Category: Disastrous

Freedom!

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

viloniadamage

This is where that nasty government regulation comes in handy. If only tornadoes didn’t happen so much in the states with the most minimal building codes, where they consider regulation to be an infringement on their freedom:

VILONIA — The National Weather Service (NWS) reports there has been speculation about why the Arkansas tornado received a EF-4 rating despite the fact that numerous homes were removed from their foundations with only slabs remaining.

“Years ago, that might be justification for an F5 rating on the original Fujita scale,” a writer on the NWS website explains. “These days, the quality of the construction is examined before a rating is assigned. One of the factors determining the rating is the use of anchor bolts.”

As shown in the picture, the home to left in the Vilonia (Faulkner County) area had cut nails instead of anchor bolts to fasten the structure to the foundation.

In fact, according to the article, in Vilonia (Faulkner County), there was little indication of anchor bolts where homes once stood.

At a subdivision to the southwest of town, the official survey results read,”Houses completely destroyed; only slabs remaining at several places. No anchor bolts used in foundations.”

So what does this mean?

While the article points out using cut nails to secure homes to the foundation is widely practiced and the minimum standard in most of the building codes – Dr. David Prevatt, Associate Professor of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida says they may not provide enough security in high winds.

“It is my opinion that cut nails can only be considered a temporary connection while installing a wall,” Dr. Prevatt says. “They are in no way, shape or form have the capacity to resist the sliding loads or the uplift loads reduced by high winds that impact the walls of a building.”

Which means, without those anchor bolts, it took less wind to sweep houses away in Vilonia. This explains the EF4, and not EF-5, rating the NWS ultimately gave.

Oh, stop

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

A15-Fukushima Dai-ichi Sakae Nuclear Plant/Fukushima Dai-ichi Power Station Shrine

I’m sure it’ll all be fine:

A government-backed plan for a frozen underground wall to limit water contamination at the wrecked Fukushima atomic station needs further vetting for potential risks to the environment, an adviser to the plant’s operator said.

The plan, which is intended to keep groundwater from seeping into the basements of the plant’s damaged reactor buildings, may not function as intended because it’s based on untested assumptions about the site’s hydrology, said Dale Klein, who chairs Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee.

“Are there any unintended consequences?” Klein asked at a press conference today in Tokyo. “We’re concerned about safety and environmental protection.”

Thanks to Kush Arora.

Massive tornado outbreak

~ susie

Massive damage and at least 18 dead through Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma last night. Tornado warnings issued this morning in Tennessee and here we are, waiting to see what this imaginary global warming will inflict on the rest of the country this week:

At least 31 tornadoes ripped through the Plains and South on Sunday, leaving at least 18 people dead and forecasters warning that the worst may be yet to come.

Rescuers in Arkansas searched through the rubble overnight in suburban Little Rock where a tornado that was up to half a mile wide touched down just west of the city on Sunday, flattening homes and flipping cars and trucks in its path.

At least 16 people were killed in the state as the twister touched down at dusk and left behind a miles-long path of destruction. Deaths were also reported Oklahoma and Iowa.

“It is utter and sheer devastation”

The towns of Mayflower and Vilonia in Arkansas’ Faulkner County — which has population of just above 100,000 — were hardest hit, with at least 10 dead and dozens of homes destroyed.

“What I’m seeing is something that I cannot describe in words,” Sheriff Andy Shock told NBC News. “It is utter and sheer devastation.”

He said rescue crews were trying to be optimistic, but expected the death toll could climb once daylight hits.

“We’re praying not but there’s no telling,” he said, adding local landmarks were leveled and that at a “bare minimum” 150 homes were destroyed.

By the way, they’re predicting ice on Lake Superior into June. That’s the new normal!

Oil exec: Fracking technology is ‘dangerous and untested’

~ susie

Barton Moss Fracking Test Well

See, this guy actually believes that the truth has something to do with these decisions. Isn’t that cute?

“In a message “straight from the horse’s mouth,” a former oil executive on Tuesday urged New York state to pass a ban on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, saying, ‘it is not safe.’

“Making fracking safe is simply not possible, not with the current technology, or with the inadequate regulations being proposed,” Louis Allstadt, former executive vice president of Mobil Oil, said during a news conference in Albany called by the anti-fracking group Elected Officials to Protect New York.

Up until his retirement in 2000, Allstadt spent 31 years at Mobil, running its marketing and refining division in Japan and managing Mobil’s worldwide supply, trading and transportation operations. After retiring to Cooperstown, NY, Allstadt said he began studying fracking after friends asked him if he thought it would be safe to have gas wells drilled by nearby Lake Otsego, where Allstadt has a home. Since that time, he’s become a vocal opponent of the shale oil and gas drilling technique.
“Now the industry will tell you that fracking has been around a long time. While that is true, the magnitude of the modern technique is very new,” Allstadt said, adding that a fracked well can require 50 to 100 times the water and chemicals compared to non-fracked wells.

He also noted that methane, up to 30 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is found to be leaking from fracked wells “at far greater rates than were previously estimated.”

Frack you, too

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Natural Gas Rig

This certainly cheered me up!

A family claiming they were sickened because of pollution from hydraulic fracturing operations near their home should be awarded $2.95 million for their troubles, a jury ruled on Tuesday.

