Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Hatrick?


click pic for larger image Posted by Picasa


Hatrick?

As I mentioned earlier, Fema reported in 2001 that the three greatest possible disasters facing this country were a terrorist act in NYC, a hurricane/flooding in New Orleans, and a big earthquake in San Francisco.

I went to China in 1979, three years after this one. Tianjin, hundreds of miles away from Tangshan, had so much damage, that three years later the park across the street from my hotel (the former Victoria Park) was full of people living in scavanged shelters (houses made from the bricks of downed buildings. Some of them, touchingly, built around trees). This is the news of that earthquake. . . .


Integration of Public Administration and Earthquake Science: The Best Practice Case of Qinglong County



The magnitude 7.8 Great Tangshan Earthquake (GTE) occurred under the city of Tangshan, China, on July 28, 1976. When the dust settled, a quarter of a million people had died, and only a small handful of buildings were left standing. Emerging from this tragedy is a public administration best practice: public administrators of Qinglong County integrated scientific knowledge and monitoring by lay public, and prepared for the Great Tangshan Earthquake. Although 180,000 buildings in the county were destroyed, not one life was lost in the county due to the devastation (one person had a heart attack) while over 240,000 people died in surrounding areas.


Anyone think FEMA will do as well?

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