Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God

Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God

By Amos Nur With Dawn Burgess

What if Troy was not destroyed in the epic battle immortalized by Homer? What if many legendary cities of the ancient world did not meet their ends through war and conquest as archaeologists and historians believe, but in fact were laid waste by a force of nature so catastrophic that religions and legends describe it as the wrath of god?

Apocalypse brings the latest scientific evidence to bear on biblical accounts, mythology, and the archaeological record to explore how ancient and modern earthquakes have shaped history--and, for some civilizations, seemingly heralded the end of the world.

Archaeologists are trained to seek human causes behind the ruins they study. Because of this, the subtle clues that indicate earthquake damage are often overlooked or even ignored. Amos Nur bridges the gap that for too long has separated archaeology and seismology. He examines tantalizing evidence of earthquakes at some of the world's most famous archaeological sites in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, including Troy, Jericho, Knossos, Mycenae, Armageddon, Teotihuacán, and Petra. He reveals what the Bible, the Iliad, and other writings can tell us about the seismic calamities that may have rocked the ancient world. He even explores how earthquakes may have helped preserve the Dead Sea Scrolls. As Nur shows, recognizing earthquake damage in the shifted foundations and toppled arches of historic ruins is vital today because the scientific record of world earthquake risks is still incomplete. Apocalypse explains where and why ancient earthquakes struck--and could strike again.

Amos Nur is the Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Sciences and professor of geophysics at Stanford University. Dawn Burgess is a writer and editor based in Bar Harbor, Maine. She earned a PhD in geophysics from Stanford.

Reviews:

"[Amos Nur] posits seismicity--rather than invaders or social forces--as the prime dynamic behind the fall of ancient civilizations. Nur engages in what we might call archaeological detective work--looking at the positions of human remains, for instance, to determine cause of death--his book is focused and intense."--David Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"[A] deeply researched and compellingly written book. Apocalypse is a winning combination of cautious interdisciplinary investigation and interpretation, writing suitable for a general readership, and excellent illustrations. Although it will deliberately irritate many archaeologists, it should also provoke a serious reconsideration of the archaeological record. [T]he evidence for earthquakes in prehistorical change may be staring archaeologists in the face."--Andrew Robinson, Nature

"The theory that earthquakes may have caused the destruction of many ancient cities is unpopular and controversial. Amos Nur's book illustrated these ideas with convincing prose and meticulous research. Nur introduces the reader to a relatively new science...called Archaeoseismology. The reader will dosciver that the earthquakes that have occurred in the more recent times...have parallels to the remnants of destruction left from earthquakes in the distant past. Apocalypse is a result of [Nur's] determined effort to expell the fallacies in archaeology with the hard science of geophysics."--Lee Gooden, ForeWord Magazine

"In Apocalypse...Amos Nur compellingly proposes seismic sources for civilizational collapses that the Bible and the Classics attribute to other causes."--Anneli Rufus, East Bay Express

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WEATHER NOTE

Flooding in Interior Alaska declared a major disaster

Staff Report

FAIRBANKS -- Federal disaster aid has been granted to Alaska to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas struck by severe storms, flooding, landslides and mudslides between July 27 and Aug. 6, according a news release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA Administrator David Paulison said federal funding is available for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged in the Denali Borough, Fairbanks North Star Borough, North Slope Borough and the Yukon-Koyukuk Regional Educational Attendance Area.

Douglas G. Mayne is the federal coordinating officer for operations in the affected area.

12th Annual High Plains Conference

The 12th Annual High Plains Conference was held September 4-5, 2008 in Hays, KS. Thanks to everyone who attended the conference! With over 30 presenters on a wide array of topics, keynote speakers included Dr. Eve Gruntfest, Greg Carbin, Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, and Dr. Patrick Market.

Presentations from the conference are now available for online viewing (PDF and PPT formats).

MARITIME NOTE

Mysterious Disappearances On Cruise Ships

HungZai.com
October 6, 2008

The cruise industry says that more than 30 passengers have disappeared from ships in the past five years - and these figures exclude those known to have been suicides or drunken accidents.

When the QE2 docked at Southampton on January 2, the liner was one passenger short: a 62-year-old German woman was missing. She is just one of a growing list of people who have disappeared from cruise ships in mysterious circumstances. Some of these deaths may be suicides, writes Gwyn Topham, but others appear more sinister. And of course there are no police out on the ocean . . .

In the last days of the Vietnam war, Hue Pham and his wife Hue Tran spent two perilous weeks on a cramped container ship, adrift with no food and little water in the South China Sea. The couple survived this desperate flight from Vietnam, built a new life in America, and then, three decades later, decided to take a Caribbean cruise on a ship called the Carnival Destiny. This was the boat journey that they would not survive.

The facts of the couple's disappearance, as the Destiny sailed between Barbados and Aruba on May 12 2005, are few. After a fruitless on-board search, the ship eventually retraced its path, joined by the US coastguard. No trace of their bodies was ever found.

For the relatives, the deaths left a terrible, insoluble puzzle. Their son, Son Michael Pham, maintained that his parents had no reason to take their own lives and were in fact planning a trip back to Vietnam, and were looking forward to meeting relatives again. "Two American citizens with no personal or financial problems, no serious health problems, living the happiest time of their lives, both vanished without a trace or witness," he later told an inquiry.

