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Have There Been More Hurricanes In Recent Years Because of Technology?

     Have there been more hurricanes in recent years? Is that from climate change? Or is it just an advancement of technology? The National Hurricane Center's Christopher W. Landsea, Chief of the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch, and Eric Blake, a Senior Hurricane Specialist, studied this topic in a recent article of theirs. About 15 years ago, scientists and researchers found that the number of hurricanes had increased over the past hundred years. But interestingly, during the 1940s and 1950s, there was an increase in short-lived or low-impact storms. At the same time, there were more aircraft over the oceans and the Hurricane Hunters began missions looking for hurricanes.  Last year, nearly 42 trillion dollars of damage were caused by tropical cyclones. This included a record-breaking 13 in the U.S., six of which were in Louisiana. Down in Central America, trillions of dollars in damage was delivered by destructive hurricanes such as Hurricane Iota .  O...
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Florida Wastewater Reservoir On Verge of Collapse

    A containment wall at a wastewater reservoir in Tampa Bay, Florida has been breached, with concerns arising over further breaching, which could cause significant flooding and environmental issues. 

“Structural collapse could occur at any time,” Jacob Sauer, director of public safety for Florida’s Manatee County, said in a briefing late on Saturday.

Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Noah Valenstein told the Tampa Bay Times the potential environmental disaster’s primary threat is to human health.

“The imminent threat is public health,” Valenstein told the local media. ““We can take care of nutrients in the environment ... The bay is resilient.”

Reuters reports that authorities have been trying to drain any remaining polluted water from the property, which is owned by a company called HRK Holdings, to ease pressure on leaking containment walls to avoid a breach and flood.

Using two pipes, 22,000 gallons per minute are being drawn “into a substantial drainage ditch which has conduits underneath two railroad tracks and then empties in a pipe to the seawall,” said Scott Hopes, Manatee County administrator.

The Manatee County Public Safety Department declared a state of emergency Saturday. Besides the flooding danger, the leak could have also caused a collapse of phosphogypsum stacks, radioactive waste that is created during fertilizer production and phosphate rock mining. 

At a news conference Monday, officials said they expect to ramp up their efforts to pump the water as the day goes on. 

"By the end of the day today, when the additional pumps come online, we will more than double the volume of water that we're pulling out of that retention pool," acting County Administrator Scott Hopes said. 

"We should be looking at anywhere from 75 to 100 million gallons a day by the end of the day." 

The reservoir holds up to 480 million gallons of wastewater. 

Officials in Florida confirmed that the water is safe to drink, and it is not radioactive.
The main issue of this breach, and what is causing them to pump out the water, is an uncontrolled, bigger breach could occur. This would cause extensive damage to homes and businesses, as well as the environment. 

(Image: New York Times)
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