DangerousR6
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Everyone on the east coast still with us? I know we got some peeps out that way.. :redflag:
Sandy
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reluctant-builder
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Yup. Still here. My section of Brooklyn was barely affected.
Thanks for the shout!
Thanks for the shout!
It was another Katrina-like storm, more water than wind. But if you put enough water where it's not supposed to go, yeek. We got nothing more than some rain, the power never even died. But it's just blind luck that the Eastern Shore's inside edge escaped and somebody else got whacked. Having spent so much time in Florida hiding from the buggers, I kinda know more than I want to. The main thing to remember is that even if you get a false alarm like this was for us, or three false alarms or eleven, you'd be an idiot not to respect the thing and fill up a few buckets of water and buy a box of crackers.
They kill far more people in the days following than when they hit - "heck, anybody can use a chainsaw, I saw it on TV...." And it remains an absolute, repeatable fact that most of the immediate deaths come from people who "go down to the beach to watch the waves come in"... you might say Yay! Darwin in action! but these people are at very least the spiritual heirs of Little Ogg Jr, caveman-in-training, who brings home the cute little kitten, but my, kitty has long teeth... I suspect there are a few things like horniness & violence you'll just never breed out of the human species, and "stupidity" tops that list.
They kill far more people in the days following than when they hit - "heck, anybody can use a chainsaw, I saw it on TV...." And it remains an absolute, repeatable fact that most of the immediate deaths come from people who "go down to the beach to watch the waves come in"... you might say Yay! Darwin in action! but these people are at very least the spiritual heirs of Little Ogg Jr, caveman-in-training, who brings home the cute little kitten, but my, kitty has long teeth... I suspect there are a few things like horniness & violence you'll just never breed out of the human species, and "stupidity" tops that list.
Great Ape
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Maybe I misunderstood Doug's question-I heard "Are you OK", not "How stupid are you?". The Connecticut shore and several miles inland got pounded by 60+mph winds and a full moon tide 11ft higher than 'usual'. Not even an estimate yet on when power will be restored...stores low on food, gas lines at stations that actually have gas, etc. I, personally, am truly one of the lucky ones-I'm surrounded by 100 & 200 foot trees at my new house, and NONE of them came down! Others were not so fortunate. Much general destruction from wind and water-you've all seen enough footage by now-you know what I'm saying. Thanks for asking, Doug; I did understand your question, i was just a bit taken aback by Stubhead's post...still am, actually...StubHead said:
I didn't mean to insult the entire species... it was a monster storm, but 60 mph winds aren't going to take down trees - except when the ground is thoroughly soaked so the roots can't hold, which is what's happened. And the other dangerous things are caused by people leaving stuff out to blow around - which is a natural consequence of these types of storms being so rare up there. Canoes and satellite dishes need to be secured if there's a hurricane warning, but that information just won't penetrate until the second or third disaster, I'm afraid. I was living in Miami when Andrew went overhead, but that was somewhat different - steady winds at 160mph, gusting to whatever it took to break all the wind gauges that could only read to 200mph. And when 50 and 70 foot cabin cruisers wind up a few miles inland from the marinas, the question of what could we have done different is harder.
And we're going to be seeing more and more of this stuff. I'm one of those people who believe that there is global warming, but whether or not the human contribution is significant doesn't really matter... what matters is the response. And separating plastic from glass in the trash is a "feelgood" buzz, but figuring out where the coastline is going to be and what to do with soon-to-be-submerged places like New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Miami, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Houston, San Francisco Portland etc. would be a more productive activity - the "warming" is so far past the tipping point it's nuts, but no politician of any party can get elected talking about unpleasantries. Writer Michael Crichton got essentially hounded out of public life for trying to say something similar.
People will be people, we tend to want to rebuild right on the same spot that just got wiped out because we see it as brave & persistent & the little-engine-that-could; it took until 2005 and four hurricanes in a row hitting Florida that the insurance companies just flat refused to issue any more policies on 30-story beachfront condos built on sand foundations - they were still re-building the ones that Hurricanes Ivan, Charley and Frances trashed in 2004. I suspect that American's addiction to disaster movies and apocalypso plots help to "normalize" the real stuff to the point that lessons just aren't learned here. One of the reason we have such a yawning gulf between our international positions and those of Europe is that they've had huge floods in places like Prague & Dresden & Rumania, where cities had built up over centuries because it "never" flooded there.
I'm sorry, I'm going off. I certainly didn't mean to treat this as trivial, I'm still trying to find out about a friend (& w.& 3k) who lives/lived in Sea Girt... I don't know enough to say "it'll get worse before it gets better", but I do know enough to say "it'll get worse." Maybe, just maybe, we're not all supposed to live at the beach, maybe we're not supposed to run electric trains below sea level. There are choices here.
And we're going to be seeing more and more of this stuff. I'm one of those people who believe that there is global warming, but whether or not the human contribution is significant doesn't really matter... what matters is the response. And separating plastic from glass in the trash is a "feelgood" buzz, but figuring out where the coastline is going to be and what to do with soon-to-be-submerged places like New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Miami, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Houston, San Francisco Portland etc. would be a more productive activity - the "warming" is so far past the tipping point it's nuts, but no politician of any party can get elected talking about unpleasantries. Writer Michael Crichton got essentially hounded out of public life for trying to say something similar.