The cruise had been a Mother's Day gift to the couple, and they were on board ship with their daughter and granddaughter. "I immediately flew down to California, went through their home, and tried to find one clue, something unusual. I could not," Son Michael says now.

Since then, with the help of two other bereaved families, Son Michael has helped establish a group called the International Cruise Victims. In the past weeks, he has been offering his help to yet another family, after the QE2 sailed into Southampton on January 2 this year one passenger short.

Officially, Hampshire police are still investigating how a 62-year-old German woman, so far identified only as Sabine L, disappeared from a new-year cruise aboard the QE2 somewhere off Madeira. Her family has launched its own website appealing for help (www.qe2missing.de). But the full truth of Sabine L's last moments on the luxury Cunard liner is unlikely ever to be firmly established - beyond the cold fact that she joins more than 30 passengers who, in the past four years, have mysteriously disappeared from cruise ships worldwide.

Last year the cruise industry reported that 24 passengers had disappeared between 2003 and last March. The information emerged after a US Congressional subcommittee found itself with an unlikely task: to examine the threat posed to citizens by booking a cruise holiday. Since then, at least 10 more passengers and two crew have been reported missing or overboard, including one Scottish pensioner lost in the Atlantic last November. These figures do not include known suicides and those who, for one or reason or another - a drunken argument, perhaps, or misplaced bravado - are known to have deliberately jumped. Of those who have gone mysteriously missing, some may have killed themselves; other incidents may be alcohol-related mishaps; but in at least one case, the death of a 52-year-old woman on the Island Escape in Italy, something more sinister may have gone on. The FBI is still investigating that case.

After hearing details of those who had gone missing on board ships, subcommittee chairman, Christopher Shays, a Republican congressman, warned of a "growing manifest of unexplained disappearances, unsolved crimes and brazen acts of lawlessness on the high seas". Like small cities, he said, cruise ships experienced crimes. "But city dwellers know the risks of urban life - and no one falls off a city never to be heard of again." Going on a cruise was, he said, perhaps "the perfect way to commit the perfect crime".

There was no evidence of foul play in the disappearance of "M", a 40-year-old woman, from Celebrity Cruise Line's Mercury. But then, there was precious little evidence at all - and what did emerge was largely due to the persistence of her father, Kendall Carver, a former company CEO, who spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees and private investigators in an attempt to discover the truth about her disappearance. (Carver has asked the Guardian not to use his daughter's name, to protect the privacy of other family members.) Carver says it was on the second day of the Mercury's cruise to Alaska in August 2004 that a cabin steward realised that M's room had not been slept in and reported her absence to his boss, who told him he would deal with it. Throughout the cruise, the steward continued to place chocolates on the pillow of the unused bed, as he was ordered to do, but no one saw M again. At the end of the cruise, when the ship docked in Vancouver and all passengers disembarked, M's belongings were packed away. No one notified the police or her family. It was only after her father filed a missing person's report that police discovered that she had disappeared from a cruise ship.

Kendall Carver's loss was, he says, made worse by a lack of cooperation from the cruise line. At one point, Celebrity Cruise Line issued a statement in which it called the death a horrible tragedy, and added that "regrettably, there is very little a cruise line, a resort or a hotel can do to prevent someone from committing suicide". As Carver points out, the case is still open and his daughter has not been declared dead by the family or the FBI - in his belief, suicide is neither the only nor the most likely explanation.

Celebrity Cruise Line, however, now says: "There is probably nothing we or any company could do that would make the parents feel the company had acted sensitively enough." Today, all the company's passengers pass a computerised checkout at the end of a cruise.

Whatever the truth of what happened, M's case starkly underlines a fact that cruise passengers, potentially thousands of miles from home, should be well aware of: out at sea, there are no police.

It is extremely difficult for any detective to piece together a murder case without a body, and chances of finding a passenger dumped into the ocean are slim indeed. And while all cruise ships employ security officers, they do not always seal off crime scenes, detain suspects and interview witnesses in the manner that might be expected of them.

Two cases in particular have gripped the US and Australia respectively: the disappearance of honeymooner George Smith [see below] and the death of mother of three Dianne Brimble. The story of Smith, presumed to have gone overboard from the superliner Brilliance of the Seas less than 10 days into his married life, was lapped up by US television networks. First there was the young, well-connected victim and his telegenic, grieving widow opening up on talkshows; then family rifts and media-friendly forensic investigators added to the drama. The details of Brimble's end, left drugged and naked to die on P&O Australia's Pacific Sky, emerged in the more low-key surroundings of a New South Wales coroner's court. But both cases have been marked by questions over how well initial investigations were handled, by angry allegations from families and rebuttals from cruise lines, and an increased public perception that something was seriously amiss.

Unlike many in the grim litany of victims' tales, Dianne Brimble did not disappear. Brimble, 42, from Brisbane, had saved for two years to go on a cruise with her sister and their daughters. But by the end of the first night of her holiday in September 2002, she was lying naked, drugged and dying on the floor of a cabin, ignored and ridiculed by the men who had left her there.

A toxicology report would later show that Brimble had died of an overdose of gamma-hydroxybutyrate, a party drug also known as fantasy, GHB, GBH or liquid ecstasy, and often described as a date-rape drug. Brimble, her family told Australian TV, didn't even like to take Panadol.

By the time police met the boat in the South Pacific island of Noumea to investigate, the male passengers had been back in to the cabin to tidy up. No one has been charged in relation to her death, and it took more than three years for the details of her story to emerge at the coroner's inquest, which reopens next month in Australia.

