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– US army chief of staff General George Casey said Monday he wished to improve ties with China's military and would draft plans for a joint disaster relief exercise.

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases...

VIDEO: "Disaster Preparedness From Ready.gov" VIDEO DESCRIPTION - Snippet: "Three steps on how to prepare for an emergency or disaster."

"Whenever we have a little earthquake or something happens, it always reminds us to remind our citizens - are you prepared?" ... Smith said the city's No. 1 priority is the safety of its citizens. He urged residents to consider "what if" scenarios in order to prepare for a disaster. ... "I'll tell you what: When you're thinking about those three things when the building starts to shake, it's too late. Because if you're not prepared before then, you won't be prepared for the catastrophe that you may be facing," he said. Metro said dealing with a catastrophic event has...

Safety Group Urges Airbus Fixes LOS ANGELES -- U.S. aviation safety watchdogs, concerned about severe electrical problems that have blacked out cockpit displays on dozens of Airbus jetliners over the years, urged regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to mandate aircraft fixes and enhanced pilot training to alleviate such hazards. Recommendations released by the National Transportation Safety Board Wednesday cite 49 incidents over the years in which electrical problems caused various cockpit displays on widely-used Airbus A319 and A320 to suddenly stop functioning and temporarily go blank during flight. According to the board, seven of those incidents resulted in...

At Fatima, Our Lady gave a basic message: conversion or chastisement. Conversion is not happening, and we are living in a moral crisis that is a real chastisement. But we are also experiencing a chastisement in the form of natural disasters. The disasters are also invitations to conversions. St. Alphonsus Liguori, tells us how God uses natural calamities such as floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes, to warn people to change their ways, rather than as punishments. He show proves that God uses these disasters to warn us to change our ways. Here are the facts: -- Mother's Day brought a devastating...

Why are there so many natural disasters during presidential election years? I predict with a high degree of confidence that this year, the nation will witness an unexpectedly large number of destructive acts of nature—floods of biblical proportions, out-of-control wildfires, destructive tornadoes, and bone-rattling earthquakes—that will require a prompt, compassionate, and expensive response from the federal government. No, I haven't just returned from a crash course in meteorology. Rather, I recently had lunch with Erwann Michel-Kerjan, an economist at the Wharton School who studies catastrophes. According to Michel-Kerjan, this uptick in natural disasters will likely have nothing to do with...

LONDON (AFP) - More than four times the number of natural disasters are occurring now than did two decades ago, British charity Oxfam said in a study Sunday that largely blamed global warming. "Oxfam... says that rising green house gas emissions are the major cause of weather-related disasters and must be tackled," the organisation said, adding that the world's poorest people were being hit the hardest. The world suffered about 120 natural disasters per year in the early 1980s, which compared with the current figure of about 500 per year, according to the report. "This year we have seen floods...

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind the Curtain We have all been exposed, over exposed, to the concept of “reality TV.” There seems to be no end to the variations on a theme when it comes to the embarrassing moments of Mr. and Ms. America starring in the latest version of life. Life, that is, as Hollywood sees it and as long as they can come up with something that will have some level of entertainment. With that said imagine if you will the realities that exist right in our daily lives but are hidden, not deliberately, from our...

Remember when Smokey the Bear was a hero to all of us? He reminded us to be careful with matches and campfires when in the forest, to prevent fires that would cost a lot of money, and often much worse, both for our furry forest friends and the humans trying to protect them. Just like the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, however, Smokey has become a dim recollection from our naive past while the mega-agency he once proudly represented has become the 900 pound gorilla, in many cases doing more harm than good. Wildland firefighting has become a major...

OTTAWA (CP) - After years of legal skirmishes, Canadians can finally hear the gripping soundtrack for one of the country's worst aviation disasters. The Swissair Flight 111 air traffic control tapes, kept under lock and key since the 1998 tragedy, have been released to The Canadian Press following a tortuous court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The hours of recordings include 12 critical minutes, starting as the aircrew reports smoke in the cockpit and ending with a last desperate transmission as the aircraft nose dives at high speed into St. Margaret's Bay, N.S.,...

