Snowfall in the Upper Midwest reached up to 16 inches in some regions over the weekend of the December 8 and 9, 2012. Many people were thrilled about the snowfall since last year this region was robbed of its usually snowy and snow recreational filled season. Many people got outside doing the things they love like skiing, while others have gotten in the wintery spirit thinking about the upcoming snowmobile season. Many stores have also had good fortune from the snow by selling a lot of snow shovels, ice melt, and "hundreds" of snow-blowers since Sunday's snow.

People enjoying the snow

However, not everyone is as happy and fortunate for the snow. The snow caused slippery roads that were blamed for hundreds of crashes and at least two deaths from Minnesota to Oklahoma, and two other deaths were related to the wintry weather.
The Minnesota State Patrol reported more than 600 crashes by Monday morning, and at least 1,140 spinouts. One person was killed Sunday in a crash involving a semi near Red Wing, Minn. And in New Prague, school officials said a 54-year-old social studies teacher at the middle school died while shoveling snow at his home Sunday.

In southern Oklahoma, a Dallas man was killed early Monday when he lost control of his sport utility vehicle on an icy bridge on Interstate 35.
In Kansas freezing overnight temperatures may have contributed to the death of a 30-year-old woman whose body was found in a field early Monday.

Even Texas got a taste of winter, as an arctic blast dumped up to 5 inches of snow in parts of West Texas and dropped temperatures into the teens in part of the Panhandle. Strong winds cut electricity to about 3,000 homes and businesses in Austin, but reports said all but a handful of customers had power restored by midday Monday.

And other people not enjoying the snow

Blizzards are a natural hazard that happen in the Upper Midwest region, people know this and know what precautions need to be taken to prevent injury and death, especially on the roads. A lot of the car accidents and spinouts could’ve been prevented if people would drive slower, take safer driving precautions, or if they would just stay off the roads. This doesn’t really qualify as a disaster, but a lot of this could’ve been prevented if the proper safety and mitigation measures would’ve been taken.

It goes back to the Swiss cheese model; it only gets worse when factor after factor plays a role. The snow alone is not a threat, it’s the decisions people make when there is heavy snow and ice that increases the risk to them.

Article Source: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/us/article/Blizzard-conditions-cause-hundreds-of-crashes-4104713.php

Image Source: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/azstarnet.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/0/99/099f7ae8-424b-11e2-9a0e-001a4bcf887a/50c508a694cd0.preview-620.jpg
http://videos.usatoday.net/Brightcove2/29906170001/2012/12/29906170001_2025364779001_1210dv-midwest-snow-400x300.jpg?pubId=29906170001

 

Gas Explosion in Sissonville, West Virginia

Natural gas explosion that took place on interstate 77 at 1pm in Sissonville, West Virginia on December 11, 2012

In Sissonville, West Virginia Tuesday December 11, 2012 a natural gas line exploded in an hour-long blaze burning homes and roads. At least five homes went up in flames and a section of Interstate 77 was badly burned. This event would be categorized as a technological hazard. A technological hazard result in man-made accidents because the trigger event in human action, or inaction, when dealing with dangerous technologies; thus these hazards arise not simply from faults in technology alone but are linked to human fallibility in decision-making. At this point the company is still gathering facts to understand what took place to cause the explosion.

After the explosion a shelter/gathering area was set up at the Sissonville High School where several people were treated for smoke inhalation and a press conference was planned for later in the afternoon. Thankfully no one has been reported as seriously injured at this point.

Post-disaster mitigation took place as the interstate, which was ‘cooked’ by the explosion, was shut down while engineers and inspectors repaired the damaged and assess whether a bridge on the route was compromised.

This explosion could’ve been a lot worse if other factors/ features were at the wrong place at the wrong time, referring to the Swiss cheese model. For example the explosion took place less than a mile from a nursing home. If the blast had been closer, residents living at the home could’ve been badly injured or even killed. Other examples could be that there could’ve been a hazardous material site located near the explosion which could’ve acted like a chain reaction, one explosion leading to another. With more than one explosion there would’ve been more of a possibility of people being seriously injured or killed.

