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Hurricane Irene Prompts Unprecedented Evacuation of NYC
oxide7 links this bit of sobering news, as reported by the International Business Times: "For the first time, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered a mandatory evacuation of 300,000 residents of the cities coastal areas as Hurricane Irene barrels up the East Coast. Buses and subways prepared to shut on Saturday as Hurricane Irene approaches as well. All New Jersey rail service will be suspended from noon Saturday, while the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) will institute a shutdown of trains and buses starting at the same time. The suspension will include subways, buses, the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and Access-A-Ride. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will suspend PATH train service at noon as well. 'This is a mandatory evacuation,' Bloomberg said. 'By five o'clock tomorrow you have to be out. Waiting for the last minute is not a smart thing to do. This is life threatening.'" Good luck to everyone in the storm's path: Irene is big. (Hat tip to Matt Lord.) What, if anything, are you doing to prepare? Having spent more than an hour in worse-than-usual D.C. traffic after Tuesday's earthquake, I shudder to think of leaving New York in a rush. Update: 08/27 06:43 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points out the official evacuation map (PDF), on the swamped NYC server, and suggests "Lets mirror this file anywhere we can ... put it on all social media. Make these systems do what they were supposed to — help us. I'm in Long Island City ~100 yards from the East River in the orange (highest risk) area."
Earthquakes, hurricanes. It is abundantly clear god has chosen sides in the New York gay marriage debate.
Yeah he gets a little carried away with the whole happy dance thing.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
So... you're going to shoot the hurricane?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Title says it all. Cat-2.
It has a slim chance of being a hurricane still when it gets to New York.
It has a slightly better chance of 50 knot wind-speeds by then.
And it has a decent chance of being a weak tropical storm.
In other words, not even worth evacuating for....
For reference, I live in the Big Easy - I've sat out Cat-2 storms before, more than once.
But from the looks of it, this storm is being blown all out of proportion....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Hopefully he aims for the eye. That's the weak spot.
I tried to buy a generator today...they were all sold out everywhere. I did manage to buy a chain saw.
I've already volunteered to help with communications once the phones go down. (I'm a ham radio operator, and am charging up radios right now.) Any hams who are available, I heartily suggest you contact your local Emergency Coordinator with days/times available. Also let him know if your emergency comms experience. If you don't know who your EC is, go to the ARRL website. http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-hq-emergency-response-team-gears-up-for-hurricane-irene
300,000 people and the 'affected areas' are a relatively small percentage of New York City. The vast majority of New Yorkers are doing what we normally do when doom is predicted - snark, ignore, and stock up on liquor and cigarettes.
Seriously, though, there's no way New York City itself could be evacuated without something on the scale of Dunkirk. The thought of 8 million people trying to escape over a mere 4 or 5 Interstate-class roads makes a lot of us laugh at the idea of the 'go bag' that the authorities and preparedness obsessives keep talking about. If anything happened that was big enough to force a major evac on NYC, we'd be going nowhere so fast due to traffic we'd end up using all three changes of clothes just sitting in cars or in train stations or airports. So unless the 'crisis' is fairly personal, I plan on having lots of time to pack whatever's needed - or to make sure I have the requisite amount of booze and books to see me through the forting up!
KEEP CALM
AND
CARRY ON
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
... it's only supposed to be a category 1 by the time it reaches land, and down to tropical storm strength by the time it reached New York. When I lived in Florida, we didn't even lower the awnings for a cat 1.
After this, and the hullabaloo over that 5.9 earthquake (I live in California now, and we laughed at the big deal they made out of it.), I think the east coast are being a massive bunch of drama queens.
Imagine all the people...
I'm writing this from the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, right near the edge of the evacuation zone 'C'. A good portion of the people here in the neighborhood of Dumbo near the water have either followed mandatory evacuation or have opted to leave on their own . Nearby low-lying Fulton Ferry and the much better situated Brooklyn Heights are ready to ride the storm out.
I also happen to have the weekend on-call network emergency duty for a group of offices here in the neighborhood (trade into it weeks ago. Oops). We ran through a checklist today, including testing backup generators and going over contingency plans for flooding. In front of me is a cell phone, radio and keys to everything. Meanwhile, the city is doing a massive amount of prep work on its own. Talked to a number of friends and neighbors today and everyone who will be here is hunkered down.
