There are many natural disasters that can hit our planet at any time, and in the last
few years there have been many that have caused a lot of damage.
Join us as we show you 8 recent natural disasters.
8.
California Earthquakes When it comes to the state of California,
the place seems to be a magnet for certain kinds of disasters.
But arguably what they are most famous for in terms of disasters are their Earthquakes.
In the past, they've had earthquakes that have literally brought whole cities down,
and this is due in part to the fact that they are next to a fault line called the San Andreas
Fault.
However, since the 90's, the state has honestly been blessed with a time of peace on the earthquake
front.
That is, until July 4th, 2019, when a 6.4 Earthquake came about in Ridgecrest, California.
The earthquake was the most powerful magnitude earthquake the state has seen in two decades.
The earthquake was so strong that they were feeling rumblings in Nevada as far as Las
Vegas!
That's a very powerful earthquake.
But sadly, that was just the beginning of matters.
Because the next couple days, and even weeks, have been filled with aftershocks (minor quakes
caused as a result of a major quake).
Some of them even going up to magnitude 5.4!
This has cause not only a lot of damage, but a lot of fear in the nearby residents.
After all, if over 150 aftershocks can be had in the course of a week, imagine what
the next earthquake might be like?
Thankfully, despite all of this, the damage was nowhere near the size of past earthquakes
in the region, but that doesn't mean it won't get there eventually.
7.
Tropical Storm Barry One of the blessings we have in this world
is our technology, which we have refined to such a degree that we are able to tell certain
things are coming before they truly happen.
On the eastern coast and southwestern areas of the United States, there are often chances
that massive storms will come and eventually be strong enough to be a hurricane.
Sure enough, in July, a Tropical Storm called Barry had that potential, and at one point
was even classified as a hurricane.
When in fact, by the time it made landfall, it was only a Tropical Storm once again.
But while we can be thankful another hurricane didn't hit the shores of the US, that doesn't
mean you should be happy with a Tropical Storm.
You see, these are storms that have great intensity, and are often punctuated by massive
rainfall amounts that can flood various areas.
Even then Barry didn't have hurricane force winds, it went across Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Arkansas (among other states) and caused all sorts of water damage there.
As well as setting new rainfall areas for those states.
The storm itself lasted for many days, and only dissipated on July 19th.
But by that time, it'd already done much of the damage that it set out to do.
Still, given the context, it could've worse.
Then again, for some states, it was already pretty bad.
6.
Louisiana Floods At some point in time, you just have to wonder
what all Louisiana has to go through before they can catch a break.
When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it devastated the state, including their major city in New
Orleans.
A city which technically is still recovering from what happened to it.
And now, because of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Barry, they had to deal with another major
issue that they were all too familiar with: Floods.
Now to some, the idea of flooding may not feel that bad.
But because New Orleans (among other states) is on the coast, the notion of a flood hits
them harder than most.
And because of Barry, the flooding came quickly, suddenly, and very rapidly.
How so?
Well, in the course of about 3 hours, many parts of the state, including New Orleans,
had nine inches of rainfall come down on the streets.
That's an incredible amount of water for such a short time period.
Plus, the storm didn't just "stop" there, it kept going.
With each new inch of rain, the flood waters rose, forcing the governor of the state to
issues a "State of Emergency", and warned people that everything would be clogged up
for a while due to the heavy storms.
"This is going to be a Louisiana event with coastal flooding and heavy rainfall potentially
impacting every part of the state," Governor Edwards tweeted.
"No one should take this storm lightly.
As we know all too well in Louisiana, low intensity does not necessarily mean low impact."
Sure enough, many roads and areas flooding, forcing some to flee and relocate.
While the storm itself has died down, it's going to take a while for the waters to recede
to safe levels.
So the people of Louisiana have to endure until they can get back to their regular lives.
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5.
California Wildfires Easily one of the biggest stories of the last
few years puts us back in California, but not because of the ground shaking, but rather,
because of the ground burning.
The California wildfires have been happening consistently for years now, and just when
you think they're gone, they come back, bigger and stronger and more terrifying than ever.
Some of the more recent ones have been to such an intensity that entire towns and cities
have been burnt to ask.
Including a famous Hollywood western town that's been used in showbusiness for decades,
including in the HBO show Westworld.
The director of the Dr. Strange movie even found himself in the path of the fires quite
suddenly, and had to abandon his house with only a few key items on him.
Add that to the stories of hundreds and thousands of people who have lost their home, and these
fires have been a real tragedy.
Thankfully, these people are getting help, including payouts from banks like the Pacific
Gas and Electric Company, who are paying out 1 billion dollars to help families and customers
get back on their feet.
"We remain focused on supporting our customers and the communities impacted by wildfires
and helping them recover and rebuild," PG&E President and CEO Bill Johnson said.
"This is an important first step toward an orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of
wildfire claims and a demonstration of our willingness to work collaboratively with stakeholders
to achieve mutual acceptable resolutions."
One of the biggest problems though in regards to the wildfires is that not only are they
hard to stop, they're hard to predict where they'll start.
California has been going through a drought these last few years, making many areas dry
enough to combust via various forces.
And because a lot of northern California is wooded areas, it doesn't take long for them
to build intensity and spread everywhere.
