Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The director of the International Hurricane Center at Florida Inter-
national University described the dike as an accident waiting to happen.
10
He estimated that 40,000 people today live near enough to the dike to
be threatened. If it breaks, thousands of people may drown. An expert
panel commissioned by the South Florida Water Management District
reported that the dike did not meet current dam safety criteria and that
repair work that is underway or scheduled would not be enough to
ensure its stability. The panel recommended lowering the water levels in
the lake until repairs are complete, storing emergency repair materials
near the dike, and updating and rehearsing evacuation plans for the area.
The director of the International Hurricane Center pointed out that the
lake is 60 miles across and very shallow, ingredients for a surge if swept
by hurricane winds. Land outside the lake is low lying, so if the dike
breaks, a wall of water will sweep out of the lake. Nevertheless, more
than half the people surveyed who live in these areas said in a 2007 poll
that they did not feel they were vulnerable to a hurricane or to related
tornadoes and fl ooding.
11
Eighty-eight percent said they had not taken
any steps to fortify their homes.
For the past few decades, the government's hurricane warning system
has provided adequate time for those on the coast to move inland when
hurricanes have threatened. But because of Florida's rapid population
growth on coastal areas, 80 to 90 percent of the people now living in
hurricane-prone areas have never experienced the core of a major hur-
ricane.
12
The resulting lack of experiential understanding of a hurricane's
damage potential often leads to complacency and delayed actions that
can result in the loss of many lives.
U.S. coasts are among the most rapidly growing and developed areas
in the nation. Fifty-six percent of the coastal residents reside along the
Atlantic and Gulf coasts—the low-lying, and therefore most dangerous,
areas. Coastal counties constitute only 17 percent of the total land area
of the United States (excluding Alaska) but accounted for 53 percent of
the total population in 2003, and twenty-three of the twenty-fi ve most
densely populated counties were coastal.
13
In addition to the permanent
residents, the holiday, weekend, and vacation populations swell in some
coastal cities 10- to 100-fold.
Three types of adaptation to hurricane storms (and sea-level rise) are
available. One is to move buildings and infrastructure farther inland.
Another is to accommodate rising water through changes in building
design and construction, such as elevating buildings on stilts. The third
is to try to protect existing development by building levees and river
