Disasters

"The state spends a fraction of what countries like Mexico and Japan spend on their systems. One reason for the lack of interest, experts say, is that California has not experienced a catastrophic quake in more than a century."

"ROBERT LEE, Texas -- All the cars in this town are dirty. Gripped by drought, the lake that has provided the town's only source of water has just about dried up -- as of last month, it was less than 1 percent full. And as a result, residents are prohibited from using water to wash cars, water trees and lawns and irrigate plants."

"A severe drought in Mexico that has cost farmers more than a billion dollars in crop losses alone and set back the national cattle herd for years, is just a foretaste of the drier future facing Latin America's second largest economy."

"A team from U.S. EPA is preparing recommendations for 'managing or minimizing' earthquakes triggered by oil and gas waste injection wells."

"A whistleblower is alleging for the first time in a yearslong lawsuit against BP that its massive Atlantis oil platform operation off the Louisiana coast faces present and imminent danger. Kenneth Abbott first complained in 2009 that BP had failed to keep required records of the design of pressure-relief systems and other safety mechanisms onboard the Atlantis."

The nation's entire electrical grid depends on about 2,100 high-voltage transformers spread throughout the country. Recently, engineers and homeland security officials held a drill to practice replacing one or more if some are knocked out.

"The electric grid, which keeps beer cold, houses warm, and city traffic from turning to chaos, depends on about 2,100 high-voltage transformers spread throughout the country.

"During the five-month period between October and February, there were 86 reported attacks on computer systems in the United States that control critical infrastructure, factories and databases, according to the Department of Homeland Security, compared with 11 over the same period a year ago."

"Ten years into a campaign to make radioactive materials harder for terrorists to steal, Congressional auditors have found one hospital where cesium was kept in a padlocked room but the combination to the lock was written on the door frame and another where radioactive material was in a room with unsecured windows that looked out on a loading dock."

"Eighty percent of the world's nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, raising safety concerns, a draft U.N. report says a year after Japan's Fukushima disaster. Many operators have begun programs, or expressed their intention, to run reactors beyond their planned design lifetimes, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document which has not yet been made public."

"MANILA, Philippines -- The Asian Development Bank is warning countries to prepare for influxes of people fleeing natural disasters as climate change exacerbates rising sea levels, soil degradation and seasonal flooding."