In memory of New Orleans
James Nicoll
intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
whelmed. Even if the city is flattened, other cities have been
flattened and recovered.
Still, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if there are going to be
glorious visions of New Orleans' future, it may be a good idea to
create them today and not wait until tomorrow.
Are there in fact any bright vision of the future of New Orleans?
Judging by the relatively small set of books and films I have seen set
there, NO doesn't seem to be treated all that kindly in fiction. UNDERCOVER
BLUES is probably the happiest movie I've seen set there.
A special shout-out goes to James Lee Burke, who seems to hate the
city with the heat of a thousand exploding suns, despite the setting providing
him with a steady income.
Anderson has NO survive what was probably WWIII (1) and the
thousands of years of history that follow in THE WINTER OF THE WORLD.
Ice-age related global cooling and the associated ocean level drop, plus
sedementary deposition at the mouth of the river have marooned the city
well inland, though.
James Nicoll
1: I think Chicago survived the war but not the ice.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Dorothy J Heydt
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> Anderson has NO survive what was probably WWIII (1) and the
>thousands of years of history that follow in THE WINTER OF THE WORLD.
>Ice-age related global cooling and the associated ocean level drop, plus
>sedementary deposition at the mouth of the river have marooned the city
>well inland, though.
>
No war, just ice and, with lots of water being tied up in ice,
the sea level dropping.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
James Nicoll
I am pretty sure there's a comment about how many of the
old city sites are associated with big, round craters.
jtingle
Nicoll) wrote:
> Actually, the odds that Katrina (currently the sixth most
>intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
>still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
>directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
>whelmed. Even if the city is flattened, other cities have been
>flattened and recovered.
>
> Still, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if there are going to be
>glorious visions of New Orleans' future, it may be a good idea to
>create them today and not wait until tomorrow.
>
> Are there in fact any bright vision of the future of New Orleans?
>Judging by the relatively small set of books and films I have seen set
>there, NO doesn't seem to be treated all that kindly in fiction. UNDERCOVER
>BLUES is probably the happiest movie I've seen set there.
Depends on how you view nanotechnolgy. Goonan's River series ends in
the new, improved NO. Of course, it flies away at the end. Go figure.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
James Nicoll
Do the humans survive? I bounced off the first book I read
by Goonan.
I was going to assert that if it isn't in NorAm near the mouth
of the Mississippi, it really isn't NO but then someone could ask me why
I am willing to accept NYNY from CITIES IN FLIGHT. Maybe because the
setting of NO _seems_ more important to its NOishness than NY's does to
its.
Louann Miller
Nicoll) wrote:
> Actually, the odds that Katrina (currently the sixth most
>intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
>still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
>directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
>whelmed.
Depends on your definition of missing. The big scary part of the
hurricane is somewhat larger than the coastline of Louisiana; an
outright miss just isnt' going to happen but that's not to say the eye
will pass right over the town.
>Even if the city is flattened, other cities have been
>flattened and recovered.
That's the best bet, I think. NO is one of the oldest cities in that
part of the country, with very deep cultural roots. (If not
basements.)
The nonfiction book "Isaac's Storm" notes that after the 5000+ death
toll of the Galveston hurricane in the early 1900's, the entire city
was jacked up one building at a time about 20 feet and filled in with
sand and rock. Oh, and a sea wall. But if the dikes don't hold, NO
may have to start from scratch. Inasmuch as I understand the mechanics
of storm surge, they seem to be poised for a whopper.
ruth
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:46:03 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
> Nicoll) wrote:
>
> > Actually, the odds that Katrina (currently the sixth most
> >intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
> >still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
> >directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
> >whelmed.
>
> Depends on your definition of missing. The big scary part of the
> hurricane is somewhat larger than the coastline of Louisiana; an
> outright miss just isnt' going to happen but that's not to say the eye
> will pass right over the town.
I just looked at the news. That is one huge hurricane .Damn. Scary
stuff.
--
James Nicoll
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> Actually, the odds that Katrina (currently the sixth most
>>intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
>>still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
>>directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
>>whelmed.
>
>Depends on your definition of missing. The big scary part of the
>hurricane is somewhat larger than the coastline of Louisiana; an
>outright miss just isnt' going to happen but that's not to say the eye
>will pass right over the town.
The worst is apparently if the eye misses NO by a small margin.
I don't recall if landfall to the east or west of NO is worse for the
city.
>>Even if the city is flattened, other cities have been
>>flattened and recovered.
>
>That's the best bet, I think. NO is one of the oldest cities in that
>part of the country, with very deep cultural roots. (If not
>basements.)
>
>The nonfiction book "Isaac's Storm" notes that after the 5000+ death
>toll of the Galveston hurricane in the early 1900's, the entire city
>was jacked up one building at a time about 20 feet and filled in with
>sand and rock. Oh, and a sea wall. But if the dikes don't hold, NO
>may have to start from scratch. Inasmuch as I understand the mechanics
>of storm surge, they seem to be poised for a whopper.
I'm seeing some alarming references to FEMA models of events
like this in NO that result in 50 - 60 K casualties. Of course, models
are often incorrect.
Didn't they raise part of Seattle one story, as well?
I'd suggest hiring some Netherlanders but the Netherlanders
have a technique for dealing with hurricanes that is not exportable
to the Gulf of Mexico in as much as it depends on not being in the
Gulf of Mexico.
James Nicoll
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1125262962.2b428a0e77a7dd82594c05731ca9b9e6@teranews>,
>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>>On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:46:03 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>>Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, the odds that Katrina (currently the sixth most
>>>intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
>>>still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
>>>directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
>>>whelmed.
>>
>>Depends on your definition of missing. The big scary part of the
>>hurricane is somewhat larger than the coastline of Louisiana; an
>>outright miss just isnt' going to happen but that's not to say the eye
>>will pass right over the town.
>
> The worst is apparently if the eye misses NO by a small margin.
>I don't recall if landfall to the east or west of NO is worse for the
>city.
Google google: west is worse.
Konrad Gaertner
>
> In article <ILy60...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >In article <dest8r$382$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
> >James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Anderson has NO survive what was probably WWIII (1) and the
> >>thousands of years of history that follow in THE WINTER OF THE WORLD.
> >>Ice-age related global cooling and the associated ocean level drop, plus
> >>sedementary deposition at the mouth of the river have marooned the city
> >>well inland, though.
> >>
> >>1: I think Chicago survived the war but not the ice.
> >
> >No war, just ice and, with lots of water being tied up in ice,
> >the sea level dropping.
>
> I am pretty sure there's a comment about how many of the
> old city sites are associated with big, round craters.
Really really big hail?
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
James Angove
>
> The worst is apparently if the eye misses NO by a small margin.
> I don't recall if landfall to the east or west of NO is worse for the
> city.
>
West.
> Didn't they raise part of Seattle one story, as well?
>
Chicago, too. Its a popular trick, apparently.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> I'd suggest hiring some Netherlanders but the Netherlanders
> have a technique for dealing with hurricanes that is not exportable
> to the Gulf of Mexico in as much as it depends on not being in the
> Gulf of Mexico.
Well, according to this article I've just read, New Orleans used not to
be on Gulf of Mexico either. It used to have lots and lots of nice
wetlands between itself and the water, which dampened down the storms.
But those have been washed away.
The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
been booed as a madman's idea.
Making Light has a very complete post about Katrina up now. Lots of good
info.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/annafdd/
Il mio romanzo online: http://homepage.mac.com/afdd/Senza.html
James Nicoll
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> I'd suggest hiring some Netherlanders but the Netherlanders
>> have a technique for dealing with hurricanes that is not exportable
>> to the Gulf of Mexico in as much as it depends on not being in the
>> Gulf of Mexico.