This is my first hurricane. Not sure how this is going to turn out, but everyone here is ready.
Bring it Irene.
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
ummm you don't clean and inspect them on a regular basis?
I'm being serious...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
This is going to be the first sustained wind even for most areas north of NC. MANY dead and weak branches and trees will be knocked down by Irene. I suspect a mess of power lines are gonna be knocked down. I doubt anyone is in grave peril here (it's too perilous!). But millions of folks will spend the weekend and longer without power. Trust a bayou dweller; get the stinky stuff out'cha freezer and fridge. After 3 days it gets nasty. Good luck.
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
Counting the 5 grand bonus he's getting for staying?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
What Category the storm is when it hits NYC is NOT the big issue. Wind damage is not what they are worried about. The size of the storm surge is the issue. NYC has an enormous amount of underground infrastructure. If water starts spilling into the subway system in quantity, the results would be catastrophic. See Chicago Flood, multiply by 1000.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Is that a metaphor for "masturbating"?
Here's a photo of the devastation resulting from Tuesday's earthquake in Washington DC
"the cities coastal areas"
This is what journalism has come to. Writers who can't fucking write.
I remember when I was kid, the power would go out for days at a time in the winter occasionally. Granted, rural area in the Pacific NW (70s), and we just cooked on our woodstove (*), and I realize not everyone can have that sort of setup, but I sort of cringe at all the people going out and buying generators and such as if they'd die should the TV or computer not function. Honestly, power outages always seemed kind of fun, and I miss them. The grid seems much less likely to have outages, and those we have rarely last more than 10 minutes, at least here in town rather than out in the county.
(*) While I realize that one can consider a woodstove to be an energy generator akin to an electricity generator, the big difference is that people pile up enough wood for winter, but (hopefully) people don't store enough gas for winter. So even with a generator, you're going to be running out for gas in any long term outage.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Just like they do in Texas -- sit on the porch and shoot anything that moves.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I'm still scared-- stockpiling on water and going to bunker down in my basement, as the projected path of the 'cane brings the eye with a near-direct hit over my residence. Just gotta tough it out and hope they can restore power in a reasonable period of time and damage to life and proprety is minimal.
I know what you mean; I'm in the same boat. I plan to stay safe in the basement until the worst of this storm is over. Of course it's not likely to help much, since I'm in Iowa. Still, better safe than sorry, right?
Seriously though, I don't mean to make light of your predicament, and here's hoping the thing dissipates at least some before pounding the city.
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
"The Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas refers to a designated three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, during which Texas governor Rick Perry asked that Texans pray for "the healing of our land [Texas]" and for an end to the drought."
You know, Texas. Pious, tea bagging Red State. No gays allowed.
"The drought became worse after the Days of Prayer. While only 15-17% of the state was undergoing exceptional drought during the Days of Prayer, the percentage grew to 50% a month later, and by late June, more than 70% of the state was experiencing exceptional drought conditions, a level at which it has stayed up to August 18, 2011."
How you like them apples?
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I was working in World Trade Center #1, on the 95th floor, during the nor'easter of 1992, which if I recall was the remains of a hurricane. It was quite an intense experience; we had the space-saving "rolling file cabinets" that were rolling back and forth on their own, with one finally derailing and spilling files onto the floor (guess who had the job of cleaning it up). Bathroom stall doors were opening and closing by themselves, you could hear a definite creaking from inside the walls, and they were always shutting down the express elevator due to flex.
The thing that was really wild, though, and sadly not to be seen again, was looking out the window and being able to easily make out the other tower swaying as well. I had to keep telling myself "the buildings are designed for this...it's okay!" until it was time to go home.
Large storm? It will be a tropical storm by the time it gets there, assuming it doesn't turn away. High probability of being killed? By what, exactly?
Forcing people to evacuate for something that doesn't even qualify as alarming in most of the country is indeed a nanny state. But I can see you're so afraid of your own shadow, you don't mind armed men forcing people into the streets. There are counties you can go to where that is the norm, why don't you try them on for size.
Great Intellect...
I blame those Keep Austin Weird "people".
After Hurricane Wilma, I had no power for almost four weeks.
Four. Fucking. Weeks.
I didn't live out in BFE, either... I lived in Coral Gables, which is about as hardcore "Central Dade County" as you can get.
