4 April 2011 Caution, life may be hazardous to your health

4 April 2011 Caution, may be hazardous to your health


On the label of all things tasty, on the product safety sheet for everything we need to make life interesting, we find the warning. In fact, just living is hazardous to one’s health.

Living in the mountains can trigger the alert. Many mountain towns and cities are situated in avalanche run-out zones. Georgetown Colorado comes immediately to mind. While the frequency of major avalanches may be so low as to make it seem safe to build and live in mountain valleys, the probability of a major slide is such that insurance will be expensive. At some point, the best constructed of houses will suddenly be crushed by sliding snow, slipping mountainsides, or flowing mud. The coastal zone of California has snow avalanches less frequently than the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, or the Cascades. However, the steepness of the developed mountain sides combined with their frequent deforestation by fire guarantees that gravity will demonstrate its presence if one waits hopefully.

Living on the coasts is likely to trigger the alert. Much of our coastline is subject to hurricanes, northeasters, winter storms, storm surge and beach erosion. You might wake up some morning to find that your beachfront home is now a poorly floating, rapidly disintegrating raft. Those coasts not quite so subject to tempest face the unholy twins of earthquake and tsunami. As recent events have demonstrated, these events arrive with little or no warning, level the works of man, and toss it miles inland before sweeping some debris seaward while causing that left behind to set up like cement.

Earthquakes are a potential problem in nearly all of the U.S. Prediction is next to impossible today and mitigation highly unlikely. Experience with hurricane evacuations should demonstrate that even if we could predict them, evacuation would be nearly impossible in all major cities.

Ice storms can cut off electrical power distribution, leaving people to succumb to hypothermia. Heat waves can cause hyperthermic events in many people leaving the only choice of “hot or cold,” “hot.”

If we live in river valleys, rains may yield floods of epic proportions, flash floods, and the opportunity to discover new molds and fungi growing in one’s clothing. Experience filling sandbags may also be gained.

Tornadic storms are endemic to the U.S. They can be small and so localized that the neighbors are not disturbed, or large enough to suck entire towns off the map.

So if the occasional cheeseburger, ribs, cheesecake or other food treats laden with carbs and hexoses beckons, look at the weather, check for warnings, and enjoy your meal.