Enter the Superstorm
Posted by
Target on 1/15/2011, 10:25 pm
If Quakes Weren't Enough, Enter the 'Superstorm'
'California faces the risk not just of devastating earthquakes but also of a catastrophic storm that could tear at the coasts, inundate the Central Valley and cause four to five times as much economic damage as a large quake, scientists and emergency planners warn.'
'[...]few realize that the state could be hit by storms that at their worst could rival the largest hurricanes that devastate the Gulf Coast and the southeastern Atlantic Seaboard.'
'Yet vast floods have also been documented, both through tree-ring data and more modern historical records. Marcia K. McNutt, the director of the geological survey, said that 150 years ago, over a few weeks in the winter of 1861-62, enough rain fell to inundate a stretch of the Central Valley 300 miles long and 20 miles wide, from north of Sacramento south to Bakersfield, near the eastern desert.'
'The storms lasted 45 days, creating lakes in parts of the Mojave Desert and, according to a survey account, "turning the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, forcing the state capital to be moved from Sacramento to San Francisco for a time, and requiring Gov. Leland Stanford to take a rowboat to his inauguration." '
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/science/earth/16flood.html?_r=1 |
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