| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, July 08, 2025 - 06:37 am: Edit |
I read a thing about that the other day, Steve. Long story short, Kerr County has declined to put in a flood warning system due to cost and local opposition; they continued to rely upon a word-of-mouth system, with camps further up the river warning those down-river of storm surges. They did briefly consider asking the state for aid on some manner of flood control, and gave it up when the state only offered a 5% match.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, July 08, 2025 - 07:16 am: Edit |
That's fairly common. We had some flood issues in small places here and there and the locals paid to fix it.
| By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Tuesday, July 08, 2025 - 09:58 am: Edit |
A counselor was interviewed (saw it am tues),
when on duty/shift, they turn their cell phones off...
Kids aren't allowed phones when on site....
That is one of those "No good deed, goes unpunished" policies....
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 12:15 am: Edit |
I have said this before but it bears repeating.
Cell networks are designed to handle something more than the average number of active calls being made at any given time. I don't know what that number is, but let's say it is 5000 for a network in a city of 100,000 people (not all of whom have cell phones, most of whom are at work or home and aren't using their cell phones).
When a disaster strikes (for example, a tornado warning) everyone will pull out their phone to check on someone and the system will crash.
For that matter, as a State Military Police member, we often did security for public events like county fairs and the like, or the fireworks display of a major city. Tens of thousands of people are all milling around the biggest park in the city, and guess what, since none of them were home or at work, everyone relied on the cell phones and the system crashed, it just could not handle 25,000 people all trying to use a system designed for a fraction of that number.
The point is, in a natural disaster if your phone suddenly doesn't work, that's why, too many are trying to check on loved ones at the same time. That makes cell systems unreliable for any kind of "word of mouth" alert system.
| By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 01:12 am: Edit |
It's ideal for the Emergency Alert system though (provided the towers haven't gone down from some catastrophic event).
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 07:03 am: Edit |
A good siren system is the best bet...if they can fund it. Good luck with that.
"Fun" little anecdote regarding gov't funding: I'm on the board of alderman for my municipality here in Missouri. And let me tell you, we are caught between the revenue rock and the budgetary hard place. We have things that badly need to be done...like close on a million dollars of ash tree removal on city property and right-of-ways before the dead trees (the emerald ash borer killed every last ash in town) start falling onto cars, houses, power lines, etc.
We've tried for five years running to get a measure passed through referendum to get the sales tax on internet purchases. The tax money is already collected by the state dept. of revenue, and it's enough to make a big dent in the tree-removal problem, but we need to pass a referendum to allow us to accept it. No matter how the mayor tries to communicate this to our citizens, they vote it down, every time, because when they go to the polls they see the word "tax" and stop reading right there.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 07:21 am: Edit |
Here's an idea for ash tree removal.
First, if the trees would be harvestable for lumber (ash is used for a lot of furniture) you could find a lumber company and cut a deal with them. They come get the trees and it costs you nothing. Google "hardwood mills in Missouri" and you will find five of them in five seconds. It's worth making five phone calls. You might get lucky.
Another idea would be to find a firewood company and sell them cheap permits to cut down the trees and haul off the logs to process in their machinery. (At worst, some city employee would have to rake up the smaller broken twigs.) YouTube is full of firewood companies doing free tree removal to get free wood for them to machine-cut into fireplace lengths and sell. (There are machines for sale which load a log in one end and stack fireplace-length split wood out the other.) Five seconds on google and I found 20 of them all over Missouri. Call the closest one and offer them a deal to cut down five trees and haul the stuff off. If they do a good job of policing up the broken twigs, you give them a permit for 100 trees. You might even get a landscape company to take the smaller stuff away for free so they can sell it as mulch. A cord of ash firewood retails in Missouri for $250 to $400. (A stack 4x4x8 feet.) Trees that are "standing dead" are more valuable to firewood companies as they only have to be stacked and dried for a couple of months; green firewood has to age for a year before it can be sold.)
And if that fails, aren't there people in Missouri who own fireplaces and would like free firewood?
Obviously they would have to sign insurance waivers first, maybe even make a $250 deposit for debris removal which is refunded if they do that themselves. But Jessica, getting rid of dead trees isn't usually a problem. Ash makes great firewood.
There is a widow four blocks from me who relies entirely on free firewood to heat her home. Lots of the men around here own chainsaws and any dead tree in Rockwell Acres is stacked in her firewood rack in about a week. (She's 50 and pretty and lots of divorced guys are willing to pitch in. Heck, I'm married but I loved firing up my chainsaw before I got crippled.) Find the biggest church in town and see if they would get together a few strapping lads who could raise money for the church by cutting firewood, or even giving the firewood to the less fortunate.
Stump removal (if you even bother) would been much cheaper than removing 40-foot trees.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 07:25 am: Edit |
As for funding sirens, the area I live in funded its own sirens when I was a lad in school and did it all with local funding. They are properly maintained. People in Amarillo take tornadoes seriously.
I do agree that every local government is pressed for money all of the time. How much would the system cost? Go fund me?
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 01:31 pm: Edit |
So, here's the problem.
Because we're a municipality, anyone we hire for tree removal must be licensed and bonded for tree removal. If we let the local chainsaw maniacs loose and they managed to drop a tree on a house (or, far worse, a person, perhaps even a member of the tree crew itself), the city would be on the hook for it...and because we didn't hire a licensed and bonded service, the municipal insurance would not pay out.
