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from the good-time-to-implement-strict-building-codes dept.
At 9PM ET September 20, ABC News reported
The island of Puerto Rico has been "destroyed" after Hurricane Maria made landfall there as a Category 4 storm Wednesday morning, according to emergency officials.
Puerto Rico's office of emergency management confirmed that 100 percent of the U.S. territory had lost power, noting that anyone with electricity was using a generator.
Multiple transmission lines sustained damage from the storm, said Ricardo Ramos, director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Ramos said he hopes to begin launching helicopters by this weekends to begin inspecting the transmission lines.
Telecommunications throughout the island have "collapsed", Abner Gomez Cortes, executive director of Puerto Rico's office of emergency management and disaster administration agency, told ABC News.
[...] Cortes described Maria as an unprecedented storm, adding that the island had not seen a storm of that strength since 1928.
[...] Puerto Rico was still experiencing tropical-storm force winds Wednesday afternoon, forcing emergency services and search and rescue teams to wait before heading out to assess the damage, Cortes said.
More than 12,000 people are currently in shelters, and hospitals are now running on generators, Cortes said. Two hospitals--one in Caguas and one in Bayamon--have been damaged.
No deaths have been reported so far, but catastrophic flooding is currently taking place on the island. Multiple rain gauges have reported between 18 and 24 inches of rain, with some approaching the 30-inch mark over the last 24 hours.
Flooding is the danger "that will take lives", Cortes said, advising residents not to venture out of their homes until Thursday because "it is not safe to go out and observe".
[...] As of 8 p.m. ET, Maria had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained wind of 110 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
[...] Some strengthening is possible now that the storm is back over the ocean, so Maria has potential to become a Category 3 hurricane again.
National Hurricane Center graphics for Maria.
Map of Caribbean Islands.
At 15:20 UTC, Mashable reported
Clips shot in the [cities] of Farjado, San Juan, and Guyama show buildings experiencing extreme structural damage. Doors are being ripped right off their hinges, and windows, walls, and roofs of homes, restaurants, and hotels are being stripped away by the storm's incredible power.
(Score: 2) by http on Thursday September 21 2017, @07:07PM (4 children)
There is no human construction that nature can't eventually take down.
What are you going to do when all those people you want to fuck decide that they're going to move in next to you because you're so much smarter than they are and realize you have chosen the perfect place to live? I'll help you out with a quick language lesson: "arigato" is a quick and dirty way of saying "thank you" in Japanese.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday September 21 2017, @08:35PM (1 child)
> There is no human construction that nature can't eventually take down.
For an extended value of "eventually", definitely.
In the safe for hundreds-of-years range, Europe is full of fun WW2 memorabilia which costs too much to destroy, and 500-year-old castles and churches which cost too much to heat.
One of my best friend grew up in a small building with walls over 1m thick and a solid thick timber roof. Built for sheep downstairs and servants upstairs, but more nature-proof than 99.9% of the buildings in the US.
It's a matter of investing enough to make things which last.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday September 22 2017, @09:14AM
And those buildings still exist, obviously. As I type this I'm sitting in a >450 year old building (it's in official records in 1532, but there were wooden constructions here in 1457, so we have upper and lower bounds). It used to be a salt-cellar in medieval times, we were an important Hanseatic trading port, and this plot used to be within 100m of the sea back then (post-glacial uplift means the sea has retreated). After lunch I will go to the office, which is a mere >300 years old, but does have the walls closer to 1m thick than this place, and has fortunately lost the smell of the horses that used to be stabled there hundreds of years back.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 22 2017, @04:02AM (1 child)
"Arigatou gozaimasu" unless it's someone really familiar to you. Japanese is crazily hierarchical and polite speech is very important to functioning properly. Unless you know someone very well, it's all gozaimasu, kudasai, and $SURNAME-san in place of any form of "you" if you don't want to get anything from ostracized to beaten senseless.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by http on Friday September 22 2017, @04:41AM
I predict they'll make some allowances, given that they're coming to AC's door and not the other way around. The only place I would dare to skip the `domo' is with sempai at a coffee shop.
If my incomplete lesson gets AC beaten, I may let a titter of glee escape my lips.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.