11 - Further Examples from the World of Extremes

Summary

Finding the elixir of life has always been an important quest of humanity. The topic of longevity, hence answering the question about the maximal age attainable (now and in the future) of humans has fascinated civilizations throughout the ages. Starting from the example of the oldest person on record, Jeanne Calmant, we introduce basic statistical techniques from survival (also reliability) analysis in order to study the process of aging from a statistical point of view. Recent findings on the topic are applied to the question of whether there is a plateauing of the hazard rate at high age. We then turn to the important problem of risk communication in the case of hurricanes. In particular, we compare and contrast the two hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Ida (2016) that hit the coast of Florida around New Orleans. Especially in the case of Ida, we comment upon the communication around the risk due to the ensuing flash floods over the northeast coast of the United States. New architectural and city planning initiatives, such as sponge cities, deserve our attention.