Note: The following post was written for Climate Connections by the folks at Historic Natural Disasters. The 100-year storms of 1913, likely caused by volcanic activity, offer an important glimpse into the present and future. As atmospheric CO2 levels near 400ppm, and other forms of pollution are steadily increasing, one thing we can be sure of is more storms like the ones described in the below post.
And while the past decade has seen its fair share of “superstorms” and deadly climatic events, from Hurricane Katrina to deadly flooding in Pakistan and drought across Africa, we can still glean valuable lessons from the last 100 years. The destruction cause by these epic events are not new to our world.
However, their increased frequency and intensity are certain to pose enormous challenges to industrialized society and its fragile infrastructure. Rebuilding may have worked in 1913, but time and resources are running out. Ignoring the root causes of climate change will only make the transition more difficult. Real solutions to increase community resiliency against the impacts of climate change and are needed now more than ever.
-The GJEP Team
By Robert Muhlauser, May 10, 2013.
West Fourth Street in Dayton, 1913
2013 marks the centennial of one of the most devastating natural disasters ever to hit the United States. In late March of 1913, a system of ravaging storms swept across the American Midwest and parts of the East and Gulf Coasts. The storms brought with them high-speed winds and torrential rains, and spawned both tornadoes and massive flooding. By the time the storms had passed through the area, they had killed hundreds of people and left thousands more homeless, and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage.
Meteorologists have referred to these storms as “100 year storms” since they are such rare occurrences that they only have a probability of happening about once every century. One question that has puzzled historians and meteorologists alike is what makes storms of this magnitude occur, particularly the storms of 1913. A popular and generally recognized theory is that the storms were the result of the 1912 eruption of Alaskan volcano Mount Katmai.
West Fourth Street in Dayton, 2013
On June 6, 1912 magma from beneath Mount Katmai in the southern part of the Alaskan peninsula began to escape through a vent, signaling a volcanic eruption. The eruption was so intense it actually caused the summit of Mount Katmai to implode. During the next four hours the cloud of smoke and ash the volcano produced reached a height 20 miles and spread as far as 100 miles away, where ashes drifted down onto the village of Kodiak. Within the next week the ash cloud had traveled as far as Africa. This eruption was the biggest in recorded history at that time and is still second only to the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
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Christy Rodgers
Global Justice Ecology Project
hallieb
Jeff Conant
