Stormy Weather

by Doctor Science

We're battened down pretty well against Sandy. Jim MacDonald at Making Light provided a helpful guide: How to Batten a Hatch.

Food prepped and ready, water and lights handy, blankets piled. I spent much of yesterday cooking: roast pork, spanakopita, today I'll make tomato sauce. We figure we can all cuddle up and read The Lord of the Rings aloud for *days* if need be. But some of the pictures on #sandy are already pretty damn scary, and the storm hasn't actually hit yet.

Direct Youtube link
It was hard to pick between Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Donna Hightower -- but this version from the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald was finally my choice.

And then, to wake yourself up:

Direct Youtube link

The Nicholas Brothers' tap number from the movie Stormy Weather. Man, every tendon near my knees screams in fear when I see this ... no wonder Fred Astaire admired them so.

Now they're playing Natural disaster photo cliché bingo at Making Light.

Update before I even posted: the seawall is breached on Brigantine Island.

North end seawall of Brigantine has been breached.

Substantial flooding blocks exit from island. STAY IN HOME.

MOVE property to highest levels in home.

Brigantine Police warn of dramatically rising water, during high tide & full moon later today.

I feel sick thinking about it.

I hope all of you are safe and sheltered, and that we all have only adventures to talk about later, not tragedies.

Andreas Achenbach, Storm on the Dutch Coast. Found via an aggregator site; supposedly at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, Germany, but they have no online catalogue.

Strikingly similar to some of the pictures showing up on #sandy. How many of the answers to Natural Disaster Photo Cliché Bingo are in the Romantic tradition: some, or all? Discuss.

Comments

[Hartmut]

The classics are of course the Breton lighthouses
The photos in this became iconic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fapXUqagiFQ
No less impressive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7RSryuJAwE
but there is of course also Turner's Slave Ship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship

(these should all fit into a single line each, so I will not 'a href' them.

[Countme-In]

Weather report #1 from the parasites and elitists in the government, whose budgets will be halved under one candidate's blueprint:

"Latest data from the Hurricane Hunters shows that Sandy is intensifying as its core traverses the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. At 8 am EDT, an Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft found top winds of 98 mph in the heavy thunderstorms to the southwest of Sandy's center, at a point about 150 miles east-northeast of Cape Hatteras, NC. A dropsonde released in the eye measured a central pressure of 945 mb, but observed winds of 19 knots at the surface, so Sandy is probably a 943 mb hurricane that is very close to Category 2 strength. The Hurricane Hunters did not observe an eyewall, and saw very little temperature difference from inside to outside the eye, so Sandy is not going to be able to undergo rapid intensification. The storm could still see an increase of 5 mph in its winds before landfall tonight between 6 pm - 10 pm EDT, due, in part, to interaction with the low pressure system to its west that is pulling the hurricane towards the coast. The new, higher winds of Sandy don't have a lot of time to pile up additional storm surge water, so the NHC storm surge forecasts will probably not change today. But it is clear that Sandy is not going to pull its punch, and this superstorm is going to deliver a punishing multi-billion dollar blow to a huge area of the Eastern U.S."

[Countme-In]

Weather report #2 from the people who want the government's weather forecasting expertise defunded:

"Hurricane Sandy is hitting 21 years to the day of the Perfect Storm of October 20, 1991. I write about this in my book as America Has Done to Israel. This was the day that President George Bush Sr. initiated the Madrid Peace Process to divide the land of Israel, including Jerusalem. America has been under God’s judgment since this event. Both of these hurricanes were cause by freakish weather patterns that came together to create [sic]

Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection.

It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem. Both candidates are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda. America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!" - John McTernan, pro-Greater Israel, Christianist fanatic.

There is, however, a punchline (this is Sullivan interjecting):

The storm is projected to come right over my house, so it might curtail the prayer meeting if the power is knocked out."

[Countme-In]

Weather report #3 from the man who very well could share all weather forecasting duties for America, plus the global warming research portfolio, with weather report #2's author after the November election when the NWS and NOAA are defunded:

"LIMBAUGH: So we got a hurricane coming. The National Hurricane Center, which is a government agency, is very hopeful that the hurricane gets near Tampa. The National Hurricane Center is Obama. It’s the National Weather Service, part of the commerce department. It’s Obama. The media, it’s all about the hurricane hitting next week, and they’re not talking about Biden, they’re talking about this Hurricane Isaac thing. Well, you know, we who live in south Florida become experts. We don’t need the National Hurricane Center, and we don’t need all these weather dolts analyzing this for us. Well, we need the center, we can look at their charts and graphs, we know what to do, we can read the stuff. I’ve been tracking the charted forecast track of the storm, and they’re moving it sometimes to the east. The latest, 11 o’clock, they moved it to the west as a cat 1 impact in Naples, Fort Myers area.

