Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

I'm sorting some stuff out right now, & will be back later, but.....

Take a look at Sky News, right now. The Live pictures from New Orleans of the waters breaching the canal levee's are spectacular, & really frightening. It's like watching a car-crash, in slow motion.

The city is deserted of residents, but the TV Crews have moved in wholesale, & the footage they are bringing is simply spectacular.

Concrete levee's are being shown, with the water blowing over the top in huge waves.

It's one of the most awesome pieces of Live News footage I've ever seen, it's simply gripping. I do hope no lives are lost, but the property loss will be immense.

"up to 24"" of rain is forecast within 24 hours. To get that in perspective, 1.5" fell in Hertfordhire yesterday, & closed the M1.

Scary.

[Royal Flush]

I do hope no lives are lost, but the property loss will be immense.

I think this time the residents might listen when they are told to get the fuck out of the way

[RED-DOG]

For perspective

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

Click to see full-size image.

[Royal Flush]

I looked the other day but looking again now the storm is a lot less powerful than feared.

It's making landfall at only cat 1

Still it's a slow moving storm so flooding is the major worry

[kinboshi]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

They didn't.

[RED-DOG]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

They didn't.

This is the new "Strengthened" version.

[RED-DOG]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

They didn't.

This is the new "Strengthened" version.

EDIT: No, they are the old ones.

[AndrewT]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

They didn't.

This is the new "Strengthened" version.

ie - they've got three guys sitting on buckets behind it pushing against the wall.

[tikay]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

They didn't.

Since Katrina, the US Corps of Engineers have been busy strengthening the levees, but the work won't be complete until 2011. Seems an oddity that the Army has been tasked with the job, rather than a specialist private contractor.

I just can't grasp how that levee is holding, it seem to defy physics.

[Royal Flush]

If Katrina hadn't happened there would be no story here, this is quite a small storm, that doesn't make good news though!

[rex008]

I'm amazed by this design. How can it withstand the pressure?

Pressure is all about height, not about width (phnaaaar indeed). 1000 mile wide ocean 1m deep can only ever exert a pressure of about 0.1bar. A 1cm wide tube of water that's 1000m tall will exert about 100bar at the bottom of it. So the 7 feet quoted will only need to withstand about 0.2 bar of pressure (at the bottom). That's pretty insignificant really in engineering terms (a gas propane tank manages about 10-20 bar, even a car tyre can do 3-4). However, if that's all it's engineered to manage, and you start getting another few feet of waves forming over the top, that's when things start to fail fairly spectacularly.

[tikay]

I spotted this word on the PPRuNe Forum, and I don't ever recall seeing it, or hearing it used, before. I like it a lot. Once I'd looked it up. Does that make me one?

Sciolist.

[tikay]

A nugget from today's "The Times".

Less or fewer?

Is it "10 items or less" or "10 items or fewer"?

The grammatical question has puzzled Tesco so much that it is changing the wording of signs on checkouts to read "Up to 10 items". Tesco said the solution was suggested by the PEC (Plain English Society).

[77dave]

Up to ten



so am i allowed 10?