The Parr family had sued Aruba Petroleum Inc. in 2011, alleging the oil and gas producer exposed them to hazardous gases, chemicals and industrial waste that seeped into the air from 22 wells drilled near the family’s 40-acre plot of land, which sits atop the Barnett Shale.

The jury returned a 5-1 verdict saying Aruba “intentionally created a private nuisance,” awarding $275,000 for losses on property value, $2 million for past physical pain and suffering, $250,000 for future physical pain and suffering, and $400,000 for mental anguish.

“They’re vindicated,” David Matthews, one of the Parr’s attorneys, wrote on his firm’s blog Tuesday. “I’m really proud of the family that went through what they went through … It’s not easy to go through a lawsuit and have your personal life uncovered and exposed to the extent this family went through.”

Uh oh

~ susie

Dangerous Tornado Threat to Arise From Texas to Nebraska This Weekend

Massive tornado outbreak this weekend:

Spring 2014 has been a quiet tornado season thus far, but that’s about to change this weekend, if the predicted forecasts that meteorologists are looking at hold true. Weather experts say conditions are lining up for a series of powerful tornadoes to hit an area ranging between Tennessee and Texas from Saturday through Monday. The National Weather Service predicts a “significant multi-day severe event” in the South plains on Sunday, moving into the Mississippi Valley on Monday.

The extreme warnings stem from an interaction between an East-moving low-pressure system over the Rockies mixing with wetness from the Gulf of Mexico. That will cause the creation of supercell thunderstorms, Slate’s Eric Holthaus explains, all kept in place in the South-Southwest by a high-pressure system in Canada. That makes the area ripe for a “big severe threat” this weekend, according to The Weather Channel, an extra level on top of today’s “severe threat.”

Holthaus notes that the best historical comparisons to a weather pattern like this point to some of the worst tornado outbreaks in U.S. history. That includes the April 26, 1991, stretch of tornadoes from Texas to Iowa that caused a billion dollars in damage and included a rare F5-strength tornado. For those in need of a refresher, here are FEMA’s guidelines for how to prepare for tornadoes.

R.I.P.

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Korean Ferry Capsized

This is so sad:

SEOUL, South Korea — Police say a high school vice principal who had been rescued from a sinking South Korean ferry has been found hanging from a tree.

The news of the death came Friday as rescuers scrambled to find hundreds of people still missing from the ferry and feared dead. The passengers included 325 second-year students from Danwon High School heading to a southern island on a four-day trip.

A police officer says the vice principal, identified only by his surname Kang, was found dead on the island of Jindo where rescued passengers have taken shelter. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity citing department rules. He didn’t elaborate.

Ho hum

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Smokestack at sunset in Prescott

The highest levels in 800K years? Hmm. Maybe someone should pay attention, or something:

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that drives climate change, hit 402 parts per million this week — the highest level recorded in at least 800,000 years.

The recordings came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which marked another ominous milestone last May when the 400 ppm threshold was crossed for the first time in recorded history.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels spike every spring but this year the threshold was crossed in March, two months earlier than last year. In fact, it’s happening “at faster rates virtually every decade,” according to James Butler, Director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division, a trend that “is consistent with rising fossil fuel emissions.”

400 ppm was long considered a very serious measurement but it isn’t the end — it’s just a marker on the road to ever-increasing carbon pollution levels, Butler explained in an interview on NOAA’s website. “It is a milestone, marking the fact that humans have caused carbon dioxide concentrations to rise 120 ppm since pre-industrial times, with over 90 percent of that in the past century alone. We don’t know where the tipping points are.”

When asked if the 400 ppm will be reached even earlier next year, Butler responded simply, “Yes. Every year going forward for a long time.”

While atmospheric CO2 levels never approached 400 ppm in the 800,000 years of detailed records scientists have, there is evidence that the last time the Earth experienced such high concentrations was actually several million years ago. Writing about the 400 ppm recording last year, climatologist Peter Gleick pointed to UCLA research “that suggested we would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels approaching today’s levels” and another article in the journal Paleoceanography “on paleoclimatic records that suggest CO2 concentrations (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) may have been around 400 ppm between 2 and 4.6 million years ago.”

Heartbleed

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

UPDATE via Steveeboy: Paypal not affected. Check this list of sites or try this. If you use Chrome, you can add this extension to warn you of any unsafe website.

I am so tired of changing my passwords. One of my friends told me I should use a password service that generates a random stream of characters — but who’s to say that can’t be hacked? I’m at the point where I think I just want to pay cash and buy things in person:

The cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, who has been writing about computer security for more than fifteen years, is not given to panic or hyperbole. So when he writes, of the “catastrophic bug” known as Heartbleed, “On the scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11,” it’s safe to conclude that the Internet has a serious problem. The bug, which was announced on Tuesday—complete with an explanatory Web site and a bleeding-heart logo—is a vulnerability in a widely used piece of encryption software called OpenSSL.

Heartbleed is as bad as it is possible for a security flaw to be. It can be easily exploited by anyone on the Internet without leaving a trace, and it can be used to obtain login names, passwords, credit-card information, and even the keys that keep our encrypted communications safe from eavesdroppers. The bug first appeared in OpenSSL code that was released in March, 2012—so the vulnerability has been open to exploitation for more than two years. The Internet-security firm Netcraft reported that up to five hundred thousand sites thought to be secure were, in fact, vulnerable—including Twitter, Yahoo, Tumblr, and Dropbox.