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Do you realize the Atlantic 'hurricane season' is half a year long? June 1 through November 30.

Typical cheap safe rooms consist of simple 2x4 frame with a layer of 1/2 plywood, then a layer of 16 guage steel.

A 2x4 at hurricane velocity might breach both the steel and plywood, but it would generally splinter and lose any and all useful energy by the time it gets through - and that's assuming it had enough energy to even make it to the room since it has to go throgh some regular walls/windows/siding/furniture/etc to get to the safe room.

So yes, such a room can be built cheaply and still have more than adequate protection.

See what FEMA has to say about safe room construction. In particular safe rooms cost between $3,000 and $5,000 depending on the type you build and where it is situated. It's much cheaper to build it when the house is built than later, so I can easily see a cost of $3,000 for an average safe room.

-Adam

There are ways to make it. FEMA outlined guidelines for a saferoom. With these guidelines, a contractor could build you one which includes both above and below ground guidelines. Also you can purchase one prefabricated. Both call for reinforced concrete as primary building material.

Well, since I used to work in World Trade seven, when I see a question like that, my first reaction is personal, yes.

Hey, I'm on your side. Btw, the official FEMA report says:

The performace of WTC 7 is of significant interest because it appears the collapse was due primarily to fire, rather than any impact damage from the collapsing towers. Prior to September 11, 2001 there was little, if any, record of fire-induced collapse of large fire-protected steel buildings.

In all my destructive youth, I was never able to blow something up or destroy it so that it uniformly fell at roughtly the speed of gravity in a vacuum. But shit happens.

Oops, copied the wrong url its http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf.

Either you believe in conspiricies or lots of bad luck and random happenings. I mean, 47 story steel buildings don't just fall down from a fire that is not hot enough to melt steel. Also, note the occupants of the building in the document.

yeah. You can read FEMA's take on it here (pdf). I vaguely remember hearing about it in 2001, but the press has burried it. Can't stop the machine.

As an avid surfer and windsurfer I see this as another implementation of the hated jet ski. You know the devices that cause so many injuries and problems on the waterways. Nothing is worse then planing along on your board only to be cut off by some yahoo on a jetski trying to jump a powerboats wake, that sucks when your out on your 6.5m sail trying to get some air. Or imagine trying to surf with one of these losers buzzing in and out of the break while you were dropping in on the wave, I can see the fights now especially in the northeast (and for those of you who say their is no surf in the northeast, get a wetsuit it's hurricane season and I was surfing triple overheads before Isabel, I can't wait for Juan.)

The structural engineers who wrote the FEMA report on the collapse take a different view: "In each case the aircraft impacts resulted it severe structual damage, including some localized partial collapse, bit did not result in the initiation of global collapse.... The second event was the simultaneous ignition and growth of fires over large floor areas on several levels of the buildingsp The fires heated the structural systems and, over a period of time, resulted in additional stressing of the damaged structure, as well as sufficient additional damage and strength loss to initiate the third event, a progressive sequence of failures that culminated in total collapse of both structures." See the FEMA report, specifically chapter 2, page 2-15 (section 2.2).

It should be noted that the fuel is not responsible for the fire. It started it, but would have been consumed a short time after the collision. The pires continued to burn office equipment, furnature, etc. (see p. 2-22)

FEMA estimates temperatures between 1700-2000 degrees Farenheit in some areas. This is well above the point where steel will soften, though not quite at melting point (usually stated at about 2500 degrees, though the exact temperature depends on the alloy).

Also know that the fireproofing on the structural beams, a spray-on variety, was mostly blown off in the initial collision.

But yeah, read the report, or Google some more information. It's quite interesting.

Texas Tech University (the folks that invented the 2x4 launcher for testing the strength of building siding and other fun games) and FEMI have put together a lot of Tornado survival info over the years.

Check out FEMA's website as well as Texas Tech's Wind Engineering site.

IIRC radio shack is going out of the shortwave business. I don't know about transceivers though. With that said, they got some deals on shortwave receivers. Shortwave is both fun and practical, these days you got no idea when "normality" will change on you, in an emergency it's *nice* to have the option to be able to at least listen to some "news" that might not be filtered through some government propoganda FEMA control box that are installed at the commercial broadcast stations. Even better is to have the ability to converse. HAM and shortwave are very interesting geekish hobbies. So is "alternative energy". Tons of interesting and practical gift ideas in those areas.