>
>Well, according to this article I've just read, New Orleans used not to
>be on Gulf of Mexico either. It used to have lots and lots of nice
>wetlands between itself and the water, which dampened down the storms.
>But those have been washed away.
>
>The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
>reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
>alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
>been booed as a madman's idea.
>
when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
the city.
Technology. Is. The. Answer.
OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
James Nicoll
* It's an interesting question of if the floodway could manage something
like the flood of 1826, which was twice as large as either of the floods
of 1852 and 1950.
Bill Snyder
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <1h21290.196ijsox3n591N%ada...@spamcop.net>,
>Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd suggest hiring some Netherlanders but the Netherlanders
>>> have a technique for dealing with hurricanes that is not exportable
>>> to the Gulf of Mexico in as much as it depends on not being in the
>>> Gulf of Mexico.
>>
>>Well, according to this article I've just read, New Orleans used not to
>>be on Gulf of Mexico either. It used to have lots and lots of nice
>>wetlands between itself and the water, which dampened down the storms.
>>But those have been washed away.
>>
>>The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
>>reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
>>alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
>>been booed as a madman's idea.
>>
> That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
>when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
>Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
>the city.
>
> Technology. Is. The. Answer.
>
> OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
>
Uh, would it be too spoil-sportish to mention at this point that
Nawlins is *not*, in fact, on the Gulf? (And there is a massive
flood-control system in place in Louisiana, but inasmuch as it's
largely devoted to keeping the Mississippi flowing though NO, instead
of cutting off to the west as is its natural tendency . . .)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Ken from Chicago
"Konrad Gaertner" <kgae...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:43122C02...@worldnet.att.net...
Puhlease, no mayor of Chicago will let mere ice take down the city.
Corruption, the Lake, heat, sure, but not snow and ice. There'd be a fleet
of plow trucks and salt trucks clearing the way. NO Chicago mayor would want
to go down like Mayor Bilandic from the blizzard of '79.
-- Ken from Chicago
JavaJosh
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan wrote:
> The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
> reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
> alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
> been booed as a madman's idea.
ObSF: Bujold tells of a large wall around London in one of the Miles
Vorkosigan books. What I found startling is that this was mentioned
merely as a background detail, nothing remarkable about it. Is building
a sea wall so outlandish? We already have massive breakwaters around
many ports, and certainly there is some city in the world that simply
would not exist if not for technology - I'm thinking some of the
low-lying cities in the Mississippi flood plain.
James Nicoll
Compared to the Netherlands, it's close by the Gulf.
> (And there is a massive
>flood-control system in place in Louisiana, but inasmuch as it's
>largely devoted to keeping the Mississippi flowing though NO, instead
>of cutting off to the west as is its natural tendency . . .)
Didn't that system almost fail in the 1970s? Or am I misremembering
a McPhee?
JavaJosh
James Nicoll wrote:
> Are there in fact any bright vision of the future of New Orleans?
Yes - it involves an interminible and exceedingly expensive contest
between the worlds top architects. The city rebuild will consist of a
single, fairly-high-but-not-too-high-to-be-unsafe office building, a
state-of-the-art subway (with one line to Baton Rouge), and the
remainder an understated, abstract memorial to those who perished.
(A seperate, slightly smaller memorial will stand in memory of the
reporters who bravely travelled to report on the storm, and who sadly
perished for the sake of their impressive backdrops.)
John F. Eldredge
New Orleans does have seawalls; the two problems are that the storm
surge may be higher than the seawalls, and that, since most of the
city is below sea level, removal of the 15 inches or so of rain
expected is totally dependent upon the pumps continuing to work. If
the seawalls are overtopped, the pumps will flood out and parts of
the city could be underwater for as much as 6 months.
As I recall, the seawall around London was nicknamed the "King Canute
Memorial".
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
James Nicoll
John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>
>New Orleans does have seawalls; the two problems are that the storm
>surge may be higher than the seawalls, and that, since most of the
>city is below sea level
I keep imaging two French guys looking for a place to put a
settlement. "Let's try building it _downhill_ from the ocean."
Dorothy J Heydt
Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>Puhlease, no mayor of Chicago will let mere ice take down the city.
>Corruption, the Lake, heat, sure, but not snow and ice. There'd be a fleet
>of plow trucks and salt trucks clearing the way. NO Chicago mayor would want
>to go down like Mayor Bilandic from the blizzard of '79.
Well, in fact, the Ice didn't take it down. They built some kind
of wall, pointed like a ship's prow, to the north of it and the
Ice flowed around it. It was still abandoned as uninhabitable,
though, and mined for metal by later generations.
John F. Eldredge
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <vjm4h196ftqn931tc...@4ax.com>,
>John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>>
>>New Orleans does have seawalls; the two problems are that the storm
>>surge may be higher than the seawalls, and that, since most of the
>>city is below sea level
>
> I keep imaging two French guys looking for a place to put a
>settlement. "Let's try building it _downhill_ from the ocean."
Well, the original settlement was just above sea level. However, as
the city expanded, much of the surrounding swamp was drained and
settled. This brings to mind the Florida real-estate swindles of the
1920's, where many people bought lots via mail-order, only to find out
later that the maps were deliberately inaccurate, and that the land
they had bought was some distance out from shore.
I have read that about 70% of New Orleans is below sea level.
Del Cotter
Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net> said:
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>> >>Anderson has NO survive what was probably WWIII (1) and the
>>> >>thousands of years of history that follow in THE WINTER OF THE
>>> >>WORLD. Ice-age related global cooling and the associated ocean
>>> >>level drop, plus sedementary deposition at the mouth of the river
>>> >>have marooned the city well inland, though.
>>> >>
>>> >>1: I think Chicago survived the war but not the ice.
>Puhlease, no mayor of Chicago will let mere ice take down the city.
>Corruption, the Lake, heat, sure, but not snow and ice. There'd be a
>fleet of plow trucks and salt trucks clearing the way. NO Chicago mayor
>would want to go down like Mayor Bilandic from the blizzard of '79.
Plow trucks and salt... ooh, the Laurentian Glacier's knees are shaking.
--
Del Cotter
NB Personal replies to this post will
send email to d...@branta.demon.co.uk
Please send your email to del2 instead
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
> when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
> Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
> the city.
>
> Technology. Is. The. Answer.
>
> OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
London is apparently also at risk of flooding, and the Thames barrier
seems not to be high enough for, well, changing conditions.
Of course Venice is going to go under too, but slowly and gracefully.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Was that Brothers in Arms? It's the Thames barrier. It exists and has
been raised several times, unlike the far more impressive rotating
barriers in the Netherland whose name I'm blanking on now.
David Bilek
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
>> when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
>> Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
>> the city.
>>
>> Technology. Is. The. Answer.
>>
>> OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
>
>London is apparently also at risk of flooding, and the Thames barrier
>seems not to be high enough for, well, changing conditions.
>
>Of course Venice is going to go under too, but slowly and gracefully.
Yeah. When I was there last summer I wondered if the smell was a
result of rising waters. Ultimately I decided it probably always
smelled like that.
-David
John F. Eldredge
wrote:
Venice had quite a pong when I visited it in 1969. You have the
normal smells of a salt marsh, plus mildew (with that much moisture
around all the time, it is inevitable), plus raw sewage, since the
Venetian toilets flush directly into the canals. It is a beautiful
city, but not beautiful-smelling.
James Nicoll
>
>> That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
>> when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
>> Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
>> the city.
>>
>> Technology. Is. The. Answer.
