Minot was established in the late 1800s in a valley next to the Souris River. It flooded in 1891, but didn't have another big water issue until 1969. After that, the esteemed Army Corps of Engineers did its thing. And guess what?
One of the levees broke (haven't we heard that before?)
Many young homeowners said they were dissuaded from buying flood insurance because older residents assured them the river was "fixed" and would never flood again.
Many of these homes date back to the 1950s or earlier. They aren't new homes built in a hastily planned subdivision.
It's really a mess.
How is this a crisis?
Scott
6/30/2011 9:03:59 AM
Obama is ignoring it, so it must not be important. Kinda like how he ignored the billion dollar flood in TN and MS in his first year in office. Red states don't count.
ND will bounce back...
Does "out of state" mean Federal? Hard to see how any entity besides FEMA can handle a crisis of this magnitude, and per my previous post, that's coming out of our pockets as taxpayers.
Not that rescuing the people of Minot is a bad thing, but some of this might have been preventable with some foresight.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread as the old saying goes...
They are doing the best they can...
icebreaker1975
6/29/2011 4:47:02 PM
with the resources that they have. Its going to take a lot of out-of-state assistance for them to get through this crisis.
Nice posts on Oil and especially the IEA decision.
back2basicz
6/29/2011 2:34:35 PM
Guys,
This is kinda unrelated but still really,really excellent articles on the IEA decision to release extra barrels of Crude oil on the global market.
http://brucekrasting.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-o-and-iea-wtf.html
http://brucekrasting.blogspot.com/
Bottom line-You can't mess with dictators/despots who have their finger on the trigger.
Regards
Ashish.
Re: Prevention
Phoenix
6/29/2011 12:27:29 PM
I was wondering whether regular site checks are done by officials to see whether oil companies meet the regulations. If they had they would have seen that necessary preventive measures were not in place. It is good that they are at least imposing the fines this would hopefully be an eye opener for the companies concerned and they would take preventive action in the future.
It is very sad that this is the way things are, but I would like to think the larger social understanding of the enironment and its roll in our lives matures this will change.
It is understandable that a company will want to cut its bottom line but they should think long term and look at the impact on their reputation with the public that these actions have.
I also think it is a step in the right direction that the ND regulators are looking at fines, i just hope they are very liberal in their use.
With the population of Minot, ND falling roughly into two camps--the long-time economically underprivileged who originally lived there and the new economically underprivileged who just moved there, WHY do I think this population is an insurance DISASTER in the making?
There are NO WINNERS in Minot from a human compassion standpoint, but all of us as taxpayers are going to be BIG losers!
Re: Minot AFB
Jacob
6/29/2011 2:00:36 AM
Any instability in nature can cause financial instabilities. Heavy rain, earth quake, volcano, tornado etc are some of such disaster, which can cause a major financial instability. Moreover If such countries are exploring any natural resources like oil or petroleum products, gold, coal or sand mining etc, can deeper this instability.
Without regulation or severe penalties for this type of pollution it will continue in the future.Companies will not erode their profit margin to prepare for a disaster that may not come --they will calculate the cost over time and the cost of retribution. Until the costs of retribution outweigh the costs of prevention they will not act with the environment in mind. Very sad…
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