Why did you include Arizona and Nevada in your places where cities are naturally prone to disasters? I live in Arizona and I don't see a hurricane hitting here anytime soon. Earthquakes are unlikely except for Yuma because it is too close to the San Andreas/Imperial Valley fault. The last earthquake to hit Tucson occured in 1887 and that occurs about every 600,000 years. Granted Flagstaff sits in a area prone to forest fires, but I wouldn't say Tucson, Phoenix and for that matter Las Vegas or Reno sit in harms way.
If anybody on the BBS was smart and had the inclination and cash, they would buy as much cheap land as they could about 100 miles inland from NO. In about a 100 years you'll own more beachfront property than they'll know what to do with.
Agreed. Disaster planners for AZ and NV are primarily concerned about a major earthquake in So. Cal. The crush of people fleeing the LA area would quickly overwhelm all local and state resources and major transportation arteries would be shut down... think the Rita traffic jam x 10. A terrorist attack on Las Vegas (or Phoenix to a lesser extent) and a flu epidemic are also getting some play, but nothing would be as complex as an LA earthquake. Anything else that could happen to AZ or NV pales in comparison to those two... fires, floods, chemical spills, etc., would all be "easier" (relative term) than the big one on the San Andreas Fault. The long term risks to developed areas in AZ and NV are critical though... water and increasing temps.
That would be one ugly, grueling exodus across the blazing hot desert if the "big one" occured in the summer. I wouldn't want to be stuck out in the middle of no where in a big traffic jam with no sign of civilization insight. Water is an issue out here. The biggest consumer of water though in Arizona is farming. You'd be surprised to see them growing cotton out here in the middle of the desert. Sprawling suburbs actually used less water then farming. The growth of Phoenix has actually saved Arizona water. Phoenix was once surrounded by irrigated agricultue and all those farms have been turned into houses. Another thing Arizona is doing is taking back its share of the Colorado river water that it has been selling to California for years. Nevada, mainly Las Vegas, is really screwed when it comes to water. As for forest fires at least here in Arizona the blazes you see on TV are a result of two thing: mismanagement of forest lands and alien grass species. An example, forests on top of the Catalina Mountains (Mt. Lemmon) north of Tucson had become overgrown with underbrush. The forest service for years has prevent all forest fires and allowed the forest floor to grow up with brush (fuel). Before the forest service did this fires would burn the entire mountain range but they were low intensity fires that didn't harm the mature conifers. When the blazes broke out the last few years, the underbrush allowed the fires to reach the upper canopy of the forest and then you had a mega-blaze on your hands. Basically the same story throughout the western U.S. You add in the extreme drought and you have recipe for major blazes. As far as alien grass species, I mean alien like from another area, non-native. These grasses from like Africa have been planted in yards as ornamental plants but are now spreading across the desert. Grassland type fires now breakout killing all native cacti and trees. The only thing left after this that grows back is the non-native grass which is used to grassland fires.
Decent summary Saint, though I would add that it wasn't just the Forest Service, but all the land management agencies... BLM, Park Service, BIA, Fish and Wildlife, State Lands, etc. Add to that the dramatic increase in population and use of public lands... All this exacerbated by one of the wettest 40 years in the SW from late 1950's to 1996, 2000, or thereabouts (depending on who you ask) which added huge fuel loadings. If you're interested in this stuff, check out this book... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1559635657/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/002-4995149-5747256?_encoding=UTF8 By the way, I was just in your neck of the woods last week, sleeping in Catalina State Park for 3 nights. I love that chunk of ground even though it is rough as heck.
Romero. Originally sent to the fire near Mt Graham/Safford, but that was out by the time I got there, so I bumped down to Romero. Things looked like they were going to kick in with lots of active fires, then everything died down. As you know, it'll be hot over the next few days and tomorrow through Saturday we should get some dry lightning from the Tonto NF east to the Gila NF, so we're anticipating a big fire somewhere between the Tonto, the Ft Apache and San Carlos Reservations, or the Apache-Sitgreaves NF. And I don't really fight... too old and too fat, especially for that country. Just support roles... on big Team fires I usually do media and community stuff.
