Catastrophic flood events

Little can be said about the flowstone. It is evident that it is younger than the basal fill, as it lies above it, but it is also contemporaneous with the conglomerate. Relatively dry periods of flowstone deposition alternated with possibly catastrophic flood events, during which gravel-laden water rushed into dry caves. Determination of the age of the flowstone deposits in the denuded caverns is clearly beyond the reach of the U-Th series method. Following a single failed attempt, at Bergen University (Mihevc, 2000), no further direct attempts have been made to measure their date(s) of emplacement. 

There are some descriptions of water-borne outbreaks, or even small epidemics of acute gastroenteritis (diarrhoea), cholera and hepatitis E associated with catastrophic floods that occurred in developing countries, such as Sudan [34, 35], Nicaragua [36], Mozambique [37] and West Bengal [37]. On the contrary, no changes in the base-line outbreak incidence have been reported in developed countries after major floods [37, 38]. When infrastructures and water management are adequate, outbreaks of faecal-oral water-borne infectious diseases do not follow flood events, even in the case where water flooding has compromised the security of water facilities [37]. 

The 2010 flood event that affected the towns of Varazze and Sestri Ponente (Liguria—Northern Italy) was the perfect example of anticipatory catastrophe that hit the following year the Cinque Terre and the City of Genoa, causing 10 deaths (Fig. 36.1). 

Weather data for a number of years should be assembled for each community being studied. Particular attention should be given to such natural disasters as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods, which often can be predicted from meteorological data. In certain locations these catastrophic events must be assumed to be probable and this increases construction costs. E.xtremely cold weather often hampers process plant operation and requires special construction features to protect equipment from freezing. Predominantly warm weather permits cheaper construction but may also reduce the efllcicncy of the labor force. 

Apparently, a future direction for studies into climatic instability and related catastrophic events, like Hurricane Katrina (13 years after the most powerful in the history of Miami Hurricane Andrew) in late August 2005 did huge economic damage, completely flooding New Orleans and destroying many buildings, is a search for connections between temperature variations at different scales in different basins... 

The most probable cause of a submarine sinking is flooding caused by an event that breaches the outer hull. The force required would have to be substantial. Potential causes include surface collision, grounding, external explosion, and catastrophic failure of a hull valve. It is likely that such an event also would start a fire within the submarine. The immediate concern for the crew is the release of toxic gases that are produced as the combustion products of on-board fires (U.S. Navy 1998). Human exposure to these gases can lead to adverse health effects, particularly respiratory and central nervous system effects, and even... 

Given terrorists focus on the news media as a conduit of their psychological warfare, the crisis response community competes with the perpetrators of violence for media and public attention. In this respect, a terrorist event is very different from other disasters—whether an explosion in a chemical or nuclear plant, hurricanes, floods, or other natural catastrophes. 

Servers should be located in secure locations subject to appropriate environmental controls and protected against risks of flooding, fire, etc. Business Continuity Plans and Disaster Recovery Plans should be in place to manage catastrophic events. Such plans should be periodically tested. 

CourtiUot V., Jaeger 1.1., Yang Z. Z., Feraud G., and Hofmann C. K. B. (1996) The influence of continental flood basalts on mass extinctions where do we stand In The Cretaceous-Tertiary Event and Other Catastrophes in Earth History, Geological Society of America Special Paper 307 (eds. G. Ryder, D. Fastovsky, and S. Gartner), pp. 513-525. 

A catastrophic event in general (or catastrophe) is an event that has severe losses, injury, or property damage affects large population of exposures and is caused by natural or handmade events. Examples of catastrophic events include natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, floods) and terrorist attacks. The last 20 years, natural catastrophes have been happening with increasing intensity. 

FIGURE 10.1 Two maps from Antonio Snider-Pelligrini s (1858) book La Creation et ses Mysteres Devoiles (the maps are numbered 9 and 10 and inserted between pages 63 and 64). He was an ardent Christian with immense foith that the earth was created by a catastrophic event. According to him, the continents of America, South America, Europe and Africa once formed a biock of fused rocks prior to the great flood. The flood cooled the block and a gigantic and rapid rupture then occurred, involving the separation of Americas and the Old World. 

Generally, VaR type risks are caused by rare events, such as earthquakes, floods, fire, wars, terrorism, etc. They can result in catastrophic disruptions to the company s supply chain. Recall how a lightning bolt hithng a semi-conductor plant in New Mexico in 2000, resulted in over 640 million revenue loss to Ericsson and changed the landscape of the mobile phone industry. 

Emergency Planning The Big Picture for Water Utilities. First-hand accounts of how water utilities across the country have survived and learned from catastrophic events. Includes footage and testimonials from water utility professionals at these headline-making crises earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and the 1993 Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak, (order 65068)... 

Elementary forces such as floods, excessively high tides, earthquakes, electrical and other storms, may influence the environment and its safety to a considerable degree. Floods, storms, and extreme high tides which have occurred during this century are shown in Table 7.11. As a supplement, the frequency of catastrophic storms around the world during this century is represented in Table 7.12. In Europe, these events are far less... 

Tsunami waves represent extreme, often catastrophic events, which significantly and adversely impact coastal areas. In spite of the lower frequency of occurrence comparing to storms and storm-induced singes, tsunami-induced coastal flooding often leads to massive casualties and tremendous economic losses. Hence, tsunamis are rare events, high-impact natural disasters. 

To consider the significance of risk, reference must be made not only to the numeric value of the product of probability and consequence, but also to how it will be perceived by society or the individual. Also, in some cases it is important to understand the nature of risk, distinguishing between rare, catastrophic events and more frequent less severe events. For example, risk methods adopted to support the targeting and management of flood warning represent risk in terms of probability and consequence, but low probability/high consequence events are treated very differently to high probability/low consequence events. 

Some external events included in the design basis may be associated with very low probability and catastrophic scenarios examples include impacts of large aircraft, devastating explosions in the vicinity of the plant and extreme floods. The evaluation of their effects on the plant can be affected by high uncertainties, for the following reasons ... 

Catastrophic events, including droughts, floods, earthquakes, wars, and civil disorders. 

The flood of the 25th October 2011 hit many municipalities in Liguria (Italy) and followed a very heavy rain (542 mm of water fell in just 6 h). This caused the Vara and Magra rivers to overflow, streams of water to gush and the valleys to be flooded. This event marked the peak of three catastrophic years in which every rainfall above average caused disasters, ranging from flooding to landslides. 

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