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Hurricane katrina

  • Thread starter Lauderdale
  • Start date
  • #21
I have lived in Florida for 45 years and have lived through enough hurricanes.  Katrina is the last.  I have had enough of living in a dark unairconditioned house and eating cold ham and cheese sandwiches for ten days.  That is why I sold my house and rented an apartment on the beach.
When the next hurricane is four days away, I will simply lock the door, drive to the airport, park my car on the fourth floor of the parking garage and board a plane for Vegas or Reno.

This is a photo of the eight to ten foot waves.  Notice the offshore winds blowing the tops off.
hurricane.sized.jpg
 
  • #22
Good for you Lauderdale!  I applaud you. My aunt retired down there and she shares the same sentiments. She doesn’t have a decent car though so she hops on a Greyhound bus (cheap) and goes to stay with her son and daughter in law. The first time she got stuck. She didn’t realize the storm would be so bad because people were all acting as if nothing was amiss and neighbors took care of her. There won’t be a second time. She bails ship now.

Rattler, evidently you are aware of the refinery "situation" however at this point, I doubt the general public is.  Everyone will begin educating themselves if gas hits $5 a gallon. Perhaps it is time for the EPA to work with potential investors as opposed to against them. Incidentally, more often than not, I support the EPA. This time, I believe them to have been obstructive and their actions are clearly not in favor of the little guy who is dependent upon a vehicle to get to work to make an honest living.

How would I prepare a city for this kind of thing?  Tough question as I do not have the knowledge or experience to be in a position to comment intelligently however I have a few lame brain ideas. Subsidized rapid mass public transportation leading in and out of New Orleans. I'd hire the most competent structural engineers and city planners money could buy and put them on staff for the city. No new structures would be able to be constructed that were incapable of withstanding at the very least, a cat 3 hurricane. Tougher building and zoning laws and it goes without saying... no permits would be issued for additions and/or alterations to existing structures that did not include improvements and/or betterments. I might even be so inclined to propose a cease and desist on any and all new residential construction within the levees unless parking garages occupied the first floor and businesses and retail establishments occupied the next two stories leaving higher elevations for residential occupancies. Existing structures would be grandfathered... until they transferred hands or rather were sold. Bottom line, make businesses pay if they want to set up shop in that city. The other thought would be to require that all future construction be dependent upon site elevation increases. I’m sure there are situations where even a 6’ grade change could mean the difference between a property suffering a loss or not. Last but not least, good time for parks and recreation expansions? Seriously, I don’t know what I’d do were I in a position to affect change but I’d feel compelled to look at long term city planning that systematically and methodically over a period of decades moved the people up or out. Oh yes... one more thing... I'd propose ordinances that prohibited the use of anything other than native plants in landscape designs to better insure that hurricane winds didn't spread introduced species to other areas of the state or other states for that matter. Yup, my own Village is proposing just such an ordinance, again, right now and they would like to prohibit the planting of any species that is not indigenous to North America or a cultivar of same. They almost passed the ordinance last time. There are many communities around me that have chosen this route already and they provide residents with lists of "approved" plants and nurseries that sell approved plants.

So there you go Rattler,  how'd I do answering your question?
 
  • #23
i wouldnt say im completely aware of the refinery situation but i know i have more knowlege on the situation that the average Joe. im with you in that i generally support the EPA but we need more refineries and also a very serious look into ethanol production. any engine out there can run on atleast a 10/90 ethanol/gasoline mix, some of the newer GM models can run on almost 90% ethanol. its a renuable resource, the waste products can be fed to cattle and other livestock and is far safer the the risky mad cow disease producing feed that is often used now. just setup feed lots near the ethanol plants. ethonal may not be the answer to all the problems with our dependance on foriegn oil but i believe its a possable solution that can start now. this thread is getting a bit off topic isnt it?

as far as your "how to prepare a city" remarks and ideas. i think they are very good and most high risk areas should definatly take a serious look at them
 
  • #24
New refineries aren't considered profitable investments, EPA or no EPA.  They require enormous capital investments over a long period of time and gas prices are too volatile for that.  Big companies like reliable investments and more reliable money can be made by putting the same money into oil reserves.  And. if they don't build new refineries, major oil companies make even greater profits on the gallons they do refine.  They know their economics better than we do and, with their enormous clout, if major oil companies wanted new refineries, they'd have new refineries.

It seems doubtful that ethanol provides any significant energy savings and some analyses say it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it yields.  Corn needs lots of nitrogen fertilizer and nitrogen fertilizer production consumes vast energy.  Add in all the incidental energy consumption of industrial agriculture and, if there's any energy gain by producing ethanol, it's minimal.  But it gives big $ into Archer Daniels Midland Corporation, which has a near monopoly on ethanol production, and to very agrichemical companies.  Not to farmers, who'll have to run even harder to stay in place.
 
  • #25
well you have any good solutions Bruce? electric cars you have the same problem. you burn just as much energy charging the batteries, as you get from burning gas. you wind up burning about the same amount of fossil fuels if you go by the current energy plants we have. course if we start building more nuclear power plants than i guess the percentages will change. besides you can make ethanol off of wheat and barley too and given the bumber crops weve bee gettin up here the last few years the price for it aint that great anyways. its much cheaper to grow wheat and barley than corn and you have more options on areas you can actually grow it.
 
