994, more legislation was passed, which raised the roofing requirement to a Class-A roof. Other directives included planting “fire-resistant” vegetation, requiring sprinklers in new homes where access is limited, providing standard hydrant connections, and improving communication systems for emergency workers. Gary W. Siebein For Further Information: Darlington, David. “After the Firestorm.” Audubon 95, no. 2 (March/ April, 1993): 2-12. Morales, Tony, and Maria Morales, eds. Proceedings of the California’s 2001 Wildfire Conference: 10 Years After the 1991 East Bay Hills Fire. Richmond: University of California, Forest Products Laboratory, 2001. Oakland Fire Department. The Oakland Tunnel Fire, October 20, 1991: A Comprehensive Report. Oakland, Calif.: Author, 1992. Report of the Operation Urban Wildfire Task Force. Washington, D.C.: Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Fire Administration, FA-115, 1992. Steckler, Kenneth D., David D. Evans, and Jack E. Snell. Preliminary Study of the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire and Its Relevance to Wood-Frame, Multi-family Building Construction. Gaithersburg, Md.: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, 1991. Sullivan, Margaret. Firestorm! The Story of the 1991 East Bay Fire in Berkeley. Berkeley, Calif.: City of Berkeley, 1993.
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■ 1992: Hurricane Andrew Hurricane Date: August 22-26, 1992 Place: Florida, Louisiana, and the Bahamas Classification: Category 4 Result: 50 dead, $26 billion in damage
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lthough relatively small in size, Hurricane Andrew was a storm of enormous intensity that left a mammoth trail of destruction along its path across the Bahamas, south Florida, and Louisiana. Its final toll was an estimated $26 billion in damage in the United States alone, ranking it at the time as the most expensive natural disaster in the nation’s history. Andrew’s Beginnings. Hurricane Andrew began as a tropical wave off the west coast of Africa and passed south of the Cape Verde Islands on August 15, 1992, at a speed of 18 miles per hour. As it continued its west-northwest movement, the storm picked up its pace to 23 miles per hour, nearly twice the speed of an average hurricane. Over the next few days, the storm passed to the south of a high-pressure system as steering winds began to move it closer to a strong upper-level, low-pressure system located near Bermuda. The currents gradually changed, and Andrew turned slowly to a northwesterly course. On August 20, the storm weakened to the point of almost disintegrating. The lower section of the storm was moving to the northwest, while the upper part of it was steered by strong upper-level winds to the northeast. However, significant changes in the overall weather environment began to occur the following day. Satellite imagery indicated that the upper-level, low-pressure system near Bermuda had broken up, which decreased the wind-shear effect on Andrew. It enabled the storm to gather its pieces together, regain strength, and resume its movement. As it migrated further into the Atlantic, the storm increased in intensity and was designated the first tropical storm of the 1992 hurricane season. Simultaneously, a strong high-pressure system began to build along the U.S. southeast coast, which helped steer the storm directly west into warm tropical waters. 816
1992: Hurricane Andrew With winds measuring over 75 miles per hour, Andrew reached hurricane status at a point 800 miles east of Miami on August 22 and rapidly strengthened to a Category 4 storm. As it approached a point approximately 330 miles east of the Florida coast, a hurricane watch was posted from Titusville south to Vero Beach, south through the Florida Keys and over to the West Coast to Fort Myers. Andrew maintained a due-west course and crossed Eleuthera Island and the southern Berry Islands in the Bahamas on August 23. Eleuthera Island suffered extensive damage when a 23-foot storm surge, one of the largest on record, washed ashore, leaving coastal areas in ruin. Government Harbour, Hatchet Bay, and Upper and Lower Bogue were among the communities severely damaged. Nearly every house on Current Island was destroyed. Andrew weakened somewhat following its passage over the Bahamas but quickly regained its strength as it moved through the Florida Straits. At this stage weather forecasters noted a decreasing diameter and corresponding strengthening of the storm’s “eyewall” convection. Measurements indicated a more vigorous counterclockwise rotation with the radius of maximum wind in the eyewall reaching 12 miles. Meteorologists believed the storm was undergoing a phenomenon called “eyewall replacement,” in which the inner wall disintegrates and is replaced by the outer wall. During the replacement cycle, the storm would weaken, then immediately regain its strength as the new outer wall replaced the older inner one. As the storm churned in the direction of Florida’s east coast, Governor Lawton Chiles declared a state of emergency and alerted the National Guard for duty. Nearly 1 million people were ordered to evacuate the coastal areas of Broward County, Dade County, and the northern Florida Keys in Monroe County. Because Andrew had a smaller diameter than most hurricanes, the stronger winds did not become apparent to residents until the storm was almost on top of land. This served to hamper evacuation efforts, as many boaters waited until the final hours to move their craft inland, creating delays for land traffic as drawbridges were raised to allow the boats entrance to safer waters. The potential for a natural disaster of epic proportions was apparent to officials, given the lay of the land in south Florida. The highest natural land elevation in the entire state is only 345 feet above sea 817
1992: Hurricane Andrew level, and elevations in the southern portion of the state are even lower, with few rising above 20 feet. In addition, the state’s coastal regions are low and flat and marked by numerous small bays, inlets, and a continuous series of barrier islands. Throughout southern Florida residents made preparations for Andrew’s arrival. Merchants and homeowners boarded up their properties and stocked up on water, groceries, gasoline, batteries, and candles in the event of a blackout or shortage. The rapid intensification of the storm came unexpectedly to local officials. In an advisory issued on Saturday, August 22, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast that tropical storm winds would arrive in Miami at about 9 p.m. Monday. In its next advisory, issued six hours later, the NHC warned residents that the tropical storm winds would arrive around 5 a.m. Monday. Hurricane Andrew slammed into south Florida around 5:05 a.m. on August 24, 1992, near Florida City, about 19 miles south of downtown Miami, and was accompanied by sustained winds estimated at 140 miles per hour with gusts up to 175 miles per hour and a storm surge of close to 16 feet. The surge pushed the waters of Biscayne Bay inland for several hundred yards. Due to the eyewall’s contraction, hurricane-force winds extended out only about 30 miles around the wall. Officials considered it fortunate that the storm did not carry the heavy amounts of precipitation normally associated with a hurricane of Andrew’s size. The Damage. Immediately after its rapid passage over south Florida, the extent of damage and casualties could not be readily determined. National media reports initially indicated it was not as severe as expected and that downtown Miami and Miami Beach were relatively intact. As additional information began to filter in, the complete magnitude of the storm’s impact became apparent. The worst damage inflicted by Andrew was in southern Dade County, from the Miami suburb of Kendall, south through Homestead and Florida City, to the Florida Keys. Scores of neighborhoods lost all of their trees, with many crashing into homes and parked cars. Few homes were left standing as the gusting winds reached sufficient strength to strip the paint and roofs off houses and topple telephone and power lines, leaving nearly all of Dade County without electricity. The powerful winds were able to hurl concrete beams more than 150 818
1992: Hurricane Andrew
The category 4 winds of Hurricane Andrew embedded this plank in the trunk of a royal palm. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
feet, lift large trucks into the air, and disintegrate mobile homes. Airconditioning units were torn from roofs, leaving gaping holes for the torrential rains to pour through, flooding floors below. In some areas the sustained winds unofficially reached 175 miles per hour, with some gusts reaching as high as 212 miles per hour. Barometric pressure registered a low at 27.23 inches. Andrew heavily damaged offshore structures, including the artificial reef system off the southeast coast. One measure of its strength was its impact on the Belzona Barge, a 350-ton barge that prior to the hurricane was sitting in 68 feet of water on the ocean floor. A thousand tons of concrete from an old bridge lay on its deck. Andrew 819
1992: Hurricane Andrew shoved the barge 700 feet to the west and stripped it of several large sections of steel-plate siding. Only 50 to 100 tons of concrete remained on the barge’s deck. Another ship, the 210-ton freighter Seaward Explorer, moored off Elliot Key, was separated from its anchor by the surge and carried over the submerged key and across Biscayne Bay, where it finally was washed ashore. Wind Speeds. According to a report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, measuring the storm’s sustained wind speeds became problematic once it reached land. Weather experts noted that the estimates were for those winds occurring primarily within the northern eyewall over an open environment, such as at an airport and at a standard 33-foot (10-meter) height. The winds occurring at other locations were subject to their complex interactions with buildings, trees, and other obstacles in their path. Such obstructions generate a drag that generally reduces the wind speeds. However, they are also capable of producing brief accelerations of winds in areas approximate to the structures. As a result, the wind gusts experienced at a given location, such as a building situated in the core region of the hurricane, can vary significantly and cannot be precisely measured. The National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables noted the unfortunate circumstance of not having official measurements of surface winds near the area of landfall where maximum winds were likely to have occurred. The strongest sustained wind, registered at 141 miles per hour with a gust up to 169 miles per hour, occurred close to 1 nautical mile east of the shoreline. Many transmissions of wind speeds were interrupted when instruments presumably were disabled by the storm. A subsequent inspection revealed that one anemometer situated near the eye’s path was bent 90 degrees from its normal vertical position. Wind measurements taken by aircraft at about 10,000 feet, when adjusted, support the estimate of sustained surface winds of 145 miles per hour. There were no confirmed reports of tornadoes associated with Andrew as it passed over the Bahamas or Florida. A few unconfirmed funnel sightings were reported over the Florida counties of Glades, Collier, and Highlands. A number of weather observers did note the similarities in damage patterns between Hurricane Andrew and a tornado. While countless houses deep inland were leveled by Andrew, 820
1992: Hurricane Andrew low-lying beachfront condominiums went unscathed. In Naranja Lakes, a south Dade County suburb, buildings whose tops were blown off stood across from others that were left undamaged. Scientists believe the random pattern of damage caused by Andrew was the result of small thunderstorms packed within the hurricane. The storms created vertical columns of air that opened vents in the eye’s wall of clouds, which allowed the hurricane’s most powerful winds to rush to the ground nearly 2,000 feet below with the concentrated fury of a tornado. Traveling west at 20 miles per hour the storm cut a swath of destruction that was easily discernible and unique to hurricane activity. Further Damage. Throughout the region power lines and traffic lights dangled to windshield levels. Shredded shrubs and downed trees made driving through streets a hazardous chore. Numerous side streets were rendered impassable because of the debris. In addition, close to 3,000 water mains were damaged, along with 1,900 traffic lights, 100,000 traffic signs, and 2,200 street lights. Damage was also inflicted on 59 hospitals and health facilities, 7 post offices, 278 schools, Florida International University, Dade Community College, and the University of Miami. In the fashionable seaside community of Coconut Grove, dozens of recreational boats were washed up into the streets and parking lots. At suburban airports, hangars were ripped apart and small planes piled atop one another. Homestead Air Force Base, located at the southern tip of the state between Everglades National Park and Miami, took a direct hit. Most of the air base’s 200 buildings, including hangars, communication equipment, offices, housing, and other facilities, received damage. Nearly all of Homestead’s 70 aircraft and 5,000 active-duty personnel had been evacuated; however, two F-16 fighters that remained were destroyed when a hangar door swung onto them. The base was home to two F-16 fighter wings and a U.S. Customs Service antidrug operation. One of the hardest hit areas was Coral Gables in south Miami, where the National Hurricane Center is located and where gusts of wind up to 164 miles per hour were recorded. The storm blew the radar off the center’s roof and shattered the building’s windows. On the other hand, Miami Beach’s Art Deco district escaped the brunt of the storm, though the plush Fontainebleau Hilton hotel was left with several feet of water in its lobby. 821
1992: Hurricane Andrew Nearly 90 percent of Florida City’s 1,900 homes were either destroyed, severely damaged, or marginally damaged, including 1,475 mobile homes, 1,041 single-family homes, and 470 apartment units. In addition, a majority of its businesses fell victim to the storm, leaving residents both homeless and jobless. The city’s entire infrastructure was also crippled severely. The city hall, police station, water and sewer system, and all of the city’s parks were damaged, along with an elementary school, 9 churches, a museum, a community center, and a football field. The story was similar in Homestead, where 85 to 90 percent of the housing units were destroyed or damaged. Among them were 1,167 manufactured housing units, 9,059 single-family dwelling units, and 7,580 multifamily units. Eight public schools and 22 parks in the city received severe damage, as did the Homestead branch of Metro Dade Community College. The personal testimony of many residents reflects the fury of Andrew. Many recalled how their ears popped and sinuses ached as the barometric pressure plunged. Some heard the popping of automobiles while other claimed that the water was sucked from their toilets. Above all, it was the sound of the winds, described as akin to the blast of jet engines or the roar of a freight train, that many found most terrifying. All together, nearly 25,000 homes were destroyed and close to 100,000 others were damaged in the region. Also destroyed or damaged were an estimated 8,000 businesses, putting over 80,000 people out of work. The National Guard provided tent cities for the homeless, but many chose to stay in what remained of their homes to protect them from looters. Nearly 43 deaths in Dade County alone were attributed directly or indirectly to the storm. Law enforcement officials, using police dogs, conducted searches immediately after the storm through the remnants of mobile-home parks. With communication outlets severely crippled, some local jurisdictions took to dropping leaflets from helicopters and sending automobiles mounted with loudspeakers through the most devastated areas to announce the latest information. In Miami authorities declared a curfew from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., and police cordoned off many sections of the town. As the wind diminished and the water receded, U.S. Army combat troops joined National Guard forces and police in setting up barri822
1992: Hurricane Andrew cades around the major commercial centers in downtown Miami and Coconut Grove to prevent looting. Andrew also took a heavy toll on animals. Hundreds of horses were killed and many other injured by flying debris. Thousands of pets roamed free as their confines collapsed around them. Although few, if any, animals escaped from local zoos, hundreds of monkeys and baboons fled from area research facilities, and countless numbers of exotic birds were reported missing. Agricultural damage in Dade County exceeded $1 billion, including an approximate $128 million loss in tropical orchards, a $349 million loss in crop production, and a $12.5 million loss in aqua culture and livestock. An estimated 15,000 pleasure boats were victimized by Andrew’s winds. The boat damage for the entire region approached $20 million. Only a handful of deaths were attributed to boaters who elected to ride out the storm in their boats, an unusually low death count for a storm of Andrew’s magnitude. Though the storm roiled the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay, 8 miles wide and only 12 feet deep, its major sediment deposits and grass beds were left relatively intact. The shallow waters had the effect of amplifying the storm surge so that the tide rose an estimated 12 to 16 feet above normal by the time it reached the western shore. The waters in the western portion of the bay were noticeably brackish following the storm. Freshwater extended out several hundred yards from the shoreline, and salinity was measured at 11 parts per 1,000 compared with the normal 34 parts per 1,000 up to a mile and a half out. Much of this effect was attributed to the decision of the state’s water-management agencies to lower the level of Lake Okeechobee in anticipation of the storm to prevent excessive overflows. The highest recorded high-water mark was 16.88 feet, at the Burger King Corporate Headquarters in south Dade County. High-water marks diminished from this point north to Broad Causeway, where they reached to 5.17 feet, and south to Key Largo, where they reached up to 5.49 feet. On the west coast of Florida, high-water marks ranged from 4.38 feet at Everglades City to 6.85 feet at West Goodland. The farthest the tidal surge extended inland was an estimated 3 miles from the eastern coastline. The surge’s north-south range extended nearly 33 miles along the eastern coast. Despite the massive devastation, civil defense officials estimated the 823
1992: Hurricane Andrew damage could have been far worse if the hurricane had crossed the Florida peninsula a few miles farther north, through more densely populated regions. The relatively small diameter of the storm had the effect of reducing its exposure to more vulnerable coastal communities and thus was a major contributing factor in limiting overall damage and loss of life. According to officials, an additional factor in reducing fatalities was the evacuation and hurricane preparedness programs that were in force prior to the storm’s arrival. Florida’s substantial natural resource base felt the full fury of Andrew. The storm’s eye crossed three National Park Service sites: Biscayne National Park, Everglades National Park, and Big Cypress National Preserve. Artificial reefs along the coastline were severely damaged, as were thousands of acres of mangrove forest. Shorelines were littered with tons of marine debris as the strong currents tore away sea fans, sponges, and coral in areas of Biscayne Bay. The fragile Everglades region was damaged as entire groves of trees were flattened and exotic plants and wildlife habitats were destroyed. Virtually all large trees located in islands of dense undergrowth were defoliated. However, the storm had little effect on the interior freshwater lands of the Everglades, which are composed mainly of sawgrass. Samplings by the South Florida Water Management District following the storm indicate nearly all poststorm water-quality properties, including turbidity, color, ammonia, and dissolved phosphate, were within the range of pre-storm values. The most prominent inhabitants of the marshlands, the alligators, appeared to have weathered the storm, though some of their nests were destroyed. All the radio-tagged Florida panthers, radio-tagged black bears, and white-tailed deer survived the hurricane. Egrets, herons, and ibis also came through the storm relatively unscathed. The largest concentration of dead birds discovered was at a roost in Biscayne Bay, where the corpses of approximately 200 white ibis were found. One of the reasons for the relatively small damage to animals and plants was the nature of the storm. Unlike previous hurricane storm surges that inundated large areas of the marshlands with saltwater, Andrew’s was unable to push deep inland owing to its direct westerly path that took it over Florida’s relatively high east coast. In retrospect, the fact that Hurricane Andrew was a rapidly moving, compact, 824
1992: Hurricane Andrew relatively dry storm rather than a larger, slower, or wetter system spared Florida an even greater natural disaster. Moving On. Andrew moved quickly in an almost direct line across the extreme southern section of Florida in about four hours, entering the Gulf of Mexico south of Marco Island in a somewhat weakened state but with its eye still intact. As it plowed across the southern peninsula, it left a swath of destruction 25 miles wide and 60 miles long, though the impact of its storm surge on the southwest coast of the state was minimal. Once again over warm waters, the storm began to intensify as it turned northwest toward the Louisiana coast. As it churned through the Gulf waters, Andrew continued to wreak damage estimated at a half billion dollars. Its winds toppled platforms, blew 5 drilling wells off location, caused 2 fires, and created 7 incidents of pollution. Fearing a repeat of the scenes of devastation in southern Florida, officials and residents launched a massive evacuation effort along the Mississippi Delta region. An estimated 1.25 million people were evacuated from parishes in southeastern and south-central Louisiana. The eye of the storm skirted the Louisiana coast about 85 miles southwest of New Orleans. It finally made landfall approximately 20 miles west-southwest of Morgan City on the morning of August 26, leaving Grand Isle, the state’s only inhabited barrier island, completely underwater. The storm struck with a Category 3 force as sustained winds of 140 miles per hour buffeted the sparsely populated marshlands. Louisiana is known for its many bayous and waterways, which constitute much of the state’s topography. Numerous barrier islands dot the coastline but generally are used as game preserves. A large portion of the southeastern section of the state rests at or below sea level and is not conducive to rapid runoff, thus making overflows potentially protracted and severe. As it slid along the Louisiana coast, Andrew dealt a severe blow to the state’s fishing industry, inflicting nearly $160 million in damage to freshwater fisheries. The state did fare much better than Florida in damage to boats, as Andrew missed the major shipping areas north and east of New Orleans. Many boat owners had enough advance warning to move their vessels into one of the numerous bayous, where they had more protection from the storm. 825
1992: Hurricane Andrew The storm continued to move west across southern Louisiana toward the cities of Lafayette and New Iberia. It spawned numerous tornadoes that caused widespread damage in several Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia communities. One tornado occurred in the city of Laplace, Louisiana, killing 2 people and injuring 32 others. Tornadoes also were reported in the parishes of Ascension, Iberville, Baton Rouge, Pointe Coupe, and Avoyelles, though no casualties were reported. Numerous reports of funnel clouds were received by officials in Mississippi and were believed to have caused damage in several of the state’s counties. In Alabama, two tornadoes struck the mainland, while another hit Dauphin Island. Several destructive tornadoes that roared through Georgia were attributed to Andrew. Although rainfall was heavy throughout the region, it resulted in little significant flooding because of the dry conditions along the coast. Rivers were at midsummer stages, and soils were parched from lack of rain. An estimated 25 percent or less of the rain generated by Andrew ended up in the rivers as runoff. The remaining portion either was absorbed by the soils and plants or evaporated. On August 26, Andrew was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved northeast through Mississippi. The remnants of Andrew continued to produce heavy downpours that often exceeded 10 inches. On August 28, Andrew merged with a frontal system over the midAtlantic states, ending its trail of destruction. William Hoffman For Further Information: Barnes, Jay. Florida’s Hurricane History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Fyerdam, Rick. When Natural Disaster Strikes: Lessons from Hurricane Andrew. Miami Beach, Fla.: Hospice Foundation of America, 1994. Peacock, Walter Gillis, Betty Hearn Morrow, and Hugh Gladwin, eds. Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender, and the Sociology of Disasters. New York: Routledge, 1997. Pielke, Roger A., Jr., and Roger A. Pielke, Sr. Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Provenzo, Eugene F., Jr., and Asterie Baker Provenzo. In the Eye of Hurricane Andrew. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. 826
1992: Hurricane Andrew U.S. Department of Commerce. Hurricane Andrew: South Florida and Louisiana, August 23-26, 1992. Silver Springs, Md.: National Weather Service, 1993. U.S. Park Service. Hurricane Andrew, 1992. Denver: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1994. Williams, John M., and Iver W. Duedall. Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, 1871-2001. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2002.
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■ 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Flood Date: June-August, 1993 Place: Primarily Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri Result: 52 dead, 74,000 homeless, $18 billion in damage
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nlike other natural disasters, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the actual starting point of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993. The river’s upper basin experienced above-normal rainfall levels in the spring that resulted in some earlier flooding, and fall weather produced subsequent flooding as well. Yet since the greatest carnage occurred during the heavy rains from June through August, 1993, most experts use these parameters as the official beginning and end of the great flood of 1993. Causes. The flood of 1993 can be attributed to the record rainfall that dominated the Midwest’s weather during the summer of 1993. Other surface meteorological conditions, however, also played a pivotal role. Prior to the flood, the ground was already saturated, as soil moisture levels remained exceptionally high. Heavy winter snowmelt and spring rains further increased the dangers of flooding as the Mississippi River’s vast tributary system began emptying its excess into the river. This water, moreover, substantially increased the chances of daily precipitation, since evaporation tends to be recirculated in the form of rainfall. From June through August, the Upper Mississippi River basin rainfall was 200 percent above normal, and the 20 inches of rain was the highest recorded total dating back to 1895. Along the Iowa shores alone it exceeded 36 inches. This problem was further exacerbated by the unusual number of cloudy days that not only inhibited the sun’s ability to dry the land but also increased the likelihood of daily showers. Human and Property Costs. The flood primarily affected the Upper Mississippi River basin in the area located north of Cairo, Illinois. While the damage affected commerce, industry, and housing in 828
1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 over one-third of the United States, the heaviest flooding occurred in various river towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. This event represented the most costly flood on record in American history. Although the flood of 1927 resulted in the loss of 313 lives, compared to 52 in 1993, the property damage in 1993 was much more extensive. Floodwaters significantly ruined various portions of the physical landscape, wreaked havoc on river ecosystems, and destroyed crops. Its impact on the transportation system and agricultural income ravaged the region. Barges were unable to travel on the river for eight weeks. Major roads and highways were closed, often forcing people to miss work. Millions of acres of prime farmland remained under water for weeks, significantly weakening the country’s food production, and soil erosion destroyed some of the best farmland in the country. Homes, farms, industries, and entire towns were obliterated by the river’s rising waters. Communities fought to stave off the flood by organizing sandbagging activities to reinforce and raise the capacity of levees, and while some succeeded, over 1,000 levees eventually ruptured. All this carnage compelled President Bill Clinton to declare the region a disaster area, but local, state, and national agencies struggled to meet the demands of unprecedented relief efforts. While some individuals eagerly accepted assistance and attempted to rebuild their lives, many simply relocated to higher ground, believing that an idyllic life along the river’s banks was no longer possible. Infrastructure Costs. This flood also produced dire consequences for the entire ecosystem along the Mississippi River. Herbicides from flooded farms were washed into the river and eventually threatened fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. Deforestation occurred, and trees that survived remained highly vulnerable to disease, insect attack, and stress. Flooding provided various pest species, such as mosquitoes, with ample breeding grounds. When a fish farm flooded on one of the river’s tributaries, the Asian black carp escaped and endangered mussels and clams. Finally, ducks, which traditionally migrated to the region just in time for hunting season, bypassed the region because all the natural habitats and food sources were destroyed in the flood. Agricultural and livestock production significantly declined as 829
1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 well and generated almost $9 billion in losses. Minnesota farmers burned wheat fields because they were too saturated to harvest. Corn and soybean yields dropped by 30 percent. These losses aided farmers in Indiana, Ohio, and other states that remained dry, but overall the loss of agricultural income decimated many state economies and forced the federal government to assume responsibility for disaster relief. Other record losses shattered the transportation network. Damages to the infrastructure and revenue losses totaled $2 billion and forced many people out of work. Barges carry approximately 15 percent of all freight in America, with most of this traffic taking place along the Mississippi River. With the flood, however, over 2,900 barges and 50 towboats were stranded. Once the river reached the flood stage in June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers halted all barge traffic, and by the end of July this industry was losing $3 million per day. This also caused widespread unemployment in St. Louis as over 3,200 dockworkers were laid off. The railroad industry experienced similar problems; its losses amounted to $241 million. Tracks, bridges, and signals were decimated and forced companies to close or to seek alternate routes. In-
Two bridges over the Mississippi River were washed out during the 1993 flood. (FEMA)
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1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 dustry leaders such as Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific were forced to halt operations from Wisconsin to St. Louis. Amtrak’s Memphis-to-Chicago run had to be diverted 900 miles off course in order to complete its journey. States were also forced to close roads and highways. More than 100 flooded roads and 56 bridges were shut down in Wisconsin, and in Missouri, many workers faced hours of delay in their daily commute to work. Finally, and most threatening, bridge traffic came almost to a halt. In early July, bridges were closed in Hannibal, Missouri, and Keokuk, Iowa. When the Quincy, Illinois, levee broke on July 15, there was no way to cross the river for a 250-mile area north of St. Louis. Coupled with the inability of ferries to operate in this weather, trucks and buses were forced to add over 200 miles to traditional delivery and transportation routes. Damage in this sector alone spawned over $1 billion in repair costs. Personal Losses. Nothing, however, outweighed the personal tragedies. More than 74,000 people lost their homes, heirlooms, and belongings. As water levels swelled and levees ruptured, entire communities were eliminated, and for many the carnage was so immense that they decided to never return to the river’s edge. While the flood claimed many victims, the river towns did not go down without a fight. Communities built temporary levees with sandbags, plywood, and concrete. As the river continued to rise, people risked their safety to remain on the levees checking for seepage, leaks, and sand boils. These attempts, however, were highly unsuccessful. Over 80 percent of all state and local levees failed, causing many towns to evacuate. Other towns were decimated beyond repair. Residents of Grafton, Illinois, along one of the most scenic stretches of highway in America, the Great River Road, were forced to flee as water covered the rooftops of many two-story homes. Roads in Alton, Illinois, were impassable, and water virtually obliterated many of the town’s historic landmarks. In Valmeyer, Illinois, the community labored to save the town, only to see it completely demolished by the flood. In fact, when the waters receded, Valmeyer residents decided to relocate their entire town to a bluff overlooking the river instead of rebuilding on the banks. The entire island of Kaskaskia, Illinois, was covered with over 20 feet of water after its 52-foot-high levee broke. Most residents felt 831
1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 confident that they could withstand this disaster, but their plight clearly reveals the power of the Mississippi. At 9:48 a.m. on July 22, the levee ruptured, and since the island’s bridge had previously been flooded out, everyone was forced to flee on two Army Corps of Engineers barges. Many livestock could not get out and drowned. By 2 p.m. Kaskaskia Island was entirely covered by water. Effects on Towns. Both the devastation and personal courage that the flood generated can be observed in the story of one community. As the water traveled south down the river, the historic town of St. Genevieve, Missouri, was directly threatened. The home of several historical landmarks, including a number of two-hundred-year-old French colonial buildings, this town was the first European settlement west of the Mississippi River. It had experienced tragic floods in the past and had responded by building an elaborate set of levees and flood walls. It had survived the flood of 1973 when the river crested at 43 feet, and it had already begun to recover from a brief period of flooding in April. Yet nothing in its history could prepare St. Genevieve for its upcoming battle with the river. Largely a town filled with quaint bed-and-breakfast inns, restaurants, and antique shops, St. Genevieve depended upon tourism for its survival. While the flood eliminated this industry and virtually destroyed the town’s economy, it did not diminish the community’s energetic struggle to avoid disaster. By the middle of July, Governor Mel Carnahan ordered in the National Guard in an effort to save one of America’s most valuable historic treasures. The media quickly flocked to Missouri to cover this event, and St. Genevieve was featured on every major news network. The governor also allowed local prison inmates to work on the levee, and volunteers flocked to Missouri to fill sandbags and offer relief help. For the rest of July, the nation watched as St. Genevieve fought for its survival. The river, however, continued to rise. By the end of July, as the water level reached 48 feet, one levee ruptured, sending more than 8 feet of water over sections of the town, damaging a number of homes and businesses and knocking some buildings right off their foundation; the people continued to fight. Volunteers worked at a feverish pace to raise the main levee to 51 feet and staved off disaster when the river crested at a record level 49 feet on August 6. Employees at a local plastic plant saved their factory by volunteering their time to 832
1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 build a levee around their plant. Yet the flood claimed several casualties. Forty-one historic buildings were damaged, tourism became nonexistent, and all the levee work had significantly undermined the town’s service infrastructure. The city of St. Louis, on the other hand, was spared. Once the river exceeded the 30-foot flood level, water started to steadily creep up the steps of the Gateway Arch. Several barges, including one containing a Burger King restaurant, broke away and crashed into the Popular Street Bridge. Oil refineries and petroleum processing plants threatened to dump poisonous chemicals into the river. Yet despite springing several leaks, the 50-foot flood wall held. Cities such as Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri, suffered record losses, but St. Louis’s riverfront property remained dry. The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 was the most costly flood in recorded history to date. Some experts claim it represents a five-hundred-year-flood of unprecedented proportions due to its length, volume, and carnage. It permanently eliminated numerous small towns, obliterated historical treasures, and destroyed priceless memories such as wedding pictures, souvenirs, high school yearbooks, and family correspondence. While the Midwest’s struggle with the raging river held the nation’s attention for only a few months, the devastation it wrought will be forever remembered as one of the most costly natural disasters in history. Robert D. Ubriaco, Jr. For Further Information: “America Under Water: A Special Section.” USA Today 123, no. 2590 (July, 1994). Changnon, Stanley, ed. The Great Flood of 1993: Causes, Impacts, and Responses. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Guillory, Dan. When the Waters Recede: Rescue and Recovery During the Great Flood. Urbana, Ill.: Stormline Press, 1996. Myers, Mary Fran, and Gilbert F. White. “The Challenge of the Mississippi Floods.” In Environmental Management, edited by Lewis Owen and Tim Unwin. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. National Weather Service. The Great Flood of 1993. National Disaster Survey Report. Washington, D.C.: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1994. 833
1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Pielke, Roger A., Jr. Midwest Flood of 1993: Weather, Climate, and Societal Impacts. Boulder, Colo.: National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1996. Stevens, William K. The Change in the Weather: People, Weather, and the Science of Climate. New York: Delacorte Press, 1999.
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■ 1994: The Northridge earthquake Earthquake Date: January 17, 1994 Place: Southern California, in an area extending from the San Fernando Valley to Los Angeles and Santa Monica Magnitude: 6.7 Result: 57 dead, more than 9,000 injured, approximately $20 billion in damage
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everal different faults extend from Alaska to Mexico, and earthquakes with magnitudes exceeding 5.0 on the Richter scale occur rather frequently in areas of North America located near the Pacific Ocean. However, the epicenters of most of these serious earthquakes have not been located near heavily populated regions. The worst American earthquake was centered in New Madrid, southeastern Missouri, on February 7, 1812. Although the Richter scale was not developed until 1935, contemporary reports have enabled seismologists to conclude that this earthquake had a magnitude between 8.4 and 8.8 and caused the earth to shake over 5 million square miles. That area of the United States was not then heavily populated, however, and only about 1,000 people died. On March 27, 1964, the Good Friday earthquake took place in Alaska; it was recorded at 9.2 on the Richter scale. It caused tsunamis, giant waves which drowned 120 people in relatively sparsely populated areas of Alaska such as Valdez, Seward, Kodiak Island, and the Kenai Peninsula. Only 131 people died as a result of this earthquake. An earthquake of magnitude 9.2, 10.0, or 11.0 in a heavily populated area of California, for example, would most certainly result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Lessons from Other California Quakes. Before the Northridge earthquake of January 17, 1994, many earthquakes had occurred in California, but the three which affected the lives of large numbers of people were the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 835
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Idaho
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Fresno
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1906; the Sylmar earthquake of February 9, 1971; and the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 17, 1989. When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake took place, the population of San Francisco was around 400,000. This earthquake measured 8.2 or 8.3 on the Richter scale and shook the earth over an area of approximately 300 square miles. It caused numerous fires when gas mains burst, and approximately 700 people died. Not many lessons were learned from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Developers and government officials did not then realize that it was extremely dangerous to build on hilly areas and land reclaimed from the sea by filling the water with a combination of sand, mud, 836
1994: The Northridge earthquake and rocks. In both the greater San Francisco and the greater Los Angeles regions, houses, bridges, dams, and public buildings were constructed near faults and in areas where the ground was highly susceptible to seismic shocks. During the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, centered just to the north of Los Angeles, 65 people died, 47 of them in the collapse of the San Fernando Veterans Administration Hospital. This hospital, completed in 1925, was not designed to resist seismic shocks. People did not realize that public buildings should be constructed with reinforced bricks or that installing additional steel rods and wrapping more of them around existing rods made buildings more resistant to seismic shocks. The deaths of so many people in the San Fernando Veterans Administration Hospital persuaded the California legislature to act quickly. In 1972, it created a Seismic Safety Commission and instructed the members to make recommendations to the governor and state legislators so that houses, public buildings, and other structures could be made more earthquake-resistant. The commission recommended that strict building codes be implemented in California to improve the safety of buildings and public structures throughout California. New building codes approved in the 1970’s required builders to install more steel rods than had been previously required in new construction and to use reinforced bricks. In addition, the Seismic Safety Commission strongly recommended that existing bridges, dams, and overhead highways be “retrofitted,” or reinforced with additional steel rods. The changes implemented after the Sylmar earthquake dramatically decreased the number of deaths and the amount of property damage caused by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which was recorded at 7.1 on the Richter scale. The result was 67 deaths, more than 3,000 injuries, and damage well in excess of $5 billion dollars. However, only 18 of the more than 4,000 bridges and overhead highways in the region between San Francisco to the north and Santa Cruz and Watsonville to the south had to be closed for repairs as a result of this earthquake. Had not so many bridges and highways been retrofitted during the 1970’s and 1980’s, the loss of life and the amount of property damage would have been much higher. The number of deaths and the property loss caused by an earth837
1994: The Northridge earthquake quake depend on a variety of factors. The epicenter and the time of an earthquake play major roles in determining the number of fatalities and the amount of damage. The epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake was located 70 miles south of San Francisco and Oakland, in the middle of the Santa Cruz Mountains and several miles from the cities of Watsonville and Santa Cruz. This distance significantly decreased the effect of this earthquake on very heavily populated cities such as San Francisco and Oakland and their surrounding communities. The Northridge Earthquake. In 1994, the residents of Southern California were not as fortunate as their neighbors in Northern California in terms of location. The Northridge earthquake on January 17 originated in the heavily populated San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, just 20 miles northwest of the downtown area. (The epicenter was later determined to be not in Northridge but in Reseda, an adjoining community.) The focal point of the Northridge earthquake was 12 miles below the surface, and it caused the ground to shake over a wide area. Serious damage occurred as far west as Sherman Oaks and Fillmore; north to Santa Clarita; as far east as Glendale, Pasadena, and Los Angeles; and south to Santa Monica. It is fortunate, however, that this earthquake struck the greater Los Angeles area at 4:31 a.m. Had it struck during rush hour, the loss of life on Southern California highways would have been exceedingly high. Moreover, Southern Californians were fortunate indeed that the magnitude was not higher than 6.7. An earthquake of the magnitude of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake or the 1906 San Francisco earthquake would have killed far more people and resulted in property damage well in excess of the $20 billion caused by the Northridge earthquake. When this earthquake took place, people were sleeping in their apartments, mobile homes, and houses. Sixteen were killed when the three-story Northridge Meadows apartment complex collapsed. The victims all lived on the first floor, which was flattened by the weight of the two floors above. Some of the victims died in their sleep, while others had been jolted awake moments before the collapse but had no means of escape. Many were crushed instantly, and some slowly suffocated in the rubble before help could reach them. Emergency personnel were able to rescue all those who lived on the second and 838
1994: The Northridge earthquake third floors, but few were pulled out alive from the first floor. This apartment complex was made of wood frame stucco, which is not very resistant to seismic shocks. To make matters worse, the carports on the first floor were supported by a series of single steel supports, which buckled and collapsed. Many wood frame stucco apartment complexes, like the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, were built in the 1950’s and 1960’s to accommodate the large influx of people who had moved to the greater Los Angeles region. Such apartment complexes were much cheaper to build than buildings constructed with reinforced bricks. It should be remembered, however, that people did not know at the time that such apartment houses would perform so poorly during earthquakes. Building codes in effect during the twenty years before the 1994 Northridge earthquake would have prohibited the construction of wood frame stucco apartment complexes with carports supported by single steel columns. Other similar apartment complexes collapsed in such widely separated cities or communities as Fillmore, Van Nuys, Los Angeles, and Sherman Oaks. In affected areas, apartment houses built with re-
A house is shifted from its foundation by the powerful Northridge earthquake. (FEMA)
839
1994: The Northridge earthquake inforced bricks and reinforced with more steel rods than had been required before the 1970’s performed rather well during this earthquake and did not collapse. Mobile home parks also suffered greatly either as a direct result of the seismic shocks or because of the fires that occurred when underground gas mains burst and ignited when the gas encountered a fire source. Over one hundred mobile homes were destroyed by fire, but quick and effective action by firefighters and other emergency officers resulted in the loss of just one life, an extraordinary figure because the fires began while almost all the residents were asleep. Fires of intensity equal to those seen in San Francisco’s Marina District right after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake broke out in many different regions of the San Fernando Valley and the rest of Los Angeles. Damage in the San Fernando Valley. Since Northridge was very near the epicenter of this earthquake, it is not surprising that this community suffered such extensive damage on that Monday morning. Part of the precast concrete parking garage for the Northridge Fashion Center collapsed. Both this parking garage and the adjoining mall suffered major structural damage. No loss of life occurred, however, because there were no customers in the mall or garage at such an early hour of the morning. Only one employee was at the site—a man driving a steam cleaning truck in the parking garage was trapped for several hours before being rescued. Had the earthquake taken place a few hours later, when the mall would be open for business on the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, thousands might have been killed or seriously injured. Seismic shocks also caused a similarly built precast concrete parking garage on the campus of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), to collapse, destroying the cars inside. Many other buildings there suffered major structural damage. However, there was no loss of life on the campus. It is fortunate that this earthquake took place on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day because all state and federal offices were closed, as were all schools and universities. More students would have been on campus had this disaster not occurred on the third day of a long weekend. Both of these two parking garages and the Northridge mall had been constructed after the implementation of strict building codes in the 1970’s, but these structures could not resist the seismic shocks 840
1994: The Northridge earthquake since they were located so close to the epicenter of this 6.7 earthquake. In other areas of the San Fernando Valley, office buildings, private homes, and public buildings constructed after 1972 performed generally quite well during the earthquake because they were in conformity to codes which required that buildings be relatively resistant to seismic shocks. Liquefaction. A common result of earthquakes is liquefaction of the ground. This phenomenon occurs when the ground upon which houses and structures have been built is primarily soft material such as sand or clay, not bedrock. When encountering seismic shocks, the ground itself weakens and behaves like water. This effect had been noticed in 1989 in San Francisco’s Marina District, which had been reclaimed from the sea by filling the area with massive amounts of mud, sand, and rocks. This combination appeared to make the ground stable, but liquefaction caused the collapse of many buildings and structures which had conformed to strict building codes. The buildings themselves were sound, but the ground on which they had been constructed was too weak to support structures during a major earthquake. Geologists who studied the Northridge earthquake concluded that liquefaction caused major landslides in the Santa Susana Mountains, which literally changed the shape of the terrain, and in residential areas such as Pacific Palisades where houses built on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean came loose from their foundations and slid down hills. The ground on which these expensive homes had been built was simply not solid enough to resist seismic shocks. In hindsight, it becomes clear that houses should not be built on cliffs located near faults. The problem of liquefaction was by no means limited to mountain ranges and houses built on palisades. Much of what now appears to be stable ground in Southern California was, in fact, created by draining wetlands. Those who drained the wetlands thought that they were helping people by making more land available for housing and business, but ironically they had created a disaster waiting to happen. The Santa Monica Freeway was built over land reclaimed from marshes. The ground on which this heavily traveled expressway was built was not as earthquake-resistant as the architects and contractors had 841
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The Interstate 5 and SR14 freeways collapsed during the quake. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
thought. A portion of the Santa Monica Freeway collapsed not because of structural deficiencies but rather because some of the ground on which it was built liquefied during the Northridge earthquake and the ground itself was no longer strong enough to support the weight of the freeway. Other overhead highways collapsed because even well-constructed and reinforced highways could not resist such strong shocks emanating from such a close epicenter. Amazingly, only one motorist died as a result of the collapse of a highway. In the darkness of the early morning 842
1994: The Northridge earthquake and with the power out, police officer Clarence Dean could not see that a portion of Highway 14 on which he was driving had collapsed. He drove his motorcycle over the edge and was killed instantly. During the Loma Prieta earthquake, 41 people were killed when a portion of the Nimitz Expressway collapsed in Oakland; that earthquake took place at 5:05 p.m., when many people were driving on the highways and bridges of the San Francisco Bay area. There was very little traffic on the highways in and around Los Angeles when the Northridge earthquake struck at 4:31 a.m. on a national holiday. At another time of day, hundreds if not thousands of deaths could have occurred on the usually heavily traveled highways around Los Angeles. Fire and Flood. Another serious problem faced by residents and emergency personnel following the Northridge earthquake was the extremely large numbers of fires which occurred throughout the affected areas. Fires were fought over an area extending 25 miles in all directions from the epicenter. The Los Angeles Fire Department had to extinguish 476 earthquake-related fires on January 17, 1994, in Los Angeles County alone, and the earthquake caused dangerous fires in surrounding counties as well. The community of Granada Hills experienced simultaneous flooding and massive fires, when water mains and gas mains burst. A gas main explosion on Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills was the worst fire caused by the Northridge earthquake. People living in that area had to flee their homes and apartments in their pajamas. firefighters brought water trucks with them because the water main had burst and they could not obtain water from fire hydrants. Another earthquake-related fire began when 40,000 gallons of gasoline spilled onto the street in Pacoima and caught fire. Emergency personnel managed to extinguish this inferno, and although there was extensive property damage in Pacoima, no one was killed. There was also environmental damage when a pipeline burst and spilled 150,000 gallons of crude oil into the Santa Clara River. Toxic specialists were able to control this potentially dangerous situation, and the river itself did not catch fire. A chemical fire started in a science building of the campus of CSUN, and another potentially dangerous situation occurred when a train derailment resulted in the release of 8,000 gallons of sulfuric acid. In both cases, prompt response by representatives from various local, state, and federal environmen843
1994: The Northridge earthquake tal agencies permitted control of the situation and the prevention of an environmental disaster. It is very fortunate that the federal government, the state of California, and hospital administrators learned a valuable lesson from the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. People realized that it was necessary to reinforce existing hospitals and to build new hospitals so that they would not collapse during earthquakes. Considerable money was spent between 1971 and 1994 in order to make the hospitals of Southern California more resistant to seismic shocks. It was expected that the hospitals might experience minor structural damage during severe earthquakes but that they would not collapse. These newly built or reinforced hospitals were designed to continue operating after a major earthquake. Although patients had to be evacuated from the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda and from St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, no one was killed in either hospital, and most hospitals in the greater Los Angeles area continued normal operations despite the Northridge earthquake. Two other hospitals, Olive View Medical Center and Holy Cross Medical Center, both in Sylmar, had to cease operations temporarily because of flooding and the loss of electrical power, but neither hospital had very extensive structural damage. The systematic reinforcement of existing hospitals and the construction of new, quake-resistant ones enabled medical personnel to meet the needs of the thousands of people injured as a result of the Northridge earthquake. Effects. The effect of the Northridge earthquake on the greater Los Angeles region was profound. By early 1994, California, especially Southern California, was slowly beginning to recover from an economic downturn that had begun in the late 1980’s. The Northridge earthquake caused at least $13 billion in damage, but most estimates place the actual damage as close to $20 billion. In comparison, the Loma Prieta earthquake, which took place four years before the Northridge earthquake, caused property damage of between $5 billion and $6 billion. Massive assistance from the federal government helped the state of California restore the infrastructure in and around Los Angeles, and interest-free loans from the federal government made it possible for individuals to rebuild their homes and for business owners to rebuild their establishments. As was the case for the Loma Prieta earthquake, most property owners in the 844
1994: The Northridge earthquake Los Angeles region did not carry earthquake insurance because such insurance is almost prohibitively expensive and comes with very high deductibles and very limited coverage. Regular homeowner’s insurance does not cover damage caused by earthquakes. Loans from the federal government remain the only real option for most people. Emergency officials from local, state, and federal governments; members of the California National Guard; and volunteers from the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other nonprofit organizations met the immediate needs of the survivors. Makeshift housing was created for people whose homes and apartments had been destroyed. Food and bottled drinking water were distributed to those who had lost almost everything but their lives during this terrible earthquake. The federal government gave housing vouchers to survivors so that they could rent homes or apartments until they could return to their former places of residence. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinated relief operations. In the days after the Loma Prieta earthquake, emergency personnel realized that they had not hired enough Spanish-speaking people to assist Latino victims of that earthquake. Emergency organizations learned from this experience, and there were enough bilingual personnel from both government agencies and volunteer organizations to assist Spanishspeaking survivors of the Northridge earthquake. It took several months to repair the many highways which had suffered serious damage. Traffic on the remaining highways and bridges in Southern California was even worse than usual because travelers could no longer use such frequently traveled highways as the Golden State Freeway and the Santa Monica Freeway. Using financial incentives, the federal government and the state of California had these damaged highways rebuilt in record time and made sure that they met strict building codes. By 1995, Southern California had basically recovered economically from the property damage caused by the Northridge earthquake, but it is difficult to assess the psychological damage experienced by survivors who had lost their homes and their personal possessions. Although property damage caused by the earthquake was very high, Southern Californians were thankful that no more than 57 people had died during this disaster. With a different set of circumstances, it could have been much worse. Edmund J. Campion 845
1994: The Northridge earthquake For Further Information: Bolin, Robert. The Northridge Earthquake: Vulnerability and Disaster. New York: Routledge, 1998. Bolt, Bruce A. Earthquakes. 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Earthquakes and Volcanoes 25, nos. 1/2 (1994). Fradkin, Philip L. Magnitude 8. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. Hall, John F., ed. Northridge Earthquake January 17, 1994. Preliminary Reconnaissance Report. Oakland, Calif.: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, 1994. Newsweek, January 31, 1994, 16-37. Sieh, Kerry, and Simon Le Vay. The Earth in Turmoil: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Their Impact on Humankind. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1998. Woods, Mary C., and W. Ray Seiple, eds. The Northridge, California, Earthquake of 17 January 1994. Sacramento: California Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, 1995.
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■ 1995: The Kobe earthquake Earthquake Also known as: The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the South Hyogo Prefecture earthquake Date: January 17, 1995 Place: Kobe, Japan Magnitude: 7.2 Result: 5,502 dead, 37,000 injured, 200,000 buildings destroyed or damaged, more than $50 billion in damage (the most financially costly natural disaster to that time)
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he city of Kobe (pronounced koh-beh) lies on the southern coast of Japan’s main island of Honshw. Situated on the Inland Sea between the islands of Honshw and Shikoku, it is Japan’s second largest seaport and an important center for shipbuilding, steel-making, and other commerce and industry. Its population of 1.4 million is densely concentrated along the narrow coastal plain that fronts inland mountains. Without warning, just before dawn on the wintry morning of January 17, 1995, the Kobe area was struck by an earthquake that would be the most devastating seismic event in earthquake-prone Japan since the Tokyo quake of 1923, and the most expensive natural disaster to that time. The epicenter was 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of downtown Kobe, at 34.6 degrees north latitude and longitude 135 degrees east. This was about 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of the coastline, near the tip of Awaji Island. Slippage occurred on the Nojima fault, including surface rupture along at least 6 miles (9 kilometers) with displacement (slip) up to 5 feet (1.5 meters), and perhaps 6.5 feet (2 meters) depth. The total length of the ruptured fault at depth was 19 to 31 miles (30 to 50 kilometers). The movement was lateral (strikeslip), with the fault oriented to the northeast toward the northern portion of the city of Kobe. The focus (zone of initial slip) was at a depth of 13 miles (21 kilometers) below the tip of Awaji Island. This event has been called the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake or the South Hyogo Prefecture earthquake, after the local province, 847
1995: The Kobe earthquake but internationally it is more commonly known as the Kobe earthquake for that nearby city. While it was not a truly great earthquake in magnitude and energy release, it had devastating consequences for people and urban structures because of its proximity to Kobe and the densely populated corridor along the coast, because of the orientation of the rupture directly toward the city, and because of the shallowness of the rupture. The magnitude of the main shock was 7.2 on the Richter scale, and 6.9 on the moment-magnitude scale. It occurred at 5:46 a.m. local time on January 17, which was 8:46 p.m. January 16, Universal time (Greenwich Mean Time). Aftershocks continued for many months after the initial major shock. In the seven days after, there were nineteen aftershocks having magnitudes of 4 to 5. People reported that the approaching seismic waves created a rumble, then a roar, followed by strong vibrations both vertically and horizontally. The wrenching vibrations lasted about twenty seconds. Aftereffects. The casualties and destruction were staggering. At least 5,502 people were killed, mostly from immediate crushing or entrapment in the rubble. This figure included 28 who were killed in a landslide at Nishinomiya, a town just east of Kobe. Early reports revealed 27,000 injured, but this was later raised to 37,000. As many as 310,000 people had to be evacuated to temporary shelters, including school gymnasiums and city offices, and over 70,000 were still in those shelters two months later. Initially, many residents had to camp out in the freezing January weather, having lost their homes or being afraid of more damage and collapse from the continuing aftershocks. According to the international edition of Newsweek for January 30, 1995, Everything but misery was in short supply. Many people spent the nights in the open air because no one could provide them with shelter. One moment they were well-dressed, propertied, and secure; the next they were refugees shuffling through rubble-strewn streets fretted by flame, lugging possessions on their backs, surrounded by the corpses of loved ones and neighbors.