The idea of a great quake occurring along the San Andreas Fault that runs through the Antelope Valley is not a question of if, but rather, of when. Red Cross emergency preparation expert Bob Wood related ... expect a fissure about 30 feet across and an earth slippage that rises up a dozen or so feet.The last big area quake, he said, was in 1857, and the San Andreas has been pretty steady at making a major movement around every 140-year interval through historic geologic time. Instead, he advised, make preparations for smaller-scale catastrophes. Civil unrest, for example. Or big...

Last Thursday night/Friday morning, more than a million people in my region were plunged into darkness by one of the worst windstorms in modern Washington State history. Whole cities were still, dark and lifeless. Other than the drivers around me, not a single person was seen outside. The atmosphere was made all the more strange by the moaning of the wind through the power lines that bowed, dead and useless, from their poles. Huge old-growth trees were ripped from the ground by the thousands, blocking roads, demolishing houses, and killing drivers. And of course, I had to drive to work...

With a tropical storm threatening Florida and the one-year anniversary of Katrina approaching, CNN’s August 28 “American Morning” kicked off a weeklong look at “Red Tape and Rubble” in the Gulf Coast. But Ali Velshi’s first report in the series was unbalanced, treating insurance companies as guilty until proven innocent of greed or fraud. “We’re going to be there when you need us,” anchor Soledad O’Brien said is the promise insurance companies extend out to policy holders, “But many Katrina victims think uh, uh, that’s not true,” she complained. O’Brien set the stage for Velshi’s unbalanced report by painting insurance...

'More disasters' for warmer world A warmer world could make wildfires more frequent, research shows Rising temperatures will increase the risk of forest fires, droughts and flooding over the next two centuries, UK climate scientists have warned. Even if harmful emissions were cut now, many parts of the world would face a greater risk of natural disasters, a team from Bristol University said. The projections are based on data from more than 50 climate models looking at the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers gathered results from...

IN ancient Babylon, they knew from accountability. Under the Code of Hammurabi, "If a builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death." What's more, "If it kill the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death." Engineers these days don't have that worry. Mistakes may carry legal penalties and a measure of shame. The people who die are those who depend on the engineers' work. Nearly 1,600 people died in...

It contains some of the most contaminated land in the world, yet it has become a haven for wildlife - a nature reserve in all but name. The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is teeming with life. As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return. There are even tantalising footprints of a bear, an animal that has not trodden in this part of Ukraine for centuries. "Animals don't seem to sense radiation and...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2006 – The federal response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the Defense Department is one of the only federal departments capable of playing a critical role in the nation's response to catastrophic events, a government report released today stated. In September, President Bush asked Fran Townsend, his homeland security adviser, to conduct a review about the federal response to Katrina. The result is a report titled "The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned," which outlines what was learned from the government's response to the hurricane and how to better prepare and respond to future domestic...

The Texas City Disaster was an accident but does illustrate quite well just how important it is to know who and what is sailing into our nation's ports. Of course, we all know that no one would ever use fertilizer to make an intentional explosion in this day and age... http://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html The morning of 16 April 1947 dawned clear and crisp, cooled by a brisk north wind. Just before 8:00 A.M., longshoremen removed the hatch covers on Hold 4 of the French Liberty ship Grandcamp as they prepared to load the remainder of a consignment of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Some...

Size: Here’s a headline you aren’t likely to see: “Sago mine tragedy defies improved mine safety trend under the Bush administration.” Yet, the facts support it. Mining fatalities have dropped every year President Bush has been in the White House, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Since 2001, mining deaths averaged 63 a year, which is 30% lower than during the Clinton administration. The fatality rate has dropped as well -- it was 31% lower in 2004 than it was in the last year of the Clinton administration. In fact, it was during the Clinton years that the...

Disasters: Searching for Lessons From a Bad Year John Bohannon No doubt about it, the 12 months since the last Breakthrough of the Year issue have been an annus horribilis. Three major natural disasters--the 2004 "Christmas tsunami" in the Indian Ocean, Hurricane Katrina on the U.S. Gulf Coast, and the Pakistan earthquake--left nearly 300,000 dead and millions homeless. In Pakistan, the disaster is still unfolding as winter engulfs the devastated communities. Insurance companies classify such events as "acts of God": misfortunes for which no one is at fault. But in their aftermath, many scientists are pointing out that natural disasters...

