Unevenly Distributed

185 thoughts on “Unevenly Distributed”

1. I dont know if it’s true (fog of media), but there’s a chance that the campers were in a bad area for a cell signal. So my usual method or leaving my location on and telling the weather app to Follow Me would not necessarily have worked.

   LikeLiked by 1 person

   1. There is some of that there. Not as bad as West Virginia (while there, I either had full signal or none, no “2 or 3 Bars”) but there are holes, especially in the hollows where the flooding is going.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

      1. Which is one reason the weather alert system is sent out over satellite.

         LikeLiked by 1 person

         1. The very first test of that was 10 months ago, by T-Mobile, so I’ve got my doubts that that is generally available.

            LikeLike

            1. That’s satellite to cell. Dedicated weather radios don’t use cell.

               LikeLike

               1. Fair enough, but since clairk‘s and JP Kalishek‘s comments were both about cell phones, if you don’t specify that you’re talking about something different, it is easy to misunderstand.

                  The satellite receivers are a bit pricey, but I see most (all?) have a monthly subscription for the service. It’s not clear if weather alerts sent direct from satellite would be received without paying a monthly subscription or not. Google and DuckDuckGo both return so many crap links to my searches that I’m deterred from spending any time digging further into something I won’t be buying. My brother in Alaska, who’s a hunting and fishing guide, has an Iridium satellite phone, but he’s often out in far wilds, so has an actual need for one.

                  LikeLike

   2. Another element is that the Hill Country – especially along the many rivers and tributaries – are very, very popular for vacationing – and this last weekend of the 4th was a three-day holiday for many people. I’m afraid that many individuals and families went off for the weekend, camping or in RVs, and their absence wouldn’t have been noted by neighbors, friends, employers until early this week. I think this is why the reported death toll from the floods took a sudden upward turn in the last 24 hours.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

   3. I have seen reporting that says the camp was a no-cell-phones-zone for the kids, and thus possibly for the adults as well given heading off “If you can have yours on to web surf and get texts, why can’t I?” queries.

      Combined with potential bad cell coverage for any few who had phones on, and the rapid change in the actual weather upstream, tragedy resulted.

      Satellite-direct-to-cell services will address bad coverage pretty soon, but the phones or watches or smart glasses have to be on.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

      1. If they expect to have instant info available they need to designate a contact in their group who has reliable communications (satellite, ham, whatever) to receive warnings. Otherwise they have to accept that they’re operating in 1950’s-mode, as we all had to do until ~30ya.

         LikeLiked by 2 people

   4. Arkansas doesn’t have much in the way of cellular service once you’re away from major highways and towns. The fancy maps the providers have, showing their service zones, might possibly be where they’re licensed to put towers… but have almost nothing to do with whether they actually provide service in those areas.

      I have had trouble explaining this to city people, some of whom have never been without a signal since the 20th century. When I used to do sportbike.net rides in the Ozarks, we had to go over the “no signal: no emergency services” part carefully, and even then I could see people Not Getting It.

      LikeLike

      1. My wife bikes also. I help in support and we have some ham radio people who help out yearly during our ride as we have some spotting cell coverage.

         LikeLike

         1. Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, etc., all have what I call Good-Luck-Calling-it-ain’t-happening.

            When we are in Yellowstone I always activate the road text notifications. Text is more likely to get through than a call. Not that it helps because too often putting on airplane mode to prevent battery drain is required. One way to get around that is to have a constant power source (more likely now that we aren’t backpacking/camping or hiking near as much). Having satellite coverage will help hugely, but not always. The will still be places that satellite will not reach. Ever use satellite radio on your car? We find it irritating when it cuts on and off going down the road.

            Too soon now. People are still missing. People are grieving. But an assessment must be done. Why weren’t the warnings heard? Why weren’t the early warning taken seriously? At a minimum they had anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to get out. The 3 hour warning should have had the camp authorities on lookout on the river.

            This is not new. People died in the recent LA fires. People died in the earlier community fires in California, Oregon, and other states, because no one took the evacuation warnings seriously, and left too late. People, 45 years ago, had to be forced from their homes in the exclusion zone of St Helens. Even then less than 24 hours before the mountain blew they forced authorities to let them back in that Saturday. Can you imagine the hue and cry had the mountain not held off for the 12-ish hours after everyone had to be out? Bad enough that the authorities and experts had it wrong as to what actually happened.

            LikeLiked by 1 person

            1. Southern Oregon/Northern California got clobbered by lightning on Monday night. Lots-o-fires in Jackson county, fewer in Flyover County, but one is trying to make up for it. (Elk fire). We’re not that close, but just close enough to see the smoke, plus pyrocumulus clouds. Oh Sheepdip! Not as bad as when Bootleg hit in ’21, but it’s at 2000 acres and growing. Reported Tuesday at 10:45. Winds would have to violate a lot of convention for it to hurt us, but it looks like a nasty one. And that’s after some methheads started a fire a few years back, leading most insurance companies to redline the area for fire.

               Prayers up, and any more would be appreciated. It’s not a wealthy area…

               LikeLike

               1. I’ve been issuing prayers for Southern Oregon, both east and west, because of the storms.

                  Saw clouds piling up on southern section of Cascades while the valley boils, wind blowing hard. Hubby calls them cumlus-overtimeus. They were for us, 50 -ish years ago. These days I am glad he didn’t make a career on wildland fire fighting. Scary enough before we were married. I was never on a big fire, just smaller district fire. His crew was sent out to the big fires regularly, and he fell danger trees along the fire line.

                  LikeLike

                  1. Things look a bit spicy west of Ashland.

                     I wonder why one of the hills there is called “Burnt Butte” …

                     LikeLiked by 1 person

                     1. There is a fire south of Ashland – “The Neil Creek Road Fire, located west of I-5 mile marker 10 and south of Ashland. Firefighters have been building and holding lines around the fire despite hot, windy conditions. With the help of additional retardant drops today, firefighters have been able to solidify line around 50% of the fire’s perimeter.“

                        From Watch Duty: “The Neil Creek Fire south of Ashland remains NOT a threat to the City of Ashland. Area winds are continuing to blow southward away from Ashland at this time. Fire resources from ODF are continuing to reinforce control lines and the hope is to stop the fire completely before the higher temperatures arrive in our area beginning this weekend. Due to the wind direction, blowing southward away from Ashland, and no forecasted wind shifts, this fire presents no immediate threat to the City of Ashland.

                        Per Jackson County Emergency Management: zones JAC-542, JAC-536 and JAC-558, JAC-543, JAC-546, and JAC-549 remain at a Level 2 Be Set evacuation level.

                        Because of the Level 2 Be Set! in zone JAC-536, anyone using the trails in the Ashland Watershed south of Ashland should be made aware of the Level 2 Be Set evacuation notice and the fire. Updates for local Ashland information can be accessed via the radio station AM1700 and the Ashland Wildfire Hotline 541-552-2490″

                        LikeLike

                     2. Tina the Unfortunately Named declared yet another conflagration for the Elk fire (last reported at 2000 acres) with the state fire marshal sending in a big team. Handover happens at 6AM today, and I expect it will show up in the NWCC and Inciweb data bases as soon as practical.

                        The perimeter map from the Genasys Protect site implies that it’s not running NE, but the spiky footprint is now fatter. Terrain (as usual) sucks raw rocks; heavily forested, but AFAIK, it’s at the eastern edge of the populated area. Link: https://protect.genasys.com/location?z=12&latlon=42.35353165706039%2C-121.3284152526744

                        Apparently, it took out the fiber optic line for datacomms. Judging by a conversation I heard on Tuesday, said line was responsible for a bunch of Lakeview and Lake county. We had that in Sept ’24; lost landline for 10 days until the fire could be contained/controlled.

                        It’s not close to SR 140. I hope it doesn’t get close; that’s one of the few EW routes connecting Flyover Falls to points east. Meanwhile, we’ve got the air purifiers running; I’m dumping heat in the main house right now, then that purifier gets restarted. We’re NW of the fire, but the smoke has been bad for irritants. So far, not smelly, not yet.

                        Ashland fires scare the hell out of me. There’s NS roadways, but not much going east. That and an attitude towards keeping the forest “natural”, until a catastrophic fire does the clearing.

                        LikeLike

            2. Quite a few of those “nope” areas in Utah, too. Southern Utah around Bryce Canyon is good to go if you have Verizon…mostly. With any other network, you’re SOL out there. And the campground where we had our family reunion had no cell coverage at all. You had to drive 15 minutes out to the national park to get even a weak signal.

