Archive through October 05, 2024
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Disasters (Current News):
Archive through October 05, 2024
A rig carrying a trio of industrial grade Lithium-Ion batteries flipped and caught fire yesterday near one of the big highway interchanges feeding the Los Angeles port.
Local fire authorities have decided to let it burn itself out due to the rather violent interaction when lithium gets wet.
I hope this doesn't violate the standards against going political, but IMO, this graphically demonstrates the problems being caused by people not thinking about the consequences of environmental activism.
Webmom? If this DOES violate the standards, please delete it, and I apologize for doing so.
Jga, there's been at least half a dozen instances this year in the U.S. alone where gasoline tanker trucks have caught fire and closed down highways (including, of course, the instance on I-95 in Connecticut that quite literally melted the steel girders of an interstate highway bridge, in a repeat of the incident on I-95 in Philadelphia the prior year). In those instances, water was equally useless and they were allowed to burn out. Lithium-ion batteries do not have a monopoly on difficult-to-extinguish fires.
Same thing with wild fire, regardless of no, little or major development. (No buildings/infrastructure, little to moderate development, or major development.)
Yes, there are exceptions but there are times it has been decided to let the fires burn.
The fires in Hawaii for example.
(No, I am not referring to the controversy that implies that there was corrupt influence to “encourage” the decision to burn out the residents and thus remove the opposition to redevelopment of high value sea shore property.)
I think people should make their own conclusions.
Any form of energy is going to have risks and the occasional disaster is just the cost of doing business. We have electricity in our houses despite the fact that people are electrocuted and fires are caused by problems with electrical wiring every day (actually, more than two per day).
Yes, it's a shame that lithium batteries can be really dangerous if they catch fire. So can gasoline, so can firewood. If we were having thousands of people killed every year in lithium fires, it would be one thing. An occasional fire, another altogether. Jessica could well say that our failure to move to an electrical economy directly resulted in 286 natural gas explosions last year that caused deaths or $100,000 in property damage.
We all know the answer to everything is nuclear power. But nobody wants to campaign for nuclear energy when the tremendously tiny odds of a nuclear reactor problem could kill a million people and leave an entire state radioactive for 10,000 years.
Atlanta, Georgia had an existing nuclear power plant with two unit reactors that have been operating safely for decades.
This year, they activated two more nuclear reactor power generation units that had been quietly approved in 2015-16.
There are now smaller portable nuclear power stations that have been field tested for safety and effectiveness.
The U.S. navy never stopped producing nuclear powered aircraft carriers and Submarines.
Germany, in the rush for a”Green” power ideology, decommissioned their nuclear power plants, but recently, have realized the folly of their actions.
California decided that nuclear power is bad, and has campaigned to eliminate the existing nuclear power plants… but at the same time, refused to expand hydropower dams and reservoirs.
I can’t wait to see how California deals with the energy shortage during an extended period of time of declining population, surge of undocumented immigrants, declining tax revenues, higher prices and their largest employers departing for other states that want high paying jobs to add to the new states tax revenues.
In fairness to California on nuclear power. (Not on Hydro.)
Earthquakes are a very real risk to nuclear power, not only can they destabilize the reactor, they can also destroy the containment dome. The West Coast, including Hawaii, and parts of Alaska are not likely the best choice for nuclear plants at this time. Better smaller plants may change that.
My concerns are that, due to the incidents of small Lithium/Ion batteries catching fire, I would expect that the fire departments would have contingency plans for dealing with larger ones.
I mean, fire trucks have foam concentrate aboard for helping to control petroleum fires, like the rigs carrying gas for gas stations. We also have forestry service bulldozers for helping to contain brush fires. Fire departments seem to have contingencies for almost every sort of problem, and that's something that gives me comfort.
In this case, though, we had a fire at a critical infrastructure location that also happens to have nearby residential neighborhoods and the best they could do was say, "Umm, we're just gonna let it burn itself out."
I just can't accept that. With the increasing dependence on these batteries, I expect better. Sure, maybe it's just California being California, but boy, it sure ain't sittin' right with me. 
It is encouraging me to want to leave this rot-hole of a state and move somewhere decent...
... Like Texas! 
I left California 20 years ago and am so glad I did.
I miss what California used to be. But it's like that no more. My brother is in Long Beach and I still have friends there, but they all struggle.
