Figure 1: Japan tsunami 2011.Miyako in Iwate prefecture. Photograph by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images
There are the typical hazards we deal with on our paddle trips that I talk about in these safety minutes – sunburn, medicines, overturned boats, drownings, lost paddles, automobile collisions, insects, broken bones, and storms. We can expect these to happen along the way and can plan for and practice our responses. There is also a saying in the medical field, that when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras. (Which is a caution when you are confronted with a series of symptoms: don’t think about the weirdest thing that might cause them, but the most common.) So, when we are thinking about safety on our trips, we should start with anticipating the most common exigencies, not events that are outlandish and may never happen. Think of sunburns, mosquitos, rain, rapids and sweepers, broken paddles, waterfalls, and storms, and prepare for those.
There are also extraordinary events that may happen. We should think about what to do if an event does happen that is so far out of the ordinary, we have no experience in dealing with it, i.e. earthquakes, asteroid strikes, volcanoes, and such.
Figure 2: Magnitude Map
The New Madrid Earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 were 7.0 to 8.2 magnitude Earthquakes that hit along the Mississippi river in what is now Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri. They were felt across an area of roughly 50,000 square miles and caused the Mississippi river to flow backwards for a while. Do some of us paddle in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri?
Yes, yes, we do. Could such an Earthquake happen again? Yes. Yes, it might.
With the discussion of the KT boundary visible on the Brazos, I realized there were times and actions that we need to be aware that could occur, but are extremely rare, but that doesn’t mean they WON’T occur.
I have been hit by the blast wave from an exploding meteorite, from 25 miles away. Asteroids hitting the Earth are rare, but they DO OCCUR. And we should be aware that sometimes shit really hits the fan, even if we are in our boats far from civilization. When the Chelyabinsk meteor hit Siberia in 2013, it broke windows and collapsed walls in buildings over hundreds of square miles. In 2013.
Figure 3: Meteor Strike
Figure 4: Mt St. Helen Volcano
When Mt. St. Helens blew up in 1980, it killed 57 people who were in the area. It deposited ash across 11 states. Some volcanic mudslides from Mt. St. Helens reached the Columbia River, nearly 50 miles away. When the New Madrid Earthquakes happened, hundreds of people died who had no idea an Earthquake could happen in the area.
For another example, when Ben Sliney started his first day on his new job, he thought he was prepared. He had worked for the Federal Aviation Administration for several years. He was experienced as an operations manager at New York Air Traffic Operations and felt capable of anything that any of the airlines could throw at him. His first day on the job was September 11, 2001. A day that was unlike any other day, ever. And it was his first day on the job in charge of the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Figure 5: World Trade Towers on 9-11
Within minutes of realizing the planes hitting the World Trade Towers and the US. Pentagon were a deliberate attack, he decided to take an action that no one had ever imagined would be necessary. He grounded all airplanes in the US and ordered all planes coming from overseas to land elsewhere. No planes could take off or land anywhere in the United States.
What would you do?
When Dr. Frances Kelsey started her job as Chief Medical Director for the FDA, she had worked her way to the job doing research on medical safety. On her first week, a new medication from Europe came to her office to be reviewed for release to the American market. While there weren’t any outwardly negative results, she had her doubts and felt there was inadequate testing. She postponed the permission to be released to the American market. Soon, she rejected it outright. The manufacturers screamed bloody murder, and enlisted the help of several US congressmen to try to get her to change her mind so they could sell it to the American public and make the millions of dollars they imagined they would get. Soon, however, reports were coming in, of the new medication, Thalidomide, was causing birth defects in the babies of women who had used Thalidomide during their pregnancy. Thinking that processes were “routine” and could just be followed like normal, would have been a disaster.
We play in our boats and live our lives as if things will go on the way they’ve been going for years. The Brazos, the Trinity, and the Buffalo Bayou flow to the sea. The Sun rises in the East, and sets in the West, and it gets hot in South Texas.
But sometimes things change. We should be aware that we could be dealing with a new situation and must work through it the best we can.
Plan and expect the normal things: heat, storms, mosquitos, broken paddles, alligators and snakes, PFDs, holes that a boat gets, and so on. But be aware that sometimes when you hear hoofbeats, it is not a horse; it’s a giraffe, or a unicorn, or an Earthquake or a volcano or an asteroid. Some days, events happen that change our lives forever.
Be safe out there!
See you On The Water!
Harmon