Originally Posted by jcwang

Recently Myanmar was hit by a strong Cyclone, as today the death tolls is approaching 100,000 people. Watching from the television news, the scene and images remind us so much of the Hurricane Katrina disaster on August 28th, 2005.

Along the pacific coast, Typhoon is the official term for hurricane or cyclone, I grew up in Taiwan, which is an island and surrounded by ocean. What I had experienced in Taiwan from 1954 - 1979 is a good example how government can protect people's lives during nature disasters.

Before the KMT settled in Taiwan, 85% of building structure was wood frame construction under the Japanese governing. Every year during the Typhoon seasons, millions of people were likely homeless and over ten thousands people were likely to be killed. The only solution for Taiwan government to prevent this kind of life loss and catastrophic destructions is to strengthen the building code throughout the island.

RC reinforced concrete structure is the most resistant building structure to this kind of natural disaster. Taiwan government mandatory to set this restricted building code ever since the 50's. Today, 90% of the structure in Taiwan is RC reinforced concretes structures. The result is a significant reduction in typhoon disasters for the past 2 decades. The same year when Katrina hit New Orleans, Taiwan also was hit by a category 4 typhoon and the damage was very minimal [15 people missing, less than a hundreds home were damaged].

After the Katrina, I wrote several letters to senators to suggest them to change building code along the coast to protect people from hurricane disasters and of course never a single response direct to my suggestions. I goggled to several hurricane conference websites and finally find out that the major of the sponsors for this kind of conference are wood frame, traditional house builders. Several times I posted this message on the website, the response I got is that “American people are used to wood frame houses, they are not going to change to RC concrete structure, it is not the American style”

Years after years, Hurricanes after Hurricanes, we still see houses wiped out by the strong wind, people dying or missing… then we rebuild with traditional material in houses and buildings hoping that next year the hurricane will land somewhere else.

We totally ignored the experiences from other countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and even China we can learn, just exactly what we need to do for our government to protect our people from losing lives in this kind of natural disasters? When can we avoid the American wood industry lobbyist to stop our government from coming up new strong building materials to protect our homes and lives during natural disasters?

PS. I have been sending this message to news medias and never get one response. A friend of my in Louisiana helped me to get the message to a local newspaper, the editor was pretty much surprised to lmow there is a way to prevent this kind of disaster. However, most Americans are not aware of these types of building construction that many countries around the world have been doing for years and it really work.

Originally Posted by jcwang

The state government has every right to set the Building Code to ensure people's safety in dangerous area, either ban for the building usage or come up with a restrict building code.
One of the responsibility to have a government is to protect people's life from danger.

Besides the coastal area, we have the entire south which is in a tornado watch zone every season. Where do you want those people to move to?

Originally Posted by MasTequila

JC - I used to think you had half a brain. I now understand that even the craziest among us can seem sane for awhile but eventually, they speak (or type) enough to reveal who they are. Get to the point and blame George. W. so we can all move on. If you are dumb enough to build in an area that can be hit by this type of disaster, then plan for the disaster. When it hits, deal with it.

Originally Posted by JP5

Katrina was much more than just a hurricane. It was also the resulting floods that resulted from levy's breaking. New Orleans sits in a bowl, surrounded by water. First off, it's a crazy, insane place to ever build a city. So, the concrete structures you speak about wouldn't have helped in the case of N.O.

Originally Posted by jcwang

All you people just need to take a look at other countries how they deal with Hurricane; Have you heard any Typhoon disaster news from Korea, Japan or Taiwan in the recent years? Before you make the judgment on me you had better do some work yourself. In comparison to hurricane hit Corpus Christi in 1919 with Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Is there any improvements on handling Hurricane disasters?

I am not blaming Bush's government, I just think our government did not take hurricane prevention seriously for almost a century.

Originally Posted by jcwang

All you people just need to take a look at other countries how they deal with Hurricane; Have you heard any Typhoon disaster news from Korea, Japan or Taiwan in the recent years? Before you make the judgment on me you had better do some work yourself. In comparison to hurricane hit Corpus Christi in 1919 with Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Is there any improvements on handling Hurricane disasters?

I am not blaming Bush's government, I just think our government did not take hurricane prevention seriously for almost a century.

Originally Posted by MasTequila

Did you hear about rioting and looting in California during the fires? No, I didn't think you did, why is that? Because the people in California that were affected by the fire had planned, the State planned and dealt with it, then the Federal government came in cleaned up. Mississippi was crushed by the same Hurricane Katrina but dealt with it. The problem in NO was not the Federal governments it was the States. It was mishandled from the beginning causing near chaos that was fueled by criminals and idiots that refused to leave. The Federal government came in and had 80 things to deal with instead of just the major clean-up.