As for the "great" hurricane ... back home we call that a summer shower FWIW.
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Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday Funnies
As for the "great" hurricane ... back home we call that a summer shower FWIW.
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Visiting California last month, driving thru L.A. , saw a banner hand painted sign that said,
"PRE-EARTHQUAKE SALE , This Week Only ! "
.
Now THAT'S pretty funny.
Felt it even in VT, but it was about 40 seconds of mild tremor. With that and the "hurricane" it seems DHS/FEMA have some "shovel-ready jobs" making mountains out of molehills.
Obama called the hurricane "historic". Perhaps because it was the first one to even make landfall in four years? Yet another prediction of doom from global warming that was a hoax.
Don't be silly. It's historic because it made him leave his vacation early.
Two really old VEPCO nuclear reactor sites are located on a lake between Richmond and D.C.
Both the North Anna #1 and the North Anna #2 reactor sites did complete automatic shut downs. Almost.
They only had to rush in one portable diesel generator to assist one site in full shutdown. No electricity produced from either massive site since the Earthquake. Really putting a strain on the old electric grid. Time to start replacing all these 104 old nuclear reactor electrical generators in the USA !
Should have been done years ago but OMG nuclear is evil!!!
We lived in the LA Basin for 10 years. Unless an earthquake was severe and did damage, it was just a blurb. What used to get me was how they got their panties in a bind over a little ol' rain shower. Being from the Pacific Northwest, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, "I may not be a smart man, but I do know what rain is." All that you would see on TV, hear on the radio, or read in the paper was "Storm Watch (fill in the year)!" I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember the movie 40 Days and 40 Nights, but that would be a storm in my book: anything else is just a shower. This is all just part and parcel of the wussification of America. Maybe if we all pray to Oden and Thor, give up our cars, electricity, and reduce our carbon footprint all of these nasty things won't happen.
If you need help with the Odin & Thor stuff, AW1 can help you.
Survivior of Typhoon Karen on Guam in '62. NAS Agaga's anerometer carried away during the day after recording a gust that exceeded 190 MPH. Karen literally sucked the grass out of the ground on places. Cracked all four corners of our cinderblock house on the Naval Station. Never even imagined anything like it.
That's genius. I would do the "like" thing but js-kit would boot me out (again).
I think that Hurricane Irene is a metaphor for Obama:
It's all the press can talk about. The frenzied hype about what it will do when it arrives reaches the stratosphere. But once it reaches DC it loses its energy and doesn't live up to all the predictions. It travels around to a bunch of cities bringing business and commerce to a standstill until it leaves. The only thing that really happens is people lose power and it leaves a big costly mess for someone else to clean up. But it calls itself "historic."
That's genius. I would do the "like" thing but js-kit would boot me out (again).
I have been in this gig for awhile. I was in Miami when it was approaching as a possible 3. I wasn't worried, but I also do put empahsis on preparation. I've been through about 7 of these things. Two were super typhoons, one flooded my apartment and I did w/ barely any power and water for a month and a half. Guam lost one person during one of those storms, as shrapnel hit her throat and she bled out. There was a little loss of life in this one. Truth is, we got pretty lucky. It slowed enough to reduce its strength as it sheared apart. The TS hit Annapolis when I was there and it caused about $100 mil of no $h!t damage to the yard. A lot of the control systems were in the basements so they flooded 15' high rooms. It took 2 days of solid pumping to clear out the water. The chem labs were flooded, etc.
I do not support the breathless reporting of the 24 hr news cycle, but I do think a measured response is very important. Water, food, weapons, transportation and gas are all helpful in these situations. Katrina wasn't bad until it was. That goes for a lot of these things. People poo poo them then get their collective a$$ handed to them or lose family members. We lost a guy and his baby from our Ops Dept who drowned in their attic in Katrina. Be prepared, know that the forecasts are not exact, and realize that while the graph shows the storm center, that critter can be over 100 nm beyond that and spawns twisters and other issues.
That said, the picture cracks me up. The storm nor earthquake (while rare) were not historic. Sold a lot of commercial time though.
Actually DB, I think this is a better metaphor.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/fox-reporter-gives-update-covered-in-sea-foam-20110827
God forbid something on a scale of JPN's 9,0 happens in the East... neither WH nor Capitol seem quake-resistant. DC would look like SF 1906...
Maybe you will want to get a facebook icon to your website. Just marked down the url, although I had to do it manually. Just my advice.
My site:
rachat de credits rachatdecredit.net
and by "sea foam" you mean raw sewage.
FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL!
"This tastes really bad..."
NO KIDDING. Makes a good metaphor for any and all LCS postings and DivThurs (front porch getting innundated with the raw sewage pumped straight from the admiralty CHT)
God forbid someone from the south help out in the north when we have natural disasters...nope. But, I'm sure you LA jackasses will have no problem holding out your hands when the next hurricane floods a city built below sea level.
Of course it is a problem when you have to weigh the forecast uncertainty versus the prospects of evacuating the many misllions of people at risk...
But I squarely blame the media for this.
