Hurricane Sandy made history as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record when it made landfall near Brigantine, N.J., Oct. 29, 2012. With wind gusts in excess of 75 miles per hour and storm surge that inundated much of the New York and New Jersey coasts with water four to eight feet high, the aftermath proved even worse. Sandy killed at least 117 people in the United States, caused more than $50 billion in damage, and stranded millions of people for days in their homes without electricity, resulting from crippled public transportation systems and severe fuel shortages.
In the days and weeks following the storm, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mobilized more than 800 personnel from worldwide locations to fulfill Federal Emergency Management Agency mission requests totaling $351 million to assist with the relief and recovery, primarily in New York and New Jersey. The Corps worked closely with its partners to dewater approximately 475 million gallons of salt water, install more than 200 generators to critical facilities such as hospitals and police stations, remove more than 300,000 cubic yards of debris in New York City alone, provide more than nine million liters of bottled water and begin repairs to projects.
In a national commitment to help recover from the second-most costly hurricane in our Nation’s history, Congress in January 2013 passed the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013. This act appropriated more than $5 billion to the Army Corps for the restoration and construction of federal projects in the impacted area. One year later, more than 200 projects and studies along the coastline from Florida to Maine and navigation channels inland to Ohio are planned and underway to restore projects to their design-level conditions and reduce the risks of future coastal storm damage.
The majority of USACE's recovery program is undertaken in the North Atlantic Division with more than 150 projects and studies totaling more than $4 billion. The Great Lakes and Ohio River Division and South Atlantic Division also were allocated funding to restore coastal storm risk reduction projects and navigation channels in their regions.
The California earthquake of April 18, 1906 ranks as one of the most significant earthquakes of all time. Today, its importance comes more from the wealth of scientific knowledge derived from it than from its sheer size. Rupturing the northernmost 296 miles (477 kilometers) of the San Andreas fault from northwest of San Juan Bautista to the triple junction at Cape Mendocino, the earthquake confounded contemporary geologists with its large, horizontal displacements and great rupture length. Indeed, the significance of the fault and recognition of its large cumulative offset would not be fully appreciated until the advent of plate tectonics more than half a century later. Analysis of the 1906 displacements and strain in the surrounding crust led Reid (1910) to formulate his elastic-rebound theory of the earthquake source, which remains today the principal model of the earthquake cycle.
Around 12:30 of 4th October 2010, the north-western corner of a vast reservoir containing some 30 million cubic meters of waste from an aluminum factory in the village of Ajka, in western Hungary, suddenly collapsed, giving rise to a red mud flow of nearly 1 million cubic meters, which poured out over the surrounding countryside causing an environmental catastrophe. The village of Kolontár was struck and partly submerged by the large mass of water mixed with toxic mud from the failed reservoir, taking the inhabitants of the area by surprise. Some houses and bridges collapsed following the heavy impact of the mud flow.
Within a few minutes, also the village of Devecser, located some kilometres downstream, was struck by the waste spill. Roads turned into streams of fluid red mud, which swept away dozens of cars, many houses and other buildings. Eventually, an area of over 40 square kilometres was affected by the disaster.
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This composite satellite image shows the toxic spill - October 5, Left and October 8, Right - as it spreads over the landscape, in Ajka, Hungary. A million cubic meters of toxic sludge burst from a reservoir at an industrial plant on October 4 and has now reached the River Danube. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has called the spill an "ecological tragedy".
A man removes mud from his garden in the flooded village of Kolontar, around 150kms southwest of Budapest on October 4, 2010. One person died and 60 were injured in western Hungary when a reservoir of residue from aluminum production broke and flooded two nearby villages with toxic red mud.
Cars are piled up in a flooded parking lot in Devecser, about 150 kms southwest of Budapest, on October 5, 2010 after the village was submerged on October 4 by toxic red sludge from a local aluminum plant. Three persons died and 60 were injured in western Hungary when a reservoir of residue from aluminum production broke and flooded two nearby villages.
