7:58 pm - Thu 24 Jul 2008 
Archive for the 'Disaster of the Day' Category
I’ve learned this morning that as of March 31st, 2008 (Next Monday), that EBay is ending ALL sales of digital products…that is to say, any EBay auction that provides the buyer with the ability to DOWNLOAD the item after payment.
This is a sad day. This affects MILLIONS of EBayers, many of whom were making a living selling their digital goods from home. As a creator of many digital products (ebooks, scripts, templates, etc), I am truly offended with EBay and how they handled this announcement.
As of today, you can NOT list an item as a digital good. The alternative they provide for now is ONLY that digital product sellers must use CLASSIFIED AD format, at $10 PER AD. Supposedly, these ads will show up when people search for digital goods.
If it’s not obvious, I’m not a happy camper about this. I created an EBay store last year, and have been paying $16 a month for the privilege of selling items at a slightly lower listing fee. Needless to say, it has been a losing proposition, and ever so much more now.
Here are some links to learn more about this horrible decision by EBay management…
From EBay’s forums…
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000671814&start=0
Other Links…
This is the first video released (against wishes of LEO and GOV) that actually shows the actual collapse of the bridge…caught on video camera.
My prayers go out to the victims. I hope we find the source of the accident to be a pure accident, and not an act of terrorism, as many on the web are suggesting.
Rich
Today is Wednesday, April 11, 2007. It is three days after the 9th anniversary of the April 8th, 1998 tornadic storms that tore through north Central Alabama in the evening of the 8th.
I was there. I was involved. I had family hurt. I had friends hurt. I knew people that were killed in the storm. I knew people that were some of the first responders to the scene. I was involved in helping with recovery that was needed for months after.
It was a horrible evening. Tornadoes had been mentioned in the weather for days before this day. All day, on the radio, and in all the newscasts from early morning throughout the day…it was mentioned that possibility was high for “severe tornadoes” later in the day.
At the time, I was a letter carrier in Bessemer, Alabama, and had been for years. I lived in rural Tuscaloosa county, just a couple of miles south of the beginning of this terrible event, and very close to the Jefferson County line.
I had been home for less than two hours when the storms started to move in. I was online watching live radar and reports from multiple weather websites. I had my police scanner on, scanning, and plugged into the computer’s speakers.
And then…it started. Oak Grove High School was one of first building to be destroyed…with many people inside…but no deaths there..that started minutes later.
Read more here at my Tornado Survival website.
It was a nightmare…it still brings nightmares. Police and firemen just arriving…reporting in as first on scene…and hearing “there are bodies on the road”…just a few miles from my home…and my wife and kids SOMEWHERE out on the road, heading home from church that evening.
This is just MY observations of that terrible day.
There have been others…in this same time of the year…early Spring…first couple of weeks of April..which is why I write this post today.
In fact, yesterday, April 10th, was the 28th anniversary of the Wichita Falls, Texas tornadic storm system that saw thirteen twisters wreak havoc in the region, with direct hits of Wichita Falls.
From the Texas Tornadoes website, created by the meteorology department of Texas A&M University, this quote says it all..
“The Wichita Falls Tornado is the tornado event that occurred on April 10, 1979. This tornado was the most notable of thirteen tornadoes that ripped through the Red River Valley on the day commonly called “Terrible Tuesday” by many meterologists.”
Here’s an image of the twister that did the most damage to the city, from the NOAA photo library.
A very early summer storm, the Pampa F5 tornado of June 8th, 1995, was one of the best storms ever captured up close of the fury of 250-300 mile an hour winds, with trucks and cars being clearly seen tossed hundreds of feet in the air end over end. You can watch a short, tiny clip here…
Another early summer storm was the Jordan, Iowa tornado of June 13, 1976, considered by Professor T. T. Fujita, developer of the Fujita Scale, to be the most violent he had ever studied. A college thesis by John Brown on a portion of this storm has tremendous detail of the particulars of this storm, including images and a ton of pure weather data about the event and events leading up to it. What was particularly interesting of this tornadic system was development of twin tornadoes, one an F5 with normal rotation, and another F3 twister that was antic-cyclonic (rotating the wrong direction), that developed from the same mesocell and traveled in parallel on the ground for a period of time. The original funnel was a multi-vortex twister, and from what I can understand, the second tornado seemed to develop from one of these vortexes, and then take on a life of its own. Read the report, view the images, and be glad you don’t see these everyday.
