Nature is Stronger Than You

Mr. Burns: Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese.

Found this on my walk from Hollister Hall and it got me to thinking...



A large part of civil engineering for the longest time has been about fighting nature. However nature is incredibly persistent, annoyingly persistent at times. For example, consider the 1973 flood of the Mississippi. Down in Louisiana near the river delta, a wing wall kept the Mississippi River from changing course, resulting in making New Orleans a port without a river.



The flood was so powerful that it eradicated the soil underneath the wing wall, allowing the river to divert some of its flow. Thankfully the foundation went deeper than the blowout and was able to support the wing wall without the soil. New Orleans was nearly extinct.

The tree wrapping around the railing image gives the perspective of truly understanding the stakeholders and risks the government undertakes with its infrastructure. Always taken for granted in the public eye and when a disaster strikes we balk at the government for allowing this to happen. Maybe this wouldn't happen if we diverted funding from...

I'll stop there. Just think about it.