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Storms and Hurricanes
Sep. 25th, 2005 01:15 pmI was watching BBC and CNN over lunch with my family today and realized that the US needs to take a page out of third world countries in storm preparations.
Structures in the US simply aren't built to weather a storm. Here in the tropics where winds run over 220km/hour during a storm we build our walls in cement, houses in the us are built with boards a little thicker than plywood. Which is probably the reason why you can "Disturb the Peace" by talking too loud in the middle of the night in your own room.
I saw a hotel in Texas just after Hurricane Rita checked in, and the entire first floor was a wreck. Looking back, here if we have stronger storms, our only casualties would be the billboards, a few potted plants and some shallowly rooted trees. (Of course this is barring the shanties located in depressed areas, but we're making parallel examples here).
On another note: evacuating people and the mile stretch of traffic... my father raised his eyebrow at the traffic and said "Well... if a Filipino was manning the traffic there it wouldn't be so much of a problem. They're having traffic problems because they're not using the other lane!" In retrospect, I guess that was a valid point. There are no cars going to texas... so why shouldn't outbound cars use the other lane? It would free up the congested roads for people to get out of Texas more easily and avoid some of the fuel problems that they were having, since it costs less fuel to drive without stopping than "city-driving".
Maybe what comes close to the destruction of the hurricane in the States right now is the flooding of Quezon a few months back where houses were submerged... but that was mainly due to logging. And that wasn't in the main cities.
I suddenly understand all those books I've read that says "Son, help me board up the windows", when we never actually did anything more than close our own at the onset of a storm.
Structures in the US simply aren't built to weather a storm. Here in the tropics where winds run over 220km/hour during a storm we build our walls in cement, houses in the us are built with boards a little thicker than plywood. Which is probably the reason why you can "Disturb the Peace" by talking too loud in the middle of the night in your own room.
I saw a hotel in Texas just after Hurricane Rita checked in, and the entire first floor was a wreck. Looking back, here if we have stronger storms, our only casualties would be the billboards, a few potted plants and some shallowly rooted trees. (Of course this is barring the shanties located in depressed areas, but we're making parallel examples here).
On another note: evacuating people and the mile stretch of traffic... my father raised his eyebrow at the traffic and said "Well... if a Filipino was manning the traffic there it wouldn't be so much of a problem. They're having traffic problems because they're not using the other lane!" In retrospect, I guess that was a valid point. There are no cars going to texas... so why shouldn't outbound cars use the other lane? It would free up the congested roads for people to get out of Texas more easily and avoid some of the fuel problems that they were having, since it costs less fuel to drive without stopping than "city-driving".
Maybe what comes close to the destruction of the hurricane in the States right now is the flooding of Quezon a few months back where houses were submerged... but that was mainly due to logging. And that wasn't in the main cities.
I suddenly understand all those books I've read that says "Son, help me board up the windows", when we never actually did anything more than close our own at the onset of a storm.
