Seconds from Disaster

One spectacular catastrophe resulting from a single pit has been described in the television series called Seconds from Disaster. The sewer explosion that killed 215 people in Guadalajara, Mexico, in... 

If we compare the calculated total ionization potential, IP = 4.00 hartiees, with the experimental value, IP = 2.904 hartiees, the result is quite poor. The magnitude of the disaster is even more obvious if we subtract the known second ionization potential, IP2 = 2.00, from the total IP to find t c first ionization potential, IPi. The calculated value of IP2, the second step in reaction (8-21) is IP2 = Z /2 = 2.00, which is an exact result because the second ionization is a one-election problem. For the first step in reaction (8-21), IPi (calculated) = 2.00 and IPi(experimental) = 2.904 — 2.000 =. 904 hartiees, so the calculation is more than 100% in error. Clearly, we cannot ignore interelectronic repulsion. 

A second explosion occurred in a chemical plant in Texas City, Texas, some years later, and this was called the Texas City Disaster 11. This explosion occurred when a distillation column used to purify butadiene from other C4 hydrocarbons was operating improperly and... 

Second, disaster situations represent real and potential threats to data integrity. Evidence of appropriate preventive action and recovery strategies must be presented, generally in the form of a disaster recovery plan with an annual practice drill. The disaster recovery plan is usually organized aroimd likely problems (flood from broken pipes, fire, electrical failure, etc.) and includes appropriate notifications, substitute activities, and recovery actions. The disaster recovery plan generally interacts with system backup, recovery, and archive SOPs. 

Advance warning systems and the use of evacuation from areas of danger save lives and should be included in community disaster response plans whenever appropriate. Warnings can now be made months in advance, in the case of El Nino, to seconds in advance of the arrival of earthquake waves at some distance from the earthquake. Computers are being programmed to respond to warnings automatically, shutting down... 

A second lesson from the disaster is that toxicological knowledge of the chemical would have helped in the treatment of the victims. There was... 

There was neither a full-scale emergency response plan nor a tug boat to tow the dangerously burning Grandcamp away from the port. A little after 9.00 a.m., the Texas City Disaster (as it is popularly known) occurred as the ship Grandcamp exploded. A great column of smoke shot up to an estimated 2000 ft, followed in 10s, by another even more violent shockwave. Within minutes of the second blast, the Monsanto Chemical Plant was in flames that resulted from broken lines and shattered containers. Entire buildings collapsed and people were trapped inside. Fire spread to the refineries that made up the Texas City industrial complex. 

In March 2004, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for New York issued an order allowing litigation by Indian property owners near the Bhopal plant to proceed against Union Carbide in the New York District Court for property damages, including environmental remediation of their properties. The case that is being allowed relates to contamination that is not from the gas disaster, but rather from the operation and abandonment of the plant site. 

In several ways, family physicians are particnlarly well suited to respond to terrorism. First, family physicians are widely dispersed, in rural and urban areas, making them accessible for patients wherever manmade or natural catastrophic events might occnr. Second, family physicians provide continuity care, essential for the appropriate care of patients and families with ongoing physical and emotional outcomes from violent events. Third, family physicians provide comprehensive care, and can take care of most of the health problems, including emotional issues, facing victims of terrorism. Fonrth, family physicians understand how to coordinate care for patients, and can refer victims of mass disasters to other appropriate services as necessary. Most importantly, family physicians understand how to provide care in the context of family and community (22). As the events of September/October 2001 demonstrated, terrorism affects entire communities, whether or not individuals directly experience physical outcomes from the attacks. Family physicians, who nnderstand how their patients and families interact with their community, can help identify and treat problems at the community level. Although horrible, past terrorist events illustrate the pivotal role that family physicians play, working in partnership with public health officials to protect and promote the health of families and commnnities. 

Apart from cost, there are two other major challenges. The first is the scientific and engineering effort to develop the technology. The second and more difficult challenge is the socio-political problem of motivating people to work hard to solve problems that today are only an irritation, but may become a planet-wide disaster later in their lives. 

While there are no numerical disasters from vanishing denominators in RCI calculations when negative-energy basis functions are used, results of the full Dirac Hamiltonian, though potential independent, are nevertheless incorrect. To see this, we note that if the sum over intermediate states for the second-order energy is extended to included both positive- and negative-energy orbitals, can be rewritten as... 

---