An Extreme Weather Event

Your first assignment is to research an extreme weather event from the past and provide the following information:

1. Provide a physical description of the type of extreme event.
a. How rare was it?
b. What made the event so impactful?

1. Provide the historical context of the event:
a. Country, region, and/or city impacted.
b. People and groups impacted.
c. What was the societal preparedness plans or awareness at the time, if any?

1. Provide some background on how the location and communities were impacted.
a. Destroyed infrastructure.
b. Fatalities.
c. Complete change of landscapes.

1. Provide some information on how the community or communities learned, or did not learn, from the event.
a. Did they setup new preparedness or mitigation plans?
b. Have they experienced a similar event since? c. Did it change the culture of the region? d. Did it drastically lead to societal change (i.e., the fall of an empire, deserting of an area, etc.)

1. Anything else you believe is relevant.

This homework is meant to be open-ended and the above should act as a rough outline to what should be included. However, when thinking of events to research, remember that this assignment is limited to extreme weather events. Tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes are NOT weather events and therefore will result in zero points if used as the topic of your assignment. Also, you are encouraged to select events not discussed in class and outside of the recent past, including events during ancient times leading to the collapse of societies or events over 100 years ago before technological advancements in predicting weather.