Approximately 200,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged. More than 50,000 were reduced to rubble or complete collapse, thousands of others were so damaged that they had to be torn down, 848
1995: The Kobe earthquake and others were consumed in the subsequent fires. While some modern structures, especially those built to an earthquake-resistant code (with reinforcing and bracing) instituted in 1981, were relatively unscathed, many suffered damage. Some collapsed, tilted, or sank because of unstable or settling soil and sediment. Superficial ground accelerations in Kobe and adjacent Nishinomiya were measured at up to 50 to 80 percent of the acceleration of gravity—too high for most unreinforced structures to withstand. When materials (soft soil, alluvial deposits, landfill) are unconsolidated, and especially when they are water-saturated as after rains and in coastal regions, they lose strength and absorb energy when vibrated by seismic waves. Ground motions are amplified, and damage is intensified. This behavior, termed liquefaction, causes much worse damage than that received by structures on firm bedrock. Some of the worst structural damage was thus along the Kobe waterfront, with its water-saturated landfill in place for port development and creation of habitable land for the expanding population. Portions of the elevated Hanshin four-lane expressway, Japan’s primary east-west traffic artery through coastal Kobe, collapsed. A section 656 yards (600 meters) long toppled over sideways to rest at a 45-degree angle. There was much ground failure, cracking, and sinking along the waterfront. The elevated rail line of the high-speed Shinkansen (“bullet”) train, constructed to be almost indestructible, was snapped in eight places. Fortunately, the first train of the day had not yet left for Kobe. Particularly vulnerable to the horizontal shaking of earthquake waves were the older two-story houses built of wood frames with heavy tile roofs. They collapsed, trapping their occupants, and were then burned in fires ignited by ruptured gas lines. There were over 300 fires in the area, and a dozen of them raged for twenty-four to fortyeight hours. Fire fighting was impossible, because major utilities— water mains, as well as electricity, gas, and telephone lines—were severed and disabled. Further, the roadways were congested with fallen buildings, rubble, and people fleeing, checking on relatives, or engaged in rescue efforts. Roads, bridges, and rail lines (for the public transportation electric trains) were cut. With the loss of utilities, there was no heat for the cold January weather and no water for drinking, plumbing, or bathing. 849
1995: The Kobe earthquake Factories and shops that did survive the earthquake had to shut down operations because of lack of power and other utilities, toppled equipment, and lack of employees. Despite the destruction and abandonment of homes, stores, and shops, there was virtually no looting or civil disturbance. The Japanese virtues of order and discipline, stoicism, and civility were evident and focused the citizenry on applying their perseverance and hard work to the tasks of survival and reconstructing their lives. Damage and casualties occurred along the coast through Nishinomiya and as far as Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city, which is 18 miles (30 kilometers) from Kobe. The latter had cracked walls, broken windows, and 11 earthquake-related deaths. Japan is a nation with high cost of living and an elaborate urban infrastructure. Rebuilding costs, public and private, have been variously estimated from U.S. $40 to 100 billion—exceeding those of any other natural disaster to that time. This figure does not include indirect losses such as lost economic productivity and business activity. Little of the residential losses was covered by insurance—only 9 percent of Japan’s population has home earthquake insurance, and only 3 percent in Kobe, which was thought to be in a region of low seismic risk. Rescue and Relief. The rescue efforts and distribution of emergency relief materials—food, water, fuel, and blankets—were hampered by an initially slow response by local government authorities and uncharacteristic disorganization. Assistance was also slowed by the congested urban destruction and impassable roadways. Roads that could have been cleared for emergency vehicles—fire, police, and search and rescue—were not cordoned off and thus became clogged with residents with their vehicles and possessions. The officials also delayed in calling in the national armed forces for assistance. The lack of civic preparedness for such an earthquake disaster was surprising, considering the generally high awareness in Japan of the prospect of such an event. Many people have an earthquakeemergency kit of supplies in their homes. Every September 1, Disaster Prevention Day, on the anniversary of the Great Kwanto Earthquake that hit Tokyo and Yokohama in 1923, there are nationwide community drills on disaster response, evacuation, mock rescues, 850
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To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
The Kobe earthquake toppled part of the Hanshin expressway. (AP/ Wide World Photos)
and protective measures. Ironically, Kobe rose to become a busy port and international trading city in 1923, when foreign merchants left the devastated port city of Yokohama after the earthquake there. In fact, some Japanese survivors of the 1923 earthquake had come to Kobe to settle and were still alive for the 1995 event—thus experiencing the two most devastating earthquakes in Japan in the twentieth century. 851
1995: The Kobe earthquake Reasons for the Scope of the Destruction. Kobe was not well prepared, psychologically and organizationally, for a major earthquake. First, it was some distance back from the seismically active zone of earthquakes associated with the oceanic trenches off Japan’s southern and eastern margins. It was thus believed to have less potential for suffering a major shock. Second, there was a belief that modern engineering and building design had made structures less susceptible to being damaged and disabled by an earthquake. This event, having a fairly large magnitude and being shallow and nearby, demonstrated the continuing vulnerability of an urban infrastructure. Third, there was an expectation, or hope, that Japan’s application of technology to the problems of understanding earthquake mechanisms, monitoring for precursory indications of an impending event, and public warnings issued to the citizenry would give advance warning of a likely event. Unfortunately, the earthquake struck on a thenunsuspected fault and without any obvious premonitory indicators such as minor foreshocks. However, there were reports of odd animal behavior near Kobe in the hours and days before the earthquake. These included fish near shore, birds, and sea lions at the zoo. The composition of well water used for local sake (rice wine) production varied unusually—especially for radon, a gas whose presence in deep groundwater has been linked to pre-earthquake straining. Ironically, on the day the earthquake struck Kobe, the fourth Japan-United States Workshop on Urban Earthquake Hazard Reduction was beginning down the road in Osaka. After the earthquake, the meeting was canceled because the participants had gone to Kobe to assess and investigate the disaster and its consequences. Three years after the earthquake, in April, 1998, the world’s longest suspension bridge opened there. The Akashi Kaikyo bridge connects the mainland west of Kobe across the Akashi Strait to Awaji Island. Its total length is 15 miles (24 kilometers), and the center suspension span is 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) long. The bridge is designed to withstand a magnitude 8.0 earthquake. Each of the tall towers supporting the center span is equipped with 20 vibration-control pendulums to reduce bridge movement if buffeted by earthquake waves or high winds. This was the biggest earthquake to hit a densely populated area of 852
1995: The Kobe earthquake Japan since June, 1948, when a magnitude 7.1 quake struck Fukui, on the north coast of Honshw island, killing about 5,000. With Kobe’s death toll of 5,502, it was the deadliest seismic disaster since the September, 1923, Great Kwanto Earthquake of magnitude 8.3 that struck Tokyo and Yokohama and killed 143,000, mostly in the fires that raged after the shock. The geological fact of life for Japan is that the beautiful island nation, the world’s second-largest economic power, is constructed on vulnerable and unstable terrain. The inexorable movement and collision of tectonic plates—the Pacific and Philippine from the east, the Eurasian from the west, and the North American from the north—mean that faults will continue to rupture and cause earthquakes into the foreseeable future. Robert S. Carmichael For Further Information: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Earthquake Engineering Commemorating the Tenth Anniversary of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake: January 13-16, 2005, Kobe/Awaji, Japan. Tokyo: Japan Association for Earthquake Engineering, 2005. Reid, T. R. “Kobe Wakes to a Nightmare.” National Geographic, July, 1995, 112-136. Schiff, Anshel J., ed. Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe) Earthquake of January 17, 1995: Lifeline Performance. Reston, Va.: American Society of Civil Engineers, 1999. Shea, Gail Hynes, ed. Lessons Learned Over Time. Oakland, Calif.: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, 2000. Somerville, Paul. “Kobe Earthquake: An Urban Disaster.” EOS/Transactions of American Geophysical Union 76, no. 6 (February 7, 1995): 49-51. “Twenty Seconds of Terror.” Newsweek, January 30, 1995, 19-30.
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■ 1995: Ebola outbreak Epidemic Date: April-May, 1995 Place: Kitwit, near Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) Result: 245 dead, 50 infected
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aspard Menga died on January 13, 1995, in Kitwit General Hospital. For a week he struggled against some unknown enemy, suffering a soaring fever, headaches, horrible stomach pains, uncontrollable hiccups, and massive bleeding— blood in his vomit, diarrhea, nose, and ears. Bebe, Philemond, and Bibolo Menga all died in a similar manner within weeks of preparing Gaspard’s body for burial, the preparation being a traditional procedure that involved washing the corpse. Philemond’s nineteen-yearold daughter Veronique also died in the same manner, having helped care for her ailing father. Of 23 members of the extended Menga-Nseke family, 13 perished because of the Ebola virus between January 6 and March 9, 1995. Four of them died in Kitwit General Hospital, which means the deadly virus probably lurked in the hospital for more than two months—perhaps mistaken for shigellosis, a common bacterial disease—before erupting in mid-April when surgery on an infected laboratory technician named Kimfumu spread Ebola to a dozen doctors and nurses. Kimfumu was a thirty-six-year-old laboratory technician who was responsible for collecting blood samples from suspected shigellosis cases. Kimfumu became ill, and his stomach was distended; the physicians thought he had an intestinal perforation caused by typhus. They operated twice. During the first operation, the physicians could not find any perforation, but they did remove Kimfumu’s inflamed appendix on April 10, 1995. When Kimfumu’s stomach remained severely distended, they operated again. This time when they opened the abdomen, they were horrified to see huge pools of blood—uncontrollable hemorrhaging from every organ. Kimfumu died, and soon, one after another, members of the two 854
1995: Ebola outbreak surgical teams that had operated on the man also died. The dead included four anesthesiologists, four doctors, two nurses, and two Italian nuns. Symptoms and Spread of Ebola Virus. Symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) begin four to sixteen days after infection. Victims develop fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, and loss of appetite. As the disease progresses, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sore throat, and chest pain can occur. The blood fails to clot, and patients may bleed from infection sites, as well as into the gastrointestinal tract, skin, and internal organs. Ebola virus is spread through close personal contact with a person who is very ill with the disease. In previous outbreaks, person-toperson spread frequently occurred among hospital care workers or family members who were caring for an infected person. Transmission of the virus also has occurred as a result of hypodermic needles being reused in the treatment of patients. Reusing needles is a common practice in developing countries, such as Zaire and Sudan, where the health care system is underfinanced. “The major means of transmission appears to be close and unprotected patient contact or preparation of the dead for burial,” said a World Health Organization (WHO) statement. Ebola virus can also be spread from person to person through sexual contact. Close personal contact with persons who are infected but show no signs of active disease is very unlikely to result in infection. Patients who have recovered from an illness caused by Ebola virus do not pose a serious risk for spreading the infection. However, the virus may be present in the genital secretions of such persons for a brief period after their recovery, and therefore it is possible they can spread the virus through sexual contact. Epidemic Site and Sanitary Conditions. Kitwit, a community of between 250,000 and 400,000 people, is located about 260 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Kinshasa, the capitol of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kitwit, really no more than a huge village without running water, a sewage system, or electricity, became filled with fear. As of May 20, 1995, Ebola had infected 155 people and killed 97. Most of the fear in Kitwit was directed at the hospital, where the gruesome illness with mysterious origins spread slowly, doctors believed, unnoticed for months until magnified by non855
1995: Ebola outbreak sterile practices. These practices and conditions, including a lack of adequate medical supplies and the frequent reuse of needles and syringes, played a major role in the spread of disease. The outbreak was quickly controlled when appropriate medical supplies and equipment were made available and quarantine procedures were used. The same was true for earlier outbreaks of Ebola. Birth of the Epidemic. The Mengas’ experience, like the other chains of transmission, seem to show that Ebola initially simmered in Kitwit, spreading within families for two to three months. It exploded into an epidemic in mid-April of 1995 in the hospital. In all chains of transmission the virus seems to have hit hardest in the first rounds of spreading, waning in transmissibility and virulence over time, eventually burning itself out. Early in the epidemic a nurse at the Mosango Mission Hospital became infected tending a patient who had fled Kitwit, a ninety-minute drive from Mosango. The nurse died after particularly acute hemorrhaging. The terrified staff disinfected and scrubbed the room,
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
Hospital workers transport the body of an Italian nun who died after contracting the Ebola virus in Zaire. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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1995: Ebola outbreak burned the bed linens, and sealed the chamber for two weeks. Fifteen days after the nurse died, a young woman with an unrelated problem was placed in the room, Mosango physicians said. She contracted Ebola and died. Her only contact with the virus, scientists said, was the mattress upon which she had lain. Physicians in Kitwit General Hospital were in a state of panic. Their patients were dying despite antibiotic therapy, and the medical staff and nuns were falling victim to the mysterious ailment as well. A tentative diagnosis of shigellosis—a bacterial disease that normally had a 30 percent fatality rate but should have been curable with antibiotics—was assigned to the crisis. The fatality rate from Ebola proved to be in the vicinity of 90 percent. Aid from Belgium and Elsewhere. A Zairean doctor who arrived in Kitwit in mid-April radioed an urgent message to a contact in Brussels requesting ciproflaxin, one of the most powerful and expensive antibiotics on the market. The doctor also mentioned in his message to Brussels that the cases in Kitwit reminded him of an epidemic he had seen in 1976 in Yambuktu, Zaire, the country’s first Ebola outbreak. Money was not available for the antibiotic, but the contact passed the message on to Antwerp’s Institute of Tropical Medicine. The word Ebola stood out for an official of the Institute of Tropical Medicine who had been involved in the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire. He told the Brussels contact to tell the Zairean doctor to send blood and tissue samples immediately. The samples arrived in Antwerp on May 6, 1995, but were quickly sent to the American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. If it was Ebola, the official at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed, then it should be handled in the most secure facility available. Physicians from both the CDC and the WHO were dispatched to Kitwit, and a physician and a team of two volunteers arrived from Médecins sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders). Physicians and Volunteers Arrive. On May 10, 1995, the CDC physician, an American epidemiologist, arrived at the Kitwit General Hospital and surveyed the situation. He recalled that “[t]here was blood everywhere. Blood on the mattresses, the floors, the walls. Vomit, diarrhea . . . wards were full of Ebola cases. [NonEbola] patients and their families were milling around, wandering in 857
1995: Ebola outbreak and out. There was lots of exposure.” The women mourners sat on a slab of concrete walkway that led from the wards, which were full of Ebola patients, to the morgue. Family after family sat on the walkway, rocking and wailing near the morgue. Dr. Barbara Kierstein from MSF later said that the hospital was in a sorry state and the patients were in a sorrier state. The Kitwit General Hospital staff had no protection, and they had not been paid for risking their lives. So Kierstein and her team decided to focus on hospital sanitation and establishment of an isolation ward. On Thursday, May 11, 1995, Kierstein and her team began hooking up the hospital’s ancient water system but gave up after realizing that all the pipes were blocked and rusted. Instead, they set up a plastic rainwater collection and filtration system. A thin, plastic wall was set up, isolating a ward for Ebola patients. The doctors dispensed gloves and masks to the hospital staff. Supplies and the End of Quarantine. On Saturday, May 13, 1995, Kierstein decided that additional help was needed, and she and her team spent Saturday morning listing essential supplies, using a satellite telephone to pass the list to Brussels. The request was to send respirator masks, latex gloves, protective gowns, disinfectant, hospital linens and plastic mattress covers, plastic aprons, basic cleaning supplies, water pumps and filters, galoshes, and tents. Kierstein commented that she had seen many African countries, and, even compared to others, the conditions at Kitwit General Hospital were shocking. She further stated that the only thing the hospital staff had to work with was their brains. For twenty-six days, however, the brains and dedication of the on-site rescue teams—as well as the numerous Zairean volunteers and medical workers—continued to be their main weapon. The supplies did not begin arriving in suitable amounts until May 27, 1995. Meanwhile, Zairean officials had quarantined the Kitwit area. The quarantine was lifted on Sunday, May 21, 1995, so as to allow longawaited food deliveries to reach Kinshasa. The road between Kitwit and Kinshasa carries much of the capital’s food, grown in the fertile Bandundu region where Kitwit is located. Compulsory health checks continued on road travelers from Kitwit to Kinshasa until the number of recorded deaths remained static at 245. The road health checks ceased on Tuesday, June 6, 1995. The final count was 245 deaths recorded out of 315 people known to have been infected. 858
1995: Ebola outbreak Even as a long-term investigation strategy was being prepared that would reveal the entire history of Kitwit’s epidemic, officials in Zaire said that bloody diarrhea had broken out elsewhere in Kitwit’s province of Bandundu. In an area 470 miles north of Kitwit, in a town called Tendjuna, 25 people had died from the ailment. Experts initially assigned a diagnosis of shigellosis to the illness. Researchers have begun to get a handle on the Ebola virus’s high pathogenicity. Research work at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor reports results suggesting that the virus uses different versions of the same glycoprotein—a protein with sugar groups attached—to wage a two-pronged attack on the body. One glycoprotein, secreted by the virus, seems to paralyze the immune system response that should fight it off, while the other, which stays bound to Ebola, homes in on the endothelial cells lining the interior of blood vessels, helping the virus to infect and damage them. It seems that as Ebola invades and subverts the cells’ genetic machinery to make more of itself, it also damages the endothelial cells, making blood vessels leaky and weak. The patient first bleeds and then goes into shock as failing blood pressure leaves the circulatory systems unable to pump blood to vital organs. Long before their immune systems can mount an antibody response—a process that can take weeks—most Ebola victims bleed to death. If confirmed in infected animals and humans, the findings suggest that these glycoproteins could be targets for anti-Ebola vaccines as well as for drugs that treat Ebola infections. A vaccine has been developed that works in monkeys, but human trials have not yet proved successful. Dana P. McDermott For Further Information: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Outbreak of Ebola Viral Hemorrhagic Fever—Zaire, 1995.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 44 (1995): 381-382. _______. “Update: Outbreak of Ebola Viral Hemorrhagic Fever— Zaire, 1995.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 44 (1995): 399. Cowley, Geoffrey. “Outbreak of Fear.” Newsweek 125 (May 22, 1995): 48. “Ebola’s Lethal Secrets.” Discovery Magazine 19, no. 1 (July 1, 1998): 24. 859
1995: Ebola outbreak Klenk, Hans-Dieter, ed. Marburg and Ebola Viruses. New York: Springer, 1999. Murphy, Frederick A., and Clarence J. Peters. “Ebola Virus: Where Does It Come from and Where Is It Going?” In Emerging Infections, edited by Richard M. Krause. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1998. Regis, Ed. Virus Ground Zero: Stalking the Killer Viruses with the Centers for Disease Control. New York: Pocket Books, 1996. Smith, Tara C. Ebola. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2006.
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■ 1995: Chicago heat wave Heat wave Date: July 12-17, 1995 Place: Midwest and Northeast, especially Chicago and Milwaukee Temperature: Up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit Result: More than 1,000 dead (465 in Chicago, 129 in Milwaukee)
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n July of 1995 an unusually strong upper level ridge of high pressure slowly moved across the Great Plains and came into contact with exceptionally humid conditions at ground level. The slow progression of the air mass created good opportunities for daily heating and the accumulation of humidity. Working together, these two factors produced extraordinarily hot and humid weather in the Midwest and on the East Coast. When this air mass came into contact with the urban sprawl of Chicago, Milwaukee, and other cities, the results became particularly deadly. The concrete and steel buildings trapped the heat, while the lack of a breeze made for stifling conditions. Further, even the daily low temperatures remained unusually high, preventing nighttime cooling from helping to dissipate the daytime heat buildup. The Temperatures Climb. Temperatures across the Midwest and East Coast soared during the record-breaking event. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued the first heat advisory for Chicago on July 12, 1995. By July 13 Chicago experienced temperatures of 104 degrees Fahrenheit at O’Hare airport and 106 degrees Fahrenheit at Midway. Both represented the highest daily temperatures ever recorded at those locations up to that point, and the city witnessed the second-highest summer temperatures in its history to that date, falling just one tenth of a percentage point short of the overall record. Taking into account the Heat Index, which reached 119 degrees Fahrenheit on July 12 and continued to climb, it became the worst summer on record for Chicago. The intense heat caused a section of Interstate 57 in downtown Chicago to buckle, closing an intersection for repairs. Milwaukee also witnessed extreme temperatures, experiencing a 861
1995: Chicago heat wave high of 101 degrees Fahrenheit on July 14. As the air mass moved eastward, other cities reported record-breaking heat. Philadelphia hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit on July 15, while New York City hit 102 degrees the same day. Baltimore had a city record of 102 degrees, and Danbury, Connecticut, also set a city record with 106 degrees. Washington, D.C., had to close the Washington Monument for several days to prevent heat exhaustion in tourists. The Death Toll. As the temperatures soared, people suffered physically from the heat, and the first injuries and deaths were soon reported. Because the heat came early in the summer, before people’s bodies became acclimated to hotter temperatures, residents, especially of northern locations, suffered more from the heat, with some succumbing to death. Heat caused the heart to pump blood more forcefully, because of the expansion of blood vessels to cool the body. Hearts needed time to become fully acclimated to the extra exertion. When the heat wave happened suddenly, as in 1995, heart attacks and other physical distress resulted. Dr. Edmund Donoghue, the Cook County medical examiner during the summer of 1995, established three specific criteria for determining if a fatality resulted at least in part from the heat. Donoghue maintained a death was attributable to the heat if one of the following factors was indicated at the time of death. If the body temperature had risen to at least 105 degrees at or shortly after the time of death, if there was evidence of elevated temperatures at the location where the victim was discovered, or if the victim was seen alive for the last time at the height of the heat wave and subsequently found in a decomposed state, then Donoghue called the death heat-inspired. His findings were later adopted by the NWS to establish the death toll for the heat wave of 1995. Although people died in other locations, such as the 11 who died in New York City and the 21 in Philadelphia, the worst fatalities occurred in Chicago and Milwaukee. In Chicago, 435 people officially died as a result of the heat wave, with 162 being recorded on July 15 alone. Others were rushed to local hospitals. At one point, 18 hospitals in Chicago placed their emergency rooms on bypass status, as they were unable to handle any more patients because of the overwhelming numbers of victims from the heat wave. The Cook County coroner’s office filled the 222-bay morgue and needed to use 7 refrig862
1995: Chicago heat wave erated tractor trailers to store additional corpses awaiting autopsies. Everyone at the morgue worked overtime to clear the backlog of heat-related cases. In Milwaukee, 129 people officially died as a result of the event. Bodies were directed to local funeral homes when the medical examiner’s office became full. Many of the dead had body temperatures in the range of 107-108 degrees. Emergency rooms in Milwaukee also experienced an upsurge in patients, with some closing for short periods of time because of the caseload. Two of the dead were three-year-old boys left inside a locked van for an hour when their caregiver forgot about them when she took several other children into a mall on a field trip. Most of the people who died from the heat were senior citizens, especially those living alone or who had apartments on the second floor and higher. They often died with their windows closed and doors locked. A. D. and Willie May Gross of Chicago, both in their sixties, died together in their home, which did not have air-conditioning. Rescuers found the doors and windows bolted and shut, with the temperature inside the house at 125 degrees Fahrenheit. The Chicago Housing Authority never placed enough air-conditioning units into the public housing projects, even though managers asked for units in recreation rooms and common areas to provide a cool area for residents. Many residents, especially of public housing, feared the crime outside their apartments more than the heat and refused to open doors and windows to allow air circulation. The homes of many of the dead were in the range of 100 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Other victims declined assistance even when it was offered to them. One eighty-seven-year-old casualty, Mabel Swanson, could have gone to stay at a neighbor’s air-conditioned apartment in Chicago, but she preferred to stay in her own home. She died during the night from the heat and was discovered by a neighbor the next morning. Chicago established designated cooling stations where residents could enjoy air-conditioning and get relief from the oppressive conditions, but these centers went largely underused during the crisis. One center had room for 200 people but was empty during the heat of the day. Most of the dead lacked air-conditioning in their homes and apartments and used fans instead. In Kansas City, Missouri, which also saw its share of deaths, Arthur Castlebery died at home with 863
1995: Chicago heat wave three fans blowing on him. When the mercury rose above 90 degrees and the humidity was above 35 percent, fans acted like a convection oven, heating the room further by circulating the hot air, rather than cooling it off. The temperature in the room was 110 degrees when Castlebery’s body was discovered. Other Effects. Commonwealth Edison Company, the local electric company for Chicago, demonstrated an inability to handle the increased demand for electricity during the heat wave. Several substations caught fire or otherwise failed, and the company resorted to rolling blackouts to ration the power throughout the city without notifying consumers in advance. During these rolling blackouts, residents experienced two- to four-hour power outages over the course of the day. In other instances, substations failed entirely, leaving tens of thousands of residents without electricity for up to forty-eight hours. This critical situation contributed to some fatalities. Although eighty-nine-year-old Florentine Aquino had air-conditioning in his home, a rolling blackout halted his electric service. His wife awoke to discover him lying dead next to her in their bed the next morning. After the event, lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Commonwealth Edison because of the outages. Most of the victims of the heat wave suffered from diseases exacerbated by the high temperatures. Diabetes, pulmonary heart disease, upper respiratory problems, and high blood pressure contributed to their deaths. Others had more unique problems. Eight-year-old Kyle Garcia from Kenosha, Wisconsin, died from dehydration. Garcia was in a full body cast, covering his chest to his feet, and his body could not process liquids, making it unable to prevent death. Mental illness also contributed to a number of deaths. An antipsychotic medication given to schizophrenics prevented perspiration and impaired their ability to dissipate heat, causing heat exhaustion and death for some. Twelve of the dead in Milwaukee took these psychotropic or mindaltering medications, with fatal consequences. The heat wave of 1995 initiated a spate of research into deaths caused by heat exhaustion and related causes. The NWS conducted a study for later emergency disaster procedures in the event of future heat waves. It found that, although heat waves annually killed more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes, or blizzards, the general public lacked awareness of the deadly potential. In particular, the NWS 864
1995: Chicago heat wave implemented a series of policies, such as better warning systems and the establishment of cooling stations, to handle heat waves and to prevent the high casualty rate of the summer of 1995. James B. Seymour, Jr. For Further Information: Changnon, S. A., K. E. Kunkel, and B. C. Reinke. “Impacts and Responses to the 1995 Heat Wave: A Call to Action.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 77, no. 7 (1996): 1497-1506. Klinenberg, Eric. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Kunkel, K. E., S. A. Changnon, B. C. Reinke, and R. W. Arritt. “The July, 1995, Heat Wave in the Midwest: A Climatic Perspective and Critical Weather Factors.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 77, no. 7 (1996): 1507-1518. U.S. Department of Commerce. Natural Disaster Survey Report, July, 1995, Heat Wave. Silver Springs, Md.: National Weather Service, 1995.
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■ 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster Blizzard Date: May 10-11, 1996 Place: Mount Everest, Nepal Wind Speed: 45 to 80 miles per hour Temperature: With wind-chill factor, minus 94 to minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit Result: 9 dead, 4 injured with severe frostbite
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xtremes attract adventurers who seek to fly the fastest, descend the deepest, or climb the highest. Mount Everest, the Earth’s highest peak at 29,108 feet, has long been considered the crowning goal for many mountaineers. Because of its location in the Himalayas between Tibet (where its name is Jomolungma) and Nepal (where its name is Sagarmatha), Mount Everest is often subject to extreme and unpredictable weather. The unexpected arrival of a savage blizzard on the high slopes of Everest during the spring of 1996, when the mountain was crowded with climbers, played an important role in the greatest tragedy in this mountain’s long history of calamities. By 1996, in the seventy-five years since the first attempt to climb Everest, more than 140 climbers had died. The largest single cause of death was avalanches, with falls into crevasses and from the mountain a distant second. Until the 1996 tragedy, there had been only 13 weather-related deaths. Furthermore, throughout most of the history of mountaineering on Everest, almost all deaths were of professional or highly skilled climbers. After 1985, however, climbing high mountains became a business, and populating the slopes of this dangerous mountain with amateurs of varying abilities was another factor that figured into the disastrous loss of life in 1996. The leaders of the commercial companies that developed to meet the need of those who could pay $65,000 to reach the top of the world knew that their success depended on the vagaries of Everest’s weather, and so clients were brought to the mountain in the spring to take advantage of the brief period of good weather between the decline of 866
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winter and the arrival of the summer monsoons. It was during this time period that, in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, became the first people to reach the summit; their route, up the Khumbu Icefall and Glacier through the West Cwm and up the Southeast Ridge, became the standard way to the top. Because of the brief weather window, Everest’s base camp at 17,600 feet was crowded with more than four hundred people in the spring of 1996. The Everest Expeditions. Some of these people had specific goals other than merely climbing Everest. For example, the film director David Breashears was shooting a $5.5 million giant-screen (IMAX) film about climbing the mountain. Others were part of commercial expeditions. For example, Rob Hall, who, like Hillary, was a skilled New Zealand climber, led the Adventure Consultants Guided Expedition. Among his clients was Jon Krakauer, an American journalist who had been assigned by Outside magazine to research an article on commercial climbing. Hall had already guided a record 39 climbers to the summit, but he was receiving competition from an American company, Mountain Madness Guided Expedition, led by Scott Fischer. Fischer was assisted by the guides Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian, and Neal Beidleman, an American. Among Fischer’s clients was the millionaire socialite and journalist Sandy Hill Pittman, who was making daily reports of his trip on the World Wide Web. As the clients acclimatized to the altitude, they also adapted to each other. Variations in economic backgrounds, states of health, and climbing ability did not make such adaptation easy. Nevertheless, 867
1996: The Mount Everest Disaster Hall and Fischer guided their groups through the Khumbu Icefall, a river of glacial ice, to Camp 1, at 20,000 feet. Later, their clients trekked 4 miles and 1,700 vertical feet from Camp 1 to Camp 2, in the West Cwm, the earth’s highest box canyon. While more than 100 climbers were going through the Icefall and up the West Cwm, a storm hit on April 21, with winds of over 60 miles per hour. Another storm arrived on April 23, with very strong winds pummeling the upper slopes, delaying the establishment of Camp 3 (at 24,000 feet) and Camp 4 (at 26,000 feet). When the weather stabilized, toward the end of April, oxygen cylinders and other materials necessary for the summit climbs were carried to the higher camps. By the first week in May, most clients had completed their acclimatization at the higher camps and were preparing for a summit bid. The IMAX climbers, who were higher on the mountain than the Hall and Fischer groups, decided against their attempt to reach the summit on May 9 because of a violent windstorm, which also hampered Sherpas setting up tents in the South Col (the plateau where Camp 4 was located). The Ascent to the Summit. Despite the storm, Hall and Fischer brought their guides and clients to Camp 4 for a possible ascent on Friday, May 10. When the climbers awoke late Thursday night, the winds had died down, and they left the Col around midnight. Mount Everest above the South Col is called the Death Zone because the combination of the lack of oxygen, low temperatures, and high winds can quickly amplify small mistakes into tragedies. Each climber carried two oxygen cylinders (a third was available on the South Summit in a cache stocked by the Sherpas). Within two or three hours after leaving the South Col, Fischer’s Mountain Madness climbers began to overtake Hall’s group, and by 4 a.m. both groups were commingled. Though the groups were mixed, the philosophies of their leaders differed. For example, Hall taught his clients the Two O’Clock Turnaround Rule: If you are not on the summit by 2 p.m., go back down the mountain, no matter how close you are to the top. Because there were so many climbers on the Southeast Ridge, the pace was slow and traffic jams occurred, such as at the Hillary Step, a steeply sloped tower of rock not far from the summit. Guides rigged ropes up this 40-foot cliff to help their clients conquer Everest’s final obstacle. Boukreev, Fischer’s chief guide, reached the summit several 868
1996: The Mount Everest Disaster minutes after 1 p.m. Krakauer arrived about five minutes later. During the next few hours clients and guides from both Hall’s and Fischer’s groups reached the summit, along with others, and the weather, though very cold, did not appear threatening. Most climbers were worried about their dwindling supplies of oxygen, not about a storm. However, some guides noticed that clouds were filling the valleys below, obscuring all but the highest peaks. Unknown to the climbers, these innocent-looking puffs were actually the tops of thunderheads gradually moving up the mountain’s sides. Rob Hall reached the top at 2:30 p.m., thus breaking his own Two O’Clock Turnaround Rule. More ominously, Scott Fischer did not reach the summit until 3:40 p.m., and others arrived still later. In fact, Hall had left the summit to help his client Doug Hansen up the final section of the Southeast Ridge. Why Hall encouraged Hansen to continue his ascent so late in the day is one of the perplexing questions of the Everest tragedy. In 1995 Hall had turned Hansen back when he was close to the summit, and it is reasonable to speculate that it would have been particularly difficult for Hall to deny Hansen the summit a second time. After Hansen reached the top, Hall and his client began their descent and quickly ran into trouble. Beginning at 4:30, Hall repeatedly sent radio messages that he and Hansen were in trouble high on the summit ridge and urgently needed oxygen. Fischer, too, was in difficulty. On the summit he had told a Sherpa that he was not feeling well, and he experienced debilitating problems during his descent. The Blizzard Strikes. The situation of the many climbers descending the Southeast Ridge was made even more difficult by the storm clouds which, by 5:15, had blanketed Everest’s heights. Between 6:30 and 6:45 p.m., as dim daylight turned to darkness, Krakauer stumbled into Camp 4. By this time the storm was a full-blown blizzard, and visibility had dropped to 20 feet. Ice and snow particles carried by 80-mile-per-hour gusts froze exposed flesh. Despite these conditions, Hall had managed to get Hansen down to the top of the Hillary Step, but their progress then stopped. Fischer, too, was stranded on the ridge, and several of the clients of Hall and Fischer were lost in the snow and ice as they tried to descend to Camp 4 (one later compared their plight to trying to find a path in a gigantic milk bottle). 869
1996: The Mount Everest Disaster When the Mountain Madness clients did not return to Camp 4 by 6 p.m., Boukreev decided to discover their whereabouts, but the high winds and whiteout conditions made his search fruitless, and he was forced to return to camp. Meanwhile, Beidleman, Boukreev’s fellow guide, had managed to get his group off the ridge and onto the broad expanse of the South Col, but they were on its eastern edge, far from the tents of Camp 4 about 330 yards to the west (a fifteenminute walk in good weather). The storm was so intense that they could not see the lights of Camp 4, and only a few people in their group had headlamps with functioning batteries. Since their oxygen supplies had been depleted, they were all at the point of physical collapse. Some in Beidleman’s group were Hall’s clients (Yasuko Namba and Beck Weathers), while others were part of Fischer’s group (Tim Madsen, Charlotte Fox, and Sandy Pittman). Failing to find Camp 4, the group decided to huddle and wait for the storm to subside. Fearing they would all die, Beidleman later gathered a small group of the ambulatory climbers to make another attempt to find their camp. Wobbling into the wind, which occasionally knocked them down, they eventually stumbled into Camp 4 sometime before midnight. They told Boukreev that those left behind needed help. After his attempts to find volunteers for a rescue team were frustrated, Boukreev, on his own, made two long forays into the furious storm to bring the stranded climbers to safety. He eventually saw the faint glow of Madsen’s headlamp and was thus able to save his life, along with those of Fox and Pittman. (He assumed that Namba was dead, and he did not come across Weathers.) During the night, Rob Hall, still on the ridge, was in radio contact with base camp. Without Hansen, who was presumed dead, Hall had managed to descend to the South Summit. At 5 a.m. on Saturday, May 11, base camp was able to arrange a telephone call from Hall to his wife in New Zealand. In this conversation and a later one at 6:20, she tried to get her husband to move down the mountain, but his legs were frozen, and he was too weak. With daylight, there was a break in the storm, and a team was organized to locate the bodies of Beck Weathers and Yasuko Namba. The team found Namba partially buried in snow and, surprisingly, still breathing although judged to be near death. Namba did die, but Weathers was later able to rescue himself by walking directly into the 870
1996: The Mount Everest Disaster wind and stumbling into Camp 4. He was bundled into two sleeping bags and given oxygen. Another Storm. The gale that struck on Saturday evening was even more powerful than the one that had lashed the Col the night before. The storm collapsed Weathers’s tent and blew his sleeping bags off him. With his badly frostbitten hands, he was unable to pull the bags back over his body. The storm was so intense that his anguished cries were unheard, and he had to suffer, unprotected, through yet another Everest blizzard. When the murderous winds abated and his condition became known to the other climbers, he was injected with dexamethasone, which helped him recover enough to stand and walk with assistance. He somehow managed to get to a lower camp, where a helicopter evacuated him to Kathmandu. When the storm finally ended, the remaining members of Hall’s and Fischer’s groups descended the mountain, but the bodies of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer were left where they had died. By the time Krakauer reached base camp, 9 climbers from four expeditions were dead. Because all this drama on the high slopes of Everest had been closely followed by the world media, the tragedy generated great interest. Jon Krakauer’s account of what happened appeared in the September, 1996, issue of Outside and in his book, Into Thin Air, which was published in April of 1997 and began its long run on the bestseller charts. In his book, Krakauer criticized some of Boukreev’s decisions in the Death Zone. Boukreev defended his actions in his own book, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, published in 1997. His views were given some sanction when, on December 6, 1997, the American Alpine Club honored him with their David A. Sowles Memorial Award for his courageous rescue of three climbers trapped in a storm on the South Col of Mount Everest. The controversy between Krakauer and Boukreev came to an end when Boukreev was killed in an avalanche on the slopes of Annapurna on Christmas Day of 1997. Robert J. Paradowski For Further Information: Boukreev, Anatoli, and G. Weston DeWalt. The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Coburn, Broughton. Everest: Mountain Without Mercy. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1997. 871
1996: The Mount Everest Disaster Groom, Michael. Sheer Will. Milsons Point, New South Wales, Australia: Random House, 1997. Jenkins, Steve. The Top of the World: Clmbing Mount Everest. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. New York: Villard, 1997.
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■ 1997: The Jarrell tornado Tornado Date: May 27, 1997 Place: Jarrell, Texas Classification: F5 Result: 27 dead, 8 injured, 44 homes damaged or destroyed
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uring the last week of May, 1997, a cold front pushed through the central plains of Oklahoma and Kansas. The front caused severe thunderstorms and caught the attention of Dr. Charles Doswell, a research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. Dr. Doswell recognized that the higher humidity near the Gulf of Mexico would add strength to the storms as the front plunged into Texas. In order to follow atmospheric developments, Doswell drove to the Fort Worth National Weather Service office on the morning of May 27. As expected, the morning was typical of spring. It started with clear skies, high humidity, and rapidly warming temperatures. Initially, cooler temperatures aloft slowed vertical development of storm clouds. In the early afternoon, however, the sky grew darker near Waco, Texas, as a single towering cumulus erupted through the upper layers of the atmosphere to form a supercell, the strongest type of thunderstorm. Doswell’s hunch of pending trouble proved correct as the cold front plowed into the rich humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. This collision of energetic air masses would sustain this individual supercell for the next six hours. However, instead of moving in the typical northeasterly direction, this supercell plunged southward, growing in strength along the intersection between the cold front and the warm moist air to the south. That uncommon southerly movement would cause one of the most devastating tornado effects ever recorded. Before the day was over, this supercell spawned 22 tornadoes, killing 30 in all. The first of the tornadoes formed 10 miles south of Waco at 1:37 p.m. It was followed by a continuous succession of tornadoes forming one after another. Each tornado in turn traced a southerly course, 873
1997: The Jarrell tornado Missouri Enid
Tulsa
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following the leisurely pace of the parent supercell. These tornadoes achieved F2-level strength, with winds approaching 150 miles per hour. One of the tornadoes in this series tracked across Lake Belton, briefly assuming the characteristics of a waterspout. A flotilla of cabin cruisers, ski boats, and party barges disappeared below the surface as this tornado sank the largest marina on the lake. Word of the approaching tornadic thunderstorm had circulated from numerous radio and television sources during the first two hours of tornadic activity. Initially, only a small number of people were at risk. Forming just west of Interstate 35, these tornadoes spiraled through rural areas without nearing any population centers. By 3:50 p.m., a new tornado was just forming 3 miles north of Jarrell, Texas. Its forward motion was very slow, and many Jarrell residents, 874
1997: The Jarrell tornado who had been watching the tornado for several minutes, escaped by driving south on the interstate at its approach. Unfortunately, school had let out for the day twenty minutes earlier. Many of the younger students were just reaching home either on foot or by bicycle. Aware of the danger, some of these students accompanied their friends to the new subdivision just west of town. In some instances, a few parents left work early to be with their children at home. The Initial Touchdown. The initial touchdown point was north of Jarrell in a cotton field. Green with maturing cotton plants, the 30acre field was instantly defoliated. Although relatively weak, the wind force scoured away several acres of topsoil, exposing the limestone base a foot below the original surface. As a result, a great mud storm developed at the base of the tornado, plastering 4 inches of mud against fence posts, tree trunks, foundations, and farm equipment. Typical in an F2 tornado, with winds exceeding 100 miles per hour, the first farm home lost its roof. The tornado rapidly grew in strength over the next 0.5 mile as the second home was flattened, with most of the debris strewn downwind. On this day the owner chose to drive away rather than stay in his underground storm shelter. The 4,000-pound concrete roof of the shelter was torn from its moorings, never to be found in subsequent searches. With winds now approaching 200 miles per hour, the tornado siphoned 25 vertical feet of water from the well nearby. The track of the tornado was plainly evident in the grassland beyond the homestead. It was mostly defoliated, the few remaining blades of grass shredded and flattened to the ground. The tornado path, now 800 feet across, bore the spiraling marks characteristic of a multiple-vortex tornado. Sometimes called suction spots, these intense whirlwinds within the main funnel carved their spirals several inches into the soil. In the field beyond, the tornado raked across a wheat field ready for harvest, sending millions of wheat shafts spiraling into the vortex. The wheat shafts, as rigid as ice picks at such high velocities, impaled the cattle in the adjoining field. Of a herd of 130 cattle, half a dozen survived, wheat stitched into their hides and underbellies. Film evidence taken at the time revealed that many of the animals were vaulted into the air and dropped to the ground repeatedly. Internal injuries were severe; most of the cattle had four broken legs. 875
1997: The Jarrell tornado Typically, hair was removed from the hide. In extreme examples, even the hide was stripped away, exposing muscle and bone. Double Creek Estates. For the next 2 miles, the rotational velocity and width of the tornado continued to increase. Its intensity was most apparent along the only road leading to Jarrell’s newest housing addition. This is where the devastation of an F5 tornado first became apparent. Winds in excess of 300 miles per hour lifted steel, concrete, and rock as easily as a wind gust stirring a leaf pile. For example, steel posts that once supported barbed-wire fences were lashed back and forth by the strong winds, breaking them off at ground level. Many sections of roadway were destroyed by the intense pressure of wind that gripped the pavement, disintegrating the pieces as they vaulted into the air. The energy of the wind alone peeled bark from the few tree trunks still standing. At 0.5 mile wide, the path of the tornado now curved westward, centering on Double Creek Estates. Perhaps because of its westward travel, the forward motion of the tornado had slowed to a walking speed. It would take seventeen minutes for the tornado to travel the next mile over Double Creek, pulverizing homes, appliances, and automobiles, and taking human life. One of the residents had a collection of nearly 75 vintage Chevrolets that was swept into the maelstrom. Only a handful of cars remained intact, while most were reduced to shrapnel. Even engine blocks and transmissions were shattered from the repeated blows. In the first seconds, the great wind swept entire homes from their foundations. The residents were also swept along in a torrent of wind, metal, and wood. With the exception of shattered fragments of wood that had speared the ground, there was little debris remaining in the vicinity of Double Creek Estates. The house foundations left behind gave mute testimony to the sequence of destruction. Although most of these homes were solidly built of brick veneer construction, the force of the wind and flying debris instantly disintegrated roofs and walls. Even the bricks were launched into the air, to be shot out of the tornado in a great fusillade. Bricks were scattered across the countryside, disproportionately favoring the left side of the tornado path. Clearly, with the counterclockwise rotation of the funnel, these homes were destroyed at the first instant by the leading edge of the tornado. In some houses, the vinyl flooring was glued to the concrete foun876
1997: The Jarrell tornado dation in bathrooms and kitchen areas. Long slashes in the vinyl cutting from right to left also confirmed that these floors were entirely exposed in those first moments. Modern construction practices attach the lumber to the concrete slab by shooting nails through the wood into the concrete beneath. All lumber attached in this manner was removed from the slabs. Other attached objects, including door thresholds, carpet tacking strips, toilets, tubs, and brick veneer fireplaces, were also removed. Copper water lines, plastic fittings, and wires were sheared off at the surface level of each slab. Even the concrete slabs had great gashes on their surfaces, with chunks of concrete nicked away from the corners and edges. Apparently, the homes of Double Creek Estates were not simply flattened, with their debris accounted for nearby, but rather annihilated one hundred times over as the tornado ground away any object that extended above ground. While at its maximum strength over the subdivision, even the distant surface winds plunging into the tornado created amazing effects. Round hay bales weighing 1,500 pounds were tumbled into the tornado from 0.25 mile away. About 1,000 feet south of the path, a home seemed undamaged on the side facing the tornado. However,
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
A tornado that struck Jarrell, Texas, on May 27, 1997. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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1997: The Jarrell tornado the inbound winds shattered windows and removed shingles on the side facing away from the tornado. This homeowner also lost his tractor-trailer rig as the inflowing winds pulled it into the tornado. The Weakening Tornado. The tornado would not lift for another 3 miles; however, the first signs of weakening began about 1 mile beyond the subdivision. Three great piles of debris spaced about 1,000 feet apart formed into a straight line near the centerline of the tornado footprint. At about 100 feet long, each streamlined hill was formed from the most massive objects available: automobile parts, appliances, trucks, and farm implements. Such objects apparently accumulated as flying debris slammed into the side of each pile. Smaller debris, perhaps transported higher in the tornado, rained down over a dozen square miles near the lift-off point. Consisting mostly of metal, plastic, and wood, these objects typically weighed just a few pounds. Finally, the lightest debris was transported by the supercell thunderstorm, later to fall to earth at great distances. Although most of this material could not be absolutely confirmed as originating from this event, a box of checks bearing the name of one of the victims was discovered 100 miles south of Jarrell. The Aftermath. The shattering intensity of this tornado is expressed in the statistics: 27 dead and 8 injured. Other great tornadoes have claimed more lives, but no other tornado event can claim a 75 percent mortality rate. The irresistible force of 300-mile-per-hour winds sitting in place for several minutes caused more complete damage than a rapidly moving tornado of similar force. Despite all odds, there were survivors. A woman hid in her bathtub as her home was destroyed around her. Located just outside the path under weaker wind conditions, her house was carried several hundred feet away. She rode along with her house while in her tub. When she stood up at the end of her ride, the bathtub fell into pieces around her. Even more amazing is the foresight of a family that survived beneath their house in the Double Creek subdivision. Having experienced a tornado ten years earlier, this family built a storm shelter by hand-digging a hole through the slab. Taking two years to complete, this unique structure built of solid concrete and encased beneath the original foundation may have been the only shelter that could survive the intensity and duration of the Jarrell tornado. Don M. Greene 878
1997: The Jarrell tornado For Further Information: “Funnel Cloud of Death.” Newsweek, June 9, 1997, 68. Grazulis, Thomas P. The Tornado: Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Lindell, Chuck. “Jarrell’s Healing Year.” Austin-American Statesman, May 24, 1998. _______. “A New Day in Jarrell.” Austin-American Statesman, January 4, 1998. Phan, Long T., and Emil Simiu. The Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale: A Critique Based on Observations of the Jarrell Tornado of May 27, 1997. Gaithersburg, Md.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1998.
