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Tyler Shank
Mrs. Wiscount
Basic Keyboarding
13 April 2010
Natural Disasters
Introduction
Natural disasters are a daily event here on Earth. There are many different kinds of
natural disasters. Different kinds of disasters occur in different climates and countries. A
blizzard would not happen, at the equator, but heat and drought would not happen in Antarctica.
All disasters are dangerous and deadly. Severe damage and even lives can be cut short on things
we cannot prevent from happening. Three natural disasters are floods, tornados, and hurricanes.
Floods
“Floods are the most common environmental problem” (The Natural Disasters
Association). They can occur in many different ways, it can rain really hard for a long period of
time, which makes rivers streams and other body of waters flood. Also, levees and dams holding
water can break and release all the water into the town or city. When a flood occurs water will
go everywhere and anywhere and there is very little that folks can do except wait for the waters
to recede and then clean up. People can always try and put up sandbags to protect homes and
other buildings but big floods will not be stopped. When a river or some sort of body of water
goes over its banks and runs out it makes for even a bigger problem. If there were to be a flood a
flood warning would be issued. Three major floods that occurred in the USA that were bad
were in “Galveston, Texas in 1900, Mississippi flood of 1993, and the flood after Hurricane
Katrina in 2005” (The Natural Disasters Association).
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Hurricanes
“Hurricanes are a spinning storm in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean. In the
Pacific hurricanes are called typhoons. In the Indian they are called tropical cyclones” (Earth
Explorer). There are six factors that are needed to cause a hurricane to form. They start near the
equator and gradually pick up wind and storms in the warm ocean water. Usually when the
storms hit land, they lose all their energy and then regain it when they reach the water again.
When there is any sign of a hurricane forming, there will be a hurricane warning released out to
the people that may be affected by it. Also, the National Weather Service has a tradition of
naming every hurricane or tropical storm that forms. The middle of the hurricane is called the
eye of the storm. When the eye of the storm is around it seems like there is no storm at all,
everything is calm and nothing is going on. Usually, the damage is done after the storm when
everything is over like when “Hurricane Katrina occurred the storm did not create a lot of
damage but when the levee broke everything flooded and destroyed the city of New Orleans”
(The Natural Disasters Association). Hurricanes are categorized by their wind speed using the
Saffir/Simpson Hurricane Scale. Category 5 is the worst with winds at 155 miles per hour.
Tornados
“Tornados are a little like a hurricane because they are a spinning storm but a tornado is a
violently rotating cloud of air that touches the ground” (The Natural Disasters Association). For
a tornado to occur, there has to be three things to happen. First, there should be warm air from
the Gulf of Mexico, second cold air from Canada, and finally the jet stream moving from the
northwest. When a tornado occurs, there is no stopping it, and the safest thing to do is to get as
low as possible, because a tornado only stays on a straight path on the ground, not underneath.
That might be a basement, a ditch, or a storm cellar. There is a stretch of land in the Midwest
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United States called Tornado Alley. That is where most tornados occur in the United States of
America. “Like hurricanes tornados are measured based on their wind speed. The highest can
be a F5 which is 420km per hr. The scale that is used for measuring is called the Fujita scale”
(The Natural Disasters Association). When a tornado touches the ground it is like a vacuum
cleaner that sucks up anything that is in the way and then it is extremely hard to clean up what is
destroyed. The worst tornado that occurred in the world happened in the Ozark Mountains in
Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana and it killing 650 people (The Natural Disasters Association).
Conclusion
Natural Disasters can arise daily and can be extremely dangerous but there are a lot of
storms and disasters that are not dangerous and would not harm a whole community. Disasters
occur all year long and different storms happen at different times of year. “Natural Disasters
have doubles over the past two decades, putting more people in risk for some sort of disaster to
take place”. (Guterres) No disaster can be declared more dangerous because they all have their
own way of being extremely treacherous. The safest way to avoid natural disasters is there is
none. Wherever anyone lives there will be some sort of natural disaster happening in that area at
some time of the year. If there is a storm approaching the safest thing to do is to get low as
possibly during a tornado and hurricane, and go as high as possible when there is a flood. Flood
waters will gradually rise up but if citizens are above sea level they will be unharmed. The Earth
can be such a wonderful place for everyone to live and breathe but can be a very extremely
hazardous place at times.
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Bibliography
“Storm Watch." Earth Explorer. 01 Feb. 1995. eLibrary. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.
<http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/elib/do/document?set=search&dictionaryClick=&s
secondaryNa=advance&groupid=1&requestid=lib_standard&resultid=1&edition=&ts=5
C8BE51853FD37B3596B830617ADAB4C_1271269035210&start=1&publicationId=&
urn=urn%3Abigchalk>
Guterres, Antonio. "Bracing for the flood." International Herald Tribune. 11 Dec. 2009: 8.
eLibrary. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.
<http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/elib/do/document?set=search&dictionaryClick=&s
econdaryNav=advance&groupid=1&requestid=lib_standard&resultid=30&edition=&ts=
5C8BE51853FD37B3596B830617ADAB_1271267785533&start=26&publicationId=&u
rn=urn%3Abigchalk>
The Natural Disasters Association. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. <http://www.n-d-a.org/>.