>>
>> OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
>
>London is apparently also at risk of flooding, and the Thames barrier
>seems not to be high enough for, well, changing conditions.
I don't know if it is still true but at one point the
London Flood Control Centre was located in a tunnel and the
Cabinet Office Briefing Room used in emergencies was located
inconveniently close to the water level for use in a flood.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Well, Venice sits in the middle of a shallow lagoon. And it's actually
built on water. What you smell is mud and sewage. My guess it used to
smell a lot worse when it was at its full capacity - it's halfway
deserted now.
Carl Dershem
news:ehn4h1t4te35sdom9...@4ax.com:
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:53:39 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
> Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>In article <vjm4h196ftqn931tc...@4ax.com>,
>>John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>New Orleans does have seawalls; the two problems are that the storm
>>>surge may be higher than the seawalls, and that, since most of the
>>>city is below sea level
>>
>> I keep imaging two French guys looking for a place to put a
>>settlement. "Let's try building it _downhill_ from the ocean."
>
> Well, the original settlement was just above sea level. However, as
> the city expanded, much of the surrounding swamp was drained and
> settled. This brings to mind the Florida real-estate swindles of the
> 1920's, where many people bought lots via mail-order, only to find out
> later that the maps were deliberately inaccurate, and that the land
> they had bought was some distance out from shore.
>
> I have read that about 70% of New Orleans is below sea level.
And it's been going downhill for decades.
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
John F. Eldredge
wrote:
Literally and figuratively. The whole Mississippi Delta region is
slowly subsiding, probably a side-effect of the many tons of sediment
the river has washed downstream over the centuries. This phenomenon
happens in a lot of estuaries and river deltas; if I remember
correctly, London is also slowly subsiding.
Bill Snyder
According to what I've read, it's actually the opposite. The
flood-control levees and dams mean the Mississippi no longer rises out
of its banks and spreads sediment over the delta. That by itself
accounts for much of the loss of wetlands downstream.
ruth
John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>
> Venice had quite a pong when I visited it in 1969. You have the
> normal smells of a salt marsh, plus mildew (with that much moisture
> around all the time, it is inevitable), plus raw sewage, since the
> Venetian toilets flush directly into the canals. It is a beautiful
> city, but not beautiful-smelling.
I was there in 1973 and I don't recall any bad smell. Was that a good
smell year for Venice? It was in the middle of the summer. It was
gorgeous.
--
Jim Lovejoy
news:detc0t$3hs$1...@reader2.panix.com:
> In article <1h21290.196ijsox3n591N%ada...@spamcop.net>,
> Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd suggest hiring some Netherlanders but the Netherlanders
>>> have a technique for dealing with hurricanes that is not exportable
>>> to the Gulf of Mexico in as much as it depends on not being in the
>>> Gulf of Mexico.
>>
>>Well, according to this article I've just read, New Orleans used not
>>to be on Gulf of Mexico either. It used to have lots and lots of nice
>>wetlands between itself and the water, which dampened down the storms.
>>But those have been washed away.
>>
>>The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
>>reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
>>alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
>>been booed as a madman's idea.
>>
> That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
> when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97,
> protecting Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in
> '50* drenched the city.
San Antonio solved the periodic flooding of the San Antonio River by
building a tunnel from upriver of the city to downriver of the city.
Admittedly that doesn't work as well when you've got a city that is below
sea level.
Aaron Davies
> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
> > when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
> > Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
> > the city.
> >
> > Technology. Is. The. Answer.
> >
> > OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
>
> London is apparently also at risk of flooding, and the Thames barrier
> seems not to be high enough for, well, changing conditions.
>
> Of course Venice is going to go under too, but slowly and gracefully.
I read somewhere that the real problem with Venice is that they don't
*want* it to sink this time--for 2000 years, they've been happily
building each layer of the city on top of the previous one, but now
they're trying desperately to preserve 400-year-old stuff that by rights
should be half submerged by now.
--
Aaron Davies
Opinions expressed are solely those of a random number generator.
Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
Ho! Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Thrust!
Richard Todd
> JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ObSF: Bujold tells of a large wall around London in one of the Miles
>> Vorkosigan books. What I found startling is that this was mentioned
> Was that Brothers in Arms? It's the Thames barrier. It exists and has
> been raised several times, unlike the far more impressive rotating
> barriers in the Netherland whose name I'm blanking on now.
Yeah, that was in Brothers in Arms.
Peter Meilinger
>San Antonio solved the periodic flooding of the San Antonio River by
>building a tunnel from upriver of the city to downriver of the city.
>Admittedly that doesn't work as well when you've got a city that is below
>sea level.
How hard could it possibly be to build an impregnable dome over
the entire city? A dome's just a round tunnel with no exits, right?
For the record, by impregnable I mean it keeps all bad stuff out,
like nasty weather, mosquitoes, nuclear missiles and the religions
and political beliefs of your choice. Air, comic books, strippers,
anything good can come through.
Pete
Dorothy J Heydt
Maybe there'd been heavy rains that year and washed a lot of the
muck out?
There's a line in Dante referring to "the hour when the fly gives
way to the mosquito," to which Sayers in one of her essays
comments, "I can't testify to this myself, I visited only Venice,
and there was no hour where the mosquito did not reign supreme
there."
And she put a pair of lines into her play _Love All_, whose first
act is set in Venice, where the famous writer's mistress
complains that there's a hole in her mosquito-net and she's all
over bites, and his secretary says sympathetically, "They don't
bite me much, but I was brought up in Italy, so I expect they
think of me as a native."
Keith Morrison
and typed:
I saw a rather appropriate comment on that today: apparently the US Weather
Network's resident Reporter o'Doom (I don't get the American version, so I
don't know the guy) relocated north of the lake earlier today and is ready
to head north to high ground.
The comment was you know you're screwed when this guy shows up in your
neighbourhood. You know you're fucked when you then see him running away.
Del Cotter
>Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
>>> I have read that about 70% of New Orleans is below sea level.
>>
>>And it's been going downhill for decades.
>
>Literally and figuratively. The whole Mississippi Delta region is
>slowly subsiding, probably a side-effect of the many tons of sediment
>the river has washed downstream over the centuries. This phenomenon
>happens in a lot of estuaries and river deltas; if I remember
>correctly, London is also slowly subsiding.
London's far upriver from the estuary, though. What's making London go
down is isostatic rebound from the last Ice Age: the weight of the
glacier on Scotland pushed the land down and, like a water bed, the land
for hundreds of miles around rose up. Now the weight is off these last
few millennia, the old distribution is slowly reasserting itself.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> In article <Yogi-61B395.0...@news1.east.earthlink.net>,
> ruth <Yo...@somewhereonterra.net> wrote:
> >In article <7lv4h1p8p9dgig30r...@4ax.com>,
> > John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Venice had quite a pong when I visited it in 1969. You have the
> >> normal smells of a salt marsh, plus mildew (with that much moisture
> >> around all the time, it is inevitable), plus raw sewage, since the
> >> Venetian toilets flush directly into the canals. It is a beautiful
> >> city, but not beautiful-smelling.
> >
> >I was there in 1973 and I don't recall any bad smell. Was that a good
> >smell year for Venice? It was in the middle of the summer. It was
> >gorgeous.
>
> Maybe there'd been heavy rains that year and washed a lot of the
> muck out?
More likely wind. No amount of rain can wash Venice, it *sits* on the
muck.
> There's a line in Dante referring to "the hour when the fly gives
> way to the mosquito," to which Sayers in one of her essays
> comments, "I can't testify to this myself, I visited only Venice,
> and there was no hour where the mosquito did not reign supreme
> there."
