In light of both last year's tsunami and Katrina, the issue has been brought up in the media that the loss of human life and damages in BOTH cases could have been greatly minimized had proper preparation been made.
It wasn't that experts didn't envision that a tsunami could happen or that the levees in New Orleans could have broken, it's just the odds seemed to make it so unlikely that public policy in this area didn't make spending the millions or billions to prevent what could have been prevented. I contrast this with the building of hydro-electric dams. The little I know about them is this: a dam is built in order to create a massive reservoir of water so that the power of the water from these masses can be channeled into turning turbines which, in turn, create electricity. But the danger inherent in every dam in spillover: too much water in a reservoir can either destroy the environment or -- as is the case with Hoover Dam -- destroy the generating facility. So with every dam is built a "spillway", a structure in which spillovers can be safely channelled away from creating a disaster. At Hoover DAm you can see a massive concrete tunnel beside the facility built specifically for this purpose. I once took a tour of a hydroelectric dam in Northern Quebec at James Bay. At one point beside the reservoir near a dyke was a massive set of concrete steps that, I was told, cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and, at the top of the stairs built into the side of the reservoir was a gate that could be opened; a spillway in other words. The tour guide mentioned that, statistically, overspill would happen only once every 100 years! Yet the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars to plan for something that the builders would, statistically, not even see in their own lifetime, not ever see the practical benefit of. This type of planning happened with private enterprise (note that Bechtel built the dam, please!) Perhaps there is a disconnect between this type of planning in private enterprise and public policy enterprises... ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
