Ted Hikel posted:Dan Padova posted:The camera is panning Coulee Dam. Just below the dam is a nice little residential community. Why would anyone build homes in a potentially dangerous, putting it mildly, place ?
In grammar school, I learned how ancient Egyptians, living along the Nile River, farmed the fertile soil for most of the year. Yet they didn't make the area their permanent residence. Instead they lived on higher ground, away from the river, because each year, like clockwork, the river would flood.
By no means is this a criticism of anyone living in areas prone to natural disasters. It is, however, a statement on how, where and how densely we build. The dollar seems to dictate. Katrina is the perfect example. The Army Corp of Engineers knew of the weak links in the levies, yet we, our government, failed to spend the money to make the necessary corrections.
Al of that said, I am hijacking my own thread.....LOL
"In the course of my life I have had to eat my words, and I must confess it was a wholesome diet"..........Winston Churchill
Dan
You aren't hijacking anything. However, you have set the table for a nice meal.
Like the Nile of old, many rivers flood annually. The Columbia River used to flood. Those are natural disasters.
How many times has flooding happened in Coolee Dam, Washington in the last 80 years?
Zero!
One of the engineering Wonders of the World prevents natural disasters.
I believe you are concerned about a dam failure. That would be a man made disaster. It is an event that is extremely unlikely to occur in anyone's lifetime. Grand Coolee is a gravity dam built atop bedrock. It ties into bedrock at the abutments and contains nearly 12 million cubic yards of steel reinforced concrete. Many people in that community work on the dam and have well informed opinions on the likelihood of a failure. It is about as probable as an Egyptian being killed by a collapsing pyramid.
Oroville Dam is another story. But that is a different type of dam. And it is operated and maintained by the State of California.
Unless a slow invasion of Californians leads to societal collapse in Washington living below Grand Coolie Dam is very, very safe.
Check back in a few thousand years.
Thanks for adding the video. The shots of the Puget Sound ferries are neat. I especially liked the scenes of the Kalakala in Seattle and the Steel Electric in the San Juan islands.
And what a meal it could be ! You are correct, my concern is with a dam failure. Let's look at it from another point of view. Suppose we never built any dams but allowed rivers to flow and flood naturally ? We could emulate the Egyptians, still having industry near the river. It would have to have been designed to allow for the yearly floods. That, in and of itself is the sticking point, the way I see it. The cost would have been prohibitive and the "Men Who Built America" would not have wanted to spend neither the time or money to build such infrastructure around nature. Instead we force nature to work around us. In the end nature always wins. We've seen many times where dams built that were not engineered properly, fail and take many lives and much property with them.
In an ideal world, we would have designed our lives around nature, not the other way round. But it isn't an ideal world so we will pay in the end.
Thank you for your optimism thinking we'll be around in a few thousand years. Not sure if thats a good or bad thing.
