May 14, 2008
09:58 am
Disasters far away and close to home
As I watch disasters unfold halfway around the world with enormous, unimaginable loss of life, it is difficult to avoid comparing the situation there with the potential here.
And when I do, it is patently obvious that the biggest cause of death in disasters is the socioeconomic level of the victims.
The closest thing we've had recently to the Burmese cyclone would be Hurricane Katrina. Katrina devastated large swathes of a major American city, but unlike the villages in Burma there were few places completely wiped out and nothing close to the 38,000 fatalities seen so far in southeast Asia.
Nor have we ever seen hundreds of thousands of deaths from a single event like the Sumatran tsunami; nor even the 15,000 currently reported in China.
I find myself wondering what it will be like when the large earthquake hits here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the one that they predict with 99.7% certainty in the next 30 years. What will a 7.9 be like in the Bay Area? Will our casualties mount into the tens of thousands or more? Am I delusional for believing that we, in our affluent neighborhoods with higher building standards, will have fewer fatalities? That we'll be able to get a text message out, that we'll have broken dishes but not broken lives?
As I listened to Melissa Block's audio recording of the earthquake in progress, I was struck by the realization that it sounded exactly like the comparatively innocuous 5.6 we had in October; the same sounds of household items moving around and the creaking of walls -- except that our earthquake lasted 15 seconds, not 3 minutes.
Death tolls so high just make it difficult to imagine the victims, they become large numbers or abstract statistics.
As I watch disasters unfold halfway around the world with enormous, unimaginable loss of life, it is difficult to avoid comparing the situation there with the potential here.
And when I do, it is patently obvious that the biggest cause of death in disasters is the socioeconomic level of the victims.
The closest thing we've had recently to the Burmese cyclone would be Hurricane Katrina. Katrina devastated large swathes of a major American city, but unlike the villages in Burma there were few places completely wiped out and nothing close to the 38,000 fatalities seen so far in southeast Asia.
Nor have we ever seen hundreds of thousands of deaths from a single event like the Sumatran tsunami; nor even the 15,000 currently reported in China.
I find myself wondering what it will be like when the large earthquake hits here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the one that they predict with 99.7% certainty in the next 30 years. What will a 7.9 be like in the Bay Area? Will our casualties mount into the tens of thousands or more? Am I delusional for believing that we, in our affluent neighborhoods with higher building standards, will have fewer fatalities? That we'll be able to get a text message out, that we'll have broken dishes but not broken lives?
As I listened to Melissa Block's audio recording of the earthquake in progress, I was struck by the realization that it sounded exactly like the comparatively innocuous 5.6 we had in October; the same sounds of household items moving around and the creaking of walls -- except that our earthquake lasted 15 seconds, not 3 minutes.
Death tolls so high just make it difficult to imagine the victims, they become large numbers or abstract statistics.
Melissa's story about the parents searching through the rubble was devastating.
And so necessary to enable us to see the trees for the forest; to hear the story of a single family to understand the grief and then multiply it by tens of thousands.
And so necessary to enable us to see the trees for the forest; to hear the story of a single family to understand the grief and then multiply it by tens of thousands.
Posted by Gene Cowan on 05/15 at 06:04 AM
By the way, your "middle of the month" theory regarding earthquakes seems to be accurate.
May 12 is close enough to the middle for me.
So around the 13th of every month I guess I'll be looking in the news for another one.
May 12 is close enough to the middle for me.
So around the 13th of every month I guess I'll be looking in the news for another one.
Posted by kat on 05/15 at 07:28 AM
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My heart goes out to all the people of China affected by this tragedy. And I hope that, when the inevitable quake hits California, that our Californians are not subjected to the same horrors. But nature is very strong with us and deaths are certain. When this event happens, as it assuredly will, I will be there to help.
May the universe bless the people of this Chinese province and also their precious departed loved ones.