Japan

Not so. New Orleans was not designed to withstand the storms that were expected based on history. A similar hurricane had reached New Orleans in 1947. Hurricane Camille in 1969 was a category 5 hurricane at landfall, but missed New Orleans.It was well know that the levee system in New Orleans was woefully inadequate. Further, Hurricane Katrina was a mere category 3 storm at the time it arrived at New Orleans.http://www.katrina.noaa.gov/

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At 7:10 a.m. EDT on August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southern Plaquemines Parish Louisiana, just south of Buras, as a Category 3 hurricane. Maximum winds were estimated near 125 mph to the east of the center.

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Do modern reactors use carbon in their control rods? I don't believe the worst case scenario involves exposures to acute doses of radiation. Relatively few people are exposed to that danger.I always thought that the worst case scenario was the release of fission products from the fuel into the atmosphere and ground water. What that would take would be some mechanism for damaging containment coupled with a meltdown that destroyed the integrity of the fuel system so that the fission products are no longer retained in the fuel cladding.In particular things like Strontium 90, radioactive isotopes of iodine, radon, and other short lived radionucides are life threatening hazzards in relatively small amounts and some are very difficult/impossible to remove from the body.

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Even in our wildest nightmares, we are not looking at another Chernobyl. Not even close.

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Probably not, but we don't know yet if the worst is over.

Coal mining is heavily regulated. We've had government regulation of mines since the 1890s. You have heard of MSHA haven't you?Coal mine operators appear to be adept at evading safety regulations and the inspection/enforcement of the regulations is woefully underfunded. We don't live in 1849 anymore. Your freedom ends where my nose begins. No rant is ever complete without a Muslim slam.

This is a little bit naive. Earthquakes of the magnitude that occurred were not unexpected and given such an earthquake, wasn't the tsunami inevitable? Surely the wall of water was no huge surprise.