Well, it used to be that they only bit at night, but we've got the
African tiger mosquito. They bite by day too.
> And she put a pair of lines into her play _Love All_, whose first
> act is set in Venice, where the famous writer's mistress
> complains that there's a hole in her mosquito-net and she's all
> over bites, and his secretary says sympathetically, "They don't
> bite me much, but I was brought up in Italy, so I expect they
> think of me as a native."
They don't bite me much either, I mean, they do bit me but as a sort of
last resort. Somebody told me that it's because I have B+ blood, they
are supposed not to like that. I don't know if it's true, but I do have
b blood and I am not mosquito-fodder.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> > James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > > That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
> > > when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97, protecting
> > > Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood in '50* drenched
> > > the city.
> > >
> > > Technology. Is. The. Answer.
> > >
> > > OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
> >
> > London is apparently also at risk of flooding, and the Thames barrier
> > seems not to be high enough for, well, changing conditions.
> >
> > Of course Venice is going to go under too, but slowly and gracefully.
>
> I read somewhere that the real problem with Venice is that they don't
> *want* it to sink this time--for 2000 years, they've been happily
> building each layer of the city on top of the previous one, but now
> they're trying desperately to preserve 400-year-old stuff that by rights
> should be half submerged by now.
Well, from what I understand subsidence is due to the lagoon dynamics.
Venice has survived for centuries because of very rigorous maintenance
of the engeneering waterworks. That's been let slide. And although lots
of building were replaced, it's not actually possible to build "on top
on old buildings". There's not ground under most of them, just wooden
stilts. When they do maintenance in the canals, you seem them clearly,
and it's quite fascinating.
Del Cotter
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> said:
>JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ObSF: Bujold tells of a large wall around London in one of the Miles
>> Vorkosigan books. What I found startling is that this was mentioned
>> merely as a background detail, nothing remarkable about it. Is building
>> a sea wall so outlandish?
>Was that Brothers in Arms? It's the Thames barrier. It exists and has
>been raised several times, unlike the far more impressive rotating
>barriers in the Netherland whose name I'm blanking on now.
No, the Thames Barrier is a little thing intended to stop a brief surge
of water up the river. As you say it's usually down, which implies
something quite different from a permanent wall against the sea.
Bujold's barrier is many orders of magnitude bigger, the descendant of
the Thames Barrier centuries in the future.
[by the way, there doesn't need to be a wall *around* London, it's open
to the sea on only the downriver side-- nature provides the walls to
north, south and west, at least until the sea rises a hundred metres, in
which case you're talking bye-bye much of England]
Long high (thick! think dam) walls aren't out of the question, but
they're horrifyingly expensive, and while the cities they protect are
worth the money by even the simplest calculations, they have to be built
before they're needed, and funded by people who know they can save cash
in the current financial year by wishing away the future need. And so
they usually do.
how...@brazee.net
On 28-Aug-2005, John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
> I have read that about 70% of New Orleans is below sea level.
In the olden dayze, elevation of New Orleans increased as the floods
deposited silt, and the delta grew. But people didn't like floods, so they
spent a lot of money on flood control and the city sinks instead.
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Robert Sneddon
<d...@branta.demon.co.uk> writes
>London's far upriver from the estuary, though. What's making London go
>down is isostatic rebound from the last Ice Age: the weight of the
>glacier on Scotland pushed the land down and, like a water bed, the
>land for hundreds of miles around rose up.
London is built on clay and a lot of wells dug over the millenia have
drained water from the clay layers under the city causing it to settle
into a bowl around the Thames. This hasn't helped.
--
Email me via robert (at) nojay (dot) org (new email address)
This address no longer accepts HTML posts.
Robert Sneddon
Louann Miller
Nicoll) wrote:
>> (And there is a massive
>>flood-control system in place in Louisiana, but inasmuch as it's
>>largely devoted to keeping the Mississippi flowing though NO, instead
>>of cutting off to the west as is its natural tendency . . .)
>
> Didn't that system almost fail in the 1970s? Or am I misremembering
>a McPhee?
What are the chances of Katrina whamming _that_ system hard enough to
let the river loose?
Louann, who probably shouldn't read so much Steve Barnes.
James Nicoll
James Nicoll
James Nicoll
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:29:21 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>> (And there is a massive
>>>flood-control system in place in Louisiana, but inasmuch as it's
>>>largely devoted to keeping the Mississippi flowing though NO, instead
>>>of cutting off to the west as is its natural tendency . . .)
>>
>> Didn't that system almost fail in the 1970s? Or am I misremembering
>>a McPhee?
>
>What are the chances of Katrina whamming _that_ system hard enough to
>let the river loose?
>
that it wants to drown NO but that the water in it would prefer to
head down the Atchafalaya? So NO (and all the industries dependent
on the Mississippi) would be left high and dry but the short term
Atlantis scenario wouldn't be a problem.
The lost of sediments via the Mississippi + erosion from the
direction of the guld might move the shore north of the current location
of NO, which might well be inconvenient for the city. That would take
longer, though. People could move.
Christopher P. Winter
wrote:
> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>
Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
James Nicoll
Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
were in). The best is to hope for the fewest possible number of casualties,
that for example the Superdome does not come down.
Oh, and the best possible emergency response but that isn't going
to happen because a large percentage of the National Guard units who would
normally be called out are in Iraq.
James Nicoll
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt
This isn't intended to be flippant or dismissive, just an
acknowledgement that undesirable outcomes may be distinguishable.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> said
<snip>
>Literally and figuratively. The whole Mississippi Delta region is
>slowly subsiding, probably a side-effect of the many tons of sediment
>the river has washed downstream over the centuries. This phenomenon
>happens in a lot of estuaries and river deltas; if I remember
>correctly, London is also slowly subsiding.
It certainly used to be. Of course pumping megagallons of water out of
the underlying strata didn't help any (London is a chalk basic, the
edges of which show up at the north/south downs, which is where the
water gets/got in). ISTR they've pretty much stopped it sinking now, but
since sea (and thus Thames) level is still rising, it's probably doomed,
in any long term scenario.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Contact recommends the use of Firefox; SC recommends it at gunpoint.
Tim McDaniel
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1125325745.e4eb14bdcc273f1f7c6bc0edab5410b5@teranews>,
>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:29:21 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>>Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>>> (And there is a massive
>>>>flood-control system in place in Louisiana, but inasmuch as it's
>>>>largely devoted to keeping the Mississippi flowing though NO, instead
>>>>of cutting off to the west as is its natural tendency . . .)
>>>
>>> Didn't that system almost fail in the 1970s? Or am I
>>>misremembering a McPhee?
>>
>>What are the chances of Katrina whamming _that_ system hard enough
>>to let the river loose?
>
> I have no idea. Isn't the problem with the river not so much that it
>wants to drown NO but that the water in it would prefer to head down
>the Atchafalaya? So NO (and all the industries dependent on the
>Mississippi) would be left high and dry but the short term Atlantis
>scenario wouldn't be a problem.
Not a problem to New Orleans. Long-term Atlantis problem for Morgan
City, and doubtless other towns along the new Mississippi.
--
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tm...@panix.com
James Nicoll
Penny drops: external tanks, right?
Jens Kilian
> > Didn't they raise part of Seattle one story, as well?
>
> Chicago, too. Its a popular trick, apparently.
"Sometimes a fantasy author has to point out the strangeness
of reality. The way Ankh-Morpork dealt with its flood problems [...]
is curiously similar to that adopted by the city of Seattle,
Washington, towards the end of the nineteenth century. Really.
Go and see. Try the clam chowder while you're there."