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■ 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption Volcano Date: June 25, 1997 Place: Montserrat, Caribbean Result: 19 dead, 8,000 evacuated
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hen explorer Christopher Columbus sighted an eastern Caribbean island and named it Montserrat in 1493, no one then knew enough geography to understand what lands he could yet discover in the region, and no one yet knew—and would not know for another four and a half centuries—about plate tectonics and the geological reason for the island’s existence. After permanent settlers arrived from England and Ireland in 1632, and then indentured servants and slaves from West Africa later in that century, they would be intermittently reminded of the dramatic power of volcanic activity and the evolution of such an island—a lesson that continues to this day. Geography. Montserrat is an island of 39 square miles (102 square kilometers). It is one of an eastern Caribbean chain of islands, the Lesser Antilles, extending in a crescent 400 miles (650 kilometers) long, which connects the Virgin Islands in the north to Trinidad near Venezuela in the south. Montserrat is a dependent island governed by Great Britain. Some of the better-known islands in the chain are St. Kitts, Antigua, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada. They owe their existence to the collision of tectonic plates moving slowly under the earth’s surface. While the American Plate is moving westward from the spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the small Caribbean Plate (from Cuba and the West Indies south to South America) is moving relatively eastward at about 0.4 inch per year. The slow collision in the eastern Caribbean causes oceanic crust to be thrust downward, causing partial melting in the mantle, and magma (molten rock) erupts periodically to form volcanic islands. Montserrat is, like the others in the Lesser Antilles, a typical strato880
1997: Soufrière Hills eruption volcanic or composite-type volcano, built up of successive lava flows plus layers of ejecta (ash and larger rock fragments) erupted explosively. The process creates attractive conical-shaped volcanoes with dangerous capabilities for destruction. The magma in this crustal environment tends to be viscous, and it can congeal into a domed plug in the crater at the top of the vent of the volcano. The pressure in the subterranean magma, especially from its contained gases, can build up and produce periodic plumes of ash or, occasionally, a catastrophic and massive eruption with much ash and gas. Many of these islands have experienced volcanic activity in the past few thousand years. The active volcano on Montserrat is called Soufrière Hills, and is about 3,000 feet (915 meters) high. The bottom of the volcano, and of the island, is on the seafloor, at a subsea depth of about 4,900 feet (1,500 meters). La soufrière is French for “sulfur pit,” and in creole French it also refers to volcanic and sulfurous hot springs. History of Eruption. Soufrière began erupting, mostly ash and gas, on July 18, 1995, after having been dormant since the island’s set-
Codrington Mazinga
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1997: Soufrière Hills eruption tlement. Unusual subterranean activity had been noted as early as 1989 by a local seismograph, which detects and records seismic wave vibrations from such behavior as magma cracking rock as it wells upward. The instrument was one of thirty-two seismographs situated in the Antilles Islands and operated by the Seismic Research Unit of the University of the West Indies, in Trinidad. With the active eruptive activity, an international team of geologists and geophysicists was gathered, from the Trinidad unit, the British Geological Survey, and the U.S. Geological Survey. They set up monitoring instruments on and around the volcano—seismographs and ground-deformation and gravity instruments—to try to monitor the pulse of the volcano to assess and possibly predict its future activity. This would be done at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, which was recently established. For several weeks, a series of earthquakes caused the volcano to tremble, and there were intermittent small phreatic (steam-charged) eruptions of fine gray ash and sulfurous gases. The ash showered the southern half of the island, including the main town and capital, Plymouth, on the southwest coast only 3 miles away. The volcano crater began to fill with a viscous lava dome that plugged the vent. If this plug, like a cork in a bottle, could not contain the pressure, it and the underlying magma could explode up into a plume of ash and could generate fearsome pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s slopes. Pyroclastic, from the Greek pyro for fire and klastos for broken, refers to the hot fragmental material being erupted, in this case as a flowing cloud of searing hot ash and gas, much of the latter poisonous. Such hot gaseous flows, or nuées ardentes, are one of the greatest hazards of eruptions. They are denser than air and thus hug the slopes, travel very fast—up to 70 to 120 miles per hour (110 to 190 kilometers per hour)—and kill people by scorching, roasting, and asphyxiating. In late August, 1995, a series of eruptive ash events darkened the sky over Plymouth. The authorities recommended the evacuation of the south half of the island, either to the sparsely settled north end or to other islands or countries. Because no one could know when—if ever—the volcano might erupt massively, this was a wrenching development for the island society. There is uncertainty with a dome-building, slowly erupting volcano, because an end can come—after months or years—with a final catastrophic explosion or it can simply fizzle out. 882
1997: Soufrière Hills eruption Plymouth itself housed half the island’s population of 11,000 as well as the nation’s only port, only hospital, government, industries, and people’s homes. Most of Plymouth had just been reconstructed from the effects of the devastating Hurricane Hugo of 1989. Tourism—the main economic activity, along with agriculture and a small but thriving music industry—would be decimated, unemployment would soar, and people would have to abandon their homes, schools, and farms for an indefinite time. By the following April, 5,000 people had moved to the north end of the island, and 3,000 people had left the island. Of the latter, about 1,000 went to Great Britain, which was also providing funds on Montserrat for resettlement, social services, and maintenance of island life. On September 17, 1996, the lava dome collapsed to produce a pyroclastic flow that moved quickly toward the sea to the east, as well as an ash plume over 32,000 feet (10 kilometers) high. The ashfall darkened the sky, and there was a sulfurous smell; the lava doming continued. By early June the following year, there were more earthquakes from the volcano and its subterranean magma chamber. A few farmers, disobeying the evacuation orders, still tended their crops on the fertile lower slopes of the volcano. The Big Eruption. On June 25, 1997, there was a more persistent ash eruption, and at about 1 p.m. a major eruption began, finally, but as the volcanologists had feared. The crater’s lava dome collapsed, and the pyroclastic ash and rubble cascaded down the volcanic slopes at more than 70 miles per hour and with a temperature of about 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit (8,000 degrees Celsius). Trees were flattened and scorched, and structures were devastated. Nineteen people were killed, by burning or asphyxiation, and many were entombed in the pyroclastic flow. Twenty-seven other people were rescued in time from the mountain region by helicopter. In late August, 1997, there were more pyroclastic flows in all directions off the mountain. These covered the now-desolate and deserted southern half of the island and smothered Plymouth’s structures that were still standing. More people left the island—many probably permanently—as life and the environment became progressively less hospitable and more uncertain. For two years, Soufrière Hills on Montserrat had been volcanically active and making the lands pro883
1997: Soufrière Hills eruption gressively more uninhabitable. However, some good things resulted from the eruptions: Once the activity subsided to dormancy again the ash would weather in the warm moist climate there to create new fertile soil. Also, the oceanic island was enlarged, in an age-old process, by the volcanic flows that reached and extended the shoreline. Other Eruptions. There are other notable eruptions in the Lesser Antilles that also involved the hazard of pyroclastic flows. In 1979, St. Vincent’s volcanic peak, La Soufrière, erupted, but a prior evacuation of the area saved many lives. This was unlike May 7, 1902, there, when an explosive eruption created an ash and steam plume that rose over 30,000 feet (9 kilometers) and a pyroclastic flow that caused about 1,600 deaths. In 1976, some eruptive activity of another volcano named La Soufrière, on Guadeloupe just to the southeast of Montserrat, prompted an evacuation of 70,000 people for several months; however, in this case there were only minor explosions. The most devastating eruption was from Mount Pelée, on the island of Martinique farther to the south. On May 8, 1902, an explosion generated a pyroclastic flow that killed 30,000 people—virtually the entire town of St. Pierre. Robert S. Carmichael For Further Information: Davison, Phil. Volcano in Paradise: The True Story of the Montserrat Eruptions. London: Methuen, 2003. Dittmer, Jason. “The Soufrière Hills Volcano and the Postmodern Landscapes of Montserrat.” FOCUS 47, no. 4 (Spring, 2004): 1-7. Druit, T.H., and B. P. Kokelaar, eds. The Eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat, from 1995 to 1999. London: Geological Society, 2002. Graham, Wade. “Getting to Know the Volcano.” The New Yorker 73, no. 1 (February 17, 1997): 43-47. Pulsipher, Lydia M. “Montserrat: The People, the Land, and the Volcano.” FOCUS 44, no. 3 (Fall, 1997): 29-33. Williams, A. R, and Vincent J. Musi. “Montserrat: Under the Volcano.” National Geographic 192, no. 1 (July, 1997): 58-77.
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■ 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami Tsunami Date: July 17, 1998 Place: Northwestern Papua New Guinea Result: 2,000 dead, 500 missing
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n July 17, 1998, an undersea earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck about 18 miles (29 kilometers) off the northwest coast of Papua New Guinea. Although seismological stations in the South Pacific measured the tremor, the earthquake erupted under the seabed so close to the coast that there was no time to send warnings to villagers to evacuate. Starting as long, silent ripples on the deep waters of the Bismarck Sea, the waves swept toward the shore at dusk. They gathered height and power as they neared the beaches around Sissano Lagoon in West Sepik Province. At that point, they were up to 33 feet (10 meters) high and sounding, some said, like a jet plane taking off. The waves crashed over the thatched wooden houses as villagers were preparing dinner. “We just saw the sea rise up and it came toward the village and we had to run for our lives,” said a man who lost 8 members of his family. The Death Toll. The population of the affected area, a strip of land about 25 miles (40 kilometers) long and 370 miles (590 kilometers) northwest of the capital Port Moresby, numbered between 8,000 and 10,000. At least 6,000 people were homeless after their houses were reduced to matchwood by the tsunami. The governor of West Sepik Province said, “I am looking at a very conservative figure of 3,000 people dead, based on the number of bodies recovered so far and the number of people seen hiding in the jungle. I’ve had a look and all there is are bodies. The stench is overpowering.” A Roman Catholic priest echoed the governor’s estimate. He said that many of those killed were children who had been too small to run away and too weak to climb coconut trees to safety before the waves engulfed them. The area disaster coordinator said that the village of Warapu alone had a death toll of 500, mostly elderly people and schoolchil885
1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami Admiralty Islands Vanimo Sissano Jayapura Arop Aitape
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dren. “Schools in Arop, Sissano, and Warapu will be closed because we don’t have the children. They’re all dead,” he said. The final count would be 2,500 dead or missing. Papua New Guinea is the eastern half of the large island of New Guinea and a former British colony. It has been a member of the British Commonwealth since 1975, when Australia, which administered the country on Britain’s behalf, granted it independence. Queen Elizabeth II sent a message of sympathy to the region. “She said she was shocked at the tidal wave and that her thoughts were with the families of the bereaved and injured,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said. Relief Efforts. A week after the disaster, the official death toll was 1,500, but thousands remained unaccounted for. Bodies, some partly eaten by crocodiles, dogs, and pigs, were still being spotted in the lagoon and nearby mangrove and bush areas. With many of the bodies quickly deteriorating because of the tropical heat, bereaved families dug makeshift graves in the rubble of their homes. There were no coffins. The dead were simply covered with straw matting. While 700 injured were being treated in local hospitals and by doctors and nurses flown in from Australia, Japan, and New Zealand, numbed survivors gathered in makeshift aid centers. Some parents had lost all of their children. Other victims had been unable to find a single family member alive. Approximately 200 children who were 886
1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami visiting one of the villages for a traditional festival were feared dead, swept away in an instant. Many of the survivors, fearing more waves, took refuge on higher ground. Some walked for four hours through dense jungle to villages that lay inland. Devastation lay behind them. Village huts, some built on the sandy shoreline shaped by a 1935 tsunami, had been ripped from the ground. The region’s lack of airstrips meant that Australian Army Hercules planes ferrying in medical supplies and a mobile field hospital had to land in Vanimo, the provincial capital, about 69 miles (110 kilometers) west of the disaster zone. Their cargo was then reloaded onto small planes and helicopters to be taken to the centers where aid workers and church officials cared for survivors. Several days after the disaster, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) flew into the area sixteen water tanks that had been shipped from Australia the previous year for drought victims. Helicopters carried another twenty of the 317-gallon (1,200-liter) tanks into accessible areas of the rugged country. The area surrounding the lagoon and the worst-hit villages of Sissano, Warapu, and Arop were sealed off to stop the spread of disease from decaying corpses. However, some people from the vanished villages were already asking aid workers for axes and bush knives so they could rebuild their homes and vegetable plots on their traditional lands. Dana P. McDermott For Further Information: Geist, E. L. “Source Characteristics of the July 17, 1998, Papua New Guinea Tsunami.” EOS/Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 79, supp. (1998): 571. Monastersky, R. “How a Middling Quake Made a Giant Tsunami.” Science News 154 (August 1, 1998): 69. _______. “Waves of Death.” Science News 154 (October 3, 1998): 221. Satake, Kenji, ed. Tsunamis: Case Studies and Recent Developments. Springer, 2006. Tappin, David R. “Sediment Slump Likely Caused 1998 Papua New Guinea Tsunami. ”EOS/Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 80 (July 27, 1999): 333.
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■ 1998: Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Date: October 27, 1998 Place: Central America Classification: Category 5 Result: More than 11,000 dead, 1 million homeless, $4 billion in damage
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urricane Mitch began as a tropical wave that moved across West Africa beginning on October 8, 1998. For the next seven days it moved over the tropical Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, entering that body of water on the 18th and 19th. Showers and thunderstorms developed at that time, coming to the attention of a United States Air Force Reserve reconnaissance plane patrolling the area. On October 22, the plane reported that the storm had become a tropical depression, a harbinger of the troublesome weather conditions ahead. Mitch achieved hurricane strength on October 24, developing heavy winds and dumping enormous quantities of rain on Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Damage to the Caribbean islands proved to be slight compared to what followed as the storm moved further west. Mitch reached the Central American coast on October 27. The hurricane turned out to be one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, with winds exceeding 180 miles per hour. As a result, Central America and southern Mexico experienced torrential rainfall for several days in a row, inundating some principal cities and much of the countryside as well. The U.S. National Hurricane Center classified Mitch as a Category 5 hurricane. As it moved toward the mainland, the direction of the storm in its earliest stages proved to be unpredictable. Not knowing what to expect, most of the population of Belize City, estimated at 75,000 persons, fled inland. The refugees utilized both private transportation and government-commandeered buses. Mexico’s southern state of Quintana Roo evacuated all of its villages in a 165-mile swath south of the city of Playa del Carmen. The tens of thousands of tourists staying 888
1998: Hurricane Mitch in the resort cities of Cancún and Cozumel stood in long lines at airports seeking flights inland to any destination available that was considered outside the danger zone. Cancún had been hit in 1988 by Hurricane Gilbert, during which some 300 people were killed. After moving briefly through the Caribbean on October 25, Mitch arrived off the coast of Honduras two days later, making landfall on the morning of the 29th. Because of the slow progress of the storm, the rainfall from it reached tremendous proportions, estimated at up to 35 inches initially, primarily in Honduras and Nicaragua. The resulting flash floods and mudslides pouring down from the isthmus’s central mountain range killed thousands of people. The Damage. The damage suffered by the areas reached by Mitch resulted primarily from the rainfall rather than the direct loss caused by the heavy winds themselves. Before it ended, the hurricane dumped a peak load of 50 inches of rain in some areas. The high waters that followed carved paths of destruction that destroyed entire neighborhoods, especially the low-lying communities exposed to raging rivers that had been only small streams prior to the hurricane. Yucatán
CUBA
Gulf Campeche
of Mexico
JAMAICA
Chetumal
MEXICO BELIZE Belmopan
Chiapas Tuxtla Gutierrez
GUATEMALA Quiche Province
Puerto Lempira
HONDURAS
Quezaltenango
Caribbean
Tegucigalpa
Guatemala City San Salvador
EL SALVADOR
San Miguel
Pan American Highway
Sea
NICARAGUA Managua
Rivas
Lake Nicaragua
Bluefields
Liberia
Pacific
Puntarenas
Panama Canal
San Jose Colon
Ocean COSTA RICA
PANAMA
Cañita
Panama City
Lake Bayano
COLOMBIA Medellin
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1998: Hurricane Mitch The storm not only destroyed homes but also wiped out roads, schools, and bridges, impeding any attempts to furnish aid to its victims. In addition to the destruction of the isthmus’s commercial agriculture, many poor families lost the small plots of land from which they drew much of their basic diet, consisting of corn, beans, rice, and other vegetables. Fertile topsoil washed away in the heavy inundation. Chickens, pigs, and cattle also disappeared under the rising floodwaters. Military mines, souvenirs of the civil wars of the previous decade, washed down from the mountains, ending up in areas where survivors sought to start replanting. A number of deaths and serious injuries occurred after the storm was over as a result of this further threat to life and property. Substantial damage to the commercial banana plantations along the Central American east coast also meant the loss of livelihood for hundreds of workers. Until the banana area could be replanted, estimated to take a full year at least, no work existed for the majority of the employees of such large concerns as the United Fruit Company and its numerous subsidiaries. The contamination of local drinking water gave rise to the threat of dysentery and other waterborne communicable diseases for the survivors. People were exposed to respiratory illnesses. Wells caved in, debris clogged streams, and rotting garbage contaminated neighborhood cisterns. The authorities advised citizens that water had to be boiled before it could be used for either drinking or cooking. A large number of schools also fell victim to the storm, depriving the children in many areas of the opportunity to continue pursuing their education. Once the storm hit the Central American mainland, it soon became apparent that the neighboring countries of Honduras and Nicaragua would sustain the most damage, with lesser problems arising in El Salvador and Guatemala. Mitch largely spared Belize, southern Mexico, and Costa Rica. Nicaragua’s most deadly loss occurred when a mudslide, triggered by the collapse of a wall of the volcano Casitas, wiped out whole villages. The onrushing mud and rain reached to the rooftops of the tiny pueblo of El Porvenir, close to the volcano, and buried many of its inhabitants before they had the opportunity to evacuate. Posoltega, another nearby village, met an equally horrendous fate. Only a 890
1998: Hurricane Mitch few hundred of its 2,000 inhabitants survived the sea of mud that tore through the small hamlet. In its initial assessment, the Honduran government estimated that the final death count in the country could reach 5,000. Honduras’s president, Carlos Roberto Flores Facusse, said that the floods and landslides had wiped out many villages as well as whole neighborhoods in the larger cities. Two large rivers, the Ulúa and Chameleon, rose so high as to isolate Honduras’s second major city, San Pedro Sula, and convert the valley surrounding it into a lake. The Choluteca River near the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa, also flooded over its banks, pouring into the city at such a rapid rate that the water reached the second story of Tegucigalpa’s major commercial buildings. The president estimated that the storm had destroyed over 70 percent of the nation’s crops, the economic mainstay of this nation of 6 million people. The dollar crop loss amounted to $6 billion for the impoverished country. One million homes needed to be replaced. El Salvador, on Central America’s west coast, suffered mostly from the heavy runoff of rain from the mountains of its eastern highlands. The water poured into the country’s principal river, the Lempa, so quickly that it destroyed a number of villages on its banks. Remote villages, such as Chicuma, El Salitre, Las Marías, and Hacienda Vieja, lost all of their subsistence crops. While Guatemala did not experience the same degree of damage as did neighboring Honduras and Nicaragua, the Polochic River Valley and the southern coast lost over $1 million in vital food supplies as well as a substantial amount of housing and potable water. A plane carrying religious missionaries seeking to do relief work crashed, killing 10 passengers and injuring 7 others. The plane had sought to fly into San Andreas Xecul, 60 miles west of Guatemala City, during the downpour. Relief Efforts. For Nicaragua and Honduras, the poorest of the Central American republics, Mitch created an economic disaster. Neither country possessed the resources to meet their immediate emergency requirements, much less the long-term essentials needed restore the countries to their pre-hurricane conditions. Their governments pleaded for outside assistance. The destruction of the roads and bridges throughout Central America precluded any rapid response by surface vehicles to much of 891
1998: Hurricane Mitch the damaged countryside. As a result, both foreign governments and private groups began massive airlifts, utilizing light planes and helicopters to ship emergency food and medical supplies into the more remote areas of both countries. President Bill Clinton of the United States pledged $80 million for immediate emergency aid, then raised the total dollar commitment to $300 million by March, 1999. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter urged that the $16 billion in foreign debt owed by Honduras and Nicaragua be forgiven by their First World creditors. Scores of nongovernmental organizations throughout Europe, including those from such small countries as Ireland, Finland, and Denmark, joined in the major effort. Mitch had set the economic development of Central America back by twenty years. The United States government sent in Army engineers to reconstruct the key roads necessary to open the badly damaged backlands. The engineers built four pontoon bridges at critical junctures to replace key destroyed structures. These so-called temporary replacements were designed to be strong enough to support all but the heaviest of trucks, supplies, and equipment. Military helicopters from a number of countries continued to push far into the hinterland to deliver food and medical supplies and to establish bases from which the rescuers could operate. Medical teams from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, the reserves from all three, and the National Guard sent in medical teams to cope with respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases and cholera. A major problem developed with the indiscriminate influx of various types of medicinal supplies into the beleaguered countries. Initially, the affected countries provided little direction for their transmittal. Finally, the Pan American Health Organization took over and established a priority list of critical medicines that the personnel on site felt were needed, seeking to end the shipment of unwanted or inappropriate drugs. The response to requests for aid by Central Americans living abroad proved to be overwhelming. Southern California, home to many Central American immigrant families, responded with tons of medicines, food, and clothing. The American Red Cross alone received over 100,000 inquiries during the first five days following the commencement of the storm. Directed to deliver their contributions 892
1998: Hurricane Mitch to the consulates representing Honduras and Nicaragua, those anxious to help found that these officials could not cope with the influx of aid packages. The sorting, boxing, and storage of the goods and their transportation to Central America were beyond the physical and financial capabilities of these small offices. Confusion reigned when the goods arrived at their Central American destinations as well. Neither Honduras nor Nicaragua had organized distribution centers to process the materials received from various overseas sources. At the Honduran port of Puerto Cortés, by early January, over 1,000 huge containers of relief supplies lay unclaimed at the docks. Ships seeking to unload more supplies had a difficult time finding any adequate space ashore for their cargos. In the case of Nicaragua, the Catholic Church had been designated initially to fulfill the distribution function. A change in government plans resulted when President Arnoldo Alemán assigned his Liberal Party to the task, seeking to take political advantage of the catastrophe. Not only did many of the contributions end up in hands for which they were not originally intended, but also a great deal of the material continued to remain stranded at the airport and seaport sites where it had been unloaded. Alemán, in a further gesture of defiance to the international community, refused to allow President Fidel Castro’s Cuban medical teams and supplies to enter the country, despite the great shortage throughout the devastated areas of Nicaragua. Faced with the backup of supplies, relief agencies asked the public to donate cash rather than goods. Unfortunately, those wishing to help preferred to collect canned goods and clothing in their own communities regardless of how appropriate such collected goods were. They continued to ship the accumulated commodities to the already-crowded port facilities. Once there, local relief organizations, hamstrung by local government red tape, quite often lacked the funds to pay for shipment of the goods into the interior. Moreover, the fact that the major commercial fruit companies had to devise a recovery program before they could start producing for the export market exacerbated the problems for both Honduras and Nicaragua. The two countries characteristically suffer a high unemployment rate, but Mitch wiped out most of the jobs held by those agricultural workers with the big fruit producers. The number of la893
1998: Hurricane Mitch borers heading north to the United States to find work increased substantially. Often they were accompanied by young boys and girls of school age who could not continue their education because of the heavy destruction of the school plants throughout the isthmus. Moreover, rumors began to circulate among the unemployed that the U.S. government had approved the entry of immigrants into the country because of Mitch’s damage. Such was not the case. The government had agreed only to suspend temporarily the deportation of illegals already residing in the United States. The new wave of illegal immigrants, when apprehended, were turned back by the American border patrol. Conclusion. Hurricane Mitch precipitated a series of unmitigated disasters in Central America. Thousands of residents of the isthmus either died, suffered debilitating injuries, or simply disappeared as a result of the storm’s ferocity. The infrastructure to all the countries in the area experienced extensive damage. Mitch destroyed roads, bridges, communications lines, and key public buildings, such as hospitals and schools. Critical crops and livestock were lost in the ensuing deluge. Long after the storm was over, corpses littered the paths of the torrents of water that had passed through inhabited areas. Within a few days of the storm’s inception it became apparent that both Honduras and Nicaragua would sustain the greatest long-term damage. Whole communities in both countries had disappeared under the heavy inundations that accompanied the fierce winds. The governments of the two nations could not cope with the immensity of the tragedy. The rest of the world community would have to respond to the emergency created by the hurricane. During the decade prior to the 1998 debacle, the U.S. government gradually had reduced the aid it had provided to the fledgling democracies of the area. Having determined that Central America would not fall under the influence of the former Soviet Union and Cuba, the interests of American foreign policy turned elsewhere. U.S. aid had amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars to rightist elements in conflict with leftist governments and insurrections, but the American government stopped paying. By 1998, aid to El Salvador had diminished from $500 million annually to a mere $35 million. At one time in the 1980’s the American government had spent 894
1998: Hurricane Mitch over $300 million a year supporting Nicaragua’s Contra movement. In 1998 the U.S. commitment to that country had dropped to $24 million. Nevertheless, when Mitch hit the isthmus the United States quickly furnished emergency aid. Other countries, large and small, forwarded money and relief supplies as well. The World Bank provided emergency loans for the reconstruction of both housing and commercial buildings. Nongovernmental organizations, such as the American Red Cross, Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere (CARE), and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), responded promptly with goods and aid workers. The work of the rehabilitation of Central America would continue for a long time, taking years for the area to recover from the effects of the storm. The vast majority of the region’s poor still live below the poverty level. It has been argued that the United States could do some things to alleviate some of Central America’s economic and social problems: canceling the outstanding debt owed to the United States by Honduras and Nicaragua, offering the same trade agreements to Central America as are presently enjoyed by Mexico and Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) treaty, and giving Central American immigrants currently residing and working in the United States at least temporary protection from deportation until the economic emergencies in their home countries are brought under control. Suggested measures for improving the Central American economy from within included the affected governments launching social programs designed to alleviate the economic hardship facing the poorest segments of their societies. Restoration of the economies cannot be left to market conditions or to chance. Also, a common emergency policy in the region would ensure a cooperative effort to meet the threat of other natural disasters like Hurricane Mitch, which are likely to threaten Central America again in the future. Carl Henry Marcoux For Further Information: Carrier, Jim. The Ship and the Storm: Hurricane Mitch and the Loss of the “Fantome.” New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. Gass, Vicki. Democratizing Development: Lessons from Hurricane Mitch Re895
1998: Hurricane Mitch construction. Washington, D.C.: Washington Office on Latin America, 2002. Granby, Phil. “Hurricane Mitch Aftermath.” JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association 281 (April 7, 1999): 1162. Lapp, Elam D. Hurricane Mitch in Central America. Millersburg, Pa.: Brookside, 1999. LeoGrande, William M. “Central America’s Agony.” The Nation, January 25, 1999, 21. Mastin, Mark C. Flood-Hazard Mapping in Honduras in Response to Hurricane Mitch. Tacoma, Wash.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 2002. Padgett, Tim. “The Catastrophe of Hurricane Mitch.” Time International, November 16, 1998. Zarembo, Alan. “Helping Honduras.” U.S. News & World Report, December 21, 1998. _______. “A Hurricane’s Orphans.” Newsweek, March 15, 1999, 43.
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■ 1999: The Galtür avalanche Avalanche Date: February 23-24, 1999 Place: Galtür and Valzur, Austria Result: 38 dead, 10 houses destroyed, 2,000 trapped
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he winter of 1998-1999 produced heavy snowfalls in the Alpine countries of Europe: Switzerland, Austria, southeastern France, and northern Italy. After several winters of little snowfall—and therefore poor skiing conditions—the snow was welcomed by skiers, hoteliers, tour operators, and local inhabitants involved in the tourist industry. Unfortunately, the snow produced a number of hazards and disasters, the worst of which befell the two neighboring Austrian villages of Galtür and Valzur. These small but popular resorts, known as the Gem of the Tirol, lie almost at the end of the Paznaun Valley, which runs approximately 25 miles southwestward from Landeck, in the western Tirol. The valley nearly touches the neighboring Austrian province of the Vorarlberg and runs almost to the Swiss border. Conditions in the valley had been deteriorating for six days before the first avalanche struck Galtür. The previous Wednesday, February 17, a storm had broken. The villages had been whipped by high winds and heavy snow, closing the main road down the valley. A small slide hit Galtür, “a wall of white and black,” as an eyewitness described it, but it went largely unreported. The temperature rose sharply over the weekend of February 20-21, but snow continued to fall. Tourists were being told, however, that it was still safe at Galtür, even though notices of high avalanche risk had been issued at the main resort of Ischgl. Meanwhile, conditions were deteriorating elsewhere in the Alps. On February 20, 100 tourists, including Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Princess Caroline of Monaco, had been flown to safety by helicopter from the Austrian ski resort of Lech. By Monday, February 22, the Chamonix Valley in the French Alps had been closed off because of the risk of avalanches, and the melting snow was causing flooding along the Rhine and elsewhere. In Valais, Switzerland, an av897
1999: The Galtür avalanche alanche was being reported every twenty minutes, and in the worst of them, 9 chalets and a car were swept away, leaving 8 people missing and 2 dead. In western Austria (the Vorarlberg and Tirol), some 30,000 tourists were trapped in various ski resorts because of heavy snowfall, maximum avalanche warnings having been issued. In Galtür itself, Monday, February 22, saw temperatures drop and the wind pick up again. On the same day, chamois (small goatlike antelope) were spotted coming down off the high mountains into the valley, an unusual event. The mood in the village was becoming uneasy. The Avalanche. On Tuesday, February 23, a traditional ski race had been arranged around the village streets to alleviate the boredom of the skiers who had, by now, been unable to ski for a week. Many people, fortunately, left their chalets and hotels to gather in the main square to watch, despite blizzard conditions that afternoon. Suddenly a great wall of snow, some 45 feet high, rushed down on the village, demolishing a boardinghouse, ripping off the two top floors of two houses, and filling many other houses completely with snow, trapping those inside. Nobody had heard the avalanche coming; they were suddenly plunged into a darkness created by a thick white cloud, like very dense fog. The avalanche did not reach the main square, however, stopping just short of the church. People were immediately dazed and shocked, but locals began digging into the snow at once, as it takes only fifteen minutes to be suffocated if buried within the snow. The avalanche had, in fact, forked into two parts, with the other branch going around the western part of the village, causing serious damage to chalets on the outskirts. The maximum speed was esti-
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1999: The Galtür avalanche mated at 180 miles per hour. The weather forecast continued to call for poor conditions, and new snow was expected. Because of this, relief efforts from the outside could not begin until early the next morning. Digging Out. On Wednesday, the skies were clear for the first time in a week. At 7 a.m., two hundred Austrian soldiers and firemen arrived by helicopter to take over the rescue operations. Using dogs and scanning equipment, they managed to recover 18 corpses, including 3 children and a pregnant mother, but by the end of the day 15 people were still missing. A serious effort was also being made to helicopter out some 2,000 villagers and tourists to Landeck, but even with helicopters landing and taking off every two minutes many were left waiting when bad weather closed in again. Some people had only blankets and tea, according to a local doctor. Worse was to follow. A second avalanche hit the neighboring village of Valzur on February 24, destroying 4 houses and burying 6 people. The snowslide was 45 feet high and some 600 feet wide and traveled up to 180 miles per hour. Four bodies were immediately recovered, but 9 more remained missing. Perhaps one of the most amazing rescues was at Valzur. A fouryear-old boy, Alexander Walter, was found by rescue dogs after one hundred minutes; he was pronounced dead at first but was resuscitated in the helicopter and taken to the hospital at Zams, where he made a full recovery within six days. It was suggested that his young age had saved him, his body having closed down so as to need almost no oxygen. The next day, Thursday, February 25, sunshine returned, but by then, the three-hundred-strong rescue team had begun to crumple with fatigue and the emotional strain of finding corpses. Counselors were helping them, parents who had lost children, and disoriented children. One German woman, for example, had survived, only to learn that her two children were dead. The Austrian helicopters had been joined by those from Italy and U.S. bases in Bavaria and were able to evacuate all those remaining who wished to leave. Rescuers found 2 more bodies the next day at Galtür, bringing the total to 30, and 2 more in Valzur, bringing the final death toll there to 7. They were still looking for a girl believed to be in the ruins of the house where her parents’ bodies had been discovered. The body of 899
1999: The Galtür avalanche the fourteen-year-old German girl was finally found in the cellar on the 27th. The victims were taken to St. Wilten monastery chapel, Innsbruck. Sunday, February 28, was declared a day of mourning by the Austrian prime minister, Viktor Klima. Thirty-eight bodies were buried that morning in a service attended by the prime minister and representatives from those countries affected—Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark in particular. The disaster was the worst in Austria in nearly fifty years, when in 1954 more than 50 people had been killed at Blons in the Vorarlberg. Amazingly, some one thousand tourists chose to stay in Galtür to complete their holiday or wait for the roads to reopen, even though local authorities, backed by the Austrian government, had decided to evacuate the whole valley. At Ischgl, many returned to skiing on the slopes, though they too were unable to get out of the village. Controversy. By now, serious criticisms were being leveled against the Austrian tourist industry for ignoring avalanche warnings from meteorologists and against tour companies for bringing out yet more skiers. The largest British tour operator, Thomsons, did cancel vacations to Galtür and four other destinations (St. Anton and Ischgl in Austria, Zermatt and Grindelwald in Switzerland), offering full refunds, but most operators merely sent their clients to different resorts. It was estimated that another 15,000 Britons alone were heading for the Alps at the weekend, while tourists who were stuck there had to hire private helicopters to get out. One German lawyer trapped at Ischgl threatened to sue the authorities for negligence. Scientific Questions. The immediate scientific causes for the avalanche lie in the types of snowfall in the preceding months, although a very hot summer in 1998 had given rise to speculation that the winter would not be normal. In late January there were heavy snowfalls, but the snow was light and dry. This was followed by another snowfall in mid-February that was very wet and heavy, due to different temperatures. The snow base was therefore very unstable, the heavy snow not binding at all with the light snow, which in itself was not solid enough to act as a foundation. The second snowfall had been exceptionally heavy: 12.1 feet (3. 7 meters) of snow fell in February in the Galtür area, four times the average for the month. This was not all, however. Gale-force winds at high altitudes, up to 900
1999: The Galtür avalanche
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
Rescue workers uncover the body of a Galtür avalanche victim. (AP/ Wide World Photos)
95 miles per hour, had left some mountaintops bare, causing huge accumulations of snow on the sheltered slopes. The winds were then followed by rain, which made the snow even heavier and more unstable. These factors made the avalanche risk huge. Even so, Christian Weber, an Austrian avalanche expert, was quoted as saying, “With all 901
1999: The Galtür avalanche our predictive mechanisms, we were not able to forecast Galtür. Avalanches are coming and crashing down in areas where they never happened before.” In the longer term, the joint effects of increased road traffic through the Alps—both heavy trucks and tourist cars—with the resultant increase in pollution, and of global warming are creating new climatic conditions, whose effects are not yet certain. The summers seem to be longer, delaying the snowfall. Such changing environmental factors raise serious questions over the future safety of skiing in the Alpine region. Political Questions. As indicated, both the Austrian authorities and the tourist industry were blamed for the loss of lives. Although it is difficult to know whether the number of tourists in Galtür had any significant effect on the force of the avalanche, it is possible to question both the building regulations and the early warning systems. In Switzerland, new chalets are banned in all areas likely to suffer from avalanches; this is not so in Austria. The other questions, about the number of tourists allowed in and the problem of dissuading them from coming, are more complicated. On the Tuesday of the Galtür avalanche, Hansjorg Kroll, chief of tourism of the Austrian chamber of commerce, is quoted as saying, “We must thank the Lord God for sending us this snow.” With bookings up 30 percent over several poor seasons, there seemed every justification for such a statement. However, it is not merely the number of skiers that is significant, it is also the areas to which they are allowed to go. Although this does not seem to have been significant at Galtür, elsewhere avalanches were set off by skiers going off the trails. Where some warnings were posted for the areas, no one seemed to want to pay attention. Officials concluded that there was thus an urgent need to reassess the demands of the tourist industry, which is much needed for the local economy, against the needs for safety. David Barratt For Further Information: BBC. Horizon. “Anatomy of an Avalanche.” www.bbc.co.uk/science/ horizon/1999/avalanche.shtml. The Sunday Times (London), February 28, 1999. The Times (London), February 23-March 1, 1999. 902
■ 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak Tornadoes Date: May 3, 1999 Place: Primarily central Oklahoma, especially near Oklahoma City, and Sedgwick County, Kansas Classification: Up to F5 Result: 49 dead, more than 900 injured, more than 17,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, about $1.5 billion in damage
A
ccording to the weather forecast that the Daily Oklahoman published early in the morning of Monday, May 3, 1999, Oklahoma City was to have winds that day ranging from 10 to 20 miles an hour, but storms were possible in much of Oklahoma the following day. That forecast of storms, as events turned out, was off by a day. At about 6:00 Monday morning in Norman, a short drive south of Oklahoma City, the Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service noted a dry line extending from south to north across the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and said there was a low possibility of severe thunderstorms and even tornadoes in Oklahoma as a result of this meeting of hot, dry air from the west and warm, wet air from the east. By 11:15 that morning, the possibility had become moderate. By 3:49 p.m., after having received weather-balloon readings indicating layers of winds in different directions and at different speeds, the Storm Prediction Center officially revised its forecast to include a high possibility of dangerous spring storms. When, at 4:30 p.m., radar in Norman found a tornado in a supercell, the National Weather Service sent out a tornado warning for central Oklahoma, including metropolitan Oklahoma City. Fifteen minutes later, a tornado touched the ground near Lawton, in the southwestern part of the state. An evening of death and destruction had begun for both Oklahoma and Kansas. Storms. Of the 76 tornadoes that formed late in the afternoon 903
1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak and night of May 3, the worst was the 0.5-mile-wide one, which traveled about 90 miles in Oklahoma from the Lawton area northeast into the central part of the state. That long path included 19 miles through the Oklahoma City area only a little after the evening rush hour, from the unincorporated community of Bridge Creek in northeastern Grady County; through the big suburbs of Moore, Del City, and Midwest City; to the town of Choctaw in eastern Oklahoma County. According to meteorologists from the University of Oklahoma, the rotating wind in that tornado reached the very top of the F5 category of the Fujita scale—318 miles an hour—and may have set a record speed up to that date for any natural wind on earth. That monstrous tornado was one of from three to five produced along one storm path. Among the other storm paths in Oklahoma, a second, northwest of the greatest one, reached from southern Blaine County well into Kingfisher County, where the little town of Dover endured an F4 tornado, with wind between 207 and 260 miles an hour. A third storm path, west and north of Oklahoma City, stretched from northern Grady County into Noble County; in Logan County, that storm path generated another F4 tornado. A fourth storm path, south and east of the metropolitan area, extended from eastern Cleveland County through Pottawatomie County and into Lincoln County. That same night, in Kansas, a severe thunderstorm generated tornadoes in Sedgwick County. Most notably, an F4 tornado passed through Haysville and the adjacent southern part of Wichita. Property. In all, tornadoes in the Great Plains on May 3 caused such damage that President Bill Clinton declared Sedgwick County, Kansas, a disaster area, along with 11 counties in Oklahoma, from Caddo and Grady Counties, southeast of Oklahoma City, to Tulsa County, in the northeastern part of the state. Property damage in the two states was about $1.5 billion, and while people in the building trades found their work in high demand after the storms, many other people worried about how they would ever make a living again. As in all tornadoes, motor vehicles and mobile homes were especially vulnerable. Whirling winds tossed cars many yards from where they had been and flipped them upside down; even huge tractortrailer rigs fell victim to the winds. The big tornado in Sedgwick County shredded and knocked over trailers in the Lakeshore Mobile 904
1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak McPherson
Great Bend
Dodge City
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KANSAS
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Wichita
Chanute Parsons
Winfield Liberal
Coffeyville Miami
Ponca Bartlesville City Woodward
Pittsburg
Independence
Arkansas City
OKLAHOMA Enid
Claremore
Stillwater Sand Springs Sapulpa Guthrie Edmond The Village Midwest City Moore Shawnee
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Oklahoma City
Fort Smith
Norman Chickasha
Texas Altus
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Lawton
McAlester
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Arkansas
New Mexico
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Garden City
Colorado
Emporia
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Ardmore Durant
Wichita Falls
Homes Resort and at Pacesetter Mobile Homes; earlier, the even more powerful tornado in central Oklahoma had devastated mobile homes in the Southern Hills section of Bridge Creek. More surprising, for persons accustomed only to weak tornadoes, the most powerful of the tornadoes on May 3 virtually flattened solidly built, fairly new houses, as in the especially hard-hit Highland Park neighborhood in Moore, Oklahoma, where concrete slabs were the chief evidence after the storm of the sites of many families’ homes. The devastation there and in other severely affected neighborhoods and towns resembled the devastation from wartime bombing, as one Oklahoma City survivor said. In some places, cars rested where houses had once stood, debris seemed to be everywhere, and returning citizens, deprived of landmarks, could hardly find where they had lived before the storm had struck. Schools and businesses also sustained damage. In Moore, the F5 tornado wrecked part of Westmoore High School; not long afterward, in tiny Mulhall, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City, another tornado destroyed the elementary school. At Stroud, a town of 3,200 on Interstate 44, midway between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, the damage to businesses imperiled the town’s economic life, because the tornado that passed through the town tore much of the roof off the Integris Stroud Municipal Hospital; devastated the headquarters of 905
1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak the Sygma Network, a distributor of restaurant supplies; badly damaged the Wendy’s Restaurant, the Best Western Motel, and two mobile home parks; and in effect destroyed the large Tanger Outlet Mall that had for several years been a familiar sight to motorists between Oklahoma’s two largest cities. People. Even more important than the indirect effects the tornadoes of May 3 had on people through the immense destruction of property were the direct effects the tornadoes had through injuries and death. Altogether, 49 people died because of the dangerous weather, 44 in Oklahoma and 5 in Kansas. More than 900 other persons in those states suffered injuries. The scenes of horror were many. For instance, while the F5 tornado was ravaging Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, a mother and her six-year-old son raced toward a creek to take what meager shelter they could, but the child saw his mother fly away in the wind and looked for her in vain after the storm. After the tornadoes in the Wichita area, police officers saw the body of a young, bearded man lying with his face in storm water amid the wreckage at Pacesetter Mobile Homes. On May 12, nine days after the storm, two young women were searching together on their own for the last of the Oklahoma missing, Tram Thu Bui, in the hope of finding her alive. Instead, they found her dead, her shoulder exposed amid wreckage in a ditch in Moore, 50 yards from the overpass under which she, her husband, her daughter, her son, and other persons had tried to take refuge when the tornado had approached as they were traveling on Interstate 35. Along with the horror, however, came heroism and generosity. Official storm chasers and law enforcement officers sometimes risked their lives as they tried to warn people of oncoming tornadoes. Rescue workers, paid and unpaid, roamed through debris looking for the dead and the living. Members of the National Guard patrolled ravaged neighborhoods, and nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals worked hour after hour to care for the wounded. Crews from utility companies labored to ensure public safety and eventually to restore water, electricity, gas, and telephone service. Charitable organizations sent their workers and opened their buildings to help. In Moore, the First Baptist Church, just east of Interstate 35 and adjacent to the Highland Park neighborhood, became a makeshift hospital soon after the F5 tornado had done enormous damage nearby. 906
1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak Letting the tall, generator-lit cross at the front of the building serve as a beacon for the hurt and homeless, rescuers established a triage center in one part of the building, while the choir room became a temporary morgue. A few of the heroes died while saving other persons. Ordinary people did extraordinary things. For example, to save her eleven-yearold son, Levi, Kathleen Walton released her grip on him as the giant tornado in metropolitan Oklahoma City sucked her out from under the overpass on Interstate 35 where they had sought shelter. Not far away, in Del City, Gustia Miller, seventy-six years old, and his wife, Dorothy, tried to use their bathtub as a tornado shelter when the same tornado approached their home. When the bathroom window broke, Mr. Miller put himself in extreme peril to hold a pillow to the opening in an effort to keep debris from hitting his wife. During the night, he died of his injuries. Yet there were happy stories too. For days after the tornadoes, a British couple, John and Barbara Potten, were feared dead. They had been touring the United States in a motor home and had telephoned relatives in Britain around 3:00 in the afternoon of May 3 to report their arrival in south Oklahoma City. When, the next day, they failed to follow their standard practice of calling home, their relatives and Oklahoma law enforcement officers worried. In reality, however, the Pottens had quickly driven out of Oklahoma when they had learned of the possibility of tornadoes and, several days later, near the Canadian border, they called relatives in Australia. Amazingly, another person was found alive in a dramatic incident. Soon after the huge tornado had hit Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, Grady County deputy sheriff Robert Jolley, looking at rubble, spotted brown hair and realized that a silent baby was lying in the mud. When he had dug her out and started cleaning the mud from her eyes, she began crying, much to his relief; he took her to a school where emergency medical technicians were working. Thus, although her grandmother, Catherine Crago, died in the tornado, ten-month-old Aleah Crago survived without serious injury. Lessons. Besides lessons about courage and generosity, one of the lessons Oklahomans and Kansans learned from the tornadoes of May 3, 1999, was the importance of skillfully operated, technologically sophisticated equipment for the detection both of the weather 907
1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak conditions that produce tornadoes and of the tornadoes themselves. The expensive Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) used by the National Weather Service meteorologists in Norman led to early and accurate tornado warnings and therefore saved many lives. Had there been no radar at all, and had there been no warnings broadcast on radio and television, the death toll would have been enormous, especially in the Oklahoma City and Wichita metropolitan areas. Another lesson is one that President Bill Clinton mentioned while touring a devastated neighborhood in Del City, Oklahoma, on Saturday, May 8. Looking at the ruins of homes, he noted how few of them had had basements or storm cellars and urged his audience to include safe rooms when they rebuilt their houses. Designed at Texas Tech University, safe rooms are closetlike shelters on the ground floor inside houses; indeed, interest in safe rooms greatly increased in the disaster areas after May 3, as did interest in old-fashioned storm cellars and in above-ground shelters standing outside the home. Thousands of victims, along with many thousands of others, realized in the aftermath of the tornadoes of May 3 how powerful those storms can be. Victor Lindsey For Further Information: Federal Emergency Management Agency. Midwest Tornadoes of May 3, 1999: Observations, Recommendations, and Technical Guidance. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1999. Kavanaugh, Lee Hill. “‘Slight’ Chance of Storms, Then . . . Death Dropped from Sky.” Kansas City Star, May 5, 1999, p. A1. Riley, Michael A. Reconnaissance Report on Damage to Engineered Structures During the May, 1999, Oklahoma City Tornado. Gaithersburg, Md.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2002. Stevens, William K. “Winds of Change.” Tulsa World, May 16, 1999. U.S. National Weather Service. Oklahoma/Southern Kansas Tornado Outbreak of May 3, 1999. Silver Spring, Md.: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, 1999. Zollo, Cathy. “Tornadoes Were in the Air.” Wichita Falls Times Record News, May 5, 1999. 908
■ 1999: The Ezmit earthquake Earthquake Also known as: The Kocaeli earthquake, the Marmara earthquake Date: August 17, 1999 Place: Northwestern Turkey Magnitude: 7.4 Result: More than 17,000 dead, 25,000 injured, more than 250,000 homeless, 17,000 buildings destroyed, 25,000 buildings badly damaged, total economic cost estimated at $15 billion
T
he Northern Anatolian fault, which is some 600 miles long, runs east to west through northern Turkey, paralleling the coastline of the Black Sea. It marks the division of the Eurasian Plate to the north and the Anatolian Plate to the south. The Anatolian Plate itself is a small plate, wedged between the norththrusting Arabian and African Plates. It is highly unstable—both the Northern and Southern Anatolian faults have given rise to frequent earthquakes over the centuries. Like the San Andreas fault in California, the Anatolian fault is a right lateral strike-slip fault, about 10 miles deep. Also like the San Andreas fault, it moves about an eighth of an inch a year and has branches at either end. Seismologists noted a steady east-to-west shift of earthquake epicenters along the North Anatolian fault in the twentieth century, thrusting the Anatolian Plate in a westward direction. An earthquake occurred in eastern Turkey, for example, with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale, followed by another, some 100 miles to the west, in 1942, with a magnitude of 7.1. Then, just two years later, in an area north of the capital Ankara, in central Turkey, another earthquake occurred, with a magnitude of 7.3. Since then, earthquakes occurred along the fault in 1957 and 1967, each one moving further west, of approximately the same magnitude. Seismologists warned the Turkish government that the next earthquake along the fault could be in northwestern Turkey, and that suitable preparations needed to be made. More specifically, in 1997, Ross Stein, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey at 909
1999: The Ezmit earthquake Menlo Park, California, suggested, together with two colleagues, that there was “an increased probability” that the next earthquake would be around Ezmit, some 50 miles east of Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city. Northwestern Turkey is the most densely populated area in the country. With 20 million inhabitants, it contains nearly a third of Turkey’s population. In it lies Istanbul, with 8 million inhabitants, growing at a rate of almost half a million a year; the new industrial areas around Ezmit, with over half a million inhabitants; and Bursa, with nearly 1 million residents. Some new resort areas along the south coast of the Sea of Marmara, especially on the Gulf of Ezmit around the town of Yalova, are also located in northwest Turkey. Half the nation’s production takes place in the eleven provinces (or counties) surrounding Istanbul. Many migrants from the relatively poor areas of eastern Turkey come to these cities and towns to find work. A major oil refinery was constructed by the government-owned gas company just outside Ezmit, as well as Honda and Toyota vehicle factories, a Pirelli tire factory, and several other multimillion-dollar construction projects largely financed by Western companies. Many smallscale businesses also sprang up. New hotels and apartment blocks were quickly constructed to deal with the sudden boom in workers and tourists. Swampland was drained around the Gulf of Ezmit to create more building space. To guard against earthquake hazards, the Turkish government laid down strict building codes, equal, it claimed, to those in force in other earthquake-prone areas, such as California and Japan. These included regulations of the height of buildings (a two-story maximum in many cases), quality of concrete, strength of steel rods, and depth of foundations. Unfortunately, the inspection and control of these regulations was left in the hands of local city and town officials, who were subject to political pressures, bribery, and lack of expertise. Enforcement procedures were generally weak. Turkey itself is a centralized secular country, even though 99 percent of its population is Muslim. It has had a number of military regimes, and the army has always been large for the size of the country—some 800,000 personnel. Turkey’s democratic structures have been considered weak and open to corruption. Nevertheless, respect for the country has been continuously inculcated into the population, particularly in an effort to keep the state secular—its ideal when 910
1999: The Ezmit earthquake the country became a republic after World War I. The economy grew during the 1990’s at a rate of 7 to 8 percent yearly. At the time of the 1999 earthquake it was economically sound, despite some loss of tourist revenue over recent terrorist attacks by Kurdish rebels. Its annual gross national product stood at $200 billion. The Earthquake. At 3:02 a.m. on Tuesday, August 17, a temblor shook northwestern Turkey with its epicenter near Ezmit. It lasted forty-five seconds. First estimates of its magnitude were put at 7.1 by the National Earthquake Information Center at Golden, Colorado, and at 6.8 by the Turkish authorities. Both figures were later revised to 7.4, making it one of the worst quakes to hit Turkey in the twentieth century. It was felt as far away as Ankara, 270 miles to the east. At the time the quake hit, the population was asleep, so first reports were confused. A few deaths at Adama, Eskisehir, and Istanbul, 162 in total, were reported on Turkish television at daylight. One of the worst-hit areas was Bursa, the foreign press reported, where an oil refinery was blazing out of control. (In fact, the refinery was at Ezmit.) As the day wore on, it became clear that the worst-hit areas were
L MO VA DO
UKRAINE RUSSIA
ROMANIA Crimea
Black Sea BULGARIA
GEORGIA AZER. Bosporus
GREECE
Zonguldak
Istanbul Yalova
ARMENIA
Izmit Gölcük
Bursa
AZER.