Eight men were identified as "persons of interest" in the investigation. Photographs retrieved from a digital camera would reveal that before her death at least one man had sex with Brimble; photographs were taken even when she was passed out naked on the floor.

The Brimble inquest highlighted a cruise culture far from old-fashioned ideas of shuffle-board, after-dinner dances and G&Ts at the captain's table. At one point an advert for P&O cruises was produced in court: a postcard showing a line of sunbathing women and bearing the slogan, "Seamen wanted". P&O's lawyers protested that the cruise line was not on trial. But the coroner ruled it was admiss- ible evidence; Brimble, she said, did not die in a vacuum.

If the behaviour of eight "persons of interest" had attracted complaints - a photo of one showed him running naked through the ship on the night of Brimble's death - ship security officers would reveal that finding drunk, naked people on deck was a relatively common occurrence.

It is just not deaths and disappearances that are a problem on cruise ships. According to crime statistics supplied to the Congressional hearings by 15 of the biggest lines, covering around 85% of cruise holidays worldwide, there were 178 reports of sexual assault on cruise ships between 2003 and 2005. FBI representatives testified to their belief that the figures were under-reported - and further documents recently obtained under court order by a Miami lawyer, James Walker, show that Royal Caribbean alone, which carries around 25% of cruise passengers, recorded more than 100 complaints of sexual assault and sexual battery within that time span.

Some British and American security officers claim that the real picture is even worse. Geoff Furlong, an ex-detective from Liverpool who worked for six years as a security officer for two cruise lines, says: "It doesn't matter what the class of ship is. Young women are particularly susceptible - particularly from crew members. They hunt in packs."

He claims often to have discovered crew targeting young female passengers. "Say I came across the situation: the guy would be up before the captain at the next port of call and thrown off the ship at his own expense, to repatriate him to Costa Rica, or wherever," he says. "That was all that happened - there was never any police involvement." If passengers complained, they were bought off, he says, "given champagne, free holidays, told about the consequences of going to court, how it would bring shame on their families". Such complaints, he says, would frequently not even be logged.

"The cruise companies just want it to go away," says Randy Jaques, an American security officer. He claims personally to have dealt with more than 50 complaints, and says hundreds of women have signed "Jane Doe agreements" - meaning they have reached an out-of-court settlement with the cruise lines and signed a confidentiality clause.

Passengers can find themselves in a complex legal situation, potentially under numerous jurisdictions when sailing abroad. With many cruise ships registered under flags of convenience with relatively slack tax and labour regimes, the relevant laws might be those of Panama, the Bahamas or Bermuda. Prosecuting, say, a sacked crew member who has returned to his own country brings a whole new dimension of complexity. Charles Lipcon, a Miami lawyer who has built a 30-year career on suing cruise lines, says his firm does not normally take on cases without a clear jurisdiction. "What I've seen over the years is that it's a hot potato for everyone, and nothing much gets done," he says.

In the US, Son Michael Pham's victim-support organisation has persuaded two members of congress to sponsor a bill, the Cruise Line Accurate Safety Statistics Act, to put more of an onus on cruise lines to prevent and report crimes at sea. James Walker believes that many are unreported, and points out that crew members are far more at risk than passengers. "You don't have young Filipino women who have been sexually abused calling in to the guest claims department," he says. In fact, convictions of either employees or passengers are virtually unheard of. "People call and say they are confident that the FBI can solve their crime," he says. "We say, 'Well, if it happens with this cruise line, it will be the first time in their history.'"

Cruise lines, meanwhile, have been at pains to stress that ships are inherently safe, self- contained environments. In the context of millions of passengers each year, the number of missing people and reported sexual assaults compares well with statistics on land, they say; crimes such as robbery are negligible.

William Giddons, director of the UK's Passenger Shipping Association, representing the cruise industry, says: "The occurrence is so rare, anything that happens on a cruise ship is news. Because we're such a high-profile industry, it's something we have to live with. Compare us with a resort or a hotel, where there is virtually no security at all.

"I can't sit here and tell you that all crimes are reported - but the rules are very strict that they should be. They certainly will be now, if [they weren't] in the past."

Changes are indeed being made. Drug- and terror-related concerns have seen airport-style security introduced at ports, complete with x-ray machines and sniffer dogs. The on-board culture on "fun ships" may be changing, too: in Australia, a beleaguered P&O has increased CCTV, stopped 24-hour drinking, and scrapped its notorious "schoolies cruises", which often saw unruly passengers expelled on South Pacific islands. Its ill-fated ship, the Pacific Sky - now linked to four premature passenger deaths through accidents and illness in as many years - has been sold off.

The industry still has some PR work to do, though: disappearances and assaults aside, it has been beset by a roll-call of blights in recent years. Last year one man died when fire swept through cabins on a Caribbean cruise, and passengers feared for their lives as another cruise ship blazed in the English Channel. Cunard's Queen Mary 2 was recently the scene of a very public passenger mutiny after propeller troubles cut every stop from the cruise itinerary. Other cruises have been hit by the norovirus: a highly contagious sickness with symptoms including diarrhoea, stomach cramps and violent projectile vomiting. Some older British people had to be stretchered off one ship when it returned to Hull, and at one point successive outbreaks of the virus confined the world's newest, biggest megaliner, the Freedom of the Seas, to port. In late 2005, the luxurious Seabourn Spirit even found itself having to face down pirates with rocket launchers.