- Terry Pratchett, _The Truth_
--
mailto:j...@acm.org As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
http://www.bawue.de/~jjk/ so is contempt to the contemptible. [Blake]
http://del.icio.us/jjk
Jens Kilian
> San Antonio solved the periodic flooding of the San Antonio River by
> building a tunnel from upriver of the city to downriver of the city.
>
> Admittedly that doesn't work as well when you've got a city that is below
> sea level.
Instead of a tunnel, they could build an aqueduct for NO.
JavaJosh
I heard somewhere that 100% of the area's national guard was in Iraq.
Which reminds me of a situation in "The Family Guy" last night where a
group of upper-crust yaughtsmen are asked for a moment of silence for
there sons and daughters serving in Iraq. Short pause, they all stair
at the PA system, and the announcer says, "Just kidding!" and they all
laugh.
James Nicoll
JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
>> Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>> >On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>> >
>> > Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
>> >
>> > http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
>> >
>>
>> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>> much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
>> looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
>> had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
>> were in). The best is to hope for the fewest possible number of casualties,
>> that for example the Superdome does not come down.
>>
>> Oh, and the best possible emergency response but that isn't going
>> to happen because a large percentage of the National Guard units who would
>> normally be called out are in Iraq.
>
>I heard somewhere that 100% of the area's national guard was in Iraq.
Area as in NOLA or area as in Louisiana? Because there are
over 3000 Louisiana NG assigned to help with hurricane relief now and
another 3000 standing by. I'd quote exact number but for some reason
I can't connect to their homepage.
Over 3000 Louisiana NG are in Iraq, though.
JavaJosh
GSV Three Minds in a Can wrote:
> Bitstring <hg15h1tbbo84uek9c...@4ax.com>, from the
> wonderful person John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> said
> <snip>
> >Literally and figuratively. The whole Mississippi Delta region is
> >slowly subsiding, probably a side-effect of the many tons of sediment
> >the river has washed downstream over the centuries. This phenomenon
> >happens in a lot of estuaries and river deltas; if I remember
> >correctly, London is also slowly subsiding.
>
> It certainly used to be. Of course pumping megagallons of water out of
> the underlying strata didn't help any (London is a chalk basic, the
> edges of which show up at the north/south downs, which is where the
> water gets/got in). ISTR they've pretty much stopped it sinking now, but
> since sea (and thus Thames) level is still rising, it's probably doomed,
> in any long term scenario.
This happened to Long Beach, CA but because of oil pumping, not water.
The rather clever and SFnal solution (IMHO) was to pump vast quantities
of sea water to take up the volume left by the oil. It even made the
oil easier to pump. Here's a fun photo illustrating the problem:
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ozsvath/images/long_beach_subsidence.htm
Unfortunately for London (apparently) that solution won't work.
But hey, why does London need to pump water out of the ground? Doesn't
it rain about 360 days a year there? Can't people just be asked to walk
to work with their mouth open and facing up?
Bill Snyder
So can anybody think of a downside*?
1. Once lived for 9 month about halfway between Morgan City and New
Iberia.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Robert Sneddon
JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> writes
>
>But hey, why does London need to pump water out of the ground? Doesn't
>it rain about 360 days a year there? Can't people just be asked to walk
>to work with their mouth open and facing up?
London is practically in a desert, getting about the same amount of
annual rainfall as Seattle. One of the big "secret" infrastructure
programs that was completed about the same time as the Channel Tunnel in
the late 80s was a giant ring main for water supply around outer London
involving longer bigger tunnels than the Channel Tunnel. It cost about
the same, or a little less.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
Voodoo obviously works. :-)
Ken Vale
> In article <1125262962.2b428a0e77a7dd82594c05731ca9b9e6@teranews>,
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:46:03 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>>Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Actually, the odds that Katrina (currently the sixth most
>>>intense hurricane in Atlantic history) will miss New Orleans are
>>>still better than two in three and even if it does hit the city
>>>directly, there some chance that the flood controls won't be over-
>>>whelmed.
>>
>>Depends on your definition of missing. The big scary part of the
>>hurricane is somewhat larger than the coastline of Louisiana; an
>>outright miss just isnt' going to happen but that's not to say the eye
>>will pass right over the town.
>
>
> The worst is apparently if the eye misses NO by a small margin.
> I don't recall if landfall to the east or west of NO is worse for the
> city.
Yeah I seem to recall hearing something about the worst bit is if the
hurrican passes just south and west of you (something about the storms
on the North and East sides of the hurricane being the most intense), it
has to do with the way the winds travel around the low presure area.
Ken
John F. Eldredge
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
>Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>>wrote:
>>
>>> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>>
>> Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
>>
>> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
>>
>
> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
>looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
>had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
>were in). The best is to hope for the fewest possible number of casualties,
>that for example the Superdome does not come down.
>
If I noticed cracks spreading in the wall of the room I was in, I
don't think that I would take time to post to my LiveJournal before
seeking an exit, or at least a doorway. Do you remember what LJ you
were looking at, so we can see if any further entries appear?
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Carl Dershem
@nojay.fsnet.co.uk:
> In article <1125347756....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> writes
>>
>>But hey, why does London need to pump water out of the ground? Doesn't
>>it rain about 360 days a year there? Can't people just be asked to walk
>>to work with their mouth open and facing up?
>
> London is practically in a desert, getting about the same amount of
> annual rainfall as Seattle. One of the big "secret" infrastructure
> programs that was completed about the same time as the Channel Tunnel in
> the late 80s was a giant ring main for water supply around outer London
> involving longer bigger tunnels than the Channel Tunnel. It cost about
> the same, or a little less.
For those of us living in southern California (can you say "Mojave
Desert?"), calling Seattle a desert if pretty funny.
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
James Nicoll
John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 15:18:05 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
>>Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>>>
>>> Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
>>>
>>> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
>>>
>>
>> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>>much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
>>looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
>>had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
>>were in).
snip
>
>If I noticed cracks spreading in the wall of the room I was in, I
>don't think that I would take time to post to my LiveJournal before
>seeking an exit, or at least a doorway. Do you remember what LJ you
>were looking at, so we can see if any further entries appear?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/scyllacat/
And no, not yet.
Posting in the middle of a disaster seems reasonable as a
way to get word to loved ones or even to provide a durable eye-witness
account: I rememeber at least one from 9/11 where a rasff regular
reported from their vantage point next to the twin towers.
Jason Maxwell
news:Xns96C1B611729...@68.6.19.6...
calling Seattle a desert is pretty funny.
Jason
Craig Richardson
wrote:
I think there was a "despite" missing. Seattle is the canonical
example of a USan city that is Not In A Desert(tm), although e.g.
Miami clobber us for actual rainfall.
--Craig
--
"Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever." - The Replacements
Craig Richardson (crichar...@worldnet.att.net)
Mark Atwood
> >
> For those of us living in Seattle (or at least used to for 28 of 30 years)
> calling Seattle a desert is pretty funny.
Well, I suppose you could map the moss and the blackberry bushes onto
the "sand". And some people call low-level drizzle "Seattle sunshine".
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
willre...@yahoo.com
Del Cotter wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Aug 2005, in rec.arts.sf.written,
> Ken from Chicago <kwicker1...@comcast.net> said:
>
> >> James Nicoll wrote:
> >>> >>Anderson has NO survive what was probably WWIII (1) and the
> >>> >>thousands of years of history that follow in THE WINTER OF THE
> >>> >>WORLD. Ice-age related global cooling and the associated ocean
> >>> >>level drop, plus sedementary deposition at the mouth of the river
> >>> >>have marooned the city well inland, though.
> >>> >>
> >>> >>1: I think Chicago survived the war but not the ice.