Ankara
Dardanelles
A
eg
TURKEY
ea n
Sea
Athens
IRAN
Izmir
Adana
Antalya
Aleppo Crete
Mediter ranean Sea
RU CYP
IRAQ SYRIA
S LEB.
911
1999: The Ezmit earthquake Ezmit; Gölcük, where there was a naval base; and Yalova, where 90 percent of the houses had collapsed. At Gölcük 248 sailors and officers were reported trapped under collapsed buildings. It soon became apparent that initial numbers were hopelessly underestimated. Large parts of many towns and cities had been totally devastated, many buildings had simply collapsed on their sleeping occupants, and many others that remained standing were in too perilous a condition for people to remain. A seawall had given way in the Bay of Haldere, and further along the coast, a mile of shoreline had sunk into the sea. Many places within an area of 100 miles east of Istanbul were without electricity and water. Road and rail communications were severely disrupted by fallen bridges and sunken pavements, although telephone communications between the main cities were quickly restored. So many aftershocks occurred (250 within the first twenty-four hours, 1,000 in the ensuing month) that people were afraid to stay indoors even when their houses stood secure. Rescue and Relief Efforts. By the end of the first day, the Turkish government had reported 13,000 injured. Hospital beds were set up in the streets of Ezmit. In one of the suburbs of Istanbul, reporters saw piles of debris 20 feet higher than the bulldozers that were working to rescue people from the collapsed buildings. In fact, bulldozers and other heavy moving equipment were in very short supply over the first few days, and most early rescue attempts were characterized by families and neighbors working by hand or with small-scale machinery—often borrowed or stolen—to rescue their kin. Many inhabitants seemed too shocked and dazed to do anything. Soon, great tent cities sprang up for the homeless, whose numbers were constantly being revised upward, finally reaching half a million people. Some of the shortage of suitable vehicles could be explained by their being trapped or destroyed in collapsed buildings, as could the shortage of medical supplies. However, the biggest feature of the first few weeks after the quake was the complete lack of any largescale local rescue plans. There were no militias or civil-defense personnel, no official rescue workers seen by the vast majority of inhabitants, nor any sign of the army becoming immediately involved. In fact, it was the foreign rescue teams who were the first to reach many of the stricken areas. An Israeli team was the first to arrive, the morning after the quake. The Israeli rescue team was also the largest. 912
1999: The Ezmit earthquake The Israelis sent 2 fire-fighting planes, teams of dogs, and 350 rescue workers. They also sent a field hospital and 200 medical workers. Eventually 80 countries and international organizations sent rescue teams or aid, with about 2,000 personnel directly involved. Besides the response from Israel, immediate responses were also made by Germany, the United States, France, Switzerland, and Great Britain, among others. The U.S. 70-person rescue team from Fairfax, Virginia, was typical of many. It naturally took several days to assemble and fly out, not reaching Turkey until two days after the quake. The unit was rushed to Ezmit. A much larger U.S. relief effort was then promised, consisting of 3 naval vessels equipped with 80 beds, operating tables, doctors, dentists, and paramedics, as well as 22 rescue helicopters. This could not arrive until the weekend, however. Those teams that were near at hand found movement difficult, with blocked roads and little direction or coordination from the Turkish government. Many foreign teams, as has been stated, found no local network at all and had to devise their own plans and organization. In the end, many rescue teams felt they had accomplished far less than they might have in better circumstances. The government did slowly begin to make specific requests for help: body bags, tents, flashlights, blankets, garbage trucks, disinfectant, and tetanus vaccine. At the same time it imposed a blockage on aid by insisting that it be channeled through the Red Crescent (the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross). National pride and religious feelings seemed to be the main cause for this demand. Indeed, the minister of health, Osman Durmus, declared Turks should not accept blood donated by Greece nor medical aid from the United States, and that foreigners should not actually deliver any relief aid. Aid from Islamic countries and groups was also blocked, the government fearing that any sympathy gained for political Muslims would undermine the secularity of the state. The Turkish Red Crescent appealed to the International Red Cross for $6.92 million in aid. At the same time, the European Union sent $2.1 million, Britain $800,000, Germany $560,000, and other countries and charities smaller amounts for immediate help. The United States gave some $3 million. Most of these amounts were quickly increased as the scale of the disaster became apparent. A private German television appeal raised $7 million, a Dutch appeal 913
1999: The Ezmit earthquake raised $13 million. Even traditional foes of Turkey—Armenians, Kurds, and Greeks—sent gifts. Turkish television broadcast graphic scenes of the devastation and early rescue attempts to drag people out of the wreckage. This caused an unorganized stream of Turkish volunteers from other parts of the country to make their way toward the devastated area. Some did sterling work in helping with the rescue efforts, especially groups of students from Istanbul, but many efforts were counterproductive, causing 20-mile traffic jams along already damaged highways, thus preventing heavy equipment and much-needed supplies from reaching their destination. Such volunteers often brought aid that was not actually needed, such as bottled water or bread. On the positive side, very little looting was reported. As stated, the epicenter was near the industrial city of Ezmit. One of the main dangers there was the oil refinery on the edge of the city, which had caught fire immediately and blazed uncontrollably for three days, despite aerial attempts to douse the flames. A nearby fertilizer plant with 8,000 tons of inflammable ammonia could have exploded easily, so all the nearby inhabitants had to be evacuated. At the hospital, medical supplies ran out, and nearby pharmacies were raided. An astonishing number of buildings less than five years old had collapsed, and the mayor declared he would need 250 teams to rescue everyone. At Gölcük, the naval base and most of the town were flattened. One of the prominent features here, as elsewhere, was the haphazard nature of the building collapse. Some buildings were left standing; others appeared to be until it was clear that the first floor had sunk completely into the ground. Other buildings stood tilting sideways at 45-degree angles; many had cracks and fissures running through them. Each building had to be assessed separately for rescuing those still trapped inside, and it was often difficult to obtain the ground plans for the structures. It was feared that up to 10,000 people were trapped in the town. Criticism was leveled against the government that its main rescue efforts, using Israeli as well as naval personnel, had been directed toward the army barracks, leaving individuals on their own. In fact, the navy did set up a crisis center, but it was in the town center and few trucks could reach it. 914
1999: The Ezmit earthquake By Friday the death toll in Gölcük had reached 7,000, and bodies were being lined up in an ice rink for identification. Voices could still be heard in the rubble two and a half days after the quake, but lack of equipment or the wrong equipment continued to hinder the rescue teams. In other towns, the death toll also continued to rise: Ezmit reported 3,242 dead and 8,759 injured; Adapazari 2,995 dead and 5,081 injured; Yalova 1,442 dead and 4,300 injured; and Istanbul, 984 dead and 9,541 injured. In Adapazari 963 bodies were interred in a mass grave. Not until Saturday, August 21, did soldiers appear, reaching a total of 50,000 eventually. Their first jobs were to pick up the rotting garbage, to spray disinfectant, and to set out lime. The stench of rotting bodies and garbage was giving rise to fears of an epidemic of cholera or typhoid, but in fact there was little medical evidence to support such fears. Nevertheless, dysentry and scabies were real threats to the tent-dwellers. By the weekend, hope of pulling more survivors from the wreckage was fading. On Saturday the 21st, Austrian rescue workers pulled a ninety-five-year-old woman from a seaside complex at Yalova; on Sunday just two survivors were found. The last survivor to be pulled out was a small boy who had somehow survived for six days. At this stage, some foreign rescue teams began to pull out. In some areas, it was reported that the army had intervened in these final rescue attempts, taking over from the foreign teams, but had only made a bad situation worse through their inexperience. However, the army’s presence helped to stem the tide of volunteers and ease the massive traffic jams. Rain began falling the second week, keeping up for three straight days. To add to the misery of the homeless, many of the army-supplied tents were found not to be waterproof. Public Criticism. After the initial shock of the quake, the severity of which affected the whole nation deeply, public criticism and anger quickly took over, on the part of both the survivors and the mass media. It was pointed in two directions: at the government for its inaction and lack of preparedness, and at the contractors and local officials who had allowed substandard buildings to be erected. Both criticisms point to the fact that the extent of the destruction was humanmade—that a 7.4 earthquake should not have had such a deleterious effect. 915
1999: The Ezmit earthquake The government tried to allay this criticism in a number of ways. On the evening of the quake Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit made a national broadcast. Parliament met in special session on Thursday, August 19, when Koray Aydin, minister of public works and housing, gave a report, stating that this was the greatest natural disaster in the history of Turkey. On the same day, the prime minister broadcast again, trying again to allay public anger, but the only positive step he took was to announce plans for more tents. The next day he ordered immediate burial of the dead and asked for more body bags. The much more robust response of the government and military to a November earthquake did lessen immediate criticism, even though confusion and delay were still very much in evidence. The minister of the interior, Sadettin Tantan, promised harsh punishment for contractors, engineers, and building owners. In Duzce alone, magistrates arrested 33 very quickly. Three provincial governors were also dismissed for their failure to coordinate efforts, being replaced by cabinet ministers. However, some politicians were willing to avoid a cover-up. The minister of tourism, Erkan Mumcu, declared the lack of response was symptomatic of the Turkish political and economic system. By contrast, on August 25, Ecevit criticized the press for its “demoralizing” earthquake reporting and shut down one of the more outspoken private television stations under an antiincitement law. The case against contractors and local officials was overwhelming. For example, in Avcilar, the worst-hit suburb of Istanbul, a five-story building had collapsed in twenty-seven seconds, while a mosque standing nearby stood firm. The reasons the building collapsed were clear: cheap iron for support rods, too much sand mixed with the concrete, some buildings built without permits, and some with stories added without permission. In one case, local officials had ordered a halt three times to a building, but it had been completed just the same, demonstrating the weak enforcement laws, even when local inspectors were doing the job properly. A report by the Turkish Architects and Engineers Association suggested that 65 percent of new buildings put up in Istanbul were not in compliance with the building regulations. The strength of the quake by the time it had reached Istanbul was only 5.5, and all the buildings should theoretically have been able to withstand that magnitude quake. Other 916
1999: The Ezmit earthquake claims were made that of Turkey’s forty thousand contractors, most were unqualified. In Yalova, for example, survivors burned the car and stoned the house of one local contractor by the name of Veli Gocer. Seven of the 16 buildings he had constructed had collapsed. He quickly fled to Germany but is reported in an interview with the newspaper Bild am Sonntaq to have said that while he sympathized with the victims, he should not be made a scapegoat. His training was in literature, he said, not in civil engineering, and he had believed the builders when they had told him he could mix large quantities of beach sand with his concrete as a way of cutting costs. The Geological Aftermath. Besides the many small aftershocks, two major aftershocks caused panic and some further deaths and damage. The first of these was on August 31, lasting ten seconds, with a 5.2 magnitude and its epicenter east of Ezmit. The second was on September 13, registering 5.8 on the Richter scale. The Anatolian fault had ruptured for at least 60 miles east of Ezmit, and in some places the ground was offset by 12 feet. One possible reason for this was that the original quake may in fact have been caused by two fault segments splitting thirty seconds apart, thus causing such a large shock. Mehmet Au Iskari, director of Turkey’s leading observatory, observed continuing unusual seismic movements that could suggest another temblor soon. On Monday, November 15, a temblor of approximately 7.2 magnitude struck with its epicenter at Düzce, 90 miles east of Istanbul. At least 370 people were killed and 3,000 injured. The U.S. government, aware of the similarities between the San Andreas fault and the Anatolian, quickly dispatched a team of experts from Menlo Park, California, and Golden, Colorado, as well as from the University of Southern California and San Diego State University. They were to investigate what lessons could be learned from a country where building regulations were, in theory, as strict as those in California, and especially the lessons from those buildings that were left standing and the type of soil they were built on. Geologists and seismologists made a prediction that the next big quake on the fault will be in Istanbul itself, or a little to the south, in the Sea of Marmara, in perhaps thirty to fifty years. Istanbul is somewhat more secure than the Ezmit area in that it is built on harder rock 917
1999: The Ezmit earthquake and is 6 to 10 miles from the fault line. However, if the standard of building construction is not improved, that will clearly be of little advantage in the next big quake. The Economic Aftermath. The northwest region of Turkey was the base for the country’s economic growth during the late twentieth century, with many new industries creating new jobs. The destruction of much of this area was bound to have enormous economic consequences. Reconstruction of houses, apartments, shops, hotels, and factories, as well as the infrastructure of roads, railways, bridges, sewerage, and water supply, would cost billions of dollars. Added to this was the unemployment that followed the loss of workplaces and small businesses, the loss of stock and capital, and the loss of production. Worst hit were the small to medium-sized businesses that had fueled the economic progress of the 1990’s. Fewer than 10 percent of houses were covered by insurance, adding to the financial loss. Turkey’s hopes of being in an economically sound position to apply for membership in the European Union (EU), whatever its democratic weaknesses, were thoroughly dashed. However, the EU did express sympathy for Turkey’s plight. President Jacques Chirac of France wrote to each of the EU states asking for a “new strategy” for dealing with Turkey, after a two-year freeze in dialogue. Turkey had also been in negotiation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), especially since it had been in financial difficulties in 1999. It had been seeking to put the IMF’s recommendations into practice. The loan originally requested had been $5 billion, but with the estimated $25 billion total loss, such a sum had clearly become too small. The government announced that it would endeavor to stick to the previously agreed fiscal measures. The government also immediately put aside $4 billion to repair businesses and $2 billion to $3 billion to repair the oil refinery. However, foreign aid would clearly be needed to supplement the long-term IMF loan. The World Bank pledged $200 million for emergency housing, and the EU gave $41.8 million. The future of Turkey’s economy looked considerably bleaker than it had for many years, however. The Political Aftermath. Potentially the most damaging results of the quake were in the political arena. The country’s disillusionment with the government went deeper than particular individual politicians. It reflected a questioning of the paternalistic state that 918
1999: The Ezmit earthquake hitherto had been trusted by its citizens to care for them. Such an attitude had been fostered to bring unity to a country whose secular basis lay counter to the traditionalism of many of its conservative Muslims, who would prefer an Islamic republic. The exposure of corruption at a local level, although well known by the population before, added to public anger and frustration, as did the inept bureaucracy. Most of the country’s residents had experienced this frustration daily in a minor way, but the earthquake brought years of simmering annoyances to the boil. In a country where the state was treated with great respect, the depth of such anger and criticism may well have permanently undermined such trust, making the job of future governments that much harder. Indeed, some politicians and academics took the opportunity to call for reform, even to the extent of rewriting the constitution. Not all the political aftermath was negative, however. International relationships were improved in a wave of sympathy, however frustrated individual foreign relief and rescue teams were (the U.S. naval ships were barely used in the end, for example). Prime Minister Ecevit arranged a meeting with U.S. president Bill Clinton to ask for more U.S. aid. Turkish-Israeli relationships were also strengthened by the early and efficient arrival of Israeli rescue teams. Even the Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country offered a temporary cease-fire. Perhaps the most remarkable benefit politically was the blossoming of Turkish-Greek relationships. Enemies for centuries, these neighboring countries became antagonistic over the island of Cyprus, which was divided into Greek and Turkish sectors after a Turkish military invasion in the 1970’s. The sending of a small Greek rescue team to the quake site was therefore an important symbolic gesture. This gesture was returned by the Turks when Athens was hit by an earthquake on September 9, 1999. A spontaneous response of reconciliation was released between the two populations and taken up by the media and politicians. The following month, President Clinton sought to seize on this goodwill by offering to broker talks over Cyprus. Rarely does an earthquake have such a profound effect politically and economically, as well as in terms of human tragedy. David Barratt
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1999: The Ezmit earthquake For Further Information: The New York Times, August 17-September 14, 1999. Tang, Alex K., ed. Izmit (Kocaeli), Turkey, Earthquake of August 17, 1999, Including Duzce Earthquake of November 12, 1999: Lifeline Performance. Reston, Va.: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2000. U.S. Geological Survey. USGS Scientific Expedition: Earthquake in Turkey—1999. http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/research/geology/turkey/ index.html. Youd, T. Leslie, Jean-Pierre Bardet, and Jonathan D. Bray, eds. 1999 Kocaeli, Turkey, Earthquake Reconnaissance Report. Oakland, Calif.: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, 2001.
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■ 2002: SARS epidemic Epidemic Date: November, 2002, to July, 2003 Place: Worldwide, but primarily Asia and Canada Result: 8,422 reported cases and 916 known deaths
S
evere acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was the first major health crisis of the twenty-first century. SARS is one of the fastest spreading and most virulent diseases known. It occurs as a severe form of pneumonia and may result in death in patients with preexisting health issues or those who seek treatment too late. From November 27, 2002, to July 14, 2003, SARS infected 8,422 victims worldwide and caused 916 known deaths. In China alone, the source of the outbreak, there were 5,327 cases, with 349 people dying of the disease. Prior to the identification of SARS, an occurrence of an atypical pneumonia was reported in Guangdong Province, China, in November, 2002. By February, 2003, 24 provinces in China reported cases of atypical pneumonia. A Guangdong physician treating patients suffering from this pneumonia traveled to Hong Kong and checked into a hotel in Kowloon on February 21, 2003. By March 4, he was dead, and 12 guests of the hotel housed on the same floor were infected even though they had had no direct contact with him. Hong Kong is a major transportation hub for all Asia. In a matter of days, these 12 people spread SARS throughout Hong Kong, Canada, Singapore, and Vietnam. By the end of March, 2003, cases of SARS were diagnosed in Italy, France, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and Romania; by the end of April, cases appeared in the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, Mongolia, South Africa, Kuwait, the Philippines, Sweden, Indonesia, and South Korea. During May, cases appeared in New Zealand, Colombia, Finland, Macao, Russia, and Taiwan. It would take until midsummer 2003 to contain and control the SARS outbreak through quarantine, isolation, and travel restrictions. In an age of globalization and rapid transportation between nations—air travel to any loca921
2002: SARS epidemic tion on the planet in less than 24 hours—the SARS outbreak demonstrated the severe threat of pandemic posed by new and rapidly emerging communicable diseases. The Nature of SARS. SARS is an infectious respiratory illness known as an atypical pneumonia. Typical pneumonia is primarily caused by bacteria such as streptococcus, while atypical pneumonia results from viruses such as influenza or specialized bacteria such as chlamydia or mycoplasma. All pneumonia results in stress to the respiratory system. In cases of SARS, however, not only is the respiratory system affected but other organs are involved in the infection as well, especially the liver. The onset of SARS is marked by a rapidly raising fever and dry cough, followed by shivering, dizziness, lethargy, muscle ache, vomiting, skin rashes, diarrhea, sore throat, and upper respiratory distress. In some patients, these symptoms may be followed by difficulty in breathing and rapidly progress to a severe form of pneumonia resulting in death when the heart and other organs fail from oxygen deprivation. The causal virus of SARS is a unique coronavirus. Coronaviruses are one of the viruses responsible for influenza and about 20 percent of common colds. Coronaviruses can survive in an exposed environment for up to three hours and can infect humans as well as birds, cows, rabbits, dogs, cats, mice, and pigs. The SARS virus is spread by direct person-to-person contact or contact with aerosolized respiratory secretions from coughing, sneezing, or breathing. In addition, droplets or respiratory secretions that end up on a victim’s hands from rubbing the mouth or nose can also transfer the infection to touched objects. A vaccine for SARS is still in the experimental stage, but patients diagnosed and treated in the early stages of an infection usually recover. Treatment typically includes steroids and broad-spectrum antiviral drugs, and in some cases supplemental oxygen and assisted ventilation. Outbreak and Control. Coronaviruses and influenza are widespread in the environment and exist in a range of animal hosts, especially birds and pigs. Certain avian strains of influenza have demonstrated the ability to mutate and cross species barriers to infect humans. Southern China is home to massive commercial-scale poultry and pig industries and has a history of spawning new, highly virulent strains of influenza. In the last four decades of the twentieth cen922
2002: SARS epidemic
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
Workers in Beijing spray disinfectant at the National Library in an attempt to combat the spread of SARS. (AP/Wide World Photos)
tury, at least four new strains of influenza spread globally from China. The huge number of poultry and pigs contained on these commercial farms provides an easy opportunity for any virus, mutated or otherwise, to find an available host and multiply readily. Animal handlers, cooks, and fresh food market vendors may all have first-line contact with an infected animal. If a cross-species mutation of an animal virus occurs, these people are the first to be exposed. On November 16, 2002, in Foshan, China, a chef specializing in the preparation of exotic meats was diagnosed and hospitalized with an atypical pneumonia. The patient was able to recover, but four members of the hospital staff who treated him soon showed signs of the same infection. In a matter of days, a number of food handlers and vendors from Guangdong Province’s street markets were hospitalized with a similar pneumonia. Chinese medical authorities suspected that the patients were suffering from a new strain of influenza, but tests for influenza came back negative, as did tests for anthrax and plague. Tests did indicate several different respiratory pathogens present in lung secretions, including metapneumovirus and chlamydia. 923
2002: SARS epidemic By February, 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) was notified of this unknown respiratory illness infecting 305 patients and resulting in at least 5 deaths in Guangdong, China. All reports of atypical pneumonia or other symptoms indicative of a new strain of influenza reported to WHO are given high-priority status for tracking and action. The outbreak of the illness remained localized around Guangdong, with the majority of victims being food handlers working in open-air markets or health professionals who dealt with infected patients. The epidemic seemed to reach its peak in early February, and then cases began to decline. This all changed on February 21, 2003, when a physician from Guangdong traveled to Hong Kong and checked into the Metropole Hotel. The physician had been treating patients with SARS, and at the time of his arrival in Hong Kong he was already symptomatic of the infection. The physician fell ill and was taken to Prince of Wales Hospital, where he eventually died after infecting many of the hospital’s staff and patients. Within days, 12 guests staying on the same floor of the hotel as the physician were diagnosed with the Guangdong respiratory illness. One of the infected guests, an American businessman, traveled to Hanoi, carrying the disease with him to Vietnam; he was asymptomatic at the time of his travel but on February 26, 2003, was admitted to a Hanoi hospital and put under the care of a WHO physician, Dr. Carlo Urbani. Another unknowingly infected guest traveled to Singapore; she was hospitalized soon after her arrival, where she infected medical staff and other patients. Two unknowingly infected guests flew to Canada, one to Vancouver and the another to Toronto. Guests in China who became symptomatic while still at the hotel were admitted to Hong Kong hospitals, where again many of the staff members and patients were exposed to the disease. The important fact of the Metropole Hotel outbreak is that none of the infected guests had any direct contact with the visiting Guangdong physician. Because of SARS’ incubation period of 2 to 14 days, Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan setting, and the ability of unknowing carriers to serve as a vector in a matter of hours via air travel, infected travelers were able to seed local epidemics throughout the world. The disease carrier from Singapore was eventually linked to more than 100 SARS cases in Singapore; the Toronto carrier initiated an outbreak in a Toronto hospital resulting in 132 cases and 12 deaths. 924
2002: SARS epidemic On March 15, 2003, WHO issued a statement that severe acute respiratory syndrome was a global health threat because it was spreading so far and so quickly. On the same day, Air China Flight 112 flew from Hong Kong to Beijing, and 22 passengers and 2 flight attendants fell ill, beginning a SARS outbreak in Beijing. The Beijing outbreak resulted in the most cases and largest number of SARS-related deaths in China. During the last week of March, 2003, a second outbreak of the illness in Hong Kong began when an infected victim with renal disease passed the disease throughout the Amoy Gardens apartments. The Amoy Gardens is a densely populated housing development. Many of the floor drain traps were not sealed, and many of the bathrooms were openly connected to the sewer pipes. Virus-heavy droplets coming from the infected apartment easily spread through the drains. Initially, SARS was thought to be transmitted only through direct person-to-person contact with respiratory secretions. Because many cases suggested no direct contact between victims, however, environmental transmission was suspected as an additional vector. The Amoy Gardens cases tended to confirm this conclusion, as 213 residents fell ill within the apartment complex. The Hong Kong government first isolated the complex and then relocated residents to two “holiday camps” for quarantine. That same week, a public housing complex across the street from Amoy Gardens reported a new outbreak of 30 cases and was immediately isolated. Dr. Carlo Urbani, the Italian epidemiologist working with WHO in Hanoi who first named the disease “severe acute respiratory syndrome,” became a victim of SARS and died on March 29. In memory of his research, WHO formally designated the disease “SARS” on April 16. By the end of April, 2003, SARS was identified in 14 countries around the globe, with more than 1,300 cases and 50 known deaths; by the end of the month, SARS was reported contained in Vietnam, and new cases in Singapore and Hong Kong were diminishing. Unfortunately, a new outbreak of SARS was reported in Taiwan, where a misdiagnosis resulted in the disease spreading widely throughout regional health care facilities. Random cases continued to appear in China, but the second largest outbreak was in Toronto. The traveler landing in Vancouver from Hong Kong arrived showing signs of infection, was quickly isolated, and recovered without infect925
2002: SARS epidemic ing others. In Toronto, the carrier from Hong Kong was able to infect family members and eventually a number of health care providers. By mid-March, Toronto public health officials alerted the public to the outbreak of an atypical pneumonia. Before the end of May, nearly 7,000 cases of voluntary quarantine were imposed on suspected patients or carriers to stop the outbreak in and around Toronto. Throughout the world, stringent control measures were taken to stop the spread of SARS. Most important, airport and border guards began screening travelers for fever, and strict isolation and quarantine protocols were instituted in areas reporting SARS symptoms. By mid-May 2003, the number of new cases of SARS diminished, and at that time researchers in Hong Kong discovered the genetic sequencing of a coronavirus found in civet cats to be 99 percent the same as the SARS virus. On May 24, 2003, the Chinese government temporarily banned importing exotic meat from civet cats, a popular Guangdong Province delicacy. It is likely that the original reported human infection of SARS, the exotic meat cook from Foshan, had contracted the disease from preparing civet cat. Besides the human toll, SARS inflicted economic and political damage. During the months of outbreak, Asian countries saw an estimated financial loss of $28 billion. For the first time in its history, WHO issued an advisory suggesting that travelers avoid parts of the world infected with a disease. Airlines cut 10 percent of their flights from North America to Asia, and some countries saw a drop of more than 60 percent in tourism. In Canada, China, and the United States, sporting events, public gatherings, film productions, religious services, and parades were all canceled as a result of concerns about SARS. After the SARS outbreak was contained, public health officials and political leaders, especially in China, were accused of cover-ups and mismanaging the crisis to avoid economic disruption. An interesting footnote to the SARS legacy occurred in June, 2006, when Chinese researchers revealed that at least one of the reported SARS deaths in China during 2003 was actually the result of H5N1 avian influenza, raising the possibility that other cases attributed to SARS may have actually been human cases of H5N1 bird flu and that the Chinese government covered up the possibility that two pathogens were experiencing simultaneous outbreaks in China. Randall L. Milstein 926
2002: SARS epidemic For Further Information: Kleinman, Arthur, and James L. Watson, eds. SARS in China: Prelude to Pandemic? Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. Koh, Tommy, Aileen Plant, and Eng Hin Lee, eds. The New Global Threat: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Its Impacts. River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific, 2003. Leung, Ping Chung, and Eng Eong Ooi, eds. SARS War: Combating the Disease. River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific, 2003. Levy, Elinor, and Mark Fischetti. The New Killer Diseases: How the Alarming Evolution of Mutant Germs Threatens Us All. New York: Crown, 2003. Schmidt, A., M. H. Wolff, and O. Weber, eds. Coronaviruses, with Special Emphasis on First Insights Concerning SARS. Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2005.
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■ 2003: Europe Heat wave and drought Date: July-August, 2003 Place: Europe, especially France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal Temperature: Up to 45 degrees Celsius (C) or 113 degrees Fahrenheit (F) Result: As many as 40,000 dead, 32 million tons of grain harvest lost, 1.6 million acres of land burned
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n July, 2003, an extreme buildup of high pressure in the upper atmosphere over Europe created a deadly heat wave that extended across the continent from northern Spain to the Czech Republic and from northern Germany to southern Italy. In early August, a second high pressure zone, existing both at surface levels and aloft, extended from Canada across the North Atlantic into western Russia and Central Europe. There it joined with amplified high pressure ridges to produce a massive formation that then shifted westward to cover all of Europe. In addition, hot and dry desert air from Africa, energized by sub-Saharan monsoons, swept into Europe from the south. The result was the worst natural disaster to affect the continent within the preceding 50 years, taking a toll of as many as 40,000 lives. Extreme Weather. In the spring of 2003, unseasonable high pressure ridges deflected the rain and cool air that the jet stream normally carries into Western Europe from the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in above-normal temperatures beginning in May. The situation worsened the following month. Switzerland experienced its hottest June in 250 years, and temperatures in Milan, Italy, hit a record of more than 40 degrees Celsius. Measurements of the heat wave in July and August established average temperatures of approximately 3.5 degrees Celsius higher than seasonal averages. While these differences seem minimal, atmospheric scientists cited the period as perhaps the hottest in 500 years. Although Spain is subject to hot summers, its high temperature of 45 degrees Celsius may have set the record for the heat wave. Record 928
2003: Europe temperatures were also noted in Germany, where highs reached 40.6 degrees Celsius on August 9, and in Switzerland, where thermometers recorded 41.1 degrees Celsius on August 11. Britain experienced its hottest day in history at 38.1 degrees Celsius on August 10. During the period from August 1 to August 12, Paris recorded average temperatures that were 11.8 degrees Celsius above normal, while average temperatures in Zurich, Switzerland, exceeded the norm by 9.5 degrees Celsius. The Death Toll. Heat-related suffering and the risk of death escalate when normal or ambient temperatures are exceeded by as little as about 5.6 degrees Celsius for two or more consecutive days. In Europe, tens of thousands of deaths resulted from the unusually high temperatures combined with the extended duration of the heat wave. Exacerbating the situation for city-dwellers was the phenomenon known as the “heat island” effect, the result of common features of the urban landscape such as dark surfaces that absorb heat, tall buildings that trap accumulations of stagnant air between them, and decreased vegetation. Waste heat from vehicles and machinery contribute to the situation, while heat-induced chemical reactions in automobile exhaust lead to dangerous levels of ozone concentration. In comparison to surrounding areas, cities retain heat through the night, allowing residents little relief. It is estimated that cities suffer temperatures higher than those in suburban and rural areas by a range of about 1.1 to 5.6 degrees Celsius. These factors contributed to the high death tolls in Europe’s cities. In France, an estimated 14,800 people died between August 1 and August 20. The central and eastern regions of France were especially hard hit, with high death rates in Dijon, Paris, Le Mans, and Lyon. On the nights of August 11 and 12, death rates more than doubled as Paris experienced its highest recorded nighttime temperature—25.5 degrees Celsius. In Paris, few doctors were available during the heat wave; hospitals and morgues filled to capacity, and overflow bodies had to be stored in refrigerated tents set up outside the city. Not surprisingly, elderly city residents proved to be the most vulnerable to the heat wave, a result of both physical conditions and social customs. Air-conditioning was not used extensively or systematically in French residences, hospitals, or retirement homes, endan929
2003: Europe gering those unable to bear extreme heat and humidity. Many older residents were without family to rely on because of summer holidays, which typically fall in August. While a significant number of the elderly died at home alone, many others died in institutions. More than 60 percent of the deaths in France during the heat wave took place in hospitals, private health care facilities, and retirement homes, with many of the deaths occurring among those aged 75 and over. This situation subsequently led French authorities to question their nation’s overall efforts at care for the elderly. Although the epidemic proportions of the death toll in France were the worst in all of Europe, death and suffering disrupted normal life across the continent. Several thousand casualties occurred in Italy’s largest cities, with Rome reporting more than 1,000 deaths. Further heat-related deaths took place in Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, and the Balkan nations. Death toll figures rose in confusing proportions from country to country. Totals were compiled using a variety of methods, resulting in a perplexing series of estimates and revisions. The frequently quoted higher death toll figures were eventually arrived at by using statistics to compare the number of deaths during the heat wave to averages from previous years. These “excess” mortality figures were based on averages of “expected” mortality. Comparative mortality rates established that the heat wave had intensified chronic medical conditions such as heart disease and respiratory ailments, a factor that frequently led to what were categorized as heat-related deaths. In the years following the heat wave, reported death toll figures rose sharply as methods of calculation were refined and additional heat-related deaths were included in the totals. In 2006, Italy announced a death toll for the heat wave of 2003 of nearly 20,000, more than twice the country’s previous estimate. Even when bodies were counted, they were not always identified. In early September, for instance, 57 unclaimed victims of the Paris heat wave were interred following a closed ceremony attended only by city officials and the President of France. Environmental Effects. Drought and wildfires heightened by the heat wave adversely affected the economy of Europe. Drought 930
2003: Europe conditions in July and August of 2003 intensified as the days went by. The heat wave followed a dry spring in which below-normal amounts of rainfall left both Western and Eastern Europe in serious need of moisture. In Western Europe, the hot, dry spring accelerated crop growth; thus crops were in greater-than-normal need of moisture during July and August when high temperatures and solar radiation increased. The situation became so drastic in areas of Switzerland, where water is rarely lacking, that the use of river water for agricultural purposes was prohibited, causing losses of an estimated $230 million. Over all of Europe, the drought reduced crop yields and killed some kinds of vegetation. The yield of green fodder for livestock was particularly hard hit. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that Europe lost 32 million tons of its projected grain harvest—a figure comparable to half of the entire United States wheat harvest. Such losses throughout Europe reached totals in the billions of dollars. Surface levels of rivers shrunk to record lows. The Sava River in Croatia, for example, was at its lowest level in 160 years. The 1,800mile-long Danube, which passes through or forms a border of 10 countries in Central Europe, fell so low that the river, famous for its beauty, seemed to be trickling away. Submerged tanks and ships from the World War II era were revealed for the first time. Managers of transportation on the international waterway attempted to keep river travel operating, but smaller vessels became necessary as larger ships and barges grounded out in shallows. When workers in Novi Sad, Serbia, were unable to raise a pontoon bridge on the Danube, river travel was halted for three weeks. An estimated 10 percent of the Danube delta wetlands dried out completely. Surface water levels in lakes were depleted as well. Lake Balatan in Hungary, the largest lake in Central Europe and a popular resort area, shrank away from its shores by as much as 300 feet, forcing vacationers to trudge through wide expanses of mud in order to swim. Forests were also affected by the drought, leading to concerns over increased incidence of tree diseases. However, a more immediate danger threatened as wildfires set forests ablaze. More than 25,000 fires were reported in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France Austria, Finland, Denmark, and Ireland, resulting in a loss of nearly 1.6 million acres. In Portugal alone, nearly 965,000 acres burned—nearly 6 931
2003: Europe percent of the country’s forested lands. The fires were so difficult to control that Portugal requested assistance from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). When this aid was denied, the country requested assistance from the European Commission to cover losses exceeding $1 billion. Responses to the Heat Wave. As water levels sank and fires raged, officials attempted to protect citizens from other heat-related dangers. The heat buckled roads in Germany and railroad tracks in Britain, resulting in lowered rail and automobile speed limits. Cities reduced speed limits to control ozone levels, and Portugal was forced to suspend rail traffic altogether. Adding to the problems of Swiss officials, glacial melting in the Alps resulted in increased climbing accidents as the ice became unstable. On a somewhat less serious note, residents of the Croatian island of Pag were forbidden to shower at the beach, while zoo officials in Austria sprayed ostriches with cold water and fed iced fruit to chimpanzees. During the extreme heat, electricity-producing utilities requested that rules governing wastewater temperatures be relaxed so that nuclear reactors and coal-fired plants could continue operation. German and French nuclear plants continued to produce electricity, although a French coal-fired plant was shut down. Several nuclear reactors in France ran so hot during July that plant managers experimented with sprinkler systems, a situation that greatly concerned environmentalists. Normally a leading electrical power exporter, France cut sales to surrounding countries during the heat wave. Italy’s electricity grid was subject to rolling blackouts, affecting millions of Italians. In the aftermath of the ruinous summer, Europeans focused on preparations for future heat waves. Governmental entities throughout Europe reviewed data and developed plans to cope more effectively with extreme heat, often by expanding the roles of governmental health services. At least one scientific study found that global warming, believed by most authorities to be exacerbated by greenhouse gases and other pollutants created by human activity, had almost certainly doubled the risk of future heat waves. Margaret A. Dodson
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2003: Europe For Further Information: Larsen, Janet. “Are More Killer Heat Waves on the Horizon?” USA Today 132 (May, 2004): 56-58. Le Comte, Douglas. “A Year of Extremes: 2003’s Global Weather.” Weatherwise 57, no. 2 (March/April, 2004): 22-29. Stott, Peter. “Human Contribution to the European Heatwave of 2003.” Nature 432 (December 2, 2004): 610-614. Tagliabue, John. “Utilities in Europe Seek Relief from the Heat.” The New York Times, August 12, 2003, p. A6. United Nations Environmental Programme. “Impacts of Summer 2003 Heat Wave in Europe.” Early Warning on Emerging Environmental Threats. http://www.grid.unep.ch/product/publication/ download/ew_heat_wave.en.pdf. Vandentorren, Stéphanie, et al. “Mortality in 13 French Cities During the August 2003 Heat Wave.” American Journal of Public Health 94, no. 9 (September, 2004): 1518-1520.
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■ 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 Fires Date: October 21-November 4, 2003 Place: Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties, California Result: 22 dead, 80,000 residents displaced, 3,500 homes destroyed, 743,000 acres burned; insurance losses estimated at $2 billion
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series of wildfires that first broke out on October 21, 2003, raged across the landscape in the vicinity of Los Angeles and San Diego in Southern California, collectively constituting the largest wildfire in California history. It came to be known as the Fire Siege of 2003. The Wildfires. In all, at least 12 separate wildfires burned during this time period: the Verdale and Grand Prix Fires in Los Angeles County; the Old Fire in San Bernardino County; the Cedar, Paradise, Otay, and Roblar 2 Fires in San Diego County; the Piru and Simi Incident Fires in Ventura County; and the Pass, Mountain, and Wellman Fires in Riverside County. The first of these fires, the Grand Prix Fire, broke out on October 21 in the San Bernardino National Forest. Officials suspected that it had been deliberately set. On October 25, the Cedar Fire, which would become the largest of these blazes, broke out around San Diego. It was known to have been caused by a lost hunter who fired a flare. There was also a major outbreak in the Simi Valley to the northwest of Los Angeles. The hot foehn winds, called Santa Ana winds, that sometimes blow across Southern California had begun on October 23. They whipped up all the fires and made firefighting extremely dangerous, resulting in the death of a Canadian firefighter whose position was overwhelmed by flames. Although some 16,000 firefighters were deployed in an effort to stop the blazes, their efforts were largely ineffectual. Protecting life became more important than protecting property, as 3,500 homes were destroyed. The fires moved quickly, and notice to evacuate sometimes came too late. Of the 22 individuals killed by the fires, 10 934
2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 had been trapped in their cars as they tried to flee the Cedar Fire. On October 26, officials in San Diego advised residents not directly threatened by the fire to stay home because the quantity of ash in the air had reached dangerous levels. Indeed, the smoke plumes were so high that they were visible on the International Space Station at the height of the wildfires. Conditions in the atmosphere were so bad that it was necessary to close the Southern California Radar Approach Control facility near San Diego, disrupting air traffic throughout the nation. An NFL game between the San Diego Chargers and the Miami Dolphins, scheduled to take place in San Diego on October 27, had to be moved to Tempe, Arizona, because the Chargers’ regular stadium had been converted into an evacuation center. A change in the weather on October 30 at last enabled fire officials to get control of the situation. The Santa Ana winds had died down on October 27, and light rain began to fall on October 30. By November 4, officials were at last able to get control of the fires. Although President George W. Bush and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the area on November 4, relatively little federal aid was available to cope with the destruction. Factors in the Outbreak. Four factors played an important role in the outbreak of so many destructive wildfires within two weeks. They were topography, climate, vegetation, and demographics. All four played a role in creating a series of wildfires of unprecedented scale. Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, located on the Pacific coast of Southern California, are fringed by the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains that separate the areas from the Mojave Desert directly to the east. The areas are effectively a bowl that ensures continuity of weather and vegetative conditions in the land so embraced. The eastern edges of this bowl have been declared national forests, the Cleveland and the San Bernardino National Forests, which effectively transfers the maintenance of the vegetation to the U.S. Forest Service. Even before European settlement of the area, it was subject to periodic wildfires, as determined by the government investigators who have been seeking to understand the causes of the Fire Siege of 2003. Besides topography, the climate that prevails in this basin is highly conducive to wildfires. It is called a Mediterranean climate, with lim935
2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 ited precipitation occurring largely in the winter and high temperatures and very dry conditions in the summer. Rainfall in the winter months (November to April) is normally around 20 inches (500 millimeters), but in the summertime (May to October) it is less than 5 inches (125 millimeters). Moreover, the area is prone to Santa Ana winds, especially in the fall, that can reach 60 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour), making firefighting both problematic and dangerous. The mountain ranges just inland concentrate these winds by funneling them through passes in the mountains. The result of these two factors, topography and climate, is that most of the land does not produce trees but rather a semi-desert brush called chaparral, which is highly flammable. Of the area burned in the fires, only 5 percent had coniferous trees growing on it, the rest being covered in chaparral bushes. Such vegetation normally burns at intervals varying between 5 and 100 years; within 3 to 5 years of a burn, new chaparral growth appears and the cycle is repeated.
The remains of a house caught in a firestorm in San Bernardino, California. (FEMA)
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2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 Because both Los Angeles and San Diego are located at the sites of important seaports, they have experienced major population growth, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. Further, that growth has been characterized by the expansion of housing into the open lands on the fringes of the city centers, creating what is called the intermix fire, one that occurs on land that is both wild and occupied. Between 1950 and 1990, 100 million people moved into this area. Between 1970 and 1980, counties that happened to adjoin wilderness areas increased their population by 13 percent; between 1980 and 1990, the increase was 24 percent. This explosive population growth has continued since 1990. This exurban expansion took the form of wooden houses with wooden roofs, which are especially susceptible to fire. As population expanded into lands that had been occupied previously only by vegetation, the risk of fires being started expanded exponentially, even if they were not intended, as many of them were. Most of the fires in this great sequence of wildfires were attributed to arson, even though no one was caught. Lessons of the Fire Siege. The Fire Siege of 2003 gave new fuel to a controversy that had been engaging land management agencies in the area for several decades: Were the fires the consequence of improper fire management, and could they have been prevented? The fires provoked an intense debate among many officials as to the appropriate policy to follow in the Southern California region. The drought that characterized much of the western parts of the United States in the later decades of the twentieth century and that has lasted into the twenty-first century has made the question of fire control of vital concern, especially as the population of the western states continues to grow at a very rapid rate. Early in the twentieth century, as the U.S. Forest Service took charge of many parts of the western United States with the creation of the national forests, the Forest Service became responsible for managing forest fires in the region as part of the obligation to maintain the forests in the areas that it controlled. Huge wildfires in the early years of the century, especially those that burned in many parts of the West in 1910, led the Forest Service to adopt a policy of fire suppression of all fires in the first hours in which they were detected. The development of many new technologies during World War II, 937
2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 such as helicopters and large water balloons towed by airplanes, together with the substantial expansion of the road system in the national forests by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s, led the leaders of the Forest Service to believe that they had the situation under control. In the 1960’s, however, the development of the environmental movement, which advocated returning to the “natural” conditions prevailing before settlement and in particular to the creation of “wilderness” forests, led to a policy in which fires in wilderness areas were allowed to burn until they burned out. However, the devastating fire that broke out in Yellowstone National Park in 1988 led to a reevaluation of this policy. Efforts were made to combine “controlled burns” (fires deliberately set by government officials) in strategic locations with the idea that deliberately burning lands containing considerable burnable material would create patches that would lack the fuels to support large fires. At the same time, government officials began to realize that a uniform policy throughout the entire country was not practicable. Crafting a policy specifically for the chaparral lands in the vicinity of the major California cities became a high priority. Specialists in the U.S. Geological Service and at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) began an intensive study of the history of fires in the region. They discovered that fires recur on the topography and in the vegetation of the area every 30 to 40 years, although some particularly sensitive areas may burn more frequently. The rapid growth of the human population in the area has substantially raised the risk, because although many western fires are ignited by lightning, such events are rare in the Los Angeles-San Diego coastal area. Overwhelmingly, people are the cause, particularly fires that are deliberately set, and there is little likelihood that this situation will change in the future. They also realized that, although creating fire breaks may work in many areas, the very high flammability of the chaparral vegetation makes this an unworkable strategy in this area. The one advantage of periodic deliberate control of vegetation is that it can reduce the risk of soil loss that occurs after a fire. Thought needs to be given by local officials to the pattern of human settlement and to the regulations that control it, such as zoning regulations. In addition, specific requirements governing exurban houses, such as nonflammable roofing and siding materials, can 938
2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 make it much easier to save houses in the path of a fire in this region. Basically, the chaparral region, given its topography and its climate, can be expected to burn at regular intervals, and there is not much that wildland fire officials can do about it. The best approach is to treat fires in this region as natural catastrophes much like earthquakes. Wildfire management would also benefit from the full development of evacuation plans, as moving people out of the path of danger must be given a very high priority. Nancy M. Gordon For Further Information: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. California Fire Siege 2003: The Story. Sacramento, Calif.: Author, 2003. Also at http://www.fire.ca.gov/php/fire_er_siege.php. California Legislature. Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Services and Homeland Security. 2003 Historic Southern California Fires: An Assessment One Year Later. Sacramento, Calif.: Senate Publications, 2004. Keeley, Jon E., and C. J. Fotheringham. “Historic Fire Regime in Southern California Shrublands.” Conservation Biology 15, no. 6 (December, 2001): 1536-1548. Keeley, Jon E., C. J. Fotheringham, and Max A. Moritz. “Lessons from the October 2003 Wildfires in Southern California.” Journal of Forestry 102, no. 7 (October/November, 2004): 26-31. Krauss, Erich. Wall of Flame: The Heroic Battle to Save Southern California. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Pyne, Stephen J. World Fire: The Culture of Fire on Earth. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995.