That said, here's a big, huge tip for anybody who wants to be able to run a window air conditioner from a generator -- all things equal, the magic minimum is around 3,600 watts. I'd recommend 4200-4800 minimum. Why?
1. The generator's wattage is a polite fiction. The number printed on the box is roughly what it can output for about 5 minutes before Bad Things Happen. The REAL power output it can SUSTAIN is about 80% of that amount, maybe less.
2. Most generators have split-phase power, which is a nice way of saying that the big number printed by the box is kind of divided between two outlets. So your "4800-watt" generator is really more like 2400 watts (max) per outlet (which translates into about 1800 watts per outlet sustained). A small window air conditioner draws about 1200-1500 running watts, and needs about 1800 watts to start up.
Now, the half & half rule isn't quite set in stone... you can usually get away with drawing about 2400 watts (sustained) from a single outlet on a "4000-watt" generator with no load on the other outlet, but then you run into the next problem:
3. Generator run times are usually quoted at "50% load". If you have an air conditioner connected to one outlet of a 4KW generator, it's not really a "50% load", even if it's the only thing you're running. Why? Unbalanced loads make your fuel economy go WAY down. It won't quite suck down as much gas as a 100% load, but from my own experience, it'll act kind of like an 80-90% load fuel-wise. So if you're going to run a window air conditioner from a 4KW generator, you might as well plug the refrigerator (or another small air conditioner) into the other outlet and enjoy it, because at that point it will barely make a dent in your fuel use.
That said, don't go hog wild and buy a 10KW generator without a good reason. Especially not a cheap one. Most cheap generators do a really bad job of throttling down to accommodate reduced loads, and will burn almost as much gas with a nightlight as they will with a 50% load. It's a balancing act, and it's an important one, because if you're going to be feeding a generator for a few days, let alone a few weeks, a $40-50/day gas habit quickly becomes painful.
Oh, I almost forgot... there's one last catch...
4. Generators and UPSes don't get along. At all. 99.9% of the UPSes you can buy at a retail store will ignore electricity from a generator, will run 100% from the battery until it's drained, and shut down. There ARE expensive inverter-type generators that can charge a UPS, and UPSes that can charge from a cheap generator, but both are likely to cost more than it's worth spending.
4b. Generators and some DC power supplies don't get along very well, either. It's hit-or-miss, and hard to tell which power supplies are generator-unfriendly without testing them. Some will operate very, very inefficiently, and some won't work at all. The problem is that cheap (non inverter-type) generators don't output sine waves, and their "dirty" output doesn't play nicely with switching-type power supplies. You MIGHT be able to get around this by "double conversion". After Wilma, I had to power my DSL modem by plugging a 12v adapter into an outlet (which gave me a fake cigarette lighter rated at 1000mA), then plugged an inverter into it (giving me a 110v outlet), then plugged the DSL modem's power supply into the inverter. Ugly in countless ways, but it got me back online.
4c. As a corollary to 4b, most cheap generators suck at battery-charging.
The moral: if you don't need air conditioning, and can afford it, buy an inverter-type generator. They'll play nicely with power supplies (but your UPS might still get bitchy), and low-RPM expensive inverter-type generators also tend to be the quietest and most fuel efficient. Apparently, Honda makes some o
The problem will be the storm surge in the subway tunnels flooding them, and a lot of the power conduits. That will take a long time to drain and repair. And Manhattan without power for a week? Not someplace I want to be...
Funny. No one did that when Ike passed through... But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant or anything.
I have a strong case of it, and the storm isn't supposed to hit here (Maryland) until Sunday at dawn. Thus far, I've been treated to:
1) CNN showing the idiots surfing at Wrightsville Beach, NC. Why encourage it?
2) An interview of some guy from the Discovery Channel with a supposedly hurricane-proof automobile.
3) An ever increasing national media frenzy replete with dramatic, spooky music and lots of interviews with people whose opinions don't count for much.
4) As the storm has decreased in power (so they can't rave about how Katrina-like it is), they've begun speculating about what the poor, benighted, ignorant citizens of New York will actually DO if they're stuck in their apartments for two or three days.
5) An absolutely jaw-dropping interview with Candidate Ron Paul who opines that we should go back to the way hurricanes were handled in 1900. He hails from Galveston, where the most destructive hurricane ever recorded happened in 1900. In other words, he wants the states to help out with funeral pyres so affected cities can burn their dead without Federal intervention.
