From: David Zentgraf (deceze@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Sep 07 2005 - 04:45:06 BST
Hi all,
If you'd like to hear some more about that, here's an interesting
podcast(*) from The World discussing the New Orleans problem and
featuring an interview with a Dutch engineer. I just heard it
yesterday and thought it'd fit in here.
iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?
id=73330152
Website: http://www.theworld.org/technology/podcasts.shtml
Issue number 42 is the interesting one. It can be found in iTunes,
but for some reason it's not yet up on the website.
Chrs,
Dav
(*) radio for your (portable) digital audio player, for those not
familiar with the term ;o)
On 2005/09/06, at 6:46, Wim Nusselder wrote:
> Dear Platt,
>
> You invoked 4 Sep 15:54 -0400 my response with:
> "A city (community) below sea level whose existence depends on
> keeping water
> out has a moral responsibility to prepare for a predictable
> calamity, just
> as the Dutch do in Holland. I would like to know from Wim Nusselder or
> anyone else familiar with the Netherlands what their plans are in
> case of
> breaches of their dikes and if those plans are widely known and
> understood
> by the populace.."
>
> In my understanding (but I don't remember learning al lot about it in
> school) Dutch government concentrates on preventing calamities
> rather than
> on planning how to act when they occur.
> At least since the 'Watersnood' in 1954 when half a province rather
> than
> half the country was flooded (the province of Zeeland, one of our 12
> provinces) dikes are built to withstand calamities that don't occur
> more
> often than once in a 1000 years (or something in that order of
> magnitude). I
> heard that the dikes protecting New Orleans were not strong enough to
> withstand calamities that occur on evarage once in 30 years.
> Dutch government does make calamity plans, but doesn't give its
> population a
> lot of information about it. We usually trust our government, so we
> don't
> care much (and don't live in fear). Now New Orleans is flooded, our
> government has publicly stated that they will check again whether
> 1) our
> dikes and 2) our calamity plans are adequate and so we go on
> trusting that
> they are doing what they should do (which they undoubtedly do not
> always
> do).
> Whether it is a moral responsibility may not be the most
> relevant.Whether
> voters accept politicians who do not seem to care enough about such
> risks in
> one or the other way is.
>
> With friendly greetings,
>
> Wim
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 07 2005 - 04:53:17 BST