Risk Assessment of Various Cases

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USS Princeton Explosion

This was a ship that was first went sailing in 1842. It was used to race some other boats. In 1844, the boat received big guns. One gun was built on a copy of another gun from the manufacturer Ericsson. When they tried to copy the Ericsson model, the engineer did not fully understand the hoop contraction of the original model, and he used his own reinforcements which ended up weighted more that 27,000 pounds, this produced a gun that had the typical weakness of a wrought iron gun, the welds being unable to withstand the transverse forces of the charge. This meant it was almost certain to burst at some point. Unfortunately, the owner of the boat did not all allow much testing on this gun.

On Feb 28, 1844, the gun burst, killing many important people and injuring 20 people as well.

How could this have been prevented?
- make engineers should have constructed the second gun properly
- if they were aware of a problem, more vigorous testing should have been done
- passengers should have never been allowed to travel on an unstable boat especially since the owner knew of the problems with the gun.

Sinking of the Titanic

As of April 14, 1912, 1503 people died as a result of the RMS Titanic sinking. It collided with an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later, after breaking into two pieces, at 2:20 AM Monday morning April 15. The ironic thing was that Titanic's design used some of the most advanced technology available at the time and the ship was popularly believed to be "unsinkable."

There were several warning signs about icebergs. At 1:45 pm a warning was sent that an iceberg was to south of the titanic's path. Unfortunately, this warning was sent to the hydrographic office, and never made it to the captain. A second warning was sent out by other ships, which again never reached the captain.

By the time the lookouts (the people who literally look at to sea) saw the iceberg it was too late. The boat was on a collision path to the iceberg. It struck at 11:40 pm.

Lifeboats were only let out at 12:40 am, and the boats were only flailed to half capacity. As well, there were only lifeboat capacity for 1,200 people when there were 2200 people on board. At this time, this number of spots meet the minimum requirement. Most of the people who died were in third class because first class had better access to the life boats.

How could this have been prevented?

- have sufficient number of life boats for each person on board
- have an evacuation plan ready, and inform the passengers of it before hand
- make sure that critical information is sent to people in charge (info on the iceberg was never sent to the captain)
- treat all passengers equally, it should not matter if they travel first or 3rd class

Airgill Train Wreck
I could not find any information on this. Are you sure it is not Aisgill train?

Johnstown Flood

There existed a dam built by the government, but then it was sold to private investors. These people then turned the area into a resort town, and did not upkeep or maintain the dam. They also changed the dam. They included lowering the dam to make its top wide enough to hold a road, putting a fish screen in the spillway (that also trapped debris), and raising the lake level.

In 1889, a huge storm struck Johnstown. It estimated that between 6-10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. During the night small creeks became roaring torrents, ripping out trees and debris. Telegraph lines were downed and rail lines were washed out. Before daybreak the Conemaugh River that ran through Johnstown was about to leave its banks. Things got worse in the afternoon, the dam burst allowing water along lake Conemaugh to cascade down to the Conemaugh River, on the way towards Johnstown, it gathered plants animals and debris. Little dams formed from the debris, but it would then burst, creating an even more powerful storm. The inhabitants of the town of Johnstown were caught by surprise as the wall of water and debris bore down on the village. People died trying to escape, and some were crushed by the debris. 2200 people died from the flood.

In the years following the event, many people blamed the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club for the tragedy. The club had bought and repaired the dam to turn the area into a holiday retreat in the mountains. However, they were accused of failing to properly maintain the dam, so that it was unable to contain the additional ...