Since I live in an area that gets the backlash of at least one good hurricane a year, here's what I've done to (gasp) protect myself:
1) Listened to the governor and the state emergency people, as well as the local weather forecasts.
2) Bought gas and hit the ATM.
3) Laid in a good supply of food and snacks that don't need to be cooked--sandwich materials, fruit, cheese, cookies. Likewise laid in a bit of beer. And dry dog food for the dog. Bottled water for self and dog.
4) Frozen up the picnic ice to add to the freezer if the electricity goes out.
5) Made a mental note to charge everything up--laptop, Kindle, iPhone.
6) Checked the flashlights and re-supplied on candles. The kind that Jewish people burn as memorials (that come in little glass jars) are available at grocery stores and make great, safe emergency candles. Blown the dust off the transistor radio and re-supplied it with fresh batteries.
7) Gotten out some lightweight cotton clothes because if the power goes out, it will be hot, unbearably humid, and damp.
8) Put my wellies by the front door.
The practice of people from different regions comparing their various disasters is ludicrous. If you don't think so, try listening to somebody from North Dakota comparing their flood this year to Katrina. It's not worth bothering with unless you happen to work in emergency services. People begin to sound like idiots after a very short time.
Tomorrow night, I'll probably go to bed. I'll be awakened by the storm sometime in the middle of the night, at which point I'll lie there and think about Nature's power and all that maudlin crap. Then, if it sounds bad, I'll get up and fill the bathtub with water (so I can flush), make sure the dog is OK, and curl up with a book until the lights go out--at which point I'll switch to my Kindle.
The only thing I can't do is persuade the dog that it's OK to pee and crap on some newspaper. He's going to be tying himself in knots.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Most of this is correct, but the problem with low-quality output on cheaper generators is not the lack of sine-wave output. Any AC motor will, by definition, put out a nice, true sine wave. The problem, however, is frequency. As frequency output is directly linked to engine speed, a generator loping or at the wrong speed will produce a not-60 cycle output, which UPS's are often designed to watch for and switch to battery.
Modern computer power supples on the other hand, are designed to handle 100-240V, 47-63hz, so a few hz off won't matter at all.
Low-quality inverters put out 60hz, "modified sine-wave" output - something akin to a square-wave with a positive and negative cycle. They work great with modern electronics(though they hum), but motors don't like it.
High-quality, "true-sine" inverters put out just that... more or less.
the looters will get nice, clean firearms after they shoot your eejit head off.
It's ok, if anything bad happens they'll still find a way to blame Bush.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
He'll know when he hits it because it'll flicker with inverted colors like in contra. then when he destroys it it'll just spontaneously explode into a million flickering sprites.
^^^ That reminds me of another caveat -- inrush current. Powerful fans, in particular, are hard to use with generators -- even big ones. I have a Vornado fan (circa 1995) that can almost blow the bark off of a tree when it's running at full speed. My first generator (a 4-stroke 2000-watt baby generator like the one I described above) couldn't run it. I plugged it into the extension cord, turned it on (after starting the generator and letting it stabilize), and the generator literally rocked about 3 inches in the air on one side and choked to a halt as though an invisible hand just grabbed the spinning rotor and forced it to stop. The same generator was able to start a cheap window box fan... but ONLY if I quickly turned the knob from "off" to "medium" and allowed it to stabilize before turning it up to 'high'. If I went directly from "off" to "high", it would stall the generator.
The microwave oven was another thing that the generator didn't like *at all*. I tried using the microwave with generator #2 (5600-watt Craftsman). It worked, but both the microwave and generator made really bad-sounding noises (hard to describe, kind of a buzzing hum that was REALLY loud), and I decided to just forget about trying to use the microwave on generator power due to worries that it would damage the oven, the generator, or both.
That reminds me... if you're in the hurricane's path, do all your laundry now. You can run a washing machine from a generator, but even a whole-house 24-kW Generac is going to struggle with an electric dryer. I don't know about the northeast, but in Florida, clothes lines just don't work during the summer. You can leave clothes hanging on them all day, and they'll STILL be damp when the sun goes down. Post-Wilma, my coworkers and I had to bring damp clothes to the office and hang them on makeshift clotheslines between cubes to get them to dry out in the air conditioning.
