"Disaster" is a word tossed around too lightly

[SoCalDem]

What happened and has been happening for DECADES in mining, was Gross Workplace Negligence.

Many people have dangerous jobs, and accidents do happen, but calling them disasters, implies that there was nothing that could be done to prevent it from happening..

Perhaps the only way to assure maximum diligence would be to have the mine owner have his office deep inside the mine.

People often set up their own "disasters"..

they build houses in precarious locations...next to rivers, perched on hillsides, on hurricane coasts.

they work in dangerous jobs that are non-union..where no one "has their back"

they drink & drive

they text & drive

they stick around in abusive relationships

and too many more to list.

Something WILL "happen" eventually in all these cases, but it will not be a "disaster".. There is an inevitability to all those scenarios. The something may not happen for a long time, but it will happen someday.

Calling inevitable events disasters, somehow makes them seem more random, and less controllable, and great fodder for "news channels", but these are just the normal outcomes of dangerous situations not mitigated.

[SteppingRazor]

1. So, those people in New Orleans were just asking for it?

I mean, I agree with a lot of what you said, but as a resident of South Florida, it always irks me when I get chided for living here (i.e. a "hurricane coast")

Shall we also tsk at people who live in Oklahoma or Kansas for its proximity to tornados? What about Californians who deliberately live along a fault line?

[SoCalDem]

2. It just is what it is.. people have to live somewhere

New Orleans survived the hurricane..and did so quite nicely.. It fell prey to Governmental Neglect & Insufficient Levees. and the MrGo boondoggle was a big part of it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Disagree - your definition of 'disaster' implies that it is either

accidental or not accidental.

Disaster has nothing to do with intent - only with results. The Northridge quake was no less, and no more, a disaster than the Johnstown Flood - though one was preventable and the other was not.

I agree with the intent of your post, but think you need a different word than 'disaster'.