In 2006, there were 33 catastrophes in the US. A
catastrophe as an event that causes $25 million or more in insured property
losses. Many of these
catastrophes were associated with floods.
According to the National Weather Service (NWS), river floods produced
$116B in damage in the US in 2006 (click on NWS Severe Weather Statistics for 2006 on the Impacts of extreme weather on the United States lecture page).
This amount of damage is surprising because it is comparable to or
larger than the record damage by hurricanes in the year 2005.
Write a six-page (or more) paper about
the river flooding in the US in 2006 with a bibliography.
The extra credit assignment will be worth a maximum
of 5 extra points added on top of the
rest of your grade.
To be fair, everyone must use the following format: 12 point font,
1" margins, double-spaced text, place your name on a single line in the upper
right hand corner of the first page, write the course number and instructor's
name in the upper left hand corner, and the title of the paper centered on the
next double-spaced line, followed by the text of the paper. Do not use a
title page (a waste of paper). The
bibliography should be placed after the main text of the paper. The
bibliography does not count against the page limit. Failure to observe
these format guidelines may result in loss of points.
The paper must address the following points:
1.
Identify the US areas hit by floods in 2006.
2.
For each area, summarize when the flooding occurred
3.
Indicate how unusual the flood was. For instance, was it a once in one hundred year flood?
4.
Get estimates of the financial damage caused by the
flood. The total cost includes
both insured and uninsured damage.
A lot of people carry no flood insurance (take New Orleans for example)
so the insurance payoffs will be an underestimate of the real damage
costs. Make sure you cite your
references so I can look at your sources.
Then summarize how large a dollar estimate you can come up with for river
flooding in 2006 and compare it to the 2006 NWS estimate.
Some of the areas affected that I have been able to find using http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Efloods/Archives/2006sum.htm
include Mid Atlantic and Northeast (late June), Arizona-Texas (late July), Ohio
(late June & late July), Alaska (August), North Carolina (early September),
Arkansas -Kentucky-Indiana (late September), Alaska (mid-October),
Texas-Louisiana (mid October to early Nov.), Pacific northwest in November,.
Your paper will be graded according to content, clarity, organization, and
proper use of the English language. Your paper must contain a list of sources.
Citations should be explicit enough to allow us to check them, i.e., each
should contain a date, author, and complete web address (if from a web
page). There are no strict
formatting guidelines on citations.
Please number the entries in your bibliography. Then wherever citations are required in
the text, use superscripted numbers corresponding to the numbered entry in the
bibliography.
Note of caution: In grading your assignments, we will specifically be
checking for cheating and copying -- this includes both word for word copying
without quotation marks and proper reference and copying among classmates.
There will be no tolerance for plagiarism (representing the words or ideas of
another as one's own).
Links to a few sources of information are posted below to help get you
started. You should find and utilize other reference sources as well.
·
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/climate/severeweather/extremes.html
-- NCDC Extreme Weather and Climate Events.
·
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/reports/billionz.html
Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters, 1980-2006.
·
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/
-- Storm Prediction Center – Provides link to National Weather Service storm
damage reports.
·
http://www.dailyearth.com/
Newspaper Directory.
·
http://www.iso.com/ - Organization that provides statistics for the Insurance
industry
·
http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/catastrophes/
·
http://www.iso.com/products/2800/prod2801.html ISO Property Claim Services
·
http://www.thinkglink.com/Storms_Hurricanes_And_Homeowners_Insurance.htm
·
http://www.insurance-canada.ca/business/canada/2007/SwissRe-catastrophe-losses-2006-703.php
·
http://www.air-worldwide.com/_public/html/air_currents.asp Insurance industry evaluation of severe weather and
climate risk
·
Examples of news stories on flooding and their damage
·
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2006/05/18/68595.htm
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