Tag Archive tsunami california

Why Do They Still Keep Calling It Tsunami?

July 1, 2021 Comments Off on Why Do They Still Keep Calling It Tsunami? By admin

After a major earthquake in Japan in 2011, the country’s tsunami response team was inundated with reports of tsunami damage and tsunami-related deaths.

In response, the US Coast Guard has spent more than $2 billion on tsunami-proofing equipment and training to protect its coastal communities from tsunamis.

But the American public hasn’t gotten the message that it needs to be prepared for such an event, and it hasn’t made any significant progress.

A new study released Tuesday by the University of California, Berkeley, and The University of Texas, Austin, shows that tsunami risk has never been more apparent.

“Our findings indicate that we need to take seriously the need to build and maintain tsunami-resistant housing in the US,” said lead author and UC Berkeley graduate student Adam Dominguez, who conducted the research with Andrew Smith.

The researchers focused on the Bay Area, where the tsunami was greatest in 2011.

The study looked at the number of homes that were built or renovated in the Bay area in the aftermath of the tsunami and found that those that had been rebuilt and built tsunami-resilient homes had a significantly higher rate of survival rates.

The Bay Area was home to roughly 30 percent of the 1.5 million homes damaged by the tsunami, and the number was more than three times higher in areas where tsunami damage was less severe.

“It’s not that we’ve never built tsunami resistant housing, but we’ve always built it more slowly and it was more of a problem,” Smith said.

The authors note that the tsunami’s effects are more acute in the Pacific Northwest, where tsunami-risk is particularly acute.

“We’re talking about a major quake that had a significant effect on tsunami vulnerability in the Puget Sound region, which has had the greatest impact in the region,” Smith told Al Jazeera.

“So we know it’s there, but people don’t really understand how vulnerable they are to that.”

The researchers also found that homes built tsunami resilience had lower property damage, but also higher rents, than homes that weren’t built tsunami resistance.

“In terms of affordability, the tsunami-Resilient Housing Project is cheaper than the comparable project in the East Bay,” the authors write.

“But the difference is not statistically significant, so the difference may not be enough to overcome the higher property damage.”

The study also found the cost of rebuilding homes after a tsunami is twice as high in areas with more tsunami damage, and that homeowners with higher incomes are also more likely to survive the disaster.

“The cost of building tsunami-protected housing is $2,000, which means it costs $300,000 per person per year to rebuild after a major tsunami,” the study concludes.

“This means that we could save the equivalent of $50 billion if we invested that in tsunami- and flood-resistance housing, and instead we invest the same amount in flood mitigation and flood prevention.”

The research is being presented at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday.

“One of the biggest challenges we face is the lack of coordination among agencies and government officials to address this issue,” Smith, a research fellow in the department of civil engineering, told Aljazeera.

“For the past 20 years, we’ve had a disaster-response system that’s broken down.

I’m glad to see it’s starting to change, because I think it’s going to really improve.”

Smith also pointed out that the US could make more progress if Congress enacted more funding for tsunami-safe housing.

“At the federal level, we have no funding to rebuild, no funding for flood protection and mitigation, and a huge amount of money for earthquake response,” he said.

“And this study suggests that we should be building and maintaining tsunami- resistant housing.

And that means getting rid of our tsunami-prone areas and building resilient housing for the people who live in them.”

The US currently has no official tsunami-preparedness law.

But Smith pointed out there’s an important distinction between making sure that homes aren’t built or damaged during a tsunami and making sure people are protected.

“When we do those kinds of things, we’re basically telling the people that are in those areas to not live in those places because it’s just going to be more expensive to rebuild and rehabilitate,” Smith added.

“Instead, we should build and build tsunami-safer housing.”

, , ,

Sponsor Partner
