07-14-2008, 03:39 PM
Bob, I'm not convinced emergency management has progressed all that much here. We're talking about the County that had to develop a plan when the lava threatened to head towards Pahoa, and admittedly didn't have a plan.
What I would grant is the communication technology is way better and faster now.
yes, it's old; they don't seem to have done anything much for a long time.
There's no question the danger is out there if they have a well blow out. It just hasn't happened for a long time.
There isn't always something authoritative. The people who want it to continue have their data, and the people against it have theirs. Is there anything as definitive as the warnings that preceded Katrina? Probably not.
If there's a large hydrogen sulfide release, people will die. Then the safety question will be answered. We learned that Chernobyl was unsafe after the fact. Was it inevitable Chernobyl would happen? No, it was possible. Throw in some human error at the wrong time and some bad stuff can happen.
As for the illnesses, those kind of illnesses are impossible to test for and nail down. Like many environmental illnesses. People suffer for years and the whole area is as gray as vog, but meanwhile, people do suffer a myriad of complaints.
I can tell you what happens to most patients with complaints like that that can't be easily tested for or fixed. Their doctor explains that no one on the island is doing that kind of medicine, no one wants to do it, and the patient needs to learn to live with it ... and if you want to have a doctor at all, just stop talking about it and go to the doctor when you have something easy to diagnose.
What I would grant is the communication technology is way better and faster now.
yes, it's old; they don't seem to have done anything much for a long time.
There's no question the danger is out there if they have a well blow out. It just hasn't happened for a long time.
There isn't always something authoritative. The people who want it to continue have their data, and the people against it have theirs. Is there anything as definitive as the warnings that preceded Katrina? Probably not.
If there's a large hydrogen sulfide release, people will die. Then the safety question will be answered. We learned that Chernobyl was unsafe after the fact. Was it inevitable Chernobyl would happen? No, it was possible. Throw in some human error at the wrong time and some bad stuff can happen.
As for the illnesses, those kind of illnesses are impossible to test for and nail down. Like many environmental illnesses. People suffer for years and the whole area is as gray as vog, but meanwhile, people do suffer a myriad of complaints.
I can tell you what happens to most patients with complaints like that that can't be easily tested for or fixed. Their doctor explains that no one on the island is doing that kind of medicine, no one wants to do it, and the patient needs to learn to live with it ... and if you want to have a doctor at all, just stop talking about it and go to the doctor when you have something easy to diagnose.