Plus, due to the drought, getting water to the needed areas to stop the fires is incredibly
difficult.
4.
Tornadoes In the Midwest Of the "big natural disasters" that everyone
knows to fear, tornadoes are most definitely one of the most feared.
They can come out of nowhere, strike hard and fast, and then leave in the blink of an
eye.
All it takes is the right weather conditions for things to go horribly wrong.
And in the Midwest in the last few months, many tornados have touched down and caused
a lot of havoc.
This includes tornados in both Ohio and Missouri where people lost their lives and homes because
of the tornados intensity.
The tornado in Ohio was in the city of Dayton, and it was so intense that it caused power
outages all over the city, to the extent that the plea was made by those in charge to conserve
water until things stabilized.
As for Missouri, their tornado was just as bad, and it was actually slinging up debris
towards the sky up as high as 13,000 feet!
That's some powerful winds to get that done, let me tell you.
Jefferson City Mayor Carrie Tergin told CNN that there was significant damage to buildings.
"Many, many buildings have significant damage, and there's a lot of buildings that have small
damage as well.
It's very widespread," Tergin said.
"But buildings can be replaced.
We are most concerned about the people here."
While these two may have been the biggest hit, there have been tornadoes in other areas
of the Midwest too including Illinois, which has had a lot of weird weather recently, and
storms that were really bad.
Unlike some of the other natural disasters I've listed, prepping yourself for tornadoes
is relatively easy.
Should one come, you find the lowest part of your home to get into, mainly a basement
or a crossbase.
If that doesn't work for your space, go into a place like a closet, make sure you're not
near windows, and seal yourself in.
If you're outside?
Then you go and find a ditch and dive in, tornadoes can't traverse those easily.
It's expected that more tornadoes are coming for the region, which also brings another
problem to their shores if you will.
3.
Heavy Rainfall in the Midwest While not exactly the flooding nature that
is going on in New Orleans recently, it should be noted that a lot of Midwest areas, especially
Illinois, have experienced pretty heavy rainfall in the past few months.
Storms piled on one on top of the other in some cases.
It did cause minor flooding, and caused many flood watches for the region.
Now you might be looking at this and wondering, "Why is that a natural disaster?"
It's very simple, areas like Illinois are known for their farming areas.
They supply a lot of crops to the country, and so when rains come, they get their plants
nurtured.
However, if they continually power as they were doing in the early parts of Summer, the
farmers can't plant their crops, and if that happens, that delays the harvest for the fall,
or worse, puts it all at risk.
Thankfully, the rains did stop, but it's not exactly better as a heat wave of sorts has
been hitting the United States.
So now they're hoping for the rainfall to come back again.
It's a very tricky cycle, and one that many people are hoping will figure itself out with
later on.
Because the farmers do need the rain, but just not so much rain that if floods their
crops and makes it impossible to farm, or not get good crops from their farming.
See?
And you thought rain couldn't hurt anyone if it doesn't flood.
2.
Hurricane Harvey While it may have happened in the latter half
of 2017, Hurricane Harvey is an event that is still talked about and feared to this day.
This was a massive hurricane that went on from August 17th, 2017 all the way to September
2nd of that year.
And that was just the storm itself, the fallout from the event went on for much, much longer.
Harvey is actually paired with Katrina in terms of costly damage to the United States.
The difference though is that Katrina hit Louisiana the hardest, while Harvey targeted
many parts of Texas, including the city of Houston, and other cities along the way.
All in all, Hurricane Harvey hit with $125 billion dollars worth of damage over the time
of its reign.
One of the biggest contributors to that damage was the flooding.
The flooding was so intense that entire houses (which are at least ten feet tall at times)
were completely underwater.
Forcing many to flee and try and get to their roofs or other higher ground areas so that
they could wait to be rescued.
All told, the floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, which displaced more than
30,000 people and prompted more than 17,000 rescues.
Think about that for a second, think about all the time and effort it would've taken
not just to rescue those people, but then to help them get their homes back into working
order.
That's not easy.
106 people lost their lives in Hurricane Harvey, and millions more were affected by the storm
in one form or another.
One of the few small consolations that we can take from this event is that many people
stepped up to both try and help those in need, and donate money to help people rebuild.
This included many professional athletes like JJ Watt of the Houston Texans, who raised
millions to help the people of Texas.
While we haven't had as devastating a hurricane as Harvey since 2017, many fear where the
next one might strike if one of that intensity returns.
1.
What's Next?
If the weather of the world has taught us anything, it's that you can't predict what
the next day, or even the next few hours will bring weather wise.
It may be sunny one minute, and then it'll be pouring the next.
A storm might come in, and then it'll be gone in an hour.
You never know.
There are many systems in place to try and detect various weather patterns.
But they aren't always accurate, or fully revealing of the intensity and power of these
storms.
Instead, they are at times guesses, and it's because of that that we can't truly predict
what is next.
Will it be a massive tornado?
Another hurricane that could devastate a region?
A flood that will displace people?
A wildfire that could burn everything down?
We don't know, and thus all we can do is prepare, and hope we're not in the path of whatever
storm is next.
Thanks for watching everyone!
Can you believe how many natural disasters we've had recently in the world?
What do you think about them all?
Has one of these storms hit an area near you?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!