I'm interested to see if this may lead to a better understanding of how harmonics works with relation to high-rise buildings. Particularly in earthquake country. (see this)

We've got buildings that can withstand strong quakes -- but not necessarily those of long duration. I'll bet a shiny new penny that this reseach may be insightful in this field.

-jhon

Well a quick search (PDF) actually turns up Methyl Oxide AKA Dimethyl Ether on the US Hazardous Materials list. It's a a clear, sweet-smelling, toxic and highly flammable gas (at room temp).

Nitrogen Sulfide isn't listed but I suspect that Nitrous sulfide might be a possible analog of nitrous oxide given the right conditions (S and O are both period 6 elements).

As strange as it is, it does suggest that they are trying to come up with real compounds. Might they even have competent technical advisers on staff? Time will tell.

There is a far more utilitarian reason to use cash. On the day the WTC collapsed, many of the credit card machines in northern New Jersey stopped working as a result of the strain on the telephone network. Cash was the only way to get food, gas, etc. FEMA recommends that your disaster supplies include cash or travelers checks. Hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters can be even more destructive to the telephone network due to the wide geographic area affected.

There is a far more utilitarian reason to use cash. On the day the WTC collapsed, many of the credit card machines in northern New Jersey stopped working as a result of the strain on the telephone network. Cash was the only way to get food, gas, etc. FEMA recommends that your disaster supplies include cash or travelers checks. Hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters can be even more destructive to the telephone network due to the wide geographic area affected.

The World Trade Center had inadequate protection systems in the 1993 bombing; the truck bomb in the parking garage knocked out emergency power and the fire pumps. Last time, they didn't even have battery backup on the emergency lighting. The FEMA study of the bombing and fire indicates only minor upgrades were made to fire protection systems; better emergency lighting and such. No improvements to sprinklers or new fire barriers were made, other than improving backup power to the fire pumps. Most of the improvements were to communications and control.

This was much worse than it should have been.

"The days are very long and you have to keep yourself busy," said Jose Maria Casado, who used to install cellular antennas.

One can sympathize with the protesters, but they have to understand, that's business, and over here in the US it does happen regularly (people getting laid off without pay) and shamelessly by many in the technology industry [see FuckedCompany] however most people here simply move on to other jobs.

Are things that bad in Spain where they have to protest in such fashion because there are no jobs or something? Personally I would get another job and move on with life. Perhaps after I got another job I would use my own money to take them to court in an appropriate fashion as opposed to sitting around waiting for someone to listen.

Yes I know protesting for a cause is semi politically correct, but being without work isn't going to pay my bills, and I'll be damned if I forcefully made myself live in a camp town when I could do as I said, make money then take them to court. They're lucky Spain doesn't have FEMA over there or that shit'd be over quickly

Besides NORAD, there's the Denver Federal Center

Actually controlling some of the most powerfull phenomena on Earth is opening a can of worms I don't think we are prepared to open.

And the proposal would not stop thunderstorms and their rain, the goal is to disrupt a single powerful updraft, and leave multiple-updraft thunderstorms operating.

Not that it would be easy to create and control that much power safely. If you have that powerful a power plant, you could instead just have a flying building with enough fans to directly change airflows. Sometimes applying energy in the form of a physical device is easier than radiant energy.

Funny you should mention Minneapolis being a plausible ground-zero -

Many of us hams in my part of the Midwest participated in an Air Force bioterrorism exercise a few months ago that was based on a ficticious biological-based terrorist attack in Minneapolis. They sent plane-loads of people to places throughout the midwest to receive treatment since in the scenario, the local hospitals were overloaded. They relied upon local ARES amateur radio groups to provide for the communications logistics.

If you read about the US's FEMA and related NBC-related civil defense programs, you'll be surprised to see how much of a role volunteer geeks get to play.

I'd suggest for anyone interested in the topic to check out their local ham group and if in the US, learn about their area's ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) or RACES programs.

Building a backup voice and data infrastructure through spare parts on spare time for fun can be a heck of a challenge!

*scoove*