Patterico's Pontifications

It’s a big storm with a lot of wind and rain. Things will go bad. I’m not there, but I wish we had the rain here.

I have lived through a few hurricanes, I just hope that all will be safe.

Ag80 (9a213d) — 8/27/2011 @ 10:12 pm

Yes, it is good to see Aaron a-okay.

It’s also inspiring to see that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is still being watched over in the face of the storm.

Dana (4eca6e) — 8/27/2011 @ 10:14 pm

Hang in there, Aaron!

Simon Jester (71c865) — 8/27/2011 @ 10:33 pm

Oh, and anyone else, troll or not, in the path of that storm.

Simon Jester (71c865) — 8/27/2011 @ 10:33 pm

Eh, I live in FLA, seen a lot of them in the last 50 years.

This is little more than a general “be careful” nuisance. Unless you live RIGHT on the water (or perhaps on one of the various “barrier” islands), no hurricane less than “Class 3” is a serious threat to be feared significantly. Yeah “crap happens”, but it’s more along the lines of having a random blowout in new tires on the Interstate, not something anyone has to worry about overmuch. It’s a big wind, lotsa rain, minor flooding, “be careful, and stay indoors.”

You should tape up the windows, and have a piece of plywood and clear plastic on hand for sealing up anything that gets hurled at the wrong place.

If it were a Class 3, THEN it becomes likely to cause a serious issue and danger to life and limb, regardless of the care you take.

Even there — I’ll ALWAYS take a hurricane over an earthquake or a tornado. You at least get a lot of warning that it’s coming, compared to “not much” for a tornado and “nearly zero” for an earthquake.

Smock Puppet, Facepalm Expert (c9dcd8) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:16 am

meanwhile, back here on the West Coast where the important things are, it was two years ago yesterday afternoon that the Station Fire kicked off…

redc1c4 (fb8750) — 8/28/2011 @ 1:00 am

How can you people make light of Aaron’s situation??? Can’t you read???

HIS INTERNET IT DOWN!!!!

I shudder to think of the depravity he’s sunk to by now. Probably cannibalism.

😛 Stay safe, Aaron (and everybody else). There may be power lines down you don’t know about.

Pious Agnostic (6048a8) — 8/28/2011 @ 4:45 am

Here in beautiful Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, we’ve gotten a fairly decent amount of rain overnight, but it’s not raining hard now. It’s a bit windy, but I’ve seen a lot worse from nor’easters. We have sparktricity, and we have cable — and Juliet Huddy is wearing a nice, tight, short skirt on Fox & Friends this morning, so y’all tune in! — and we have internet. There’s plenty of cold Mountain Dew in the refrigerator, and Pluto, our mostly outdoor cat, is inside, asleep at the foot of the bed.

The Dana who survived Hurricane Irene (f68855) — 8/28/2011 @ 5:42 am

Yup, Smock Puppet is right. I expect for most people this will have turned out to be a lot of hype. And come on, let’s face it, the media complex always goes into full hype mode when a hurricane is expected to make landfall – this time however they didn’t have to leave their cushy studios in NY to get to the ‘scene’. Can you blame em? 😀

For most this’ll be nothing more than a Noreaster. It’s the folks in storm surge areas who are going to have the worst of it. Or in flash flood areas with too much rain. Thankfully the storm has been weakening.

Gamongrel (11c057) — 8/28/2011 @ 5:56 am

Yeah, in Arlington VA where I am it was a yawner (thank God!) I did have internet drop at some point between 2am and 8am, but it was up when I got up. Not even a power flicker. Saw worse wind and a power drop in a thunderstorm a week ago.

About the same as the earthquake of last week. I wouldn’t have noticed if not for the news and chatter.

Dan S (c8afcb) — 8/28/2011 @ 6:06 am

Irene just downgraded to tropical storm, 65 mph winds.

That said, it just made landfall in Queens, the 1st tropical storm or greater to make landfall in 5 Boroughs in 118 years. So kind of a thing. I wish that all my NYC friends fare as well as Aaron.