               A lot of people don’t realize how empty parts of this country actually are. My parents have a couple-three vacation rentals in the Bryce Canyon area, and there was a while where they were getting several panicked calls every summer from tourists who didn’t realize the shortest route their GPS had given them from northern Arizona to Bryce Canyon was a dirt/gravel road…and they’d been on it for 50 miles, and only just got a signal again, and were STILL on that gravel road, low on gas, no civilization in sight… (but by that time, they were only a few minutes away from Kodachrome state park and due to hit pavement again pretty quick). In recent years, either cell service has improved or GPS routing has; parental units don’t really get those calls anymore.

               LikeLike

               1. Yep. All this and more. We’ve taken the “not best route”. Luckily we are not RVing anymore.

                  LikeLike

                  1. I still remember at work, last job. A client needed to be able to have remote application on a tablet. Not just VPN. The developer assigned could not understand that meant remote no access to the main database. If that wasn’t the problem, the client could have used hotspot and used VPN. Client told them. I pointed it out. First rollout was less than successful … Yes, the temptation to say “told you” was great, I refrained. Luckily client was a long time client with multiple installations. Developer was still working on it when I retired.

                     LikeLike

               2. At least when we ran the Alaska Highway there were pilot cars for the gravel bits. And none of them were 50 miles.

                  Our very first volunteer job took us 14 miles on gravel into the Montana mountains (we were due north of Yellowstone). But we’d been warned. Having to run 25 miles to town to get health reports on my mom was, however, a pain.

                  LikeLike

2. I’m not sure of the Tornado Siren coverage where the flooding occurred, but the ones that were near me in Alvarado (Another place recently in the news sue to Antifa pansies attacking the cops) all had speakers they ran announcements over with “this is just a test” or other info. While I only rarely heard them, once, it warned of a spotted tornado, and gave a location that was far enough south of me I was not concerned about myself. My neighbor though, called a co-worker to ask his location. (Wasn’t at home, and house was not in path, so escaped damage)

   LikeLike

   1. I’ve used the cell-based alert system once; it helped, but cell coverage in our area is spotty. Considerably better now that Tracfone was bought by Verizon, but terrain issues make for sketchy reception in spots.

      NOAA weather radio is of mixed value. Our nominal coverage fits two counties in Oregon, roughly 75 miles N-S and 150 miles E-W. However, the alert system expands that to 5 counties, adding a western Oregon one and two large counties in California. When we get a storm cluster (like last week), the alerts will be going off every few minutes. Still, it’s hard to have to listen to the alerts: “Did this one cover us? Have we heard of the location?”

      When POTUS was re-elected, there was a bit of fed-gov fuck-fuck going on. Warnings that showed on the web site wouldn’t rate an alert, then a few weeks later, we’d get a mode where they’d send an alert stating that the storm warning was over. Without bothering to tell us when the warning started. We weren’t entirely perturbed upon learning that some NOAA people were getting the heave-ho.

      We use the county reverse 911 system. It worked well for the winter storms, but failed rather badly when a fire (set, of course) took out a mile or so of fiber optic datacomm lines west of us. 10 dayw without landline. Mercifully, the cell service was up to snuff.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

3. You can spend your entire life trying to be “safe” or you spend your entire life living and accepting risks are everywhere. The safety culture would rob us of every joy because there is an one in a million chance of something bad happening. The irony is something bad will happen no matter what you do. There are 352 deaths ever HOUR in the US; 3 times more people died while I drank my coffee this morning than died in the flash flood. My turn will be next and the question is only did I live my life well?

   LikeLiked by 1 person

4. The Texas flood was no different than a tornado in one aspect. When the warnings go out in the middle of the night, the death toll is likely to be much higher.

   LikeLiked by 1 person

   1. Aye. T-storms usually diminish after sunset around here, but not always. Have been tempted to silence the weather radio once or ten times, just to get a few moments of sanity.

      LikeLike

   2. I culled out about half of my fiction; it was in 3 tall bookshelves, total9′ wide. Perhaps two additional ones comprise my nonfiction. There’s over (stops to look at ‘Zon’s listing) 400 items in my Kindle(s), most fiction novels, with some short stories and nonfiction in there, too. Dead tree? No. Can’t afford the paper, nor the storage space. As it is, the nonfiction is mostly in the shop/barn, above the workroom. I need a ladder to get to it, but it’s the only free storage space I have that’s more-or-less climate controlled. (Heated, rain free. Won’t talk about the heat waves and the effect on high storage.)

      LikeLike

      1. Reply supposed to be with respect to paper vs ebooks. Sigh.

         LikeLike

   3. One aspect.

      You can choose not to live in or vacation in a flood zone. It’s one of the items ground into me when I worked storms as a weather spotter and on a cleanup crew.

      As a home owner it’s an easy filter when looking to purchase or rent. We live near water, but are 50′ above the 500 year flood plain. Most of Texas would be drowned before our house would be engulfed.

      You can’t dodge a tornado anywhere, anytime in Texas. Most people play the storm lottery, a few can build a Monolitic Dome, an underground house or wind proof structure. And the folks in Moore, OK are just cursed by Mother Nature.

      But people don’t have strong memories about occasional weather hazards. It’s burned into the memory of some. The fact there was a flood in ’87 that killed dozens on the same river was a fact that was ignored by many.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

5. A few things about the Texas floods (great Stevie Ray Vaughan song btw) from my own observations and watching Youtube videos from people who live in the area…

   The Guadalupe River (one of the worst-hit areas) floods spectacularly like that on occasion. In fact all the Hill Country does. It’s the geography and geology that make it so prone. They will occasionally get crazy amounts of rain in short periods, like 10-12″ in one night, and all that rain has to go somewhere. I don’t know why those cabins at Camp Mystic, for example, were built that close to the river because there had been a similar flood event in living memory–1987. And also, the warnings did go out from the NWS, in fact they apparently called it a “flash flood emergency,” which is one step OVER a warning and is very, very rarely used. They don’t pull out an “x emergency” unless they really mean it. But the warnings mostly went out in the wee hours and the flood hit pre-dawn in the areas higher up the river.

   And finally, as other people have mentioned, while there were some cities hit like Kerrville and San Angelo, a lot of the casualties were along the river at remoteish places like Camp Mystic. Texas is big and hella rural. Cell coverage is spotty at best and nonexistent at worst in big swaths. And those rivers are popular tourist destinations for both locals and out-of-towners.

   I’ll put this video up here. I don’t know where this was taken, but it was a guy on a road bridge over the Guadalupe. The only thing I can compare the power and speed of this flood to is the 2011 Tohoku tsunami, and I don’t make that comparison lightly. The water came up well over 20 feet in 37 minutes. At the start of the video you’re thinking, oh, this should be interesting, but at least he’s safe. By the end of it, he’s back on the bank watching the bottom of the bridge get pounded by debris.

   LikeLike

   1. (Close to the river) is a relative thing. Some info I saw indicated that the cabins that were hit were above the ‘normal’ flood plain, so not especially close to the river. But NOT above the 26 foot level, because that almost never happens, and no one wants to walk THAT far to the river; you know the drill. There is a church that was built in the town I went to school in when growing up. Half the property was the flood plain for a ‘crick’ that is a tributary to a nearby river, and does flood fairly frequently. They built on the next ‘plateau’ another three feet higher than the flood plain, and apparently WERE able to get flood insurance. That still means they get hit every 15-20 years, and could get pretty wiped out someday. When I was still in high school, there was ‘Hurricane Agnes’ which was barely a hurricane that far inland, but POURED for almost a week. The WHOLE town was flooded. Our farm house is on a ridge 6 miles from the edge of town and WE got water in the basement (no one had ever heard of that happening there before, and the house was over 120 years old) coming up through the ‘drain holes’ in the floor.

      From what I have heard the Kerrville area is REALLY gorgeous, a camping ‘wonderland’. Being safe from every possible flood would mean deserting most of it. So people take what THEY feel are ‘reasonable’ precautions, and that can clearly vary by group or person. If the camp rebuilds in that area, perhaps replacement cabins will be on well anchored stilts; I know of a campground in central PA mountainous area that went that route. I have seen proposals for buildings DESIGNED to float and with a sturdy anchor chain; I don’t know if this has been done, but I think the proposal was for the Mississippi flood plain, which of course is HUGE. Plenty of people have a “I’m not giving up my family’s land; we’ve been here since [early date]’ attitude, and it is understandable.

