Brittany,

Your summaries are written in a clear and concise manner and your responses display empathy but could bring in a bit more from coursework. A few spelling and grammar errors present. Try reading your work out loud; sometimes your ears pick up errors that your eyes miss.

Variety of topics: floods, volcano, hurricane, earthquake, avalanche, wildfire, earthquake, flood. 8 articles is great but you didn’t get an even balance of 2 per section of the Geosphere.

Five entries for the Television Journal – you’re the first to have accomplished this goal!

Your Disaster is certainly realistic and consistent with what would happen in reality. It would have been nice if you worked in the Mercalli scale with your write-up. Your parting paragraph discussing what is happening with the plates could have been more developed and included earlier in the article. I liked how you had the disaster on your birthday (Cinco de Mayo) too bad it didn’t hit Mexico!

Overall level: 4-/4

gds

My Disaster

A destructive earthquake stuck Argentina on May 5th, causing numerous injuries, the destruction of a famous monument, hundreds of homes to be damaged and 33 fatalities.

The quake, which struck near the city of San Juan, was of a 7.0 magnitude ( U.S Geological Survey) It struck around 4:30 yesterday. Two after shocks have occurred, both clocking in at 4.0 magnitude, but they have not had any serious repercussions.
Most of the deaths from the earthquake are do to people being trapped, or killed by pieces of falling debris in their home I.e walls, chimneys, columns and heavy furniture. Search and Rescue teams made up of volunteers and officials have been working around the clock pulling people out of rubble. Many underground pipes have also burst in the area, adding onto the structural head ache that officials are experiencing.

Meanwhile, disaster relief camps have been set up by the Argentinean Red Cross and the government, giving people a place to stay and access to food and clean drinking water. Everyone there receives a certain daily quota of food and water.

Mariana Rodriguez, who is a mother of a 6 and 4 year old boys, whose house was completely destroyed by the quake said “ It’s hard being here. I still cannot believe that my home is gone, just like that. Its nothing but a pile of rubble. The kids don’t really understand that we have nothing to go back to. They keep saying to me, “mama why cant we go home. I want to go home mama.”
One of the many culture damages to come out of this earthquake is the fact the famous Pablo Francisco monument was destroyed, saddening the hearts of poetry fans everywhere.

Emergency response team leader , Jose Gonzal estimates that “It will take awhile for them to clean up the damage.” As it currently is, they do not want people heading back to their home for at least a couple of more days because they do not want anyone being hurt by falling debris from damaged buildings, or from trying to drive on damaged roads, which have had sand and mud erupt on them.

The earthquake is believed to be caused by the Nazca plate shoving itself under the South American plate, which is also why the area is one of the most seismically active areas.

In the News...

Event/Issue: Snow Storm
Component of Geosphere Affected: Atmosphere
Time and Date: Aired, January 5th, 2008, viewed January 7,2008
Channel/Station: C.B.C 12
Summary:
Atlantic Canada was barred under an enormous amount of snow over the past couple of days, as they were hit several times by a couple of snowstorms in 6 days.

In the news today

Event/Issue: Fog
Component of Geosphere Affected: Atmosphere
Time and Date: Jan. 7th, 2008, 7:23.
Channel/Station: Mix 97.
Summary:
Due to the fog, most of the buses in the area where cancelled, so many students had a extended vaction and a pretty awesome day because of it.

In the news today

Issue/Event: Flood
Component of Geosphere Affected: Hydrosphere
Time and Date -jan,05,20-07
Channel/Station: Website-http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/291332
Summary: A
levee broke in Nevada, causing freezing cold water to flood hundreds of homes and leaving over 1300 people stranded. The break is believed to be cuased by rodents who have made holes, weakaning the levee. People were rescude by boat and by helicoptres. No injuries have been reported.

Floods in British Columbia

Headline:Nechako ice jam floods 19 homes

Disaster: Flood ( Hydropshere)

Date:Monday, January 07, 2008

Source:http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=358de615-a880-4f72-9faf-9f0cd4238d28

Summary:
In the Prince George area in British Columbia, on Saturday, January the 5th, a section of a 28-day old ice jam broke off, floated down the Nechako River and got stuck downstream, causing water to spill out and flood both sides of the river bank. So far 9 houses have been submerged in 1.5 meters of water, while another 10 have been affected as well near the river. An evacuation order has been released for 24 homes, while alerts have issued for 47 homes and business along the Nechako. The ice jam itself measures to be 6 km in length, with it being more then 3.6 metres high in come places. Authorities report that the jam has the potential to remain for many months.

Response:
There seems to be little options for authorities while the flood continues. They can not really stop it, mainly just tell people to get out of the way of it. I feel bad for all of the people whose homes are submerged in water, because no one really knows when the jam will break itself up. With the weather being so unpredictable with global warming and all, they will just have to wait and see. It seems to be that flooding is the newest fashion for mother nature. I mean currently, that I know of ,there is a flood in Canada, the United States of America, Mozambique and Australia. As well flood watches for a couple of places in the United Kingdom. I do not really like to think about how soon, with the whole warming of the globe, floods are going to start to be a more common day occurrence. Hopefully, documenting the one we have now, can help us better prepare for the future, or we are in for one seriously wet future.

Volcanic Eruption in Chile

Headline:Chilean volcano spouts off

Disaster: Volcanic Eruption ( Lithosphere)

Date:Published: Jan. 3, 2008 at 2:17 AM

Source:http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/01/03/chilean_volcano_spouts_off/7793/

Summary:
On Wednesday January 2nd, the Llaima volcano erupted, spewing lava and smoke, causing more than 150 people to be evacuated in the area. It was mainly tourists, with about a dozen officials who where evacuated and flown by helicopter 31 miles away to Melipueuco where they were given food and water. It is reported that the lava flew as high as 900 feet into the air, with a 12 mile smoke plume rising up from the volcano. It is believed that it started to erupt on Tuesday, January 1st. The emergency officials were concerned that serious forest fires might erupt in the forest near the volcano, but thankfully nothing has happened so far. The area near Llaima will remain clear for the next couple of the days for safety precautions, while it is being evaluated when the volcano could possible re-open.

Response:Well needless to say, I think those tourists got more then they bargained for. They probably thought it was all nice and safe seeing as how the volcano has been dormant for 13 years, boy did they ever get a nasty surprise. Visiting a volcano seems to be a tricky thing to decide, on one hand it would be pretty cool to see one up close, because then you might have a better understanding of it in general. On the other hand, it could just decide that the day you are there would be a lovely day to let off some steam, erupt and kill you. However the likely hood of you , as a tourist, being killed by a bid nasty volcano eruption is very slim seeing as how volcano’s are always being watched to ensure the safety of everyone and to document the basic day to day happens of a volcano to better understand how they work.