FEMA TAKE NOTES: China Faces Superstorm

While global warming naysayers are touting a, potentially, milder, Carribean hurricane season China is feeling the punch of it's worst typhoon season ever.  Perhaps they learned from FEMA's mistakes during Katrina but so far it appears they are handling things in much better fashion.  THUS FAR:

The most powerful typhoon to hit China in five decades slammed into its southeastern coast Thursday, destroying hundreds of homes and battering the region with rain and wind after more than 1.3 million people were evacuated, state media reported. At least two people were killed.

Typhoon Saomai was the eighth major storm to strike China in this summer's unusually violent typhoon season. Torrential rains were forecast in the next three days as it churned inland across crowded areas where Tropical Storm Bilis killed more than 600 people last month.

Although thousands of homes were destroyed by winds gusting to 190 mph and storm surges of 10 feet only a few deaths have been reported at this early point.  Certainly many more deaths will be revealed in the storms aftermath but keep in mind the bamboo-age conditions people live in on the southeast coast of China. Clearly, Ray Nagin and Bushco were not in charge as many of the most at risk were moved from harms way:

Before its arrival, at least 760,000 people were evacuated from flood- prone areas of Zhejiang and 569,000 from the neighboring coastal province of Fujian, Xinhua said. It said a total of 70,000 ships had returned to port in the two provinces.

"Heck of a job Brownie..."

How come they could evacuate over a million people living in stilt houses but we couldn't evacuate a half million from a modern American city?   I don't have an answer and neither does FEMA to this day.

Hopefully this storm season will stimulate the Chinese to pay more attention to global warming.  While the USA still leads the world in CO2 pollution Cathay seems intent on resting that title from us.  Maybe they will figure out that there is plenty of Yuan to be made in clean technology?  I certainly would hope the US could figure that out sooner because clean technology will be the tech sector of the 21st century.  Mother Nature is definitely doing her part to clue us in.