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■ 2003: The Bam earthquake Earthquake Date: December 26, 2003 Place: Bam, Iran, and the surrounding area Magnitude: 6.5 Result: More than 26,000 killed, about 75,000 left homeless, including 30,000 injured; more than 85 percent of the buildings in Bam destroyed, including the historic Citadel
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he Earth’s crust is cracked and broken into large segments called plates. These plates may be 25 to 320 kilometers (15 to 200 miles) thick and a few hundred to thousands of kilometers wide. The plates dip into the mantle, a global layer of hot, dense rock that is generally not molten but plastic. In a simplified view, convection currents in the mantle rise, move across the top, and then cool and sink at the glacial speed of a few centimeters (1 or 2 inches) per year. The motion of the mantle carries the plates on chaotic journeys so that some plates slide by, pull away from, or crash into other plates. This movement is the source of earthquakes. Large quakes occur when one plate is locked against another, allowing stress to build for years or centuries until the weakest link gives way and that part of the plate lurches forward. With about 130 major earthquakes during recorded history, Iran ranks among the most seismically active countries of the world. It is spanned by a network of faults at the boundary between the Arabian plate and the Eurasian plate. On Friday, December 26, 2003, a segment of the Arabian plate broke loose and ground northward. A small precursor quake struck at 4:00 a.m., and some residents of Bam, Iran, rushed out into the streets. Unfortunately, since small quakes occur there often and nothing further happened immediately, most went back to bed. The magnitude 6.5 quake struck at 5:26 a.m., releasing energy equivalent to 5.6 megatons of TNT. The quake’s focal point was almost directly beneath Bam. Seen from above, the sandcolored houses, walls, towers, and arches gave Bam the look of a fantastically intricate sand castle. After the quake, it looked as if vandals 940
2003: The Bam earthquake had kicked down the walls, stomped on the towers, and sat on the castle. Most of Bam was rubble. Aftermath. The ancient city of Bam was built on a desert plateau in the southeastern region of Iran. The old city was made of adobe, bricks of mud mixed with straw or animal dung and dried in the sun. Thick walls were constructed with bricks plastered together with layers of clay, and roofs were decked with heavy tiles or more bricks built into cupolas and vaults. Adobe works well in a country where it rarely rains, and the thick walls helped to keep the interiors of the houses cooler during the heat of the day. During the quake, however, the adobe disintegrated, turning walls and roofs into tons of dirt that cascaded down onto the sleeping inhabitants. Those who freed themselves or were quickly pulled from the rubble by family members or neighbors had a good chance of survival, but after the first few hours, searchers found very few survivors. There were two miracle survivors: a 97-year-old woman, Sharbanou Mandarai, was trapped for eight days in the airspace beneath a table near a ventilation pipe and was rescued in amazingly good condition, but a 56-year-old man pulled from the rubble after 13 days was in poor condition. The final toll was 26,271 killed, more than 30,000 injured, and more than 75,000 left homeless. Approximately 85 percent of the buildings were completely destroyed. It made little difference if the buildings were ancient or modern, since building codes had not been followed. For example, two modern hospitals, supposedly built to withstand such quakes, collapsed in ruins. All of Bam’s 131 schools were destroyed, and about a third of the teachers were killed. A prison at the edge of the city collapsed, setting the prisoners free. After standing guard for nearly 2000 years, the largest adobe building in the world, the Citadel, or Arg-e-Bam, a magnificent warren of ramparts, towers, arches, courtyards, and narrow passages, was now largely rubble. Most of the date palms that were claimed to have produced the world’s best dates were lost. Iranian president Mohammed Khatami announced that the disaster was more than one nation could handle, and he appealed for international aid. This was a dramatic change from the quake of June, 1990, when foreign aid was refused in spite of 50,000 killed and 60,000 injured. More than 60 nations responded to President Khatami’s appeal, sending supplies and workers. Only aid from Israel was 941
2003: The Bam earthquake refused. The United States had broken off diplomatic relations with Iran during the 1980-1981 hostage crisis, dealing with the country only through third parties, but in this situation U.S. officials spoke directly with their Iranian counterparts to arrange aid. U.S. military airplanes brought emergency supplies on December 28, and 80 American doctors and aid workers arrived in Bam on December 30. Noting Iran’s new openness, the U.S. government proposed a high-level humanitarian mission to be headed by Senator Elizabeth Dole, a past president of the American Red Cross, but the Iranian government was not ready for this step and “held it in abeyance.” Iran accused the United States of trying to turn the situation to its own advantage, although the tone was far less strident than it had been in the past. Eventually, medical care, food, water, temporary shelter, blankets, a sanitation system, and more were provided by Iran and other nations. Cultural Heritage. President Khatami promised that Bam would be rebuilt, and in July, 2004, the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared Bam a World Heritage site, stating that it represented a historical culture of which Iranians were justifiably proud. With this declaration, UNESCO became the head of the international efforts for the cultural preservation of Bam. Under its direction, experts from Japan began helping to reconstruct the Citadel, a project expected to take fifteen years. Bam was a trading center as early as 250 b.c.e. and became a pilgrimage site when a Zoroastrian fire temple was built there. After the temple was destroyed, it was replaced in the ninth century c.e. by one of the earliest mosques in Iran, the Jame Mosque. Built on the ancient Silk Road, the old trade route between Europe and Asia, Bam was a convenient place for traders with silk from China or carved ivory and gold baubles from India to bargain with traders bringing fine Roman glass and other goods from the west. Bam became famous for textiles and for garments of silk and cotton. As water became available for farming, Bam also became famous for its dates and other fresh fruit. Ingenuity allowed the inhabitants to live in a region that can reach 50 degrees Celsius on a hot summer day. Bam is built beside a river that seldom has water, but water is available to those who know how to find it. It comes from deep wells and from underground channels 942
2003: The Bam earthquake called qanats, which were invented in Iran perhaps 3,000 years ago. They are channels built by hand underground to minimize evaporation of the water into the dry desert air. They begin in the aquifer at the base of the mountains many kilometers away. The qanat is constructed with only a shallow slope so that water flows nicely, but not so rapidly that it erodes the tunnel. Vertical shafts every 20 or 30 meters provide air as well as access to construct and maintain the qanat. Bam has some of the oldest qanats in Iran. Before the quake, 126 qanats supplied about half of the water used by Bam and its surroundings, but most were damaged in the quake, and 40 percent were severely damaged. Windcatchers (badgir) have been used for more than 1,000 years. The simplest is a vertical shaft from the ceiling of a room to the outside. The top of the shaft has a roof supported by columns or perforated walls. Wind blowing across the top of the shaft will reduce the pressure there and suck the warmest air from the room below. If the room has thick adobe walls that were chilled by the windcatcher drawing in cold night air, the room may remain cool all day. If the windcatcher has a scoop that diverts the wind down its shaft, over a pool of water, and into a room, the air will be chilled by evaporative cooling. It will be even cooler if the windcatcher forces dry air through a qanat so that it undergoes evaporative cooling and also draws chilled air from the underground chamber. In fact, if this combination is used to chill a well-insulated building, ice can be harvested in winter and kept in such a building well into the summer. Outlook for the Future. In an opinion piece for The Iranian called “Ready for Future Bams?” on January 3, 2003, Sassan Pejhan writes that as he watched the television coverage of the Bam quake, he could not help but recall previous earthquakes in Iran: Roudbar in 1990, where 50,000 were killed and 60,000 were injured, and the Tabas earthquake in 1978, in which 25,000 were killed. The Tabas quake reminded Pejhan’s parents of the 1968 earthquake at Khorasan, where 12,000 were killed, and Pejhan’s grandparents were reminded of the earthquake at Salmas, where 4,000 were killed. Pejhan wonders what can break this vicious cycle of tragedy and concern followed by apathy and little progress. Four days before the Bam quake, a quake of the same magnitude struck California’s central coast and killed only 2 people in the town 943
2003: The Bam earthquake of Paso Robles. On October 23, 2004, a series of quakes, the first of magnitude 6.8 (several times more powerful than the Bam quake), struck northern Japan, killing 35 and injuring 1,300. Simply put, Iran has not invested in building earthquake-resistant structures to the extent that more developed countries have. It is not merely a matter of mud brick construction, since modern buildings in Iran also collapsed. After the quake, Investigators found that fired bricks were often so weak that they disintegrated when struck sharply. Weak bricks had not been fired hot enough or long enough. Had buildings been constructed to the standards required by the Iranian building code, most probably would have survived. It is not simply a matter of money, since Iran has a great deal of oil money but has chosen to spend it elsewhere. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visited Bam three days after the quake and comforted the people by assuring them that the quake was not a punishment from God but instead a test to see if they would remain faithful during difficulties. Too many people have taken this statement to mean that they should not work to prevent future tragedies. In fact, a consensus has been expressed by many writers both inside and outside Iran that a prevalent submissive and fatalistic mindset keeps the people from making necessary changes. Those who are trying to implement steps to make buildings more earthquakeresistant find it difficult to institute change because of these attitudes. Research shows that adobe homes could be greatly strengthened by using iron straps to tie walls to foundations, floors, ceilings, and roofs. Some horizontal and vertical concrete beams would also greatly strengthen adobe buildings. Covering adobe with a layer of adhesive, fiber-based polymers (quake wrap) has been shown to help. Even placing adobe bricks in sandbags and putting barbed wire between layers of bricks greatly strengthened test buildings. Enforcing building codes is probably the most effective step that could be taken. Locals complained that money donated by other nations for the rebuilding of Bam was being withheld by the government and that the rebuilding was proceeding too slowly. The government responded that donor nations have been slow to fulfill their pledges. They also pointed out that before rebuilding could be started, it took more 944
2003: The Bam earthquake than six months to develop a plan for a modern city that would solve some of the problems with the old city. By 2006, although there were still many piles of rubble waiting to be cleared, the rebuilding was well underway, but ensuring that the new buildings are built to code requires constant vigilance. Charles W. Rogers For Further Information: Campi, Giovanni. “The Bam Earthquake: The Tragedy of a Cultural Treasure ‘Depicted in the Faces of People.’” UN Chronicle 41 (December 1, 2004): 40. Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. 2003 Bam, Iran, Earthquake Reconnaissance Report. Oakland, Calif.: Author, 2006. Ghafory-Ashtiany, Mohsen, et al. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering: Special Issue on Bam Earthquake. Tehran: International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology, 2004. Hough, Susan Elizabeth, and Roger G. Bilham. After the Earth Quakes: Elastic Rebound on an Urban Planet. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Lawler, Andrew. “Earthquake Allows Rare Glimpse into Bam’s Past— and Future.” Science 303 (March 5, 2004): 1463.
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■ 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Earthquake and tsunami Date: December 26, 2004 Place: 11 countries bordering the Indian Ocean—Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Somalia, and Kenya Magnitude: 9.3 Result: Official death toll of 186,983, later revised upward to 212,000; 42,883 missing; thousands dead from injuries and diseases directly attributable to the tsunami
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sunamis, which seldom occur in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, are more frequent in the Pacific Ocean, the average depth of which is much greater. However, one minute before 7:00 a.m. on December 26, 2004, the strongest earthquake recorded in the previous 40 years erupted on the floor of the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. This quake was originally assigned an magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale, but seismologists ultimately determined that the actual magnitude was 9.3. In contrast, the magnitude of the earthquake that leveled much of San Francisco in 1906 measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, and the greatest magnitude ever recorded was 9.5 in the earthquake the struck Chile on May 22, 1960. Although the earthquake in the Indian Ocean did not immediately produce huge ocean surges, the energy emanating from its epicenter equaled that of more than 23,000 atomic bombs of the sort dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. The ocean’s surface immediately after the earthquake experienced waves of about 1 foot, which made them virtually undetectable as a tsunami. As the energy that the earthquake released moved in concentric circles from the epicenter, however, the size of the waves increased dramatically. They moved at speeds in excess of 600 miles an hour, slowing down only when they reached the shallow coastal waters in areas bordering the ocean. As they advanced, the waves created outflows that drained harbors, causing the curious to walk toward reced946
2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami ing shorelines, fascinated by what was exposed in the shallow areas. Almost instantly, without warning, the shoreline was inundated by waves as high as 50 feet that crashed with a force that pulverized everything in their paths. In tsunamis, the tops of the waves travel much faster than the bottoms, which results in a dramatic rising of the sea. The combined speed and weight of the raging water makes human survival unlikely. The areas affected by the Indian Ocean Tsunami were quite impoverished. Many of their structures, especially those in which natives live, were badly built, making them incapable of resisting the force of such a powerful tsunami. These structures were either flattened or tossed about like matchboxes when the high waves hit. Because this fearsome tsunami struck the day after Christmas, resorts on the Indian Ocean were booked to capacity with tourists, many from Europe and the United States. In the fishing villages abutting the ocean, many of the men had gone out on their boats, which accounts for the fact that four times more women than men died in the disaster. In addition, one-third of the dead were children. The initial official combined death toll for 11 countries of 186,983 was ultimately revised upward to about 212,000. The Causes of the Tsunami. Earthquakes occur when two tectonic plates push against each other to the point that they produce a violent reaction. Such a reaction may build gradually over thousands of years before it produces an earthquake. The section of the earth’s crust called the India plate has been sliding at barely perceptible speeds under the Burma plate for millennia. On December 26, 2004, the India plate that was sliding under the Burma plate finally created a rupture about 600 miles long off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It displaced the area beneath the water by an estimated 10 yards horizontally and several yards vertically. The result was that rock measured in trillions of tons was displaced and propelled by water moving at more than 600 miles an hour. It moved along hundreds of miles, causing the worst underwater upheaval since the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. Any earthquake that measures more than 6.0 on the Richter scale can be devastating. When the measurement exceeds 9.0, the results are staggering. The fissure that the quake created filled with seawater, resulting in a huge disruption on the ocean floor. As billions of gallons of water 947
2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami poured into the newly created trench, waves radiated from the long fissure, sending killer concentric waves toward land. When these waves reached landfall, they engulfed everything in their paths with a force so great that little could withstand them. The Immediate Aftermath. The destruction the tsunami caused was so widespread and all-encompassing that the engulfed coastal areas resembled war zones. The country hit hardest and first was Indonesia, with Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India suffering severe damage as the waves raced across the Indian Ocean in all directions. Little remained standing along the shore. Bodies dangled from trees or protruded from the great rivers of mud left behind when the waters receded. More people were dead than alive. After the tsunami retreated, the gentler ocean waves washed thousands of bodies to shore. The poverty of the affected areas prevented them from having the sophisticated advanced tsunami warning systems that are available in more prosperous regions. Had such systems been in place, mass evacuations could have spared thousands of lives. Moving to higher ground saved some who sensed that the tsunami was imminent, but most people did not realize the danger until it was upon them. Many of those who survived were made numb by the magnitude of the disaster. They wandered about aimlessly amid areas whose only shelters had been washed out to sea or catapulted far into the higher reaches of the terrain that was dotted by the boats, automobiles, trucks, and heavy equipment that the rushing water had tossed like toys and deposited up to 2 miles from where they had originated. Aftershocks shook the area, causing not only additional damage to the few remaining structures that might have been used to shelter the survivors but also terrifying the stunned people who had managed to escape the original assault. Between December 26 and January 1, 2005, the affected area was shaken by 84 aftershocks whose magnitude ranged from 5.0 to 7.0 on the Richter scale. Of these aftershocks, 26 were felt on the same day as the major underwater quake that had triggered the tsunami. At least one such aftershock had an magnitude of 7.0, which in itself was sufficient to cause severe damage to inhabited areas. Survivors much in need of shelter were reluctant to enter buildings that they feared would collapse as the aftershocks destabilized the ground beneath them. In the days immediately following the tsunami, tens of thousands 948
2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami of people needed medical treatment for such problems as open wounds, broken bones, contusions, dysentery, and various endemic diseases. Such assistance was not available to them because the afflicted areas, many of which never had adequate medical facilities, had lost most of their physicians and nurses and had suffered the loss of clinics that vanished beneath the waves. Help from outside was on its way, but it did not arrive in time to save many of the more critically injured victims of the tsunami. As the survivors were forced to live in intensely crowded conditions, a great danger arose from communicable respiratory diseases, particularly influenza and pneumonia. Conditions were right for mosquitoes to breed, raising the threat of malaria. In the week following the December 26 disaster, survivors had little to eat. They drank what water they could find at their own risk, as water supplies had been contaminated by raw sewage and decaying bodies. Among the first food shipments to arrive from outside the
To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
A still image from a video shot by British tourists in Phuket, Thailand, on December 26, 2004, as a tsunami breaks on the shore. (AP/Wide World Photos)
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2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami stricken area were cases of dried noodles that these had to be prepared by adding boiling water. Unfortunately, many people did not have any means of boiling water, which in most cases was so polluted that bringing it to boiling temperature would not wholly eliminate the dangers that drinking it posed. Factors Complicating Recovery. The immediate task facing the survivors was to dispose of the decaying corpses that were quickly deteriorating in the hot, humid climate. Survivors frantically tried to find and identify dead relatives. In the end, many of the dead had to be cremated or buried anonymously in mass graves. Problems arose because many people in the tsunami’s path were Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim. Muslims prohibit cremation of a dead person’s remains, which made it difficult for many of the afflicted communities to employ the most efficient and sanitary way to dispose of bodies. Some efforts were made to photograph every body before it was buried in a mass grave so that survivors might eventually identify their loved ones. Some of the religions followed by people in the countries struck by the tsunami deny death if a body is not present. Therefore, hordes of people refused to admit that family members had perished because their bodies had not been found. Further, Hindus and Buddhists believe in gods with mercurial temperaments and that natural disasters reflect divine anger. Such beliefs caused many of the survivors to suffer from guilt, which sometimes resulted in passivity and resignation preventing them from facing the realities of the disaster and taking the actions needed to set recovery efforts in motion. In both India and Indonesia, separatist groups were seeking independent political status, creating additional difficulties. Sometimes such groups interfered with recovery efforts. The devastated city of Banda Atjeh, which lost one-third of its 320,000 inhabitants, had been a stronghold of Muslim extremists who were seeking independence from Indonesia. It was feared that these extremists would do violence to rescuers who came into the area. Also, Indonesia was slow to accept rescuers because, since the country had gained independence in 1949, it had allowed no foreign military personnel on Indonesian soil. When the Indonesian government finally admitted military personnel from foreign countries, it stipulated that rescuers must be unarmed. 950
2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Worldwide Relief Efforts. All the civilized world was dismayed by the loss of life and property that the tsunami caused. Early reports that suggested casualty rates below 10,000 elicited immediate help and support from a number of nations, but as reports of fatalities zoomed, rapidly increasing offers of help were forthcoming. On December 28, two days after the tsunami, U.S. president George W. Bush pledged $15 million in relief funds to the stricken nations. By December 31, when heightened casualty reports flooded in, Bush increased that aid to $350 million. By February 10, as the dimensions of the tragedy grew, Bush urged Congress to appropriate $950 million for tsunami relief. Congress passed the requested legislation. Soon after the disaster, President Bush dispatched two American aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Bonhomme Richard, to the area to serve as staging grounds for helicopter flights to the places most in need of immediate relief. In many instances, the tsunami had wiped out roads, making access by air the only workable alternative. Among other major contributors to the relief effort were Japan, with a pledge of $500 million; Australia, with a pledge of $800 million that was later increased to $1.1 billion; the European Union, with a pledge of $675 million; Denmark, with a pledge of $420 million; Germany, with a pledge of $653 million; and Canada, with a pledge of $425 million. Even small countries offered assistance: tiny Monaco, $133 million; Bosnia, $67,000; Cambodia, $40,000; Croatia, $917,000; Belgium, $15.67 million; and Cyprus, $1.3 million. Private donations, both corporate and personal, came pouring in. When an Indian oncologist living and practicing in Florida set out to raise $100,000 for tsunami relief, he raised twice that amount between December 26 and January 7. Military personnel arrived from the United States as well as from Australia, Singapore, and a number of European countries. Members of the Australian and Singaporean air forces quickly built air strips in Medan, Indonesia, so that relief planes could land. They flew in large cargo planes filled with food, water, and medical supplies that were then transferred to helicopters for transportation to the areas where they were needed the most. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited the stricken areas of Sri Lanka and pledged food and other necessities to every 951
2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami person who needed them. The United States remembered the dead by flying flags on all public buildings at half-staff in the week following the tsunami. Americans were urged to make donations to relief organizations. President Bush enlisted the aid of former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to organize fund-raising efforts. Even though Clinton was recovering from recent heart surgery, he plunged into relief activities with characteristic vigor and enthusiasm, as did the 80-year-old Bush. The two visited the affected areas, bringing hope and promises of tangible assistance to community leaders throughout the region. Outcomes. Remarkably, the epidemics many feared would follow the tsunami did not develop. Broken bones mended and torn flesh healed as survivors began to reconstruct their lives and rebuild their communities. On a personal level, most of the people who had lived near the Indian Ocean planned to rebuild in the same areas, as is often the case following such disasters as typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. As a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, considerable attention is being paid to natural phenomena that seem predictive of impending disaster. Somehow, hundreds of members of a tribe that had inhabited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands off the coast of India for many centuries, through some unexplained sixth sense, foresaw that a tsunami was imminent and moved to higher ground, thereby reducing their casualty rate to zero. Similarly, few animals were killed by the tsunami. Elephants, water buffalo, dogs, cats, and many species of birds escaped the devastation that wiped out so much of the human population in the places that were their natural habitats. Biologists, meteorologists, and climatologists have engaged in far-reaching studies designed to explain what clues cause animals to sense oncoming natural disasters. Despite the relative poverty of the areas in which the tsunami struck, efforts are being made to install sophisticated early warning technologies such as those that exist in the Pacific Ocean to protect such vulnerable places as Hawaii and Alaska. When such systems are in place, mass evacuations may virtually eliminate the huge numbers of deaths that marked the Indian Ocean Tsunami. R. Baird Shuman 952
2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami For Further Information: Adamson, Thomas K. Tsunamis. Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press, 2006. Anderson, Robert Mark. “Wave Files.” Natural History 115 (February, 2006): 54. Bernard, E. N. Developing Tsunami-Resilient Communities: The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. Norwell, Mass.: Springer, 2005. Fang, Mark Bay. “Remembering All the Lost, and Rebuilding.” U.S. News & World Report 40 (January 9, 2006): 10-11. Stewart, Gail B. Catastrophe in Southeastern Asia: The Tsunami of 2004. Chicago: Gale/Lucent, 2005. Torres, John Albert. Disaster in the Indian Ocean: Tsunami 2004. Hockessin, Del.: Mitchell Lane, 2005.
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■ 2005: Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Date: August 25-September 2, 2005 Place: South Florida, the Florida Panhandle, coastal Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, particularly New Orleans Classification: Category 4 at landfall Result: 1,500-2,000 estimated dead, hundreds missing, $75 billion in property damage
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urricane Katrina was the eleventh named storm of the 2005 hurricane season. Meteorologists have recorded just 5 other hurricanes approaching Katrina’s intensity. It was the second most deadly hurricane in U.S. history (after the 1900 Galveston hurricane) and the most costly, devastating coastal areas from south Florida to New Orleans and beyond. During the 2005 hurricane season, so many named storms developed that names beginning with the letters of the English alphabet were exhausted, necessitating some storms to be assigned letters from the Greek alphabet. The most destructive of the storms of 2005, one of three hurricanes to reach Category 5 at some point, was Hurricane Katrina, which some eyewitnesses called “The Doomsday Storm.” It swept slowly across south Florida, classified as a Category 1 storm that deposited heavy rains on the area. When it meandered into the Gulf of Mexico, it gained considerable energy from the 80degree surface temperatures of the Gulf’s waters. Accelerating quickly, Katrina hit the Florida Panhandle, then continued its ruinous course along the Gulf Coast, first as a Category 3 hurricane but quickly strengthening to a Category 4 and then a Category 5 storm with winds exceeding 155 miles an hour. It made landfall at Buras, Louisiana, some 60 miles southeast of New Orleans, leaving havoc in its wake as its counterclockwise winds moved north. The storm’s fury left the Alabama coast and the city of Mobile severely damaged. It wiped out almost totally such Mississippi communities as Pascagoula, Slidell, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, and Bay St. Louis before striking New Orleans, most of which lies below sea level. 954
2005: Hurricane Katrina The Situation in New Orleans. Before the hurricane, New Orleans had a population of more than 500,000 people, 23 percent of whom lived below poverty level. On August 28, when New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin issued the order for mandatory evacuation, 100,000 New Orleans residents would not or could not evacuate. Left behind were the elderly, the chronically ill, the impoverished, thousands of helpless children, and those without automobiles or other means of transportation. Some people who could have left refused to abandon beloved pets that they were not permitted to take with them to evacuation centers. The storm struck at the end of the month when many of the impoverished, living marginally on welfare checks, had exhausted their August payments, leaving them without the wherewithal to afford commercial transportation away from the storm’s path. Hardest hit was the poorest section of New Orleans, the Ninth Ward. Even though Katrina flooded and flattened other wards, residents from the more prosperous parts of town could evacuate in advance of the devastation. Hurricanes can be predicted far enough in advance for people to be forewarned in time to escape the storm’s deadly course.
Residents of New Orleans await rescue on a roof. (FEMA)
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2005: Hurricane Katrina Once the storm hit with full fury on the morning of August 29, New Orleans, a crescent nearly surrounded by water—Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, the Industrial Canal, the Intercoastal Waterway, and the Gulf of Mexico some 60 miles to the south—began to flood. Many parts of the city are 6 feet below sea level, so the storm surge of more than 20 feet that poured in from the Gulf of Mexico proved devastating. Nevertheless, Katrina’s eye passed southeast of New Orleans. So, although the canals and the Mississippi River raged with great walls of rushing water, the city did not receive the full brunt of the storm. The following day, The New York Times reported that New Orleans had a mess to clean up but suggested that the destruction could have been much worse. Only later was the full extent of the city’s problems evident. For decades, New Orleans had been protected from floods by earthenware dams, most of them topped with steel reinforced concrete, or by more modern reinforced concrete barriers that had held through dozens of previous storms. The city also had a well-developed system of pumps that returned standing water from the lowlands to Lake Pontchartrain to control flooding. By August 30, it became clear that the city’s disaster was about to be compounded. The levees, whose underpinnings were compromised by the force of the water pushing against them, began to give way. The Seventeenth Street and London Avenue levees came apart bit by bit, dumping millions of gallons of water, most of it polluted, into the streets of the flooded city. The hurricane had disabled many of the pumping stations, which, even had they been working at top capacity, could not have prevented the agitated waters from engulfing everything in their paths. Katrina killed many people. In one nursing home, 30 residents died in its aftermath. Mayor Nagin announced immediately after the hurricane that as many as 10,000 might be dead, although a number of agencies soon lowered this figure. Flooded hospitals had to close their doors. Bodies piled up in makeshift morgues: 22 in freezers in the Convention Center, an estimated 1,200 in the St. Gabriel Prison Morgue and its stopgap satellites. The total number of people killed in all the communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina has been estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000. 956
2005: Hurricane Katrina As long as six months afterward, human remains were still being found. Some refugees who were deployed to distant venues returned to New Orleans eight to ten months following the storm to finally identify and claim bodies in the city’s morgues. Origins and Dimensions. Hurricane Katrina began as Tropical Depression 12 that formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005. It advanced to South Florida the following day as a named tropical storm, but by August 25, it was designated a Category 1 hurricane. It inundated much of south Florida, and its 75-mile-an-hour winds caused an estimated $400 million in property damage. The storm pushed on slowly to the Gulf of Mexico, where, over the Gulf’s warm surface waters, it gained considerable speed and intensity, advancing to a Category 3 storm. It increased quickly to a Category 4 and, within hours, to a Category 5. It left substantial wind and water damage in the Florida Panhandle as well as in coastal Alabama. Some meteorologists consider Katrina the strongest hurricane ever to hit the United States. The breadth of the damage that it caused, which ranged more than 100 miles from its center, makes it unique in the annals of meteorology. Before it ended, Katrina had left behind more than $75 billion in property damage as it moved relentlessly from Florida to Louisiana, making it the costliest hurricane in recorded history. Preparing for the Hurricane. When it became evident on August 26 that the Gulf Coast was in the path of a rapidly developing hurricane, Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana declared a state of emergency. On the same day, she requested that the federal government provide National Guard troops to help meet the emergency. The following day, after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Governor Bob Riley of Alabama also declared a state of emergency. On August 27, Governor Blanco asked President George W. Bush to declare a federal state of emergency in her state, making it eligible for federal assistance to supplement the assistance that state and city governments could provide. The White House was slow to declare the requested state of emergency but finally gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the authority to respond to the threat that the hurricane posed. 957
2005: Hurricane Katrina On August 28, at 2 a.m., Katrina was upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane. By dawn, it had been upgraded again, this time to a Category 5, the most severe designation assigned to hurricanes on the Saffir-Simpson scale. On that morning, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser ran a story warning that the existing levees in New Orleans probably could not withstand the exigencies of a Category 5 storm. The National Hurricane Center’s director, Max Mayfield, echoed this sentiment, warning the White House that the levees had been compromised and speculating on the results of their probable failure. By 4 p.m. on August 28, the National Weather Service issued an urgent warning that outlined what sort of damage would accompany a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. The agency cautioned that the area might not be habitable for weeks or, possibly, months. It predicted that even well-built homes would suffer wall and roof failure and that the ensuing power outages might last for weeks. Pure water would not be available unless it was imported from outside the hurricane zone. As the hurricane approached, Mayor Nagin urged people in New Orleans who had not already evacuated to gather at 12 designated pickup points, where they would be collected and transported by bus to the Superdome, which had been stocked with 2.5 million liters of bottled water and 3 million meals ready to eat (MREs). An estimated 25,000 displaced people gathered in the Superdome. Evacuees were urged to bring food and other supplies with them to last for three days, but many arrived empty-handed. Some remained there considerably beyond three days. The storm peeled off portions of the Superdome’s roof, allowing the heavy rains that accompanied the storm to inundate the facility, which had already lost its electrical power and whose overtaxed sanitary facilities were failing rapidly. Another 25,000 people fled to the New Orleans Convention Center, which was less well equipped than the Superdome to deal with the emergency. Many stayed there for almost a week. Meanwhile, the National Guard asked FEMA to provide 700 buses to help with the evacuation, but only 100 were forthcoming. Some 700 school buses and municipal buses that might have been pressed into service to evacuate the city remained idle. Rescue, Recovery, and Rehabilitation. Rescue efforts immediately following the hurricane were blighted by a lack of focus. Local 958
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The town of Gulfport, Mississippi, was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. (FEMA)
and state agencies responded as quickly and efficiently as they could, but the federal government was slow to act. President Bush, vacationing in Texas, was criticized for not coming immediately to the shattered areas to inspect them and to set in motion federal rescue and relief initiatives. Instead, he honored speaking commitments in California and Arizona at a time when the hurricane had virtually obliterated large sections of America’s Gulf Coast. In New Orleans, most members of the city’s police force of 1,600 had themselves suffered severe personal losses. The homes of many police officers were destroyed and their family members drowned or injured. A total of 249 New Orleans police officers deserted. Some committed suicide. Nevertheless, contingents of tireless rescuers guided boats through flooded streets, picking up survivors wherever they found them. The water in many sections had completely flooded the second levels of houses, forcing residents to retreat into attics or onto rooftops. When federal aid finally arrived, its specific priorities were to save lives, to sustain lives, and to execute a comprehensive recovery effort. President Bush appointed former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to lead a private fund-raising program, much like the one 959
2005: Hurricane Katrina that the two had organized in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. The two men worked unceasingly to obtain outside assistance for the recovery effort. FEMA, faced with monumental challenges, evacuated many homeless survivors. Thousands were transported by bus to Houston, Texas, to be housed temporarily in the Astrodome. FEMA subsidized the transportation and placement for extended periods of many survivors in apartments or hotel rooms throughout the United States. The agency chartered cruise ships and docked them near New Orleans to provide housing for police officers and firefighters who had lost their homes and for workers who came to the area to assist in relief and recovery efforts. It also spent $400 million on mobile homes, but survivors could not be moved into them until they had been connected to electrical and water lines, which in many cases took weeks. Nine months after the hurricane, 18,000 mobile homes were parked unused in Hope, Arkansas, running up monthly storage charges exceeding $250,000. In order to give storm victims immediate relief, FEMA issued debit cards that holders could use without delay for purchases. Although most of these cards were obtained legally and used to buy necessities, some of them were procured fraudulently. Some claimants, using phony Social Security numbers and other bogus identification, obtained multiple debit cards and used them to pay for more than $1.4 billion in luxury vacations, season tickets to ballgames, pornography, and, in one case, sex change surgery. In June, 2006, the Department of Homeland Security sent to the Justice Department for possible prosecution the names of more than 7,000 people accused of committing fraud in connection with obtaining and using FEMA debit cards. Many criticized the botched management of the Katrina recovery effort, but federal agencies learned from their mistakes and performed more efficiently following Hurricanes Rita and Wilma, which struck shortly after Katrina. The Aftermath. It will take years to repair the damage that Hurricane Katrina left in its wake. Affected coastal areas are rebuilding. Gambling casinos on the Mississippi coast, lifted off their foundations and deposited far from where they initially stood, have been rebuilt and have resumed business. 960
2005: Hurricane Katrina New Orleans was slow to recover, although the French Quarter, being at the highest elevation in New Orleans, quickly resumed its activities. In June, 2006, the American Library Association held its annual convention in the city, and other such conventions were scheduled. Tourists soon began to trickle in. Many displaced residents were relocated in distant cities that offered housing and jobs to hurricane refugees. A number of these people opted to remain in their new locations, although large numbers vowed to return to the city that they loved. After the hurricane, many questioned the wisdom of rebuilding New Orleans. Its location makes it extremely vulnerable when hurricanes strike. The city occupies a huge natural declivity, a virtual tub, 6 feet below sea level and surrounded by water. Moreover, industrial and residential developments have destroyed wetlands that once flourished beside the Mississippi River. Throughout history, these wetlands flooded every year and were built up by the silt that the Mississippi River deposited during the annual floods. Now the wetlands are disappearing at the rate of about 20 square miles a year, decreasing the land available to absorb large quantities of water like those that accompanied Katrina. The case for restoring New Orleans is an emotional and ultimately political one to which the federal government has responded by giving its assurance that the city will be rebuilt. Whether it is reasonable to rebuild is beside the point. People who have spent their lives where their parents and grandparents lived understandably resist suggestions that they abandon such areas. A crucial step in the process of rebuilding New Orleans is the immediate restoration of a levee system that will prevent the sort of flooding that Hurricane Katrina caused. The Army Corps of Engineers is building new seawalls deeper and stronger than those that crumbled during Katrina. Housing has been a continuing problem in post-hurricane New Orleans. In June, 2006, FEMA announced that it would rebuild only 6 of the 10 major public housing projects that had been ravaged by the hurricane and that people who had lived in the buildings that were not to be restored would be given vouchers to provide $1,100 a month as rent subsidies until other arrangements could be found for them in a city with few available rentals. 961
2005: Hurricane Katrina A FEMA report to Congress in June, 2006, warned that most large cities in the United States are ill-equipped to deal with disasters such as Katrina. Time will tell whether New Orleans can withstand the ravages of another Category 4 or 5 hurricane. R. Baird Shuman For Further Information: Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York: William Morrow, 2006. Cooper, Christopher, and Robert Block. Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. New York: Times Books, 2006. Dyson, Michael Eric. Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2006. Horne, Jed. Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City. New York: Random House, 2006. Townsend, Frances Fragos. The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006. Van Heerden, Ivor, and Mike Bryan. The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina—the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist. New York: Viking Press, 2006.
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■ 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Earthquake Date: October 8, 2005 Place: Kashmir and North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan Magnitude: 7.6 Result: More than 90,000 dead; about 106,000 injured; 3.3 million homeless; $5 billion in damage
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t 8:50 a.m. Pakistan Standard Time, an earthquake occurred with an epicenter some 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. It proved to be the biggest natural disaster in the history of Pakistan and also affected the neighboring country of India. The area in which it occurred was extremely mountainous, with very poor lines of communication. It was also split by political boundaries. More significant, the area was overpopulated and very poor, with many makeshift buildings and few medical facilities. The rescue efforts were hampered by these factors, plus the sheer size of the operation needed. Although much international assistance was forthcoming, many areas had to wait weeks for help to arrive. The whole area was expected to need years to recover its infrastructures and to rehouse the displaced. Background. Three background factors governed the enormity of the devastation created by the Kashmir earthquake. The first is geological. The Indian subcontinent, including the countries of India and Pakistan, is separated tectonically from the rest of Asia. The South Asian plate was originally attached to Antarctica some 150 million years ago. It then started drifting northward, and 50 million years ago it slammed into the Eurasian plate, forcing the ground up to form the Himalaya mountain ranges, the highest on earth, including the Hindukush and Karakoram ranges. The plate has continued to move northward at the rate of more than an inch a year. The result is frequent earth tremors and occasional major earthquakes. The most notable recent quakes have been the Quetta earthquake of 1935 in the Sind Province and the 2001 Gujrat earthquake in India. In the more immediate area, a quake in 1974 with a 6.2 magni963
2005: The Kashmir earthquake tude killed 5,300 people. Although a quake of the magnitude of 7.6 is generally serious, the main factor with the Kasmir earthquake was the shallowness of its hypocenter, which was no more than 16 miles deep. The second background factor is geographical. The northern areas of Pakistan are extremely mountainous. For example, the Kaghan valley running north of Balakot, one of the towns most affected by the quake, is carved through the mountains, with cliffs up to 1,000 feet towering above it on either side. Even a moderately heavy storm will send landslides crashing over the few dirt roads that hug the mountainsides, requiring army bulldozers to cut a new road out. The area is desperately poor, subsistence living at best on the rocky terraced hillsides, but is seriously overpopulated. Pakistan is a Third World country, despite being a nuclear power, and so provision of medical and educational facilities is basic, often housed in buildings that are below standard. Almost no regulations exist for reinforced buildings in such areas. Third, the area is divided politically. In 1947 the country of Pakistan was formed out of India for the Indian subcontinent’s Muslim population. The mountainous northern region of Kashmir had a Hindu ruler but a largely Muslim population. The result was that the Vale of Kashmir was occupied by Indian forces, the mountainous west and north by Pakistani ones. A cease-fire line was created as a temporary measure, but efforts to resolve the territorial dispute have been thwarted. The dispute has led to several wars, an insurgency movement, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Pakistani part of Kashmir is known as Azad (Free) Kashmir. It is administered separately from Pakistan proper and is even poorer than the neighboring North-West Frontier Province. The epicenter of the quake lay inside the cease-fire line. Immediate Impact. The earthquake struck at around 9 a.m. Saturday morning. Saturday is a normal working day, so the schools were full of children. However, it was also during the month of fasting, Ramadan, which meant than many people had gotten up before dawn to eat and then gone back to bed for a while. The epicenter was located near the village of Garhi Habibullah, on the border of Azad Kashmir and the North-West Frontier Province, with the quake being felt as far afield as Kabul in Afghanistan, New Delhi in India, and Karachi on the coast of Pakistan. 964
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To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book
The Kashmir earthquake caused a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad to collapse. (AP/Wide World Photos)
The immediate effect of the quake was the collapse of many buildings, landslides, and the displacement of rocks and boulders. There were even reports of new waterfalls appearing in the high mountain valleys. A block of flats collapsed in Islamabad, causing immediate panic, and there were similar scenes in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city. Over the rest of the day, 147 secondary shocks were recorded, 28 with a magnitude between 5 and 6. Also, devastating hail and rainstorms continued throughout that day and into the next. Reports quickly came in of schools and hospitals collapsing, roads blocked, and communications down. It was immediately obvious that 965
2005: The Kashmir earthquake the devastation was enormous, though no one had any idea how widespread it was. What was also obvious in the light of the scope was the inadequacy of the Pakistani government’s equipment in the more remote areas. A state of emergency was declared in all the hospitals of Islamabad and its twin city of Rawalpindi, and the army and emergency services were put on full alert. The first pictures from the region showed the collapsed apartment block in Islamabad and efforts being made to rescue those trapped inside. First estimates were 18,000 killed and 45,000 injured in an area where close to 3 million people lived. The most affected areas appeared to be around Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir; Balakot, at the entrance to the Kaghan Valley; and the Mansehra district. Efforts to reach those places, however, were hampered by blocked roads. Muzaffarabad was reached only late Sunday afternoon by a handful of trucks. It was estimated that 60 to 70 percent of all buildings had collapsed in these places. In Garhi Habibullah, both boys’ and girls’ high schools had collapsed, crushing students and teachers, as had the hospital. Because of the aftershocks, few people dared to stay in the remaining homes or any other building, preferring to stay out in the pouring rain. On the Indian side of Kashmir, there was much damage, but not on the scale of that on the Pakistani side. The army took over searchand-rescue operations, the usual practice in both countries, with both armies being well-equipped and well-trained. First estimates put the dead in India at 600. Damage was also reported as far afield as Delhi and Amritsar, and in Gujrat, the site of a major earthquake in 2001, there was panic. Relief Efforts. The next day, Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf appealed to the international community for aid. The immediate need was for search-and-rescue teams, heavy-lifting helicopters, medical supplies, tents, and blankets. Pakistan possessed only 34 suitable helicopters. Many countries and groups made immediate pledges, including the World Bank, the United States, the European Union, China, and Russia. By contrast, the Indian government claimed that it needed no assistance and even offered some to its traditional enemy, Pakistan. Various search-and-rescue teams arrived very quickly. They were flown by helicopter to the worst affected ar966
2005: The Kashmir earthquake eas and pulled people out of the rubble for a number of days. The real challenge, however, was to transport the injured by helicopter to the designated hospitals and to ferry in supplies of food and shelter. In fact, there were never enough helicopters at any time. In addition, the weather conditions were poor and unrelenting, hampering much of this effort. Where aid did arrive, scenes were often chaotic, as people were desperate to get what they could. By October 12, Pakistan had received $350 million in pledges in answer to the president’s appeal and also that of the U.N. aid chief, Nils Egland. Some 20,000 troops had been deployed. U.S. aid slowly began to trickle, and U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited. The U.S. government felt it particularly necessary to help, as Pakistan was a vital partner in its war against al-Qaeda. President George W. Bush was also aware of criticism over his slow response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans one month before the Kashmir earthquake. Despite heroic efforts by those on the ground, aid was slow to get through. The voluntary aid agencies had been drained by such disasters as the Indian Ocean tsunami just 10 months before and by ongoing emergencies in Africa. Even during the rescue operation in Kashmir, another hurricane hit Central America. Muslim organizations around the world responded, many starting their own makeshift operations, raising aid and money on a private basis, especially among immigrants in Europe and the United States who still had family in the affected area. Some smaller charities and missions deployed small teams of personnel in the country to help. Always, however, the greatest problem was access to the worst affected areas. In Azad Kashmir, members of the insurgency were often the only ones who could bring help and rescue. Further Impact. Aftershocks continued the rest of October, 2005, those of magnitude 4 or above totaling nearly 1,000, mainly to the northwest of the original epicenter. After a short time, it became clear that many people were dying of injuries that had been left untreated. As more and more remote areas were reached, the scale of this problem became even more evident. Also starvation was becoming a threat, as were the increasingly cold nights in the mountains, where elevations up to 20,000 feet were not uncommon and the winter snows were due to begin soon. Anger against perceived govern967
2005: The Kashmir earthquake ment inadequacies began to rise on both sides of the border in those who had received little or no aid. By now, estimates of dead were climbing to 38,000, 42,000, and then 47,000, with similar numbers for the injured, with half of those affected being children. These numbers continued to climb over the next few months. The number of homeless stayed at around the 2 million mark. By contrast, the number of injured who were evacuated was put at 6,000 when the total injured was being estimated at 52,000. In Muzaffarabad, a French team of doctors were operating a 6-bed field hospital, an indication of the desperate shortage of medical facilities. In all, it was estimated that 26 hospitals and 600 health clinics had been destroyed. Amputations for gangrenous limbs became increasingly common, as were cases of paralysis. By November, a pneumonia epidemic threatened more lives. Although Pakistan was the main producer of tents worldwide, the need for additional winterised tents was significant, with 350,000 more tents required. The Pakistan government started plans for refugee camps along the flatter valleys, where people could be more easily reached during the winter. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz appealed to the mountain people to come to the camps, but they were reluctant, fearing the sense of enclosure in such camps and worrying that their land would be stolen. Fortunately, the winter did delay somewhat and people came to the camps, only to live a miserable existence there. Possibly up to 1,000 villages had been destroyed. On the Indian side, 30,000 families had been displaced, though the number of dead and injured remained surprisingly low at 1,360 and 6,266, respectively. Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh visited the area and promised a grant of $2,255 to every family that had suffered death or homelessness. Tents, however, were in as short a supply as over the border, with only 13,000 available out of the 30,000 needed. One hoped-for effect, a cessation of hostilities between Indian forces and the insurgents, did not happen, and although the ceasefire line was opened briefly, mainly for relief purposes, the overall political tension remained high. In fact, during the relief operations, a female suicide bomber blew herself up near Indian troops and terrorists attacked government buildings in New Delhi. 968
2005: The Kashmir earthquake At the international level, the Pakistani government claimed that money pledged to it came too little and too late. In any case, the scale of the earthquake was unprecedented, and it came in a year of quite unprecedented disasters. David Barratt For Further Information: Ali, M. M. “With Relief Slow to Arrive, Earthquake Death Toll Continues to Rise in Kashmir.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 25, no. 1 (January 1, 2006): 44. The New York Times, October, 9-29, 2005. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Pakistan Earthquake: International Response and Impact on U.S. Foreign Policies and Programs. 109th Congress, 1st session, 2005. Senate Report 109-41. Walton, Frances. “One Nurse Can Make a Big Difference.” Australian Nursing Journal 14, no. 2 (August 1, 2006): 15.
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■ 2006: The Leyte mudslide Mudslide Date: February 17, 2006 Place: Southern Leyte, the Philippines Result: More than 200 confirmed dead, 1,800 missing and presumed dead; 297 of 300 houses in village of Barangay Guinsaugon destroyed
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he tiny village of Saint Bernard in the southern reaches of the Philippine island of Leyte was just coming to life around 9 a.m. on Friday, February 17, 2006. The 246 students in the local school and their 7 teachers had eaten their breakfasts, come to school, and were beginning their daily lessons. About 100 visitors had arrived in the village for a women’s group meeting. Suddenly, the entire town was awash in mud as the mountain behind it collapsed. In some places, the mud reached depths exceeding 30 feet (more than 9 meters) and completely covered an area of 0.5 square mile (1 square kilometer). The mudslide obliterated everything in its path almost instantly. A slimy muck flowed relentlessly over some 15 other villages near Saint Bernard, completely covering buildings such as Saint Bernard’s school, from which just one student and one teacher emerged alive. Everyone else in the school was sucked into the roaring river of roiling mud that completely consumed the village. A police officer watched helplessly as the school, where his wife taught and four of his children were students, disappeared beneath a sea of mud, wiping out his immediate family. In the neighboring village of Barangay Guinsaugon, just 3 of the town’s 300 houses survived the onslaught. Those who were not pulled into the muddy maelstrom watched helplessly as people, pets, livestock, and the town’s structures—houses, schools, shops, and official buildings—vanished before their eyes. The irresistible force of the mudflow precluded the possibility of immediate rescue by those who had in some miraculous way escaped the unforgiving vortex of the mudslide. 970
2006: The Leyte mudslide Southern Leyte’s History of Mudslides. The mudslide of 2006 was preceded by a number of similar disasters that occurred in the quarter century before this devastating event. In 1991, Ormoc City, on the western coast of Leyte, suffered floods and landslides triggered by a tropical storm that dumped unprecedented rainfall upon the countryside. More than 6,000 people died in these floods and mudslides. In December, 2003, an additional 133 people died in floods and in the ensuing mudslides in San Francisco in southern Leyte, an area close to where the 2006 mudslide occurred. In December, 2004, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo suspended logging operations in geohazardous areas of the Philippines following mudslides that took the lives of 640 Filipinos. Only 5 days before the mudslide of February 17, 7 road workers died when a landslide engulfed them in Sogod, a town close to Barangay Guinsaugon. The Philippines’s Bureau of Mines and Geosciences pointed out the danger areas in a geohazard mapping project that specifically pinpointed the general area in which the February 17 disaster took place. This report, however, did not contain sufficient detailed information about the towns that were under the greatest threat. As recently as 2003, the Philippine government declared more than 80 percent of Leyte to be subject to geological hazards. In the Philippines, which have long been subjected to the dangers of floods, earthquakes, landslides, cyclones, and other natural catastrophes, it is estimated that more than 34,000 people perished in natural disasters between 1970 and 2000. Between 1990 and 2000, such events are estimated to have disrupted the lives of 35 million people, killing or injuring many. Although people could have been evacuated from the villages overwhelmed during the February 17 disaster, most of the impoverished villagers could not conceive of how great and imminent the danger of annihilation was. Many of them had no place to which they could flee. Most were reluctant to leave the places in which they earned their scant livings. During the weeks of February 6 and 13, when the villages near Barangay Guinsaugon had four times the amount of rainfall considered normal for the area in that season, some residents did leave. Not 971
2006: The Leyte mudslide realizing fully how unstable the saturated soil had become, however, many of them ended their evacuation and returned to their homes on February 15 or 16, encouraged because the rains had subsided and the sun had broken through. Some of these villages had ongoing activities planned for the upcoming weekend. The people who lived in them were unwilling to participate in an evacuation that would disrupt their plans. Some Causes of the Mudslide. Several major factors contributed to the disastrous mudslide in southern Leyte on February 17, 2006. Climate change was in part responsible. Unusually heavy rainfalls in the weeks preceding the mudslide—20 inches in one month— were partially the result of La Niña, a climatic condition created by higher-than-usual surface temperatures in the surrounding oceans. The exceptional rainfall accompanying La Niña destabilized the soil significantly. Overpopulation was another salient factor in creating conditions that made a mudslide likely. Related to this factor is the major deforestation that resulted from clearing land for human occupancy as populations expanded sharply. Leyte is mountainous and is one of the most heavily forested areas in the Philippines, but many of its forests have been sacrificed as residential communities replace forested areas to accommodate the country’s burgeoning population. Another factor related to deforestation is the replacement of native, deep-rooted trees with coconut palms, whose roots are relatively shallow. Trees have provided the area’s commercial interests with a ready source of revenue both through selling the timber recovered from the deep-rooted trees that were cut down and through the sale of coconuts, a significant cash crop in the area. Whereas the native trees with their deep roots served to stabilize the soil, the replacement trees afforded little such protection. Over and above these contributory factors was another one that dates back several decades to the time when considerable mining was done on Leyte. The earth beneath the island is honeycombed with mine shafts and tunnels that were abandoned decades earlier. These tunnels were subject to collapse when the soil became oversaturated. The mud had already begun to flow when, on the morning of February 17, the affected area was struck by an earthquake so minor that under normal circumstances it would hardly have been noticed by 972
2006: The Leyte mudslide the average person. It had a magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale, which is generally considered inconsequential. Given the instability of the waterlogged soil, however, this almost imperceptible tremor was sufficient to collapse abandoned mine shafts, to cause saturated mountains to crumble, and to exacerbate the mudslide that had already begun to exact its fearsome toll. The Rescue Effort. Initial rescue efforts were hampered in many places because there were more victims than survivors. The depth of the mud flow was so great that there was little hope of penetrating it. Attempts to do so were discouraged because those trapped by the mud could not have survived beneath it. The instability of the soil was such that rescue attempts presented extreme hazards to anyone undertaking them. A week before this disaster, when 7 road workers died in a landslide in nearby Sogod, only 3 bodies were retrieved because of the instability of the earth where they had been lost. Now, with thousands of people missing and with many of the survivors suffering physical injury and severe emotional stress, immediate rescue attempts proved futile. As soon as she learned of the tragedy in southern Leyte, President Arroyo sent military rescue teams and ships from the Philippine coast guard and navy to the area to mount an immediate rescue effort. This effort, however, was impeded by a number of factors: roads blocked by huge boulders, washed out bridges, and deep mud that could swallow up rescuers in an instant. Rescuers also lacked the heavy earth-moving equipment that would possibly have facilitated their efforts, although the mud was so deep and the earth so unstable that heavy equipment might simply have sunk into the quagmire that covered the lost villages. Much of the world offered the Philippines assistance. Malaysia sent a search and rescue team of sixty people to the area. A Spanish organization, Unidad Canina de Rescate y Salvamento, sent a specialized team of 6 rescuers with 5 trained sniffer dogs to assist in the rescue operation. New Zealand pledged $133,000 toward the rescue effort. South Korea pledged $1 million in aid. Japan sent 27 million pesos to be used in the rescue effort, but only 3 million ever reached the affected area, with the remainder being lost, presumably, to governmental graft. 973
2006: The Leyte mudslide By nightfall on February 17, the Philippine Red Cross reported that 53 people had been rescued, but close to 2,000 remained unaccounted for. Rescue efforts had to be suspended when night fell because of a lack of lighting and because of the imminent danger of flash floods and further mudslides. Relief Efforts. When the mudslide began, the U.S. Navy had two vessels, the USS Essex and the USS Harper’s Ferry, nearby. These ships were diverted immediately to the stricken area. About 6,000 U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops that were in the Philippines to participate in a bilateral training exercise were also pressed into assisting in the relief effort. The United States distributed $100,000 worth of disaster equipment to the Philippine Red Cross. It followed this contribution with more than half a million dollars that USAID provided for the purchase of food, blankets, mosquito netting, temporary shelters, medical supplies, and water purification tablets and equipment. Relief also came in the form of contributions from China (about $1 million in cash and materials), Taiwan ($100,000 as well as enough medicine to treat 3,000 people for six weeks), Thailand ($100,000), Australia (about $740,000), and a number of other countries. The United States flew relief planes into the area with emergency trauma kits, flashlights, medicine, rubber boots, and clothing to provide immediate assistance. The Aftermath. Recovering from a disaster such as the Leyte mudslide is a discouraging process. The root causes of such a disaster are, to a large extent, outside human and governmental control. Such natural causes as La Niña, unusually heavy rainfall, and earthquakes are not preventable. Contributing factors such as heavy mining in a mudslide area, deforestation, and rapidly expanding populations have taken place over a long enough period that undoing their catastrophic results seems all but impossible. When a disaster such as the mudslide in southern Leyte strikes, the survivors, most of whom are rooted in the area, are usually reluctant to relocate. They tend to rebuild and trust that such disasters will not recur, although the odds do not support this optimistic view. Only totalitarian governments can forcibly relocate large populations, which would seem a possible remedy for the problems facing 974
2006: The Leyte mudslide southern Leyte. In a democracy such as the Philippines, however, massive mandatory relocation is a virtual impossibility. The government, therefore, has limited options. It can attempt to educate people to the natural dangers of geohazardous areas, but even those who are made aware of such dangers tend to become apathetic over time. Nevertheless, the government can engage in massive reforestation efforts, which have been launched in the Philippines and should yield some long-term benefits. It can also support programs that offer opportunities for young people to move away from dangerous areas, although family considerations often make such intervention ineffective. R. Baird Shuman For Further Information: Asio, Victor B., and Marlito Jose M. Bande. “Innovative CommunityLed Sustainable Forest Resource Conservation and Management in Baybay, Leyte, the Philippines.” In Innovative Communities: People-Centred Approaches to Environmental Management in the AsiaPacific Region, edited by Jerry Velasquez. New York: United Nations University Press, 2005. De Souza, Roger-Mark. “Is the Catastrophic Mudslide in the Philippines Just Another Disaster Story?” Population Reference Bureau. http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/ ContentManagement/ ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=13677. “Mudslides in Philippines; Merciless Heat and Drought in Africa; Greenland Glaciers Melting: Israel and Hamas.” The America’s Intelligence Wire, February 17, 2006. “Philippine President Suspends Logging After Storms Unleash Mudslides That Kill 640.” The America’s Intelligence Wire, December 5, 2004.
