On 11/5/2012 7:41 AM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

Didn't something like Sandy happen back in the 30's which has been
forgotten by the majority of the public. I suppose I could research it
but I seem to remember the New York City area being torn up by a storm
back in the last century. O_o

I'm sure someone can calculate the odds of a storm like Sandy. There are
extra high tides twice a month (sun, moon, earth alignment). High tide
lasts only a few hours each time. Then you need a storm with sufficient
strength and the right location and directionality to push up the water
into a funnel like that formed by the Jersey shore and Long Island. Make
those fairly unlikely events occur at the same time as happened with
Sandy hereabouts, and you found the recipe for disaster.

The same thing happened, resulting in 1,800 or so deaths, on January 31,
1953 in Holland (google "watersnood 1953"). The Dutch then made up their
Deltaplan, which was highly successful, though with some ecological
hiccups requiring changes in the original plans. They are continuing to
fiddle with the systems since sea levels will continue to rise, plus
Holland keeps sinking.

A similar approach in the NY area seems unlikely for a variety of
reasons, but there was an article in the NY Times this weekend about
different approaches to protect more of NY/NJ. Today there is an article
about the really bad shape of some buildings that were flooded in lower
Manhattan.


Our family farm is on top of a mountain in Northeast Alabamastan and I
don't remember tornadoes ever threatening the farm although its high
mountain location does expose the buildings to high winds every now and
then and forest fires are easily controlled with fire breaks. I don't
remember any huge weather calamity outside of a few ice storms affecting
the area for a long time. I survived The Blizzard of 93 that paralyzed
Birmingham while those Damn Yankees laughed at us over all the problems
we had dealing with a few feet of snow. We have severe thunderstorms and
tornadoes but with all the damage those weather events cause, it never
seems to put us out of business for very long. I really feel for my
cousins in the coastal areas of the country when the ocean decides to
visit because it seems to wipe out everything on a much larger scale
than even the floods caused by The Mississippi river showing its power
to destroy. It looks like the only folks with a really safe home are
those who moved into the old missile silos. ^_^

TDD