Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Blog #5 Cyclone Yasi hits Australia

Angela Ferr

2.16.11

9:00pm

Cyclone Yasi hits Australia

Tropical Cyclone Yasi hit Australia’s coast on February 3rd. These cyclones winds were stronger than those from Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans. The force of this storm is said to be the largest in the nation’s history. Yasi hit Australia’s shore as a Category 5 storm with wind gusts of as much as 290 kilometers per hour. More than 173,500 people lost power, schools and airports were closed and military forces were used to airlift 200 hospital patients to a city that was safer. Some people that called for rescue help weren’t able to be rescued because the conditions were so bad they weren’t able to get out there. Because of the storm, Australia lost about $500 million in the sugar cane industry, which accounts for about a third of Australian production. Banana plantations, which are 85% of the national production, were wiped out and the world’s second-largest zinc mine slowed operations because of the cyclone.

Every decade, hurricanes and cyclones get stronger and stronger than in the past. This isn’t something we have a lot of control over, but we can control where we choose to live. There should be more notices and warnings when people buy houses or property at the beach, because it has been seen all over the world what can happen to a whole city when a hurricane or cyclone hits. Just to name a few in the past couple years, some of the most deadly ones have been seen in Louisiana, Florida, Thailand, Philippines, and Australia. It is not just a problem in our coast, but it every countries coastlines.


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2011/h2011_Yasi.html

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