Earth might seem like a more active and dangerous place than ever, given the constant media reports of multiple natural disasters recently. But a broader view reveals that it's not Mother Nature who's changed, but we humans. Drawn by undeveloped land and fertile soil, people are flocking to disaster-prone regions. This creates a situation in which ordinary events like earthquakes and hurricanes become increasingly elevated to the level of natural disasters that reap heavy losses in human life and property. Meanwhile, in any given year, the death toll at the hands of Mother Nature varies greatly, as do the sorts...

Capitalism 'causes natural disasters' From: Agence France-Presse From correspondents in Caracas October 10, 2005 VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has blamed global capitalism for earthquakes hitting India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as for mudslides that have struck Central America and Mexico. On his weekly radio and television call-in program, "Hello, Mr. President," Mr Chavez said these catastrophes were nature's answer to the "world global capitalist model". "This model is destroying the world. The world is in danger. Never has there been such disasters, hurricanes, droughts, torrential rains. Incredible! The world is dangerously off balance," he said. Earlier yesterday, US television...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Louisiana's official death toll from Hurricane Katrina passed 1,000 on Friday. The state Department of Health and Hospitals reported that state officials and local coroners had recovered 1,003 bodies - 15 more than the total reported Thursday. The increase puts the death toll from the storm at 1,242. Katrina killed 221 people in Mississippi, 14 in Florida, two in Georgia and two in Alabama.

Government officials are evaluating and revising disaster plans around the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, just as they did after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While war and automobiles kill more people than nature, find out what natural disasters top scientists’ worry lists. #10 Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake Geologists know it’s just a matter of time before another 9.0 or larger earthquake strikes somewhere between Northern California and Canada. The shaking would be locally catastrophic, but the biggest threat is the tsunami that would ensue from a fault line that’s seismically identical to the one that...

TAMPA Hillsborough County officials exerted their authority Tuesday, declaring they would be in charge if a hurricane or other disaster strikes. The message appeared to be aimed at Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio. "We are the entity that's in charge. We will exercise that duty," Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean said during a news conference at the county's Emergency Management Center on E. Hanna Avenue. Her remarks came a day after she canceled, for the second time in less than a week, a meeting with Iorio to discuss hurricane preparedness. Bean left open the possibility of a one-on-one meeting with Iorio...

Nothing lasts forever. Just ask Ozymandias, or Nate Fisher. Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean. "Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis,...

The New Orleans floodwaters have not yet receded, but the Monday morning quarterbacks are already taking the field to point their collective fingers in an attempt to score partisan points. The usual Democratic suspects rushed to the cameras and microphones to lash out at President Bush and federal agencies for a myriad of supposed failures: for ineptness in handling the catastrophe, for a fly-over instead of wading hip-deep in the mire, for merely "photo ops" in Mississippi, and for being "insensitive" to the victims, who were predominantly African-Americans. Notwithstanding that 67 percent of New Orleans is black and half of...

We veterans of the 2004 campaign can hardly imagine the American political left sinking lower than it did then: the fake memo, Michael Moore's celluloid sandwich board, George Soros, "Bush is Hitler," Bruce Springsteen. And yet, as its reaction to Hurricane Katrina makes plain, the left is perfectly willing to sink a lot deeper.

Lacking scientific backing doesn't seem to prevent many commentators from seizing on untestable, religious or paraphysical reasons for this past year's devastating natural events Two devastating natural disasters in eight months have been too much to bear for a large number of commentators, who have managed to find both solace and heartfelt smugness in the indubitable righteousness that the Asian tsunami and the New Orleans hurricane were performed for them. Katrina was ``the fist of God,'' or maybe ``the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence,'' or, no, it was ``payback of this racist, white supremacist American culture''. The tsunami was equally...