Karl (37b303) — 8/28/2011 @ 6:29 am

Hope everyone is doing alright. Saw a funny about Mayor Bloomers about how he could not move snow from a storm that they had a weeks warning for, so he went into overdrive to makes sure he didn’t become Mayor Nagin over this onem

I think Barcky returning to the White House, such bravery, to stare down Irene and make the waters quit rising is responsible for the storm not being nearly as catastrophic as Katrina.

JD (d48c3b) — 8/28/2011 @ 6:58 am

TV kept reporting wind speeds of 85, 75 mph, but that must have been at 10,000 feet altitude.

The surface speeds not that high.

Look at the data, over time, from NC to LI. Very few observations above 40 mph. Most places peaked in the 30s or even lower.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/27/us/storm-conditions.html?smid=tw-nytimes

koam @wittier (4ec816) — 8/28/2011 @ 6:59 am

Doesn’t Twitter use the internet, even if the message originates from a Blackberry?

stari_momak (5fd7ae) — 8/28/2011 @ 6:59 am

I thought Blackberry’s were “on satellite”?

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 7:12 am

Philly area with many, many places of flooding, downed trees, etc., but the fact that they name them all makes the point things are not generally widespread. No loss of power for us.

The note re lack of internet reminds me of the “Onion” headline, “Internet out, surge of productivity noted!”

Even heard one store owner on Jersay “dgojr” (that was my first attemnpt for shore- boy am I tired!) say it wasn’t bad. As JD said, “no one wanted to look like a repeat Nagin.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 7:20 am

Doesn’t Twitter use the internet, even if the message originates from a Blackberry?

Comment by stari_momak — 8/28/2011 @ 6:59 am

You can update twitter without using the internet if you send a text message to the twitter number.

Dustin (b2fb78) — 8/28/2011 @ 7:20 am

Oh, Yeah. So who’s afraid of the big bad wolf after the howling winds and crashing surf have subsided, and a reassuring sun has obligingly returned to brighten the calm blue sky?

Underestimate a Hurricane at your peril, they’re powerful storms, unpredictable and unforgiving. Sure, TV news over-hypes the danger but recent experience with Katrina and lingering memories of Hazel remind us these storms kill and destroy property on an unimaginable scale.

Hazel had diminished to a Category 1 storm after traveling over 1,000 miles over land by the time it reached the Canadian border in the 3rd week of October 1954. Toronto residents knew the storm was coming but Canadians were largely unfamiliar with such storms, hurricanes were tropical events after all.

That complacency contributed to the death toll: 81 in Ontario as compared to 95 in the US.

ropelight (43cd70) — 8/28/2011 @ 7:51 am

Wasn’t hype here – was worse than they promised.
Plus, no power for at least a week.

Husbands office (in newer development with underground power lines) is sanctuary for time being.

Tornado went through neighborhood where I have a little house I’m fixing up. Missed by THAT much.

Trees down across the road, and exploded looking power lines and transformers drape the pavement.

Plus my car wouldn’t start this Am –suspect a short from heavy rain and wind, as opening hood and letting it dry out awhile solved all.

There were half eaten nuts on the engine block and maybe a squirrely got in there and made mischief now evident after weather stress.

Sarahw (52d924) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:14 am

ALso thanks Happyfeet, I’m really glad I took that good shower ahead of the storm. Maybe I can renew my gym membership in time to have another one this week.

Sarahw (52d924) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:16 am

Visions of Allahpundit treading water in the streets of manhattan with a kitty on his head.

How did things end up in NY?

Sarahw (52d924) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:18 am

the 1st tropical storm or greater to make landfall in 5 Boroughs in 118 years.

Really? Didn’t NYC used to get hurricanes all the time until about the 1940s? And didn’t it get one in the ’60s and one in the early ’80s too?