People will be people, we tend to want to rebuild right on the same spot that just got wiped out because we see it as brave & persistent & the little-engine-that-could; it took until 2005 and four hurricanes in a row hitting Florida that the insurance companies just flat refused to issue any more policies on 30-story beachfront condos built on sand foundations - they were still re-building the ones that Hurricanes Ivan, Charley and Frances trashed in 2004. I suspect that American's addiction to disaster movies and apocalypso plots help to "normalize" the real stuff to the point that lessons just aren't learned here. One of the reason we have such a yawning gulf between our international positions and those of Europe is that they've had huge floods in places like Prague & Dresden & Rumania, where cities had built up over centuries because it "never" flooded there.
I'm sorry, I'm going off. I certainly didn't mean to treat this as trivial, I'm still trying to find out about a friend (& w.& 3k) who lives/lived in Sea Girt... I don't know enough to say "it'll get worse before it gets better", but I do know enough to say "it'll get worse." Maybe, just maybe, we're not all supposed to live at the beach, maybe we're not supposed to run electric trains below sea level. There are choices here.
DangerousR6
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Glad to hear that Greg, just wanted to check on everybody. :icon_thumright:Great Ape said:
StubHead said:
the wind will take down dead trees for sure. really depends on the tree. ever greens are gonna be ok but oaks and other trees with out stretched branches will lose branches that weigh easily several hundred pounds. believe me 60mph wind does damage in the north east. but don't get me wrong this was no hurricane Irene. atleast not in my area. we didn't get much rain but i guess it was worse closer to the coast.
Great Ape
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Nearer to the coast, this one made Irene look like a proverbial zephyr (always wanted to use that word!), and there are hundreds of trees scattered about-not to mention cars & houses-that may not share the opinion that 60mph winds won't take 'em down. Just got news that United Illuminating "estimates" that 95% of customers will have power restored by midnight on Monday, Nov. 5th...I'm guessing that's so we can all be showered & caffeinated on our joyous jaunt to the voting booth...Heh-Heh..... :toothy12:
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No one will miss Houston.
Great Ape said:
yeah i heard long island was pretty bad, conneticuit had all the highways closed and all the bridges from the tappen zee south were closed. i saw pics of parts of manhatten under water. but irene hit the mountains in ny and the water had nowhere to go but down. i was at a wedding up near newpaltz furing irene and during the ride we were nearly washed off the road from rushing water. we made it just in time, other guests had to try 5-6 routes before they could find one that worked. then i had no way home the next day. all the road werre not just closed they were under water. lots and lots of water. the hudson, wallkill and every river, stream, creek, brook and drainage ditch overstretched there banks filling feilds, road ways and taking any low bridges downstream. asphalt was literally lifted from roads leaving patches of mud where the road used to be. areas that have never seen a flood in the 25+ years i lived here were knee, waist and in some cases chest deep in water and it took days to drain. i can't speak for other areas but irene was the worst flood i've ever been through. this storm was really pretty standard up here. but i guess i might be saying different if i was in long island.
Here's a video of the New Jersey coast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRAdgh9VH0o&feature=related
That's "Seaside Heights" New Jersey, but they were lying about the "heights" part. It's about 14 miles from "Sea Girt" which looks just about the same. I guess the lesson is, if you live in some place with "Sea" in the name... I dunno. My sister lives in St. Louis, and there are areas all along the whole Mississippi River - Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Missouri, where people build their homes on the bottoms of old river beds. And every seven or eleven or twenty years, they get flooded out, it's a "natural" disaster, they get their insurance check and rebuild their home - at the bottom of the river bed. The only deal is, the insurance companies are starting to balk (after they've been taking your money for years....)
It's a tough call - when I was a kid there used to be "wildfires" out west all the time. And now every time there's a fire, it's threatening hundreds of homes. Same place, same fire, only now there's hundreds of homes in it's way - there had to be some kind of de-regulatory shift, or maybe if you just have so-oo much money, you're allowed to build your house wherever you want.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRAdgh9VH0o&feature=related
That's "Seaside Heights" New Jersey, but they were lying about the "heights" part. It's about 14 miles from "Sea Girt" which looks just about the same. I guess the lesson is, if you live in some place with "Sea" in the name... I dunno. My sister lives in St. Louis, and there are areas all along the whole Mississippi River - Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Missouri, where people build their homes on the bottoms of old river beds. And every seven or eleven or twenty years, they get flooded out, it's a "natural" disaster, they get their insurance check and rebuild their home - at the bottom of the river bed. The only deal is, the insurance companies are starting to balk (after they've been taking your money for years....)
It's a tough call - when I was a kid there used to be "wildfires" out west all the time. And now every time there's a fire, it's threatening hundreds of homes. Same place, same fire, only now there's hundreds of homes in it's way - there had to be some kind of de-regulatory shift, or maybe if you just have so-oo much money, you're allowed to build your house wherever you want.
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