http://www.regrettheerror.com/
something different... when you make a mistake.. .. haha read thru these dandies.... ahaha......
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
be sure and check the source.. haha.. wow... amazing how even our news has to come from china!!
Hurricane Katrina takes heavy toll on environment
As Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on Monday, experts said it could turn one of the United States' most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.
Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.
That is exactly what Katrina was as it churned towards the city. With top winds of 160 kilometres per hour and the power to lift sea level by as much as 9 metres above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Centre, said Sunday afternoon.
The centre's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 10 metre deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 7 metres, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.
Estimates predict that 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.
"We are talking about in essence having in the continental United States having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.
Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas.
"Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Richard Pasch said.
As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path on Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record.
"We haven't seen something this big since we started the programme," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor. He works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Programme, which is in its seventh year of making detailed measurements of hurricane wind conditions.
Warning for years
Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million hectares of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.
Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 9-metre storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.
After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go.
In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials.
He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods.
Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine-grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level.
The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said.
It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven feet.
Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near misses. Hurricane Lili blew herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city.
Source: China Daily
As Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on Monday, experts said it could turn one of the United States' most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.
Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.
That is exactly what Katrina was as it churned towards the city. With top winds of 160 kilometres per hour and the power to lift sea level by as much as 9 metres above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Centre, said Sunday afternoon.
The centre's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 10 metre deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 7 metres, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.
Estimates predict that 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.
"We are talking about in essence having in the continental United States having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.
Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas.
"Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Richard Pasch said.
As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path on Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record.
"We haven't seen something this big since we started the programme," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor. He works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Programme, which is in its seventh year of making detailed measurements of hurricane wind conditions.
Warning for years
Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million hectares of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.
Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 9-metre storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.
After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go.
In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials.
He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods.
Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine-grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level.
The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said.
It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven feet.
Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near misses. Hurricane Lili blew herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city.
Source: China Daily
The AWESOME power of God. Never, Never, Never beleive of one second that we control things... just about the time we think we do... God shows us He still can do things his way... just to remind us... kind'a like Nathan told me one time ... how to raise my kiddos.. I needed to hit them between the eyes with a 2by4 to get their attention, then they might listen to me.. hahaha, yeah, right!!
A bit of the "Ole" days... about Enid, Bob Wills, etc...
Once upon a time TV station was located here
The Enid News and Eagle
Phil Brown / columnist
Once upon a time Enid had a television station -- KGEO-TV channel 5. The studios were located on the northeast corner of 2nd and Randolph in downtown Enid. The building is now occupied by Enid Transmission Specialists.
In late 1956, they moved the TV station lock, stock, barrel and employees to Oklahoma City, that is, everything except the transmitting antenna. It didn't make it.
They were moving the station to OKC where it would have access to a larger market -- where they could sell more advertising, and make more money. They changed the name to KOCO-TV. The station maintained its Enid symbols, however, for many years. Until a few years ago, the backdrop on the station's news anchor set was a wall-sized photo of Enid's huge grain elevators.
But, back to the tower and antenna that didn't make it. The 650-foot tower topped by a 193-foot, 22-ton transmitting antenna collapsed in a heap of crumpled metal in October 1956, when they attempted to move the antenna from its location east of Enid to the station's new 1,187-foot tower seven miles northwest of Crescent.
n
It was Sunday morning, and I was watching my favorite magazine-type news show on CBS TV with Charles Osgood. I think ol' Charlie's really good. In fact, he should change his name to "Charles Really Good." The show always has at least one or two off-the-beaten-path stories about people, places and things.
I got a real honk out of this week's treasure-hunting segment. Some guy who has made a fortune in computer software hid gold tokens redeemable for $1 million worth of jewelry. The clues to the hiding places were in an elaborate children's book he published. All of them have been found. One piece of jewelry was worth $450,000. Wow! That makes reading Harry Potter a waste of time, doesn't it?
One of the tokens was hidden in southwestern Oklahoma, but they never identified the finder.
Then this guy came on extolling the virtues of five present-day songwriters. At first I thought he might be mimicking Saturday Night Live, and this was a put-on, but when it became apparent he was sincere I began to feel like I had been transported to another world where bad is good, and vise versa.
He said this one guy spent five years in a log cabin out in the woods writing songs. Wonderful! He looked like he hadn't had a haircut or a shave in more than five years. The words of his song may have had some meaning, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. He just banged on his guitar and yelled -- screamed sometimes. That's good?