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:39 am

Here in Brooklyn it’s been a big bust so far. Yesterday we had a big rainstorm, but not anything like the one we had two weeks ago. This morning I went out on a 10-minute walk at 9:00 and it was drizzling but dead calm. I came back at 10:00, half an hour after the storm had supposedly made landfall, and I didn’t even need to open my umbrella. Dry and calm. Since it was dry and calm I took a longer route (about 15 minutes instead of 10) to see if I could spot any damage in the neighbourhood. There were some twigs and leaves on the road, but nothing else. I came home and opened all my windows that I’d shut for fear of being flooded by driving rain, and am sitting at my front window enjoying the very light breeze.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:49 am

This is very Richmond-centric, but I think maybe we took one for the team.

Sarahw (52d924) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:52 am

What’s with the Obsidian wings sniper kitty? you a contributor over there?

Spartacvs (a5c29c) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:08 am

I agree with ropelight that it is better to be over-prepared than be caught unprepared.

Sorry to hear Sarahw had such a rough time. Maybe the storm wore itself out on N. Carolina and Virginia. The fact that even a “weak” hurricane can make spin-off tornados means there can be isolated areas of intense destruction Hurricanes by far are worse for wide-spread damage, but a direct hit by a tornado, even a “small one”, is still a tornado.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:13 am

Also sorry to see Sarahw got Irene bad (tho glad she’s still here).

Allahpundit seems to be okay on Twitter, tho unclear whether he has electricity.

Karl (37b303) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:31 am

I am glad spurtycvs is okay, despite being a mendoucheous twatwaffle of the highest order.

JD (109425) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:34 am

Dry and Calm, can indicate that you’re within the eye, and that all Hell is going to break out again, but from the opposite direction.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:35 am

I jokingly thought to myself “perhaps this is the eye of the storm”, but there would have to have been a storm before the eye. Plus, didn’t the eyewall collapse yesterday?

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:44 am

Milhouse,
A friend in mine from NYC (Brooklyn, but staying the weekend in Manhattan), just sent me a photo of the fearsome damage – “a coffee cup flung upward and wedged between two mailboxes.”

Bradley J. Fikes (06e30f) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:45 am

good to hear that Aaron and crew are safe!

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:45 am

the m00nbat spurty
faced Irene down it’s the libs’
heroic posture

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:48 am

A total lack of concern about the storm in the DC-Boston corridor by the unwashed in fly-over country would by just-desserts.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:49 am

JD, you as ever remain kind and generous at the core-

it’s just that others work so hard to bring out the worst in you…

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:49 am

spurty denounce thee
oh, storm! then he fleebag it
the hell outta there

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:51 am

Youtube Facebook and Twitter will merge and be known as YouTwitBook.

DohBiden (d54602) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:55 am

Clean-up needed on aisle 37.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:57 am

I hate it when the Intenet goes down!

Icy Texan (8f4d4b) — 8/28/2011 @ 10:33 am

Global Warming causes less hurricanes Mayor Dumbburg.

DohBiden (d54602) — 8/28/2011 @ 10:45 am

I did not have any difficulties related to Hurricane Irene. Just reporting in.

Glad President O’Blameless showed up for a photo op at FEMA. Heckuva job Barcky!

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/28/2011 @ 11:02 am

Hang in there, Sarah.

Sorry about your car. That sounds kinda bad, so keep an eye on it.

Dustin (b2fb78) — 8/28/2011 @ 11:03 am

Sarah, don’t know about squirrels, but rats and mice love the taste of electrical insulation.
Sometimes your car just won’t work, othertimes they meet “Old Sparky” – which can start a fire.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 11:10 am

“You can update twitter without using the internet if you send a text message to the twitter number.”

Good info to know — and finally an actual point for twitter’s existence.

stari_momak (5fd7ae) — 8/28/2011 @ 11:43 am

Still some light wind but no rain. Streets are dry. Cooling breeze is coming in my wide-open window.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 11:59 am

This would be a perfect day to go visit some people, except that the public transport system is still shut down.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:06 pm

for the folks on the east coast… be safe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WUI4DhUfnw&feature=related

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:14 pm

Colonel a big baby. Brian Wilson’s music make him cry.

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:17 pm

The wind, it blew like they said
T’was a good day to just stay in bed
The rain wasn’t bad
Avenger ain’t sad
For Quebec the rain will now head.