There is a vast amount of scholarly information on this storm system that amazed even Fujita, available through Google’s library system
Every meteorologist and weather geek either remembers the Super Outbreak of April 3/4, 1974…33 years ago, as of a week ago. Perhaps the wost hit area of the country during that fateful few hours was Xenia, Ohio was an F5 storm - track length 32 miles - 33 killed - over 1,150 injured - watch a video clip here. A pilot, one Mr.Robert Schwarts, had an amazing tale to share of this day…
From http://www.xeniatornado.com/pilot.htm
On april 3 1974 I was flying in a twin engine airplane which when we left Louisville Kentucky. (actually from Haps airport in Jeffersonville In. ) we studied the weather and found it strange. We delayed our trip for about one and one/half hours before deciding to go ahead and go up to Mad River Ohio to install a radio in an airplane so we could fly it back to Jeffersonville for repairs. We were almost to Cincinnati when everything went crazy. the instruments went crazy and the lights went out. we were blind as It turned pitch-black outside and the plane actually started flying backwards and we could feel ourselves being bounced to the overhead and then thrown to the dash then back against the seat. We had no control of the plane. Our radio was nothing but noise and we could not get through to the Cincinnati airfield. Our transponder was out also. Finally the air control answered our emergency call and had us make a try at turning 90 degrees after we maintained some control of the plane. They said there was so much debris in the air they could not find us. Finally they had us make another turn and they said that they thought they had us. It was still pitch black and we could not see anything. They maneuvered us several times and confirmed they had us. They told us to make a 90 and corrected us as our instruments meant nothing. They told us to continue as fast as we could to our destination. They said to drop in altitude several times and finally after following their directions they said we should see the end of the runway (NOW) and sure enough we broke through the clouds and we were 10 feet off the runway when we broke through the blackness. As we landed we rushed to the hanger and tied the plane down. 5 Minutes later the radio announced that the tornado was tearing through Xenia Ohio. This was quite a trip and hope that anyone caught in a tornado like that has the opportunity to tell his tale. I was very lucky. My Brothers business In Louisville was hit bad and he was almost wiped out. What an EXPERIENCE.. Survivor of one of the most harrowing experiences.”
“We flew over as close to Xenia as we could do to the restrictions about flying over a disaster area and saw the destruction. It was something to see and We did not have a camera with us so could not take pictures but saw the circle drives with the scattered wood and destroyed houses caught in the path of natures fury. We were thankful to those great guys way down in Cincinnati airport (actually in Kentucky) for their patience and knowledge to be able to direct us so accurately to our destination. The letter was getting so long I broke it up. Thanks again for the pictures . These are the first ones I have seen from Xenia.” Robert Schwartz
A few weeks from now will be the tenth anniversary of the May 27th, 1997 Jarrell, Texas F5 storm that killed many, in one of the worst tornadoes to ever hit Texas.
In 3 weeks, we’ll see the 8th anniversary of one of the strongest tornadoes ever measured in history…the F5 storm that struck the Oklahoma City area with 76 confirmed tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas, which put the outbreak in the top 10 for number of tornadoes in the U.S.
There are so many more stories…so many more storms…so many more personal observations. It’s a good time to take an hour or two to review what spring storm systems can occur near you, how you can be aware of threatening weather, and what you need to do should storms bear down on you and your family.
A look at the nation’s current weather at www.weather.gov right at this moment near Atlanta, with one warning nearby. A click on this link, bookmarked on your computer, can give you instant access to severe storms near you.
I found this jewel of an article reposted on Timebomb2000.com, and felt it covered all the bases of survival in hard times (disaster, ecomonic downturn, civil strife, etc.) that I just had to make sure it was seen by a wider audience. Many of the items here could by applied and used in worse case scenarios, including pandemic bird flu, which seems to have the biggest echo on the governments “Fear Radar”.
