by simon
Posted on Saturday, November 03, 2012 09:35 PM
I read some comment on the web by a Kenyan that, 'It takes an hurricane to bring power down in New York, but in Nairobi, a 3 hour rain storm is all the push our Mains Electricity needs'. Now that is of course true IN SOME of our NEIGHBOURHOODS.
Back to hurricane Sandy, the monster storm hit the east coast of the United States towards the end of October 2012 paralising activities in New York city, the world's Commercial hub and affecting at least 24 states in the US and taking the lives of at least 20 people. Was is not for the early warning systems in place in the continent, this would have gone down as the world's worst disaster of all times, probably. But what is technlogy for as I have always asked here >> A Technology Driven Future?.
How was it detected? The storm began as a tropical cyclone on October the 22nd and was picked up by the Government of Jamaica who gave a directive to watch it closely in the entire island. On October 23rd, it was developing quickly and the watch was replaced with the warning for a storm with a hurricane watch issued. The same day, the hurricane watch was replaced again with a hurricane warning. At the same time, the Government of Haiti issued similar warnings on its own land and so did Cuba, Bahamas and of course the US. |
Long story shot, by monitorying the winds hitting the coasts and their patterns in the ocean, a hurricane was declared and preparations made to save as many lives as possible.
My only question is, do we have the capacity to observe our daily weather patterns and detect similar events? I mean this was the biggest hurricane in recorded history on the Atlantic, how many can survive that if it occured on our own coasts?