      LikeLike

      1. Several decades ago (mid 1990s?), Analog had a story with the anchored buildings in the Mississippi flood plain. No idea who wrote it, but the idea sounded like it could have been done.

         OTOH, from the video above, the river was eating trees as it roared through. Water driven tree vs anchored house? I’d watch from a helicopter if the winds were cooperative. Ground level, no way.

         LikeLiked by 1 person

         1. There’s a word for that, but it escapes my mind at the moment.

            A few tons of tree trunk moving along at even 15mph is a BIG hammer. And there are usually more coming along Real Soon Now.

            LikeLiked by 1 person

      2. There is also the fact that July is not a normal month for worries about flooding. Drought,, yes, but flooding is far less common in July, so folks will plan to be there, thinking it is not a concern.

         LikeLiked by 1 person

      3. I have to admit, if I were designing the replacement buildings, I’d definitely go with the house on stilts. It seems to work reasonably well on the Gulf coast.

         That, of course does depend on what other normal or more common weather hazards there are. If your area gets more tornadoes than floods, stilt houses may be somewhat less than useful.

         In either case, perhaps life-rafts hung over the side of the cabin decks would be a good idea.

         LikeLike

         1. It sounds like a joke, but– heavy built up walls, less to stop the water than to try to shove it back to the river.

            Like someone above pointed out, it was packing trees– your engineering goal is to keep the building from exploding on you.

            LikeLike

            1. That would be a better option.

               Possibly extending to “make your own high ground.”

               LikeLiked by 1 person

               1. Most of the ones I’ve seen, it kind of hybrids– heavy stone/cement brick wall, with dirt sloping up behind it. And NOT made to stop the water, just DIVERT it.

                  LikeLiked by 1 person

                  1. Avalanche construction in Euro-mountains comes to mind – v-shapes to make the snow + everything else pass the structure by.

                     LikeLiked by 1 person

         2. Baba Yaga type houses with duck legs instead of chicken legs.

            LikeLiked by 1 person

      4. Oh, and I used to attend a ride-in at Kerrville/Kerrville-Schreiner Park park. in late May, early June (depending on year) and the reserved spots were always well uphill from the river for that possibility

         LikeLike

   2. I remember a flood in Connecticut in I think the early 80s what actually made it about 6 inches over the basement floor in my Dad’s house. That had never happened before, and the house was about 70 to 80 years old. We sandbagged, plugged the ‘drain’ hole, and had a couple of floor pumps running for about 48 hours until the water went back down; so very little damage except for a few things that got wet before we could move them.

      LikeLike

      1. And a good thing the power didn’t go out as my Dad did not have a generator at that time.

         LikeLike

   3. Scary stuff. I’ve seen more flash floods than I can count, having grown up in the Southern Utah desert. When I was a kid, we’d get two or three a year sometimes (it’s in a downturn right now; parents say there hasn’t been one in three years). Too remote and lightly populated for any official flood warning system. We knew that if it was raining on the hills in the northeast, we’d better watch out, and we were also always listening for the telltale distant roar of floodwater coming. Watching the bigger floods was an event the whole town would turn out for. There was a hundred-year flood in (I think) 1981 that cut us off from the outside world for a while by washing out the bridges on both sides of town (the one next to my house, the bridge itself was fine, as its main pillar was massive and set on bedrock, but the abutments got taken out. I’d bet this bridge in Texas survived just fine for similar reasons. But this flood, the sheer size of it…we wouldn’t have had any town left.

      LikeLike

      1. Ten years after we moved away. The kids are still traumatized by how much things changed in the town they identify as their home town, but so much was destroyed…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ncHXBdqk7o

         LikeLike

         1. Hurricane Michael basically destroyed Mexico Beach, Fl. We used to vacation there. 😢

            LikeLiked by 1 person

      2. I’m from just over the border in Arizona. Our culvert had to be rebuilt in the last 15 years because a flash flood came through that totally destroyed it. Ate all the ground out from around it on the exit side and then the box broke. I think a 10 foot strip of ground survived. Above the old culvert, it was pretty normal. The ground dipped about 20 feet into the wash. Below it, more than 100 feet below surface level.

         The pictures and video of the water coming through at the height of the flood are fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

         LikeLike

      3. Slot canyons in rainy weather are not to be trifled with.

         LikeLike

         1. 100%. Biggest danger is when it’s raining but not *on* you. The flood can originate many miles away, and there’s nowhere along its path for it to soak in or spread out, so you’re getting ALL of it.

            LikeLike

            1. 1987, I watched a big thinderstom hit Fort Irin in the Mohave Desert.

               The floodwaters moved boulders bigger than APCs. -way- moved.

               Then it passed, and the desert… bloomed. wow.

               LikeLike

   4. They will occasionally get crazy amounts of rain in short periods, like 10-12″ in one night, and all that rain has to go somewhere. I don’t know why those cabins at Camp Mystic, for example, were built that close to the river because there had been a similar flood event in living memory–1987. 

      My dad’s home valley had a bunch of houses built– we’re talking like “20” on a hundred mile stretch, here– and a lot of them were built on gorgeous, clear areas that use to be used for grazing cattle.

      No big trees on these lovely, flat areas, beautiful smooth slope to the road a mile or two down hill… gorgeous view of the mountains up behind them… of mountains… two of them… but it’s like a quarter mile, or a half mile, they’re just scenery.

      Until the 50 year freak of a melt came through and mudslides came down between those two ridges and completely wiped out the new houses, carried cars down and across the road.

      My parents had always commented how they really didn’t like how folks put the houses there, and it was “a bad place for a house,” and yeah they weren’t teh only ones and yeah folks talked, but nobody remembered “THERE ARE MUDSLIDES THAT GO THROUGH HERE,” they just kidn of generally went “that’s a bad spot because of water from snow melt.” Which sounds like a completely different problem. And is a different problem, for most decades.

      ***************

      Now, the camp was 100 years old next year, but ….how long had those specific shelters been there? Etc, etc, etc.

      LikeLiked by 2 people

      1. 2021 Yellowstone flash flooding. Took out a good section of Gardiner, MT, which does NOT sit directly down on the river. Entire *highway destroyed along the normally relatively shallow, but swift Yellowstone river canyon. Destroyed bridges. What is amazing is it took out sections of the bridge bed (patched but being replaced with a much *higher bridge) just east of Mammoth on the year round highway. It is way, way, above the river as it goes through that canyon between plateaus. It took out the highway between Slough Creek and Hayden Valley, where it parallels the very deep V canyon (one side is rock cliff, the “road side”, less “rock cliff”) as the river comes out of Hayden valley. Entire Hayden very wide valley was filled up the road. Parts of the river changed it’s permanent bed. Yellowstone is still dealing with the aftermath 4 years later. Repairs were swifter than anyone expected. But this was an absolute must. Access to both Mammoth, Silver Gate, and Cooke City, all destroyed. Mammoth was “relatively” easy. There was already the old wagon road that the canyon route highway replaced. Took a lot of work to make it tourist traffic, two way road, ready. Even now it is 20 MPH recommended (narrow and curvy and steep – RV’s? Take it slow!)

         Note. This kind of flooding has not happened in known memory. Hayden Valley fills during spring melt, but not this extent of flooding (it is a flood plain). Tributary floods due to ice jams, but nothing to this extent, and outside of Yellowstone National Park.

         Red Lodge was also surprised by flash flooding in 2022 too. The “creek” (at least what is considered in the west) flooded.

         (* only winter access for Mammoth, Silver Gate, and Cooke City, so repairs, reroutes, were critical.)

         LikeLiked by 1 person

         1. I haven’t seen updates on the final plan for the north entrance. One of the plans was to build back in the canyon again, though that was considered one of the more expensive/dangerous plans. (Among other things, it requires new bridges and a completely new route.) Upgrading the original road (the one they’re using now) is high up the list of possibilities, with the downside being that it’s hard to build that new while tourist traffic still can enter. And there’s a third principal plan that is a new hybrid route, which would allow the tourist traffic to move better during the build but which has the most potential new archaeology sites (which are expensive.)

            You can probably guess that I prefer upgrading the currently used route to modern code standards. It will NOT get taken out by the next flood, whenever it is, and as a tourist, build delays are part of the deal you have.

            LikeLike

            1. Drove the new northern route both in and out. Of coarse we’ve driven it multiple times before when it was just the wagon road. I’ve seen lots of worse roads. Including the highways south and east out of Mammoth. No additional change needed. But what do I know?