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■ Glossary Acid rain: Rain with higher levels of acidity than normal; the source of the high levels of acidity is polluted air. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS): A progressive loss of immune function and susceptibility to secondary infections that arises from chronic infection with HIV. African sleeping sickness: An infectious disease transmitted through the bite of a tsetse fly with symptoms of fever, lymph node swelling, fatigue, and possibly coma and death. Aftershock: A minor shock following the main tremor of an earthquake. AIDS. See Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) Airship: A lighter-than-air aircraft that uses hydrogen for buoyancy. Alluvium: Sediment deposited by flowing water. Alpine glacier: A small, elongate, usually tongue-shaped glacier commonly occupying a preexisting valley in a mountain range. Amplitude: Wave height. Angle of repose: The maximum angle of steepness that a pile of loose material such as sand or rock can assume and remain stable; the angle varies with the size, shape, moisture, and angularity of the material. Anthrax: An infectious disease caused by a bacterium, with symptoms of external nodules or lesions in the lungs. Antibiotic: Any substance that destroys or inhibits the growth of microorganisms, especially bacteria. Antibody: A protein substance produced by white blood cells in response to an antigen; combats bacterial, viral, chemical, or other invasive agents in the body and provides immunity against diseasecausing microorganisms. Aquifer: A water-bearing bed of rock, sand, or gravel, capable of yielding substantial quantities of water to wells or springs. Arson: The willful or malicious burning of property. Ash: Fine-grained pyroclastic material less than 2 millimeters in diameter, ejected from an erupting volcano. Asteroid: A small, rocky body in orbit around the sun; a minor planet. Asteroid belt: The region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, containing the majority of asteroids. 976
Glossary Atmosphere: The five clearly defined regions composed of layers of gases and mixtures of gases, water vapor, and solid and liquid particles, extending up to 483 kilometers above the earth. Atoll: A tropical island on which a massive coral reef, often ringlike, generally rests on a volcanic base. Avalanche: Any large mass of snow, ice, rock, soil, or a mixture of these materials that falls, slides, or flows rapidly downslope; velocities may reach in excess of 500 kilometers per hour. Bacteria: Microscopic single-celled organisms that multiply by means of simple division; bacteria are found everywhere and most are beneficial, with only a few species causing disease. Base surge: The initial volcanic blast of an ash flow. Basin: A regionally depressed structure in which sediments accumulate. Bathymetry: The measurement of water depth at various places in a body of water. Beaufort scale: A scale from 0 to 12 that measures wind velocity. Blizzard: A long, severe snowstorm. Body wave: A seismic wave that propagates interior to a body; there are two kinds—P waves and S waves—that travel through the earth, reflecting and refracting off of the several layered boundaries within the earth. Bore: A nearly vertical advancing wall of water that may be produced by tides, a tsunami, or a seiche. Brisance: The shattering or crushing effect of an explosive. Brushfire: A wildfire. Bubo: An inflammatory swelling of a lymph gland. Bubonic plague: A form of plague characterized by the sudden onset of fever, chills, weakness, headache, and buboes in the groin, armpits, or neck. Caldera: A large, flat-floored volcanic depression that is formed on top of a large, shallow magma chamber during the eruption or withdrawal of magma; calderas are usually tens of kilometers across and can be a kilometer or more in depth. Calve: To separate a piece from an ice mass. Cannibalism: The eating of human flesh by human beings. 977
Glossary CD4 cell: A type of white blood cell (helper T cell) that helps other immune cells work together to fight a variety of diseases. Cholera: A disease marked by severe gastrointestinal symptoms. Cinder cone: A small volcano composed of cinder or lumps of lava containing many gas bubbles, or vesicles; often the early stage of a stratovolcano. Cirque: A steep-sided, gentle-floored, semicircular hollow produced by erosion at the head of a glacier high on a mountain peak. Coal: Dark brown to black rock formed by heat and compression from the accumulation of plant material in swampy environments. Cold front: The contact between two air masses when a bulge of cold, polar air surges southward into regions of warmer air. Combustion: An exothermic, self-sustaining, chemical reaction usually involving the oxidation of a fuel by oxygen in the atmosphere and the emission of heat, light, and mechanical energy, such as sound. Comet: A solar system body, usually in an elongated and randomly oriented orbit, composed of rocky and icy materials that form a flowing head and extended tail when the body nears the sun. Comet nucleus: The central core of a comet, composed of frozen gases and dust; the source of all cometary activity. Conduction: Heat transfer between two bodies in direct contact with each other. Cone: The hill or mountain, more or less conical, surrounding a volcanic vent and created by its ejecta; it is normally surmounted by a crater. Conflagration: A fire that spreads from building to building through flame spread over some distance, often a portion of a city or a town. Continental glacier or ice sheet: A glacier of considerable thickness that completely covers a large part of a continent, obscuring the relief of the underlying surface. Convection: Heat transfer within a fluid. Cordillera: A long, elevated mountain chain marked by a valley-andridge structure. Core: The spherical, mostly liquid mass located 2,900 kilometers below the earth’s surface; a central, solid part is known as the inner core. 978
Glossary Couloir: A mountain-side gorge. Crater: The circular depression atop a volcanic cone or formed by meteoritic impact. Creep: The slow, more or less continuous downslope movement of earth material. Crust: The outermost layer of the earth; the continental crust, composed of dominantly silicon-rich igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks, and sedimentary rocks, is between 30 and 40 kilometers thick, while the oceanic crust, composed of magnesium- and ironrich rocks such as basalt, is merely 5 kilometers thick. Cwm: A cirque. Cyclone: A major tropical storm that originates in the Indian Ocean. Debris flow: A flowing mass consisting of water and a high concentration of sediment with a wide range of size, from fine muds to coarse gravels. Deflagration: An explosive reaction that spreads outward as burning materials ignite the materials next to them at a rate slower than the speed of sound. Deforestation: The process of clearing forests. Delta: A deposit of sediment, often triangular, formed at a river mouth where the wave action of the sea is low. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA): A protein found in the nucleus of a cell comprising chromosomes that contain the genetic instructions of an organism. Detonation: An explosive reaction in which a shock wave progressively combusts materials by compressing them when the rate is faster than the speed of sound. Dew point: The temperature at which a vapor begins to condense. Dike: A tabular igneous rock body that cuts across the fabric of the solid rocks. Dilatancy: An increase in volume as a result of rock forming cracks by expansion, pressure, or agitation. Diphtheria: A highly contagious bacterial infection that usually affects the respiratory system. DNA. See Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) Doppler radar: A radar system that measures velocity (as of wind). Downburst: A downward outflowing of air and the associated wind 979
Glossary shear from a thunderstorm that is especially hazardous to aircraft. Downdraft: A downward current of air or gas. Drainage basin: The land area that contributes water to a particular stream; the edge of such a basin is a drainage divide. Drought: An extended period of below-normal precipitation that is sufficiently long and severe that crops fail and normal water demand cannot be met. Dust Bowl: The period from 1932 to 1938 in the U.S. Midwest and Southeast during which drought conditions caused much dust to form and drift. Dust devil: A rotating column of rising air, made visible by the dust it contains; smaller and less destructive than a tornado, it has winds of less than 60 kilometers per hour. Dust storm: The result of wind erosion, desertification, and physical deterioration of the soil caused by persistent or temporary lack of rainfall and wind gusts. Earthquake: A sudden release of strain energy in a fault zone as a result of violent motion of a part of the earth along the fault. Ebola virus: A disease in which the patient experiences fever, muscle pain, blood clots in vital organs, hemorrhaging, shock, kidney failure, and often death. Ejecta: The material ejected from the crater made by a meteoric impact; also, material thrown out of a volcano during eruption. El Niño: Part of a gigantic meteorological system called the Southern Oscillation that links the ocean and atmosphere in the Pacific, causing periodic changes in climate. Elastic waves: Waves that travel through a material because of its ability to recover from an instantaneous elastic deformation. Encephalitis: Inflammation of the brain. Enzootic: An infection that is present in an animal community at all times but manifests itself only in a small fraction of instances. Ephemeral stream: A river or stream that flows briefly in response to nearby rainfall; such streams are common in arid and semiarid regions. Epicenter: The point on the earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake. 980
Glossary Epidemic: A disease that affects a large human population. Epidemiology: The medical field that studies the distribution of disease among human populations, as well as the factors responsible for this distribution. Epizootic: An outbreak of disease in which many animals become infected at the same time. Ergotism: A disease of the central nervous system caused by ingesting the alkaloids (one of which is LSD) of the ergot fungus, Claviceps purpurea, which infects rye grain; symptoms include numbness of the extremities, vomiting and diarrhea, dizziness, and delusions and convulsions usually ending in a painful death. Erosion: The removal of weathered rock and mineral fragments and grains from an area by the action of wind, ice, gravity, or running water. Eruption: Volcanic activity of such force as to propel significant amounts of magmatic products over the rim of the crater. Evaporite: A rock largely composed of minerals that have precipitated upon evaporation of seawater or lake water. Evapotranspiration: The movement of water from the soil to the atmosphere in response to heat, combining transpiration in plants and evaporation. Exothermic reaction: A reaction in which the new substances produced have less energy than the original substances. Explosion: Combustion that expands so quickly that the fuel volume cannot shed energy rapidly enough to remain stable. Extinction: The disappearance of a species or large group of animals or plants. Extrusion: The emission of magma or lava and the rock so formed onto the earth’s surface. Extrusive rock: Igneous rock that has been erupted onto the surface of the earth. Eye: The calm central region of a hurricane, composed of a tunnel with strong sides. Eyewall: The area surrounding the eye, or center, of a hurricane. Famine: A lack of access to food, the cause of which can be a natural disaster, such as a drought, or a situation created by humans, such as a civil war. 981
Glossary Fault: A fracture or system of fractures across which relative movement of rock bodies has occurred. Fault drag: The bending of rocks adjacent to a fault. Fault slip: The direction and amount of relative movement between the two blocks of rock separated by a fault. Fifty-year-flood: A hypothetical flood whose severity is such that it would occur on average only once in a period of fifty years, which equates to a 2 percent probability each year. Fire: The process of combustion. Fireball: A very large and bright meteor that often explodes with fragments falling to the ground as meteorites; sometimes called a bolide. Firebrand: A piece of burning material that is carried by convective forces, such as wind, from one location to another. Firestorm: A large, usually stationary fire characterized by very high temperatures, in which the central column of rising, heated air induces strong inward winds that supply oxygen to the fire. Flash floods: Floods that begin very quickly and last only a short time. Flash point: The minimum temperature at which vapors above a volatile substance ignite in air when exposed to flame. Flood: The result of a river overflowing its banks and spreading out over the bordering floodplain; defined in terms of the volume of water moving past a given point in the stream channel per unit of time (cubic feet per second). Floodplain: The relatively flat valley floor on either side of a river which may be partly or wholly occupied by water during a flood. Flow rate: The amount of water that passes a reference point in a specific amount of time, measured in liters per second. Flu. See Influenza Fluvial: Of or related to streams and their actions. Focus: The region within the earth from which earthquake waves emanate; also called the hypocenter. Foehn: A warm, dry wind blowing in the valleys of a mountain. Fog: Dense water vapor, reducing visibility to less than 0.6 mile (l kilometer), that occurs when the temperature of any surface falls below the dew point of the air directly above it. Freeze: The occurrence of abnormally low temperatures for an extended period of time over a region. 982
Glossary Fresh water: Water with less than 0.2 percent dissolved salts, such as is found in most streams, rivers, and lakes. Front: The boundary between two dissimilar air masses. Fuel: A material that will burn. Fujita scale: A rating scale that examines structural damage to assess the wind speed of a tornado. Fumarole: A vent that emits only gases. Glacier: An accumulation of ice that flows viscously as a result of its own weight; a glacier forms when snowfall accumulates and recrystallizes into a granular snow (firn, or névé), which becomes compacted and converted into solid, interlocking glacial ice. Graben: A roughly symmetrical crustal depression formed by the lowering of a crustal block between two normal faults that slope toward each other. Graupel: Soft hail. Groundwater: Water that is located beneath the surface of the earth in interconnected pores. Hail: Precipitation consisting of layers of ice and snow in the form of small balls. Harmonic tremor: A movement or shaking of the ground accompanying volcanic eruptions. Hawaiian eruption: A low intensity volcanic eruption (VEI values of 0 or 1) characterized by a calm outpouring of low viscosity, low silicon lava. Headwater: The source of a stream. Heat Index: A scale that measures how hot it feels when the relative humidity is factored into the actual air temperature. Heat wave: The occurrence of abnormally high air temperatures for an extended period of time over a region, destroying crops, damaging infrastructures, and sometimes causing both animal and human deaths. HIV. See Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) Host: A living animal or plant giving lodgment to a parasite. Hot spot: A zone of hot, upwelling rock that is rooted in the earth’s upper mantle; as plates of the earth’s crust and lithosphere glide over a mantle plume, a trail of hot spot volcanoes is formed and 983
Glossary the earth’s surface bulges upward in a dome several hundred kilometers wide by 1 kilometer high. Also called a mantle plume. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV): A retrovirus that makes the immune system weak by destroying CD4 cells, causing the body to be susceptible to infection; the virus that causes AIDS. Hundred-year-flood: A hypothetical flood whose severity is such that it would occur on average only once in a period of one hundred years, which equates to a 1 percent probability each year. Hurricane: A severe tropical storm with winds exceeding 119 kilometers per hour that originates in tropical regions; the term “hurricane” is sometimes used only for storms originating in the Atlantic Ocean, with “typhoon” used for those originating in the Pacific Ocean and “cyclone” used for those originating in the Indian Ocean. Hydrocarbon: An organic compound composed of carbon and hydrogen often occurring in petroleum, natural gas, coal, and bitumens. Hyperthermia: Excessively high body temperature. Hypocenter: The central underground location of an earth tremor; also called the focus. Hypothermia: Excessively low body temperature. Ice storm: Rain falling from an above-freezing layer of upper air to a layer of below-freezing air on or near the earth’s surface, coating everything with a layer of ice called glaze. Iceberg: An ice mass, originating from a glacier, that typically floats in an ocean. Ignimbrite: An igneous rock deposited from a hot, mobile, groundhugging cloud of ash and pumice. Immune system: The body system that is responsible for fighting off infectious disease. Impact crater: A depression, usually circular, in a planetary surface, caused by the high-speed impact of rocky debris or comet nuclei. Influenza: Any one of a group of serious respiratory disease caused by viruses. Intensity: An arbitrary measure of an earthquake’s effect on people and buildings, based on the modified Mercalli scale. Island arc: A curved chain of volcanic islands, generally located a few 984
Glossary hundred kilometers from a trench where active subduction of one oceanic plate under another is occurring. Jet stream: A narrow current of high-speed winds in the upper atmosphere. K/T boundary: The thin clay layer that lies between the rocks of the Cretaceous geological period and the rocks of the following Tertiary period. La Niña: The part of the Southern Oscillation that brings cold water to the South American coasts, which makes easterly trade winds stronger, the waters of the Pacific off South America colder, and ocean temperatures in the western equatorial Pacific warmer than normal. Lahar: A mudflow composed chiefly of volcanic debris on the flanks of a volcano. Landslide: A general term that applies to any downslope movement of materials; landslides include avalanches, earthflows, mudflows, rockfalls, and slumps. Lava: The fluid rock issued from a volcano or fissure and the solidified rock it forms when it cools. Lava tube: A cavern structure formed by the draining out of liquid lava in a pahoehoe (basaltic rock) flow. Legionnaires’ disease: An acute bacterial pneumonia caused by a bacterial infection, with symptoms of fever, chills, and muscle pain; also called legionellosis. Levee: A dikelike structure, usually made of compacted earth and reinforced with other materials, that is designed to contain the stream flow in its natural channel. Lightning: A high-voltage electrical spark which occurs most often when a cloud attempts to balance the differences between positive and negative charges within itself. Limestone: A common sedimentary rock containing the mineral calcite; the calcite originated from fossil shells of marine plants and animals or by precipitation directly from seawater. Liquefaction: The loss in cohesiveness of water-saturated soil as a result of ground shaking caused by an earthquake. 985
Glossary Low: An area of low barometric pressure. Lymphocyte: A white blood cell that produces antibodies. Macrophage: A tissue cell that protects the body from infection. Magma: Molten silicate liquid plus any crystals, rock inclusions, or gases trapped therein. Magnitude: A measure of the amount of energy released by an earthquake, based on the relation between the logarithm of ground motion at the detecting instrument and its distance from the epicenter. Mantle: The portion of the earth’s interior extending from about 60 kilometers in depth to 2,900 kilometers; it is composed of relatively high-density minerals that consist primarily of silicates. Mantle plume: Hot spot. Marine: Referring to a seawater, ocean environment. Meteor: A bright streak of light in the sky, sometimes called a shooting star, produced by a meteoroid entering the earth’s atmosphere at high speed and heating to incandescence. Meteor shower: A meteor display caused by comet dust particles burning up in the upper atmosphere during the annual passage of earth through a cometary wake or debris field. Meteoric water: Surface water that infiltrates porous and fractured crustal rocks; the same as groundwater. Meteorite: The remnant of an interplanetary body that survives a fall through the earth’s atmosphere and reaches the ground. Meteoroid: A natural, solid object traveling through interplanetary space. Meteorology: The study of weather. Modified Mercalli scale: A means of calculating the intensity of shaking at the surface of the earth. Monsoon: A seasonal pattern of wind at boundaries between warm ocean bodies and landmasses. Mudflow: Both the process and the landform characterized by very fluid movement of fine-grained soil with a high (sometimes more than 50 percent) water content. Nuée ardente: A hot cloud of rock fragments, ash, and gases that suddenly and explosively erupt from some volcanoes and flow rapidly down their slopes. 986
Glossary Orography: A branch of physical geography that deals with mountains. Oxidant: A substance that combines another substance with oxygen. Oxidation: A chemical reaction in which an oxidizing agent and a reducing agent combine to form a product with less energy than the original materials. Ozone: A gas containing three atoms of oxygen; it is highly concentrated in a zone of the stratosphere. P wave: A type of seismic wave generated at the focus of an earthquake, traveling 6-8 kilometers per second, with a push-pull vibratory motion parallel to the direction of propagation; P stands for “primary,” as P waves are the fastest and first to arrive at a seismic station. Palmer Drought Index (PDI): Defines drought as the period of time, generally measured in months or years, when the actual moisture supply at a specified location is always below the climatically anticipated or appropriate supply of moisture. Pandemic: A disease occurring over a wide geographic area. PDI. See Palmer Drought Index (PDI) Peléan eruption: A volcanic eruption often considered a subclass of Vulcanian eruption, in which nuées ardentes often cause the collapse or explosion of a volcanic dome sitting over the vent. Photochemical smog: Smog caused by the action of solar ultraviolet radiation on an atmosphere polluted with hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides from automobile exhaust. Phreatic eruption: An eruption in which water plays a major role; also called hydrovolcanic. Plague: An infection transmitted by fleas, which may prove fatal if left untreated. Plate tectonics: The theory that the outer surface of the earth consists of large moving plates that interact to produce seismic, volcanic, and orogenic activity. Plinian eruption: The most explosive and rare of the volcanic eruptions of historic record, having VEI values of 4 to 6; they spew an abundance of ash into the stratosphere. Pneumonic plague: A form of plague, limited to humans, which directly transmits the infection via infected aerosol droplets from a person with a lung infection. 987
Glossary Point-release avalanche: A loose snow avalanche caused by a cohesionless snow layer resting on a slope steeper than its angle of repose. Poliomyelitis: A viral illness that may cause meningitis and permanent paralysis; it can be prevented through immunization. Pollution: A condition in which air, soil, or water contains substances that make it hazardous for human use. Precipice: A steep or overhanging area of earth or rock. Primary explosives: Fuels that explode when ignited by a nonexplosive source. Pumice: A vesicular glassy rock commonly having the composition of rhyolite; a common constituent of silica-rich explosive volcanic eruptions. Pyroclastic fall: The settling of debris under the influence of gravity from an explosively generated plume of material. Pyroclastic flow: A highly heated mixture of volcanic gases and ash that travels down the flanks of a volcano. Pyroclastic rocks: Rocks formed in the process of volcanic ejection and composed of fragments of ash, rock, and glass. Pyrolysis: The process of breaking a substance down through the application of heat into its constituent elements before it can be oxidized. Quarantine: A state of enforced isolation designed to prevent the spread of disease. Radiant heat transfer: Heat transfer by electromagnetic waves across distances. Recurrence interval: The average time interval, expressed in number of years, between occurrences of a flood of a given or greater magnitude than others in a measured series of floods. Ribonucleic acid (RNA): The material contained in the core of many viruses that is responsible for directing the replication of the virus inside the host cell. Richter scale: The scale, devised by Charles F. Richter, used for measuring the magnitude of earthquakes. Rift valley: A region of extensional deformation in which the central block has dropped down in relation to the two adjacent blocks. 988
Glossary Right-lateral strike-slip: Sideways motion along a steep fault in which the block of the earth’s crust across the fault from the observer appears to be displaced to the right; left-slip faults are displaced to the left. Ring of Fire: The ring of earthquake zones and volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. RNA. See Ribonucleic acid Rock: A naturally occurring, consolidated material of one or more minerals. Rockfall: A relatively free-falling movement of rock material from a cliff or steep slope. Runoff: The total amount of water flowing in a stream, including overland flow, return flow, interflow, and base flow. S wave: The secondary seismic wave, traveling more slowly than the P wave and consisting of elastic vibrations transverse to the direction of travel; S waves cannot propagate in a liquid medium. Saltation: The process of small particles being lifted off the surface, traveling 10 to 15 times the height to which they are lifted, then spinning downward with sufficient force to dislodge other soil particles and break down earth clods. Sandstorm: A dust storm that results from dislodging larger, heavier particles of soil and rock; sandstorms tend to occur in conjunction with desert cyclones. Scarp: A steep cliff or slope created by rapid movement along a fault. Seiche: An oscillation in a partially enclosed body of water such as a bay or estuary. Seismic: Pertaining to an earthquake. Seismic belt: A region of relatively high seismicity, globally distributed; seismic belts mark regions of plate interactions. Seismic waves: Elastic oscillatory disturbances spreading outward from an earthquake or human-made explosion; they provide the most important data about the earth’s interior. Seismicity: The occurrence of earthquakes, which is expressed as a function of location and time. Seismogram: An image of earthquake wave vibrations recorded on paper, photographic film, or a video screen.
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Glossary Seismograph: An instrument used for recording the motions of the earth’s surface, caused by seismic waves, as a function of time. Seismology: The application of the physics of elastic wave transmission and reflection to subsurface rock geometry. Shallow-focus earthquake: An earthquake having a focus less than 60 kilometers below the surface. Shear: A stress that forces two contiguous parts of an object apart in a direction parallel to their plane of contact, as opposed to a stretching, compressing, or twisting force; also called shear stress. Shield volcano: A volcano in the shape of a flattened dome, broad and low, built by flows of very fluid basaltic lava. Shock wave: A compressional wave formed when a body undergoes a hypervelocity impact; it produces abrupt changes in pressure, temperature, density, and velocity in the target material as it passes through. Sinkhole: A hole or depression in the landscape, produced by dissolving bedrock; sinkholes can range in size from a few meters across and deep to kilometers wide and hundreds of meters deep. Slab avalanche: An avalanche in which a large slab of the snow layer is released. Sleet: Frozen or partly frozen rain. Slump: A term that applies to the rotational slippage of material and the mass of material actually moved; the mass has component parts called scarp, failure plane, head, foot, toe, and blocks; the toe may grade downslope in a flow. Smallpox: A highly contagious viral disease with symptoms of fever, cough, and a rash; it has been eradicated worldwide. Smog: Air pollution in the form of haze, which can be sulfurous or photochemical in origin. Solfatara: A volcanic vent that emits hot vapors and sulfurous gases. Spillway: A broad reinforced channel near the top of the dam, designed to allow rising waters to escape the reservoir without overtopping the dam. Squall line: A line of vigorous thunderstorms created by a cold downdraft with rain, which spreads out ahead of a fast-moving cold front. Storm surge: A general rise above normal water level, resulting from a hurricane or other severe coastal storm.
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Glossary Stratovolcano: A volcano constructed of layers of lava and pyroclastic rock; also called a composite volcano. Stress: The force per unit area acting at any point within a solid body such as rock, calculated from a knowledge of force and area. Strike-slip fault: A fault across which the relative movement is mainly lateral. Strombolian eruption: A weakly explosive volcanic eruption (VEI values of 1 or 2) that usually begins with the volcano tossing out molten debris to form cinders and clots of liquid that solidify in the air to fall as bombs. Subduction zone: A region where a plate, generally oceanic lithosphere, sinks beneath another plate into the mantle. Sulfurous smog: Smog caused by the mixture of particulate matter and sulfurous compounds in the atmosphere when coal is burned. Syncline: A folded structure created when rocks are bent downward; the limbs of the fold dip toward one another, and the youngest rocks are exposed in the middle of the fold. Syncytium: A multinucleate mass of protoplasm resulting from fusion of cells. Syphilis: A sexually transmitted disease that causes widespread tissue destruction and, potentially, death if left untreated by penicillin. T lymphocytes: Small white blood cells that kill host cells infected by bacteria or viruses or that produce a chemical compound which mediates the destruction of the host cells. T-test: A statistical test used especially in testing hypotheses about means of normal distributions when the standard deviations are unknown. Tectonic plates: Segments that comprise the crust (either oceanic or continental crust) and a portion of the earth’s mantle beneath it Tectonics: The study of the processes that formed the structural features of the earth’s crust; it usually addresses the creation and movement of immense crustal plates. Teleseism: An earthquake recorded at great epicentral distances. Tephra: All pyroclastic materials blown out of a volcanic vent, from dust to large chunks. Thermocline: A layer within a water body, characterized by a rapid change in temperature. 991
Glossary Thunder: A loud sound resulting from the heating of air surrounding a lightning bolt, which causes a very rapid expansion of air that moves at supersonic speeds and forms shock waves. Tidal wave: The popular but inaccurate term for a tsunami. Torino Impact Hazard Scale: A scale dealing with the perceived probability of an asteroid or comet hitting Earth. Tornado: A violent rotating column of air extending downward from a thunderhead cloud and having the appearance of a funnel, rope, or column. Tornado Alley: An area of the United States where tornadoes are common, extending from Texas northward to Nebraska. Trade winds: Winds in the tropics that blow from the subtropical highs to the equatorial low. Transform fault: A fault connecting offset segments of an ocean ridge along which two plates slide past each other. Trench: A long and narrow deep trough on the sea floor that forms where the ocean floor is pulled downward because of plate subduction. Triage: Quick evaluation of victims before administering emergency assistance; victims are grouped according to those likely to survive without immediate treatment, those likely to survive only with immediate treatment, and those unlikely to survive even with emergency treatment. Tropical storm: A severe storm with winds ranging from 45 to 120 kilometers per hour. Tsunami: A seismic sea wave created by an undersea earthquake, a violent volcanic eruption, or a landslide at sea. Tuff: A general term for all consolidated pyroclastic rocks. Twenty-year-flood: A hypothetical flood whose severity is such that it would occur on average only once in a period of twenty years, which equates to a 5 percent probability each year. Typhoid fever: A particular disease syndrome most often associated with infection by Salmonella typhi but occasionally caused by other types of salmonella bacteria. Typhoon: A major tropical storm that originates in the Pacific Ocean. Typhus: An acute infectious disease caused by rickettsiae, microorganisms that are smaller than bacteria but larger than viruses.
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Glossary Ultra-Plinian eruption: A highly explosive volcanic eruption (VEI values of 7 and 8); none has occurred in recorded history. Vaccine: A preparation of killed microorganisms or living organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease. VEI. See Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) Vent: A break or tear on the side of a mountain through which magma and pressure can escape. Vesiculation: The process of water being released from magma and boiling to form bubbles. Vigra: Precipitation that falls from clouds and evaporates before reaching the ground. Viscosity: A substance’s ability to flow; the lower the viscosity, the greater the ability to flow. Volcanic earthquakes: Small-magnitude earthquakes that occur at relatively shallow depths beneath active or potentially active volcanoes. Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI): A scale from 0 to 8 that classifies the intensity of volcanic eruptions. Volcanic rocks: Igneous rocks formed at the surface of the earth. Volcanic tremor: A long, continuous vibration, detected only at active volcanoes. Volcano: A vent at the earth’s surface in which gases, rocks, and magma erupt and build a more or less cone-shaped mountain. Vulcanian eruption: An explosive volcanic eruption (VEI values ranging from 2 to 4) in which the magma is viscous, there are few lava flows, and thick liquid clots are shot far into the air. Watershed: A region bounded by a divide and draining to a particular body of water. Waterspout: A tornado occurring over water. Whiteout: A blizzard that severely reduces visibility. Wildfire: An outdoor fire, occurring in forests, grasslands, or farms, that is caused either by an act of nature, such as a lightning strike, or by human actions; also called a brushfire. Wind gust: A localized difference in atmospheric pressure caused by frontal weather changes. Wind shear: Radical shift in wind speed and direction. 993
Glossary Yellow fever: An acute viral infection of the liver, kidneys, and heart muscle with such symptoms as fever, muscle pain, vomiting of blood, and jaundiced (yellow) skin. Zoonosis: An animal disease that can also be transferred to humans.
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■ Time Line 2 billion b.c.e.: An asteroid impact at Vredefort, South Africa, produces a 186-mile-diameter crater, the largest known on Earth. 1.85 billion b.c.e.: An asteroid impact at Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, produces a 155-mile-diameter crater. Groundwater, upwelling through fractured rocks, eventually produces one of the world’s richest nickel deposits. 65 million b.c.e.: A 6.2-mile-diameter asteroid produces a 112-milediameter crater on the Yucatán Peninsula. The associated environmental disaster causes most of the species then living, including the dinosaurs, to become extinct. 49,000 b.c.e.: The impact of a huge nickel-iron boulder forms the Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona. 5000 b.c.e.: Crater Lake, Oregon, erupts, sending pyroclastic flows as far as 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the vent; 25 cubic miles of material are erupted as a caldera forms from the collapse of the mountaintop. c. 3500 b.c.e.: The first known references of famine are recorded in Egypt. c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera erupts in the Aegean Sea, possibly causing the disappearance of the Minoan civilization on Crete and leading to stories of the lost “continent” of Atlantis. 11th century b.c.e.: Biblical passage Samuel I tells of the Philistine plague, a pestilence outbreak that occurred after the capture of the Ark of the Covenant. 7th century b.c.e.: Assyrian pestilence slays 185,000 Assyrians, forcing King Sennacherib to retreat from Judah without capturing Jerusalem. 600-500 b.c.e.: Perhaps the first recorded tornado is the “whirlwind” mentioned in Ezekiel 2:4 and 2 Kings 2:11 of the Old Testament. 451 b.c.e.: The Roman pestilence, an unidentified disease but probably anthrax, kills a large portion of the slave population and some in the citizenry and prevents the Aequians of Latium from attacking Rome. 436 b.c.e.: Thousands of Romans prefer drowning in the Tiber to starvation during a severe famine. 995
Time Line 430 b.c.e.: The mysterious Plague of Athens early in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta results in about 30,000 dead. 387 b.c.e.: According the records of Livy, a series of 11 epidemics strikes Rome through the end of the republic. 250-243 b.c.e.: “Hunpox,” or perhaps smallpox, strikes China. 218 b.c.e.: Hannibal loses 20,000 men, 2,000 horses, and several elephants in a huge avalanche near Col de la Traversette in the Italian Alps. 48 b.c.e.: Epidemic, flood, and famine occur in China. 64 c.e.: Much of the city burns during the Great Fire of Rome. August 24, 79 c.e.: Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum. May 29, 526: The Antioch earthquake in Syria (now Turkey), estimated at magnitude 9.0, kills 250,000. 542-543: Plague of Justinian is the first pandemic of bubonic plague that devastates Africa, Asia Minor, and Europe. The first year the plague kills 300,000 in Constantinople; the infection resurfaces repeatedly over the next half century. 585-587: The Japanese smallpox epidemic, probably the country’s first documented episode of the disease, infects peasants and nobility alike. Because it occurs after the acceptance of Buddhism, it is believed to be a punishment from the Shinto gods and results in the burning of temples and attacks on Buddhist nuns and priests. 917-918: Famine strikes northern India as uncounted thousands die. 1064-1072: Egypt faces starvation as the Nile fails to flood for seven consecutive years. October 17, 1091: The earliest British tornado for which there is an authentic record hits London, killing 2 and demolishing 600 houses. 12th and 13th centuries: Air pollution in London is caused by extensive burning of coal. 1200-1202: A severe famine across Egypt kills more than 100,000; widespread cannibalism is reported. 1228: Flooding in Holland results in at least 100,000 deaths. 1235: An estimated 20,000 inhabitants of London die of starvation. 1270-1350: A prolonged drought in the U.S. Southwest destroys Anasazi Indian culture. 1273: A law passes in London to restrict the burning of soft coal in an attempt to improve air quality in the area. 996
Time Line 1306: England’s Parliament issues a proclamation requiring citizens to burn wood instead of coal in order to improve local air quality. 1315-1317: Central Europe, struck by excessive rains, experiences crop failures and famine. 1320-1352: Europe is stricken by the Black Death (bubonic plague), claiming over 40 million lives. 1333: The Arno River floods Venice, with a level of up to 14 feet (4.2 meters). 1333-1337: Famine strikes China, and millions die of starvation. 1347-1380: The Black Death kills an estimated 25 million in Asia. A reported two-thirds of the population in China succumbs. 1478: About 60 soldiers of the Duke of Milan are killed by an avalanche while crossing the mountains near Saint Gotthard Pass in the Italian Alps. 1494-1495: A syphilis epidemic strikes the French army in Naples and is considered the first appearance of this venereal infection in Europe. 1507: Hispaniola smallpox is the first recorded epidemic in the New World, representing the first wave of diseases that eventually depopulate America of most of its native inhabitants. In the next two centuries, the population plunges by an estimated 80 percent. 1512: A landslide causes a lake to overflow, killing more than 600 in Biasco, the Alps. 1520-1521: About 2 to 5 million die in the Aztec Empire when they contract smallpox during the Spanish conquest and colonization of Mexico. January 23, 1556: 830,000 people die in Shaanxi, China, the greatest death toll from an earthquake to date. 1557: Severe cold and excessive rain causes famine in the Volga region of Russia. 1585-1587: A severe drought destroys the Roanoke colonies of English settlers in Virginia. 1588: A major storm destroys the Spanish Armada, which is seeking to escape the English navy under Sir Francis Drake. September, 1618: Two villages are destroyed by landslides, and 2,427 are reported dead in Chiavenna Valley, Italy. September, 1618: An avalanche kills 1,500 inhabitants of Plurs, Switzerland. 997
Time Line August 15, 1635: A colonial hurricane strikes Massachusetts and Rhode Island coastal settlements. 1642: More than 300,000 people die in China from flooding. 1643-1653: Europe experiences its severest winters after the Ice Age. March, 1657: The Meireki Fire destroys Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, killing more than 100,000 people. 1665-1666: Very hot summers in London exacerbate the last plague epidemic. 1666: In the Great Fire of London, about 436 acres of the city burn, eliminating the Great Plague. March 11, 1669: Sicily’s Mount Etna begins a series of devastating eruptions that will result in more than 20,000 dead and 14 villages destroyed, including the seaside town of Catania, Italy. 1679: Fire burns portions of the city of Boston. 1680: Scientist Isaac Newton notes that the comet of 1680 passes less than 621,400 miles (1 million kilometers) from the Sun and deduces that its nucleus must be solid in order to survive. 1689: A series of avalanches kills more than 300 residents in Saas, Switzerland, and surrounding communities. 1690: Siberia experiences extreme heat, probably due to southerly winds; at this time, Europe is abnormally cold. 1692: An earthquake and tsunamis in Port Royal, Jamaica, kill 3,000. 1703: 5,000 die in tsunamis in Honshn, Japan, following a large earthquake. 1707: A 38-foot-high tsunami kills 30,000 in Japan. January, 1718: The town of Leukerbad, Switzerland, is destroyed by two avalanches that leave more than 55 dead and many residents seriously injured. 1718-1719: Great heat and drought affect most of Europe during the summers of these years. September 27, 1727: A hurricane strikes the New England coast. 1741: Following volcanic eruptions, 30-foot waves in Japan cause 1,400 deaths. September 15 and October 1, 1752: Two hurricanes strike South and North Carolina. November 1, 1755: An earthquake on All Saints’ Day kills worshipers in Lisbon, Portugal, in the collapse of stone cathedrals or in the accompanying tsunamis; as many as 50,000 perish. 998
Time Line December 25, 1758: The first predicted return of Halley’s comet is observed. 1769: Drought-induced famine kills millions in the Bengal region of India. 1769: 1,000 tons of gunpowder stored in the state arsenal at Brescia, Italy, explode when struck by lightning. One-sixth of the city is destroyed, and 3,000 people are killed. September 8-9, 1769: The Atlantic coast of North America, from the Carolinas to New England, is hit by a hurricane. 1783: A tsunami in Italy kills 30,000. June 8, 1783-February 7, 1784: The Laki fissure eruption in Iceland produces the largest lava flow in recorded history, with major climatic effects. Benjamin Franklin speculates on its connection to a cold winter in Paris the following year. October 22-23, 1783: A hurricane strikes the Atlantic coast, from the Carolinas to New England. 1786: The people of Paris make bell-ringing during thunderstorms illegal. The ringing of church bells was believed to prevent lightning strikes but often proved fatal to ringers. 1788: New Orleans burns. July 13, 1788: A severe hailstorm damages French wheat crops. 1794-1803: Scientists prove that meteorites do fall from the sky. September, 1806: Portions of Rossberg Peak collapse, destroying 4 villages and killing 800 people in Goldau Valley, Switzerland. December 16, 1811; January 23 and February 7, 1812: In the sparsely settled region of New Madrid, Missouri, the largest historic earthquakes in North America to date rearrange the Mississippi River and form Reelfoot Lake. 1812: Moscow is set on fire by troops of Napoleon I. 1814: Washington, D.C. is burned by occupying British troops. April 5, 1815: The dramatic explosion of Tambora, 248.6 miles (400 kilometers) east of Java, the largest volcanic event in modern history, produces atmospheric and climatic effects for the next two years. Frosts occur every month in New England during 1816, the Year Without a Summer. June 3, 1816: The steamboat Washington explodes on the Ohio River. May, 1817: The steamboat Constitution explodes on the Mississippi River. 999
Time Line 1842: Most of the city of Hamburg, Germany, burns, leaving 100 dead. 1845: Moist, southerly winds and a hot summer provide the perfect growing conditions for the potato blight fungus, resulting in the Irish Potato Famine. 1845-1849: Ireland’s potato famine leads to the deaths of over 1 million and the emigration of more than 1 million Irish. Early October, 1846: An early blizzard in the Sierra Nevada traps the Donner Party. May 4, 1850: Fire burns large portions of the city of San Francisco. May 3-4, 1851: San Francisco again experiences large fires; 30 die. December 24, 1851: The Library of Congress is burned. April 3, 1856: 4,000 are killed on the Greek island of Rhodes when lightning strikes a church where gunpowder is stored. August 13, 1856: A hurricane striking Last Island, Louisiana, results in a death toll of 137. January 9, 1857: The San Andreas fault at Fort Tejon, California, in the northwest corner of Los Angeles County, ruptures dramatically. Trees snap off near the ground, landslides occur, and buildings collapse into rubble. 1861: Earth passes through the tail of the Great Comet of 1861 with no measurable effects. April 27, 1865: 1,500 die in the explosion of the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River. January 23, 1867: The East River in New York City freezes. 1868: Tsunamis in Chile and Hawaii claim more than 25,000 lives. October 8, 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire affects a large area in northern Wisconsin; 1,200 are killed, and 2 billion trees are burned. October 8-10, 1871: The Great Chicago Fire leaves 250 dead and causes $200 million in damage. November 9-10, 1872: The Great Boston Fire kills 13, destroys 776 buildings, and causes $75 million in damage. December, 1873: An air pollution event in London kills between 270 and 700 people. 1876-1878: Drought strikes India, leaving about 5 million dead. 1876-1879: China experiences a drought that leaves 10 million or more dead. August 13-October 29, 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic re1000
Time Line sults in over 100,000 cases and 20,000 deaths, particularly in Memphis, Tennessee. February, 1880: Approximately 1,000 people die in London from an air pollution event. September 8, 1880: A mine explosion at the Seaham Colliery in Sunderland, England, kills 164. January 19, 1883: 357 die in fog-related collision of steamers Cimbria and Sultan near Borkum Island off the German coast. August 26, 1883: A cataclysmic eruption of Krakatau, an island in Indonesia, is heard 2,968 miles away. Many die as pyroclastic flows race over pumice rafts floating on the surface of the sea; many more die from a tsunami. 1887: The Yellow River floods, covering over 50,000 square miles of the North China Plain. Over 900,000 people die from the floodwaters and an additional 2 to 4 million die afterward due to floodrelated causes. 1887-1896: Droughts drive out many early settlers on the Great Plains. March 11-14, 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 strikes the eastern United States; 400 die. April 17, 1889: The first teleseism is recorded in Potsdam, Germany, of an earthquake on that date in Japan. May 31, 1889: A dam bursts upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and the floodwaters kill over 2,200 people. 1890: The Federal Weather Bureau is created. 1892-1894: A cholera pandemic leaves millions dead but confirms the theory that the disease is caused by bacteria in contaminated water. July, 1892: St. Gervais and La Fayet, Swiss resorts, are destroyed when a huge avalanche speeds down Mont Blanc, killing 140 residents and tourists. December, 1892: A smog episode kills 1,000 people in London. 1896: As many as 27,000 die after tsunamis hit Sanriku, Japan. May 27, 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, an F4 tornado, hits St. Louis, Missouri, leaving 306 dead and 2,500 injured and destroying or damaging 7,500 buildings as well as riverboats and railroads. 1898: A hurricane warning network is established in the West Indies. 1001
Time Line 1899: The failure of monsoons in India results in many deaths. 1900: The first quantitative measurements of peak current in lightning strikes are conducted. September 8, 1900: A hurricane in Galveston, Texas, leads to the highest death toll from a hurricane to date, from the ensuing storm surge. 1900-1915: “Typhoid Mary” Mallon, a cook, spreads typhoid fever to more than 50 people, causing at least 3 deaths. 1901: Transatlantic wireless radio sends first signal to receiver in St. John’s, Newfoundland. 1902: Willis H. Carrier designs the first system to control the temperature of air. May 8, 1902: Pelée, on the northern end of the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, sends violent pyroclastic flows into the city of St. Pierre, killing all but 2 of the 30,000 inhabitants. April, 1903: A 0.5-mile section of Turtle Mountain near Frank, Alberta, slides down the mountain, killing 70 people in the town. 1906: The term “air-conditioning” is used for the first time, by an engineer named Stuart W. Cramer. April 18, 1906: The San Andreas fault slips 20 feet near San Francisco in a magnitude 8.3 earthquake. Much of the city is severely damaged, and a firestorm starts when cinders escape a damaged chimney, leveling the city. June 30, 1908: A huge boulder or a small comet explodes over Tunguska, Siberia, causing widespread destruction. December 28, 1908: The Messina earthquake kills 120,000 and destroys or severely damages numerous communities in Italy. November 13, 1909: A fire breaks out in the Cherry Mine in Illinois, trapping and killing 259 miners. 1910: Wildfires rage throughout the U.S. West in the most destructive fire year in U.S. history to date. 1910: American geologist H. F. Reid publishes a report on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, outlining his theory of elastic rebound. March, 1910: An avalanche sweeps through the train station in Wellington, Washington State, destroying 3 snowbound passenger trains and killing 96. 1910-1915: First in a series of recurring droughts affects the Sahel region in Africa. 1002
Time Line 1911: The Yangtze River in China floods, killing more 100,000 people. March 25, 1911: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurs in New York City; 145 employees, mostly young girls, die. June 6, 1912: Katmai erupts in Alaska with an ash flow that produces the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. April 28, 1914: An explosion in the Eccles Mine in West Virginia leaves 181 dead. May 29, 1914: More than 1,000 drown in the sinking of the Canadian liner Empress of Ireland following its collision with Norwegian freighter Storstad in heavy fog on the St. Lawrence River. 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic affects 26 states, particularly New York, prompting quarantines and resulting in 27,000 reported cases and at least 7,000 deaths. June 30, 1916: Canada’s most lethal twister to date kills 28 in Regina, Saskatchewan. December, 1916: Heavy snows result in avalanches that kill more than 10,000 Italian and Austrian soldiers located in the Tirol section of the Italian-Austrian Alps. 1917: The first photographic record of the spectrum from lightning using a spectroscope is made. December 6, 1917: Munitions ships in Halifax, Nova Scotia, harbor explode and burn; 2,000 die. 1918: In Nasatch National Forest, Utah, 504 sheep are killed by a lightning strike. 1918-1920: The Great Flu Pandemic sweeps the globe, killing 30 to 40 million, perhaps the largest single biological event in human history. 1920: Arizona’s Barringer Crater is the first Earth feature recognized to have been caused by a meteorite impact. December, 1920: An earthquake shears off unstable cliffs in Gansu Province, China, destroying 10 cities and killing 200,000. 1921-1922: Famine strikes the Soviet Union, which pleads for international aid; Western assistance saves millions, but several million die. September 1, 1923: 143,000 people die as a result of the Great Kwanto Earthquake, centered in Sagami Bay, Japan. 1925: First radio signal to warn of fog is sent to ships on the Great Lakes. 1003
Time Line 1925: The U.S. Weather Bureau applies sensors to airplane wings to record atmospheric conditions. March 18, 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado, the United States’ worst tornado disaster to date, occurs when a 219-mile-long twister destroys entire towns along its path through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, causing 689 deaths, more than 2,000 injuries, and $16-18 million in damage. July 10, 1926: Explosions triggered by lightning at an ammunition dump in New Jersey kill 21 people, blasting debris 5 miles. September 15-22, 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane strikes Florida and the Gulf states, resulting in 243 dead. 1927: French scientists produce the radiosonde, an instrument package designed to measure pressure, temperature, and humidity during balloon ascents and radio the information back to earth. 1927: Extensive flooding of the Mississippi River results in 313 deaths. March 12, 1928: The St. Francis Dam collapses in Southern California, leading to about 450 deaths. September 10-16, 1928: A Category 4 storm, the San Felipe, or Lake Okeechobee, hurricane claims over 4,000 lives in the Caribbean and Florida. 1929: American scientist Robert H. Goddard launches a rocket carrying an instrument package that includes a barometer, a thermometer, and a camera. Early 1930’s: Charles Richter, working with Beno Gutenberg at the Seismological Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, develops the Richter scale. December, 1930: A thick fog settles in the industrialized area along the Meuse River in Belgium and is trapped for three days; thousands of people become ill and 60 die. 1932-1934: Communist collectivization schemes in the Soviet Union precipitate famine; an estimated 5 million die. 1933: 3,000 are killed by tsunamis in Sanriku, Japan. December 23, 1933: Two trains collide in fog near Paris, killing 230. 1932-1937: Extensive droughts in the southern Great Plains destroy many farms, creating the Dust Bowl, in the worst drought in more than three hundred years in the United States. Between 15,000 and 20,000 die. May 6, 1937: The German zeppelin Hindenburg explodes into a mas1004
Time Line sive fireball as it tries to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36. 1938: Chinese soldiers are ordered to destroy the levees of the Yellow River in order to create a flood to stop the advance of Japanese troops. It works, but at a terrible cost to the Chinese people; more than 1 million die. September 21, 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 causes high winds, flooding, and a storm surge that leave 680 dead, more than 1,700 injured, and $400 million in damage. 1939: Flooding of the Yellow River kills over 200,000 people. November 28, 1942: The Cocoanut Grove nightclub burns in Boston, killing 491. 1943: A major smog episode in Los Angeles leads local officials to begin to look at regulations to reduce air pollution. February 20, 1943: Paricutín comes into existence in a cultivated field in Mexico. The eruption of this volcano continues for nine years. July, 1943: Hamburg, Germany, is destroyed, mostly by incendiary bombs; 60,000-100,000 are killed. July 17, 1944: Two ammunition ships in Port Chicago, California, explode, killing 300. December 17-18, 1944: A typhoon in the Philippine Sea kills 790. 1945: Radar is used for tracking civilian traffic in ships and planes. 1945: A large section of the Oregon forest ignites in the third in a series of wildfires known as the Tillamook burn. February 13, 1945: 25,000 die in the destruction of Dresden by incendiary bombs. March 9, 1945: Incendiary bombs destroy 25 percent of Tokyo. 1946: The Aleutian tsunami creates 32-foot-high waves in Hilo, Hawaii, causing 159 deaths there. 1946: 2,000 die in Honshn, Japan, after an earthquake spawns tsunamis. 1947: Honshn Island, Japan, is hit by floods that kill more than 1,900 people. March 25, 1947: A mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois, kills 111. April 16, 1947: The French vessel Grandcamp explodes in Texas City, Texas, killing 581. September 4-21, 1947: A hurricane impacts the Gulf states, leaving over 50 dead. 1005