All five of these "artists" were sartorially challenged to say the least. They all strummed a guitar, and none of them could enunciate clearly.
What has happened to our music? How did it devolve, so to speak, to jungle drums, tribal chants, rhyming rants and screaming, twisting, gyrating meemies? What happened to the catchy melodic rhythms, and the soothing ballads?
Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys took some pretty harsh criticism during the 1940s and '50s, because ol' Bob drank too much and smoked too much. But his music and his band sounded like the Boston Pops Orchestra alongside these ? these, whatever they are. At least we could understand the words to his songs. No! I'm not an ardent country and western fan either, but the melodies and words of "San Antonio Rose," and "You Are My Sunshine" still run through my head.
I think I'll write a letter to ol' Charlie Osgood, and ask him if that Sunday segment about the songwriters was supposed to be a joke. It just wasn't as good as Osgood.
n
If you have wondered what the construction work is all about at the intersection of Garriott and Monroe -- it is the future site of Freddy's Frozen Custard. However, I'm told the name is misleading, and that they will also be serving hamburgers "to-die-for."
Brown is a retired News -- Eagle editor.
The Enid News and Eagle
Phil Brown / columnist
Once upon a time Enid had a television station -- KGEO-TV channel 5. The studios were located on the northeast corner of 2nd and Randolph in downtown Enid. The building is now occupied by Enid Transmission Specialists.
In late 1956, they moved the TV station lock, stock, barrel and employees to Oklahoma City, that is, everything except the transmitting antenna. It didn't make it.
They were moving the station to OKC where it would have access to a larger market -- where they could sell more advertising, and make more money. They changed the name to KOCO-TV. The station maintained its Enid symbols, however, for many years. Until a few years ago, the backdrop on the station's news anchor set was a wall-sized photo of Enid's huge grain elevators.
But, back to the tower and antenna that didn't make it. The 650-foot tower topped by a 193-foot, 22-ton transmitting antenna collapsed in a heap of crumpled metal in October 1956, when they attempted to move the antenna from its location east of Enid to the station's new 1,187-foot tower seven miles northwest of Crescent.
n
It was Sunday morning, and I was watching my favorite magazine-type news show on CBS TV with Charles Osgood. I think ol' Charlie's really good. In fact, he should change his name to "Charles Really Good." The show always has at least one or two off-the-beaten-path stories about people, places and things.
I got a real honk out of this week's treasure-hunting segment. Some guy who has made a fortune in computer software hid gold tokens redeemable for $1 million worth of jewelry. The clues to the hiding places were in an elaborate children's book he published. All of them have been found. One piece of jewelry was worth $450,000. Wow! That makes reading Harry Potter a waste of time, doesn't it?
One of the tokens was hidden in southwestern Oklahoma, but they never identified the finder.
Then this guy came on extolling the virtues of five present-day songwriters. At first I thought he might be mimicking Saturday Night Live, and this was a put-on, but when it became apparent he was sincere I began to feel like I had been transported to another world where bad is good, and vise versa.
He said this one guy spent five years in a log cabin out in the woods writing songs. Wonderful! He looked like he hadn't had a haircut or a shave in more than five years. The words of his song may have had some meaning, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. He just banged on his guitar and yelled -- screamed sometimes. That's good?
All five of these "artists" were sartorially challenged to say the least. They all strummed a guitar, and none of them could enunciate clearly.
What has happened to our music? How did it devolve, so to speak, to jungle drums, tribal chants, rhyming rants and screaming, twisting, gyrating meemies? What happened to the catchy melodic rhythms, and the soothing ballads?
Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys took some pretty harsh criticism during the 1940s and '50s, because ol' Bob drank too much and smoked too much. But his music and his band sounded like the Boston Pops Orchestra alongside these ? these, whatever they are. At least we could understand the words to his songs. No! I'm not an ardent country and western fan either, but the melodies and words of "San Antonio Rose," and "You Are My Sunshine" still run through my head.
I think I'll write a letter to ol' Charlie Osgood, and ask him if that Sunday segment about the songwriters was supposed to be a joke. It just wasn't as good as Osgood.
n
If you have wondered what the construction work is all about at the intersection of Garriott and Monroe -- it is the future site of Freddy's Frozen Custard. However, I'm told the name is misleading, and that they will also be serving hamburgers "to-die-for."
Brown is a retired News -- Eagle editor.
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