GEOGRAHY 1700-007: Natural Disasters

Instructor:Schmidt, Clint
Student:Nicholson,Erick
Project#1DisasterMovieDiscussion
Movie is F6 Twister, made in 2012. As the title sounds it is a tornado
movie, set in and around Houston Texas. Lets just say as a movie it was
awful, bad, low budget sifi movie if I have ever seen one. It was like
twister but with out the science, and on one sixth of the budget.

All that being said lets move on to what they got right, tornados are
destructive, are some what forecastable and that certain parts of the
country are more prone to them then others and those areas should
have emergency plans in place to handle them, both during and in the
aftermath.

What did it gets wrong, there were no storms prior to the occurrence of
a tornado in the movie, and there was no hail, rain, and lightning seen
or mentioned in, around or with the events, also with the mentions of
radar and Doppler when forecasting there was no mention of cold
fronts or cold air, rotation or updrafts.

Thefundamentalconceptsthatthisclassfocusesoninthissemester
1.Sciencehelpsuspredicthazards.

ThemoviedidtouchontheuseofDopplerradarandcomputermodelingtotryand
predictwherethetornadowouldhappenandinwhatdirectionitwouldgo.Inthismovie
italsotouchedonthefactthatwithglobalwarmingyoushouldpredictanearlierseason
ofstormsandapossibleincreasesintheirstrength.

2.Knowinghazardriskscanhelppeoplemakedecisions.
Knowingwhatnaturalhazardsarelikelytooccurinyourpartofthecountycanhavean
influenceonwhereyouliveandhowyouplanforthem,inthismovie,theyareinthe
tornadoalleyareaandthushaveshelterstoprotectlife.Inthismoviethepeopleseemto
beprettystupidaboutthesethings,alotofpeoplewentoutsidetostareatthefunnel
cloudandthendied.Therewasatleastonesectionwhentheyshowedaproperunder
groundbunkerfortornadosbutmostpeopledidnottakeadvantageofit.

3.Linkagesexistbetweennaturalhazards.
Thismoviedidnotreallyhaveanyassociatedhazardswiththetornados,butthetextbook
mentionsthingslikerains,withflooding,haillargeenoughtodentcarsandknockpeople
out.Therearesomeotherhazardsthatshouldbementionedwiththese,andthoseareman
made.Thingslikedownedpowerlines,damagedpowerplants,communicationsdowned,
andsanitationissues.

4.Humanscanturndisastrouseventsintocatastrophes.

Onethingstuckouttomeinthismoviethatwasthedelayonwarningthepublicabout
thechanceofandthentheactualityoftornadostouchingdown.Inadditiontothismost
ofthepeopleinthefilmjuststoodthereandstaredatthefunnelclouduntilitwastolate
totakecover.Humanscanalsomakethisworsebynotbeingprepared,notonlybynot
havingsomeplacesafetotakecover,butbynotbeingawareofwhattodointhese
emergencys,orevenknowingwhatcommunitysheltersandorresourcesareavailable
tothemafterthefact.

5.Consequencesofhazardscanbeminimized(i.e.mitigation)
Humanscanbeawareoftheareastheylivein,haveemergencyproceduresinplace.
Whenitcomestotornados,youhavesomeformofundergroundshelterwithfood,water
andalsowastemanagementandanymedicalneedsyoumighthave(i.e.medications)you
wouldalsowantthingslikefireextinguishersandflashlights,alsoaradiotolistenfor
emergencybroadcast.