The industry has also run into problems on environmental grounds. In Alaska, where only ships with advanced waste purification systems are allowed to sail, a referendum has led to the tightening of controls and a rise in taxes on cruise ships. Meanwhile, Californian ports, under the newly green leadership of Arnold Schwarzenegger, are forcing ships to reduce their fuel smoke emissions. More large fines have been levied on cruise ships for dumping untreated waste.

But despite it all, passengers continue to flock to the ships. The Passenger Shipping Association estimates that there was a 17% rise in Britons taking cruises last year - with 1.25m of us taking a trip - and predicts that 1.55m will be on board by 2008. Worldwide, the figure is expected to pass 15m people going on a cruise annually. Bigger ships with astonishing facilities are intermittently unveiled - and monster ships to dwarf today's megaliners are under construction. With these huge ships boasting theatres and shopping malls larger than those found in many towns, passengers need hardly know they are at sea at all. So long, of course, as they don't go overboard

Profile: George Smith, a young man who went missing on honeymoon

Young, handsome and wealthy, George Allen Smith IV, a 26-year-old from Connecticut, went missing on a honeymoon cruise in the Mediterranean with his new wife, Jennifer Hagel Smith.

After a lavish wedding in Rhode Island, the couple had fl own to Europe, and in Barcelona boarded Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas, a large resort ship that caters for the younger and more active end of the market.

On the seventh day of the cruise, July 5 2005, Smith was reported missing. The newlyweds had spent the previous evening in the bar and casino with acquaintances from the cruise, drinking heavily. Hagel Smith said she remembered nothing after leaving the bar, allegedly after rowing with her husband. At around 3.30am, Smith, intoxicated, was helped back to his cabin. His wife was not there.

The next morning, a passenger noticed a large bloodstain on a canopy below the Smiths' cabin, and called security. Jennifer was tracked down to the ship's spa, where she was having a massage. George was missing without a trace.

Turkish forensic investigators were called in, as was an FBI agent holidaying in the area. By evening, the bloodstain was cleaned away and the ship continued on its voyage. If anyone had been responsible for Smith's death, that person was on the cruise: in the words of the dead man's sister, Bree Smith, who is convinced that there was foul play, "the Brilliance of the Seas sailed off into the sunset with the murderers on board".

In June 2006, Smith's family filed a lawsuit against the cruise line. Hours later, Royal Caribbean announced that the widow, Jennifer Hagel Smith, separately from the family, had agreed to a settlement.

Hagel Smith told the press: "As many great peace and spiritual teachers have said, through great suffering comes great awareness." Details of the settlement were revealed last week: Hagel Smith received a payment worth one million dollars.

Profile: Annette Mizener, a mother who disappeared on a cruise she won as a prize

Annette Mizener, 37, from Wisconsin, was reported missing on the last night of a nine-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera on the Carnival Pride.

Both her parents and daughter were accompanying her on the cruise, which she had won as a prize in a competition. On the evening of her disappearance on December 4 2004, Mizener performed Britney Spears' Baby One More Time at a karaoke night with her daughter, then went to the casino. Later than evening she was due to meet her parents again for bingo. But she never made it.

Her parents, Wally and Heidi Knerler, were immediately concerned. When an announcement came over the Tannoy that her purse had been found, they rushed to find cruise staff . The damaged purse had been discovered near a railing on the lower deck.

The local coastguard led a fruitless search of more than 800km2 of water well into the next day. The FBI later investigated, but no explanation was ever forthcoming. A CCTV camera nearby had been obscured - covered up by a map of the ship.

Finally a judge declared Mizener offi cially dead, but the family - who rule out suicide and suspect foul play - still have no answers. Carnival have since agreed an out-of-court, confidential settlement with Mizener's husband, John.

Boat hit by barge, sinks in Ohio River

The Enquirer

A boat partially sank in the Ohio River last night after it was clipped by a barge, according to the Cincinnati Police Department.

The accident took place around 10 p.m. near the public landing.

Neither the barge operator nor the boat operator was injured. The damaged boat was towed to shore and impounded by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Coast Guard Rescues Two Men from Disabled Sailboat


Coast Guard Rescues Two Men from Disabled Sailboat - Click here for another funny movie.

RS

DEATH’S DOOR

DEATH'S DOOR

(The full story, with related interviews and full-color photos are in the article in Soundings Magazine November 2008 issue..)

The Crew of a 44-foot cutter narrowly survive a knockdown, a 360-degree roll and, ultimately, the loss of their boat in a fierce Atlantic storm..

By Douglas A. Campbell Senior Writer

There was no conversation in the saloon of the 44-foot cutter Sean Seamour II, where the crew had retreated to ride out the huge storm waves one spring night in 2007. A drogue had been deployed on more than 500 feet of line, and a reefed storm jib was keeping the bow pointing downwind.

Outside, the storm howled, and mountains of water loomed 70 feet above the stern. Inside, only Rudy Snel’s voice occasionally broke through the roar, which had become background noise. Wind speeds were consistently reading above 70 knots. The 62-year-old Snel sat at the chart table and let his new friends know whenever there was a gust of more than 80 knots.

Ben Tye, 31, was sitting in the curved settee behind the oval table to port. Jean Pierre de Lutz, 56, the skipper, a citizen of the united States and France who owned the center cockpit Beneteau, was in one of the cushioned seats to starboard. As seas pounded the port bow with frightening frequency, Snel, a retired school teacher, remained at the nav station long enough to announce a high gust of 85.5 knots. Then he went back to the aft stateroom to nap. His rest would be short-lived; the following near-death experience would be anything but.

