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In the world of medicine, surgeons are forced sometimes to make decisions that enable them to help some patients while leaving others to their "doom". The decision making process is known as triage, and focuses on concentrating the doctor's effort where the most good can be accomplished. This is an accepted, and even expected, practice. The doctor who over-reaches and tries to save everyone tends to save no one instead. The same rule ought to govern the approach science takes towards intervention in natural disasters. If the power to direct a hurricane exists, and the choice is to let it hit either a densely populated, highly developed city or a sparsely populated and far less developed expanse of countryside, the choice should be clear. In such a case, the question is not "is it right or wrong to doom the rural residents?" The real question is "which path offers the least harm to people, and enables the fastest recovery?"

Wherever a hurricane strikes, it wreaks devastation. People must evacuate or face the wrath of the storm. Much of the local population is rendered homeless, industry is disrupted or destroyed, and property damage is extreme. Consider what this means in terms of numbers affected, economic impact, humanitarian aid, and recovery.

A single major city includes millions of people. The populace of nearby rural areas can be numbered in the thousands. The population in the city is densely packed, while a rural populace is widely spread. Hurricanes are slow in coming, giving people time to flee to safety. From a logistics standpoint, it is much easier for people to evacuate from the countryside. The sheer number of people in the city turns it into a trap, with heavy traffic congestion and a limited number of roads leading out. Fuel demand is high, and can easily overrun supply. In short, the city-folk have a much more difficult time escaping before the disaster reaches them. A well-organized bus scheme could easily support the evacuation of the smaller population of the countryside in advance of the coming storm.

When the storm is over, homes and places of employment have been damaged or destroyed. As a result, a large fraction of the population takes on refugee or jobless status. With the majority of jobs located in the city, the economy takes a much harder knock when it is the target of a hurricane. The resources needed to rebuild must be imported, and the millions of displaced people provided for at the same

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