Time Line March 25, 1948: Air Force officers Ernest Fawbush and Robert Miller issue the first tornado watch in the United States, but it is for military use only. December, 1948: Smog accumulates over Donora, Pennsylvania, and is trapped in the valley of the Monongahela River for four days, resulting in 18 deaths above the average number for that time period. November, 1949: Smog forms in Berkeley, California, from the exhaust of automobiles being driven into the area for a football game. January, 1951: A series of avalanches leaves 240 dead; the village of Vals, Switzerland, is completely destroyed. March 17, 1952: The U.S. Weather Bureau issues the first tornado watch to the American public. December 5-9, 1952: A dense fog develops over London, mixes with smoke, and remains stagnant for five days, leading to 4,000 deaths above the average number for that time interval. 1953: The system of naming hurricanes is adopted. 1953: Smog accumulates in New York City, causing at least 200 deaths. February 1, 1953: A massive flood in the North Sea kills 1,853 in the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Belgium. May 11, 1953: A tornado destroys much of downtown Waco, Texas, leaving 114 dead and 1,097 injured. June 8, 1953: A tornado devastates parts of Flint, Michigan, killing 120 and injuring 847. June 9, 1953: The worst tornado to date to strike the northeastern United States plows a path greater than a half-mile wide through Worcester, Massachusetts; 94 people are killed, 1,288 are injured, and more than 4,000 buildings are damaged or destroyed. January, 1954: In one of the worst avalanches in Austrian history, 145 people are killed over a 10-mile area. October 12-18, 1954: Hurricane Hazel strikes the Atlantic coast, causing 411 deaths and $1 billion in damage. 1956: A severe smog episode in London leads to the deaths of 1,000 people. March 30, 1956: The volcano Bezymianny in Russia erupts with a violent lateral blast, stripping trees of their bark 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) away. 1006
Time Line July 25-26, 1956: The Italian liner Andrea Doria sinks after being struck by a Swedish vessel in fog. November, 1956: At least 46 people die in a smog episode in New York City. June 27-30, 1957: More than 500 die when Hurricane Audrey hits the Louisiana and Texas coastlines. 1958: H. Jeffreys and K. E. Bullen publish seismic travel time curves establishing the detailed, spherically symmetrical model of the earth. 1959: The first meteorological experiment is conducted on a satellite platform. 1959: Hurricane rains and an earthquake combined with a series of massive landslides bury the 800 residents of Minatitlan, Mexico, and kill another 4,200 in surrounding communities. November 1, 1959: More than 2,000 people die in floods in western Mexico. 1959-1962: As many as 30 million die in Communist China as a result of the Great Leap Forward famine. May 22, 1960: A large earthquake, measuring 8.5, strikes off the coast of Chile, making the earth reverberate for several weeks. For the first time, scientists are able to determine many of the resonant modes of oscillation of the earth. September 6-12, 1960: The Atlantic coast’s Hurricane Donna results in 168 dead and almost $2 billion in damage. October, 1960: Bangladesh floods kill a total of 10,000 people. 1960-1990: Repeated droughts occur in the Sahel, east Africa, and southern Africa. 1962: Over 700 people die in a smog event in London. 1962: Melting snow rushes down the second-highest peak in South America at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, killing around 4,000 in Peru. February 17, 1962: Major storms blanket Germany; 343 are killed. December, 1962: 60 people die from smog in Osaka, Japan. 1963: The first quantitative temperature estimates are made for individual lightning strikes. 1963: Lightning strikes a Boeing 707 over Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 persons on board. This is the first verified instance of a lightning-induced airplane crash. 1007
Time Line January-February, 1963: Smog kills up to 400 people in New York City. October 9, 1963: A landslide caused by an earthquake destroys the Vaiont Dam, drowning almost 3,000 residents of Belluno, Italy. November, 1963: Grand Rivière du Nord, Haiti, is devastated by landslides brought about by tropical downpours; an estimated 500 tourists and residents are killed. 1964: Earthquakes and rains cause landslides near Niigata, Japan, killing 108, injuring 223, and leaving more than 40,000 homeless. 1964: 195-foot waves engulf Kodiak, Alaska, after the Good Friday earthquake; 131 die. March 27, 1964: The Good Friday earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska, with a magnitude of 8.6, causes extensive damage near the southern coast of Alaska and generates tsunamis that damage vessels and marinas along the western coast of the United States. April 11, 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak of around 50 tornadoes kills 271, injures more than 3,100, and causes more than $200 million in damages in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 1966: A four-day smog event in New York City results in the deaths of 80 people; Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller declares a state of emergency. January 29-31, 1966: The worst blizzard in seventy years strikes the eastern United States. June 8, 1966: The first $100 million tornado in the United States cuts a path through Topeka, Kansas, killing 16 and destroying more than 800 homes and much of the Washburn University campus. October 21, 1966: A slag heap near Aberfan, Wales, collapses and kills 147 people, including 116 children. November 3-4, 1966: Flooding in Florence, Italy, destroys many works of art. January 24-March 21, 1967: Flooding in eastern Brazil takes 1,250 lives. 1967-1969: The Biafran civil war in Nigeria leads to the deaths of 1.5 million Biafrans because of starvation. 1968: More than 1,000 are killed in Bihar and Assam, West Bengal, by floods and landslides. July 21-August 15, 1968: Flooding in Gujarat State in India results in 1,000 deaths. 1008
Time Line October 7, 1968: Floods in northeastern India claim 780 lives. 1968-1974: The Sahel drought leads to famine; international aid limits deaths to about a half million. January, 1969: Torrential rains lasting more than a week trigger mudslides that kill 95 and cause more than $138 million in damage in Southern California. August 15-18, 1969: Hurricane Camille rages across the southern United States; 258 die. 1970’s: Severe smog conditions are recognized in many Chinese cities; death rates as high as 3,500 people per year are reported in some areas in 1979. January 3, 1970: The fall of the Lost City, Oklahoma, meteorite is photographed, and its orbit is later traced back to the asteroids. April, 1970: A hospital in Sallanches, France, is destroyed by an avalanche that kills 70, most of them children. May 11, 1970: A powerful tornado twists the frame of a twenty-story office building as it plows through downtown Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 and injuring more than 1,500. This tornado initiates a new interest in tornado studies, including Theodore Fujita’s development of a tornado rating scale. May 31, 1970: The magnitude 7.7 Ancash earthquake in northern Peru leaves 70,000 dead, 140,000 injured, and 500,000 homeless. November 12-13, 1970: The Bhola cyclone strikes the Ganges Delta and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing at least 300,000 people. 1971: An earthquake unleashes a huge avalanche of snow and ice, killing 600 and destroying Chungar, Peru, and surrounding villages. February 9, 1971: In the first serious earthquake to strike a densely populated area in the United States since 1906, a moderate (magnitude 6.6) earthquake centered in Sylmar, California, causes $1 billion in damage. 1972: A heat wave affects Russia and Finland. February 4-11, 1972: Heavy snow falls on Iran; 1,000 perish. June 9, 1972: Heavy rainfall over Rapid City, South Dakota, causes an upstream dam to fail and release floodwaters; 238 people lose their lives. June 21-23, 1972: 122 die during Hurricane Agnes. 1009
Time Line July, 1972: Landslides caused by torrential rains kill 370 persons and cause $472 million in property damage throughout Japan. August 10, 1972: A house-sized rock forms a brilliant fireball as it hurtles through Earth’s atmosphere and back into space. January, 1973: During an eruption on Heimaey Island, Iceland, the flow of lava is controlled by cooling it with water from fire hoses. January 10, 1973: South America’s worst tornado to date destroys parts of San Justo, Argentina; 50 people are killed. July 31, 1973: A Delta Airlines jet crashes while attempting to land at Boston’s Logan International Airport in fog; 89 die. 1974: A landslide in Huancavelica, Peru, creates a natural dam on the Mantaro River, forcing the evacuation of 9,000 living in the area and killing an estimated 300. April 3-4, 1974: In the Jumbo Outbreak, 148 tornadoes, including 6 rated F5, kill 316 and injure almost 5,500 in 11 midwestern and southern states; an additional 8 deaths occur in Canada. Hardest hit communities include Xenia, Ohio, with 35 deaths and 1,150 injured, and Brandenburg, Kentucky, with 31 deaths and 250 injured. December 1-2, 1974: Nineteen inches of snow falls on Detroit in the worst snowstorm in eighty-eight years. December 23, 1975: A single lightning strike in Umtrali, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), kills 21 people. 1975-1976: Heat waves are recorded in Denmark and the Netherlands. 1975-1979: Khmer Rouge policies of genocide provoke famine in Cambodia; more than 1 million die of starvation. February 4, 1976: A slip over a 124-mile stretch of the Motagua fault in Guatemala kills 23,000. July 21-August 4, 1976: 221 American Legion veterans contract a mysterious type of pneumonia at a hotel in Philadelphia, and 29 of them die; the media names the illness “Legionnaires’ disease.” July 28, 1976: The magnitude 8.0 Tangshan earthquake in northeastern China kills an estimated 250,000 people and seriously injures 160,000 more; almost the entire city of 1.1 million people is destroyed. July 31, 1976: A flash flood rushes down Big Thompson Canyon, Colorado, sweeping 139 people to their deaths. 1010
Time Line September 1-October 24, 1976: An Ebola virus epidemic in Zaire kills 280 people and proves one of the deadliest diseases of the late twentieth century. January 28-29 and March 10-12, 1977: Blizzards ravage the Midwest; Buffalo reports 160 inches of snow. March 27, 1977: Two airliners collide in fog in Tenerife, Canary Islands; 583 die. 1977-1978: The western United States undergoes a drought. January 25-26, 1978: A major snowstorm strikes the midwestern United States, with 31 inches of snow and 18-foot drifts. February 5-7, 1978: The worst blizzard in the history of New England strikes the Northeast; eastern Massachusetts receives 50 inches of snow, and winds reach 110 miles per hour. January 12-14, 1979: Blizzards in the Midwest yield 20 inches of snow, with temperatures at –20 degrees Fahrenheit; 100 die. February 18-19, 1979: Snow blankets the District of Columbia. September 7-14, 1979: Hurricane Frederic strikes the Gulf Coast states, causing $1.7 billion in damage. 1980: A heat wave in Texas produces forty-two consecutive days above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. March 1-2, 1980: The mid-Atlantic region experiences a blizzard. May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens, in Washington State, erupts with a directed blast to the north, moving pyroclastic flows at velocities of 328 to 984 feet (100 to 300 meters) per second (nearly the speed of sound). June, 1980: Luis Alvarez and others at the University of California at Berkeley publish an article in Science presenting the hypothesis that an asteroid impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. November 21, 1980: A fire in the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas kills 84. 1980’s-1990’s: Reports of increase of deadly air pollution conditions in Eastern Europe, Mexico, and China. 1981: U.S. epidemic reported by U.S. Centers for Disease Control in June and given the name acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In some regions of Africa the infection touches 90 percent of the population and poses a constant pandemic threat. July, 1981: Over 1,300 people die in the flooding of Sichuan, Hubei Province, China. 1011
Time Line 1982: Thirteen students and teachers are killed by an avalanche in Salzburg, Austria. March 28-April 4, 1982: El Chichón, an “extinct” volcano in Mexico, erupts violently, killing 2,000, injuring hundreds, destroying villages, and ruining over 100 square miles of farmland. 1982-1983: Droughts affect Brazil and northern India. June, 1982-August, 1983: A destructive El Niño episode is held responsible for more than 2,000 deaths and $13 billion in damage and introduces the public to this Pacific Ocean weather phenomenon. February 5-28, 1984: A series of snowstorms strikes Colorado and Utah. March 29, 1984: A snowstorm covers much of the East Coast. June 9, 1984: Europe’s worst tornado to date kills over 400 and injures 213 in Belyanitsky, Ivanovo, and Balino, Russia. 1984-1985: Drought in Ethiopia, the Sahel, and southern Africa endangers more than 20 million Africans, but extensive international aid helps to mitigate the suffering. September 19, 1985: A magnitude 8.1 earthquake near Mexico City kills 10,000 people, injures 30,000, and causes billions of dollars worth of damage. November 13, 1985: Mudflows from the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz, in Colombia, kill at least 23,000 people. March, 1986: The nucleus of Halley’s comet is photographed. April 25-26, 1986: 32 are killed when a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Russia, explodes. August 21, 1986: After building up from volcanic emanations, carbon dioxide escapes from Lake Nyos, Cameroon, killing more than 1,700 people. 1986-1988: Many farmers in the U.S. Midwest are driven out of business by a drought. September, 1987: Mudslides wipe out entire sections of the Villa Tina area of Medellín, Colombia, killing 183 residents and leaving 500 missing. May-October, 1988: Fires affect some 1.2 million acres in Yellowstone National Park and other western forests. July 6, 1988: The explosion of Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea kills 167. 1012
Time Line September 12-17, 1988: Hurricane Gilbert kills 260 in the Caribbean and Mexico. December 7, 1988: The Leninakan earthquake in Armenia leaves 60,000 dead, 15,000 injured, and 500,000 homeless; it destroys 450,000 buildings, including thousands of historical monuments, and causes $30 billion in damage. April 26, 1989: The world’s deadliest tornado to date occurs in Bangladesh when a twister slashes a 50-mile-wide path north of Dhaka; about 1,300 people are killed, more than 12,000 are injured, and almost 80,000 are left homeless. September 13-22, 1989: 75 die as Hurricane Hugo strikes the Caribbean, then South Carolina. October 17, 1989: An earthquake in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the vicinity of Loma Prieta, California, kills 67 and produces more than $5 billion worth of damage in the San Francisco-Oakland area. 1990: The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that, if unchecked, greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions produced by human activity could raise world surface temperatures by 0.25 degree Celsius per decade in the twenty-first century. 1990’s: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites employ advanced microwave sounding units for improved storm intensity estimates. Weather satellites view entire storm systems, sense conditions of the ocean, measure temperatures at different altitudes, and provide humidity profiles of the atmosphere, as well as surface winds. April 10, 1991: 138 die in crash of ferry Moby Prince and oil tanker Agip Abruzzo in Italy. April 30, 1991: A cyclone hits Bangladesh and kills over 131,000. June, 1991: Pinatubo erupts in the Phillipines after having been dormant for four hundred years. September, 3, 1991: A chicken-processing plant in North Carolina burns, killing 25 workers. October 19-21, 1991: Wildfires burn much of Oakland Hills, California; 25 die. August 22-26, 1992: Hurricane Andrew strikes southern Florida, leaving 50 dead and $26 billion in damage. 1013
Time Line October 9, 1992: A meteorite smashes the rear end of a 1980 Chevy Malibu automobile in Peekskill, New York. 1992-1994: Civil war sparks famine in Somalia, where hundreds of thousands die before international efforts restore food supplies. April 19, 1993: A cult compound in Waco, Texas, is destroyed by fire; 80 people die. June-August, 1993: Largest recorded floods of the Mississippi River occur; 52 people die, over $18 billion in damage is inflicted, and more than 20 million acres are flooded. January 17, 1994: A moderate earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.7, strikes the northern edge of the Los Angeles basin near Northridge, California. There are 57 deaths, and damage is estimated at $20 billion. June, 1994: An earthquake in the Huila region of Colombia causes avalanches and mudslides that leave 13,000 residents homeless, 2,000 trapped, and 1,000 dead. July, 1994: The impact of the fragmented Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter is widely observed. July 4-10, 1994: A Glenwood Springs, Colorado, forest fire kills 14 firefighters. August, 1994: A severe heat wave and drought parches Japan. 1995: The IPCC predicts carbon dioxide and greenhouse emissions to raise Earth’s surface temperature between 0.8 and 3.5 degrees Celsius within one hundred years. January 17, 1995: The most costly natural disaster to date occurs when an earthquake strikes Kobe, Japan. The death toll exceeds 5,500, injuries require 37,000 people to seek medical attention, and damage is estimated at $50 billion. April-May, 1995: An outbreak of Ebola virus in Kitwit, Zaire, leaves 245 dead. July, 1995: A heat wave in the midwestern United States kills almost 500 people in Chicago alone, as well as 4,000 cattle. November, 1995: A series of avalanches kills 43 climbers in Nepal. January 7, 1996: The East Coast is hit by another big snowstorm. May 10-11, 1996: A sudden and intense blizzard on Mount Everest, Earth’s highest peak, traps climbers, killing 9 and leaving 4 others with severe frostbite. May 13, 1996: A large tornado levels several towns near Tangail, Ban1014
Time Line gladesh; more than 1,000 are dead and 34,000 are injured, with 100,000 left homeless. July 5-15, 1996: Hurricane Bertha hits the Caribbean and the Atlantic coast; winds exceed 100 miles per hour. September-November, 1996: Eruption of lava beneath a glacier in the Grimsvötn Caldera, Iceland, melts huge quantities of ice, producing major flooding. March, 1997: A park geologist and a volunteer are killed by an avalanche while working on a project to monitor Yellowstone National Park geothermal features. April 1, 1997: The April Fool’s storm strikes the Northeast. April 15, 1997: A fire at a tent city outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia, costs 300 lives. May 27, 1997: An F5 tornado hits Jarrell, Texas; 27 are dead, 8 are injured, and 44 homes are damaged or destroyed. June 25, 1997: On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, 19 people die and 8,000 are evacuated when the Soufrière Hills volcano erupts. November 3, 1997: Typhoon Linda kills more than 1,100 in Vietnam. 1998: Three avalanches in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, leave 8 dead and injured. 1998: A drought destroys crops in the southern Midwest and causes ecological damage on the East Coast. January 5-12, 1998: A major ice storm covers northeastern Canada. January-March, 1998: Large forest fires burn in Indonesia, sickening thousands; 234 die in a Garuda Indonesia plane crash caused by poor visibility from smoke. June 8, 1998: A Kansas grain elevator explodes, killing 6. June 9, 1998: A cyclone hits the Indian state of Gujarat; more than 1,300 are killed. July, 1998: A heat wave hits the southwestern and northeastern United States; daytime temperatures in Texas hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit, with forty-one days of above-100-degree weather, causing huge crop losses and 144 deaths. July, 1998: Worldwide, July is determined to be the hottest month in history to date. July 17, 1998: Waves created by an undersea landslide caused by an earthquake kill 2,000 in Papua New Guinea. 1015
Time Line August, 1998: The village of Malpa, India, is destroyed by boulders and mud, leaving 202 dead; only 18 survive. August, 1998: India reaches 124 degrees Fahrenheit; 3,000 people die in the worst heat wave there in fifty years. August, 1998: As a result of summer heat, 50 people die in Cyprus, and 30 die in Greece and Italy; grapes die on vines. August, 1998: In Germany, record heat produces severe smog, and cars lacking antipollution devices are banned. September 16-29, 1998: 400 die when Hurricane Georges strikes in the Caribbean, then the Gulf Coast; winds exceed 130 miles per hour. October 27, 1998: Hurricane Mitch hits Central America; the death toll exceeds 11,000. 1999: A major drought strikes the U.S. Southeast, the Atlantic coast, and New England. 1999: 7 die in an epidemic of encephalitis in New England and New York. 1999: A tsunami and earthquake at the island of Vanuatu kills 10, injures more than 100, and leaves thousands homeless. February, 1999: The Galtür avalanche in Austria kills 38 and traps 2,000. February 11, 1999: Cyclone Rona strikes Queensland, Australia; 1,800 are left homeless. May 3, 1999: Part of the Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak, one of the most expensive tornadoes in U.S. history destroys nearly 2,500 homes and kills 49 in Oklahoma City and its suburbs; damage estimates approach $1.5 billion. August 17, 1999: More than 17,000 die when a magnitude 7.4 quake strikes Ezmit, Turkey. February-March, 2000: Severe flooding in Mozambique, caused by five weeks of rain followed by Cyclone Eline, kills 800 people and 20,000 cattle. 2001: A tsunami in Peru leaves 26 dead and 70 missing. October 4-9, 2001: Hurricane Iris kills 31 and does $150 million in property damage in Belize. 2002: A severe, long-term drought begins in Australia. Urban areas begin to feel its effects by 2006, as major cities pass heavy restrictions on water usage and Perth constructs a desalination plant. 1016
Time Line January 17, 2002: The Nyiragongo volcano erupts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sending lava flows into the city of Goma; 147 die and 500,000 are displaced. November, 2002-July, 2003: A virulent atypical pneumonia, dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), spreads quickly through China and then internationally, infecting at least 8,422 victims and causing 916 known deaths. May 15, 2003: A researcher is able to insert probes called “turtles” into an F4 tornado to measure its pressure. July-August, 2003: A heat wave grips all of Europe, especially France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal; as many as 40,000 die from heat-related causes, and drought and wildfires follow. September 18, 2003: Category 5 Hurricane Isabel makes landfall south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, leaving 53 dead and property damage of $3.37 million. October 21-November 4, 2003: Warm winds fuel at least 12 wildfires that burn simultaneously across Southern California; 22 die, 80,000 are displaced, and 3,500 homes are destroyed. December 26, 2003: An earthquake in Bam, Iran, kills more than 26,000 and leaves 75,000 homeless. 2004: Four Category 5 storms—Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne— make landfall in the United States, the most in a hurricane season since 1963. April 22, 2004: In Ryongchon, North Korea, a train carrying flammable cargo explodes at the railway station, killing 54 people and injuring 1,249. December 26, 2004: A massive tsunami strikes 11 nations bordering the Indian Ocean, leaving at least 212,000 dead and almost 43,000 missing. January 20-24, 2005: A heavy blizzard blankets New England with snow up to 40 inches in some places, shutting down Logan International Airport in Boston. August 25-September 2, 2005: Hurricane Katrina kills 1,500-2,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and leaves hundreds missing; property damage is estimated at $75 billion. The levees protecting New Orleans are breached, and the city is completely flooded. Two other powerful hurricanes, Rita and Wilma, hit the Gulf Coast shortly afterward. 1017
Time Line October 8, 2005: A powerful earthquake rocks Kashmir in Pakistan. More than 90,000 are dead and about 106,000 are injured; 3.3 million people are made homeless, and the damage is estimated at $5 billion. December, 2005: In Tehran, Iran, businesses and schools close because of severe smog conditions; hundreds of people are taken to the hospital. February 17, 2006: A mudslide buries 16 villages on the island of Leyte in the Philippines; more than 200 are confirmed dead, and 1,800 are missing. May 26, 2006: A 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Java, Indonesia, kills more than 6,000 people, injures nearly 40,000, and leaves 1.5 million homeless. January 12-16, 2007: A freezing winter storm moves across the United States causing extensive power outages and 65 related deaths, many of them in Oklahoma. February 2, 2007: A tornado outbreak in central Florida kills 20 people; it is the first event to be measured by the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which factors in storm damage.
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■ Bibliography Avalanches Armstrong, Betsy R., Knox Williams, and Richard L. Armstrong. The Avalanche Book. Rev. and updated ed. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum, 1992. Cupp, D. “Avalanche: Winter’s White Death.” National Geographic 162 (September, 1982): 280-305. CyberSpace Avalanche Center. http://www.avalanche-center.org/. Ferguson, Sue, and Edward R. LaChapelle. The ABCs of Avalanche Safety. 3d ed. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2003. Fredston, Jill. Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. Graydon, E. Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hill. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 1992. Jenkins, McKay. The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone. New York: Random House, 2000. Logan, Nick, and Dale Atkins. The Snowy Torrents: Avalanche Accidents in the United States, 1980-86. Denver: Colorado Geological Survey, Department of Natural Resources, 1996. Mears, Arthur I. Avalanche Forecasting Methods, Highway 550. Denver: Colorado Department of Transportation, 1996. National Research Council Panel on Snow Avalanches. Snow Avalanche Hazards and Mitigation in the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990. National Snow and Ice Data Center. Avalanche Awareness. http:// nsidc.org/snow/avalanche/ Parfit, M. “Living with Natural Hazards.” National Geographic 194 (July, 1998): 2-39. Rosen, Michael J. Avalanche. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 1998. USDA Forest Service. Snow Avalanche: General Rules for Avoiding and Surviving Snow Avalanches. Portland, Oreg.: USDA Forest Service, Pacific North West Region, 1982.
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Bibliography Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Allaby, Michael. Dangerous Weather: Blizzards. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Annual Frequency of Hailstorms in the United States. http://www.nhoem .state.nh.us/mitigation/fig%203-17.htm. Battan, Louis J. Weather in Your Life. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1983. Christian, Spencer, and Tom Biracree. Spencer Christian’s Weather Book. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1993. Eagleman, Joe R. Severe and Unusual Weather. 2d ed. Lenexa, Kans.: Trimedia, 1990. Erikson, Jon. Violent Storms. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Tab, 1988. Gokhale, Narayan. Hailstorms and Hailstone Growth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975. Laskin, David. The Children’s Blizzard. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Ludlum, David M. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. _______. The Weather Factor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. Lyons, Walter A. The Handy Weather Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997. Moore, Gene. Hail Storms. http://www.chaseday.com/hail.htm. Murphy, Jim. Blizzard! The Storm That Changed America. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000. Disaster Relief Comerio, Mary C. Disaster Hits Home: New Policy for Urban Housing Recovery. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. Human Links to Coastal Disasters. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2002. Haas, J. Eugene, et al., eds. Reconstruction Following Disaster. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1977. Landesman, Linda Young. Public Health Management of Disasters: The Practice Guide. Washington, D.C.: American Public Health Association, 2005. Leaning, Jennifer, Susan M. Briggs, and Lincoln C. Chen, eds. Humanitarian Crises: The Medical and Public Health Response. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.
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Bibliography Redmond, Anthony D., et al., eds. ABC of Conflict and Disaster. Malden, Mass.: BMJ Books, 2006. Rosenfeld, Lawrence B., et al. When Their World Falls Apart: Helping Families and Children Manage the Effects of Disasters. Washington, D.C.: NASW Press, 2005. Droughts Allaby, Michael. Droughts. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Andryszewski, Tricia. The Dust Bowl: Disaster on the Plains. Brookfield, Conn.: Milbrook Press, 1994. Benson, Charlotte, and Edward Clay. The Impact of Drought on SubSaharan African Economies: A Preliminary Examination. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998. Berk, Richard A., et al. Water Shortage: Lessons in Conservation from the Great California Drought, 1976-1977. Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1981. Bryson, Reid A., and Thomas J. Murray. Climates of Hunger. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1977. Dixon, Lloyd S., Nancy Y. Moore, and Ellen M. Pint. Drought Management Policies and Economic Effects in Urban Areas of California, 198792. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1996. Dolan, Edward F. Drought: The Past, Present, and Future Enemy. New York: Franklin Watts, 1990. Frederiksen, Harald D. Drought Planning and Water Resources: Implications in Water Resources Management. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1992. Garcia, Rolando V., and Pierre Spitz. Drought and Man: The Roots of Catastrophe. Vol. 3. New York: Pergamon Press, 1986. Riggio, Robert P., George W. Bomar, and Thomas I. Larkin. Texas Drought: Its Recent History, 1931-1985. Austin: Texas Water Commission, 1987. Riney-Kehrberg, Pamela. Rooted in Dust: Surviving Drought and Depression in Southwestern Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Rosenberg, Norman J., ed. North American Droughts. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978. Shindo, Charles J. Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. 1021
Bibliography Wilhite, Donald A., ed. Drought and Water Crises: Science, Technology, and Management Issues. Boca Raton, Fla.: Taylor & Francis, 2005. Wilhite, Donald A., and William E. Easterling, eds., with Deborah A. Wood. Planning for Drought: Toward a Reduction of Societal Vulnerability. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987. Dust Storms and Sandstorms Morales, Chister, ed. Saharan Dust: Mobilization, Transport, Deposition. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. Pewe, Troy L., ed. Desert Dust: Origin, Characteristics, and Effect on Man. Boulder, Colo.: Geological Society of America, 1981. Shindo, Charles J. Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. Stallings, Frank L. Black Sunday: The Great Dust Storm of April 14, 1935. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2001. Sundar, Christopher A., et al. Radiative Effects of Aerosols Generated from Biomass Burning, Dust Storms, and Forest Fires. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1996. Tannehill, Ivan Ray. Drought: Its Causes and Effects. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s. 25th anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Earthquakes Bagnell, Norma Hayes. On Shaky Ground: The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996. Bolin, Robert. The Northridge Earthquake: Vulnerability and Disaster. New York: Routledge, 1998. Bolt, Bruce A. Earthquakes. 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Brooks, Charles B. Disaster at Lisbon: The Great Earthquake of 1755. Long Beach, Calif.: Shangton Longley Press, 1994. Brumbaugh, David S. Earthquakes, Science, and Society. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. Coch, Nicholas K. “Earthquake Hazards.” In Geohazards: Natural and Human. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995. Cohen, Stan. 8.6: The Great Alaska Earthquake March 27, 1964. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories, 1995.
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Bibliography Collier, Michael. A Land in Motion: California’s San Andreas Fault. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Colvard, Elizabeth M., and James Rogers. Facing the Great Disaster: How the Men and Women of the U.S. Geological Survey Responded to the 1906 “San Francisco Earthquake.” Reston, Va.: U.S. Geological Survey, 2006. Fradkin, Philip L. Magnitude 8: Earthquakes and Life Along the San Andreas Fault. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. Hadfield, Peter. Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World: The Coming Tokyo Earthquake. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle, 1991. Hammer, Joshua. Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire That Helped Forge the Path to World War II. New York: Free Press, 2006. Heppenheimer, T. A. The Coming Quake: Science and Trembling on the California Earthquake Frontier. New York: Times Books, 1988. Hough, Susan Elizabeth, and Roger G. Bilham. After the Earth Quakes: Elastic Rebound on an Urban Planet. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Housner, George W., and He Duxin, eds. The Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976. Pasadena, Calif.: California Institute of Technology, 2004. Keller, Edward A., and Nicholas Pinter. Active Tectonics: Earthquakes, Uplift, and Landscape. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002. Kimball, Virginia. Earthquake Ready. Rev. ed. Malibu, Calif.: Roundtable, 1992. Kurzman, Dan. Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. New York: William Morrow, 2001. Levy, Matthys, and Mario Salvador. Why the Earth Quakes: The Story of Earthquakes and Volcanoes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. Lundgren, Lawrence W. “Earthquake Hazards.” In Environmental Geology. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999. Murck, Barbara W., Brian Skinner, and Stephen C. Porter. Dangerous Earth: An Introduction to Geologic Hazards. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Page, Jake, and Charles Officer. The Big One: The Earthquake That Rocked Early America and Helped Create a Science. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. 1023
Bibliography Poniatowska, Elena. Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexico City Earthquake. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Reti, Irene, ed. The Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989. Santa Cruz: University of California, Santa Cruz, 2006. Sieh, Kerry, and Simon Le Vay. The Earth in Turmoil: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Their Impact on Humankind. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1998. Stewart, David, and Ray Knox. The Earthquake America Forgot: 2,000 Temblors in Five Months. Marble Hill, Mo.: Guttenberg-Richter, 1995. Verluise, Pierre. Armenia in Crisis: The 1988 Earthquake. Translated by Levon Chorbajian. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995. Winchester, Simon. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle, and Donald Theodore Sanders. Earthquakes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Seismic Disruptions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005. El Niño Allan, Rob, Janette Lindesay, and David Parker. El Niño Southern Oscillation and Climatic Variability. Collingwood, Australia: CSIRO, 1997. Arnold, Caroline. El Niño: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife. New York: Clarion, 1998. Babkina, A. M., ed. El Niño: Overview and Bibliography. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science, 2003. D’Aleo, Joseph S. The Oryx Resource Guide to El Niño and La Niña. Westport, Conn.: Oryx Press, 2002. Diaz, Henry F., and Vera Markgraf, eds. El Niño: Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Fagan, Brian. “El Niños That Shook the World.” In Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilization. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Glantz, Michael H. Currents of Change: El Niño’s Impact on Climate and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Lyons, Walter A. The Handy Weather Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997.
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Bibliography Floods Beyer, Jacqueline L. “Human Response to Floods.” In Perspectives on Water, edited by David H. Spiedel, Lon C. Ruedisili, and Allen F. Agnew. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Changnon, Stanley, ed. The Great Flood of 1993: Causes, Impacts, and Responses. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996. Dunne, Thomas, and Luna B. Leopold. Water in Environmental Planning. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1978. Dzurik, Andrew A. Water Resources Planning. 2d ed. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. Evans, T. William. Though the Mountains May Fall: The Story of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889. New York: Writers Club Press, 2002. Hornberger, George M., Jeffrey P. Raffensberger, Patricia L. Wilberg, and Keith N. Eshleman. Elements of Physical Hydrology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Johnson, Willis Fletcher. History of the Johnstown Flood. Reprint. Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books, 2001. Jones, J. A. A. Global Hydrology. Essex, England: Longman, 1997. Martini, I. Peter, Victor R. Baker, and Guillermina Garzón, eds. Flood and Megaflood Processes and Deposits: Recent and Ancient Examples. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Science, 2002. Myers, Mary Fran, and Gilbert F. White. “The Challenge of the Mississippi Floods.” In Environmental Management, edited by Lewis Owen and Tim Unwin. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. National Weather Service. The Great Flood of 1993. National Disaster Survey Report. Washington, D.C.: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1994. Nunis, Doyce B., Jr., ed. The Saint Francis Dam Disaster Revisited. Los Angeles: Historical Society of Southern California, 2002. O’Connor, Jim E., and John E. Costa. The World’s Largest Floods, Past and Present: Their Causes and Magnitudes. Reston, Va.: U.S. Geological Survey, 2004. Pielke, Roger A., Jr. Midwest Flood of 1993: Weather, Climate, and Societal Impacts. Boulder, Colo.: National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1996. Pollard, Michael. North Sea Surge: The Story of the East Coast Floods of 1953. Suffolk, England: Terence Dalton, 1978.
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Bibliography Felknor, Peter E. The Tri-State Tornado. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992. Grazulis, Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes: 1680-1991. St. Johnsbury, Vt.: Environmental Films, 1993. _______. Significant Tornadoes Update, 1992-1995. St. Johnsbury, Vt.: Environmental Films, 1997. _______. The Tornado: Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Lane, Frank. The Violent Earth. Topsfield, Mass.: Salem House, 1986. Ludlum, David. Early American Tornadoes: 1586-1870. Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1970. Weems, John Edward. The Tornado. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991. Whipple, A. B. “Thunderstorms and Their Progeny.” In Storm. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1982. Tsunamis Adamson, Thomas K. Tsunamis. Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press, 2006. Bernard, E. N. Developing Tsunami-Resilient Communities: The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. Norwell, Mass.: Springer, 2005. Dudley, Walter C., and Scott C. S. Stone. The Tsunami of 1946 and 1960 and the Devastation of Hilo Town. Marceline, Mo.: Walsworth, 2000. Karwoski, Gail Langer. Tsunami: The True Story of an April Fools’ Day Disaster. Plain City, Ohio: Darby Creek, 2006. Lander, James F., and Patricia A. Lockridge. United States Tsunamis, 1690-1988. Boulder, Colo.: National Geophysical Data Center, 1989. Lockridge, Patricia A., and Ronald H. Smith. Tsunamis in the Pacific Basin, 1900-1983. Boulder, Colo.: National Geophysical Data Center and World Data Center A for Solid Earth Geophysics, 1984. Myles, Douglas. The Great Waves. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. Robinson, Andrew. “Floods, Dambursts, and Tsunamis.” In Earthshock: Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Tornadoes, and Other Forces of Nature. Rev. ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002. Satake, Kenji, ed. Tsunamis: Case Studies and Recent Developments. Springer, 2006. Solovev, Sergei, and Chan Nam Go. Catalogue of Tsunamis on the East1035
Bibliography ern Shore of the Pacific Ocean. Sidney, B.C.: Institute of Ocean Sciences, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1984. _______. Catalogue of Tsunamis on the Western Shore of the Pacific Ocean. Sidney, B.C.: Institute of Ocean Sciences, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 1984. Stewart, Gail B. Catastrophe in Southeastern Asia: The Tsunami of 2004. Chicago: Gale/Lucent, 2005. Torres, John Albert. Disaster in the Indian Ocean, Tsunami 2004. Hockessin, Del.: Mitchell Lane, 2005. Volcanic Eruptions Bardintzeff, Jacques-Marie, and Alexander R. McBirney. Volcanology. 2d ed. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 2000. Bonaccorso, Alessandro, et al., eds. Mt. Etna: Volcano Laboratory. Washington, D.C.: American Geophysical Union, 2004. Bullard, Fred M. Volcanoes of the Earth. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Carson, Rob. Mount St. Helens: The Eruption and Recovery of a Volcano. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2000. Chester, David. Volcanoes and Society. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1993. Davison, Phil. Volcano in Paradise: The True Story of the Montserrat Eruptions. London: Methuen, 2003. De Carolis, Ernesto, and Giovanni Patricelli. Vesuvius, A.D. 79: The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003. Decker, Robert, and Barbara Decker. Volcanoes. 4th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2006. Druit, T.H., and B. P. Kokelaar, eds. The Eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat, from 1995 to 1999. London: Geological Society, 2002. Fisher, Richard V. Out of the Crater: Chronicles of a Volcanologist. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. Fisher, Richard V., Grant Heiken, and Jeffrey B. Hulen. Volcanoes: Crucibles of Change. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Fouqué, Ferdinand. Santorini and Its Eruptions. Translated by Alexander R. McBirney. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 1036
Bibliography Francis, Peter, and Clive Oppenheimer. Volcanoes. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Morgan, Peter. Fire Mountain: How One Man Survived the World’s Worst Volcanic Disaster. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Newhall, Christopher G., James W. Hendley II, and Peter H. Stauffer. The Cataclysmic 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines. Vancouver, Wash.: U.S. Geological Survey, 1997. Rosi, Mauro, et al. Volcanoes. Buffalo, N.Y.: Firefly Books, 2003. Scarth, Alwyn. La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Eruption of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. _______. Volcanoes: An Introduction. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1994. _______. Vulcan’s Fury: Man Against the Volcano. New ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Sigurdsson, Haraldur, ed. Encyclopedia of Volcanoes. San Diego, Calif.: Academic, 2000. Simkin, Tom, and Richard S. Fiske, eds. Krakatau, 1883: The Volcanic Eruption and Its Effects. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983. Sparks, R. S. J., et al. Volcanic Plumes. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Stommel, Henry, and Elizabeth Stommel. Volcano Weather: The Story of 1816, the Year Without a Summer. Newport, R.I.: Seven Seas Press, 1983. Sutherland, Lin. The Volcanic Earth: Volcanoes and Plate Tectonics, Past, Present, and Future. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995. Tilling, Robert I., Lyn Topinka, and Donald A. Swanson. Eruptions of Mount St. Helens: Past, Present, and Future. Reston, Va.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 1990. Winchester, Simon. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Wohletz, Kenneth, and Grant Heiken. Volcanology and Geothermal Energy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Zebrowski, Ernest. The Last Days of St. Pierre: The Volcanic Disaster That Claimed 30,000 Lives. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. 1037
Bibliography Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle, and Donald Theodore Sanders. Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Wind Gusts Freier, George D. Weather Proverbs: How 600 Proverbs, Sayings, and Poems Accurately Explain Our Weather. Tucson, Ariz.: Fisher Books, 1992. Kimble, George H. T. Our American Weather. New York: McGraw Hill, 1955. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Making the Skies Safe from Windshear. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/ factsheets/Windshear.html. National Transportation Safety Board. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/ query.asp. Palmén, E., and C. W. Newton. Atmospheric Circulation Systems: Their Structure and Physical Interpretation. New York: Academic Press, 1969. Wood, Richard A., ed. The Weather Almanac: A Reference Guide to Weather, Climate, and Related Issues in the United States and Its Key Cities. 11th ed. Detroit: Thompson/Gale, 2004.
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■ Organizations and Agencies America Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam) Headquarters: Oxfam America 226 Causeway Street, 5th Floor Boston, MA 02114 Ph.: (800) 77-OXFAM Fax: (617) 728-2594 Policy and Advocacy Office: Oxfam America 1100 15th Street NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20005 Fax: (202) 496-1190 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.oxfamamerica.org Creates solutions to hunger, poverty, and social injustice around the world. Provides emergency aid when disaster strikes, assisting refugees and survivors of natural disasters. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 Ph.: (215) 241-7000, (888) 588-2372 (donations) Fax: (215) 241-7275 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.afsc.org A Quaker organization that focuses on issues related to economic and social justice in the United States, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.jdc.org Sponsors programs of relief, rescue, and reconstruction to Jews affected by natural and human-made disasters around the world.
1039
Organizations and Agencies American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund 2025 E Street NW Washington, DC 20006 Ph.: (202) 303-4498, (800) REDCROSS (donations) Web site: http://www.redcross.org Provides relief to victims of disasters and helps people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. Americares Foundation 88 Hamilton Avenue Stamford, CT 06902 Ph.: (800) 486-HELP Web site: http://www.americares.org Dispenses emergency medicines, medical supplies, and nutritional items to victims of disasters, famine, and war to over 130 countries worldwide. Supports long-term health care programs. Baptist World Alliance 405 North Washington Street Falls Church, VA 22046 Ph.: (703) 790-8980 Fax: (703) 893-5160 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.bwanet.org/bwaid Supports refugees and victims of famine and natural disasters. Feeds the starving and malnourished, especially in countries suffering from drought and food shortages. Brother’s Brother Foundation 1200 Galveston Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15233 Ph.: (412) 321-3160 Fax: (412) 321-3325 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.brothersbrother.org Links America’s vast medical resources to global health care needs. Provides immunizations and donates medical supplies and equipment, seed, other agricultural inputs, and educational materials to needy countries across the globe. 1040
Organizations and Agencies Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) Building #1 Manor Lodge Lodge Hill, St. Michael Barbados Ph.: (246) 425-0386 Fax: (246) 425-8854 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.cdera.org Coordinates regional disaster management activities within 16 countries. Mobilizes and arranges disaster relief from governmental and nongovernmental organizations for affected participating countries. Aims for response to, recovery from, rebuilding from, and prevention of natural disasters. Catholic Relief Services Information: 209 West Fayette Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Ph.: (410) 625-2220, (800) 235-2772 Fax: (410) 685-1635 Web site: http://www.catholicrelief.org Donations: P.O. Box 17090 Baltimore, Maryland 21203-7090 Ph.: (888) 277-7575 (M-F), (800) 736-3467 (evenings/weekends) Gives assistance based on need to people affected by natural disasters in more than 80 countries around the world. Christian Relief Services 2550 Huntington Avenue, Suite 200 Alexandria, VA 22303 Ph.: (703) 317-9086, (800) 33-RELIEF E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.christianrelief.org Collaborates with grass-roots charitable groups, churches, and human service agencies to help those in need in their own communities. Enables people to help themselves.
1041
Organizations and Agencies Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere (CARE) 151 Ellis Street NE Atlanta, GA 30303 Ph.: (404) 681-2552 Fax: (404) 589-2651 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.care.org Reaches tens of millions of people whose lives are devastated by humanitarian emergencies each year in more than 60 countries. Provides food, water, shelter, and health care to survivors of natural disasters and armed conflicts. Direct Relief International 27 S. La Patera Lane Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Ph.: (805) 964-4767 Fax: (805) 681-4838 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.directrelief.org A nonprofit, nonsectarian medical relief organization that provides medical support with new and used medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and supplies to over three thousand charitable health facilities worldwide. Distributes product contributions from manufacturers, hospitals, and health clinics. Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association International (DERA) Information: P.O. Box 280795 Denver, CO 80228 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.disasters.org Donations: P.O. Box 797 Longmont, CO 80502 Assists communities in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. Links professionals, volunteers, and organizations in all phases of emergency preparedness and management. 1042
Organizations and Agencies Do Unto Others (DUO) 21 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Suite 209 Corte Madera, CA 94925 Ph.: (800) 934-9755 Web site: http://www.duo.org Responds to human-made and natural disasters wherever they occur in the world. Works to ease the suffering of people affected by war, natural disaster, famine, and epidemics. Doctors Without Borders Information: 333 7th Avenue, 2d Floor New York, NY 10001-5004 Ph.: (212) 679-6800 Fax: (212) 679-7016 Web site: http://www.dwb.org Donations: Doctors Without Borders USA P.O. Box 5030 Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030 Ph.: (888) 392-0392 The world’s largest independent international medical relief agency, aiding victims of armed conflict, epidemics, and natural and humanmade disasters in over 80 countries. Provides primary health care, performs surgery, vaccinates children, operates emergency nutrition and sanitation programs, and trains local medical staff. Also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Farm Service Agency (FSA) U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency Public Affairs Staff 1400 Independence Avenue SW STOP 0506 Washington, DC 20250-0506 Web site: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/fsa An agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Offers assistance to farmers and ranchers suffering from droughts, 1043
Organizations and Agencies floods, freezes, tornadoes, or other natural disasters. Shares the cost of rehabilitating farmlands damaged by natural disaster and provides emergency water assistance. Programs include the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), Emergency Loan (EM) Assistance, and Emergency Haying and Grazing Assistance. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 500 C. Street SW Washington, DC 20472 Ph.: (800) 621-FEMA to apply for disaster assistance Web site: http://www.fema.gov An independent agency of the federal government founded in 1979. Helps millions of Americans face disaster and its terrifying consequences. Aims to reduce loss of life and property and protect the U.S. infrastructure from all types of hazards through a comprehensive, risk-based, emergency management program of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Friends of the World Food Program (FWFP) 1819 L Street NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036 Ph.: (202) 530-1694 Fax: (202) 530-1698 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.friendsofwfp.org Supports the World Food Program (WFP), which provides food aid to areas facing food deficits caused by human-made and natural disasters and helps more than 86 million people in 82 countries. Global Impact 66 Canal Center Plaza, Suite 310 Alexandria, VA 22314 Ph.: (703) 717-5200, (800) 638-4620 Fax: (703) 717-5215 Web site: http://www.charity.org A coalition of America’s leading international relief and development organizations. Helps people who suffer from hunger, poverty, disease, or natural disasters. 1044
Organizations and Agencies International Aid 17011 W. Hickory Street Spring Lake, MI 49456-9712 Ph.: (616) 846-7490, (800) 968-7490, (800) 251-2502 (donations) Fax: (616) 846-3842 Web site: http://www.internationalaid.org Provides medicines, medical supplies, food, blankets, and other tangible resources to local groups caring for people in over 170 countries affected by natural disasters. Partners with local and national churches and agencies that provide distribution, logistical support, and on-site administration for overseas relief efforts. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies P.O. Box 372 CH-1211 Geneva 19 Switzerland Ph.: (+41 22) 730 42 22 Fax: (+41 22) 733 03 95 Web site: http://www.ifrc.org The Red Crescent is used in place of the Red Cross in many Islamic countries. Provides humanitarian relief to people affected by disasters or other emergencies and development assistance to empower vulnerable people to become more self-sufficient in 176 countries. International Medical Corps (IMC) 1919 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 300 Santa Monica, CA 90404 Ph.: (310) 826-7800, (800) 481-4462 (donations) Fax: (310) 442-6622 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.imcworldwide.org Responds rapidly to emerging epidemics, purchases vaccines and emergency medical supplies to vaccinate children against disease and prevent thousands of needless deaths. Rehabilitates health posts in remote areas in 16 countries.
