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Global Warming Did It! Well, Maybe Not. We're stuck on the notion that climate change is the culprit every time a natural disaster strikes. But that's just muddying the waters. By Joel Achenbach Sunday, August 3, 2008; B01 We're heading into the heart of hurricane season, and any day now, a storm will barrel toward the United States, inspiring all the TV weather reporters to find a beach where they can lash themselves to a palm tree. We can be certain of two things: First, we'll be told that the wind is blowing very hard and the surf is up....

Black day of 1780 caused by distant wildfires, MU experts sayCOLUMBIA, Mo. – At noon, it was black as night. It was May 19, 1780 and some people in New England thought judgment day was at hand. Accounts of that day, which became known as 'New England's Dark Day,' include mentions of midday meals by candlelight, night birds coming out to sing, flowers folding their petals,and strange behavior from animals. The mystery of this day has been solved by researchers at the University of Missouri who say evidence from tree rings reveals massive wildfires as the likely cause, one of...

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. Zuieback told this writer the primary intent of the KBR...

There has been a landslide on Mt. Kilmanjaro. Two members of one tour group have been killed. One member of a second group was also killed. There have been other injuries.

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has rocked north-eastern Japan, according to the country's Meteorological Agency. The agency said the quake struck at 2213 local time (1313 GMT) and was centred off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. There were no immediate reports of damage, and the agency said there was no risk of a tsunami. Japan is regularly hit by earthquakes, and local authorities are usually well prepared. The agency said the quake's centre was 40km (25 miles) undergound.

CHAKLALA AIR BASE, Pakistan -- High in a remote valley, the U.S. Army transport helicopter settled Thursday with a bump on the dry riverbed, and the earthquake survivors came running. Jostling and shoving for space, they crowded around the rear cargo hatch as the soldiers on board began tossing out tents, blankets and biscuits until they had no more to give. As the helicopter revved its engines for takeoff, a balding man with a beard leaned across the edge of the lowered cargo ramp and, smiling his gratitude, extended his hand toward Brandon Chasteen, a 21-year-old Army medic from Chattanooga,...

An earthquake of similar power to the one that devastated Pakistan is very likely along the section of the San Andreas Fault that runs from just north of San Bernardino down to the Salton Sea., That section of the 800-mile fault system is the one that is most locked, not having erupted since 1690. One scientist refers to it as the section that's "10 months pregnant." In contrast, it's only been 99 years since the northern section of the San Andreas caused the cataclysmic 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, the last "great" earthquake in California. The magnitude 7.6 earthquake that...

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...

NEW YORK -- Manhattan could be flooded and New York could suffer as much damage as New Orleans if it were hit by a catastrophic hurricane like one that passed just north of the city in 1938, experts warned on Monday. "Major hurricanes are not limited to the Gulf Coast and Florida," said James Lee Witt, who was director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 1993 to 2000 in the Clinton administration. He was speaking at the launch of a campaign to improve preparation for disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, which killed at least 883 people when it slammed...

WASHINGTON - Government at all levels - not just President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - has taken a beating in the public arena following hurricane Katrina. Dark predictions of a deepening loss of faith toward public institutions have followed. Now, there are inklings that negative reviews of the government response to Katrina have bottomed out and may be on the upswing. The latest Gallup survey, comparing people's initial responses to the government handling of the crisis with how they feel now, shows that a majority of Americans are feeling better about the role of government in...

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Over the last ten days I have, with the rest of America and the world, watched a horrific natural disaster and tragedy unfold. I say natural disaster because that is exactly what a hurricane is when it strikes humanity and destroys property and lives and leaves suffering in its wake, as hurricane Katrina did along the Gulf Coast last week. I say tragedy because I have sat transfixed as I have watched as governmental social programs long in place, contributed to the disaster, and as a number of unimaginable and crass mistakes made by those who could have and should...

Amazing before and after animated satellite imagery. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/new-orleans-imagery.htm

Louisiana Army National Guard Today's Louisiana Army and Air National Guard consists of 74 units spread among 43 cities and towns of the state and numbers some 11,500 Army and Air Guardsmen. As a result of various reorganizations the present Army Guard is composed of a State Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 204th Area Support Group, the 256th Separate Infantry Brigade, the 225th Engineer Group and various Medical, Maintenance, Aviation, Military Police, Armored Cavalry and Special Forces units and the 156th Army Band. The National Guard of the United States is the only component of the Armed Forces with a dual...

Already we are watching in frustration as looters swarm over what is left of the City of New Orleans, and now we witness the underside of the Democrat Party crawling out in to the daylight, only to act as "Political Looters". They deserve all the castigation and rejection they receive. How can we respond? By shaming them in the eyes of the majority of Americans... by doing something really positive and needed!! The contrast will be undeniable! But what to do? Money to the Red Cross, of course. If you are an EMW or other emergency worker, volunteer. But the...

Where are the pledges of sympathy and support for America from the world? Where are the Hollywood do-gooders and their live-aid concerts? Where are all those in the world who openly profess their hatred for America, and hold out their hands first for our generous help?