Article Source: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/dec/11/wva-gas-line-explodes-burns-homes-and-roads/

Image Source: http://wowk.images.worldnow.com/images/20317484_SS.jpg

 

Dense Fog in China Causes Traffic Jams

This is an image of the dense fog in China which has caused serious traffic congestion and closure of some expressways.

Dense fog in north Chinas Hebei Province, east Chinas Shangdong and Jiangsu Province, has cause serious traffic congestion and closure of some expressways. In some areas visibility dropped to less than 1 km, or even below 500 meters in some areas, due to moderate rains, sleet and high winds. This has led to the death of at least 30 people and many others being injured in car pile-up accidents on the mist-shrouded expressways.

 

China is vulnerable to this dense fog event, especially on its expressways, due to its dense population. The more people there are on the road the more of a chance there is for accidents to take place.

In order to avoid additional injury and death from happening some parts of the western Shandong Province and the northern part of Jiangsu Province expressways were closed and traffic policemen were sent to direct traffic. Airports, expressways, and river ferries were cautioned to take necessary measures to ensure safety, as the Shijiazhang Airport was closed for hours due to the heavy fog. Residents living in those regions were also reminded of take precautions and reduce their outdoor activities.

Article and Image Source: http://dunyanews.tv/index.php/en/World/74382-Dense-fog-causes-traffic-jam-China

 

Strong Quake Strikes Japan

On Friday December 7, 2012 a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific Ocean. This earthquake struck the same region of Japan devastated by last year's massive quake and tsunami, generating small waves but no immediate reports of heavy damage. Several people along the northeastern coast were reportedly injured and buildings in Tokyo and elsewhere swayed for several minutes. The epicenter was 6.2 miles beneath the seabed and 150 miles offshore.
To prevent this natural hazard from turning into a disaster authorities issued early warnings that a tsunami potentially as high as 2 meters could hit. To do this the Meteorological Agency has an early warning system that, using data from seismographs scattered across Japan, enables it to provide advance warning of the estimated intensity and timing of a major quake.
Extra safety precautions were taken as two of Japan's 50 nuclear plants are currently operating; the rest have been shut down for maintenance and safety checks.
Damage and death from these tsunamis could be prevented if communities didn’t build on coastal areas that are prone to earthquake and tsunami events.

Article Source: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/251994/group/News/

2012: One of the Most Active Hurricane Seasons

Satellite image captured on October 31, 2012 as Hurricane Sandy’s circulation was winding down over Pennsylvania. (Photo was taken by NASA GOES Project).

2012 is being named one of the most active hurricane seasons ever. There were 19 named tropical storms this year in the Atlantic Ocean basin tying 2012 at third for most named-storms in recorded history. The top spot goes to the 2005 season, which saw 28 named storms.  While being one of the busiest on record, the 2012 season also saw weaker-than-average cyclones and began earlier than usual.

The United States has not been hit with a major hurricane since 2005, by far the longest respite on record. While major hurricanes were scarce this year, storms still caused major damage, particularly Hurricane Sandy. That storm killed 125 people in the United States, and another 71 people in the Caribbean, including 54 in Haiti.

The large number of hurricanes seen this season resulted, in part, from above-average surface temperatures throughout the Atlantic, conditions which help cyclones form. Temperatures reached about 6 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) above average this summer. Also, air higher up in the atmosphere also got warmer than usual. This helped to cap the storms' strength; hurricanes intensify the most when the upper atmosphere stays cool. The difference between the warm surface and cool atmosphere provides strength to cyclones, which function like giant heat engines.