The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:21 pm

#11 Karl:

Sorry Karl, I lived in NYC in the mid-50s, the Bronx, and I remember that we had quite a few hurricanes hit the city – Edna especially was scary! Maybe not directly, but 65mph winds and more yes. I don’t know how you define not hit in 118 years?

hstad (58736e) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:25 pm

Tis the time of water fallin’,
falalalala falalala.
Deck the halls with black tarpaulin,
falalalala falalala.
Don we now our rainproof mantles,
falala, falala, falala,
Did we lay in enough candles?
falalalala, falalala.

(Last line contributed by Buzzsawmonkey)

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:26 pm

The food is hot on the table
The roof proved it was stable
The wind wasn’t bad
And I can’t be sad,
I still have the ‘net and the cable!

The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:27 pm

Irene took bite of Big Apple
she spit out cuz it tasted like crapple
gave Virginia the blues
she scrape sh*t off her shoes
damn glad I bought last case of Snapple®

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:31 pm

Run for your lives! IT’S GONNA RAIN!

Jones (114d92) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:36 pm

Perhaps Perry could file an extradition request with Gov Cuomo for all that unwanted rain?

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:39 pm

Bruce Springsteen can kiss colonel’s fat, white ass

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:45 pm

We have the Limerick Avenger and ColonelHaiku; I’m awaiting the Serious/Surprising/? Sonnetist, Freaky FreeVerse, and other such contributors- maybe on a sockpuppet edition.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:47 pm

trav’lin wilbury’s
tweeter and the monkeyman
Dylan sh*t on Bruce

ColonelHaiku (0ab8c6) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:47 pm

Is it true that FEMA is closing FDR Dr. in Manhattan so that they’ll have someplace for their trailers?

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:49 pm

Shutting down all public transit in NYC was insane. I can see shutting down some, but eliminating all was a very bad call in my opinion.

Amphipolis (e01538) — 8/28/2011 @ 12:58 pm

Is this Intra-White House One-Upmanship?

Delaware was pounded by Hurricane Irene on Saturday night, but Vice President Biden got in one last round of golf in his home state before the heavy stuff started coming down, Fox News has learned.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/28/biden-golfed-in-hours-preceding-hurricane/#ixzz1WMBPL0hP

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 1:17 pm

Pentameter I just cannot do
Iambic? Out of my head just flew
I might try hard
But I’m not the Bard
With the verses I would just screw.

The Limerick Avenger (f68855) — 8/28/2011 @ 1:21 pm

I don’t know, AD, it sort of has the “fiddling while Rome burned” feel to it.

Amphipolis, they did the same in Philly, and I thought it was a bit much also. I could understand the subways if they were concerned about flooding, not so sure why all bus routes were closed, unless they wanted to emphasize “stay home”- but some people, especially hospital and nursing home workers for eg., need to get to work and some usually use public.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 1:24 pm

Sorry to inject reality into the comedy festival but the death toll is now at 18. Certainly not the worst storm I’ve seen but not too much fun for those of us in flyover country.

Over 200 swift water rescues in eastern North Carolina, tornados, mall roof collapsed in Goldsboro, very bad flooding in the Vandemere & Bayboro & Vanceboro & Oriental communities …. and Morehead City & New Bern.

Hwy 12 was breached (again) at Hatteras:
http://www.newsobserver.com/galleries/

Little Washington:
http://www.wdnweb.com/

Really you guys are funny – I’m just irritated. Just fed up with the way the insufferable Shep Smith (Fox News) & others have hyped the hurricane as it affects NYC folks & now NC & Virginia are ignored.

Surreal – the sound areas emptied out of water after the first winds of the hurricane blew threw – just mud flats as far as the eye could see (the sound side of Hatteras Island etc.). Then the winds started again & blew the water back – that’s when the flooding started.

Something that really helped this time – Facebook pages (like Oregon Inlet Idiots & Hatteras Island vs Hurricane Irene) had people posting updates & photos constantly. Much more reliable & up-to-date than the old media.