A man walks in Devecser, about 150 kms southwest of Budapest, on October 5, 2010 after the village was flooded on October 4 by toxic red sludge from a local aluminum plant. Three persons died and 60 were injured in western Hungary when a reservoir of residue from aluminum production broke and flooded two nearby villages.
No one anticipated any unusual problems as the Exxon Valdez left the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal at 9:12 p.m., Alaska Standard Time, on March 23,1989. The 987 foot ship, second newest in Exxon Shipping Company's 20-tanker fleet, was loaded with 53,094,510 gallons (1,264,155 barrels) of North Slope crude oil bound for Long Beach, California. Tankers carrying North Slope crude oil had safely transited Prince William Sound more than 8,700 times in the 12 years since oil began flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline, with no major disasters and few serious incidents. This experience gave little reason to suspect impending disaster. Yet less than three hours later, the Exxon Valdez grounded at Bligh Reef, rupturing eight of its 11 cargo tanks and spewing some 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound.
Until the Exxon Valdez piled onto Bligh Reef, the system designed to carry 2 million barrels of North Slope oil to West Coast and Gulf Coast markets daily had worked perhaps too well. At least partly because of the success of the Valdez tanker trade, a general complacency had come to permeate the operation and oversight of the entire system. That complacency and success were shattered when the Exxon Valdez ran hard aground shortly after midnight on March 24.
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The tanker Exxon Valdez is pulled across Prince William Sound by a tug boat, past floating ice, after having been freed from the reef it struck.
Oil spills from the crippled tanker Exxon Valdez the morning of March 24, 1989, after the vessel ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound.
Boom surrounds the Exxon Valdez at its new temporary home just off Naked Island April 7, 1989.
Men walk past large piles of bags of oil debris resulting from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, 1989, in Alaska, USA.
In A.D. 62, a major earthquake shook Mount Vesuvius. Earthquakes continued for years as the magma chamber inside Vesuvius inflated. Finally, in August of A.D. 79, eruptions began. For 12 hours, fine grained ash, then coarse white pumice (a frothy, glass rock), and later a gray pumice, rained down on the city of Pompeii. Then, the eruption changed. Explosions created hot avalanches of rock, ash, and gases that sped down the volcano’s flank. Over two days, Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were buried by these deadly ash flows. Many of their 20,000 citizens were killed. Today, a million people live within range of the volcano that could again erupt catastrophically.
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Antique Illustration, Copyright has expired on this artwork. From my own archives, digitally restored. Mount Vesuvius is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy.
A detailed landscape engraving showing a massive lava flow descending from Mount Vesuvius toward the town of San Sebastiano, with observers watching the natural disaster.
Casts of the bodies of the victims of the eruption frozen by the fiery clouds are exposed in the ruins of Pompeii which extend over several square kilometers at the foot of Vesuvius which destroyed it.
A detail of a human cast of a person who died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the city of Pompeii, is on display in the permanent exhibition at the archaeological site.
On October 17, 1989, the San Francisco Bay area of the United States was jolted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The quake’s epicenter was near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The magnitude 6.9 quake was the most powerful the state had experienced in several years. The Loma Prieta earthquake was triggered by the mighty San Andreas Fault, where the massive Pacific plate slips northwestward. During the quake, the epicenter slipped up to two meters (six feet). The Loma Prieta earthquake caused 63 deaths, 3,757 injuries, and about $6 billion in damage. Many casualties occurred as parts of several transportation routes, including the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and a busy freeway, collapsed.
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An apartment house in San Francisco's Marina District that was heavily damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The first floor of the building is partially collapsed.
Officials stand on the field after an earthquake struck before game three of the 1989 World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park on October 17, 1989 in San Francisco, California.
White pickup truck totally flattened from collapsed highway 880 during bay area earthquake, sitting on bed of tow truck after its driver Tim Petersen was rescued by fire fighters in a four hour ordeal.
Downtown Santa Cruz was severely damaged as seen here the day after the the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 23, 1989.