If they had picked up on the UNCERTAINTY of this storm reaching CatIV that the TPC was advertising, the message would have been much different. As it was though, even early this morning, Harris Faulkner -in her usual breathless way- was speaking of Irene "pummeling" the northern cities...
And Geraldo should just take his millions and just go away.
BTW...I counted them up...
I've been in 20 hurricanes...Donna was the first in 1960...and of those 5 direct eye (or more to the point eye wall) hits...
Anyway, looks like the eastern seaborad may just get another dose the second week of Sept...
And there just might be some trouble my way in less than a week....
I'd like to leave Harris Faulkner breathless....
Well URR...
Just remember us squids always have to clear the way for you grunts...
8-)
Ha! We here in California sneer at your tiny little tremor. As a native born and bred, I don't even stand up when the earth starts shaking until a lamp at least falls over, if not flies across the room.
On the other hand, the thought of a hurricane or tornado absolutely terrifies me.
I started to take offense 'til I realized that you had a different LA in mind. 8-)
Usual Suspect, so true. My husband can't get over the way that Californians respond to rain. I myself refuse to take the car out to do errands if there's anything more than a heavy mist in the air. :)
Sid,
The spouse is probably flying up into NY airspace to pick up a crew and head out west. They got stranded up there and they had to put their trip on hold. Why they flew them across the Atlantic to that hub vice down south, I'll never know.
Shortsigted folks like me... O:-)
Although in this case the Port Authority shut down EWR JFK and LGA for arrivals hours earlier than anyone expected...So thats likely the central factor there.
Actually, literally just got a brief that the NY metros fared well and are opening up at 10Z for arrivals.
3000 people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast could not be reached for comment regarding not taking hurricanes seriously.
I'd rather see "overkill" with evacuations and shutdowns public services given the amount of time it takes to get a large population moved at least 100 miles away. Those of us tried to get out of Floyds way and were stuck for hours on the interstates all wished we'd been more scared and got the hell out of Dodge much earlier than we did. We got lucky; Floyd changed his mind as hurricanes are known to do and went north and dithered.
This weekend could have been much, much worse. Irene could have missed the dry air to her south or the 10-20 miles of wind shear from the west and she could could have punted east first then west into NYC. And when officials order evacuations and shut downs, they have to do it based on POTENTIAL, not best case. As sea going professionals, all of you Navy people should understand this.
The point is, you have to take a direct strike with storm surge involved very seriously. You have to wrap your mind around getting out of the way as much as 72 hours in advance, because if you wait till 24 hours, you might be screwed. Yes, Irene fizzled. It could have gone the other way, and only God's good grace saw fit that it didn't.
Oh, by the way, having a MAH velous time on vacation, ya'll!
Here in the East, we barf every time we read that San Diego has cancelled life for two days due to "rain"
It's all relative. I sneered at Va Beach's "snow/ice", yet 2 days of shut down is reality. I live in Tornado alley, as Dorothy and Toto know, they are nasty.
Since Odin is Thor's father and Thor is the god of thunder and such, I thought that involving the Old Man might influence the kid a little bit - also the mthology angle is kind of like the modern environut worshippers, except the Norse stuff is more interesting and entertaining,; it's still mythology and substitutes fairy tales for reason. I am a bit rusty on my Norse Mythology - it has been a few years and I probably need the help!
Nor could the Democrat mayor and Democrat governor who turned down Federal assistance as Katrina approached.
The hype for this storm was markedly different, and it was used as an occasion for posturing by nincompoops like Bloomberg and Napolitano. And, of course, the environmentalists.
I don't fault the northeasterner for their problems, they'd been saturated with rain prior and they rarely get these storms.
But here in VA.... this was a pretty gimp hurricane...a hurricane by technicality. Aside from a couple of tornadoes I don't think ground level hurricane force winds were recorded in Virginia.The problem as I see it is that this minimal event left nearly a million people without power and a bridge has collapsed.
Now the surge was impressive and coincided with a spring tide so we had a lot of flooding. I also understand the seawalls were overtopped in Norfolk. However...flooding aside...WE'RE IN THE SOUTHEAST...we're gonna get hurricanes. A CAT 0.8 should not cause major disruptions.
That worries me a lot more than the drama queens on the weather channel.
<span>I don't fault the northeasterners for their reaction to or troublevdealing with this storm, they'd been saturated with rain prior and they rarely get these storms. They got sucker punched.
But here in VA.... this was a pretty gimp hurricane...a hurricane by technicality. Aside from a couple of tornadoes I don't think ground level hurricane force winds were recorded in Virginia.The problem as I see it is that this minimal event left nearly a million people without power and a bridge has collapsed.
Now, to be fair, the surge was impressive and coincided with a spring tide so we had a lot of flooding. I also understand the seawalls were overtopped in Norfolk. However...flooding aside...WE'RE IN THE SOUTHEAST...we're gonna get hurricanes. A CAT 0.8 should not cause major disruptions.
That worries me a lot more than the drama queens on the weather channel.</span>
Oh, we all do it. Every area of the country has its specialty. I laugh when people whine about 2 days of 100+ temps. We've had 73+ days of 100+ temps this summer and 6 inches of rain since October. Today it was 109 again. We survive. (Though I hate it)
But I wouldn't trust these clowns with 1/2 inch of snow or 30 minutes of sleet on the road.