FWIW a scathing look at the over-hype of the Major Disaster that wasn’t – from across the pond:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100102355/perfect-storm-of-hype-politicians-the-media-and-the-hurricane-irene-apocalypse-that-never-was/

Miranda (4104db) — 8/28/2011 @ 1:26 pm

Miranda, you can’t believe anything that you see in The Telegraph; they’re all a bunch of knuckle-dragging, non-progressives.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 1:33 pm

No Fema is gonna locate their trailers on Atlantic Ave & Classon Ave

/Sarc obviously

DohBiden (d54602) — 8/28/2011 @ 2:12 pm

Milhouse – ‘make landfall’ with respect to hurricanes refers to the spot where the eye comes ashore. typically the most severe conditions are associated with the eyewall, so there’s some sense to it, plus it provides a convenient shorthand – when a storm is 100mi across, the concept of ‘where it made landfall’ is kinda bizarre, but ‘where the eye made landfall’ is more precise.

From what i can tell, this is the first hurricane in more than a century where the *eye* crossed through NYC. Previous hurricanes ‘made landfall’ either well to the east or somewhat to the south/west, leaving NYC raked by the rain in much the same way that Jim Thorpe was today.

aphrael (9bc2d7) — 8/28/2011 @ 2:51 pm

Well, I’m no fun. In addition to being a bitter clinger, Drew …. ;>)

Re FEMA, the Charlotte (NC) Salvation Army came down to the Wilmington NC area BEFORE the storm w/ enough food to feed 300 people for 3 meals/day for 3 days.

And grocery stores Harris Teeter & Food Lion have been giving out free water & ice too in the stricken communities.

Here’s another pic of our apparent new inlet:

http://www.wral.com/weather/image/10057616/?ref_id=10057097&img_list=10057616%2C10057363%2C10057367%2C10057364%2C10057368%2C10057236%2C10057235%2C10057365%2C10057366%2C10057284%2C10057285%2C10057214%2C10056585%2C10056239

Miranda (4104db) — 8/28/2011 @ 2:55 pm

Last night, John Batchelor said something about all these politicians wanting to be on television – but the thing is, it can’t be a conspiracy by a wide range of unconnected politicians

I suspect the person to blame for all of this is President Clinton.

The evil that men do lives after them…

-Shakespeare.

This over reaction and super-precaution and also the making it hard to get back to normal has been going on since the 1990s.

The source of all of the problems here is the National Hurricane Center and FEMA.

This is probably all caused by some appointments that President Clinton made in the 1990s, who made it easier to declare emergencies, and designed things so as to make emergencies worse.

The changes were put into the DNA of the bureaucracy and became the new normal there .

I don’t exactly know this, but I suspect that if we investigated this, we’d find out that that was what was the root cause.

Clinton was the one who wanted to play the leader. Clinton was the one who wanted emergencies so you could quickly pass legislation with riders through Congress that wouldn’t otherwise go through. Clinton wanted difficulties with the budget – he under-predicted how well what the economy would do and then wanted Social Security taxes put in a “lockbox”- all to create budget constraints. The under-prediction of economic growth in the 1990s caused brownouts in California in 2001 because officials in California believed the and there was not enough spare electrical generating capacity.

It’s not any of these people now there. And I’ll say this: President Clinton was probably also responsible for the mess of Katrina. The problem there wasn’t that they didn’t evacuate people. The problem was they evacuated them to no place, for no reason, and the levees. Except that the levees also broke in 1965.

They had all these evacuations, and then FEMA standing guard and not letting people help themselves.The problem with Michael Brown is that he didn’t realized that Clinton had sabotaged the way FEMA worked so as to maximize economic disruption.

They didn’t pull out all the stops they could have this time. But a lot of nonsense probably still remains.

Sammy Finkelman (d3de3a) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:03 pm

According to the New York Post of Saturday, August 27, 2011, a hurricane with 99 mile per hour winds barreled into New york City on September 14, 1944, ten days after an earthquake. They weren’t named d in those days. the death toll i the city was six, with 117 homes and 272 other buildings destroyed, but over 390 people were lost at sea, most of them Navy men on wartime patrol.

On October 15, 1954 Hurricane Hazel (hurricanes were named starting in 1950) had winds of 113 miles per hour.