Vernon Dalhart, the most popular singer in America during the 1920's, recorded many songs about the great disasters of that decade, inlcuding hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, explosions, airship crashes, and train wrecks. His hit recording about the massive flood in the lower Mississippi Valley in 1927 seems eerily timely. The Mississippi Flood Another great disaster has come upon our land, Down where the Mississippi flows on its way so grand. The springtime flowers were blooming, the world was bright and gay, And folks along the levee were happy all the day. Ane then the skies grew cloudy, and rain came falling...

The United States, which wants to take an international role in setting up a global tsunami-warning system and is in the running for the job with the United Nations, doubts the UN has the ability to coordinate such a program. Uncle Sam is right. Although it rated little mainline media attention, The UN already had a tsunami-warning system in place on December 26, 2004. The existing warning system goes under another one of those confusing UN names: the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization, CNTBTO for UN short. As reported by the International Herald Tribune, this was the state of affairs...

<p>Former President Jimmy Carter has been linked with a key figure in the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal by the group leading the nationwide effort to evict the United Nations from American soil and halt U.S. funding of the U.N.</p>

The tsunami that struck Asia and Somalia left unprecedented, unfathomable death and destruction in its wake. It was a shocking reminder that, for all its beauty and bounties, Mother Nature still periodically unleashes awesome powers that threaten our lives, even our very civilization--and exposes the shocking vulnerability of our Earth’s poorest communities. Equally unprecedented is the life-giving aid that continues to flow to these battered regions. It reflects the best that humans are capable of--and the vital importance of modern technology, medicine, communication and transportation. This monumental natural disaster has seized our attention. But it must not distract us from...

When more than 100,000 people have been killed, and thousands of others are in danger, the international community has a moral obligation to do what it can to limit the damage and reduce the suffering of survivors. So why is it that the international community so rarely even tries? Oh yes, an unprecedented relief effort is taking place now in the areas of South Asia struck by last month's tsunami. That's laudable. But when, in 1987-88, more than 100,000 people were killed in the Kurdish areas of Iraq, the international community turned a blind eye. Those Kurdish victims were overcome...

After the horrific loss of life in the Indian Ocean region from the record earthquake and resulting tsunami last week, I was struck by the immensity of what had happened. While scientists continue to argue over whether we can even measure mankind's influence on weather or climate in the face of naturally occurring hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, cold waves, blizzards, and floods, Mother Nature shows us that she still rules the day. There is no question that the Earth knows that humans live here -- six billion people are going to have some effect on the environment, no matter how...

I have been watching with growing amazement how the Americans are being criticized for the disaster in the Indian Ocean. First, the UN (Americans are the largest financial contributor to the UN, with 3 billion dollars in 2003 alone) called America "stingy." Then President Bush, who made a policy statement 72 hours after the disaster, while Kofi Anan was still on Christmas vacation, and the Swedes, who had thousands of citizens feared dead, had nothing to say. But no one has said a word about Saudi Arabia's $10 million dollar aid package. Wow! Considering the billions they have funneled into...

The world is emerging from 'the year of disasters' By JOAN LOWY Scripps Howard News Service December 30, 2004 - The tsunamis that devastated southern Asia this week bring to a close a year of natural disasters that left hardly a corner of the planet unscathed. The year began in the wake of a massive earthquake in the ancient city of Bam in Iran, on the day after Christmas 2003, that killed about 30,000 people and destroyed 70 percent of homes, schools, hospitals and businesses. It closed with the most powerful earthquake in recent decades sending walls of water crashing...

Why, according to Genesis, did God permit a great flood? Because "the wickedness of man was great"; "the earth was filled with violence"; "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth"; "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." God provided men with a means of escape, but feeling self-sufficient most men didn't bother with it. Only Noah and his family, heeding God's warnings, boarded the Ark and survived. In this generation's great flood, the Noahs and arks of salvations are considerably less sturdy. Bill Clinton is no Noah; the United Nations is no ark....

Weather service's worst weather picks The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a list of some of the century's worst weather around the USA and the world. Links to additional coverage have been provided for some of the events. United States: -Galveston Hurricane. A 20-foot storm surge swept over Galveston Island and killed an estimated 8,000 people in 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. -Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when drought swept the Great Plains and plunged thousands into poverty as farmers abandoned their land to seek better lives elsewhere. -Tornado outbreak of 1974, when 148 tornadoes...