               LikeLiked by 1 person

            2. Drove the new northern route both in and out. Of coarse we’ve driven it multiple times before when it was just the wagon road. I’ve seen lots of worse roads. Including the highways south and east out of Mammoth. No additional change needed. But what do I know?

               LikeLike

      2. I remember (with embarrassment) walking Highway 90 in Gulfport, MS in 2005 and thinking how neat it would be to watch a hurricane come in off the gulf from there. After all, there was a wide, wide beach, a parking lot, a four-land street….lots of room.

         That was the spring before Katrina. None of those houses are there any more. The hotel I stayed in had fresh running seawater in the lobby…

         LikeLiked by 1 person

6. So many good points, spotty cell coverage, middle of the night warnings, summer camp where it might be that cell phones weren’t allowed, etc. Not to mention your original paragraphs about spotty technology adoption, but I only have time for comment on one. When to heed and when not to heed the dire warnings. Last time I got a blaring alert on my phone it was for brush fires near me last November while Pacific Palisades in nearby LA was burning to the ground.

   I went out and looked, could not see very far because I live in an urban area, but no smoke at all. I tried to find live coverage, but because San Diego, unlike LA, Seattle, San Francisco, or Portland, still functions, it turned out that the small brushfires that occurred 8 miles away were handled and limited to a couple hundred acres, so they barely even made the news many hours later. The point is that I understand the problem of all our protective infrastructure crying wolf. The real difference in my case was understanding the slow warnings years before the disaster like building condo high-rises near the mouth of a seasonal river that floods every 5-10 years, refusing to clear brush that is obviously combustible, having a government whose official response to a wildfire is likely to be, “Burn Baby, burn!”

   Part of not dying is situational awareness. As my wife’s karate instructor said, “If a white belt is confronted by an attacker, he may be able to block the first blow. A brown belt would block the first blow and get in one of his own. A black belt would have already crossed to the other side of the street to avoid the confrontation.”

   LikeLike

   1. To your last point: Yes, except when the black belt in question is being stupid. I once got followed by a crazy person (high or off his meds, not sure) who was screaming at the park. I didn’t take the alternate route because I assumed he was having a loud, obscene conversation with someone on the phone, which was a mistake.

      At that point, having messed up, I started moving toward the center of town, away from the elementary school, keeping distance between us, and loudly disavowed knowing the man several times in case anyone was listening, until I got to a house I KNEW had cameras and got that person to let me in so I could file a police report. There are things you can do to mitigate an initial mistake, is my point.

      It’s hard to decide which warnings are legit and which are just a general guideline, but situational awareness and a knowledge of the area go a long way toward deciding what to do.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

      1. Longview when St Helen blew. I’m not sure there was anything in place to evacuate if the wall of mud that hit the Cowlitz from the Tuotle river didn’t peter out as it ran into the Columbia to block shipping channels. Then, only a few routes up the side of Columbia Heights. Getting across to I-5, or Hwy 30, would have been “too late cup cake”. West on the highway toward the coast also would have been too late. By all reports if the plug went, the entire area was doooommmmmed. Reporting was “doom, doom, and more doom”, but I do not remember any official alerts.

         LikeLike

7. Very good points made. Some minor disagreements which are probably a matter of taste. Books: no electronic gizmo can equal a shelf of books. books have to be read, tasted, absorbed, if they are any good. For news certainly actually the only way today is on line thru blogs. And in fact I discovered you thru Instapundit and quite a number of other people. You can find out what nonsense the NYT says without bothering to take the paper. As far as the tragedy in Texas , their used to be a category of events called acts of G-D. Now obviously we can try to prepare but. It was a tragedy. Acts of G-d happen. What is the response? To try to mitigate the effects.

   LikeLike

   1. Well, I read my books. Tasting and absorbing I reserve for a good meal – if I have an odd craving for cellulose, I hit a fast food joint.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

      1. That was funny I enjoyed that. That is the other part of on line reading witty people.

         LikeLike

8. C4C

   LikeLike

9. Item: local sirens and listening are also unevenly distributed. Tornado alley has a lot of people used to the thunderstorms and stuff, and who pay close attention at risky times.

   Item: If some of the trainees for federal weather stuff are a good estimator for the whole organization, then maybe the organizations are much too crazy to be trusted to do their assigned tasks ethicalyl and diligently.

   subitem to above: Yeah, my estimation ignores that such trainees have always included a significant number of crazy people, without being that bad for the organizations.

   Item: Yes, the NOAA weather alerts, etc., were explicitly designed to work, and to do so relaibly. It takes time and work to audit whether something works, and to try to fix what does not work. There’ve been little indications of malfunctions for a while, and maybe a lot of them get fixed, I don’t know. Weather is statistical, so I don’t get reproducible stuff just browsing as an ordinary user.

   LikeLike

10. It depends on the locale – but I keep an eye on the entire eastern half of my county, and the one to the south and east.

    It can be a bright sunny day over my house, but a downpour a good thirty miles away can send a five foot high wall of water through the washes just a couple of miles from the house.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. Oh, that’s Arizona sized counties, by the way. Not the few hundred acre ones in some States.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. Arizona and Utah. The national parks in Utah can be deadly and not a cloud visible in the sky above you and in the distance. It is what you can’t see that sends flash floods down those canyons. Actually safer to hike the slot canyons in the winter. Because not going to get rain in the dangerous heights, will get snow. Snow doesn’t flash flood.

          LikeLiked by 1 person

11. How many people, on hearing a “flash flood emergency”, will -immediately- leave and move to highest available ground? Take two minutes to put on pants and boots and you are dead.

    In that video, the initial surge may have been enough to damage or undermine the bridge. the power of a sudden foot of water that wide is insane. As stuff starts hitting the bridge, its well on its way to collapse. When the debris starts beating on, and overtopping the deck, forget it. Dumb luck is all that is keeping it up.

    Someone mentioned “Hurricane Agnes”, presumably the 1972 storm. I was at summer camp (Kon-O-Kwee) in western Pennsylvania when Agnes came calling, and dumped -feet- of rain in the area. The Connoquenessing Creek, normally just a few feet deep, became a raging torrent, overflowing by something like 25-30 feet. It washed out the adjacent railroad tracks and overran our swimming pool, both of which were constructed above any reasonable flood.

    Th recent hurricane event in western North Carolina is also instructive. Parts of I40 are simply gone. Two lanes and media washed away, plus everything below it. It will take years to cut/fill all that back in, unless they build what amounts to a very long causeway bridge along the old road bed. And it happened overnight, and quite quickly.

    When your number is up, dodging is sometimes not likely. Try anyway, but sometimes your best answer will be “die gallantly”.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. At Lake Junaluska in western NC volunteers pulled around 100 propane tanks out of the lake where they’d wedged against the bridge. (I know that bridge, I know it well. I’ve helped paint that sucker). Lots of debris. Lots of prayer, too, since the lake is formed by a dam and things downstream would be bad if the damage let go.

       LikeLike

       1. I should have added it’s a pedestrian bridge. Given the amount of debris the volunteers has to clear, it’s a very sturdy pedestrian bridge. (I wish we’d been there to help out. But we were on the wrong side of the I-40 washout and were bummed our regularly scheduled project was soggy toast).

          LikeLike

12. Thunderstorms? They expect you to stay inside. If you can hear thunder at all.

    One in twenty people hit by lightning are hit by a bolt from the blue, where the clouds are too far away to be seen.

    LikeLike

    1. Lightning is the -real- Florida Lottery.

       LikeLike

    2. Sometime in the early 1990’s(?) I had a vertical ham antenna, “ground mounted” with ground radial dug in. One Summer afternoon there was a thunderstorm and it passed… the sky was blue with a few white clouds. I was still inside, as was Pa. FLABANGSH!!! A picture was knocked off the wall, the phones were out, one 120 VAC electrical circuit was out.

       We waited a bit (lightning DOES strike twice – or more) then looked around. The phone company’s box on the power pole… was smoking remains. A few of the ground radials were now trenches (hot wire, don’t know if the copper melted or vaporized, but the water sure vaporized and steam does work – like move earth). Overall, we got lucky. Lost a few radials, a fax machine, a fuse, and phone service for a while, but no more.

       Looking around at things… the lightning did NOT hit the power pole, nor the antenna. Maybe one of the trees. But overall, the damage was by ground current and/or induction. It was close enough. Which was TOO CLOSE.

       LikeLike

13. One thought on “The future is here, it’s just unevenly distributed” is that plenty of SF Fiction contains the idea that the “Society” is rigged so the Elites get all of the benefits of the “future” while the Lower Class doesn’t.