This hurricane has apparently killed 650 trees. Bloomberg said he always wondered how they got that number.

Sammy Finkelman (d3de3a) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:10 pm

MD in Philly – I know the Philly subways, used almost every stop (Temple grad). Closing them was incredibly stupid. Philly is not an island like Manhattan.

There was no chance of the Broad Street Subway flooding, and there is no safer mode of transport during a storm. I find it hard to believe they would close it.

Someone needs to question these decisions.

Amphipolis (e01538) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:11 pm

Man it was terrible, the shaking, the screaming, the mayhem, but I survived almost 24 hours of internet withdrawal and now I am getting my fix.

Seriously, we didn’t have netflix for a whole evening! OMFG!

Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:20 pm

It seems that Philly’s mayor has gone from a stunning success (“pull up your pants, and buy a belt”) to being just another bone-head pol, by closing a subway that wasn’t threatened with flooding, thereby making it more difficult for his constituents to move about in an emergency.
Personally, I think that qualifies as at least a two on a Nagin-scale of one through five.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:25 pm

Aaron you watched Rosie O’Donnell at the buffet?

You knew that was coming.

DohBiden (d54602) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:28 pm

Drew, Mayor Michael Nutter sure isn’t perfect, but, compared to what foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia had as mayors before him, he’s great. James Street and Ed Rendell were bad, and before them was Wilson Goode, who had a bomb, a real, actual, honest-to-God bomb, dropped on a house in the city.

The Dana in Pennsylvania (f68855) — 8/28/2011 @ 3:40 pm

It’s actually quite windy now. I’m about to go out for another walk in 15 minutes or so.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 4:10 pm

Per the Wikipedia article on Hazel, Hazel went due north after landfall in NC, so while NYC was in the outer bands of the storm and had high winds and rain, the eye had dissipated well before it got to NY, and the center of the storm was substantially to the west of NYC.

aphrael (9bc2d7) — 8/28/2011 @ 4:21 pm

Similarly, the track recollection of the Great Atlantic Hurricane (1944) shows landfall in eastern Long Island. Again, not a direct hit on NYC.

Now, certainly, the Great Atlantic and Hazel were both more severe hurricanes than Irene, and so the damage to NYC from them may have been greater than in this case, even though in this case there was a direct hit and then there wasn’t. But that speculation notwithstanding, neither of them were direct hits.

aphrael (9bc2d7) — 8/28/2011 @ 4:26 pm

Yes, Dana, I remember when the Goode Mayor declared war on his own constituents, and burned down an entire city block.
One of the high points in civil liberties in the City of the Liberty Bell.
Scratch a big-city Democrat, and have a fascist bleed.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (57de9e) — 8/28/2011 @ 5:41 pm

Back from my walk; it was quite windy, but no more than I’ve seen many times before. And I didn’t even bother bringing an umbrella.

So, aphrael, it seems like your trip on Wednesday should be as nearly uneventful as it would have been without this weekend’s excitement.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 8/28/2011 @ 6:05 pm

I know that the subways here were well above the levels the rivers would rise, but the ground was already standing water before yesterday’s rains started. I have no idea where 8 inches of water would go in short order falling on the city. Is there a drainage system under the tracks that can absorb that? I’ve known sections of the city higher than the subways where the sewage system backed up into basements because the combination of speed and volume of water was greater than the system could carry away. Streets flooded because sewer drains couldn’t carry it away fast enough.

I don’t know who, if anyone, can tell the fully true version of what happened in the incident with Mayor Goode. The house in question was fortified military style for a seige. There supposedly was a bunker of sorts on top of the building, and the intent was to detonate an explosive that would clear the bunker, not the use of any kind of incendiary device. There had been discussion on whether someone in the MOVE house started the fire themselves, or if there was gasoline, etc. that was unintentionally ignited by the explosive.