" The Bush administration yesterday pledged $15 million to Asian nations hit by a tsunami that killed more than 22,500 people, althought the United Nations' humanitarian-aid chief called the donation "stingy."

The ineptitude of the administration of President James Earl ("Jumma") Carter seemed to me for a long time simply to be what happens when you put a bumbling, indecisive naif in a position of serious power. Lately, however, I've come to see the dark side of Jimmy Carter, and let me tell you, it's not only ugly and disgusting, it's pathologically dangerous. Neither Jumma nor Bubba, the two surviving Democrat ex-Presidents, has the decency or the respect for the office he once held to keep his pie-hole shut and refrain from criticizing the current Commander-in-Chief. But of the two, although...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

CHARLESTON (AP) -- It will take almost a year for McDonnell Douglas to deliver a new, made-to-order $5.1 million helicopter to the West Virginia State Police but troopers say the product is worth the wait. ''We'll finally get a helicopter we can do our job in,'' said Sgt. Steve Knotts, chief pilot and director of aviation for the State Police. The state-of-the-art MD 902 Explorer will allow the agency to move troopers quickly, a capability that its current pair of Vietnam War-era OH-6 helicopters lack, Gov. Bob Wise said. ''We want to make sure we can respond quickly,'' Wise said....

NEW YORK - The property insurance industry sustained record third-quarter losses this year after a series of storms, including a string of hurricanes, according to an actuarial firm's preliminary estimate. Eight catastrophes, including hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, contributed to $21.3 billion in insured property loss claims, according to New Jersey-based ISO. That figure compares to $3.7 billion from last year's third quarter, $715 million in the third-quarter 2002 and $19.15 billion in the third-quarter 2001 - the previous record, which included $18.8 billion in insured property losses from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For the first nine months...

In the early days of the Cold War, in one of Russia's most secretive regions, stood a city without a name. There, at a classified military facility, an explosion occurred which was been kept hidden for more than two decades. During those long years no one knew of it except for the few who lived in the region of the catastrophy. This tragic story and the name of the top secret city are now known - it was near Chelyabinsk, and the factory where the explosion occurred - Mayak. The area was also known as Chelyabinsk-40. The city that produced...

Picture credit: TheCabal"I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat"LINK TO THREAD TEN Iran seeks swap of Brits for suicide attackers Report says 40 Revolutionary Guard 'volunteers' held by UK Iran apprehended British military personnel and Navy vessels earlier this week in order to secure release of 40 "suicide operations volunteers" held by the UK, according to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard source. The source told the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the British Army command in Iraq received the demand from the Revolutionary Guard, reported the Middle East Media Research Institute. According to the source,...

the bitpig rant / hollywood blowsModern movies, practically without exception, blow, and the hype hurricane for Hollywood’s latest disaster blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow is now blowing at full intensity. Washed ashore among its detritus are some of the worst and most unintentionally-funny trailers ever seen by the unaided human eye. Wow! Guys running frantically to escape DEADLY FROST as it covers the Empire State Building — that’s entertainment! Please. Maybe it's just me, but somehow the cinematic spectacle of horrible disasters befalling large office buildings in New York just doesn't entertain like it used to. Besides — who in...

I'm watching this Nova episode about Swissair 111's crash. They are talking about some pretty amazing stuff. Specifically how the burned parts color appears to change with so-much exposure to heat over so-much time. Why can't they pre-load planes to do this? Apparently this is all accidental. Why can't they put in real temperature sensative paint (or parts) that expose where damage is done at what time? Why do they search after for explosion damage? Why can't parts have a coating that takes certain g-forces and registers it physically? Was this never thought of? Or is it, as usual, cost....

Loans And Grants It's too bad Southern California isn't part of Iraq. If it were, then the federal aid it will get would be in the form of grants instead of loans. If Southern California were Israel, it could get $4 billion a year in grants without fires. Even so, it's better to be temporarily scorched Southern California than part of Iraq. Iraq doesn't have forest fires, but that's because there are no forests. Iraq has sandstorms instead. Israel is afflicted with perpetual war. It's sad to see so many lose their homes, but it's just nature. Southern California has...