SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
takyon: Florence is currently expected to make landfall in North Carolina during the early morning or afternoon on Friday. There have been mandatory evacuation orders, but they may be widely ignored.
A category 2 (formerly category 4) hurricane named "Florence" is heading for the eastern coast of the US. This being around the midpoint of the hurricane season, that's not unusual. This hurricane is, however, expected to make landfall much further north than is usual: near the border between the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. As you may recall, Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, Texas last year with many areas receiving over 40 inches of rain (peak total was 60 inches) over a four-day period. Florence is similar in that there is a high pressure ridge just north of the point of landfall. It is anticipated that this will keep Florence part way over the ocean (picking up additional moisture) and part way over land (dumping copious amounts of rain).
Hurricanes cause damage in three ways: wind damage, storm surge, and rain (flooding).
Let's start with the wind. Recent readings (according to Wikipedia): sustained winds 110 knots (120 mph; 205 km/h) (1-min mean) gusting to 140 knots (150 mph; 250 km/h). (Aerodynamic drag is proportional to the square of the wind velocity. Stick your arm straight out the window of a vehicle travelling at 60 mph. Now take that force and double it. And then double it again. Now imagine that force being applied against something the size of a building. Widespread structural damage is likely.
Next, there's the Storm Surge which "is produced by water being pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds moving cyclonically around the storm." This would be above and beyond the normal tides for the area. For this storm, Scientists say Hurricane Florence could produce historic storm surge of up to 20 feet (~12 meters). To provide some perspective, tides around Myrtle Beach (near the northern-most part of South Carolina) usually has tides of up to 2.5 feet (0.75 meters). In short, flooding at the coast will be of historic proportions.
And then on to the rain. Expected rainfall totals over a period of four days generally range up to 20 inches — with 30 inches being possible in isolated locations. The general area has already had steady rains over recent weeks saturating the soil. Most of the rainfall will, therefore, not be absorbed by the soil but will instead just run downstream. In the mountains and hills away from the coast are a great many valleys which will further funnel the water and produce major flooding. It gets worse. Tree roots in waterlogged soil will likely give way under the onslaught of the rain and wind; many of which will fall on power lines. Power outages of several days or even over a week can be expected. Temperatures in the area vary around 70-90°F (21-32°C) so expect much food spoilage when refrigerators stop running.
Further complicating things, Hurricane Florence's risks include toxic sludge and lagoons of pig manure. In 2014, about 39,000 tons of coal ash spilled in from a pond near Eden, North Carolina. As of August 2017, Duke Energy had 31 coal ash basins in North Carolina which contained about 111 million tons of coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal to generate electricity. It contains metals including arsenic, chromium, and mercury. The extreme rainfall could cause some ash ponds to overflow and send their toxic waste downstream.
North Carolina is a top producer of turkey, chicken, and hogs. More than 10 billion pounds of wet animal waste is produced annually in the state and is held in lagoons because it's generally considered a safe way to store the manure before it's used to aid crops. Though most lagoons will likely survive the storm intact, there will certainly be some which overflow sending their "aromatic essence" downstream.
Links:
National Hurricane Center
NYT: Hurricane Florence's Path: Category 2 Storm Closes In on Carolina Coast
Ars Technica 2018-09-13: Florence is now “only” a Category 2 hurricane. That won’t matter much
Ars Technica 2018-09-12: The Hurricane Florence forecast has gone from bad to worse
Ars Technica 2018-09-10: Hurricane Florence represents a grave threat to the East Coast
CBS News: Hurricane Florence closes in on Carolinas, Virginia – live updates
Washington Post Hurricane Florence charges toward Carolinas with ‘potential for unbelievable damage’
Wikipedia entry on Hurricane Florence
GOES-East Satellite Loop
Earth.nullschool.net: earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:01PM (1 child)
Bill Clinton wasn't a sitting President at the time. I'm guessing he didn't have nearly as much media along, compared to Trump. So no wonder Trump's photo op got more attention.
Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Haitians (those living in Haiti that don't individually have U.S. citizenship) are not.
President Trump has repeatedly downplayed the situation in Puerto Rico, including just today [twitter.com]:
Trump falsely claims nearly 3,000 Americans in Puerto Rico 'did not die' [cnn.com]
Trump's wrong on Puerto Rico, Florida Republicans say [go.com]
Large portions of the island were left without electricity for a long time. Infrastructure, roads, and many homes were damaged. The updated death toll and other estimates are in the ballpark of 0.1% of the population. Does Trump dispute the new death toll because it's wildly inaccurate, or because it's politically expedient to ignore it? At least 200,000 people have ended up moving to Florida, which is probably not a great outcome for Republicans or Trump's reelection effort. Obviously, Maria's effects on Puerto Rico's economy and tourism were not great, so their already crappy economy is going to be even worse off.
Puerto Rico had its problems before the storm, that's for sure, but sooner or later, we will have to pick up the tab. That's the price of latent imperialism. If the place goes completely tits up, you'll just see a massive exodus to Florida, which will likely cease to be a "battleground state".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 14 2018, @01:25AM
No, but his wife was Secretary of State at the time, a position Obama gave her to try to avoid a split in the Democratic party after a long and bitter primary. Also, George W. Bush was in on the Haiti action with the Clintons, so we're talking about two former presidents, not just one. Bill Clinton was also the UN's Special Envoy to Haiti at the time, so the UN was also represented. In short, there were plenty of media there.
The status of Puerto Ricans as Americans doesn't make a material difference to the damage a hurricane will do to a Caribbean island. It doesn't mean cleaning up afterward is somehow easier, either. They're called natural disasters for a reason. Hurricane Sandy hit NYC six years ago, and it was pretty mild as hurricanes go, but here we are all that time later and they are still shutting down subway tunnels to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to repair hurricane damage. The aquarium in Coney Island is still messed up.
So where are all the media cursing Obama for not having done enough to protect the center of American capitalism and financial markets from such an event, which, as a guy who's aware of the impact of climate change on extreme weather, should have known better? There was no such outcry.
My point in all this is that the MSM was never going to say anything positive about Trump's handling of the matter. If he had had an actual magic wand, and had waved it, and everything had suddenly gone back to status quo ante, MSNBC would have led its evening broadcast with "Trump Makes Pact Wtih Satan."
My secondary point, already made upthread, is that the local pols in Puerto Rico were just pleased as punch to suddenly have Trump to blame for the damage they themselves had done to the place.
Washington DC delenda est.