I’m not going to defend all of the decision making, but I’m sure many of the people who gave grief over the incident were the same ones who were screaming for Goode to “do something” about the “MOVE” “compound”.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:05 pm

PS- I think Mayor Nutter is about as good a mayor as Philadelphians (both alive and dead) will elect.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/28/2011 @ 8:07 pm

This 1903 cottage on the National Register of Historic Places survived in Nag’s Head –until yesterday.

http://www.ourstate.com/stinsons-ranch

elissa (c6b43d) — 8/28/2011 @ 9:16 pm

Karl, this storm is pure hype nothing like its billing as an apocalyptic nightmare.

For those who have not discovered it wunderground.com is a wonderful instrument for obtaining unofficial (and official) weather data and records. Dig around and you can probably find somebody feeding the site from a location within a few miles of your home, probably several. I normally have fun with it comparing microclimants in my area. Our remnant of an orange grove in South Western San Bernardino County (North of ONT, which has wx reports as KONT on wunderground) is typically more moderate in temperatures than the sites nearby. I can see the difference a hundred feet or two hundred feet in elevation makes between the various stations.

I used it to sleuth out Irene and its superduperwettypooper storm – not. The worst I found at its North Carolina land fall was Nags Head five miles or a little less South of Kitty Hawk’s First Flight Airport. Therein lies a story. Nags Head showed the values expected from the hype. Really High Winds, 80-85MPH with gusts approaching 120MPH. It even went offline about 1630 EDT. Aha, super storm, power outages – I found it at last. That was exhilarating in a sense. All I’d found was puny winds of 35MPH, even from buoys on open water. I found one other station that ran up as high as 60 MPH. First Flight Airport reported a brisk 45MPH. Heck, we get worse than that several times a year with Santana winds here. So finding the real deal was sort of fun. I noticed the station South of Nags Head also lost power or at least stopped reporting, with fairly mundane winds, though. All the other stations I checked 20-30 of them, were right up to date with their typical every 5 minutes to 20 minutes reports. No power outages? Lady Irene, you are not living up to your billing!

I checked later with the Virginia landfall. It was a repeat.

She was a massive water dump with annoying winds. She was NOT up to her hype.

Can I sue for breech of promise or truth in advertising or something?

{O,o}

jbd (99eed4) — 8/28/2011 @ 10:38 pm

(By the way – sleuth it out yourself. The records at wunderground stay for years.)

{^_^}

jbd (99eed4) — 8/28/2011 @ 10:38 pm

I’ve lived in Houston since 1980, and the first weekend after I moved here, Hurricane Allen hit. I’ve been through a lot of storms, and several hurricanes, since then — Alicia was very notable, and Ike I’ll never forget. And it’s tempting to pooh-pooh this one, or poke fun at folks on the northeast coast who don’t see as many hurricanes as those of us on the gulf or southeast Atlantic coasts, and to talk about Category this or surge-wave that.

But these events are quintessentially random. In general, yes, the degree of destruction and disruption correlates positively with the violence of the hurricane and your closeness to its center as it makes landfall. But two people at different locations within the same city block in the same storm can have dramatically different experiences.

So if it turned out to be overhyped within reason — that’s mostly okay for most people, isn’t it? It’s a good thing that it turned out well (as compared to many possible scenarios), and we don’t need to be snarky or selfish in recognizing that.

And for a few people — thankfully fewer than well might otherwise have been — this was plenty nasty, up to and including fatal-type nasty. So I respect Mother Nature, even though I’ve recently been reminded that she absolutely hates to be anthropomorphized.

Beldar (8e755e) — 8/29/2011 @ 3:10 am

Beldar,

65 million people got some rain and wind

every month or so in Oklahoma or Kansas the same thing happens but in twos and threes here and there – its a tragedy for the communities that happen in it

but this hysteria…

This was an embarassing totally embarassing news cycle – I’m glad I dont have TV most of the year

EricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 8/29/2011 @ 6:18 am

Well said Beldar.

SPQR (26be8b) — 8/29/2011 @ 6:18 am

Regarding MOVE and jack and jill africa back to nature garbage, I thought Goode pretty much got a pass and his underlings took some grief and were sued. No idea what happened to Birdie Africa after he got his financial windfall, but recall the city paid for new homes of all those people who had theirs burned down…of course at a very high cost and subject to poor construction by the unions who got paid off. Wonder how much the city ended up on the hook for finally?

