Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
Or the media, rather. They love this. Hurricane headed for one of the biggest markets in the country. Even if it ends up being a dud, they can still spend a day going after the meteorologists who correctly predicted it, even when the media did not, and get their ratings fill. It's a win-win for them.
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.
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"?
"the cities coastal areas"
This is what journalism has come to. Writers who can't fucking write.
"Bring it Irene."
Rule #1: Do Not Taunt.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Also, once you have Irene cornered, no monologueing.
Good for you. We'll come and dump 4 feet of snow on you overnight, and "laugh at the big deal you make out of it" as you try desperately to dig yourselves out with no/not enough plows, shovels, snowblowers, and tire chains.
Look. Different regions get different types of weather. How'd your last ice storm go? Because ours gave us a day or two of trouble. Same with the blizzard we had this winter - 4 feet of snow in one day, and cleared out the next. But that's because we plan for snow, ice, and harsh winters in general. Oh your car won't start? Should have used a block heater, how stupid of you. But you'll only need it once? Drama queen...
In the Northeast, we don't get hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes. In California, you don't get much snow or ice, or sub-zero temperatures (or tornadoes). So you have building codes that handle earthquakes, and we have plows and snowblowers. We plan for typical events, and don't waste our limited resources on highly unusual events. Neither of us would be very prepared for an F3 blowing through town, but are you going to call yourself a drama queen for being bummed that your house is a half-mile in the air?
I think people do this to feel superior. I don't get it. But New Englanders were doing the same thing when DC shut down over 3 inches of snow, so it's not just you.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
"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.
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
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.
Volcanoes are nothing, wait till you mistake something for a small moon.
Signed,
Alderaan X-Resident
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
^^^ 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.
"I'm still scared-- stockpiling on water and going to bunker down in my basement..."
Dude. Flood. Basement. Dig?
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.
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
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.