TV Reviews : ‘Living With Disaster’: An Edgy Coexistence

If bad relationships, horror films and car repairs haven’t jangled your nerves enough, tune into “Living With Disaster” (at 8 tonight on Channels 28, 15 and 24, 9 p.m. on Channel 50, and June 14 at 9 p.m. on Channel 11).

This chapter of “The Infinite Voyage” science series focuses on hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes and mud slides. The purpose behind choosing certain disasters over others, though never clearly stated, seems to have something to do with centering on those catastrophes that show some chance of being predicted.

Those chances don’t seem too great, though. The attempts shown here to monitor earthquakes and volcanoes appear to be a long way from leading to reliable predictions.

“Living With Disaster,” whose calm narration, easy pace and light music actually lull the viewer at times, is bookended with two segments that might have been titled “Flirting With Disaster.”

The first describes Ocean City, Md.--a sand bar glorified into a resort town--that refuses to back down from the hurricanes that periodically devastate it (one cut it in half). The community is currently pouring sand in front of itself--at a cost of $60 million--in hopes that the next big blow will be stymied somehow.

Even more amazing are the 9,000 citizens of the Japanese island of Sakurajima, who live under a volcano that spews ash and causes mud lides about 200 times a year, and could blow its top in even grander style with little or no warning. The new tract homes are built to be “ash-proof” and kids have to wear hard hats on the way to school. Go figure.

Of course, Californians are considered nutty risk-takers by a lot of folks back East, and if the less interesting but closer-to-home quake segment brings on that nervous feeling and a desire for action, stay tuned to Channel 28; right after “Living With Disaster” and a pledge break, the station will repeat “Surviving the Big One: How to Prepare for a Major Earthquake.”