Bachmann: Irene is God's message for Washington

themattsmith:

soupsoup:

Raise your hand if you saw that one coming.

In the video, Bachmann can be seen smiling, and her spokeswoman was quoted as saying “Obviously she was saying it in jest.”  Which is… better?  SO, she’s either a [slur removed - notemily] who actually believes that God killed 25+ people because he doesn’t like the way the budget negotiations are going OR she’s someone who thinks it’s ok to trivialize the deaths of 25+ people to make a political point.

GOOD SPOKESWOMAN-ING, MS. SPOKESWOMAN

I think this is one of those dog-whistle things. To the general public she was “just joking,” but to those who actually believe that God sends hurricanes to tell politicians what to do, she’s dead serious.

Source: soupsoup

The pioneering Australian weatherman Clement Wragge began assigning names to tropical cyclones in the late 19th century, initially using the letters of the Greek alphabet and characters from Greek and Roman mythology. An eccentric and playful fellow, he later turned to the names of local politicians he particularly disliked; as a result, he was able to state in public forecasts that the officials were “causing great distress” or “wandering aimlessly about the Pacific.” Needless to say, Wragge’s subtly hostile approach didn’t take the meteorology profession by storm.
Why Do Hurricanes Have Names?

Source: history.com

Didn’t know that: there are only six lists of Hurricane’s names

ronbarak:

How Hurricanes Get Their Names

World Metereological Organization 

In theory, a butterfly flapping its wings halfway across the world could have caused the eddies that gave birth to Hurricane Irene, but the origin of the storm’s name is not nearly so fanciful.

Hurricanes are named by the World Meteorological Organization, an agency of the United Nations. The group was established in 1950, right around the time that, in the Southern Hemisphere at least, such storms began to be given both men’s and women’s names.

Storms have long been given names for simplicity’s sake - rather than using  numbers or descriptions - in messages of warning, but there were often arbitrary: a hurricane could be named after a ship it wrecked, for example, according to information on the meteorological group’s Web site.

Starting in the 1900s, proper names were used in alphabetical order. For North Atlantic storms, all of them were female, but they were randomly chosen, not, the organization stresses, selected to name the storm after a real person.

Now a multinational committee keeps lists of names for North Atlantic storms that it has maintained since 1953 (male names were added in 1979). The six lists are used in a rotation, except when a storm has been “so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity.” Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused such devastation in New Orleans, and Hurricane Mitch, which struck Honduras in 1998, are among the names that have been retired.

In case you were curious, here’s the list of retired names. I forgot that they actually got down to Wilma in 2005.

Katrina changed all of our minds, of course, we former and temporary New Orleanians watching in horror from televisions around the country and the world as the city we loved filled with water that had no way to flow back out. We were horrified at our former cavalier attitude to storms.


But now it’s six years on and I live in another big city with a population that doesn’t have cars (55 percent of New Yorkers, as opposed to 27 percent of New Orleanians). Evacuation isn’t easy even if our billionaire mayor declares it mandatory, and with a citywide shutdown in public transit, New York will grind to a halt. I have a dog anyway, so without a car I can’t leave. Time to hunker down and ride it out, but the thoughts on my mind morbidly keep returning to Katrina. To wondering who will be blamed if poor neighborhoods flood, if the power doesn’t return for days and people grow desperate. To remembering who was accused of “looting” and who was given the benefit of the doubt.

As Hurricane Irene Hits the East Coast, Will We Forget the Lessons of the Last Big Storm to Shake America? | | AlterNet

I wrote about Katrina, Irene, and who gets hit hardest by natural disasters. 

(via champagnecandy)

Excellent piece.

(via champagnecandy)

Locked Up and Left Behind: New York’s Prisoners and Hurricane Irene

“We are not evacuating Rikers Island,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a news conference this afternoon. Bloomberg annouced a host  of extreme measures being taken by New York City in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, including a shutdown of the public transit system and the unprecedented mandatory evacuation of some 250,000 people from low-lying areas. But in response to a reporter’s question, the mayor stated in no uncertain terms (and with more than a hint of annoyance) that one group of New Yorkers on vulnerable ground will be staying put.

New York City is surrounded by small islands and barrier beaches, and a glance at the city’s evacuation map reveals all of them to be in Zone A (already under a mandatory evacuation order) or Zone B–all, that is, save one. Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all, meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.

According to the New York City Department of Corrections’ own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill–which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness–not to mention pre-trial detainees who have yet to be convicted of any crime.

#ugh i’m sure they and the homeless folks will be fine #worked so well in katrina

ASPCA, Pet Parents Prepare for Hurricane Irene

The ASPCA offers the following tips:

  • Bring pets indoors at the first sign of the storm. Animals can become disoriented and wander away from home during a disaster.
  • Arrange a safe haven for yourself and your pets in the event of evacuation. Do not leave pets behind.
  • Store an emergency kit—with items such as pet food, bottled water, medical records, a blanket, a flashlight and leashes—as close to an exit as possible.
  • Make sure all pets wear collars and tags with up-to-date identification.
  • Affix a rescue alert sticker to your front door or window to let rescuers know that there are pets inside your home.
  • Choose a designated caregiver to take care of your pet in the event you are unable to do so.