In its first hurricane season forecast, made before the season began, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted nine to 15 named storms. Then, in August, the organization upped its prediction to 12 to 17 named storms, with five to eight of those becoming hurricanes. The revision was based on changes to climate patterns that affect storm formation. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane once its top winds hit at least 74 mph (119 kph). The 19 named storms this season beat even the revised prediction. It's relatively unusual to have more storms than forecast. The underestimate can be blamed on El Niño, or rather, the lack of El Niño, when Hurricane Sandy formed. Forecasters predicted that this weather pattern, characterized by cool surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, would have developed by the fall. But it didn't. Therefore, cyclone activity continued longer than expected in the Atlantic, unperturbed by El Niño, which spawns high level winds that stream eastward and can disrupt the swirling motion that gives a developing storm its power.

Global warming likely isn't to blame for the increase in hurricanes. Many climate models suggest that increased temperatures could lead to fewer, but stronger hurricanes worldwide, essentially the opposite of what we saw this year.

Better technology also allows us to detect more hurricanes than in the past. In the past few decades, satellites have significantly increased the detection of short-lived tropical storms, i.e. ones that last fewer than 36 hours.

This year's season ended with Hurricane Sandy, which caused widespread devastation thanks to a tremendous storm surge throughout New Jersey and New York. Sandy will go down as the second costliest storm in U.S. history. This storm was unusual, as the first storm to retain hurricane strength north of the jet stream, the wind pattern that moves air from west to east across North America and into the Atlantic. Sandy also registered the lowest barometric pressure in the history of the Northeast. Once it moved north of the Gulf Stream, Sandy interacted with a mass of cold air moving east across the continent, causing it to transition to an extra-tropical storm and wreak so much devastation.

Scientists are still studying Sandy to understand how it formed, and whether or not climate change might have contributed. It could be a freak thing, or we could be going into a new climate regime where we're likely to see more impacts like this in the future.

 Article and Image Source: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/2012-one-of-the-most-active-hurricane-seasons

Third Major Storm Moving Into California

Northern California has been in the line of powerful and destructive storms that have been passing over them for the past week. As of late Saturday and early Sunday the third storm system hit the area with pounding rain and strong winds. With as much as an inch or rain falling per hour in some areas trees have been falling down taking out much of the electrical service to tens of thousands of people. Along with the rain has come the swelling from the deluge of rivers across the area. Preparation and weather forecasting have been in effect for flooding of the Napa and Russian rivers, two rivers north of San Francisco with a history of flooding; as well as the Truckee River, near Lake Tahoe. Preparation started on Thursday with city officials had handing out more than 8,000 sandbags and about 150 tons of sand, while Truckee officials had set up an evacuation center in a school district building. On top of that about 2,000 PG&E crews have been working to restore power to the area.

This image was taken November 30, 2012 of a crew from Vaccaro Tree Services removing a fallen tree along Hickory Road in Fairfax, California.

Article and Image Source: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2012/12/01/third-major-storm-moving-into-northern-california/?test=latestnews

Holding Back Floodwater with a Balloon

This is image of the balloon engineers are developing as protection for subway tunnels and underground highways

Scientists are working to develop a new type of protection for subway tunnels and underground highways.

This new mitigation strategy is a rather simple idea, rather than retrofitting tunnels with metal floodgates or other expensive structures, the project aims to use a relatively cheap inflatable plug to hold back floodwaters. In theory, it would be like blowing up a balloon inside a tube. But in practice, developing a plug that is strong, durable, quick to install and foolproof to deploy is a difficult engineering task, one made even more challenging because of the pliable, relatively lightweight materials required. “Water is heavy, there’s a lot of pressure,” said Greg Holter, an engineer with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who helps manage the project. “So it’s not as simple as just inflating and filling the space. The plug has to be able to withstand the pressure of the water behind it.”

This is an example diagram of what the balloon is made out of and how it will work

This device will help guard tunnels during real disasters whether it be a terrorist attack or a storm like Hurricane Sandy.

This new device is an example of the engineering paradigm, whose approach is focused on protection strategies, like making all built structures sufficiently strong to withstand a direct hazard confrontation.

Article Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/science/creating-a-balloonlike-plug-to-hold-back-floodwaters.html?ref=science
Image Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/20/science/1120-plug.html?ref=science