Sean Seamour II was caught in Tropical Storm Andrea may 6, 2007, off North Carolina. In the next 12 hours, two other yachts – one with a professional crew of three, the other sailed by a 75-year-old couple and their 45-year-old daughter – would be abandoned in the storm. And the 54-foot yacht Flying Colours would, after it’s EPIRB had transmitted two erratic signals, disappear without a track with it’s professional crew of four.

Although the search for Flying Colours was futile, Coast Guard helicopter crews saved nine sailors, including Snel, Tye and de Lutz, as they flew rescue sorties in this powerful storm, which at its peak generated 70-foot seas and produced winds as strong as 100 mph. Without exaggeration, the trio of sailors aboard Sean Seamour II are lucky to be alive today.

In hindsight, professional weather forecasters and yacht routers would agree there had been sufficient warning of the looming storm. Regardless, the severity of the conditions on board Sean Seamour II went far beyond what the three sailors had anticipated when they left Jacksonville, Fla., five days earlier for the start of a trans-Atlantic voyage.

The destination was France, with stops in the Azores and Gibraltar. Snel and Tye were volunteer crewmembers. They had never met de Lutz, a European management consultant and former hotelier in France, before he picked them up at the airport in Jacksonville when they arrived for the voyage. Each had signed aboard to acquire offshore sailing experience. Snel, from Ottawa had sailed a 27-footer on the Great lakes. Tye, a professional chef who had quit the hot kitchen to become a professional sailor, lives in the United Kingdom and had taught sailing around the world, though typically on lakes or coastal waters and within sight of land.

WELL PREPARED

Both were impressed with de Lutz when they saw his exhaustive preparations for heading offshore. Sean Seamour II, aboard which de Lutz had previously completed one of his two Atlantic crossings, had been stripped of its equipment following its last voyage. The gear was stored in an air-conditioned warehouse.

In preparation for the 2007 Atlantic crossing, de Lutz had the marina where he kept his 44-footer send out his life raft and GPIRB for recertification, which included checking the device’s battery. (A GPIRB is an electronic position-indicating radio beacon, or EPIRB, that incorporates a GPS and is able to send a precise location to rescuers.) De Lutz says the Georgia-based company reported that the emergency transmitter was in good condition and that its battery was good until the following November, but could last another five years.

Sean Seamour ii also had two drogues, once a Seabrake model de Lutz says he had used five or six times in a heavy mistral in the Mediterranean and three times in “critical conditions” at the tail end of Hurricane Bertha in 1996. He had bought a 500-meter reel of line, cut into four sections, for the drogue rode, as well as new chain segments and swivels. He says he trained Snel and Tye on the use of the drogue before departing.

Preparations for the voyage also included installation of a new wind sensor, autopilot hydraulic pump, stuffing box seal, house battery bank, fuel filter system, sail-handling sheets, rudder bearings, auxiliary tiller, and all life vests, flares and other safety equipment. In addition, de Lutz had examined the entire rig and the running lights, serviced the engine, polished the fuel, and sent the life raft and GPIRB for recertification.

For navigation and communications, Sean Seamour II had paper charts as well as two computers programmed with navigation and satellite telephone software, for sure in receiving weather information. The crew tried the electronics before they left, the skipper says.

De Lutz says he also briefed the crew on the boat’s equipment and tools, and discussed such safety contingencies as closing seacocks and companionway doors, executing proper lashings, and a discussion on how to use the electronics, drogues and more. Moreover, beginning a week before departure, the seven-day weather GPRIB files (computer generated weather forecasts) were downloaded and studied regularly. These shows two high- and two low-pressure systems “fairly balanced” over the western Atlantic, De Lutz says.

EPIRBs

Early on the morning of May 2, 2007, Sea Seamour II headed down Florida’s St. Johns River. In the afternoon, de Lutz stopped to top off his fuel tanks, and then the three men entered the Atlantic. Tye hoped for some adventure.

“Being outside one’s comfort zone is what it is all about for me,” says Tye. “Only then can you truly perform at your maximum level.” But no one on board expected the maelstrom they would encounter in just four days.

Sean Seamour II had two EPIRBs on board. The GPIRB, with its state-of-the-art technology, was mounted in a bracket in the cabin. The second EPIRB, an older 406 MHz model registered to de Lutz’s old boat, Lou Pantai, was mounted on the hard dodger. The emergency beacons certainly provided some sense of security for a boat headed offshore. Tye, for instance, says he wouldn’t have boarded de Lutz’s boat had there been no EPIRB.

But in the end, even they provided no guarantee of rescue. When the sailors were in desperate straits, confusion over the registration of the GPIRB actually caused rescue authorities to dismiss its emergency signal as a false alert (see accompanying story). What ultimately summoned rescue forces and saved the trio was the signal transmitted by the older backup device.

DeLutz steered for the Gulf Stream to take advantage of the current as long as the winds were favorable. On the first night out, Snel, taking the early watch, marveled at a large pod of dolphins.

There were squalls and some rough water in the Gulf Stream, and at one point, because the boat was taking on water from an unidentified leak, there was talk of heading for Norfolk, Va., to make repairs. But de Lutz determined that the leak was from the recently replaced rudder bearings. He packed in more grease and continued the northeasterly course.