    LikeLike

    1. But it’s not really like that. A lot is “willingness to adopt.”

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. True.

          LikeLike

       2. Which, if it works, becomes an advantage, so you get the result of “the elites” have this cool toy.

          But the cause is backwards.

          LikeLiked by 2 people

          1. The early adopters help show up any flaws in the product for all to see. Which is why the second company to make the product is often the one that succeeds. They learn from the pioneers mistakes. (A business school tidbit that stuck).

             LikeLike

             1. So far, Elon is making SpaceX work by acting like a first AND second company. He tests, and then learns from the failures.

                I wish he’d applied that approach to politics.

                LikeLike

             2. :nods:

                And buy the second or later model-year for a product, and don’t pick either end of the extremes.

                Folks who HAVE money to waste can do so to find niche advantages.

                ….especially if you don’t notice the folks who started with a large fortune and ended with a small one.

                LikeLiked by 1 person

       3. And expense – case in point is rural Africa, where they skipped right past wired telephone services to everyone and almost universally adopted cell phones, because the infrastructure expense of cell towers is so much less than wiring up and maintaining hardline POTS.

          LikeLike

          1. Also because stringing up hundreds of miles of copper wire in Africa you’re just begging to get it stolen. Then stolen again if you replace it. You’d have to post full-time armed guards at every telephone pole just to keep the wires from going walkabout.

             LikeLiked by 2 people

             1. And that doesn’t count the natural predators. Apparently elephants can sense when copper wire is live, and they don’t like it, so they push down cable of all types. Theodore Roosevelt described that as a major problem for the railroads and their telegraph lines in “African Game Trails”, and it continued at least up until 1998 in Krueger National Park in Kenya, where my company had to deploy a wireless prototype of their software because the elephants kept digging up the buried network cables.

                LikeLiked by 1 person

                1. Was kind of the same problem with the early telegraph in the western US. The bison just loved to rub against them shedding winter fur..

                   LikeLike

                   1. And another more recent problem has been pocket gophers. They like to burrow where fiber optic cable has been laid (the ground is softer) and they like to sharpen their teeth chewing through it. The County, townships and telecom company put a $8 bounty on pocket gophers.

                      LikeLike

             2. bold of you to assume the guards won’t steal it

                LikeLike

14. Opening reminds me of thermodynamics professor saying Hell is isothermal otherwise you could take a heat pump and cool part of it. And yes, look at trees (or grass)—they aren’t all the same height; unless you cut them down.

    LikeLike

15. My Kindle died during the fire, and though I *can* read ebooks on my phone or tablet (or computer), it’s not nearly as pleasant.

    It took me a while to figure out why I’m doing a lot more dead tree books and less ebooks these past several months.

    LikeLike

    1. After about fifty I became more an more reluctant to read on paper. The e-ink is really easier on the eyes. (To be clear, I have contrast problems. Hence night blindness.)

       LikeLike

16. I use Kindle ebooks for almost all of my reading. For me, it works great. But there is ONE drawback I’ve noticed. Ask me the name of the book I’m currently reading and I couldn’t tell you. I’ve realized that I need to regularly see a book cover to remember that!

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. Oh yeah. If I like it, I’ll go back and check the title and the author name, so I remember.

       LikeLike

       1. Walling a Kindle is an expensive gesture. (grin)

          LikeLike

          1. yeah, but you can jam the “Return” button and it feels REALLY good.

             LikeLike

          2. Have returned books three times, exactly. One made someone else’s now out of copyright character gay for reasons inexplicable.
             The other was an historical that didn’t understand 200 years ago things were different.
             The third was AI written. EVERYONE had amnesia and kept doing the same thing over and over again.

             LikeLike

    2. Same goes for music. I can remember the name of the band, *maybe* the name of the album, but the name of the song? No chance. Used to be I had all of those on the tip of my tongue. Part of it is just down to age and the effects of that brain surgery 17 years ago, but now that my listening is done via streaming through the phone, I don’t have the cassette/cd case in front of me to give me the visual-and-tactile combo that really makes things stick.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. In the 70’s I had a ‘Name That Tune’ memory for pop songs.

          Used to listen to the radio while commuting; had 4 or 5 presets in the car. There were some songs I just hated, so recognizing them in two notes (or, occasionally, a bar of rhythm) let me change stations quickly.

          Bugs me I could never get that down for classical music; I can listen to a whole movement of a symphony and know I have heard it before, but cannot identify it.

          Did learn there are different moods to the same pieces: if you want dark, gloomy Beethoven, listen to the Berlin SO; for light, optimistic Beethoven, try Vienna.

          Listen to/watch a lot of Youtube music in the evenings these days.

          I’ve noted before that almost all my books were sold before I moved to OR, and now mostly go to the Kindle app on my tablet; but that doesn’t work for things like books on medieval armor, so I have a small new collection of Osprey ‘pamphlets’ and a couple books. (I have a little Joan of Arc hobby).

          We were late adopters of microwave ovens, but early adopters of personal computers. Goodness, a decent word processing program was sent by Heaven!

          LikeLiked by 1 person

    3. That’s my preferred format for fiction, but for serious books, I really prefer paper because I have an instinctive feel for where something is that I want to flip back to and check, then instantly go back to where I was. Kindle is barely there for the first, and not quite there for the second. It can be a pain in the rear.

       LikeLike

       1. In my case because when I’m writing — and a lot of the non-fiction is writing research — I can find the right bookmark on paper more easily. I use colored little sticky things and that makes it much easier.

          LikeLike

17. I use Kindle ebooks for almost all of my reading. For me, it works great. But there is ONE drawback I’ve noticed. Ask me the name of the book I’m currently reading and I couldn’t tell you. I’ve realized that I need to regularly see a book cover to remember that!

    LikeLike

    1. I tried the original Nook by B&N back when it was “digital paper” and didn’t run the battery down too badly. I could deal with it.

       Then Barnes and Ignoble ruined it. The next Nook (after the first one got broken) ran the battery down in no time. Probably because the dummkopfs who programmed their ebook features insisted that you MUST be on the Internet in order to use it. At the time, I lived twelve miles from the Internet and two miles from a cellphone signal. I tried many times to get the B&N helpdesk to UNDERSTAND the issue. I finally gave up on ebooks since the Nook now erased any title you hadn’t read in a week or two and you had to re-download it. (Once I pay for it, I want to be able to read it whenever. Not “oh, wait, you don’t have a signal, too bad.”)

       I have HEARD that the Kindle doesn’t have so many problems, but once bitten, twice shy. Paper library.

       LikeLike

       1. My kindle paperwhite the battery lasts about a week. And i live with it in my hand.

          LikeLike

       2. I have gone though kindle and nooks. Now I have a nonproprietary e reader with the various apps installed.

          LikeLiked by 1 person

18. On the Texas flood tragedy, one thing about receiving the warnings–and I cannot corroborate this, so for what it may be worth–one thing I had heard is that some of the worst hit camps were places parents sent kids to disconnect from cell phones and internet and such. Which, I mean it’s a worthy impulse. But if true, in this case it clearly backfired with horrendous results. But that’s how it goes with low probability events, sometimes.

    Like I said…for what it may be worth.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. Yes, that’s what I’d expect.

       LikeLike

19. *Don’t hurt yourself.*

    Alright, who should we hurt, and how badly? }:o)

    LikeLike

20. Re: emergency alerts. It’s gotten to the point that when an emergency alert sounds, I check the National Weather Service website to see exactly where the alert is. Eastern part of county? Southern part? Mostly ignore. North or west? Keep reading. Tornado sirens? Log into one of the local news networks and follow their radar – and spotters, because radar warned storms are a lot more common than actual “funnel on ground” storms out here. You get numb because of quasi-false alarms if you are not careful.

    That works at home. And for tornados. Floods … are different, and I have a positive allergy to being on floodplains or even first terraces. Third terrace (if visible) or higher, thank you. I do not like storms at night, or in areas with lots of trees because you cannot see trouble coming.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. That is the purpose of Warning Sirens (FEMA no longer calls them Tornado Sirens); to get you to check a source and find out what’s going on and what to do. Could be a tornado, could be a HAZMAT induced evacuation, could be shelter in place. All the siren is there to do is to tell you something is going on.

       LikeLike

       1. And in Silicon Valley, instead of repurposing the installed and working civil defense sirens up on poles all over the suburbs, they sent crews out and cut the wires. Bad evuuul Cold War stuff, that, won’t need that ever, this being the end of history and all that.