One of the world’s most active volcanic areas is a relatively unknown part of the seabed between New Zealand and Tonga, and could trigger a devastating tsunami at any moment, ANU geologist Professor Richard Arculus warned today. While relatively little money is available for ocean research, submerged volcanoes pose a significant threat to communities across the Pacific, Professor Arculus said. “Over the last six years, research teams from Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Germany have mapped a relatively narrow strip of ocean stretching about 2000 kilometres from the north of New Zealand to Tonga, and found 75 previously unknown...

Beijing, July. 20 (PTI): At least one person died and over 40 lakhs were affected along China's southeast coast as Typhoon Haitang slammed into the mainland, leaving a trail of destruction. High-velocity winds and heavy rains lashed the coastal Chinese town of Huangqi in Fujian Province last evening. Winds upto 126-kilometres-per-hour were reported in Lianjiang in Fujian, state media reported today But the system weakened as the typhoon moved inland towards the northwest, and has been downgraded to a tropical storm late yesterday. Meanwhile, torrential rains brought about by the typhoon has wreaked havoc in Wenzhou, a booming city of...

For some people along U.S. 98, Dennis proved especially harsh. A road trip from Navarre to St. Marks is a drive through anger, heartache and endurance. It wasn't as bad as Ivan. That was the easy thing to say about Hurricane Dennis. And in many ways it's true. Fewer people died. Fewer houses crumbled. It brought relief to hearts once occupied by misery. But for some poor souls along the battered ribbon of U.S. 98, Dennis proved far worse. We traveled the length of the highway in one long, slow, detour-filled day, from Navarre on the west to St. Marks...

Clarion Call To Avert West Coast Disaster Burdell Austin For several years many of you have been getting words of warning, dreams, and visions of an earthquake and tsunami in this region [U.S. West Coast]. I join many who sense it is time to mobilize an army of worshiping warriors, who will go before the Lord in humility for those sins committed on the land that give legal right to the adversary to perform acts of violence. As we hear from the Lord regarding specific repentance needed to cleanse the land, we will then have the blood-bought authority of the...

[World News]: Colombo, Dec 28 : About 8,000 people have died and half a million displaced in Sri Lanka's northeast following the deadly tsunami, Tamil Tiger guerrillas said Tuesday. A website run by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), a rebel front, was engaged on a "war footing" rendering humanitarian assistance in the coastal areas. Media reports quoted a leader of LTTE's Sea Tigers as saying that two Sea Tigers bases at Mullaitivu, in the country's rebel-held northeast, had been wiped out and an unspecified number of LTTE cadres had perished. Sri Lanka's...

The death toll from Sunday's natural disaster in Southeast Asia has reached 23,000, of them 12,000 in Sri Lanka, 6,000 in India, 4,700 in Indonesia and over 800 in Thailand. In a press conference held Monday afternoon at the Foreign Ministry, Deputy Director General Nissim Ben-Sheetrit said that so far 450 Israelis in the region have been contacted. Ministry officials said earlier that over 500 were still unaccounted for. According to Ben-Sheetrit, "I cannot say with certainty that there are no Israeli fatalities. We are examining this possibility and I hope there would not be any. Currently, between 7 and...

Happy New Year's Eve to all at Free Republic!!! Make your predictions for 2004. Good Luck!!!

A flash flood at a holiday resort on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has killed at least 37 and possibly up to 75 people. Five foreigners are believed to be among those killed, while many more people are missing. A local government spokesman says the flood swept an Australian man to his death, along with a Singaporean and at least two Chinese. The flood came on Monday after days of heavy monsoon rain in Bohorok, close to the provincial capital of Medan in north Sumatra province. Bohorok is adjacent to a large river that flows down from nearby mountains, and...

<p>Southern California is incandescent. Pillars of flame skitter across brushy uplands and down steep canyons, as smoke drifts across the region's great cities. So far, some 970 square miles and 1,800 houses have been consumed, and at least 18 people have died. Gov. Gray Davis says the fires are the greatest catastrophe in California's history. They will cost an estimated $2 billion — a hard pull on the state's depleted treasury. Bad as they are, the fires are not without precedent. Similar ones regularly have burned through even the state's flashiest communities — Malibu, Laguna Beach, Santa Barbara. This recurring pattern suggests that if such a risk is not entirely avoidable, it ought to be more manageable than it is now. The problem, according to planning experts, is that the region lacks consistent fire-safety standards and effective enforcement.</p>

Plump hobbit actor Sean Astin has been interested in directing for some time, having tried his hand at a couple of short films and an episode of TV's Angel recently. Now he's ready to hit the big time, and has optioned a book that he plans to turn into a movie. And Sean's not starting small - he wants to tell the story of the worst natural disaster in American history (and no, we don't mean the TV show AfterM*A*S*H). "I optioned a book called 'Issac's Storm' by Erik Larson," he told MTV. "It's a story about the Galveston, Texas,...

As many of you may already know, Fellow Freeper Texana_RED's home was washed away in the devastating floods that are hitting Texas right now. Some of you may have seen video of a house in Kerrville floating downstream, then hitting a tree, and disintegrating. That was Texana_RED's home. Some of you may have seen an interview showing a woman on televison pointing to her red pickup truck which was lodged in a tree. That was Texana_RED. She literally got out with her pajamas, with 2 of her dogs. She lost the rest of her pets, and all the contents of...