Weather is responsible for 85 percent of the U.S. areas declared a natural disaster area by the President. The average annual direct damage toll due to natural disasters in the United States has been running at about $6 billion. In recent years the toll has been much higher, such as 1989’s $15+ billion and 1992’s $30+ billion. While natural disasters usually cannot be prevented, adequate planning and timely warnings can greatly reduce the loss in human lives and property.
Federal, state, and local governments coordinate the distribution and response to weather warnings. The planning of evacuation routes and shelter locations in hurricane zones is one example. Conducting community awareness programs in flood and tornado-prone regions and upgrading building codes to make buildings less prone to wind failure are current activities. Dispersion meteorologists routinely simulate in computers the consequences of hypothetical accidents at nuclear and chemical plants so that the impact of any real accident can be greatly minimized.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 11:55 am and is filed under General, Technology, Science, Environment, Climate Change, Careers in Meteorology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.