Disasters

"WASHINGTON -- Terrorists could black out large segments of the United States for weeks or months by attacking the power grid and damaging hard-to-replace components that are crucial to making it work, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report released Wednesday."

Various news organizations are reporting that Thursday may see announcement of a plea deal between BP and the Justice Department in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill. They say BP will plead guilty to criminal misconduct and pay a record criminal fine.

"The federal government's flood insurance program, which fell $18 billion into debt after Hurricane Katrina, is once again at risk of running out of money as the daunting reconstruction from Hurricane Sandy gets under way."

"About 166,000 homes and businesses in the eastern United States were still without power on Sunday, after being battered first by Hurricane Sandy in late October and then by last week's Nor'easter storm, company and government data showed."

"A Homeland Security Department undersecretary has told Janet Napolitano she has doubts about a new version of the nation's troubled system for detecting a biological attack."

Years of poor land-use decisions and neglect of emergency preparedness probably made the losses of life and property from superstorm Sandy significantly worse. Similar situations exist in other U.S. coastal areas.

"ABOUT 100,000 homes and businesses in New York City and Long Island were so damaged by hurricane Sandy that restoring power to some of them may take months, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has said."

Turns out that computer models may have been underestimating the severity of climate change.