The magic required for a switching power supply to like variable frequencies is active PFC. When you have an active PFC, the power supply becomes voltage and frequency agnostic over quite a large range (usually even larger than stated).
This mostly means newer power supplies. They have become more common since the EU has been requiring them. As you noted, essential all computer power supplies are active PFC these days and you find many of the wall wart/line lump adapters are that come with good electronics.
Those should be happy with pretty much anything. Low voltage, high voltage, wrong current, non-sine wave, doesn't much matter to them they should work with it all.
...because as we all know, property is more valuable than life and limb.
I'm no scientist either, but I'm fairly certain both the epicenter of said earthquake, and the projected landfall of Hurricane Irene, are both in the United States.
"I'm still scared-- stockpiling on water and going to bunker down in my basement..."
Dude. Flood. Basement. Dig?
Can you build a hurricane proof home? never dealt with hurricanes but in AR we get twisters all the time and if one of those bastards hits your place unless your ass is in an old Titan II missile silo your shit be pretty well fucked. The one that struck Vilonia even ripped up the entire street!
So I can see you building a place that can take 60MPH winds but at 100MPH+ I just don't see how one could do it without making the thing look like a bomb shelter, and from the pics I've seen of FLA those houses sure don't look like bomb shelters.
As for the people of NYC good luck, hope you manage to keep the looting to a minimum.It never fails to amaze me, the sheer stupidity of criminals who will risk everything for a widescreen, fucking idiots. We usually have to call out the guard after a twister because it doesn't matter that there are power lines snapping and trees and homes that could fall over if you look at them funny, stupid fucking criminals will be out there trying to snatch a widescreen.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"I would think that your refrigerator would be the highest priority. Is there a reason you don't mention that?"
Not needed.
The first few days after a natural disaster, everyone is eating BBQ cooked over an open fire. Eat all the meat before it goes bad (and drink all the beer before it gets warm!). I know that sounds trailer-trash, but trust me, everyone is thinking the same thing when they get into such a situation.
After the Loma Prieta Earthquake, my whole street was pretty much a three-day block party. Most gas lines were broken, water was hard to come by, EVERYONE had a freezer of meat, no electricity for weeks and the weather was awesome. Nobody could get anywhere, including work. Lot of drinking, lot of good food and a lot of people in exactly the same boat as I. Earthquake aside (not to mention the demolished house), it was actually kind of nice.
Besides, which would you prefer to do--keep yourself comfortable, or a bunch of dead animals comfortable?
Seconded on the inverter-type generators. They're very expensive to buy, per-watt, but they'll pay for themselves in fuel (and noise and weight) if you use them much.
After a flood which killed a bunch of underground electrical infrastructure, I was charged with keeping a generator online on top of a 12-story building to power some local law enforcement radio gear.
At first, we had a smallish Honda with an inverter. This drove a UPS and the gear just fine, and had a small fuel tank which would keep it running almost 24 hours.
So, about every 20 hours I trundled up the stairs to refuel the thing. It was a pain, but it worked. It was light-weight and quiet, even under load.
Then, it died. No idea why it died, but it failed to start. (But it wasn't my generator, and I didn't have the tools to work on it. But the oil was good, so I'm sure whatever happened was simple to fix.)
So we brought up a replacement -- a 5,000 Watt conventional unit. This thing failed to drive a UPS, and needed a lot more fuel twice as often to keep it running. I have no idea how much it weighed but it, and the fuel, got a lot heavier with every flight of stairs, and it made the same hard-to-shout-over racket whether it was doing work or just loafing along. Keeping that thing fed with fuel every 8-12 hours really fucked up my sleep habits that week.
This experience has taught me that if I ever buy a generator for my own household purposes (which I should: we get tornados, floods, and blizzards here), it'll either be a big, fixed Generac running from natural gas, or a portable unit built around an inverter.
Kid-proof tablet..
Wrong. The NHC badly needs to come up with a tiered rating system for severe weather. The simple, cut-and-dried Category 1-5 scale doesn't cut it and desperately needs to be changed.
In real life, the size of a storm (Irene is HUGE), how fast it's moving (wildcard, we're not sure yet) and the tide levels at the time of landfall (good chance that they'll be at high tide) are all key factors. Even if Irene has dropped to tropical depression status by the time it hits Long Island, NY, it could still cause major destruction and loss of life, because it's going to piss megatons of rain, hour after hour, on an area that's not used to that kind of precipitation.
