If it seems like disasters are getting more common, it's because they are.

NVDL: This article makes some valid points, especially on the importance of WHERE we choose to live (and how), but I'd disagree that the trend of these storms isn't changing.

Call it a mixture of gut feel, intuition, logic and following the news. And the likes of Ike, and 4-5 systems swirling around on a random day in September. That's NOT an aberration? Puh lease.

Human beings have been clearing away our best protections all over the world, says Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The natural protections are diminishing — whether you're talking about mangrove forests in areas affected by the Indian ocean tsunami, wetlands in the Gulf Coast or forests, which offer protection against landslides and mudslides." - Time

clipped from www.time.com We are getting more vulnerable to weather mostly because of where we live, not just how we live. In recent decades, people around the world have moved en masse to big cities near water. The population of Miami-Dade County in Florida was about 150,000 in the 1930s, a decade fraught with severe hurricanes. Since then, the population of Miami-Dade County has rocketed 1,600% to 2,400,000. Crowding together in coastal cities puts us at risk on a few levels. First, it is harder for us to evacuate before a storm because of gridlock. But the most insidious effect of building condos and industry along the water is that we are systematically stripping the coasts of the protection that used to cushion the blow of extreme weather. Three years after Katrina, southern Louisiana is still losing a football field worth of wetlands every 38 minutes.