Hurricane!

Yet again: Tropical Storm Delta.

I have not written anything about Tropical Storm Delta after it formed as I thought it was a last gasp type of storm that would fade away soon after its formation. However, the storm has persisted and is now making its way towards the Cape Verde Islands and the shores of Morocco.

A popular sentiment in the blogosphere this Thanksgiving.

· I am thankful that out of all the destruction that has been visited upon this nation this year, Katrina and Rita, that my family has remained unscathed.

One thing Hurricane Katrina pointed out was how hard it is to monitor charities that request donations after a disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina, I donated $50 to the Humane Society to help the pets that were stranded and abandoned in New Orleans. Yesterday I heard that the Humane Society filed a law suit regarding the welfare of poultry in slaughter houses. Great! The Humane Society has turned into frigging PETA! I am not going to donate any more money to them. We already have enough over-the-top flakes at PETA, we don’t need another whacko organization!

I see a lot of blog posts about whether to include guns and ammunition in a hurricane survival kit.

Given recent world events and the Prophet’s words concerning preparedness, I was not surprised to find myself in a combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting yesterday discussing emergencies and 72 hour kits. It was a general rehash of things we have all heard before and I was drowsing comfortably on the back row until one comment woke me from my navel contemplation. The comment is paraphrased as: “We all saw what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Rita. In times of crisis, the first thing that goes is law and order. I think we should include a sidearm and plenty of ammunition in our 72 hour kits.”

Hurricane Gamma has set a new record for number of hurricanes in a season.

Current track brings it into southern Florida by early Monday after accelerating during the weekend. That should prevent it from reaching hurricane strength. However, the area has just now recovered from Hurricane Wilma and if the storm reached sufficient wind velocity, it will down power lines and disrupt lives. It is currently a compact storm which will limit its area of impact but will this storm be the last straw for many residents in south Florida who will seek out better climes to live?

A silver lining?

The next month was something different altogether… Hurricane Rita hit, leaving us without power for 8 days and without water for 2 of those (see earlier posts). But the kicker was getting a stomach virus during the first two days of all that as well! So I lost another 10 lbs in a week. And it stayed off since I was still training for the triathlon and since I had missed a couple of days of powerlifting in the gym (everything was shut down for several days, what with the debris, lack of power, and gas shortage). And this time I did lose lots of strength, unfortunately. I’ve been struggling to retain what I can of it, while still training my cardio and it’s been rough.

Great hurricane photos at the NOAA website.

Aside from NASA (as found in my previous post) there are other government agencies that have public domain photos availible. One such agency is NOAA, that's right the folks that do the weather forecast and issue hurricane alerts also take pictures. At the NOAA Photo Library you can find everything from animals to tonadoes, sunsets to ships and satellites to airplanes.

Click through for some terrific first hand accounts of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina by this film makers.

We are trying to raise $5,100 for post production expenses. This amount would get us a fine-cut suitable for festivals and public showings. I cannot stress the importance of producing this film. Our feature will focus on the local groups such as Common Grounds and outside volunteers such as the people from Veterans For Peace. What makes this film worthy of donating to is the large audience that will have their eyes opened to the current problems facing the residents of todays New Orleans and the groups helping those people.

If you're blogging about hurricane relief, submit your post to Blog Carnival with the submit button at the top of the left column.

Read the entire post on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the elderly.

I "mucked" today -- and it sucked! (But not for the reasons you might think - read on) Imagine a house that, at one time had 4 to 5 feet of standing water, not to mention now in it's ninth week with no power or water - think about what nine weeks with no power can do to the contents of a refrigerator and freezer. As one of the guys said tonight, "I smelled smells that no one should ever have to smell." The standing water was now gone, but the dampness was there, and the mold was growing up the walls. The mattresses and upholstered furniture were still soaked, and the dresser drawers were stuck closed, but full of water! Standard operating procedure with the refrigerators is to duct tape them closed - very well - and then haul them out. And you have no idea how heavy a soaking wet sofa bed is. First we carried everything out to the side of the road. You just pile the stuff up and eventually FEMA comes and picks it up.

If you blog about hurricanes, submit your post to Blog Carnival with the submit button at the top of the left column.

Good posts on the nitty gritty details of Hurricane Katrina recovery.

From the experience of others, we knew to not open the doors to the refrigerator. Refrigerators simply cannot be saved. The smell of the liquid that seeped out the shut doors confirmed this wisdom. While we were there, refrigerators were the hottest-selling item in New Orleans, and will be for some time.

Lots of coastline vanished after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

The effects from Hurricane Rita were not as severe as Katrina in southeastern Louisiana though Hurricane Rita'’s storm surge caused new tears in fresh and intermediate marshes within Barataria and Terrebonne basins and reactivated older hurricane scars. HurricaeRita'’s storm surge did cause noticable marsh loss west of the Mississippi River to the Texas border.

If you posted a blog about hurricanes, submit it to Blog Carnival. Use the submit button at the top of the left column.

Will it be different for the 2006 hurricane season?

It’s a good thing the hurricane season is about over - but will there be a sense of deja vu all over again after the first hurricane hits America next year.

Another sad aftermath of Hurricane Rita.

Two of the suspects are teenagers who evacuated from Beaumont, Texas, in the wake of Hurricane Rita, Mitchell said. They were identified as Jimmy Hoang Le, 18, and Stephanie Jacobo, 18.

Get out the guns!

$7 gazillion for a shot for the possible pandemmic of bird flu- is it worth it? I can’t even seem to manage to get a stinkin flu shot! At this point, Bush is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Today, there was some bitching from the left that Bush didn’t do enough hurricane preparedness for the hurricane season. Of course my thought is to go ahead and let the NRA members start shooting the birdies one by one and call it a day!

The union view on Hurricane Katrina.

The one million people from New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast suddenly tossed out of their jobs by Hurricane Katrina are now fanning out across the South and the rest of the country looking for work. In San Francisco, a few have been hired to scab on striking health care workers. Others can hope for work rebuilding the highways and buildings leveled by the storm and flooding. But most were low-wage workers in the casino and tourism industries, filling jobs that will not exist until the region is rebuilt. Before the hurricane hit, nearly a fourth of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line.