A large tropical storm, especially if it hits an unprepared area, can cause more chaos than a major hurricane that hits an area that's used to it.
Yes, the news media needs to quit being so sensational, and there's no doubt that they overhyped Irene. But speaking as someone who's made it through several hurricanes, they're no fun. At all. When I was living in NC, Fran followed I-95 up through Raleigh. We had hurricane-force gusts where I lived (to the west of Fayetteville/Ft. Bragg), but we still lost power for about a week, and there was significant damage all over the area. One of my friends was very nearly killed when he was blown dozens of feet through his back yard.
And remember, all of this was well away from the "center" or "eye" of the hurricane.
Today's joke: I moved to Alabama, in part, to get away from hurricanes. Not only have I -- thus far -- had to endure Ivan and Katrina, the big fun here is tornadoes, as witness the horrible storms of April 27th. And this makes the point, too, about focusing on intensities, instead of all conditions ... the tornado that hit our neighborhood the morning of April 27th was "only" a little F1 or F2, and in fact, was dissipating by the time it passed over us. It still ripped my neighbor's house, two doors up, off the foundation. It was a total loss. Thank God, no one in our little neighborhood was hurt (the neighbors in question were on vacation at the time), but trust me, there's nothing quite like waking up to the sound of a freight train and the whole house shaking. :)
Yes, the news media sensationalizes these things. Yes, they focus entirely too much on simple category numbers. And yes, governments tend to overreact, too, but part of that is "CYA" (or "CTA," I guess). Strong storms are unpredictable, and even when they're dissipating, you can get terrible effects in localized areas. There's no way to predict precisely where these effects will occur. Safer just to tell people to get out of town for a few days.
But don't dismiss Irene just because she's "only" a category 1 or a strong tropical storm as she moves up the East coast. Unless she stays well off shore, you're going to be surprised at the damage. Speaking from experience.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
re: block party - the three streets of my neighborhood (Dallas, Texas) were out of power for almost two days recently from a spring storm. I was amazed at how friendly everyone was, just coping with the power outage and telling stories *gasp* being sociable. It was about 95F with 100% humidity at 10pm, and the entire neighborhood was out and about, sitting on the front porch with coolers full of ice and beer from the one corner store in the area that had power. I met all sorts of great new neighbors who lived around me. Sadly once the power (and more importantly) AC kicked back on, everyone went back inside and I haven't seen any of them since.
The neighborhood is full of houses with giant front porches and swing benches, with manicured outdoor seating areas in the front of the house. If you go north about 10 miles where houses were built after 1970 when AC became cheap and readily available, there's a striking complete lack of front porches, or even trees in the front yard. Technology like air conditioning has isolated neighbors, yet the internet brings complete strangers together.
moox. for a new generation.
Is it not something like 120mph winds, though? Why are they causing this much disruption?
Here in Scotland we call that January...
My property is more valuable than some looter's life and limb.
Sure, life is unfair and the world is unequal. But getting your head turned into a canoe is a real risk if you try to take what belongs to someone else during a natural disaster. If this weren't true, there would be a lot more looting.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
5. Running a PC directly from a generator without some kind of UPS or voltage conditioning is very bad news. I had to replace a few power supplies on a few Sun machines from someone that did that because they were in a hurry.
Yah, when we went through Katrina, it was waaaay different. We only ordered a mandatory evacuation of the City, instead of a mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas.
Didn't know that, did you? Yes, we executed our standard mandatory evacuation plan a couple days before Katrina hit. Worked exactly as designed, in that pretty much anyone who wanted to evacuate did.
Note that the people who remained didn't remain because they had nowhere to go and no way to get there. They didn't evacuate because, for the most part, they remembered Betsy, and Katrina was a baby compared to Betsy.
Note also that the majority of the Katrina damage in N'Awlins was a result of a levee breach. Unpredicatable, and unpredicted. Even worse, in the aftermath of Katrina, the authorities prevented people from returning to their homes in the area for a couple months. Much of the damage to individual houses would have been vastly reduced if people had been on hand as the floodwaters receded to clean things up, rather than leaving entire neighborhoods to (literally) rot for a month or two....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Gun oil evaporates enough to lubricate poorly after just three days.