          Eventually it dawned on them that they needed some type of alerting method. They initially worked with the phone company to do a homegrown voice phone alert to the hardline phones in the city limits, but eventually as text and cell phone alerts became the thing they contracted it out. Notably the contractors vary by local municipality, so adjacent cities use different vendors, who have different web sites for signing up. And then the state did an earthquake alerting thing that has an app, and sort of works. But no sirens,

          When I was a kid, and up through the 1980s when I was in college, they tested those sirens monthly, I think on the third Thursday at 11am or somesuch. I’d be wherever given class schedules, hear them go off and go “uhoh”, then look at the calendar and relax.

          There’s still a siren installed up on a pole, wires dangling where they cut them off, apparently the whole thing somehow unscavenged for copper, about two blocks from my house.

          LikeLike

       2. Comment stuck in mod about the civil defense sirens here in Silicon Valley.

          LikeLike

       3. (two comments, one long and one a single sentence, stuck in mod, so testing for another straight-to-mod keyword):

          civil defense

          LikeLike

       4. FYI using the phrase that follows will put your comment straight in “awaiting moderation” (remove extra spaces):

          c i v i l d e f e n s e

          LikeLiked by 1 person

    2. I’ve learned that when the NWS starts lighting up my cell phone with warnings to pay attention, otherwise not. In a way, stopping listening to the government is the closest WuFlu came to killing me since I started ignoring every damn thing they said. Boy who cried wolf and all. Much like the emperors new clothes where we don’t ask about the boy, we seldom ask what happens to the people when the wolf actually comes.

       It’s a problem now that everything is a crisis. What do you do when there’s a real one?

       LikeLiked by 1 person

21. Once you get the kinks worked out of the flash flood alerts, the next calamity is invariably something else like an earthquake or meteor impact.

    Or a really big drought.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

22. For those getting too many irrelevant NOAA Weather radio warnings, make sure it’s programmed for what you want, and if it’s not programmable, get a new one (I use Midlands). The radio in the upstairs bedroom only alerts for Tornado Warnings in our county, nothing else, as CINCHOUSE does not want to be waken up for anything that does not require her to do something.

    The ones downstairs and in the basement radio shack also alert for Severe Thunderstorm Warnings so that I know to disconnect my radio antennas and fire up the internal antenna on the SKYWARN frequency. YMMV depending on your location and NOAA radio coverage (I have two I can hear locally on an internal antenna).

    There is no single 100% solution to public warnings. I use a combination of NOAA Radio, broadcast media (mostly AM radio) and text alerts set up with https://www.weatherusa.net/alerts/ that, again, only give me the alerts I need and only for my location, set up on their website and not dependent on where my cell phone is (and basic sub is free). I have found the apps pushed by local new media and the Weather Channel to be mediocre to useless and no longer use them.

    Some food for thought and I hope this helps someone

    LikeLike

23. I like books well enough, but I am also at the point where my eyes need the backlit screen and adjustable text to enjoy reading. I use the Kindle App on my Android tablet as well as another reader for non-‘zon acquired books.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

24. “Be aware and mitigate your vulnerabilities.”

    Yes. This is one reason I live -nearish- to the river, but not -on- the river. The Grand River is known to flood in the spring. It’ll fill it’s banks in a bad year. But it doesn’t overtop its banks, and no flash-floods that I know of. We’re ~40ft above it, if we get flooded there was an asteroid.

    The Don River and the Humber River in Toronto though, Hurricane Hazel 1954, 71 people died. Unprecedented rainfall washed away all the houses, cars etc. in the Don Valley and the Humber Valley. And that is why there are no homes in the Don Valley now. Dangerous flood plain, no building allowed.

    Now, if the Grand flooded like that river we see in the post above by Anonymoose, I would be living on the highest hill I could manage, and I would have a boat handy. Having seen that video, I may go get a boat one of these days, just because.

    LikeLike

    1. But it doesn’t overtop its banks, and no flash-floods that I know of. We’re ~40ft above it, if we get flooded there was an asteroid.

       We live in Small Town about 20 miles from where the Willamette River rises in the hills. Town is right on the river; moved once in the 1880s or so to get away from the worst of the floods, and in 1949-ish the Corps of Engineers put in a couple flood control dams.

       Current river elevation is about 640 feet, banks at 650, and my front door is at 710. Down Hill is Eugene, at about 440 and Portland at about 250. Filling up the valley here Would Be Quite The Event!

       LikeLiked by 2 people

       1. “Filling up the valley here Would Be Quite The Event!“

          –

          Bit of an understatement.

          Willamette Valley is 60 (ish, widest) x 150 miles, Portland to Cottage Grove. With some minor hills between Salem and Eugene. We are a little over a mile from the Willamette, where the banks of the river are maybe 10′ above main river flow. Willamette goes over it’s banks, it is all about distance. Two mitigating factors are the working deep gravel pits on east and west banks of the river, the old gravel pits (now “Delta Ponds”). All of which take in A LOT of water. The house is artificially raised (fill) about 4′ above valley floor. Last time it flooded in urban Eugene (“River Loop/Christmas” flood, east of River Road to the river) was ’64, before the final flood control dam was completed.

          North of Eugene, farm fields get flooded. Outside of the valley proper, edges, the uncontrolled rivers flood. Mary’s River – Corvallis. Long Tom – Territorial Road and Applegate Road. Etc.

          Used to be downtown flooded every winter. There is a reason why Eugene’s nickname was mudville.

          Any dams on the McKenzie (hwy 126), Middle (hwy 58) or Upper (Hwy 22/Detroit), burst, and “bad” is a huge understatement. For that matter, the Columbia Dams burst, and it won’t be fun a long ways down the Willamette Valley. There are deposits from when the Glacial Lake Columbia ice break. All because once it hit the Willamette mouth, it caused the Willamette river to backup because the Columbia river couldn’t take it all at once. How far up the Willamette the deposits go, no clue. Just know it happened.

          LikeLike

          1. USGS, https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/of03-408/, says 200 km south into the Willamette Valley – probably as far as the north side of the hills between Roseburg and CG. Elevation there is about 1,000 feet and climbing, except for the valley of Cottage Grove Lake – current surface elevation is under 800 ft and the channel for the (very small at that point) Coast Fork of the Willamette River continues south from the lake to the origin of the river.

             Another source describes rocks the size of houses as far south as Eugene moved by one/several of the many floods associated with Missoula.

             See, Oregon is not boring overall, just currently.

             LikeLike

             1. “See, Oregon is not boring overall, just currently.“

                –

                I am happy to have it stay this way.

                LikeLike

             2. I drove past the Wisconsin Dells a couple times, years ago. The gorge is deep and steep-sided. Story goes it was cut in a single event by a glacial lake. An ice-dam broke, and away she went. Carved five miles long, 100 feet deep in spots.

                You see something like that, and you’ve got to respect water.

                Also the recent flooding on -mountain sides- in North Carolina. You’d think you would be safe from a flood up on the side of a freakin’ mountain, but no.

                LikeLike

    2. Our distance from the river is the at 100 year flood level as opposed to the 30 year flood level or 1000 year flood level. And if Lake Bonneville ever comes back, 90% of Utah’s population will drown.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

25. Here in Iowa, I’ve heard tornado sirens go off many times, but have yet to actually see a funnel cloud with my own eyes. This flood was a very low-probability event, and if those camps were places where cell phones and the like were verboten, getting word to them in the middle of the night would be problematic at best.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. Every last one should have had a weather radio, which works off satellite, in the same room as the manager of the camp. And paying attention to them is that manager’s responsibility.

       What you do for yourself is one thing; when you’ve assumed responsibility for a group, that’s definitely another.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. THIS

          LikeLike

       2. The other aspect is you would need to know that this one flood incident is the time where the correct course of action is to get everyone outside in the thunderstorm, instead of inside their cabins.

          That’s the big catch here. Every flood for the last 40 years, that would be exactly the wrong action. You have to know that this time a second over-saturated river is about to dump into the one you’re by.

          No, I don’t know what the solution it. Not yet at least. We need to understand why this flash flood was different than the normal types they get, and how to tell if the situation is conducive to a repeat.

          LikeLike

    2. Was out for a PT run one fine morning, and watched a funnel cloud form and drop done in front of me. (1/4 mile)

       (weird greenish cloud, odd lobe)

       “What the (HONK!) is that?

       (lobe suddenly twists and drops to the ground in 5 seconds. mayhem ensues)

       “Oh (HONK!)”