>
> >Puhlease, no mayor of Chicago will let mere ice take down the city.
> >Corruption, the Lake, heat, sure, but not snow and ice. There'd be a
> >fleet of plow trucks and salt trucks clearing the way. NO Chicago mayor
> >would want to go down like Mayor Bilandic from the blizzard of '79.
>
> Plow trucks and salt... ooh, the Laurentian Glacier's knees are shaking.
>
> --
> Del Cotter
> NB Personal replies to this post will
> send email to d...@branta.demon.co.uk
> Please send your email to del2 instead
Plows, trucks, salt and overtime. The Laurentian should be trembling.
This would make for INSANELY busy Duncan Donut (tm) shops.
Will in New Haven
--
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken
places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good
and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of
these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special
hurry."
-- Ernest Hemingway, author and broken man who committed suicide in
1961.
Jim Lovejoy
news:DI-dnXakRd1...@nventure.com:
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote in
> news:detc0t$3hs$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>
>> In article <1h21290.196ijsox3n591N%ada...@spamcop.net>,
>> Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'd suggest hiring some Netherlanders but the Netherlanders
>>>> have a technique for dealing with hurricanes that is not exportable
>>>> to the Gulf of Mexico in as much as it depends on not being in the
>>>> Gulf of Mexico.
>>>
>>>Well, according to this article I've just read, New Orleans used not
>>>to be on Gulf of Mexico either. It used to have lots and lots of nice
>>>wetlands between itself and the water, which dampened down the
>>>storms. But those have been washed away.
>>>
>>>The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
>>>reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
>>>alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
>>>been booed as a madman's idea.
>>>
>> That's what they said about the Red River flood control system
>> when it was built but it actually performed pretty well in '97,
>> protecting Winnipeg from a century flood where a much smaller flood
>> in '50* drenched the city.
>
> San Antonio solved the periodic flooding of the San Antonio River by
> building a tunnel from upriver of the city to downriver of the city.
>
> Admittedly that doesn't work as well when you've got a city that is
> below sea level.
Responding to myself,
<understatement> And a tunnel to solve the flooding from a river like the
Mississippi is somewhat harder than solving the flooding from the San
Antonio River </understatement>
>>
>> Technology. Is. The. Answer.
>>
>> OK, Moving. The. City. works too but isn't as sexy.
>>
>> James Nicoll
>>
>> * It's an interesting question of if the floodway could manage
>> something like the flood of 1826, which was twice as large as either
>> of the floods of 1852 and 1950.
>
willre...@yahoo.com
Peter Meilinger wrote:
> Jim Lovejoy <nos...@devnull.spam> wrote:
>
> >San Antonio solved the periodic flooding of the San Antonio River by
> >building a tunnel from upriver of the city to downriver of the city.
>
> >Admittedly that doesn't work as well when you've got a city that is below
> >sea level.
>
> the entire city? A dome's just a round tunnel with no exits, right?
>
> For the record, by impregnable I mean it keeps all bad stuff out,
> like nasty weather, mosquitoes, nuclear missiles and the religions
> and political beliefs of your choice. Air, comic books, strippers,
> anything good can come through.
>
> Pete
Air? Nawlins never needed no air before. As long as booze and grass and
a resupply of strippers can get in the Big Easy will be fine.
David Loewe, Jr.
<crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:53:48 GMT, Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Robert Sneddon <no...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in news:HT+DXsAPB4EDFw25
>>@nojay.fsnet.co.uk:
>>
>>> In article <1125347756....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>>> JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> writes
>>>>
>>>>But hey, why does London need to pump water out of the ground? Doesn't
>>>>it rain about 360 days a year there? Can't people just be asked to walk
>>>>to work with their mouth open and facing up?
>>>
>>> London is practically in a desert, getting about the same amount of
>>> annual rainfall as Seattle. One of the big "secret" infrastructure
>>> programs that was completed about the same time as the Channel Tunnel in
>>> the late 80s was a giant ring main for water supply around outer London
>>> involving longer bigger tunnels than the Channel Tunnel. It cost about
>>> the same, or a little less.
>>
>>For those of us living in southern California (can you say "Mojave
>>Desert?"), calling Seattle a desert if pretty funny.
>
>I think there was a "despite" missing. Seattle is the canonical
>example of a USan city that is Not In A Desert(tm), although e.g.
>Miami clobber us for actual rainfall.
Doesn't Portland beat Seattle?
On a side note, Sequim gets about as much annual precip as Los
Angeles.
--
"One cries foul and will not speak
The other claims a little victory
And all the time you know we fail to see
This is the language of love"
Dan Fogelberg
John F. Eldredge
Nicoll) wrote:
Posting that the next building over has collapsed seems reasonable.
Taking time to post that the building you are in has cracks forming,
as opposed to heading for a doorway to give at least some protection
against the coming collapse, seems a bit fatalistic. The last entry,
>building next door collapsed. this may go soon wall missing big
>cracks. fun trip love you
sounds pretty ominous.
Damien Sullivan
>Doesn't Portland beat Seattle?
I think Chicago beats Seattle. It's not that Seattle gets more rain than
eastern "temperate-climate" cities, it's that it rains a little on a lot of
the days, vs. the eastern pattern of raining a lot on not so many days, so
people think of rain as a constant condition, or at least risk.
But yeah, nothing on the West Coast north of SF can be called deserty.
Spokane, now, that's dry. I think Seattle does get less rain than the coast
proper, due to some shielding mountains, but this means getting 30 inches of
rain instead of 100 (see Juneau, or Ketchikan. Anchorage doesn't get more
than LA, though; evaporation is much lower, of course), or some such.
-xx- Damien X-)
disclaimer: haven't actually lived in Seattle
Jason Maxwell
news:iik7h1l9n9s4rltfh...@4ax.com...
> Doesn't Portland beat Seattle?
>
anything...
Jason
Craig Richardson
Oh, lots of places do. But when people need to pull a name out of a
hat, it's traditional to say "Seattle". We've worked very hard to
make this happen...
>On a side note, Sequim gets about as much annual precip as Los
>Angeles.
Yeah, 'cause it's in the lee of a rainforest. Most precip either goes
around or drops before it gets the chance to hit Sequim.
htn963
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan wrote:
> They don't bite me much either, I mean, they do bit me but as a sort of
> last resort. Somebody told me that it's because I have B+ blood, they
> are supposed not to like that. I don't know if it's true, but I do have
> b blood and I am not mosquito-fodder.
Or else, like most Italians, you eat garlic regularly. Works for
many, including me (who am not Italian but whose favorite cuisine is
Italian).
--
Ht
Martin Wisse
Dal Dan) wrote:
>JavaJosh <java...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Anna Feruglio Dal Dan wrote:
>> > The sanest long-term plans for saving NO I've seen is about trying to
>> > reconsistute the wetlands, but that is going to take decades. The
>> > alternative plan is to build a giant wall around downtown, but that's
>> > been booed as a madman's idea.
>>
>> ObSF: Bujold tells of a large wall around London in one of the Miles
>> Vorkosigan books. What I found startling is that this was mentioned
>> merely as a background detail, nothing remarkable about it. Is building
>> a sea wall so outlandish? We already have massive breakwaters around
>> many ports, and certainly there is some city in the world that simply
>> would not exist if not for technology - I'm thinking some of the
>> low-lying cities in the Mississippi flood plain.
>
>Was that Brothers in Arms? It's the Thames barrier. It exists and has
>been raised several times, unlike the far more impressive rotating
>barriers in the Netherland whose name I'm blanking on now.
The Oosterschelde waterkering. Which has been (half) closed a few
times now, but not yet in any real emergency situation yet.