When winds shifted to the northwest early May 5, de Lutz steered to the east on a route that would pass 300 miles north of Bermuda, on track for the Azores. At about 6;20 the following morning, the crew spotted an aircraft carrier heading to Newport News, Va. They were sailing in 30-knot winds, gusting to 35 knots.

HERE COMES ANDREA

“About 2 in the afternoon,” Snel says, “Ben and I were on the back of the cockpit, and off on the horizon we see these different-looking, wispy clouds, yellowish-brown on the top. I said it looks like fog. He said no, it’s rain.”

In fact, it was the leading edge of the low de Lutz now knew was coming. The GPRIB files and weather-fax indicated the storm was about eight hours away, de Lutz says. In about a half-hour, the crew of Sean Seamour Ii would find themselves in growing seas and increasing winds. De Lutz held the easterly course, hoping the weather would pass by. But at 4 o’clock in the afternoon may 6, in deteriorating conditions 217 miles east of Cape Hatteras, N.C., he turned to starboard to run with the north-northeast winds. Despite the sailors’ access to a variety of weather information, de Lutz apparently didn’t have enough data to fully grasp with the complex, converging weather systems would ultimately produce – an extremely powerful storm with hurricane-force winds and crippling seas.

With the storm jib reefed to one quarter on the roller furling of the inner forestay, the crew set the Seabrake drogue off the stern, the line passing through the aft starboard cleat and led to the main port-side winch so more line could be let out if needed. The drogues drifted back about 110 yards, to the second following wave. Then the crew wrapped the line with chafing tape and slathered it with grease. It was tiring work. The wind already was blowing hard from the north, and the seas had built to 20 feet or more.

The drogue set the boat on a slight angle to the following seas, on a starboard tack. Snel recalls climbing the companionway ladder a couple times and taking videos of the building seas, with waves riding above the stern, block the view aft.

Just before dark, de Lutz decided the drogue needed more line, and the crew joined him to add another 60 yards, bringing the total length to more than 500 feet.

“The boat handled very nicely throughout the storm, with very little rudder adjustment required,” de Lutz recalls. Now seas were 25 feet and the boat was heading south at 6 knots. Over the next several hours, the wind strengthened, and waves grew to 40 feet and higher.

With the extra line added to the drogue, the crew had retreated to the cabin for the night, riding alone in their thoughts, save for Snel’s occasional announcement of the wind speed. Outside, intermittent crossing waves hammered the port side of a hull, jarring Snel’s confidence. The noise, he thought, was like that of a truck running into the bow, again and again. When Snel announced that the wind instrument was at 85.5 knots 00 the maximum the unit could read – Tye said “That’s something to tell my chums back home.”

About 2:30 on the morning of may 7, Snel decided to try to get comfortable on the birth in the after cabin. De Lutz took over the watch at the nav station; Rye remained on the port settee.

KNOCKDOWNS

Not 10 minutes later, Snel found himself hurled across the aft cabin, slamming into the starboard furniture and straining his back. In the saloon, Tye became and projectile, flying through the air, reaching out, trying to grab something. De Lutz tried to break his fall; Tye hit the starboard side of cabin.

Sean Seamour II suddenly was on its side. As the yacht righted itself, de Lutz told his crew to remain on the starboard side, hoping that would eliminate further chance of injury. The crew didn’t know it at the time, but they now believe that during the knockdown, the line to the drogue parted. Without the tension of the drogue keeping the boat on course, disaster was imminent. It was just a matter of time. Moreover, there was water in the bilge, which apparently entered through engine room vents as waves washed across the boat’s stern. The crew ran the bilge pumps continuously.

Then the skipper looked out the companionway. The hard dodger had been sheered off in the knockdown and was gone, along with the 406 EPIRB, which did not have a hydrostatic release. De Lutz assumed the EPIRB had sunk with the dodger, preventing it was transmitting a signal.

Also, the helm was damaged so that the boat could not be steered. The hell seemed intact, and it was too early to assess the rig. But sending he had lost control of the vessel, de Lutz returned to the cabin, took the GPIRB out of its cradle on the wall beside the companionway, and activated it. The strobe on the unit began flashing, an indicator that it was performing properly. He put the unit back in its cradle and joined the crew in securing and assessing the conditions below deck.

FATAL BLOW

A crippling assault on the 44 foot cutter came about 15 minutes later, when an enormous wave hit the port side, rolling the boat. Water flooded in through vents in the cabin top around the mast. Rather than rolling completely over, however, the boat stabilized with its keep pointing to the night sky.

Snel had been in the galley, and de Lutz had been sitting on the cabin sole, his feet braced under the chart table. When the knockdown occurred, Snel heard the skipper yell and turned to see de Lutz pinned under the heavy saloon table, which had not been secured to the floor. As water flooded in through vents now positioned beneath the inverted hell, Snel sloshed across what had been the overhead and heaved the table off the skipper, who got to his feet in the rising water. Several of his ribs were broken.

There still was little discussion. De Lutz thinks he told the crew he planned to get outside to check the life raft. He was worried the boat might not right itself, and he wanted to make sure the raft was secure.

Snel made the first move to get out of the boat, but de Lutz gently pulled him back. Kneeling in a foot of water, the skipper reached down for the dogs securing a hatch now in the bottom of the capsized vessel. Showing remarkable courage, he opened the hatch, took what breath he could with several broken ribs, and made his way through the opening and into the dark sea.