       (etc)

       …

       The one at summer camp was also educational. With a clear sky and approaching front, there was one minor far off thunder rumble. Counselor sounds the “out of the pool, now” horn. In the time it took to go through the shower shack throwing on my shoes and shirt, the front had swept overhead. No les than -five- huge lobes were twisting and descending directly overhead as I existed the shower shack.

       Local ditch provided shelter. First funnel of that monster “supercell” hit just off the camp property, moving away. We were fine. Downrange was …. decidedly messy.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. I’ve seen ONE tornado up close and personal. During Hurricane Hugo, in the backyard of my house in Charlotte. Headed straight for the house. I thought “Sh*t we’re dead.” (no basement.)
          And then it turned and took out the trees in all the backyards between us and the highway. Eh.

          LikeLike

       2. Never saw a tornadic funnel cloud as such. Have seen a Very Large “dust devil” and once had the ‘fun’ of driving under low clouds going north… and moment later under low cloud going south (or was it vice versa?). The place to be, was, of course ELSEWHERE.

          LikeLike

26. It was William Gibson who said, “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”

    LikeLike

    1. Well, then P. J. O’Rourke stole it. Which frankly is par for the course. We all steal from each other.

       LikeLike

27. “The future is here, just unevenly distributed.”

    —-

    Usually credited to William Gibson, but he said he had picked it up from somewhere else.

    https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/01/24/future-has-arrived/

    LikeLike

    1. Some 1970s movie had the tagline: “The Future is Here. Blow it out your ear.”

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. Found it! AMERICATHON!

          Wiki: Americathon – Wikipedia

          (note the predictions from 1979)

          LikeLike

28. re: Storm Warnings

    The siren system is typically only employed in population densities that can afford it. So you get it in cities, towns, some small towns. But only very rarely do you find it in rural areas that don’t have population clusters. (The only one I’ve actually seen was at a state park campground.) Also, the sirens are an outdoor warning system. They’re designed to alert people who are outside to take shelter inside. A person inside a well insulated house even a block away may not be able to hear the siren. I can’t in our new house.

    Cell service in a lot of rural areas is spotty at best. Relying on a cell phone alert in those areas is a bad idea. And if you don’t have good cell service, you’re not going to get internet service on your phone to the weather reports.

    AM radio can give good coverage to rural areas. But even then there can be dead zones. Still, it’s probably the 2nd best option. And the best option if you don’t want to invest in a weather radio.

    Weather radio is probably the single best option, but still isn’t great. You can set your area, but it will still give alerts to areas that don’t affect you, giving rise to the “cry wolf” criticisms.

    As an aside, the single stupidest 9-1-1 call I’ve ever taken was from an older gentleman that wanted to know if the tornado was going to hit his house, and didn’t want to get off the phone with me and take shelter until he knew the answer.

    LikeLike

29. 1-I suspect that if the floods hadn’t happened just after the BBB and during the Trump administration, it would have been a minor news article at best. Now it’s supposed to be Hurricane Katrina times a thousand, where the Evil Trump Administration strokes their waxed mushstashes and cackle about the dead black and brown people that they’re killing in job lots at the Alligator Alcatraz.

    2-Tech distribution is always weird at times. I know that one of the big issues around here is cell service. The maps say that we should have 5G service, but until we got a WiFi repeater in the house…service was…spotty. That’s a good word, spotty.

    If I want custom computer hardware, it’s a least an hour’s drive down to the Penninsula (not the East Bay or SF, especially after Fry’s closed) or order off of Amazon or NewEGG.

    3-I’m getting the feeling that the really crazy part of the Left is trying to stage THE REVOLUITION now for some reason. Fear that if Trump stays in power for four years he’ll tear apart their finance infrastructure, orders from their overseas masters to ensure that Putin wins in Ukraine and Xi finally gets Taiwan, the aging leadership wanting to win before they die, whatever…it’s going to be a wild ride.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. Erick Erickson had a column out saying too many on the Left are acting like a crazy boyfriend whose girl has jil.ted them. Plus, the right gets criticized when our crazies act up, but too many journalists agree with the leftist crazies and amplify their message.

       They were so close, so close to fundamentally transforming America and they can’t believe most Americans just don’t want to be transformed.

       So, add another guy to the list of people who think we’re in for a rough, rough ride.

       LikeLiked by 2 people

       1. Yep. Now combine that with their feel the window is closing. it has already closed, but they can’t see that, and they might just drag us through h*ll.

          LikeLike

       2. I’m only surprised it’s taken this long for the rough ride to get here. I was honestly expecting something to happen just after the election, especially if they could drive some kind of wedge issue.

          LikeLiked by 1 person

    2. they’re trying to stage it now, because they know they won’t be able to after. We’re taking what they thought were their ground troops. Remaining minorities are turning on them. they’re desperate.
       Spoiler: it’s already too late.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       1. Especially considering how many of their ground troops are self-deporting themselves. Enough that, I hope, we see a major electorial shift from high-Democrat states to even out the numbers.
          But I suspect that they want to get the boogaloo going NOW for the same reason. Their ground troops-both willing and desperate-are being taken away and if enough of them leave for long enough…compensation mechanisms will kick in and a lot of the jobs that they used to keep them fed until the war started will go away.

          LikeLike

       2. I’m not sure what they have left in the tank at this point. The riots didn’t give them the optics they wanted. The No Kings protests got a lot of press but didn’t do much. The level of political violence is still too high for comfort, but so far it hasn’t snowballed, and the Antifa types are getting slapped down hard whenever they try something.

          Politically, they’ve got a couple of charismatic Marxists who can excite the radical side of the base, but it’s unclear if they can appeal to the center. The best they’ve been able to do lately is stomp their feet about Trump’s policies and shop for district court injunctions, and SCOTUS just put the kibosh on the latter.

          The fight’s not over by a long shot, but they’ve had 8 months to rally and still seem just as discombobulated as right after the election.

          LikeLiked by 1 person

          1. Most the riots the reaction, these days? “Really? Again?” Ignore.

             No kings protests reactions were everything to “No kidding, that started 1775 and ended 1781. Officially recognized declared 1776.” To outright mocking.

             LikeLike

          2. Stories yesterday that the “base,” wants their Congresscritters to “do somsthing,” defined up to, “getting shot for the cause.” And most of said base is upper-middle-class college educated whites.

             Have seen a theory that after being told all their lives that they are inherently bad/racist/responsible for all the evil in the world, they have internalized it and, consciously or otherwise, are pushing this to “atone.”

             LikeLiked by 1 person

    3. Maybe they’re trying to meet their 2030 deadline?

       LikeLiked by 1 person

    4. As to 5G service, you might want to read this https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nationwide-5g-lie-frank-hood/?trackingId=QsFQHq0QnWJtVqyY4%2F%2FGFQ%3D%3D that I wrote a few years ago.

       Then there’s also this about T-Mobile’s nefarious ways. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/frank-hood-b708588_a-nationwide-5g-network-ready-now-thats-activity-6992510153287733248-W6o3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAGMsYQB3fT7o0V4AAIWyhiGgI3Yi7Trexk.

       LikeLike

       1. We had T-Mobile for an entire 3 months. It did not go well.

          Expect problems in Wyoming and Montana. In Monroe, and Oakridge? No.

          We’re back on Verizon.

          LikeLike

30. Oh, and…

    4-I’ve mostly moved over to my iPad for books these days, outside of some specialist materials. Easier to carry, take around, and I don’t have to go to Barnes&Noble (which has become a lifestyle brand these days, not a bookstore). It helps that nobody seems to be publishing things I want to read outside of Baen or the indies.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. I use my Android phone and MS tablet for both Nook and Kindle ebooks.

       Started with the original Nook ereader back in the ’90s. Nook because the B&N Visa gets me 5% off the top (including original ereader). When Samsung Nook came out, I did not get that version, instead I got an 8″ Samsung and downloaded both Nook and Kindle apps. Mom used the original Nook ereader until it died (my account, she could download anything I had bought, but couldn’t buy anything). When my last laptop and the Samsung 8″ died at the same time (battery DOA’s – just enough to wipe them when plugged in), I bought the current tablet for less than an inexpensive decent laptop and another Samsung 8″. I’ve had the tablet 3 years now. Though did just have a scare, needed charging (down to 5% before noticed it was not behaving), but when I plugged it in wouldn’t charge. Oops. Restarted, enough battery to do critical backups, and the upgrade needed, and it is now charging just fine.