Its not a sudden disaster that will befall cities in AZ and NV but the gradual disaster of running out of water. Many of the aquafers in the Southwest ar e dry already and resevoirs like Lake Powell are drastically low. Its just a bad idea to build a metropolis in a desert.
I see you address the water issue here and I agree that agriculture, especially cotton, uses more water than suburbs. That said though its not like suburbs don't use water and the Phoenix area uses a lot of water for not only drinking but to maintain a standard of life that includes golf courses and swiming pools.
We should hire a bunch of Dutch engineers with all that estate tax money! Keep the estate tax, and save New Orleans!!!!! Keep D&D Civil.
No arguing that Phoenix uses more water then Tucson. They love their swimming pools and grass in Phoenix. Tucson has managed to raise the ground water table that last couple of years by letting water brought in (CAP) from the Colorado river. It is allowed to soak into the ground in the Avra Valley west of Tucson. The ground is actually soaking it up faster then anticipated and the water tables are rising faster then anticipated too. This is good news for the folks in the older parts of Tucson that have wells on their property. Phoenix got lucky the winter of 2004-2005 when they got record rainfall and filled up all the reservoirs east of the city. This last winter was back to no rain again though. As for the golf course here in Tucson, I don't know about Phoenix, many are switching to "brown" water for irrigation which is treated sewer water. It is speculated that down the road the 'brown" water will be allowed to seep back into the ground like the CAP water. RIght now the excess is released into what used to be the Santa Cruz river. For living in the desert, I don't think I pay a premium for water. My water bill is around $20 a month and my sewer bill is $18 a month.
the realist in me says let it go and my heart says bulldoze the entire city with people still in it. what can ya do i guess
Taking water from the Colorado River to fill aquafers in Tuscon is a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. Since the Colorado River is running very low now and water from it is used throughout the Southwest. I worked on a project at Lake Powell a few years ago and I saw how some of the marina docks have either had to be moved 100's of feet or left high and dry since the water level has dropped so much in the past few years and in many spots along resevoirs the water is nearing pre-dam levels. I don't know what the resevoir capacity of Phoenix or Tuscon but I've heard that many Southwestern cities are growing so fast that they have a structural capacity shortfall. The use of brown and grey water is a good idea and should be used more but that is only a partial solution to a much larger problem. The inescapable fact too is that these are deserts and while they get monsoonal rains they don't have steady water supplies. I will admit ignorance of AZ utilities and how they are structured but is it possible that utilitie prices are capped and subsidized? If I recall correctly water from the Colorado is Federal so all of us who live outside of AZ are helping you pay for that water.
i realize you're joking on some level. but i'm not sure how you "save" a city that's surrounded by water and is sinking in parts at a rate greater than an inch a year. you're gonna lose that fight eventually. you can save it temporarily.
Its not impossible look at Venice, Amsterdam and Srinigar on Lake Dal in India. Its just very very very expensive. Just to throw some more ideas into the pot one idea that I've heard considered is to actually close off Lake Ponchatrain with giant gates like what is being proposed in Venice. These gates could isolate the Ponchatrain during a storm and then be opened up to maintain the natural wash of the Gulf in calm periods. Related to that is the idea of close off Lake Ponchatrain for good and turn it into a lagoon that would gradually fill up into new land. Both these ideas are very expensive, especially the gates, and fraught with various other issues but its going to take big expensive ideas to save NOLA over the longterm. I think due to the costs that's a debate that needs to be had on a national level.
i agree. and it's not a debate that's being had outside of message boards like this, as far as i can tell. were venice and amsterdam sinking like this?? was that the issue? NOLA just seems like the perfect storm to me...pardon the expression. it's sinking..it's already surrounded by water...and ever so often, a hurricane nails it.
Here's what one group thinks needs to happen... http://www.saveourlake.org/LOD_projects.htm Adding the rounded off figures in my head, I came up with about a billion bucks.