I was one of the lucky school children attending its grand opening, in
1986. It was the last major project of the Delta works to be
completed; these works were started up after the disastrous flood of
1953.
Martin Wisse
Christopher P. Winter
wrote:
>In article <dev8vd$fpb$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>>much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt
>
> This isn't intended to be flippant or dismissive, just an
>acknowledgement that undesirable outcomes may be distinguishable.
Sure; I didn't mean that NO would escape unscathed, just that it
wouldn't get the full impact.
And I haven't heard anything yet about the Michoud facility, but that's
hardly surprising given the general destruction.
Christopher P. Winter
wrote:
>In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
>Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>>wrote:
>>
>>> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>>
>> Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
>>
>> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
>
> Penny drops: external tanks, right?
Right. Preliminary word is that the facility suffered little damage.
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2005/08/katrina_threate.html#more
David Loewe, Jr.
<crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:32:47 -0500, "David Loewe, Jr."
><dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>On a side note, Sequim gets about as much annual precip as Los
>>Angeles.
>
>Yeah, 'cause it's in the lee of a rainforest.
Ummm...
No.
Because it's in the lee of a *mountain range* - in a valley.
>Most precip either goes
>around or drops before it gets the chance to hit Sequim.
Dave - who used to live out there (Bangor, Poulsbo and Suquamish)...
--
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist."
- Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
Joe Morris
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>>>Depends on your definition of missing. The big scary part of the
>>>hurricane is somewhat larger than the coastline of Louisiana; an
>>>outright miss just isnt' going to happen but that's not to say the eye
>>>will pass right over the town.
One point repeatedly made about Katrina was that it was as strong
as Camille, and as big as Betsy. Camille wasn't big, and Betsy was
"only" a cat 3 hurricane...Katrina had the worst characteristics of both.
>> The worst is apparently if the eye misses NO by a small margin.
>> I don't recall if landfall to the east or west of NO is worse for the
>> city.
>Yeah I seem to recall hearing something about the worst bit is if the
>hurrican passes just south and west of you (something about the storms
>on the North and East sides of the hurricane being the most intense), it
>has to do with the way the winds travel around the low presure area.
All things else being equal, the worst place to be with respect to
a hurricane is in the leading right quadrant -- north through east
if the hurricane is moving north. That's what happened to the Gulf
Coast this time. (Writing this on Tuesday morning.)
The gotcha for New Orleans (where I hope my sister's house is still
standing) is that a hurricane that comes across in just the "wrong"
path can drive water both up the river (flooding the city from
the south) *and* from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain (flooding it
from the north). The lake is shallow, and if you pump it full of
water, then dial in a northerly hurricane-force wind from the north
you've got the makings of significant flooding in the city.
Reports I've gotten from a Tulane official are that as of last night
the uptown area near the university aren't flooded (although there
are reports of "catastrophic" damage on the campus), but there is
still the possibility of flooding anywhere if the levees break.
I've not lived in the city for many years, but I was there during
Hurricane Betsy (unsuccessfully trying to keep the transmitter of
the last TV station in the city running -- I quit when water started
coming through the walls of the transmitter room). It was bad then,
and this is far, far worse even if the worst-case scenario didn't
happen.
Joe Morris
Christopher P. Winter
wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 15:18:05 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
>>Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>>>
>>> Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
>>>
>>> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
>>>
>>
>> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>>much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
>>looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
>>had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
>>were in). The best is to hope for the fewest possible number of casualties,
>>that for example the Superdome does not come down.
>>
>
>If I noticed cracks spreading in the wall of the room I was in, I
>don't think that I would take time to post to my LiveJournal before
>seeking an exit, or at least a doorway. Do you remember what LJ you
>were looking at, so we can see if any further entries appear?
That last entry is eerie. I think it's a fair assumption that they booked
(left in a hurry) immediately after posting it.
Craig Richardson
<dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:36:01 -0700, Craig Richardson
><crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:32:47 -0500, "David Loewe, Jr."
>><dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>>On a side note, Sequim gets about as much annual precip as Los
>>>Angeles.
>>
>>Yeah, 'cause it's in the lee of a rainforest.
>
>Ummm...
>
>No.
>
>Because it's in the lee of a *mountain range* - in a valley.
Yeahbut - the rainforest is right on the other side of that same
mountain range, no? That's what I remember from the "everybody does a
project on one county and presents it to the class" back in junior
high[1].
--Craig
[1] I got Pend Oreille county. My research would have been much
easier today, when it has an official website(!) despite a population
that has grown to 12,000.
James Nicoll
Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 19:38:32 -0500, John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 15:18:05 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>>Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
>>>Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
>>>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
>>>>
>>>> Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
>>>>
>>>
>>> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
>>>much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
>>>looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
>>>had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
>>>were in). The best is to hope for the fewest possible number of casualties,
>>>that for example the Superdome does not come down.
>>>
>>
>>If I noticed cracks spreading in the wall of the room I was in, I
>>don't think that I would take time to post to my LiveJournal before
>>seeking an exit, or at least a doorway. Do you remember what LJ you
>>were looking at, so we can see if any further entries appear?
>
> That last entry is eerie. I think it's a fair assumption that they booked
>(left in a hurry) immediately after posting it.
They've since been seen alive.
Glenn Dowdy
"Craig Richardson" <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:ssc9h155vk52gvf6v...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 07:26:33 -0500, "David Loewe, Jr."
> <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:36:01 -0700, Craig Richardson
>><crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:32:47 -0500, "David Loewe, Jr."
>>><dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>On a side note, Sequim gets about as much annual precip as Los
>>>>Angeles.
>>>
>>>Yeah, 'cause it's in the lee of a rainforest.
>>
>>Ummm...
>>
>>No.
>>
>>Because it's in the lee of a *mountain range* - in a valley.
>
praying for no rain.
Glenn D.
Walter Bushell
how...@brazee.net wrote:
> On 28-Aug-2005, John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>
> > I have read that about 70% of New Orleans is below sea level.
>
> In the olden dayze, elevation of New Orleans increased as the floods
> deposited silt, and the delta grew. But people didn't like floods, so they
> spent a lot of money on flood control and the city sinks instead.
>
> It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Build the city on stilts.
--
Guns don't kill people; automobiles kill people.
No 33 Secretary
news:proto-DC0228....@reader2.panix.com:
Better yet, build the city on high ground.
--
"So there is no third law of Terrydynamics."
-- William Hyde
Terry Austin
www.hyperbooks.com
Walter Bushell
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In article <oq86h1de48lgcquoc...@4ax.com>,
> Christopher P. Winter <cpwi...@rahul.net> wrote:
> >On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:29:23 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> >wrote:
> >
> >> The worst did not happen. The storm hit to the east.
> >
> > Good for New Orleans, but bad for Michoud.
> >
> > http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hurricane-05w2.html
> >
>
> Unfortunately the scale and the power of this hurricane pretty
> much guaranteed that a lot of people are going to get hurt (I was just
> looking at a LJ whose most recent entry was that the building next door
> had collapsed and that cracks were forming in the wall of the room they
> were in). The best is to hope for the fewest possible number of casualties,
> that for example the Superdome does not come down.
>
> Oh, and the best possible emergency response but that isn't going
> to happen because a large percentage of the National Guard units who would
> normally be called out are in Iraq.
Only an idiot calls out the reserves for a long term problem. At most
you use the reserves until you can build the regular army. Now who is
going to join the reserves to do the same job, with worse equipment and
training?