  • #26
An obvious first step is to conserve energy.  Trouble is people have sprawled out across the landscape in a way that requires huge amounts of energy to make things happen.  When houses and cars are big and commutes are long, it takes a mind boggling amount of energy for the US to deliver workers to the workplace or shoppers to the stores.  Before any actual production or distribution begins.  That gratuitous waste of energy and landscape causes a lot of bad things and wars and disappearing Sarracenia habitat are just two.  A new refinery, like a new lane on the interstate, will only make the problem worse in the future.

Going back to our topic, we have a transportation system that strands tens of thousands of people as a storm approaches a major city.  Professionals could have called the boss a couple days earlier to say they're leaving for a few days, just in case.  But low paid service workers can't.  Plus they can't afford hotels and buses and they have worry about leaving their possessions to be stolen.

There isn't an outlying area anywhere in the country that's able and willing to take in a hundred thousand poor inner city residents.  Even if the fleeing people were able to get to them.  The most recent news I've heard said New Orleans was lucky this time, relatively speaking.  Thankfully, because we'd have been completely unable to deal with a real crisis.
 
  • #27
ok first the worst case senario given by jlap inst in my view the worst case senario, we are looking at a global catastrophy.

just think, TOXIC POLUTION GOING DIRECTLY AT THE CARIBEAN OCEAN, THE LOCATION OF THE MOST DELECATE AND SECOND LARGEST CORAL REEF ON THE PLANET! AND EVEN WORST THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO THE FAUNA!

for those of you who have white out get it and be prepared to white out the cute tiny penninsula sticking out of liousiana.


for those of you who own a bike consider yourself lucky, because if that oil thingy breaks its going to be your best friend.


death tolls are going to be monsterous, of coarse this is my view of the worst cace senario,



it will only get worse as global warming cotinues.

smile_h_32.gif
 
  • #28
Just my 2 cents...........
When Willie Nelson brainstorms a cheaper more efficient fuel than the government's.....theres something wrong.
Flat-out.......the government doesn't want a cheaper more efficient fuel. Like todays vehicles, it's just not profitable to make things efficient AND cheap.

As for the hurricane,.......I've been wondering when it's the mid-continent's turn to be devastated over and over. The hurricanes keep coming and I wonder will something similar with tornados or whatever happen to the MidWest, etc...? It's like theres no end to hurricane season.

Joe
 
  • #29
Hmmmmmmmmm........al this is reminding me of what happened up north in some islands of the west coast of scotland

It was a period of extreme gales, down here in the south west where I live winds were blowing at around 55 mph, but in Scotland they were blowing at 120 mph.........as fast as any hurricane. Then on those islands off the west coast of scotland(they wernt shetland islands btw) one families house was getting battered by thw winds and they decided to cross the bridge connecting the two main islands to go and stay with friends and family untill the storm clears. But, as they were crossing the bridge a huge and extremely powerful gust of wind blew, destroyed the bridge in front of them and sent a big wave which washed the whole car into the sea.
Then a few days later after desperate searching, two of the three children(I think it was three children) washed up on the shore, followed by their fathers body, then the third child, then a few days later their mother appeared on the shore aswell
Never before for as long as I lived here has there been a tragedy like that

And Im not looking forward to mid autumn, thats when all the remains of your hurricanes hit europe and cause massive gusts, last year it was particually bad at denmark.

And yeah......global warming does have to be tackled, but that means that all the worlds major industrial nations will have to cooperate with each other, but the worlds worst polluter, the US, refused to sign up as George Bush said that it would be 'too much of a loss to the economy'
Australia also refused to sign up and gave a similar reason
 
  • #30
we should start a whole new thread for this discution.

you know whats really funny about our current energy grid? i live exactly 45 miles from a hydroelectric dam. almost none of its electricity goes to local use. it is sold to California, Seattle ect by our government. my power is coming from a coal plant some 500 miles away. now aint that just a bit screwed up?
 
  • #31
One word... thermal depolymerization... er... nevermind, the point is that this could be the way to go or at least worth looking into.

~ Brett
 
  • #33
Just a question, has anyone heard of what other countries are offering in the way of help? I heard the EU is offering oil, just wondering if anything else was going on.

Cole
 
  • #34
Wow looking at the predictions u guys made its pretty amazing how close some of you got to what actually happened
 
  • #35
I wouldn't expect much from other countries.  If the US can sink more than $1 billion per day into the Department of Defense, many might assume we'd be able to take care of the problem on our own.
 
  • #36
I HOPE other countries help out. The U.S. has always sent billions of dollars in aid to other countries for decades for floods, earthquakes, famines, the tsunami, etc. I hope THIS time WE get some help. We can sure use it.
smile_h_32.gif
 
  • #37
We are the wealthiest, most powerful nation of all time.  We spend a billion or more every week to occupy other countries.  We do everything we can to derail any significant effort to limit the CO2 emissions which might lead to increased hurricane activity.  So we shouldn't expect anything more than a token display from anyone.  We shouldn't even need it.  How could so much money be sunk into homeland security and emergency management yet we lose control when a completely expected disaster strikes one of our more minor big cities.
 
  • #40
[b said:
Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ Sep. 02 2005,7:42)]We are the wealthiest, most powerful nation of all time.  We spend a billion or more every week to occupy other countries.  We do everything we can to derail any significant effort to limit the CO2 emissions which might lead to increased hurricane activity.  So we shouldn't expect anything more than a token display from anyone.  We shouldn't even need it.  How could so much money be sunk into homeland security and emergency management yet we lose control when a completely expected disaster strikes one of our more minor big cities.
OK.........so if all thats true why did it take george bush 5 days to send out help to new orleans?
 
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