How do I know this? Because your second suggestion was the first one I offered last September, followed closely by your first one (great minds and all that). The city attorney nearly had a cardiac incident on the spot.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 09, 2025 - 02:00 pm: Edit |
A problem of the municipalities own making.
The lumber and firewood companies should all have insurance against such events.
For a fraction of the cost, you could hire a retired tree cutter to supervise the maniacs.
| By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Thursday, July 10, 2025 - 02:02 am: Edit |
I see the death toll has reached 119 in Texas flash floods...
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, July 11, 2025 - 05:22 pm: Edit |
We're definitely going to have to do something and fast, because while I was on vacation last week, one of them apparently came down on a street. Didn't hit anything or anyone, thank God, but it made clear that this has to be dealt with sooner rather than later.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 12:44 am: Edit |
There is a way to do it, but it involves locking the city attorney in the bathroom.
Find someone with experience in cutting down trees. It is fairly easy to drop them in a particular direction.
On The Day, Chainsaw guy and a city crew of six or eight along with a cop or two go to an area, herd everyone out of the danger zone, form a circle around the danger zone (maybe with yellow tape) and the Chainsaw Guy drops the first tree in a safe direction. Don't do this in the dark or rain or wind. If you really want to, get a rope tied halfway up the tree and tie the other end to a pickup in the right direction beyond the danger zone.
Then you move on to the next tree and the next one. Be as careful as you can. Go slow and keep the trees pointed in a safe direction with no houses, structures, vehicles, or people.
You then tell just about anyone convenient who has a relatively inexpensive insurance policy to come cut the downed tree into pieces and load it on a truck or trailer and away it goes. Parks and recreation then wood-chips the debris.
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 06:13 am: Edit |
You have no idea how much I wish we could get away with that.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 07:03 am: Edit |
Just takes one bathroom lock!
| By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 10:20 am: Edit |
Find a politician that can make money off of removing the trees and it will get done. That goes back to funding for said removal. So not going to happen. Just like having a lumber company remove them. Perhaps a tax break for the company that does the work?
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 11:46 am: Edit |
Campaign donors to the front of the line!
| By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 11:53 am: Edit |
Either that, or feed the politician/bureaucrat who tries to stop the needed work to an alligator...
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, July 14, 2025 - 11:08 pm: Edit |
The Big Beautiful Bill includes provisions that to get the various welfare programs, able-bodied people have to go get a real job. That has come as a shock for people going to get their checks and being told "you don't get anything until you get a job." (I think there is some kind of provision that you can qualify for a month if you apply for several jobs.) That can be an issue for women who have multiple children and no husband and now must get a job. Where does child care factor into this?
I did see one woman tiktoker who was sincere (and unintentionally hilarious). I will quote her as best I can remember: "I have six babies from four baby daddies. Not one of those daddies has ever paid me a dime. I have never had a job, and don't want one. I had those babies so I could get government benefits without having to get a job. I was getting $10,000 a month in benefits from the government and now I have to go get a job that pays maybe $1500 a month in order to qualify for reduced benefits? I have 285,000 followers, not one of whom has sent me any money for this crisis."
| By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 - 11:16 pm: Edit |
Got an 8.8 earthquake off Russian coast,
Tsunami warnings for HI, AK and West Coast till midnight or so PST....
| By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 - 08:59 am: Edit |
Tsunami up to 2m in HI, and approximately 1m on the west coast from the reports this morning. That is a lot of water over a very large area moving.
| By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 - 10:04 am: Edit |
Out of curiosity, I looked up the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. It was in 1960 and was measured at 9.5 (resulting in the Crescent City tsunami that devastated the city - curious fact, my father in law had been in the city on the day of the tsunami).
Yesterday's 8.8 earthquake was therefore *really* up there in terms of very powerful quakes. While the 9.5 earthquake in 1960 was roughly 5 times more powerful than yesterday's 8.8, nevertheless 8.8 packs one helluva whollop!
| By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 - 12:35 pm: Edit |
Couple days ago, I posted in RWM topic a comment about 11 provinces and regions in China suffering widespread flooding, two deaths (reported up to the time the article was posted.), and tens of millions of people ordered to evacuate.
Today I saw a news report from the L.A. times updating the report. As of July 28, 2025.
Now the Chinese government is reporting that in the flooded provinces and regions, in addition to continued rain, 17 dams are releasing more water into the flooded regions. (The stated reason was to avoid water over filling the dams and potentially resulting in multiple dam failures.)
One dam in particular announced that the were releasing 17 million square feet of water in to already flooded river system that was already well above its banks.
Don’t know about the rest of you, but I would classify this event as a disaster.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 06, 2025 - 11:49 am: Edit |
Oceanic sonar surveys report that Blue whales world wide have suddenly stopped talking to each other in their whale song system. No one knows why. They don’t seem to have all died at once, but the idea of an entire relatively intelligent species going radio silent is most curious.
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, August 06, 2025 - 02:28 pm: Edit |
The calls have dropped off as much as 40% in some places. It appears to be at least partially related to a shortage of krill and small fish that make up their diet, which is in turn due to an increase in toxic algae blooms in warming waters. Those same warming waters have changed how whale song travels, which appears to have messed with the internal "maps" that they use to find each other through song.
| By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Wednesday, August 06, 2025 - 04:13 pm: Edit |
>> warming waters have changed how whale song travels
Just like sonar generally works better and has longer range in cold water.
--Mike
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