Tuesday, January 18, 2011

California Is DOOMED

Leave now, while there's still time: "California faces the risk of a massive 'superstorm' that could flood a quarter of the state's homes and cause $300 billion to $400 billion in damage. [...] Such a superstorm is hypothetical but not improbable...."

Hypothetical dangers: something to which CA public officials have proven themselves unusually sensitive. Residents of the central valley may find themselves being preemptively evacuated -- or required to purchase a rubber raft.

12 comments:

Home on the Range said...

I lived there 8 years when I was going to grad school. Went through two earthquakes, one of which literally knocked me out of bed onto the floor as I watched a crack the size of Michael Moore's posterior form in the ceiling above me. Not a good feeling.

Parts of the state are beautiful, but you couldn't get me back there with dark chocolate or a bullwhip.

Hat Trick said...

I like the subtle hyperbole of their acronym "ARk".

Adrian K said...

It's called a Pineapple Express. We get those all the time here in Washington State.

The temperatures get about 10-15F warmer and it rains like mad for about a week or so before an Alaskan low rolls in and cools us off. Jet Stream taps into tropical moisture from north of Hawaii and pumps it up this way. Most of the rivers and lahar-filled valleys do flood.

If they're just now figuring out that it's possible for those things to miss low and flood much of the various Valleys, then they haven't been paying much attention to anything outside of La-La Land.

perlhaqr said...

I suppose that's one way for them to try to justify giving CA a whole bunch of federal money.

Don said...

All those armchair meteorologists...sheesh...

Holy Chicken Littles, Batman.

As Adrian K pointed out, these things develop all the time. During the 3 years I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB ('96-'99) we had at least one decent one per year directly over Pt. Concepcion.

I agree with Brigid about going back there. No way, no how. I thought the coastal areas between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo were nice enough, but the rest of the state was like landing on another planet.

Anonymous said...

Got to California in '74, left in '80. I'm glad of it, and a few trips back just reinforce that attitude.

California would be a wonderful place to live if so many other people didn't think so.

Skip said...

Help! I'm trapped here in the Valley.
They tell us we are gonna drown, and take away our guns, and we are gonna have blood in the streets.
Lessee, I still have my 'armory of assault wepons' I shoot at the range with the DA every Sunday, taxes are still as last year, my CCL is still good, one hour to the slopes and one hour to the surf.
What?

Roberta X said...

A successful adaptation to your environment! :)

I seem to recall a CA flood of the exact sort this article describes in Heinlein's Year Of The Jackpot.

(Which links through to an interesting economic theory).

ViolentIndifference said...

(Bender) Doomed. Dooooooooomed. (/Bender)

Tango Juliet said...

And this coupled with their self-induced financial woes.

They are doomed.

Trouble is, CA refugees will flood into the rest of the US bringing with them their insane and juvenile concepts of man vs .gov.

Won't be good for the rest of us either.

Maybe we really need a fence on the CA border?

og said...

Certainly, why bother paying attention to all the actual danger, like bankruptcy, crime,earthquake, and the nest Police academy movie, when there are so many imaginary dangers from which to run screaming with your hair on fire?

Josh Kruschke said...

Do worry the EPA has all the water blocked off, to the central vallley, to save a minnow. You are more likely to choke to death on dust than you are of drowning in a flood.
:-(