Yes, underground shelters are not exactly the best idea in a flood, but what I had I mind was more of a public shelter as a general concept: a designated site with a store of basic necessities like fresh water. It just seems a basic precation with uses in many types of emergencies with minimal costs. What I was thinking about at the time, was how we err on the side of spectacular when it comes to safety and security. Consider a man driving to a natural park worrying about being attacked by a bear, chances of which are minimal compared to him having a road accident. David Savory once argued, if I recall correctly, that this is explained by studies that show that people in general are very bad with propabilities. Personally, I believe it has more to do with personal safety, the feeling of it, being absolute when all we have is relative safety. And we want the government to guarantee our safety, our absolute safety with finite resources. And furthermore, the really scary things tend to be unlikely (propably part of the reason they are so scary is that they are uncommon.) Without good leaders that play down the fears of the public, this in a democracy leads to preference of highly visible responses to highly unlikely threats. Which is how you end with multi-billion data mining systems that most likely won't work, and even if they do occasionally work will not be useful, and certainly not cost effective. And no stores of water, medicine, blankets and all the other boring stuff. Yours, Teemu Helsinki, Finland __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html