Rich
From the old Greenspun board
Fair use
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0011LtHow to Survive Really Hard Times
greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread
Moderator: ed@yourdon.com——————————————————————————–
How to Survive Really Hard Times
In the old days, folks were accustomed to periodically having to live through hard times. They knew how to survive the hard times with the least amount of wear and tear on their families. Nowadays, most folks don’t know what hard times really are. Even those folks who think they have it hard right now can usually still depend on some type of government handout or charity assistance, and therefore they don’t truly know what hard times really are.My definition of hard times is when things ain’t what they use to be and they don’t look like they will return to normal anytime soon. This frequently happens in times of war, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Which are also usually accompanied by power failures that last for days, weeks, or months.
Following are some suggestions for surviving these types of hard times.
Shelter:
Let’s start by assuming you now live in some type of dwelling and your dwelling is not in the immediate path of a flood, hurricane, marching troops, etc.
First, stay inside unless you must absolutely go outdoors. In the old days, folks had enough sense to come in out of the rain. During hard times, you don’t need to get wet, cold, or frost bitten. That just makes matters worse.
Click to continue reading “How to Survive Really Hard Times”
I spent many years living in north central Alabama and we had our share of tornadic activity, in Tuscaloosa and Jefferson County. While Enterprise, Alabama is at the very bottom of the state, nearly all areas of Alabama are susceptible to tornado damage on a regular basis.
Between 1993 and 2000, we lived in Abernant, Alabama (bottom of the map…note Oak Grove at the top).
My family and I saw many funnel clouds, saw tornadoes hit north of us, west of us, south of us, and east of us. We saw rotating wall clouds move directly overhead. We were just a few miles south of the devastating April 8th, 1998 F5 tornado that started near Oak Grove, and stayed on the ground for over 31 miles, killing dozens in one of Alabama’s worst tornadic storms. Like Enterprise, the high school in Oak Grove was a direct hit, as seen in the NWS image below.
We have family members who lost everything except their lives, moments after the high school was hit, and their house was one of the next in the path, as the twister followed Warrior River Road to the east. Their home was completely destroyed, but miraculously, my wife’s cousin, in the house when it was struck, survived by seeking shelter in an inner closet.
Now, back to Enterprise…and the events of this week. Perhaps the best coverage, warnings, and dpcumentation to date of this storm came from James Spann of ABC33/40 in Birmingham, who was also on duty for the April 1998 tornado. Here is his website blog with info, damage pictures, pre storm warnings, and detailed weather analysis of the days weather..hours before it occured.
I’d recommend that everyone take a few moments and read all the postings on that blog site on as soon as possible. Take the time to watch the video in the 3rd from the last post…hit the PREVIOUS POSTS link at the bottom of the page.
http://www.jamesspann.com/wordpress/?p=1139
Spann is a credit to the NWS, and Alabama meteorologists in general. His warnings and alerts for the April 8, 1998 F5, were spot on. The events of yesterday were foreseen for days before the actual storms boiled thru the areas. The smaller twisters that struck across the state yesterday were in areas I am very familiar with, and thankfully, they weren’t as deadly as the Enterprise storm.
Regarding the video…there are many technical explanations, that may leave some of you less geeky folks scratching your head, but note some of the references that Span makes about the extreme forecasts for the day…including the graphic of a 30% chance of tornadoes, for the central part of the state, meaning that there was a 30% chance of twisters within 25 miles of anyone in those areas….
Watching the video, you’ll also note and catch a glimpse of some weather modeling software he uses to describe the forecast for the day (before the storms happened), which shows all kinds of weather data. pause the video, and look at the map images with all the data on them…
Then take a look at this nearly free software…
http://www.nerdtests.com/software_animwx_register.php?awu
Less then $4…runs on your desktop, and if you have the concerns, can learn a lot more about weather by playing with the software. It pulls all data directly from the NWS….
When lives are in danger…use EVERY tool at your disposal to stay safe…and stay alive.
When it’s twisters or ‘canes….a little weather knowledege in your pocket can go a LONG way in helping.
Rich
Here is an image taken of the tornado that hit Enterprise, Alabama this past week.
Read my next post as well.
Rich
The 1974 Super outbreak of tornadoes happened April 3/4th of that year.
A total of 148 tornadoes killed over 300 people in several states.
This year’s activity is peaking that of 1974…and we’re still a month away from the anniversary of the 1974 storms.
Be aware of your local weather. Have a plan…PRACTICE your Plan.
Be safe.
Rich
