Dangers And Destructions Of Floods And Hurricanes :: essays research papers

Dangers and Destructions of Floods and Hurricanes Floods and hurricanes have been effecting the lives of people around the world for years. This research paper is going to state some of the worst floods and hurricanes, and how future ones can be controlled. A flood is an overflow of water on dry land. The two types of floods are coastal and river floods. Coastal floods are the first topic in this research paper. A coastal flood is the flooding of beaches and surrounding areas; including bar spits and deltas. They can be effected by tidal waves and coastal currents. Coastal floods can cover a large amount of distance along a shore. The length of time a coastal flood is dangerous is usually very short. It depends on how high the tide is which goes up and down twice a day. When the velocities of hurricane winds become severe the height of the waves become three or more feet higher than the previous high tide. Coastal floods can be caused by a number of things. Coastal floods can be caused by runoff, hurricane waves, tsunami (seismic sea waves), and hurricane rains. Coastal flooding can not only take part on oceans but it can also take part on lakes. Coastal flooding can be a great danger because coast lines are very densely populated areas. In the United States in the early 1990's 50% of the population was on a coastal county.1 Although they shrink before reaching shore, wind generated waves have been spotted to be as high as 30 m (100 ft) in the middle of the ocean.2 In 1970 a major storm in the Bay of Bengal produced heavy seas that flooded regions of East Pakistan, killing about 200,000 people.3 River flooding can happen a number of ways. The causes are rain, snowmelt, and ice jams. Soil can not absorb as much water with continuos moistening. The longer that precipitation lasts the more water flows into streams as runoff. Cloudburst floods only last for a couple hours, but they need a large amount of rainfall. This usually only happens in mountainous areas. They are called flash floods. Floods occurring from snowmelt and ice jams do not have to be preceded by heavy rains. Moderate amounts of rain can make things even worse because the ground does not absorb it. Floods can result in the failure dams, aqueducts, weirs, landfills, paving, construction, and storm sewers. They are artificial causes. In 1993 when rainfall lasted from April until July in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, it covered about 16 billion acres.4 Many deaths and $10 billion in damage was the result