Archive for the ‘Flood’ Category
Houston floods: a toxic stew of chemicals, sewage, debris and waste that still floods much of the city.
Thursday, August 31st, 2017- “….Runoff from the city’s sprawling petroleum and chemicals complex contains any number of hazardous compounds. Lead, arsenic and other toxic and carcinogenic elements….”
- “….hundreds of thousands of people across the 38 Texas counties affected by Hurricane Harvey use private wells….”
- “….Harris County, home to Houston, hosts more than two dozen current and former toxic waste sites designated under the federal Superfund program. The sites contain what the Environmental Protection Agency calls legacy contamination: lead, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene and other toxic and carcinogenic compounds from industrial activities many years ago…..”
- “….Damaged refineries and other oil facilities have already released more than two million pounds of hazardous substances into the air this week, including benzene, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds….”
wo explosions and plumes of black smoke were reported at a flooded chemical plant in Crosby, Texas .
Thursday, August 31st, 2017More than 1,000 people have died in floods across South Asia this summer
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017- At least 41 million people in Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been directly affected by flooding and landslides resulting from the monsoon rains, which usually begin in June and last until September.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YEt_nMaa5s
TS Harvey: Forecasters predict another five to 10 inches of rain could fall in western Louisiana
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017Post-Harvey, health officials are warning about an increased risk of illnesses and hazards caused by the rising floodwaters.
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017- drowning,
- bacterial diseases,
- carbon monoxide poisoning,
- mosquito-borne illnesses: Zika, ChikV, Dengue
- floodwaters could become contaminated with chemicals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt_73lM-aYo
Harvey: At least 9 nine dead
Tuesday, August 29th, 2017- The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, said on Monday that he expected more than 450,000 people to apply for federal assistance.
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For the time being, efforts are focused on the most basic elements of keeping people alive — plucking stranded survivors from the flood, providing shelter, food and water, and restoring electricity to hundreds of thousands of people who were left without power.
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FEMA was shipping two million liters of water and two million meals to the region.
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Other government agencies, charities and corporations were also moving supplies into the region.
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Governor Abbott activated the entire Texas National Guard to aid in rescue and recovery, raising the number of troops involved to 12,000 from 3,000.
Houston: America’s fourth-largest city under threat as storm deluge drops more than 22in of rain in a day.
Monday, August 28th, 2017While flooding is a natural disaster, the scale of the human tragedy in Freetown is very much man-made.
Saturday, August 19th, 2017‘…..“The authorities should have learned lessons from previous similar incidents and put in place systems to prevent, or at least minimise, the consequences of these disasters. Devastating floods are now an annual occurrence in the country’s capital. Yet, due to a lack of regulation and insufficient consideration for minimum standards and environmental laws, millions of Sierra Leoneans are living in dangerously vulnerable homes.”
The right to adequate housing under international law requires that every home be ‘habitable’, which includes providing protections against disasters such as this. However, poor regulation and failures to ensure environmental factors are part of urban planning in Sierra Leone often result in structures being built that are both unsafe and situated in dangerous locations…..’