Didn’t Frank Rizzo have his own run-ins with that Move crowd? I’m sure had He authorized the firestorm as mayor that the liberals would have howled louder. Frank was out there doing a good job while other cities burned during the MLK jr. riots after his assassination. Frank was Police Commissioner at that time. I recall driving through Norristown (near Philly)late at night back then and seeing cops with shotguns on downtown corners.

Calypso Louie Farrakhan (2cc74c) — 8/29/2011 @ 7:24 am

An OpEd at FoxNews, and the new buzz-word from Team Obama…

“…But rather than having a chance to show how effectively the government party can unite the federal family to a common cause, the president’s team got all worked up for a storm that most Floridians wouldn’t have interrupted their canasta games for. That’s how it goes with natural disasters.

The political lesson, though, is one that the members of Team Obama seem to be constantly being taught: it’s a lot easier to run for president than it is to be one. As they watch Republican frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney take chunks out of the embattled president’s hide, they will continue to re-learn it.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/29/federal-family-learns-lesson-about-disaster-politics/#ixzz1WQcCj7Y2

Read the whole thing.

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (69a267) — 8/29/2011 @ 7:30 am

I’m kind of missing the halcyon days of 5.9 earthquakes. Still no power, still have trees lying across the roads, no traffic lights – the latter very widespread last night, and still fairly widespread this am.

Sarahw (fc672f) — 8/29/2011 @ 7:44 am

And the hits just keep coming….

Could WI have awakened people out of the catatonic trance of Leftism?

“A majority of local leaders in Michigan question whether union workers are causing their communities more financial harm than good, according to a survey conducted amid an ongoing debate over proposed pay and benefit cuts for Wayne County’s unionized employees.

Those cuts, proposed by the Wayne County executive, are tied up in court, and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has warned workers the city could be taken over by a financial manager if they don’t pick up a larger portion of their health care and pension costs to shrink a looming deficit…”

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (69a267) — 8/29/2011 @ 7:53 am

Calypso Louie –

We moved to Philly in 1984. Not sure if Goode was already mayor, but I don’t remember anybody else.

I think the city got so tired of paying to rebuild crappy construction they eventually gave everyone a payout for the houses and evicted the owners and condemned the buildings. So, as far as who really cause the homeowners on the block the most trouble over the years, it was their city co-residents who “rebuilt” their homes.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 8/29/2011 @ 8:49 am

Well, we can’t have this happen, it would just destroy the country…

“Cantor Demands Common-Sense Spending Cuts in Exchange for More FEMA Aid”
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/28/cantor-demands-common-sense-spending-cuts-in-exchange-for-more-fema-aid/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (69a267) — 8/29/2011 @ 8:50 am

Milhouse: that’s what it’s looking like. TC reported minimal damage, the power seems to be on. The only lingering concern is that the flight is now guaranteed to be full, which is less fun than a non-full flight.

Really and truly, though, the fact that the storm turned out to be exaggerated is a *feature*. I am very, very glad that it turned out to be a minor event rather than a major one.

aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/29/2011 @ 10:29 am

Beldar: yeah, I don’t understand complaining about this being overhyped. Yeah, it turned out to be overhyped. But Thursday when the hype machine was heating up, there was no way of knowing that the eye would collapse and the storm would fizzle out. There was maybe a 10% chance of a huge disaster – and that 10% is worth getting excited about, particularly when 65 million people live in the path of it.

It turned out to be ok. But better to be prepared, and worried, and not need the preparation, than not be prepared, and have needed it.

aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/29/2011 @ 10:31 am

That’s right, Aphrael. Nothing wrong with overpreparing. I’m sure the media was extremely annoying, though I didn’t watch any of it. What do folks expect? It’s the American media.

But the government treating this like a potential disaster is quite reasonable, and better than the alternatives.

This isn’t like a tornado in Oklahoma.

Dustin (b2fb78) — 8/29/2011 @ 10:34 am

8/27/2011

Hurricane Irene Update

97 Responses to “Hurricane Irene Update”

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