Texas, by the way, is starting to have trouble. Many people from East and West coast looking for the better economic opportunities, but bringing bad ideas with them.
Now I'm in Kansas. At Wichita is a pretty good place.
North Carolina looks to have been hit very hard by the hurricane. Whole towns wiped off the map by flooding. It's stunning.
At least 120 Americans dead in that hurricane, maybe 600 missing. Most of the missing are probably just out of contact, but many of them are dead.
A fair lot of it has to do with the fact that this was a brand-new experience for western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. As a local weather person put it, this wasn't a 100-year storm for them; it was a never-happened-before storm for the area.
Another issue with this storm is how people are vacationing in today's society. They are doing short term rentals on top of the mountains. They go out to eat in town and have limited food with them as this "vacation home" is not theirs, but someone else's. The water service is out, the steep roads to the homes are out, they have no power, and no cell service.
Also, very few people know they are out there. They are, for the most part, not people who have the knowledge or skills to survive in such a situation.
The death toll will be going higher, I am afraid.
My aunt, who lives in Ashe County, NC (in the corner between Tennessee and Virginia), is alive by the grace of God. She was watching the flooding from her front door instead of being in the back of the house in the kitchen. The mountain turned loose, destroying the back of the house and knocking it 20 feet off the foundation. She was bruised but alive. The neighbors spotted it and got her to the closest hospital, which was miles away. They stabilized her. She's staying with relatives in that town.
My cousin Harry has not been reached. He lives on the side of a mountain with a creek below. Most likely, the creek washed out the road on either side.
The flooding in Asheville surpassed the flood of 1791.
Some people are using mules to get supplies to people who are otherwise cut off.
It may take months to restore power since they have to rebuild roads to get the equipment in.
The junior college where Mom and Dad met is closed indefinitely. The school where Dad finished his degrees is closed until at least October 4, when they will see what can be opened.
It is breaking my heart.
All hopes that Harry is safe
Devastated states report that FEMA will not give them disaster declarations meaning no relief funds for most of thosewho need it. FEMA says it ran out of money.
FEMA is out of money because it spent everything it had supporting migrants who showed up at the border asking for sanctuary. (Something over 90% of those claims are proven invalid but the “catch and release” system means almost no one shows up for their immigration hearing.)
Wow, we can't support our own citizens when they need us the most...
The FEMA rumor is a lie. Two separate pots of money.
https://www.newsweek.com/fema-response-accusations-money-spent-migrants-1963702
And if only we could have passed that Border protection bill a group decided to oppose for political reasons...
"The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA's disaster-related authorities or funding streams."
It's all money out of FEMA's pot. What wasn't spent on A could be spent on B. And we didn't need the separate pot for illegals, money that otherwise would have been in FEMA's budget for domestic use. Not a lie at all, just a clever bit of accounting to hide the truth. They set it up from the first to make the FEMA budget look the same while diverting money from taxpayers to illegals. If the program had never been set up, the same dollars would have been in FEMA's reserve.
And which border protection bill would that be? I've seen at least twenty-five proposals going back to the Reagan years. Most never made it out of committee. I read the last one, and it was a total joke.
Garth L. Getgen
The one the Republicans turned down would have legalized illegal immigration.
Everyone: Our immigration system is broken!
Republicans: Our immigration system is broken because no one tries to enforce it.
Democrats: Our immigration system is broken because someone tries to enforce it.
Basically, the system is scamable to the max. Someone enters the country illegally, and when caught screams "asylum!" claiming that their home government was trying to murder them. They are given a court date a year away, and in the meantime get a government check every month and get flown during the night on a chartered airliner to some random city that didn't want them or know they were coming. They never show up for court and live for years in this country until the Mrs delivers a child who is suddenly an American citizen despite the lack of any law saying so. (The congressmen who wrote the citizenship law in the 1860s said there is no such thing as an anchor baby.) Once they have an anchor baby they're home free and with a quick path to citizenship and voting rights.
It would seem that the ROBERT T. STAFFORD DISASTER RELIEF AND EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE ACT needs to be reviewed, it does not seem to have a method of removing funds from the disaster relief fund to other funds.
As Mike G noted, the administration simply took the money that was going to be given to the disaster fund and assigned some of it to this new shelter/service program, then had Congress rubber stamp it. All totally legal and evades the ban on raiding disaster funds.
Oh is that what he said??