Quote:
Originally posted by tiorio
Well Andy, lets say all of a sudden there was the worst snow on record in the UK. The buildings aren't all built for it, roofs would colapse, the poor and elderly would freeze, and there would be a lot of infrastructure problems to name but a few consequences.
Even though the Sierra Nevada mountains here in California get loads more snow than what it would take to shut down London, the fact that the INFRASTRUCTURE of the city isn't built to handle that type of weather would be the main issue.
Just because one city in one region can handle certain types of weather, doesn't mean every other city in any other climate can.
LA roads and drainage are built around the normal climate for the region. Roads can't shed the amount of water coming down and flood or get completely washed out, otherwise stabilized ground doesn't have the natural or man-made drainage to handle the amount of rain we've had so it slides, roofs built to drain the amount of rain the climate is accustomed to get flooded and collapse...
The rain doesn't make anyone bleed, but if it was 40C for 3 months straight in London I bet there would be some very serious implications aside from people being sunburnt and not liking the weather.
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i don't really believe western europe had very exceptional weather. in fact , from what i remember, last 10 years , we had warm winters ( belgium and holland ) there hasn't been a winter , with more than 4 days snow in the lowlands in 10 years... this year we had something like 8 days, nothing drastic , only 3-4 days of actual snow at night...
as for california, i'm sure there have been freak years in the past 200 years... it just wasn't much of an issue back then
sure the water drainage is a problem but that's mostely because the soil is replaced by concrete and buildings.. no water is absorbed anymore , it all has to be drained instead... and that's causing problems
i'm sure that 60 years ago , they would have figured this kind of winter, was sort of doable... and not to bad.
another problem these days , is that mankind is kind of arrogant
we want to do what we want, 24/7 , all year long. regardless of weather, climate , or whatnot, in the old days , winter came and life slowed down accordingly... you just had to make sure you had food supplies in your cellar, and a huge pile of logs or coal for your stove...
i remember my grand parents, they had 4 big drums in the back yard, to collect rain water... that was pretty obvious to them, you never know when the water company craps out , or something is contaminated, or , if there wasn't any outtage, they just used that water to scrub the driveway instead of tap water... or to water the plants , etc etc...
people these days have gotten way to much used to the modern convenience... and frankly , it's not such a big deal to put a couple of big drums in the back of your house.. it just doesn't look sexy...