Nature's Fury

This adventure incorporates 3 natural events that recently occurred. Note that only the first adventure of this 3-pack (The Paradise CA Fire) has additional scenery included in the addon download.


Paradise California Fire(AP131)

At 6:30 am on November 8, a wildfire of astounding proportions and speed broke out in Northern California. Dubbed the Camp Fire, at one point it was burning 80 acres a minute. When it hit the town of Paradise, home to 27,000 people, those buildings became yet more fuel to power the blaze. It destroyed over 18,000 structures. For perspective, the previously most destructive wildfire in state history, Tubbs Fire that raged through the city of Santa Rosa last year, destroyed 5,500 total structures. The death toll so far stands at 88. That makes it by far the deadliest wildfire in California history. Hundreds are still missing.





The Camp Fire horror show, which burned 70,000 acres in 24 hours, and reached over 150,000 acres, is a confluence of factors. The first is wind-lots of it, blasting in from the east. "We have a weather event, in this case a downslope windstorm, where, as opposed to the normal westerly winds, we get easterly winds that are cascading off the crest of the Sierra Nevada," says Neil Lareau, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno.





A windstorm barreling from the east set the stage for this disaster. It's a normal phenomenon that comes from the jet stream, which this time of year grows stronger. North and south "meanders" in the jet stream, known as troughs and ridges, get amplified. These cold air masses travel through the Great Basin in Nevada and spill over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in eastern California. Big meanders set up very-high-pressure areas that accelerate winds. "Then they get local accelerations on top of that as they flow down the mountain ranges, kind of like water over a dam," Lareau says. Some areas in California are particularly prone to downsloping winds. "Unfortunately, right where the Camp Fire is is one of those places."

















Anchorage Alaska Earthquake (AP132)

A powerful earthquake rocked buildings and shattered roads Friday morning in Anchorage, sending people running into the streets. The U.S. Geological Survey said the first and more powerful quake was centered about 7 miles north of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, with a population of about 300,000.



People ran from their offices or took cover under desks. A large section of road near the Anchorage airport collapsed, marooning a car on a narrow island of pavement surrounded by deep chasms in the concrete.





Hurricane Michael (AP133)

Hurricane Michael was the third-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States in terms of pressure. Approaching the Florida Panhandle, Michael attained peak winds of 155 mph (250 km/h) as it made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, on October 10, becoming the first to do so in the region as a Category 4 hurricane, and making landfall as the strongest storm of the season.



By October 28, at least 60 deaths had been attributed to the storm, including 45 in the United States and 15 in Central America. Along the Florida panhandle, the cities of Mexico Beach and Panama City suffered the worst of Michael, with catastrophic damage reported due to the extreme winds and storm surge. Numerous homes were flattened and trees felled over a wide swath of the panhandle.