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Recovering from natural disasters
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Recommended: Recovering from natural disasters
In chapter eight of Acts of God, Ted Steinberg discusses how natural disasters impact the poor in the United States and how the US government has historically responded to natural disasters. According to the text, there is a tendency among policymakers to blame calamity/disaster on nature; this perspective has led to much difficulty in disaster relief efforts. In the text, Steinberg implies that the government has typically been inadequate at helping the poor in disaster’s wake. Chapter eight begins by expanding on some of the natural disasters that occurred during the 1960s in the US: Hurricane Hilda (1964) and Betsy (1965); Alaska/California earthquake and tsunami of 1964; and Hurricane Camille (1969). Steinberg argues that these events
In this book, Kolbert travels to many places to find out what is happening with global warming. Quite often she ran into the same fear at the places she went, the fear for loss before the next generation. When she went to Alaska, many people were fleeing from their homes because the sea ice surrounding them, creating a buffer zone for storms, was melting and that was causing houses to just be swept away.
Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson was a very fascinating book because it is difficult to say absolutely what the true subject of the book is. There are three key players in the book, first it is Isaac Cline a meteorologist for the U.S Weather Bureau, The U.S. Weather Bureau itself, and finally the storm of 1900. However, all three elements collaborate with one another in a significant way. The storm of 1900 is the main catalyst for one of the most devastating storms in the United States. However, the Weather Bureau and Isaac Cline both had an impact on the outcome of the catastrophic storm. The book generally focuses on the Galveston Hurricane of 1990, but more so the actions that Isaac Cline takes, or didn’t take rather. It was very tricky to
According to the article The Joplin Tornado: The Evil Swirling Darkness it states,”Instead, they speak of the power of their faith, the strength of their community, and the generosity of the thousands of people from around the country who came to help heal their wounded city.” This is saying that they were happy that people came and helped them to persevere and rebuild their town. A Storm Chaser’s First Hand Account on the Joplin Tornado explains,“I'm watching a pick-up truck loaded with supplies and ladders--it's a local grassroots effort. That's what America's about. People helping people. That's what we're seeing here. It's not people waiting for government aid, even though there's going to be lots of people that need it. We've just got grassroots efforts of people pouring in and helping.” This shows that the people were helping those in need, and that they weren’t waiting for the government to come and help them rebuild they did it on their own. Finally Jeff Piotrowski says,”The way we got people out was that the people that came in there, they started picking up their family members and loading them into trucks and driving them to the only hospital left in Joplin. That's how we got people out of here.” He is telling us that family members and other people help each other, and help to bring back the people from their
Royer, Jordan. “Hurricane Sandy and the importance of being FEMA”, Crosscut.com, Crosscut.com, Web. 1 Nov 2012, 3 May 2014.
Drea Knufken’s thesis statement is that “As a society, we’ve acquired an immunity to crisis” (510-512). This means that humans in general, or citizens of the world, have become completely desensitized to disasters, we think of them as just another headline, without any understanding of their impact upon fellow
On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the most expensive hurricane in American history, made landfall in Louisiana with winds of one hundred and twenty-seven miles per hour (“Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts”). The sheer magnitude of the amount of lives and property lost was enormous, and it was triggered simply by warm ocean waters near the Bahamas ("How Hurricane Katrina Formed"). Nature was indifferent to whether the raging winds and rain would die off in the ocean or wipe out cities; it only follows the rules of physics. A multitude of American authors has attempted to give accounts and interpretations of their encounters with the disinterested machine that is nature. Two authors, Stephen Crane and Henry David Thoreau, had rather contrasting and conflicting interpretations of their own interactions with nature. Crane’s work, “The Open Boat,” is story based on his experience as a survivor
Dr. Robert Bullard is a researcher, activist and author who pioneered a branch of social science known as Environmental Justice. His efforts have been to fight toxic dumping in minority communities by bringing wide attention to this issue. He has been referred to as the "Father of Environmental Justice". (Bullard 1) This speech, “How Race Affected the Federal Government’s Response to Katrina” uses Hurricane Katrina and several other disasters to highlight inequities toward the black communities at all phases of disaster response. There is special emphasis on the negative effects of these inequities as deliberate racial discrimination against black communities by all levels of government. Although Dr. Bullard engages the listener well with emotionally charged phrases, it will be shown that he fails to establish that discrimination alone, and not other inherent complexities of disaster response, accounts for all of his claims.
Hurricane Katrina was considered as the worst hurricane in the history of United States. The winds and the rain were shattering people’s homes which collapsed and flooded. Thousands of people were suffering and dying. People were starving, and becoming dehydrated. Many people were left on the street and became homeless. After the hurricane, so many questions were left regarding the widespread damage and loss of loved ones. This devastating disaster destroyed the city of New Orleans and nearby cities and was estimated to cost $80 billion dollars in damage. State and local emergency in the affected area were struggling to perform urgent response missions such as emergency medical services, search and rescue, firefighting, giving food and water,
...The flood of 1927 granted limited compensation for the sacrificed residents with strict claims procedures. There were “no banks, business, or government agency ever made a voluntary payment to the victims to fulfill the self-proclaimed moral obligation…” (pg 360). The issues of social conditions and poor working conditions continue to resurface because the line between federal government’s roles to its citizens remains indirect with lack of socialist reform and maintain the ideals of individual altruism. The federal government maintains the stance that the free market and private enterprise will bring about recovery. The problem is that the free market and private enterprise base the loans to businesses and individuals on income or some sort of collateral for credit access. The already poor have not collateral and will continue to remain poor in this system.
The Coast Guard, for instance, rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how bad things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely
Starr, Kevin. “The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself.” University of California Press. 83:3 (2006): 45-61. Web. 16 April. 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161821
In The Cause Against Helping the Poor, Garrett Hardin argues that each nation must protect their own resources and leave others to fend for themselves. Perhaps the strongest argument that Hardin gives for this claim relies on the belief that helping the poor will only ruin our environment and hurt the future generation. Furthermore, we are justified in protecting ourselves, which makes no moral difference in protecting those who are closer to us. In this paper, I will argue that we have a general obligation to help those in need, but the obligation is stronger for those closest to us.
Gordon, K., & Emerson, J. (2010). Governing through a disaster: Lessons from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Retrieved from http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/08/07/206563/governing-through-a-disaster/
There was a massive earthquake in San Francisco during the year of 1906. The country of United States went through great loss because of this massacre. Nearly 250,000 people had become homeless as the result of this great earthquake. Winchester pointed out the question: How unprepared was America when this disaster hit? He compared the San Francisco earthquake to the Katrina hurricane in 2005.
Kay, Joseph. "Hurricane Katrina: a calamity compounded by poverty and neglect." World Socialist Website. N.p., 31 Aug. 2005. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.