1045
Organizations and Agencies Lutheran World Relief Information: 700 Light Street Baltimore, MD 21230 Ph.: (410) 230-2800 Fax: (410) 230-2882 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.lwr.org Donations: P.O. Box 17061 Baltimore, MD 21298-9832 Ph.: (800) LWR-LWR2 Offers health care, food, water, and other relief supplies around the world. Works to improve harvests, health, and education in some 50 countries. MAP International 2200 Glynco Parkway P.O. Box 215000 Brunswick, GA 31521-5000 Ph.: (800) 225-8550 Web site: http://www.map.org Provides essential medicines, works for the prevention and eradication of disease, and promotes community health development worldwide. Mercy Corps Information: Dept W 3015 SW 1st Avenue Portland, OR 97201 Ph.: (800) 292-3355 Fax: (503) 796-6844 Web site: http://www.mercycorps.org Donations: Dept W P.O. Box 2669 Portland OR 97208 1046
Organizations and Agencies Ph.: (888) 256-1900 Works to alleviate suffering caused by drought and famine. Provides food, shelter, health care, and economic opportunity to more than 3 million people in 68 countries, sending emergency goods and material aid. National Relief Network P.O. Box 125 Greenville, MI 48838-0125 Ph.: (616) 225-2525, (866) 286-5868 Fax: (616) 225-1934 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.nrn.org Brings large numbers of volunteers to areas struck by natural disasters for as long as it takes to bring help to each and every family in need. Nazarene Disaster Response USA Information: Ph.: (888) 256-5886 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.ncm.org/min_ndr.aspx Donations: General Treasurer Church of the Nazarene 6401 The Paseo Kansas City, MO 64131-1213 Provides disaster relief to victims in the United States. Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) 130 Prospect Street Cambridge, MA 02139 Ph.: (617) 868-6600, (800) 388-3920 Fax: (617) 868-7102 Web site: http://www.uusc.org A nonsectarian organization that promotes human rights and social justice in the United States, South and Southeast Asia, Central Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Provides financial and technical support when disasters strike impoverished areas. 1047
Organizations and Agencies United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs United Nations Secretariat S-3600 New York, NY 10017 Ph.: (212) 963-1234 Fax: (212) 963-1013 Web site: http://ochaonline.un.org Provides information on emergencies and natural disasters collected from over 170 sources. Coordinates emergency response primarily through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), with the participation of humanitarian partners such as the Red Cross. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Information Center U.S. Agency for International Development Ronald Reagan Building Washington, DC 20523-1000 Ph.: (202) 712-4810, (202) 712-0000 Fax: (202) 216-3524 Web site: http://www.usaid.gov A federal government agency that implements America’s foreign economic and humanitarian assistance programs. The principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster. U.S. Committee for UNICEF 333 East 38th Street New York, NY 10016 Ph.: (212) 686-5522, (800) 4UNICEF Fax: (212) 779-1670 Web site: http://www.unicefusa.org Raises money for UNICEF, which works in more than 160 countries and territories providing health care, clean water, improved nutrition, and education to millions of children in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Promotes the survival, protection, and development of children worldwide. 1048
Organizations and Agencies World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) P.O. Box 55158 Madison, WI 53705-8958 Ph.: (608) 263-2069 Fax: (608) 265-3037 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://wadem.medicine.wisc.edu Promotes the worldwide development and improvement of emergency and disaster medicine. Helps people affected by medical emergencies and national and international disasters. World Concern International Headquarters 19303 Fremont Avenue North Seattle, Washington 98133 Ph.: (206) 546-7201, (800) 755-5022 Fax: (206) 546-7269 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.worldconcern.org Provides food relief and life skill enrichment to impoverished families worldwide. Offers emergency relief, rehabilitation, and longterm development. World Health Organization (WHO) Avenue Appia 20 1211 Geneva 27 Switzerland Ph: (+41 22) 791 21 11 Fax: (+41 22) 791 3111 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.who.int Promotes technical cooperation for health among nations, carries out programs to control and eradicate disease, and cooperates with governments in strengthening national health programs. Develops and transfers appropriate health technology, information, and standards and strives to improve the quality of human life. A specialized agency of the United Nations with 191 member countries. 1049
Organizations and Agencies World Relief 7 East Baltimore St Baltimore, MD 21202 Ph.: (443) 451-1900 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.wr.org Provides quick, effective assistance to the most vulnerable victims of earthquakes, hurricanes, drought, or war. Combats poverty and disease to keep children healthy. Part of the World Evangelical Fellowship. World Vision Headquarters: 34834 Weyerhaeuser Way South Federal Way, WA 98001 Ph.: (888) 511-6548 E-mail:
[email protected] Web site: http://www.worldvision.org Mailing address: P.O. Box 9716, Dept. W Federal Way, WA 98063-9716 Serves the world’s poor and displaced by providing programs that help save lives, bring hope, and restore dignity. Lauren Mitchell
1050
Indexes
■ Category List Avalanches Avalanches (overview) 1999: The Galtür avalanche, Austria Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail (overview) 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888, U.S. Northeast 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster, Nepal Comets. See Meteorites and Comets Cyclones. See Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones; Tornadoes Droughts Droughts (overview) 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains Dust Storms and Sandstorms Dust Storms and Sandstorms (overview) 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains Earthquakes Earthquakes (overview) 526: The Antioch earthquake, Syria 1692: The Port Royal earthquake, Jamaica 1755: The Lisbon earthquake, Portugal 1811: New Madrid earthquakes, Missouri 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake 1908: The Messina earthquake, Italy 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake, Japan 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake 1970: The Ancash earthquake, Peru 1976: The Tangshan earthquake, China 1985: The Mexico City earthquake XXXIX
Category List 1988: The Leninakan earthquake, Armenia 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake, Northern California 1994: The Northridge earthquake, Southern California 1995: The Kobe earthquake, Japan 1999: The Ezmit earthquake, Turkey 2003: The Bam earthquake, Iran 2005: The Kashmir earthquake, Pakistan El Niño El Niño (overview) 1982: El Niño, Pacific Ocean Epidemics Epidemics (overview) 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens 1320: The Black Death, Europe 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic 1665: The Great Plague of London 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, Memphis 1892: Cholera pandemic 1900: Typhoid Mary, New York State 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic, United States 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1976: Ebola outbreaks, Zaire and Sudan 1976: Legionnaires’ disease, Philadelphia 1980’s: AIDS pandemic 1995: Ebola outbreak, Zaire 2002: SARS epidemic, Asia and Canada Explosions Explosions (overview) 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster, England 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster, West Virginia 1947: The Texas City Disaster Famines Famines (overview) 1200: Egypt famine XL
Category List 1845: The Great Irish Famine 1959: The Great Leap Forward Famine, China 1984: Africa famine Fires Fires (overview) 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome 1657: The Meireki Fire, Japan 1666: The Great Fire of London 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire, Wisconsin 1871: The Great Chicago Fire 1872: The Great Boston Fire 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster, Illinois 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster, New Jersey 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire, Northern California 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003, Southern California Floods Floods (overview) 1889: The Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse, Southern California 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Fog Fog (overview) 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking, Canada Freezes. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Glaciers. See Icebergs and Glaciers Hail. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Heat Waves Heat Waves (overview) 1995: Chicago heat wave 2003: Europe heat wave XLI
Category List Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones (overview) 1900: The Galveston hurricane, Texas 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane 1928: The San Felipe hurricane, Florida and the Caribbean 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1969: Hurricane Camille 1970: The Bhola cyclone, East Pakistan 1989: Hurricane Hugo 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1998: Hurricane Mitch 2005: Hurricane Katrina Ice Storms. See Blizzards, Freezes, Ice Storms, and Hail Icebergs and Glaciers Icebergs and Glaciers (overview) Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides (overview) 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster, Italy 1966: The Aberfan Disaster, Wales 2006: The Leyte mudslide, Philippines Lightning Strikes Lightning Strikes (overview) Meteorites and Comets Meteorites and Comets (overview) c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater, Atlantic Ocean 1908: The Tunguska event, Siberia Mudslides. See Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Rockslides. See Landslides, Mudslides, and Rockslides Sandstorms. See Dust Storms and Sandstorms XLII
Category List Smog Smog (overview) 1952: The Great London Smog Tornadoes Tornadoes (overview) 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, St. Louis 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak, U.S. Midwest 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak, U.S. South and Midwest, Canada 1997: The Jarrell tornado, Texas 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak Tsunamis Tsunamis (overview) 1946: The Aleutian tsunami, Hawaii 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Typhoons. See Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones Volcanic Eruptions Volcanic Eruptions (overview) c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption, Aegean Sea 79 c.e.: Vesuvius eruption, Italy 1669: Etna eruption, Sicily 1783: Laki eruption, Iceland 1815: Tambora eruption, Indonesia 1883: Krakatau eruption, Indonesia 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption, Washington 1982: El Chichón eruption, Mexico 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster, Cameroon 1991: Pinatubo eruption, Philippines 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat Wind Gusts Wind Gusts (overview) XLIII
■ Geographical List Africa. See also individual countries 1984: Africa famine 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Alabama 2005: Hurricane Katrina Alaska 1964: The Great Alaska Earthquake Armenia 1988: The Leninakan earthquake Asia. See also individual countries 2002: SARS epidemic 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Atlantic Ocean c. 65,000,000 b.c.e.: Yucatán crater 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Austria 1999: The Galtür avalanche Bahamas 1992: Hurricane Andrew Bangladesh. See also East Pakistan 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Belgium 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 California 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake XLV
Geographical List 1928: St. Francis Dam collapse 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake 1991: The Oakland Hills Fire 1994: The Northridge earthquake 2003: The Fire Siege of 2003 Cameroon 1986: The Lake Nyos Disaster Canada 1914: Empress of Ireland sinking 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak 2002: SARS epidemic Caribbean 1692: The Port Royal earthquake, Jamaica 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1928: The San Felipe hurricane 1989: Hurricane Hugo 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat Central America. See also individual countries 1998: Hurricane Mitch China 1959: The Great Leap Forward Famine 1976: The Tangshan earthquake 2002: SARS epidemic East Pakistan 1970: The Bhola cyclone Egypt 1200: Egypt famine England 1665: The Great Plague of London XLVI
Geographical List 1666: The Great Fire of London 1880: The Seaham Colliery Disaster 1952: The Great London Smog Ethiopia 1984: Africa famine Europe. See also individual countries 1320: The Black Death 2003: Europe heat wave Florida 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane 1928: The San Felipe hurricane 1992: Hurricane Andrew 2005: Hurricane Katrina France 2003: Europe heat wave Great Britain. See also England; Ireland; Wales 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Great Plains, U.S. 1932: The Dust Bowl Greece 430 b.c.e.: The Plague of Athens Hawaii 1946: The Aleutian tsunami Hong Kong 2002: SARS epidemic Iceland 1783: Laki eruption
XLVII
Geographical List Idaho 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Illinois 1871: The Great Chicago Fire 1909: The Cherry Mine Disaster 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado 1995: Chicago heat wave India 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Indian Ocean 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Indiana 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Indonesia 1815: Tambora eruption 1883: Krakatau eruption 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Iran 2003: The Bam earthquake Ireland 1845: The Great Irish Famine Italy 64 c.e.: The Great Fire of Rome 79: Vesuvius eruption 1669: Etna eruption 1908: The Messina earthquake 1963: The Vaiont Dam Disaster
XLVIII
Geographical List Jamaica 1692: The Port Royal earthquake Japan 1657: The Meireki Fire 1923: The Great Kwanto Earthquake 1995: The Kobe earthquake Kenya 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Louisiana 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1992: Hurricane Andrew 2005: Hurricane Katrina Martinique 1902: Pelée eruption Massachusetts 1872: The Great Boston Fire Mediterranean c. 1470 b.c.e.: Thera eruption, Aegean Sea 1669: Etna eruption, Sicily Mexico 1520: Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic 1982: El Chichón eruption 1985: The Mexico City earthquake Midwest, U.S. 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Mississippi 2005: Hurricane Katrina
XLIX
Geographical List Mississippi River 1993: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 Missouri 1811: New Madrid earthquakes 1896: The Great Cyclone of 1896, St. Louis 1925: The Great Tri-State Tornado Montana 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Montserrat 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption Nepal 1996: The Mount Everest Disaster Netherlands 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 New England 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 New Jersey 1937: The Hindenburg Disaster New York 1900: Typhoid Mary North Carolina 1989: Hurricane Hugo North Sea 1953: The North Sea Flood of 1953 Oklahoma 1999: The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak L
Geographical List Pacific Ocean 1982: Pacific Ocean El Niño Pakistan 2005: The Kashmir earthquake Papua New Guinea 1998: Papua New Guinea tsunami Pennsylvania 1889: The Johnstown Flood 1976: Legionnaires’ disease, Philadelphia Peru 1970: The Ancash earthquake Philippines 1991: Pinatubo eruption 2006: The Leyte mudslide Portugal 1755: The Lisbon earthquake Russia 1908: The Tunguska event Siberia 1908: The Tunguska event South, U.S. 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak South Carolina 1989: Hurricane Hugo Sri Lanka 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami
LI
Geographical List Sudan 1976: Ebola outbreaks 1984: Africa famine Syria 526: The Antioch earthquake Tennessee 1878: The Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, Memphis Texas 1900: The Galveston hurricane 1947: The Texas City Disaster 1957: Hurricane Audrey 1997: The Jarrell tornado Thailand 2004: The Indian Ocean Tsunami Turkey 1999: The Ezmit earthquake United States. See also individual states and regions 1916: The Great Polio Epidemic 1932: The Dust Bowl, Great Plains 1938: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 1965: The Palm Sunday Outbreak 1974: The Jumbo Outbreak Wales 1966: The Aberfan Disaster Washington State 1980: Mount St. Helens eruption West Indies 1902: Pelée eruption, Martinique 1928: The San Felipe hurricane LII
Geographical List 1992: Hurricane Andrew 1997: Soufrière Hills eruption, Montserrat West Virginia 1914: The Eccles Mine Disaster Wisconsin 1871: The Great Peshtigo Fire Worldwide 1892: Cholera pandemic 1918: The Great Flu Pandemic 1980: AIDS pandemic Wyoming 1988: Yellowstone National Park fires Zaire 1976: Ebola outbreaks 1995: Ebola outbreak
LIII
Index ■A
Amplifiers, 709 Amundsen, Roald, 27 Anatolian fault, 909 Ancash earthquake, 680-686 Anchorage, Alaska, 657 Andrea Doria, 153 Andrew, Hurricane, 176, 180-181, 816-827 Anjer, Indonesia, 453 Annapolis, Missouri, 574 Antakya, Turkey, 328 Antarctica, 27; asteroids, 218; icebergs, 185 Antibiotics, 84 Antioch earthquake, 328-330 Antiseptics, 83 Antwerp, Belgium, 632 April Fools’ Day Tsunami, 615 Aqueducts, 584 Arkansas; earthquakes, 394; floods, 395 Armenia earthquakes, 780 Armero, Colombia, 194, 281 Army Corps of Engineers, 140 Arresters, 210 Ash, 277 Ash flows, 320-321 Asia; epidemics, 921; famines, 104 Asteroids, 215 Athens, Greece, 80, 88, 306 Atlantis, 304 Atmospheric inversion, 229 Audrey, Hurricane, 636-642
Aberfan, Wales, 662-668 Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 83, 718. See also AIDS pandemic Adapazari, Turkey, 915 Advectional fog, 148 Aegean Sea volcanic eruptions, 301 Aerosols, 19 Afghanistan earthquakes, 196 Africa; droughts, 38, 749; epidemics, 563, 722; famines, 104, 750-755 Aftershocks, 59, 378, 381 Agnes, Hurricane, 135 AIDS pandemic, 83, 718-728 Air circulation, 32 Air-conditioning, 160, 863 Air-fall deposits, 320 Air pollution, 227 Air pressure, 67 Airplane crashes. See Plane crashes Airships, 604 Alabama; hurricanes, 669, 954; tornadoes, 695 Alaska; earthquakes, 652; tsunamis, 266; volcanic eruptions, 285 Aleutian tsunami, 264, 615-619 Alley cropping, 44 Alps, the, 25 Alton, Illinois, 831 Alvarez, Walter and Luis, 297 Ammonium nitrate, 94, 620
LV
Index Blight, 403, 406 Blindness, 753 Blizzards, 15-31, 462, 866 Bolides, 215 Bores, 258 Boston, 434 Brandenburg, Kentucky, 697 Brazil droughts, 39 Brest, France, 99 Bridges, 801 Brisance, 94 Brushfires, 116, 126 Buboes, 335, 355 Bubonic plague, 80-81, 90, 123, 335, 354 Bucket brigades, 429 Burns, 121
Australia; droughts, 39, 748; dust storms, 748; explosions, 99 Austria avalanches, 897 Avalanches, 1-14, 30, 192, 682, 897 Azidothymidine. See AZT AZT, 726 Aztec Empire smallpox epidemic, 347-349
■B Baguious, 172 Bahamas hurricanes, 816 Ball lightning, 206 Bam earthquake, 940-945 Banda Atjeh, Indonesia, 950 Bangladesh; cyclones, 687; floods, 135, 144 Barangay Guinsaugon, Philippines, 970 Base surges, 320 Bay Bridge, San Francisco, 794, 801 Bay of Bengal cyclones, 689 Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, 673 Beacons, 10 Beaufort scale, 289 Belgium; floods, 630; smog, 234 Belluno, Italy, 648 Bengal, India, 481 Berkeley, California, 811 Bhola cyclone, 687-693 Bible, 107 Big Prairie, Arkansas, 395 Biscayne Bay, Florida, 823 Bishop’s ring, 459 Black blizzards, 599 Black Death, 80, 89, 109, 335-343, 345-346 Black Friday, 652
■C Cadiz, Spain, 99 Calabria, Italy, 527 California; earthquakes, 62, 196, 793, 835; explosions, 99; fires, 810, 934; floods, 135, 584; mudslides, 748; smog, 229, 234; tsunamis, 262 California State University, Northridge, 840 Callejón de Huaylas, Peru, 680 Calving, 184 Cameron, Louisiana, 637 Cameroon volcanic eruptions, 287, 767 Camille, Hurricane, 179, 669-679 Camp Joe Williams, 442 Canada; epidemics, 921; explosions, 99; fog, 150, 544; ice storms, 29; tornadoes, 695; tsunamis, 259
LVI
Index Candide (Voltaire), 384 Candlestick Park, 795 Cannibalism, 332 Cape Verde storms, 786 Carbon dioxide, 157 Caribbean; hurricanes, 591, 786; volcanic eruptions, 880 Carpathia, 187 Cascades, 730 Castaic Junction, California, 586 Castellated icebergs, 184 Catania, Italy, 370 Cedar Fire, 934 Central America hurricanes, 888 Chad famines, 750 Chain reaction, 113 Channels, 137 Charleston, South Carolina, 56, 788 Chernobyl, 99 Cherry Mine, Illinois, 534-540 Chicago; fires, 423; heat waves, 163, 861-865; ice storms, 21 Chichón, El. See El Chichón Chicxulub, Yucatán, 298 Chile tsunamis, 259, 265, 617 China; earthquakes, 62, 711; epidemics, 90, 921; famines, 108, 643; floods, 137, 143; smog, 235 Chinhónal, 741 Cholera pandemic, 481-484 Cinder cone volcanoes, 275 Cirques, 5 Citadel, 941 Clean Air Act, 231 Clouds, 19, 204 Coal burning, 227 Coal mines, 98, 446, 534, 541, 662 Cocoanut Grove Nightclub, 124
Cold fronts, 240, 289 Colombia volcanic eruptions, 194, 281 Colorado; dust storms, 46; hail, 25 Combustion, 92, 111 Comet Encke, 525 Comets, 215-226, 524 Communicable diseases, 74 Conduction, 114 Conflagrations, 115 Congo, Democratic Republic of, epidemics, 700, 854. See also Zaire Connecticut hurricanes, 610 Connecticut River, 613 Connie, Hurricane, 130 Conservation; soil, 43; water, 36 Contagious diseases, 74 Contour strip cropping, 44 Controlled burns, 116, 127 Convection, 18, 114 Cooling stations, 863 Coral Gables, Florida, 821 Coronaviruses, 922 Cortés, Hernán, 347 Couloirs, 5 Crater lakes, 272, 767 Creole, Louisiana, 637 Crescent City, California, 262 Crete, 304 Crush syndrome, 784 Crystal Lake, Illinois, 660 Cuba hurricanes, 670 Culebra, 787 Cumulonimbus clouds, 19 Cutoffs, 137 Cyclones, 42, 165-182, 687. See also Tornadoes
LVII
Index ■D
■E
Daly City, California, 798 Dams, 145, 469, 584, 648 Danube, 931 Debris, 191 Deflagration, 92 Deforestation, 103, 752 Depth-length ratio, 192 Deserts, 35, 41, 43, 45 DeSoto, Illinois, 575 Detonation, 92 Dialysis, 784 Diane, Hurricane, 130 Diga del Vajont. See Vaiont Dam, Italy Dikes, 137 Dilatancy, 57 Dinosaurs, 299 Dirigibles. See Airships Disease, 74, 86, 407 Dolomites, 648 Donner Party, 26 Donora, Pennsylvania, 234 Doppler radar, 243, 250, 293 Dordrecht, Netherlands, 633 Double Creek Estates, Jarrell, Texas, 876 Downbursts, 290 Downdrafts, 19-20, 290 Drizzle, 148 Drought index, 34 Droughts, 32-40, 70, 101, 103-104, 108, 598, 748, 928, 930 Dry powder avalanches, 10 Drylines, 241 Duff, 811 Dust, 42, 94, 277 Dust Bowl, 37, 39, 598-603 Dust devils, 42 Dust storms, 41-47, 598, 748 Dutch East Indies. See Indonesia
Earthquakes, 48-66, 196, 254, 281, 328, 376, 380, 393, 512, 527, 566, 652, 680, 711, 756, 780, 792, 835, 847, 909, 940, 946, 963; forecasting, 56; insurance, 797, 845; prediction, 57, 566, 712 East Pakistan cyclones, 687 Ebola virus, 700-706, 854-860 Eccles Mine, West Virginia, 541543 Ecuador floods, 748 Edo, Japan, 350 Egypt famines, 108, 331-334 El Chichón, 278, 741-747 El Niño, 67-73, 101, 747-749 El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), 67 El Salvador; hurricanes, 891 Elastic strain energy, 48 Elastic waves, 51 Electrical charge, 206 Electricity, 212 Emigration, 410 Emissions, 231 Empress of Ireland, 153, 544-547 Encke, Comet, 525 England; epidemics, 338, 354; explosions, 446; fires, 123, 360; floods, 135, 630; smog, 153, 234, 627 ENSO. See El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Enzootic, 75 Epicenter, 53 Epidemics, 74-83, 85-91, 306, 335, 347, 354, 438, 481, 501, 548, 555, 700, 707, 718, 854, 921 Epidemiology, 75
LVIII
Index Epizootic, 75 Erosion, 44, 599 Erto syncline, 649 Ethiopia; famines, 751; floods, 754 Etna, 370-375 Europe; droughts, 930; epidemics, 80, 90, 336; fires, 931; floods, 144; heat waves, 928-933 Evacuation, 119 Evaporation, 32 Evapotranspiration, 34 Everest, Mount, 29, 866-872 Everglades, 824 Exothermic reaction, 111 Explosions, 92-100, 446, 541, 604, 620 Explosives, 4 Eye, hurricane, 165 Eyewalls, 168, 817
■F F-scale, 240 Factor of safety, 198 Falls, 192 Famines, 101-110, 162, 284, 331, 403, 643, 750 Faults, 48, 56, 62 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 179 FEMA. See Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Field stripping, 44 Finley, John Park, 248 Fire Island, New York, 612 Fire Siege of 2003, 934-939 Fire tetrahedral, 113 Fire triangle, 113 Fireballs, 215
Fires, 111-129, 312, 350, 360, 381, 415, 423, 434, 517, 534, 567, 604, 749, 774, 810, 931, 934 Firestorms, 418 First-degree burns, 121 Fishing, 72, 748 Fissure eruptions, 273 Flash floods, 71, 133, 171 Flash point, 92 “Flea, the,” 764 Fleas, 74, 89, 336, 355 Floodplains, 134 Floods, 71, 130-147, 171, 469, 584, 630, 748, 828; insurance, 138 Floodways, 137 Florence, Italy, 145 Florida City, Florida, 822 Florida hurricanes, 178, 579, 591, 816, 954 Flows, 191 Flu. See Influenza Fluvial tsunamis, 397 Fog, 148-155, 544 Foghorns, 151, 153 Forecasting; earthquakes, 56; hurricane, 172; landslides, 198; tornadoes, 243, 248-249 Forest fires, 126, 415 Fort Collins, Colorado, 25 Fort Jefferson, Kentucky, 395 France; epidemics, 337; explosions, 99; hail, 26; heat waves, 929 Franklin, Benjamin, 206, 212, 283 Freeways, 800, 841 Freezes, 15-31 Fronts, 289 Frost wedging, 196 Fuel, 92, 111 Fuel load, 117
LIX
Index Great Cyclone of 1896, 485-488 Great Edo Fire, 350 Great Famine, the, 407 Great Fire of London, 123, 358, 360-369 Great Fire of Rome, 123, 312-315 Great Flu Pandemic, 555-565 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, 847 Great Hunger, the, 403 Great Irish Famine, 101, 109, 162, 403-414 Great Kanto Earthquake, 566 Great Kwanto Earthquake, 566-572 Great Leap Forward famine, 109, 643-647 Great London Smog, 153, 232, 627-629 Great Miami Hurricane, 178, 579583 Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993, 141, 828-834 Great Mortality, the, 335 Great New England Hurricane of 1938, 178, 609-614 Great Peshtigo Fire, 126, 415-422 Great Plague of London, 81, 83, 85, 354-359 Great Plains; droughts, 37-39, 598; dust storms, 598 Great Polio Epidemic, 548-554 Great San Francisco Earthquake, 512-523 Great September Gale, 612 Great Starvation, the, 403 Great Tokyo Fire, 566 Great Tolbachik, 273 Great Tri-State Tornado, 248, 573578 Great White Embargo, 462
Fujita, Theodore, 240, 661, 698 Fujita scale, 240, 661 Fumaroles, 281 Funnels, 237, 240 Funston, Frederick, 519 Furisode Fire, 350
■G Galtür avalanche, 897-902 Galveston hurricane, 178, 489-500 Ganges Delta, 688 George M. Cox, 153 Georgia tornadoes, 695 Germania, 187 Germany epidemics, 482 Gilbert, Grove Karl, 62 Glaciers, 183-188, 194, 682 Glasgow, Virginia, 678 Glaze, 18 Goedereede, Netherlands, 634 Gölcük, Turkey, 912, 914 Good Friday Earthquake, 652 Gorham, Illinois, 574 Grafton, Illinois, 831 Granada Hills, California, 843 Grand Chenier, Louisiana, 637 Grand Prix Fire, 934 Grandcamp, 97, 620 Graupel, 20 Gray air, 227 Great Alaska Earthquake, 266, 652658 Great Blizzard of 1888, 26, 462468 Great Boston Fire, 434-437 Great Britain. See England; Ireland; Scotland; Wales Great Chicago Fire, 421, 423-433 Great Colonial Hurricane, 612
LX
Index Great Yellow Fever Epidemic, 438445 Greece epidemics, 80, 88, 306 Greenhouse effect, 157 Greenland; fog, 150; icebergs, 185 Griffin, Indiana, 577 Ground wires, 210 Groundwater, 272 Guadeloupe hurricanes, 786 Guatemala; hurricanes, 891 Gutenberg, Beno, 63 Gyumri, Armenia, 780
■H Haicheng, China, 712 Hail, 15-31 Hailstones, 19 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 99 Halley, Edmond, 224 Halley’s comet, 224 Hamburg, Germany, 482 Harmonic tremors, 281, 286 Hawaii tsunamis, 258, 260, 264, 615, 618 Hawaiian eruptions, 273 Hazard mapping, 199, 734 Haze, 42 Heat, 111 Heat exhaustion, 161 Heat lightning, 206 Heat stroke, 161 Heat transfer, 114 Heat waves, 156-164, 861, 928 Helium, 606 Hemorrhagic fever, 700, 855 Herculaneum, 283, 316 Hidden faults, 51 High Flyer, 622 Hilo, Hawaii, 260, 615
Himalayas, 55 Hindenburg, 604-608 Hippocrates, 87, 307 HIV. See Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) Homestead Air Force Base, 821 Homestead, Florida, 822 Honduras; hurricanes, 891 Hong Kong epidemics, 921 Hook echo, 250 Hospitals, 844 Huaraz, Peru, 682 Huascarán, Mount, 680 Hugo, Hurricane, 180, 786-791 Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 718 Humors, 87 Hurricane Agnes, 135 Hurricane Andrew, 176, 180-181, 816-827 Hurricane Audrey, 636-642 Hurricane Camille, 179, 669-679 Hurricane Connie, 130 Hurricane Diane, 130 Hurricane Hugo, 180, 786-791 Hurricane Katrina, 954-962 Hurricane Mitch, 888-896 Hurricanes, 18, 70, 134, 165-182, 463, 489, 579, 591, 609, 636, 669, 747, 786, 816, 888, 954; eye of, 165; forecasting, 172; path of, 169; warnings, 172; watches, 172 Hydrocarbons, 230 Hydrogen, 606 Hydrologic cycle, 134
■I Ice, 18, 183 Ice caps, 184
LXI
Index Ice fogs, 149 Ice islands, 184 Ice sheets, 183 Ice slabs, 18 Ice storms, 15-31 Icebergs, 183-188 Iceland volcanic eruptions, 272273, 279, 283, 387 Ignimbrite flows, 400 Ignition, 92 Ignition point, 111 Illinois; fires, 423, 534; floods, 831; tornadoes, 574, 660 Imamura, Akitune, 566 Immunity, 78, 83 Impervious cover, 134 Incidence, 75 Inclinometers, 198 India; earthquakes, 966; epidemics, 481, 562; famines, 108; floods, 144; tsunamis, 948 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 266, 946953 Indiana tornadoes, 577, 660, 694 Indonesia; droughts, 749; fires, 749; tsunamis, 265, 948; volcanic eruptions, 272, 277, 279, 284, 399, 450 Infantile paralysis, 548 Influenza, 90, 555 Insurance, 138, 797, 845 International Astronomical Union, 216 International Ice Patrol, 186 Into Thin Air (Krakauer), 871 Iran; blizzards, 27; earthquakes, 940 Ireland famines, 162, 403 Iridium, 297
Italy; earthquakes, 527; epidemics, 337; landslides, 194, 648; volcanic eruptions, 283, 316, 370 Ezmit earthquake, 909-920
■J Jamaica earthquakes, 376 Japan; earthquakes, 566, 847; fires, 350; tsunamis, 256, 259, 265; volcanic eruptions, 272, 282 Jarrell tornado, 873-879 Java, Indonesia, 272, 279, 452 Jet streams, 21 John Rutledge, 186 Johnstown Flood, 145, 469-480 Jumbo Outbreak, 694-699
■K Kansas; explosions, 99; tornadoes, 903 Kashmir; blizzards, 29; earthquakes, 963-969 Kaskaskia, Illinois, 831 Katmai, 285 Katrina, Hurricane, 954-962 Kelut, 272, 279 Kelvin waves, 68 Kentucky tornadoes, 697 King’s Lynn, England, 631 Kingston Harbor, Jamaica, 377 Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, 854 Kitwit, Zaire, 854 Kobe earthquake, 847-853 Kocaeli earthquake, 909 Koch, Robert, 482 Kodiak, Alaska, 266
LXII
Index Krakatau, 265, 272, 284, 450-461 Krakauer, Jon, 867, 871 Krakotoa. See Krakatau K/T boundary, 297 Kugelblitz, 206 Kulik, Leonid, 525
■L La Niña, 101, 972 Lacroix, Alfred, 509 Lahars, 193, 279, 286 Lake Conemaugh, 471 Lake Monoun, 767 Lake Nyos, Cameroon, 287, 767773 Lake Okeechobee hurricane, 178, 581, 591 Lakehurst, New Jersey, 604 Laki, 273, 283, 387-392 Lamington, 276 Landslides, 1, 189-203, 648, 650, 662; forecasting, 198 Last Island, Louisiana, 177 Latent heat, 115 Latif, Abd al-, 331 Latinos, 795 Laupahoehoe, Hawaii, 616 Lava, 269 Leadanna, Missouri, 574 Legionellosis. See Legionnaires’ disease Legionnaires’ disease, 707-710 Leninakan earthquake, 780-785 Levees, 135, 143 Leyden jars, 212 Leyte mudslide, 970-975 Lifelines, 58 Lightning bolt, 204 Lightning rods, 209, 212
Lightning strikes, 124, 204-214 Liquefaction, 377, 517, 841, 849 Lisbon earthquake, 265, 380-386 Little Ice Age, 186 Little Prairie, Missouri, 395 Loma Prieta earthquake, 792-802, 837 Lombok, Indonesia, 401 London; epidemics, 123, 354; fires, 123, 360; smog, 153, 232, 234235, 627 London-type smog, 227 Long Island, New York, 610 Long-period earthquakes, 281 Long-wave radiation, 156 Los Angeles, 584; fires, 934; smog, 235 Louisiana hurricanes, 177, 636, 669, 816, 954 Lower Nyos, Cameroon, 768 Luzon, Philippines, 803
■M Magma, 269 Magma chamber, 280 Malaria, 82, 84, 89 Mali famines, 751 Mallon, Mary, 501 Malnutrition, 753 Maridi, Sudan, 702 Marina District, San Francisco, 799, 841 Marmara earthquake, 909 Marshall Plan, 634 Martinique volcanic eruptions, 505 Mass movement, 189 Massachusetts fires, 434 Meanders, 137 Medicine, 87
LXIII
Index Meireki Fire, 350-353 Memphis, Tennessee, 99, 438 Merak, Indonesia, 454 Mercalli scale, modified, 53 Merthyr Vale Colliery, 662 Mesoamerica, 347 Mesocyclones, 241 Messina earthquake, 527-533 Meteoric water, 272 Meteorites, 215-226, 297, 524 Meteoroids, 215 Meteors, 215 Methyl butyl ether, 232 Mexico; earthquakes, 756; epidemics, 347; smog, 235; volcanic eruptions, 278, 741 Mexico City earthquake, 756-766 MGM Grand Hotel, 124 Miami hurricanes, 178, 579 Michigan; fires, 427; tornadoes, 660 Microbursts, 20, 698 Microorganisms, 74 Middle East blizzards, 29 Midwest, U.S.; blizzards, 28; floods, 828; heat waves, 160, 861; tornadoes, 659 Mines, 98, 446, 534, 541, 662 Misenum, Italy, 319, 322 Mississippi hurricanes, 669, 954 Mississippi River, 135, 145, 396, 828; floods, 395 Missouri; earthquakes, 56, 393; floods, 395, 832; tornadoes, 485, 574 Mitch, Hurricane, 888-896 Modified Mercalli scale, 53 Moisture, 34 Mongolia epidemics, 336 Monoun, 767
Monsanto Chemical Company, 97, 622 Monsoons, 37 Montserrat; hurricanes, 787; volcanic eruptions, 880 Moon, 215 Moore Haven, Florida, 581 Moore, Oklahoma, 905 Mortality, 75 Mosquitoes, 82, 438 Mount. See names of volcanoes Mount St. Helens, 286, 729-740 Mountain rotor, 292 Mountains, 5, 185 Mozambique famines, 751 MTBE. See Methyl butyl ether Mud, 189 Mudflows, 189, 193, 279, 286 Mudslides, 189-203, 890, 970 Mulch-till planting, 44 Mulholland, William, 584, 589 Munitions, 99 Murphysboro, Illinois, 574
■N National Flood Insurance Program, 138 National Lightning Detection Network, 207, 213 National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 28, 179 National Weather Service, 250 Near-earth objects, 218 Negative charge, 206 NEOs. See Near-earth objects Nepal blizzards, 866 Nero, 123, 312 Net radiation, 157
LXIV
Index Netherlands floods, 135, 630 Nevado del Ruiz, 194, 281, 286 New England; fog, 153; hurricanes, 178, 609 New Guinea volcanic eruptions, 276 New Hampshire hurricanes, 613 New Jersey explosions, 604 New London, Connecticut, 613 New Madrid earthquakes, 56, 393398 New Orleans, 954 New York City; blizzards, 465; epidemics, 548; freezes, 26; hurricanes, 610; smog, 235 New York State epidemics, 501 Newfoundland; fog, 152; icebergs, 186; tsunamis, 259 Nicaragua; hurricanes, 890; mudslides, 890 Nile River, 108, 331 Nimitz Expressway, 800 Niña, La. See La Niña Niño, El. See El Niño Nitrogen oxide, 230 No-till planting, 44 NOAA. See National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) North Carolina; earthquakes, 396; hurricanes, 786 North Sea Flood of 1953, 630-635 Northeast, U.S.; blizzards, 462; heat waves, 861 Northeasters, 18 Northern California earthquakes, 792 Northridge earthquake, 196, 835846
Northridge Meadows apartments, 838 Nova Scotia explosions, 99 Nuclear explosions, 220 Nucleating agents, 19 Nuées ardentes, 271, 275, 285, 510 Nyiragongo, 279 Nyos, 767 Nzara, Sudan, 701
■O Oakland Hills Fire, 810-815 Oakland, California, 795, 798, 838 Ocean temperatures, 67 Ohio; blizzards, 25; tornadoes, 660, 696 Oil rigs, 99 Oklahoma; dust storms, 601; tornadoes, 903 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 904 Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak, 903-908 Oldham, Richard Dixon, 63 Ontario, Canada, 695 Orographic lifting, 17 Orography, 293 Osaka, Japan, 850 Outbreaks, 240 Overpopulation, 405 Owens Valley Aqueduct, 584 Owens Valley, California, 62 Oxidation, 111 Oyster Bay, New York, 552 Ozone, 230, 233
■P P waves, 51 Pacific Ocean, 67, 258, 747
LXV
Index Pacific Palisades, California, 841 Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, 264, 618 Pacific Tsunami Warning System, 260, 264, 266, 618 Pakistan earthquakes, 963 Palm Beach, Florida, 594 Palm Sunday Outbreak, 659-661 Palmer Drought Index (PDI), 34 Pandemics, 78, 86 Panic, 121 Pant Glas school, Aberfan, Wales, 662 Papua New Guinea tsunami, 885887 Parasites, 74 Parrish, Illinois, 576 Particulate matter, 227 Pass Christian, Mississippi, 671, 675 PDI. See Palmer Drought Index (PDI) Peléan eruptions, 275, 505 Pelée, 284, 505-511 Peloponnesian War, 80, 88, 306 Pennsylvania; epidemics, 707; floods, 469; smog, 234 Pepys, Samuel, 361 Pericles, 309 Period, 256 Peroxyacetyl nitrate, 230 Peru; earthquakes, 680; floods, 748; fog, 150; rockslides, 194 Peshtigo, Wisconsin, 126, 415, 427 Pestilence, 86 Pestilence, the, 335 Peterborough, New Hampshire, 613 Philadelphia, 561, 707
Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, 804 Philippines; mudslides, 970; tsunamis, 266; volcanic eruptions, 277, 281, 803 Photochemical smog, 227, 229, 235 Pinatubo, 277, 281, 287, 803-809 Pinnacled icebergs, 184 Plague, 80-81, 90, 123, 333, 335, 354 Plague of Antonius, 89 Plague of Athens, 80, 88, 306-311 Plane crashes, 20, 151 Plate tectonics, 254, 286 Plates, 54, 64 Plinian eruptions, 276, 744 Pliny the Elder, 283, 317 Pliny the Younger, 283, 317 Pneumonia, 708, 921 Pneumonic plague, 336 Point Pleasant, Missouri, 395 Point-release avalanche, 4 Polio, 83-85, 548 Pollution, 227 Pompeii, 283, 316 Port Chicago, California, 99 Port Royal earthquake, 376-379 Portugal; earthquakes, 380; fires, 931; tsunamis, 265 Positive charge, 206 Potatoes, 109, 403, 406 Potentially hazardous asteroids, 218 Prairies, 598 Precipitation, 32, 37, 148 Prevalence, 75 Princeton, Indiana, 577 Protease inhibitors, 726 Providence, Rhode Island, 613
LXVI
Index Puerto Rico hurricanes, 591, 787 Pumice, 277 Pyroclastic flows, 285, 505 Pyrolysis, 111
■Q Quarantine, 81 Quinine, 84
■R Rabaul Volcano Observatory, 281 Radar, 151, 153, 186, 243, 250, 293, 908 Radiant heat, 114, 156 Radiation, 156 Radiational fog, 148 Radio communication, 153 Radon, 852 Rain, 35, 37, 133, 206 Rapid City, South Dakota, 146 Rats, 80, 82, 89, 336, 355, 358 Reggio di Calabria, Italy, 527 Regional Tsunami Warning System, 266 Reid, Harry Fielding, 63 Rescue beacons, 9 Reservoirs, 36 Resina, Italy, 318 Respiratory diseases, 232 Retrofitting, 794, 837 Rhode Island hurricanes, 610 Richelieu apartments, Mississippi, 674 Richter, Charles Francis, 63 Richter scale, 53, 63 Ring of Fire, 54, 258, 278 Ritzville, Washington, 739 Rivers, 171
Rock, 191 Rock avalanches, 194 Rockfalls, 195 Rockslides, 145, 189-203 Rocky Mountain spotted fever, 81 Rodents, 74, 80, 82, 85 Rolling blackouts, 864 Roman Empire epidemics, 89 Rome, 123, 312 Rossby waves, 68 Rotational slides, 191 Rotor, 292 Rotterdam, Netherlands, 634 Runup, 263 Russia volcanic eruptions, 273
■S S waves, 51 Safe rooms, 174, 908 Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, 175 Sahel, 37, 751 St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, 378 Saint Bernard, Philippines, 970 St. Bernard dogs, 26 St. Croix hurricanes, 787 Saint Elmo’s fire, 453 St. Francis Dam, California, 584590 St. Genevieve, Missouri, 832 St. Lawrence River, Canada, 544 St. Louis, Missouri, 485, 833 St. Pierre, Martinique, 506 St. Thomas hurricanes, 787 Saltation, 41 Samoa epidemics, 564 San Andreas fault, 51, 54, 513 San Diego, California, 934 San Felipe hurricane, 178, 591-597
LXVII
Index San Fernando Valley, California, 840 San Francisco; earthquakes, 512, 794, 798, 836-837; fires, 517 San Francisquito Canyon, California, 584 San Juan, Puerto Rico, 591 Sand, 42, 191 Sandstorms, 41-47 Sanriku, Japan, 256 Santa Ana winds, 934 Santa Clara Valley, California, 586 Santa Monica Freeway, 841 Santa River, Peru, 680 Saragosa, Texas, 244 SARS epidemic, 921-927 Satellites, 28, 70, 105 Saugus, California, 584 Schmitz, Eugene, 518 Scotland floods, 630 Seaham Colliery, England, 446-449 Second-degree burns, 121 Sedgwick County, Kansas, 904 Seeding, 151 Seiches, 253 Seismic Safety Commission, 837 Seismic Sea Wave Warning System, 264 Seismic sea waves, 253 Seismographs, 62 Senegal famines, 751 Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), 921. See also SARS epidemic Shallow water waves, 256 Shield volcanoes, 273 Ships, 152, 186 Shock wave, 94 Short-period earthquakes, 281 Short-wave radiation, 156
Siberia, 218, 524 Sicily, Italy, 370, 527 Side-looking airborne radar, 186 Sierra Nevada earthquakes, 62 Skiing, 4 Slab avalanches, 5 Sleet, 18 Slides, 191 Slope failure, 195 Slumps, 192 Smallpox, 89, 347 Smog, 151, 153, 227-236, 627 Smoke detectors, 118 Smoke inhalation, 120 Snow, 3, 15 Snow avalanches, 4 Snowmelt, 193 Soil, 189 Soil and Water Conservation Districts, 602 Soil conservation, 43 Soil Conservation Act, 601 Soufrière Hills, 880-884 South Africa droughts, 749 South America droughts, 39 South Carolina; earthquakes, 56; hurricanes, 786 South Dakota floods, 146 South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, 470 South Hyogo Prefecture earthquake, 847 South Pacific, 564 South, U.S., hurricanes, 669 Southern California; earthquakes, 196, 835; fires, 934; floods, 135; smog, 229, 234 Soviet Union earthquakes, 780 Spaceguard Foundation, 218 Spain explosions, 99
LXVIII
Index Spanish Armada, 177 Spanish Flu Pandemic, 90, 555 Spanish Town, Jamaica, 378 Spectrometers, 281 Spirit Lake, 735 Spitak earthquake, 780 Spontaneous combustion, 93 Spot fires, 776 Spreads, 192 Sri Lanka tsunamis, 948 Stabiae, Italy, 316 Stanford University, 797 Steam fog, 149 Steamboats, 98 Stockholm, 153 Storm cellars, 908 Storm Prediction Center, 243, 249 Storm surges, 135, 170, 253, 689 Storstad, 544 Strain meters, 64 Strait of Messina, 527 Stream terraces, 135 Strike-slip motion, 48 Strip farming, 44 Strombolian eruptions, 273 Strongsville, Ohio, 660 Stroud, Oklahoma, 905 Subduction, 254 Subduction zones, 54 Submarine eruptions, 273 Subum, Cameroon, 768 Suction vortices, 699 Sudan; epidemics, 700; famines, 751 Sugar Bush, Wisconsin, 418 Sulfurous smog, 227 Sullivan’s Island, 788 Sultana, 99 Sumatra, Indonesia, 455 Sumbawa, Indonesia, 399
Sun, 216 Sunda Strait, 450 Sunderland, England, 446 Sunstroke, 161 Super Outbreak, 694 Supercells, 241 Supercooled water, 19 Surface creep, 41 Surtsey, Iceland, 272 Swan, HMS, 377 Sweating, 161 Switzerland; avalanches, 897; droughts, 931; glaciers, 186 Sylmar, California, 837 Syphilis, 80-81, 83 Syria earthquakes, 328
■T Tabular icebergs, 184 Tahiti; epidemics, 564; hurricanes, 747 Tambora, 277, 284, 399-402 Tangshan earthquake, 711-717 TAO array. See Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array Tchaikovsky, Peter, 483 Tectonic plates, 54, 64 Teleconnections, 69 Teleseisms, 63 Temperature inversions, 292 Temperature, body, 161 Temperature, ocean, 67 Tennessee; epidemics, 438; explosions, 99 Tenochtitlán, 347 Texas; dust storms, 43, 601; explosions, 97, 620; hurricanes, 178, 489, 636; tornadoes, 244, 873
LXIX
Index Texas City, Texas, 97, 620-626 Thailand tsunamis, 948 Thera, 301-305 Thermals, 18 Thermocline, 67 Thíra, 301 Third-degree burns, 121 Third World, 109 3TC, 726 Thucydides, 306 Thunder, 204, 207 Thunderheads, 19 Thunderstones, 223 Thunderstorms, 18, 204, 240, 290 Tidal bores, 253 Tidal waves, 253 Tiltmeters, 198, 281 Titanic, 187 Tjiringin, Indonesia, 455 TNT, 94 Toc, Mount, 650 Tokyo; earthquakes, 566, 571; fires, 350 Toledo, Ohio, 660 Topples, 192 Topsoil, 599 Torino Impact Hazard Scale, 216 Tornado Alley, 242 Tornadoes, 171, 237-252, 485, 573, 659, 694, 820, 873, 903; forecasting, 243, 248-249; warnings, 243, 250; watches, 243, 250 Toronto epidemics, 925 Trade winds, 67 Trains, 154 Transform faults, 54, 513 Translational slides, 191 Trash fires, 116 Triage, 58
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, 124 Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array, 70 Tropical storms, 169 Truman, Harry, 735 Tsunamis, 253-268, 283, 376-377, 382, 453, 458, 528, 566, 615, 652, 885, 946; fluvial, 397 Tunguska event, 218, 524-526 Turkey earthquakes, 328, 909 Twenty-year-flood, 131 Twisters. See Tornadoes Typhoid fever, 82, 501 Typhoid Mary, 501-504 Typhoons, 165-182 Typhus, 82
■U Ultra-Plinian eruptions, 276 United Nations, 106 United States. See individual states and regions United States Forest Service, 733 United States Geological Survey, 805 Unzen, 272 Updrafts, 18 Upslope fog, 148 Urbani, Carlo, 924 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 140 USFS. See United States Forest Service USGS. See United States Geological Survey
■V Vaccination, 83 Vaiont Dam, Italy, 145, 194, 648651
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Index Valais, Switzerland, 897 Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, 285 Valmeyer, Illinois, 831 Valparaiso, Chile, 617 Valzur, Austria, 897 Vapor, 92 Vectors, 74, 89 VEI. See Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) Vesiculation, 269 Vesuvius, 283, 316-327 Vietnam epidemics, 924 Virgin Islands hurricanes, 787 Virginia hurricanes, 678 Viruses, 83, 718 Viscosity, 272 Visibility, 148, 152 Volcanic domes, 275 Volcanic eruptions, 194, 269-288, 301, 316, 370, 387, 399, 450, 505, 729, 741, 767, 803, 880 Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), 273, 743 Voltaire, 384 Vulcanian eruptions, 275
■W Waco, Texas, 244 Wales landslides, 662 Warnings; hurricane, 172; tornado, 243, 250 Washington, D.C.; blizzards, 28; earthquakes, 396 Washington State; earthquakes, 732; floods, 143; volcanic eruptions, 286, 729 Watch Hill, Rhode Island, 613
Watches; hurricane, 172; tornado, 243, 250 Water, 32 Water conservation, 36 Water supply, 36 Watershed, 130 Waterspouts, 237 Watsonville, California, 795 Waveland, Mississippi, 675 Waves, 256 Weather Bureau, 250 West Frankfort, Illinois, 576 West Palm Beach, Florida, 594 West Virginia explosions, 541 Western Samoa epidemics, 564 Westhampton, Long Island, 613 Wet snow avalanches, 10 Whirlwinds. See Tornadoes White Hurricane, the, 462 Whiteouts, 17 WHO. See World Health Organization (WHO) Wildfires, 116, 126, 196, 931 Willy Willys, 172 Wind erosion, 44, 599 Wind gusts, 41, 289-296 Wind shear, 289, 291 Wind speeds, 175, 239, 820, 904 Wisconsin fires, 126, 415, 427 Workhouses, 408 World Health Organization (WHO), 84, 924 World Series of 1989, 795 World War I, 556 Wren, Christopher, 367 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 569
■X Xenia, Ohio, 696
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Index ■Y
■Z
Yakima, Washington, 738 Year Without a Summer, 284, 401 Yellow fever, 438 Yellow River, China, 137, 143 Yellowstone National Park fires, 126, 774-779 Yokohama, Japan, 569 Yucatán crater, 218, 297-300 Yungay, Peru, 681
Zaire; epidemics, 700, 854; volcanic eruptions, 279. See also Congo, Democratic Republic of Zariñana, Marcos Efrén, 764 Zeppelins, 604 Zoonoses, 75
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