It was known that earthquakes in Japan can cause tsunamis, and if I remember correctly, they even had sirens that went off that were a warning to the people to evacuate the area because of the possibility of a tsunami from that earthquake. So we can have sirens that go off in an area because tsunamis are common after earthquakes, but cannot take into consideration that a tsunami could wipe out a power plant. The probability of a tsunami after a major earthquake in that area is much higher than the probability of one out of millions of trees falling on your car after an ice storm. The statistics were high enough that additional engineering precautions should have been taken.
It all boils down to money. And the cost for additional levels of safety. We all know that to add another nine to the safety of something gets exceedingly more expensive. And the legal systems assign dollar values to lives and properties and the bean counters make the calculations about how much they're willing to spend for the additional amount of safety taking into consideration the possibility of failures and the cost that such failures would generate and the cost of the additional margin of safety to prevent such failures.
Unfortunately, this results in people who do not have an engineering background making decisions about what engineering should be applied.
It all boils down to money. And the cost for additional levels of safety. We all know that to add another nine to the safety of something gets exceedingly more expensive. And the legal systems assign dollar values to lives and properties and the bean counters make the calculations about how much they're willing to spend for the additional amount of safety taking into consideration the possibility of failures and the cost that such failures would generate and the cost of the additional margin of safety to prevent such failures.
Unfortunately, this results in people who do not have an engineering background making decisions about what engineering should be applied.