The follow sequence of events happened very quickly. De Lutz swam after, under the cockpit, and toward the rear deck where the life raft was supposed to be mounted. In the darkness, he couldn’t locate the raft.

Meanwhile, in the cabin Tye was confused. He had seen the skipper leave without an explanation. How, Tye wondered, could de Lutz possibly survive out there? Feeling claustrophobic as the water level rose, Tye believed he was going to die.

Snel was worried, too. He didn’t know whether de Lutz had made it out or was stuck. After a few moments, Snel again prepared himself to follow de Lutz out the same hatch. Just then, the boat began to right itself.

SAVE THE LIFE RAFT

Outside, the skipper had his hands full. “I needed some air, so I swam to the port side,” de Lutz says. Just then, the boat resumed its roll, the starboard side rising out of the water just as he got his hands on the port rail. Like a sailor on a capsized dinghy, de Lutz allowed the turn of the boat to pull him back aboard. Clambering down into the cabin, he told the men to get the pumps going. The crew was incredibly calm, according to the accounts of all three. Tye still believed he was going to die; but he was right-side up again and, for the moment anyway, things appeared to be a bit more under control.

De Lutz returned to the deck to survey the damage and find the life raft. There was some moonlight filtering through clouds, and his eyes adapted quickly in the dark. The two forestays and the starboard shrouds had parted, and the most was bent and nearly severed three inches above the cabin top.

Standing on the heaving deck in seas that had reached 70 feet, de Lutz saw that the life raft was inflated and trapped upside down in the water beneath the mast. Its ballast bags and canopy lines were tangled in the spreaders and the rigging. De Lutz realized he had to somehow cut the raft free to keep it from being punctured. Adrenaline over-came pain from the broken ribs as he struggled to life the mast off the raft.

“I had to squeeze under the mast to lift it, keeping a leg free to push the raft forward,” de Lutz recalls. “Several times, the wave movement… compressed me against the deck and arch pole.”

To untangle the raft, De Lutz had had to cut off it’s ballast bags and then the canopy. He eventually was able to work the raft to the leeward, or starboard, side of the boat, where he tethered it. Tye and Snel, meanwhile, had cut open a plastic water jug and were bailing in 18-inch deep water, heaving it out the open companionway because the pumps were falling behind.

De Lutz wanted to lighten the bow by jettisoning anchors and 140 yard of chain. He also wanted to reroute the bilge pumps through the cabin top vents so he could close the companionway. But when he looked into the cabin and saw the green light on the GPIRB starting to fade, he says his plans suddenly were “uprooted.”

“I was absolutely panicked that if this EPIRB doesn’t work, nobody knows our predicament,” de Lutz says.

De Lutz concentrated on trying to revive the GPIRB and on sending a mayday by radio. Both efforts were unsuccessful. The single sideband radio was of little use with the backstay-mounted antenna missing. And with the rig on deck, the mast-head antenna for the VHF also was useless. The satellite telephone was out of commission, too.

ABANDON SHIP

All the while, waves that washed across the stern and broke over the boat slopped through the open companionway and down around the mast. Sean Seamour II began to wallow. Near first light at around 5:20, a large wave crashed on the boat. The bow was already riding low. De Lutz, who earlier had dismissed Snel’s suggestion that they take to the life raft, gave the order to abandon ship.

All three men were wearing foul weather gear and inflatable life vests on safety harnesses with tethers. As he climbed out of the cabin, Snel stuffed some flares in his pockets, where he also carried a knife and the GPIRB. But in their haste to get into the raft, they left the ditch bag with all it’s survival gear on board.

The noise was incredible, and the spray stung the men’s faces.

Tye says they got into the raft as quickly as possible but then realized it was still tethered to the boat. Fearful of puncturing the raft, Snel had dropped his knife into the sea. “Fortunately, I had a knife in my jacket, “ Tye says. He passed it to Snel, who cut the tether, and the raft went over the crest of the first wave. When it climbed When it climbed from the trough to the next crest, Sean Seamour II had vanished. They had gotten off just in time.

In some ways, their new vessel seemed little better than the one now headed for the bottom. When de Lutz had slashed away the canopy to free the raft from the rigging, the survival gear packed in the raft was lost. And without a canopy or ballast bags to keep it upright, the raft was pray to each towering, breaking wave and every 70-mph gust that got under the edge of the raft. Their tethers attached to webbing on the raft floor were the only things that kept them from being separated.

Things looked bad. “It didn’t take long to think, Here we are with a GPIRB that’s not working,” Snel remembers. “Nobody knows where we are. The three of us are dead.”

After a while, Snel says he decided to make the best of it by looking around and trying to “enjoy the scenery. I tried to estimate wave heights.” His conservative estimate – later verified by the Coast Guard – was 70 feet.

The waves came from different directions, and on several occasions they’d collide in spectacular fashion. “You’d see a pillar of water shoot up 15 feet across, just straight up,” Snel remembers. “Amazing!”

RESCUE

The hours in the raft were an ordeal. The men struggled with righting the raft every time it got knocked over and with helping the injured de Lutz back aboard. The skipper was not in good shape. “J.P. went through two episodes of shaking, lying with his head in my lap,” Snel remembers. “He was just waiting for that peaceful feeling of hypothermia coming over him so he could just fade away.”

