Today I survived an earthquake. It scared me for about a second.
That's what they usually do, and it's like someone yelling "boo!" I jump, my heart lurches, and then by the time I figure out what's going on, it's over. Sometimes the earthquake will go on another few seconds, giving me a thrilling ride, but I'm no longer scared.
This one, also, didn't cause any tsunami warnings, not that I know of. And, yes, I still have issues with that last one. If there were earlier warnings that I missed, I may re-think my position, but getting the alert fifty minutes after the earthquake and five minutes before any wave would have come and gone, is useless. I think everyone knows that earthquakes can cause tsunamis, at least by now they should, and those who don't aren't really adding much to the gene pool.
Also, the whole TV warning thing brings up my earlier point (which may or may not have ever made it into a blog) that creating a multi-million dollar system in Indonesia may assuage our guilt, but won't help the huge rural population who can't be notified.
When I was growing up we had air raid sirens that were tested the last Friday of each month at 10:00am. That's when we'd hide under our desks, too. Well, they've torn down all the sirens and had stopped using them years ago, but now that we've got all this money for putting goddamn cameras up all over the place why can't we put them back up?
I think a tsunami warning siren system would be much better than what we have now, tho not as fancy. It would have the benefit of working, which is more than I can say for our current one. Then again, maybe those in the rest of the US would just love to see 8 million Angelenos trying to reach high ground in five minutes.
It would look good from space.
Emergency!
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2 comments:
Again, I've got to disagree about the tsunami warnings. You speak of them as if they're directed at you, sitting in your house miles from the ocean. They're directed at people who are at the coast.
It's called BROADcasting, and it's a huge net that they cast in hopes that those people that it applies to actually hear it. Or perhaps someone who does hear it will notify someone to whom it applies that might not be near a TV.
Five minutes is a lot of time if you actually acknowledge the warning. And remember the vast majority of tsunamis are not multi-story walls of water but usually just higher than normal waves. A fisherman on a jetty would have enough time to get off that jetty and not get swept out to sea or dashed against the rocks. Five minutes is enough time for a boat to get away from a pier or put its bow into the oncoming wave. Five minutes is enough time to get away from the beach and at least up the nearest hill.
There have been some great documentations made of harbor waves in Japan (see the Discovery Channel, they'll probably run some of those docus again this weekend). In most cases people just need to become better informed that if they see all the water sucked away from the bay or ocean that they should get AWAY from it, not go up closer.
TV warnings are only part of the overall system. Weren't those warnings on radio? Didn't they come over on the NOAA bands on emergency warning systems?
It's a flip to say that just because someone was too stupid to not know about fishing on a jetty after an earthquake 800 miles away and 3 hours ago doesn't deserve to live, because the burden of their death falls on society. The community is obliged to devote resources to finding his body, identifying it and transporting it. Insurance, survivor benefits, rehiring of that position at his full time job ...
Is the current system efficient? Hell, no. But it's a system and though I'm not one for being overly cautious, it's a known hazard that living at the coast on the Pacific makes you succeptible to quakes and tsunamis. Oh, and West Nile Virus, don't forget about that.
That fisherman is *exactly* the guy who would be better served by my siren system! Everybody in the nearby area would hear the alarm so we wouldn't be only notifying the wired members of society.
There may have been an earlier announcement. I hope so. That would render moot much of my "feh" attitude. Ideally, we'd hear about the earthquake immediately (if it were one to possibly generate a tsunami) and turn to those radio or tv stations marked on the old radios, giving us plenty of time to flee for our lives.
I'd still prefer not hearing about "possible" disasters, only the real ones. That way when the alarm sounded, I'd know to act. I'd rather we miss a few than whip us into frequent hysteria.
I'm glad you're commenting. Just remember that to create an argument that I'm guaranteed of winning I'm likely to exaggerate, inflame, and build up straw men who are easy to knock over!
And, I'm more worried about H5N1. I'm leaving Nile Virus to the experts.
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