Natural Disaster! What would YOU do in the face of risk!?

[Kiramu]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could spare any ideas so to help me with a few things I can consider with regards to a scenario that has been given to me.

So basically, the scenario given is that I am involved in a 'first response' team after a natural disaster has occurred (say, an earthquake or flooding). I have to make various decisions on what sort of equipment to take with us to try and relieve the situation. However, I do need to consider some of the risks involved with my decision. For example, if I were to take a helicopter, I would need to evaluate things such as are there a sufficient number to collect all victims? It may be costly to deploy large amounts of air transport, or can I even reach the victims at all? These are some things I have considered but the more risk ideas I can assess against, the better the response. Ofcourse, I understand this is highly dependent on the context given, but if anyone could propose any generic factors to consider, it would be extremely helpful. Thank you for your input.

[Turnilk]

If you are looking for something to research, I'd suggest looking up what has happened in the past with whichever particular disaster you are looking at. Photos and reports from various sources could help a lot. Making a detailed list of things that happen because of the natural disasters could help you quite a bit.

I would give you a specific example, but it sounds like your project is for you to think of everything and come up with your assessment. If I am wrong please correct me. In the mean time, I must hold off giving more specific details because I don't know if it would violate the rule about doing someone's homework for them.

[Sir Icehawk]

Yeah, I'd look to past natural disaster and their responses. If you can specify a type of natural disaster it'd help you even more, as a hurricane is very different from an earthquake.

[Kiramu]

Turnilk

If you are looking for something to research, I'd suggest looking up what has happened in the past with whichever particular disaster you are looking at. Photos and reports from various sources could help a lot. Making a detailed list of things that happen because of the natural disasters could help you quite a bit.

I would give you a specific example, but it sounds like your project is for you to think of everything and come up with your assessment. If I am wrong please correct me. In the mean time, I must hold off giving more specific details because I don't know if it would violate the rule about doing someone's homework for them.

Sorry I did not make that clear in the first post. This is just a practice scenario, the real project will not be set until the new year which will be on an unrelated topic. This is just to get an idea. If you could share specific aspects to consider, it would be appreciated. Thank you for your suggestion though!

[Turnilk]

Kiramu

Sorry I did not make that clear in the first post. This is just a practice scenario, the real project will not be set until the new year which will be on an unrelated topic. This is just to get an idea. If you could share specific aspects to consider, it would be appreciated. Thank you for your suggestion though!

Well, I suppose since its for practice, it would be okay..

In my area the natural disasters are usually sink holes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and/or thunderstorms. A majority of those would be caused by weather. If you were to send a team of people in, you'd have to take into consideration the weather conditions and what happened during the event itself.

The most frequent things I see with hurricanes (the most common thing to worry about in my area) are trees that have been blown over, downed power lines, flooded roads, and lightning not to mention the wind speed. Sending in a ground team sounds like a good idea until you find a road blocked, and sending in an air team sounds good until you realize that the weather can remain bad even after the hurricane has died and there is a possibility of having no where to land.

Sink holes are a bit different from the others, since there isn't much you can do about them other than evacuate the area around them and hope they don't get bigger. Plus, if anyone falls in I'm pretty sure you can just assume they are dead.

I don't have much experience with anything else, so you're on your own unless someone else chimes in.

[Kiramu]

Turnilk

Kiramu

Sorry I did not make that clear in the first post. This is just a practice scenario, the real project will not be set until the new year which will be on an unrelated topic. This is just to get an idea. If you could share specific aspects to consider, it would be appreciated. Thank you for your suggestion though!

Well, I suppose since its for practice, it would be okay..

In my area the natural disasters are usually sink holes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and/or thunderstorms. A majority of those would be caused by weather. If you were to send a team of people in, you'd have to take into consideration the weather conditions and what happened during the event itself.

The most frequent things I see with hurricanes (the most common thing to worry about in my area) are trees that have been blown over, downed power lines, flooded roads, and lightning not to mention the wind speed. Sending in a ground team sounds like a good idea until you find a road blocked, and sending in an air team sounds good until you realize that the weather can remain bad even after the hurricane has died and there is a possibility of having no where to land.

Sink holes are a bit different from the others, since there isn't much you can do about them other than evacuate the area around them and hope they don't get bigger. Plus, if anyone falls in I'm pretty sure you can just assume they are dead.

I don't have much experience with anything else, so you're on your own unless someone else chimes in.

Great! Thanks alot for your ideas. If I may ask- in your opinion, what sort of equipment do you think would be necessary in any/most natural disaster though? What would the risks of your decision be?

[Turnilk]

Kiramu

Great! Thanks alot for your ideas. If I may ask- in your opinion, what sort of equipment do you think would be necessary in any/most natural disaster though? What would the risks of your decision be?

Equipment? I don't really know, since I'd probably be the civilian trapped in the area of the disaster instead of the relief team. I do have a very basic emergency go-bag of sorts though, with a few extra things stuffed into it just in case.

And I thought you were the one who is supposed to think of the risks. Besides, I'd need a specific disaster to assess even basic risks.

[PrettyKoala]

This topic makes me think of this show: Surviving Disaster

Hmm, as for examples... ice storm of 1998. Due to a lot of freezing rain weighing down power lines and trees, making the roads into ice rinks, and coating everything in a beautiful crystal, lots of people were without power, finding transportation hard to manage, etc. Some trees fell on houses or on power lines, and some power line towers themselves toppled cutting off power. There were locations set up at like community centers and stuff for people who were without power to go to, where they had generators going and blankets and food to hand out. Some people were without power for weeks. Some mayors declared their areas in a state of emergency. And I think there were some fatalities too.

My area was okay (our power lines were underground), but we didn't go anywhere (too dangerous to travel on the icy roads), and the schools were closed anyways. But we had friends of our family stay with us since a tree fell on their power line (although, I feel bad for the man of the house - he went back to sleep in the frigid, powerless home every night to make sure no one would steal their stuff... there was a lot of that happening to other people).

Quebec was one of the places affected by the storm, and they got their power lines in shape after that. Despite also being affected by the storm, Ontario did not, and so it ended up suffering the Eastern blackout in the summer of 2003 along with a number of states on the same power grid.

...Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but I decided to tackle a type of natural disaster you might not have thought of.