MarieA- I live on Long Island's South Shore on the Great South Bay - minimally protected by the Fire Island Seashore. I used to live on the North Shore on the Long Island Sound. I love Long Island and could not imagine living away from the water. Possibly that is why Ireland holds such an attraction to me- it's beautiful coastline and the villages on it are my favorite destinations when visting. There is truly nothing like the ocean. Yes all over the USA there is some natural disasters that can strike. Just hope people adhere to warnings next time and evacuation plans set for everyone- get the buses in to evauate those who do not have the means to do so themselves.

I agree with Shannon that we live in a pretty safe part of the world. The part of Washington State where I live has no major earthquake faults and we never have tornadoes or massive floods. Although volcanoes could erupt on the western side of the state, we are too far east to have serious side effects beyond a few inches of ash.

That said, I am a firm believer that there is no place on earth entirely safe from natural disasters.

We are watching Ophelia very closely...there is concern that it may go out to sea and then turn back into South Carolina or North Carolina on Monday or Tuesday. Our public health officials were going to the gulf states to help and now are staying home on alert for this storm in case it hits our state. We are safe here in Columbia but still can have tornados, wind, rain, floods, depending on the strength of the storms.

Sande-
I will be thinking of you and hope that you will be safe should Ophelia come your way. Take care. We will all be watching and waiting with you.

Chris...

On the west coast of the USA, we have the sometimes active Mt. St. Helens and a few other dormant to semi-active volcanos (Mt. Lassen).

Quiet life in Alaska you say? Maybe! Alaska has has had its share of earthquakes in the past. I think they had a real bad one in the early 1960s.

There may not be a real safe place in the world these days.

Come to Australia!!!....from what I have just been reading in these posts we are real safe here....just stay away from the snakes, spiders and crocodiles and she'll be right.

Hi Penny

You forgot the ...mate, She'll be right mate!

Oh you forgot about the drop bears, opps!

I know we mustn't talk about the drop bears, sorry!.

Cheers
Spooky

Spooky - I accidentaly mentioned the drop bears once, but I think I got away with it!

Thanks Tootsiebelle! There is concern today from our Governor re having space in Columbia for potential Ophelia evacuees in our city....we are an evacuation site for the coast...our Governor has told FEMA that we can't take more Katrina evacuees until Ophelia passes...we have taken so many Katrina evacuees and placed them in hotel rooms and the old Navel reserve site here that we don't have the space we usually have....fortunately the head of FEMA is no longer at the helm....hopefully Ophelia will stay a tropical storm or depression or at worst a cat 1...we hope it does not head your way and stays out to sea...we'll keep our fingers crossed. sandra

>>fortunately the head of FEMA is no longer at the helm....<<

Why is this fortunate?

Regards,

Chris

Michael Brown made a bungle of the agency's response...people (thousands) in the Superdome and the Convention Center went days without food or water...some died for lack of water and food...he had to evaluate the situation before he even let the Red Cross go in to provide basic food or water...he did not even try to drop water to those areas...we are outraged in the USA....some are saying that he was only appointed as head of FEMA as a political favor...he had no experience in Emergency Management...some news agencies are saying his credentials (posted on FEMA website) are inaccurate...members of Congress are calling for investigations ... Thad Allen (Vice Admiral of Coast Guard) has been named to handle the response to Katrina....Brown has been sent back to Washington to lick his wounds...hopefully Bush will wake up and fire him. Sandra

Surely the fact that people weren't properly supplied with food and water in the Superdome is the city's responsibility, isn't it, not FEMA's? It was the city who told people to go there - was it not their responsibility to ensure that sufficient food and water to deal with them were there?

I agree with you entirely that the response from FEMA was woefully slow, but I'm not sure you can blame the situation at the Superdome on them, can you?

Regards,

Chris

Spooky,

I thought we all had an agreement that the drop bears would not be mentioned to an international audience

There goes Australias' shot at attracting tourists!

I agree that the Mayor of NO and the Governor of the state are to blame as well and they should have thought to stockpile H2O in the Superdome....more than that, they should have had emergency plans for evacuating people without transportation ......as they say hinesight is 20/20...The Superdome was a refuge of last resort....a place for people to weather the storm....the Red Cross as well as National Guard, Coast Guard were staged and ready to go in after the storm passed. Some agencies had to get FEMA's approval to go in...FEMA (who used to be very fast to respond as an agency) was basically inept. The city and state was devasted, communication was out...FEMA should have risen to the occasion....if CNN could get it's reporters in for days and report the stranded people, why did Michael Brown deny knowledge of their plight for 4 days!!! I'll tell you, it was a CYA move on his part but it didn't work with most American's who only see him as stupid now.

Chris Marriott...
I blame all three levels of government for not doing their job correctly in the first place. I do agree with you that the City of New Orleans officials, who put these poor people into the various shelters, that they (the officials) should have gotten the food, water, etc. to these people at the very beginning. Then, it was up to the Governor to start doing it's job by getting the National Guard and other agencies to come in to help. The President really didn't think that the situation was that bad, even tho' the TV commentators kept saying how bad things were at the very beginning, until Bush came in some three days after the storm was over. That's when he saw how bad things were. By that time, people were dying, had no food, medicine, etc. Even the poor animals are suffering now as they are drinking the water that's not fit to drink. This has been a "wake up call" for the three levels of government that they "screwed up".