Quit using CLP. :) It's designed for military use where their guns are maintained frequently. Or Kroil... it's designed to creep, not to stay.
I use Tetra. I had a rifle in storage for over a year and when I inspected it before use, I found the oil still right where it should be. Mobil 1 also works well in this regard, as do many heavier-weight gun oils.
Cue the movie trailer guy:
... fights against the power of nature.
In the eye of the Hurricane...
"... latest forecasts say that hurricane Irene is going to strike Long Island within 24 hours."
a dedicated system administrator...
"This box has 1000 days uptime. It's not going down on my watch!"
"Johnny, we're being evacuated - we have to go!"
"No! The mainframe stays; I stay!"
One man. One server. One mission.
Coming this summer... Irene.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Or a properly constructed building like St. Johns Hospital. That and several other large buildings have been struck by F5 tornadoes, without major structural damage and no wind-related fatalities. (5 patients on ventilators suffocated in St. Johns when the power cut out and emergency generators failed as well.) All that despite the fact that such large structures are much more vulnerable and exposed to wind than smaller structures.
Americans are pretending that tornadoes are an act of a vengeful god or something, and there is no use to do anything about them anyway. But in fact, the reason why you see endless rows of houses reduced to slaps of concrete by tornadoes - as most recently in Joplin - is lousy and inappropriate building standards first and foremost.
If you are building a house in an area that is very well known to be tornado-prone, which cannot structurally survive a tornado, you've only got yourself to blame when a slap of concrete is all that is left after one of them strikes.
I sincerely apologize should that comment hit too close to home.
You weren't around for the blackout of '03 then I guess. It's no big deal unless you absolutely need refrigeration. But then that prompts all of the restaurants to cook and practically give away all of their food. It's better than letting it go to waste.
Almost every large building has and will be running on backup generators. After the numerous generator critical failures during '03, it shouldn't be an issue anymore for anyone. Last time was bad because a lot of generators had been sitting around rusting for years without any use. For many such places, there were enough generators that failed to make it a pretty close call. This time, you won't have electricity to run your computer or AC, but your building's hallways, and any other bit of critical infrastructure, will.
The biggest issue is water, which will only have enough pressure to reach around the 4th and 5th floors of most buildings. That's why people buy cases of bottled water and fill their tubs in advance. It's probably the most crucial thing. Though if you ask, people will help you fill up your buckets from their faucet on the first or second floor.
The other major problem is powering back on. Last time, it had to be done in zones over several days. That was a pain. But most outer boroughs experience enough power loss enough times a year for it to be nothing more than a minor inconvenience. At least it's not the middle of a 100+ heat wave. That's when places usually suffer power loss.
All in all, it can be a fairly pleasant experience.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
In Florida, homes are theoretically built to survive up to category 3 storms. After that, it's a question of how far you are from the shore, and how far you are from the eye of the storm, and whether or not there was any non-approved construction. Even newer trailer homes are built to survive hurricanes. The eye-wall has the most intense winds, which is followed by an eerie calm for a few hours, followed by some more of the most intense winds. Wind speed dies off rapidly as you get farther away from the eye-wall.
As far as building techniques are concerned, the main thing is windows are required to be "hurricane windows", meaning that they will stop a 10-foot long, 15-pound, wooden 2x4 traveling at 100 miles flying through the air (they break in the process), and have a film on them so that when they break, they don't shatter into small sharpened projectiles. Roofs also have some additional structural support so that they don't get pulled off. (Simpson Ties) And there are some things regarding elevation above sea level.
I just can't imagine living in a society that thinks a firearm is a useful tool in an emergency. Yes, we have bad guys, but we don't have this wild west world view that makes shooting people who are only stealing ok. Only protecting people warrants using lethal force. Our bad guys are very unlikely to try to kill us to get our stuff. We just call the police. I don't know anyone who's moral beliefs support killing to protect property.
We had some bad wild fires last year, and there was a big evacuation. There was some theft, but no one died. The police did a pretty good job protecting the town.
Anarchists never rule
> Can you build a hurricane proof home?
Yes. Build the walls and roof from reinforced concrete using ICF, use impact-glass windows rated for large missiles, then put shutters over the windows anyway. Put concrete walls between the garage and interior of your house, and isolate the attic space above the garage from the rest of your house. The idea is to ensure that if/when the garage door gets blown in, the wind can't get to the rest of your house.