Prescient Words

Mega Disasters

I had blogged about Mega Disasters: The Science of Predicting the Next Catastrophe, an engaging book by mathematician Florin Diacu. I was organizing my notes of the book before returning it to the library, when I came across the following passage (pages 84-85):

“It was New Orleans that was hit in 2005. It might be New York the next time. Nobody understands this danger better than the experts in hurricane prediction.” And then the author quotes a passage from hurricane forecasters that described what became known as Super Storm Sandy in all but name. The book was published in February 2010. The words resonated with me as I am working on a project to help small businesses that sustained significant losses as a result of Sandy. This passage was presented in the context of the difficult decisions emergency personnel have to make when deciding whether or not to order an evacuation. Given the time and logistical complexity required to evacuate a densely-populated city, prudence argues for ordering the evacuation. But should the storm veer off into the Atlantic, the evacuation, which is a major undertaking, would prove unnecessary. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough; the author’s writing style is engaging and the material remains timely.