This morning at five a.m., the impact was Miami. We’re still not talking about ’til next Tuesday, so it’s gonna be all over the ballpark between now and then. We don’t know where this thing is gonna hit. The models are moving it more and more out into the Gulf. I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing hits in Louisiana someplace when it’s all said and done. Just kidding. Nobody knows, but they’re desperately hoping, they’re so desperately hoping for Tampa. The media, you know, I can see Obama sending FEMA in in advance of the hurricane hitting Tampa so that the Republican convention is nothing but a bunch of tents in Tampa, a bunch of RVs and stuff. (laughing) Make it look like a disaster area before the hurricane even hits there."

[lily]

There's a photo curculating which is supposed tobe flood waters pouring into the Ground Zero site. I was skeptical, stil am, sort of, but I did find an AP article that said that water was pouring into the World Trade Center construction site. Is that the same thing as the Ground Zero memorial? I don't know the geography of NYC so the place names on photos and in news articles don't mean much to me.

Any way I hope you all on the seaboard are OK.

[russell]

Ground Zero = WTC construction site. It's very far downtown in NYC, and so flooding there is almost a certainty.

I've seen pictures of water up to the top of car wheel wells at 20th and Ave C, also water pouring into a PATH station.

There's this video of a transformer explosion at 14th and FDR.

There's a picture on FB of a shark swimming down the street on Brigantine Island in NJ.

I'm sure we'll see lots of details as the day unfolds but it appears that the mid-Atlantic was freaking slammed.

[russell]

Battery Tunnel, from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan, flooded.

All major highways in Philly were closed last night as well.

[hairshirthedonist]

Sandy's eye was probably within 30 miles of my house at some point last night. Not being near the shore, being closer to the eye may have been a good thing. We never lost power and the only evidence of a storm is a few smaller tree limbs and some leaves on the ground. Seeing what happened at the Jersey shore and in NYC is hard to fathom from where I'm sitting.

[wj]

The clearest explanation I have come across of what will be involved in getting NYC up and running again, from Megan McArdle. NYC has special problems, of course. But I can see similar sorts of problems for all of New Jersey, not to mention other areas.

[russell]

I believe it's more accurate to say that the "clearest explanation" you cite comes from Megan McArdle's father, not from Ms. McArdle herself.

Ms. McArdle herself will no doubt be most concerned with finding alternative sources for pink Himalayan salt in a post-Sandy environment.

[hairshirthedonist]

I don't think "all of New Jersey" will see similar sorts of problems in anything but the most general sense - meaning not much more than that someone is going to have to fix stuff. Manhattan is very, very different from the vast majority of New Jersey in terms of infrastructure. I might go so far as to say that Manhattan is unique, at least within the United States, in terms of the density, integration and "composite" age (if you know what I mean) of its infrastructure.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean, wj.

[bobbyp]

wj,

You do realize, do you not, that Megan McArdle is http://shameproject.com/profile/megan-mcardle/>daft?

[Slartibartfast]

I read as far as "Koch-trained", and realized that bit was written by someone much more daft than Ms. McArdle.

[bobbyp]

Slart,

She is a hack. She is http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/megan-mcardle-is-always-wrong-reading-papers-is-hard-edition/> intellectually dishonest. Because of this, there is no excuse to cite her on any topic.

[russell]

Gonna hitch a ride to rockaway beach.

What will be involved in getting NYC, and the rest of the east coast, up and running again, will be boatloads of money, effort, time, and pain. Same as always, no matter where the crap hits the fan.

NYC is definitely unique in terms of the particulars of its geography and infrastructure, and there is no "one size fits all" solution, but the basics are going to be the same, everywhere.

It's going to take money in large amounts, a huge level of effort, and lots of time, patience, and pain. We're all going to pay something, in one coin or another, no matter where we live.

I somewhat apologize for going off snarkily on McArdle, I just find that she gets right up my nose every time she opens her mouth.

[hairshirthedonist]

I'd like to hear from Doc Sci, knowing she's a Jerseyite, and a bit to the north of where I am, where things may have been worse. Has anyone heard from her?

[McKinneyTexas]

It's been 6 hours since HSH posted. Doc, let us hear from you. Be well. Thx.

[sapient]

Hoping the best, Doctor Science.

People are without power though - sometimes for many days. So let's be patient.

[Julian]

Megan McArdle has a long track record of a) lying, b) being stupid, and c) fearlessly mixing a) and b). The fact that she's citing her father is an improvement over the usual state of affairs, but it's usually best to treat her as a black hole from which no useful writing can escape.