       Anymore there are just a few files that need backing up, and except for Quicken, which can start from scratch if needed, nothing is changed that often.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

31. We were having the same conversation at coffee today about Innovation and not adopting early. I remember laughing at digital cameras when they first came out as the resolution was only good enough to print maybe a four by six picture without blur.

    I have silence most weather alerts and other alerts due to the spamming of it. Tornado watch for the next county over, I don’t need to know. Amber Alert at 0230 in the morning, why? It not going to do me or the kid any good unless I hear a sudden knocking at my front door and it the scared kid.

    Sirens, alerts, and strange men on horse yapping about the British coming only work IF the cry wolf ones are rare.

    Second since it is prime week? Do you need a new kindle? I will pay for one.

    LikeLike

    1. Were you offering the kindle to me? (since I mentioned losing it in the fire). If so, thank you! If not, I still appreciate your generosity.

       LikeLike

       1. I have a couple older ones. I’ll need to look and see if screen is cracked. So if he isn’t and you don’t mind an older model….

          LikeLike

          1. i was talking about sending you Sarah an new kindle fire since it prime days. Or would you rather want a donation ?

             LikeLike

             1. I’d prefer a donation. I have a kindle fire. I don’t actually use it much. Mostly I read on the eink. Which I had to replace a couple of months ago.
                BUT thank you.

                And I’ll look at the retired kindles and see if I have a working one @Janglionpress.

                LikeLike

                1. Sarah/Jaglion,

                   My wife and I have several Kindles too; if we can locate one to send, can I make arrangements through Sarah’s mail of heat e-mail?

                   LikeLike

                   1. I think Jassini, not Janglion I’ll contact her on FB.

                      LikeLike

                      1. I sent Sarah an email. Was there anything else that was needed?

                         LikeLike

                         1. No. But let me make sure it was forwarded right.

                            LikeLike

                2. Done.

                   LikeLiked by 1 person

                   1. Thank you. I wasn’t incidentally trying to demand a donation. I just assumed it related to the fundraising drive. Apologies if it didn’t.

                      LikeLike

       2. I thought I was replying to Sarah.

          LikeLike

32. During the Palisades and Eaton fires here in LA County, there were a few other fires that started but we’re quickly brought under control. Late one afternoon, an alert suddenly went off on my phone and the phones of others around me notifying us of a new fire in the area, and that we were under the risk of having an evacuation declared soon.

    As it turned out, it was a false alarm. Someone had triggered the alert system, and it went out to a number of areas that were not meant to be alerted.

    LikeLike

33. Re: fundraiser. Probably will send some outside of the “campaign time.” We just put in a new dryer the beginning of last month – which is just sitting there unused. Blew out the 50 amp breaker – and we found out that the entire panel is obsolete and out of code, so no just replacing one breaker. Looking at a $4K bill for that… (Okay, it’s been there ever since we moved in, and who knows how long before that. 25+ years. And the manufacturer is long out of business. No AFCI or GFCI – except for the outlets I’ve replaced inside the house – so I’ve been wanting to upgrade it anyway. Just not on this year’s budget…).

    Oh – explaining the ins and outs of the OBBB to the son has had me digging into the bill text more than I did initially. Beginning in 2026, if you’re a non-itemizer, keep track of whatever you send off to these fundraisers. You can take up to $1,000 ($2,000 joint filers) as an above the line deduction.

    LikeLike

34. Two comments. First, kids’ camps will be getting weather warning radios for cheap at Amazon and keeping them on in at least one counselor’s cabin going forward. Unless and until too many false alarms happen. We do need to remember the camp was about one hundred years old before it was swept away. Second, your point about a good early warning system is valid. Since I’m not a TV person and ditto radio when I wake up, I found out there had been a massacre in Vegas by getting caught up in the citywide traffic jam and my own personal four car pile up. Bad tactics that. Jolie LaChance KG7IQC

    LikeLike

35. I already gave and encourage others to do so, as they are able: I use a weather app and a radar app to check out any weather alerts (I set the weather app to send me alerts). Between the two I can usually see if it’s anything I need to worry about: fog on the road when I won’t be driving? Not my problem! Twister sighted and storm cell headed my way: you better believe I’ve got the radar app going and am looking for signs of vorticity in the clouds! My internet comes on a buried fiber optic cable and never went out even in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene! I kept my power going with two big generators, but I had to be careful not to run out of fuel. They also need periodic maintenance, mostly oil changes, if you run them a lot. I managed to keep them going until power was restored in about two weeks. Also a truck coming by with more fuel in the middle of the outage was a G-d send! I called for the fuel on my land-line phone, which also never went out, unlike my cell phone, so there!

    LikeLike

36. Ms Sarah I really am enamored of that art…

    LikeLike

    1. You can have it if you want it.

       LikeLike

37. All warnings aside, when I lived in Kansas, people used go outside and watch the tornados instead of heading to the basement for shelter. That is probably just a byproduct of the fatal American need to have a really good time but I imagine it’s still the same in the Midwest today.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. It is. I was a storm spotter, and the trainer asked how many of us went to shelter when an alert sounded. Two hands of fifty went up, and we all laughed. The trainer asked why, and one of the guys said, “Because we want to see if you are right!” Everyone busted up laughing, including the trainer, who said, “Fair answer.”

       LikeLike

    2. Usually by the time I get an alert the rain is blowing sideways, water is ankle deep and visibility is about 20 feet. Under those conditions, no I don’t sit around watching the storm.

       LikeLike

38. One of the members of our barony back in the day went onto the Bradley Beach boardwalk to watch the hurricane come in.

    He set himself on fire later, but that was a different episode.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    1. I now understand why you and I resonate. We fish for friends in the same pool.

       LikeLike

39. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE FUTURE DOESN’T GET EVERYWHERE AT ONCE:  Unevenly Distributed.

40. ”Frankly, I never understood the point of ink, paper, the smell. Fine. Whatever. ”

    I own a kindle, but every important book I get in hard copy. With a kindle, you don’t own it, Amazon does. Come the apocalypse, you’ll be glad of the solid state books.

    LikeLike

    1. The apocalypse has great advertising. In my lifetime, less than great follow through.
       I said before I keep books in paper, though at this time it is “Books the as yet hypothetical grand kids might want.” If I knew there would be no grandkids, I’d reduce the number of dead tree bricks by 90%.

       LikeLike

41. “Apocalypse” actually happens I will be too busy surviving. Besides either dead tree formats destroyed in apocalypse or least wanted in the packaging weight department; 50/50.

    LikeLike

    1. Dang.

       Replied using phone, for once. WP repeated the comment 5x’s.

       LikeLike

42. “Apocalypse” actually happens I will be too busy surviving. Besides either dead tree formats destroyed in apocalypse or least wanted in the packaging weight department; 50/50.

    LikeLike

43. “Apocalypse” actually happens I will be too busy surviving. Besides either dead tree formats destroyed in apocalypse or least wanted in the packaging weight department; 50/50.

    LikeLike

44. “Apocalypse” actually happens I will be too busy surviving. Besides either dead tree formats destroyed in apocalypse or least wanted in the packaging weight department; 50/50.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

45. “Apocalypse” actually happens I will be too busy surviving. Besides either dead tree formats destroyed in apocalypse or least wanted in the packaging weight department; 50/50.

    LikeLike

46. I just had a horrible thought, and putting it out so someone who actually knows how much involvement it would have in this situation can poke at it:

    What if they’re screaming Trump caused this disaster because they know that it was caused?

    You know, the way that Obama caused the 2011 Mississippi flooding, because of ordering flood control be held secondary to encouraging natural environment?

    The change in policy that resulted in water forces that hadn’t been seen for roughly a century?

    Hm, this ringing bells to anyone else?

    In that case, it was not any one downgrade that caused it– it was systematic weakening of the safeties, which added up and resulted in a cascade failure.

    LikeLike

    1. No dams above where the camps were located by a lot of comments seen on FB.

       LikeLike

       1. I wouldn’t be looking for dams in this case, those are usually standing water, aren’t they?

          I’d be looking for marshes or similar, that had previously been drained for agriculture, then restored.

          LikeLiked by 1 person

    2. …. wow, search engines seem to have completely forgotten the whole “plumping out water would harm wetlands” thing.

       Here’s a good starting point for the Mississippi one, but I don’t know anything about the flood dynamics of Texas, and only know about the 2011 because it hit ag so hard and was predicted to do so.

       https://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/mississippiriver/natural-resource-management/forestry-management/forestry-mgt-history/

       LikeLike

Comments are closed.