One weekend a month and 2 weeks a year my anal sphincter
Chad Irby
Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <dev8vd$fpb$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
> > Oh, and the best possible emergency response but that isn't going
> > to happen because a large percentage of the National Guard units who would
> > normally be called out are in Iraq.
Actually, it's not that large of a percentage, and Louisiana is only
calling up about half of the Guard they have in state right now. You
can't fix a disaster like this by sending a bunch of soldiers in to
point guns, it's going to take specialized reconstruction training and
equipment.
If you want the "best possible emergency response," look to the local
politicians who went without preparing for this, decade after decade,
and held off on such basic things as calling for a mandatory evacuation
until less than 24 hours before the thing hit.
> Only an idiot calls out the reserves for a long term problem.
The National Guard isn't "the reserves." They're a normal part of the
US military, and have been for a century or so now. The Army Reserves
and the various organized and unorganized militias are the reserves.
You need to complain about the idiots in Congress who overused the
"peace dividend" of the 1990s in drawing down a lot of the regular
units. The National Guard is about half of our land combat forces, and
a third of its support troops. The Guard has *always* been a major part
of our forces, in every war this century, and isn't being drawn on that
hard for Iraq.
--
I don't have a lifestyle.
I have a lifeCSS.
John F. Eldredge
Nicoll) wrote:
That's good to hear. Many of the New Orleans buildings are
unreinforced brick, and you definitely don't want to be in a brick
building when it starts to collapse.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Actually, no, I don't, and Italians here don't much either. This thing
that Italians eat a lot of garlic is widely believed but mostly
unfounded. Most of them will avoid garlic as much as they can. Every
time some garlicky food is served people will crack jokes about bad
breath. I don't have a sacred horror of the stuff and I even eat pizza
with raw garlic, but not often.
There are foods traditionally rich in garlic - pesto, bagna cauda,
bruschetta - but mostly they come from the western and southern part of
Italy.
I remember being in Corsica with a very funny Spanish cook who tried to
convince the Italians that garlic and onions weren't all that bad (he
liked using them _heavily_)by having us chant "J'aim l'onion, J'aim
l'onion, J'aim l'onion" on one tone and "Et moi l'ail, et moi l'ail, et
moi l'ail" on a higher note. We sang, but remained mostly unconvinced.
As a matter of fact, I keep fidning out when I need to use it that my
stash of garlic either sprouted or turned into dust.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/annafdd/
Il mio romanzo online: http://homepage.mac.com/afdd/Senza.html
Bradford Holden
> htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > Or else, like most Italians, you eat garlic regularly. Works for
> > many, including me (who am not Italian but whose favorite cuisine is
> > Italian).
>
> Actually, no, I don't, and Italians here don't much either. This thing
> that Italians eat a lot of garlic is widely believed but mostly
> unfounded. Most of them will avoid garlic as much as they can. Every
> time some garlicky food is served people will crack jokes about bad
> breath. I don't have a sacred horror of the stuff and I even eat pizza
> with raw garlic, but not often.
>
> There are foods traditionally rich in garlic - pesto, bagna cauda,
> bruschetta - but mostly they come from the western and southern part of
> Italy.
In the US there is some sort of prevailing myth that all Italians live
off of garlic. I think that this is some outgrowth of a large Sicilian
immigrant population.
--
Bradford Holden
"Anacortes is a really pretty part of Seattle...err...Washington"
- CMR shows she is part of the problem....
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> ada...@spamcop.net (Anna Feruglio Dal Dan) writes:
>
> > htn963 <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Or else, like most Italians, you eat garlic regularly. Works for
> > > many, including me (who am not Italian but whose favorite cuisine is
> > > Italian).
> >
> > Actually, no, I don't, and Italians here don't much either. This thing
> > that Italians eat a lot of garlic is widely believed but mostly
> > unfounded. Most of them will avoid garlic as much as they can. Every
> > time some garlicky food is served people will crack jokes about bad
> > breath. I don't have a sacred horror of the stuff and I even eat pizza
> > with raw garlic, but not often.
> >
> > There are foods traditionally rich in garlic - pesto, bagna cauda,
> > bruschetta - but mostly they come from the western and southern part of
> > Italy.
>
> In the US there is some sort of prevailing myth that all Italians live
> off of garlic. I think that this is some outgrowth of a large Sicilian
> immigrant population.
I think the majority of immigrants were from Naples, actually, with the
Sicilians close seconds, yes.
There's also the fact that ethnic cooking tends to become exaggerated
abroad. Garlic is certainly a strong flavour, very characteristic.
Joe Morris
>> > Oh, and the best possible emergency response but that isn't going
>> > to happen because a large percentage of the National Guard units who would
>> > normally be called out are in Iraq.
>Actually, it's not that large of a percentage, and Louisiana is only
>calling up about half of the Guard they have in state right now. You
>can't fix a disaster like this by sending a bunch of soldiers in to
>point guns, it's going to take specialized reconstruction training and
>equipment.
Sadly, what *is* needed now is armed patrols, with shoot-to-kill orders
for any looters who happen to be found. Even some of the local TV
station reporters were told by their management to evacuate because
they were being assaulted by people trying to steal their cameras.
>If you want the "best possible emergency response," look to the local
>politicians who went without preparing for this, decade after decade,
>and held off on such basic things as calling for a mandatory evacuation
>until less than 24 hours before the thing hit.
In fairness to the city leaders, it's worth noting that until the
weekend the forecast path of the storm put it over the Mississippi/
Alabama/Florida part of the Gulf Coast. The weather models rather
abruptly shifted, although I've not had an opportunity to look at
the underlying data to get a comfortable opinion of why.
Joe Morris (who still doesn't know if his sister's house still exists)
Mike Schilling
"Anna Feruglio Dal Dan" <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:1h25fwd.m9ybvnw15pkwN%ada...@spamcop.net...
>> In the US there is some sort of prevailing myth that all Italians live
>> off of garlic. I think that this is some outgrowth of a large Sicilian
>> immigrant population.
>
> I think the majority of immigrants were from Naples, actually, with the
> Sicilians close seconds, yes.
>
> There's also the fact that ethnic cooking tends to become exaggerated
> abroad. Garlic is certainly a strong flavour, very characteristic.
And "garlic-eater" is a common way to disparage groups you dislike. Lionel
Barrymore, as the evil banker in "It's a Wonderful Life" [1], uses it to
insult the residents of the slums he owns. The Japanese use it to insult
Koreans.
1.In an amazing bit of prescience on Frank Capra's part, he looks and sounds
exactly like Dick Cheney.
Glenn Dowdy
"Joe Morris" <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote in message
news:df473t$6n7$2...@newslocal.mitre.org...
>
> Sadly, what *is* needed now is armed patrols, with shoot-to-kill orders
> for any looters who happen to be found.
Yeah, because those folks taking armfulls of crackers and canned goods to
feed themselves and their families are just EVULL.
Glenn D.
Nicholas Waller
John F. Eldredge wrote:
> As I recall, the seawall around London [in Bujold] was nicknamed the "King
> Canute Memorial".
Canute gets an unfairly bad press sometimes. He didn't actually think
he could turn back the tide, but he did have annoyingly flattering
aides who kept telling him he was so powerful he could do it, so to
shut them up he demonstrated they were wrong by getting his feet wet.
I remember visiting New Orleans and going on a cemetery tour and being
impressed they buried people 6ft above ground, due to flooding causing
normally-interred coffins to pop out of the ground like something in
Poltergeist (if that's the right film).
--
Nick
Dean White
"Glenn Dowdy" <glenn.n...@hp.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:a3kRe.11462$pi7....@news.cpqcorp.net...
How about the ones carrying armfuls of beer, liquor and cigarettes to feed
their addictions.