Module 8: Natural Hazards

1. In module 7 I talked about the city that I was familiar with which was Tamaqua.  Using the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards, Tamaqua encounters increased heavy rain, hailstorms, and winter storms.  The increased heavy rain comes about throughout the year.  This always leads to flooding of basements as there is a creek that runs through the town.  Tamaqua falls in the lower end of the zones involving hailstorms and tornados.  A few years back there was a huge hailstorm that consisted of golf ball sized hail.  In the past, Tamaqua was also under a few tornado warnings, but fortunately nothing every came about.  To complete this task, the Nathan map was well suited and made finding the information very easy.  The color coding made this map easier to understand.

2. In Angola, Africa, a biological hazard event was recorded on the “RSOE EDIS” map on February 16, 2016.  This biological hazard event occurred from bacteria and viruses that caused severe fatal diseases.  This allowed 1132 infected people and had 168 deaths.  This can most definitely happen in the city of Tamaqua as diseases can go across the world in the matter days.  Yes, these specific diseases may not actually start up in Tamaqua, but Tamaqua can have its own biological hazard event in seconds.  About 10 miles away from Tamaqua there is a chemical manufacturing plant called Air Products.  They keep this plant very safe in its operations; however, things can always go wrong.  If an event should occur dangerous chemicals would be released into the air and the water supply.  This would affect a large residential area and can spread quickly.

3. From personal experience and past generations, the biggest natural hazards of Tamaqua are caused by the Mother Nature.  There have been so many severe snow storms that have been known to accumulate a couple feet of snow and inches of ice.  At times we have been without power for days.  The heavy summer storms producing heavy rains have also been known to knock out power and cause flooding of streets and basements.  In reference to my mom, the markings on the bridge at the Knoebel’s Amusement Park, and the markings at the Bloomsburg Fair buildings, the flood in the 1970’s called Agnes left flood water levels higher than one would have thought with a lot of damage and a lot of cleanup and repair.

4. The first action in this module to reduce vulnerability to natural hazard in the city of Tamaqua would be pre-event preparedness.  The weather forecasters/news reporters, city officials, and citizens would be the best people to carry out this action.  Of course you would need the weather reports to know what is going to happen, and what is happening.  The city officials would tell you what the plans are for your individual area.  The citizens would have to get their own house and family ready for the natural hazard.  I myself would make sure I had all supplies needed for the emergency, take all the safety steps necessary, and make sure my neighbors are prepared.  Also building resilience is an important part of the pre-event preparedness as you are already prepared before anything happens.  In my opinion I feel that the pre-event preparedness is the most important way to reduce vulnerability.

2 thoughts on “Module 8: Natural Hazards

  1. Hello, my name is Adam Abbott and I’m a senior in IST. I thought your post was rather interesting. The incident you chose to examine in Africa is kind of scary to think about. An outbreak of that scale in the United States would cause panic, but the U.S. has not reported anything about outbreaks of disease like that in Africa. I think your idea about pre-event preparedness is great. Having a set plan that all residents in the area of your town can be aware of would make working through a natural disaster much easier. I also didn’t think about reporting any snow hazards in my home area even though there have been significant snow storms in the last 30 years or so. I think you did a great job with this post.

    If you would like to view my post you can find it here: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/04/01/natural-hazards-8/

  2. Hi Tyler, I really liked your post and your discussion about Air Products, and their potential affect on your town. I live closely to Three Mile Island in PA, which is a nuclear power plant. I understand your concern about the risk of plant malfunction and the potential disruption of your hometown from it. In my blog post (http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/04/01/vulnerability-re…tion-alex-deebel/), I talked about the risk of a terror attack at Hershey Park. While I don’t think this would be a key target for terrorist groups, it is a possibility. I discussed ways of preventing this such as increased security during hours of operation.

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