May 2015 has been a difficult weather
month for the Central US. Two incidents
reported in the news underscore the fact that even the best preparations—even
the most seemingly well-engineered solutions—often fail in the face of the
worst that Nature sends our way.
In the first, ground water forced a
tornado shelter out of the ground in storm-ravaged Oklahoma. The same rains that brought the potential for
high winds popped the shelter from the ground like a cork. Fortunately, nobody was injured and the
proper ground anchors are being installed.
Unfortunately, the second example is
tragic, as well as informative. Three
individuals are still missing when their vacation home in Texas, built on
concrete “stilts” to avoid damage during flooding by the nearby river, was swept
from its foundation and has been destroyed.
Raging waters carried away a mother and two children. A grieving father
survived.
Finally, a major region of the World suffered yet another devastating earthquake last month. The videos were stunning. People with cell phone cameras stood filming in city squares while massive stone towers toppled and crumbled. Pedestrians fell to their feet. It looked almost fake—like really poor special effects in a summer disaster movie. And yet the shaking and the damage and the loss of life were very real.
Even many climbers on Mt. Everest were no
match for the avalanches triggered by the quake. As of this writing, USA Today reports more
than 8,500 people killed in Nepal, with another 18,000 injured. The quake leveled a half-million homes and
left more than 3 million homeless.
An online report in the UK’s GuardianNewspaper addresses a critical subject: The safe rebuilding of Nepal’s
structures and the “crisis of poverty” that causes such loss of life in the
first place. It’s a significant and
profound point I’d like to repeat here (with citation below).
"Around three-quarters of all deaths in earthquakes
are due to building collapse. Low-cost and informal buildings are most likely
to fail, meaning that earthquakes disproportionately affect the poorest in the
community, and usually leave them even poorer. The technology and skills to
practically eliminate this scale of fatality are available. Yet they are not
reaching the people who need them most. Earthquakes are not just a “natural”
crisis: they reflect a poverty crisis.
"This is a development problem produced by a failure
to incorporate risk and resilience into long-term planning. An earthquake
shouldn’t have to be the impetus to “build back better” after lives have
already been destroyed. Building better should start from day one.
"After a disaster like Nepal’s earthquake, the international
community needs to assist in long-term, safe reconstruction. If it does not,
the construction will be carried out in an ad-hoc manner, with unplanned
reconstruction and inadequate skills resulting in unsafe buildings. This
pattern locks poor communities into a cycle of vulnerability, leaving them
unprotected against the next earthquake."
In conclusion, let me echo and re-emphasize the sentiment
of the writer of the article:
"Nepal’s reconstruction is so crucial
because it is an opportunity to take the global community’s combined knowledge
and do better. It is more
important than ever to focus not only on providing immediate relief, but to
deliver a more resilient, stronger built environment that will not produce a
repeat tragedy of this scale again."
I could not have said it better myself! We can improve these structures. We must work together to do so.
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