Pick your poison and buy a house there. And don't be a hater for the rest of the country and their own regional "issues."
;)
NAS Corpus Christi 1970. Celia all but flattened all of the newly built base housing and topped the sea walls with water couple of feet deep in the seaside hangers. CB' s were first responders who restored electric 1. Base hospital 2. Admin and admirals qtrs 3. Chow hall 4. EM club. Had their priorities about right. We were hurting for weeks.
No kidding. I felt a couple of bumps here in NoVA, thought to myself "well, that's about a 4.5", and tried to go about my business...meanwhile, the locals were all streaming out of the building as if Thor's hammer had just descended upon it. Couldn't get any work done the rest of the afternoon and most of the following day because everyone else wanted to share all their "earthquake apocalypse" stories.
Sheesh.
Then came "the storm of the Century", so proclaimed by the MSM because it threatened their precious NYC bastion.
Sheesh.
I've found a slightly different version of the graphic:
I was just hoping that Irene would wash Geraldo out to sea, never to be seen or heard from again...
Lived in a lot of places. Never got 50mph gusts during summer showers in any of 'em. And I was near 200 miles from the storm center.
We got them in some serious showers during the rainy season in Guam. I think they parted lines and it was amazing because it was like a 15 minute shower.
No overboard discharge of CHT inside the 10 mile limit...
A buddy of mine was teaching at the USNA the last time they had a major flood. He's a Marine. He said the Marine's had contingency plans, so when the recovery phase began, they were ready to go. As a result they ended up with lots of great real estate, new offices, etc., while the rest of the folks were still trying to decide what to ask for. Lesson: have a plan!
URR, I'm interested in your opinion of Ron Paul's comments about FEMA needing to be eliminated. What say you on the role of FEMA in such pan-state natural disasters. (And yes, I see as with much of the other states, Vermont got clobbered by the water on the ground, not necessarily the wind in the air.)
<span>I don't think Paul is correct in that. FEMA serves a valuable purpose and need to be kept. As the population becomes more urban, and natural or man-made events affect a proportionately higher number of people in a smaller area than they did sixty or seventy years ago, the response required will outstrip state capabilities. Federal coordination (under State control IAW Stafford) to garner resources and expertise is necessary.
Notice, however, that FEMA gets a pass on this. (Remember Katrina, when a DEMOCRATIC Governor and Mayor declined Federal assistance before the storm, and Bush still got blamed?) Federal assistance for the MAY flooding in Vermont has not arrived yet. Doin' a heck of a job, Willie.
Also, FEMA doesn't need to be under DHS. Never liked it there, and it brings DHS in to areas in which they should have ZERO jurisdiction. Napolitano is an empire builder in the extreme, something Chertoff and Ridge were not. Secret Service, USCG, Immigration, C&BP, ICE, all of those are LAW ENFORCEMENT. FEMA has no business being included in that group. Every time Napolitano opens her mouth, our rights are at risk.
But of course I would feel that way. I am a terror suspect. Heterosexual white male veteran gun owner who believes in limited government. I am public enemy number one. When I am not out persecuting Aqib Abdullah bin Somebody or other because he is Muslim.
</span>
Now logging in for the first time since we had power restored abut an hour ago - went down yesterday morning. Lost decent parts of a couple trees and took down one lare maple proactively day before the storm. Many trees down in my neighborhood, several down on houses. Peak gusts recorded nearby were in the 80s. Surge was minimal, < 3' over new moon high tide peaking a couple hours after high. We were in the eastern part of the storm so more wind and less than 4" of rain.
More than half of my clients lost power with about 70% restored or on gensets as of me just getting in.
Not as fierce or crippling as a blizzard though and only marginally more powerful than some of our freak snow squall noreasters we get.
Notes for future reference - people not out working just whine about ((^#@ and complain. When the local authorities state to be prepared to go three days to a week without power, don't become a WLB when the novelty of power being down wears off. Some people just suck. They were even heckling the local grid trucks. Optical Rectumitis.
All in all, a good dry run for a real storm as it has been a while since the last Cat 1 & Cat 2 storms I've been in. Would have been a beyotch though if orginal predictions of a Cat2 with the track through my house had stuck.
Thank you, Sir. As for FEMA/DHS... I have only a passing familiarity with Title X and Stafford/Posse Comitatus issues, but wasn't that linkage made when it was realized post-9-11 that some terrorism acts could disrupt infrastructure and environment on a large scale that could rival a natural disaster? In such a case jurisdictional issues could become muddy. So to avoid things falling through the cracks the last administration linked them. In this instance, DHS/FEMA is like a weapon. A neutral thing in itself. Just depends on the responsibility of the person (party) wielding it....
Speaking of hype...
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-did-irene-stop-being-hurricane.html (of course, a couple of enviro-wackos had to weigh in..."trees are dying from exposure to tropospheric ozone"...seriously?)
Hat tip to:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/08/29/2222252/When-Did-Irene-Stop-Being-a-Hurricane
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