De Lutz agrees that he was in serious trouble. “Hypothermia was gaining on me, and my strength was depleting with the very difficult tasks of attempting [to] upright the raft [and] climb on,” de Lutz says. “At one point, the pain… was so acute I hoped for relief in drowning and almost did. I was resigned to that fate.

“I had tied myself to the raft so my body might be found. The tether was short, and Rudy reached down and pulled me to the surface, and somehow they managed to pull me aboard. From there on, I was slipping in and out of consciousness, quite oblivious to what was happening.” De Lutz wound up with 10 broken ribs.

After two hours in the raft and with hope fading, the sailors spotted a C-130 aircraft. “J.P. gave a weak little cheer,” Snel says. “It flew by three or four times. I was busy trying to light hand-held flares.” Snel says he had practiced lighting flares before, but now the “stupid things wouldn’t strike. Finally, I got a parachute flare out, pointed it into the wind. It went up 50 feet and blew horizontally into the wave.”

Up in the C-130, a crewmember looking back saw the flare. The aircraft immediately dropped a big, floating flare to mark the location. It was 7:11 a.m. May 7.

A half-hour later, a helicopter was launched from Elizabeth City, N.C., assigned to rescue the crew of a boat identified as the Lou Pantai, which was the name of the same yacht the C-130 had been assigned to find. That’s the boat name that de Lutz’s older 406 EPIRB – the one that was lost when the boat rolled the first time – was still registered under. Unbeknownst to the men, the emergency beacon had activated when the boat capsized, and its signal had been received.

Not quite two hours later, a scene unfolded that Snel remembers as surreal. Without warning, a helicopter appeared, hovering above the huge waves, flying into wind that had by now subsided to 50 mph. “Awhile later, I see the rescue swimmer coming swimming up to the raft,” remembers Snel, who a year later was being treated for post-traumatic stress. “[He] puts his elbow over the raft and says, ‘How you all doing.’”

De Lutz was the first to ride up in Drew Dazzo’s basket. “Then there was a bit of a wait” Snel says. “Ben said, ‘They’re not coming back for the rest of us.’ “ But Dazzo returned and loaded Snel in the basket. The rescue swimmer waiting with Tye until the basket returned to the surface. The Dazzo retrieved the GPIRB, punctured the raft to deflate it, and rode up to the helicopter with Tye.

(The full story, with related interviews and full-color photos are in the article in Soundings Magazine November 2008 issue..)

Robin Storm previous s/v Sean Seamour II posts:
Summary of Action for CG6014 for the S/V SEAN SEAMOUR II- REDUX - Plus
WebExclusive  EPIRBs and the s/v Sean Seamour II - Part III
WebExclusive  EPIRBs and the s/v Sean Seamour II - Part II
EPIRBs and the s/v Sean Seamour II
NHC Report on Subtropical Storm Andrea
 Cheating Death On The High Seas
The s/v Sean Seamour II & The Hatteras Trench
High Sea's Update On Sean Seamour II
The Story of the Sailing Vessel Sean Seamour II
gCaptain previous s/v Sean Seamour II posts:
gCaptain Exclusive - Sailing in Severe Weather Lessons Learned

RS

Marine Debris Will Likely Worsen In The 21st Century

Marine Debris Will Likely Worsen In The 21st Century

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2008) — Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council.

The United States and the international maritime community should adopt a goal of "zero discharge" of waste into the marine environment, and a system to assess the effectiveness of existing and future marine debris prevention and reduction actions should be implemented. In addition, better leadership, coordination, and integration of mandates and resources are needed, as responsibilities for preventing and mitigating marine debris are scattered across federal organizations and management regimes.

"The committee found that despite all the regulations and limitations over the last 20 years, there are still large quantities of waste and litter in the oceans," said Keith Criddle, chair of the committee that wrote the report and the Ted Stevens Distinguished Professor of Marine Policy at the Juneau Center for Fisheries and Ocean Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "We concluded that the United States must take the lead and coordinate with other coastal countries, as well as with local and state governments, to better manage marine debris and try to achieve zero discharge."

A National Research Council committee was convened at the request of Congress to assess the effectiveness of international and national measures to prevent and reduce marine debris and its impact. Marine debris, man-made materials that intentionally or accidentally enter and pollute the ocean, can cause significant harm. For instance, birds, fish, and marine mammals ingest debris, especially plastics, which can lead to digestive problems and uptake of toxic compounds.

Animals can also suffer injuries or die after becoming entangled in fishing-related debris such as plastic net fragments, rope, and packing straps. Marine debris also poses a health and safety hazard to beachgoers and divers, and could impact coastal recreation and tourism revenue. While marine debris comes from sources both on land and at sea, the committee focused on debris discharged at sea for the purposes of this report.

Although Congress previously called for federal interagency coordination to address the marine debris problem, leadership and governance remain inefficient and current mitigation efforts are episodic and crisis driven, the committee found. A national framework to identify priorities for dealing with marine debris and its removal efforts should be established. Additionally, Congress should designate a lead agency to expand programs to comprehensively address the problem, including land-based marine litter, derelict fishing gear, shipborne waste, and abandoned vessels.

Under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex V, which entered into force in 1988, many discharges from ships are permissible at sea. The committee said this approach does not encourage innovation or measures to minimize waste. It suggested that MARPOL Annex V be amended to include a prohibition on discharge of garbage at sea, allowing for limited exceptions based on specific vessel-operation scenarios. In order to discourage waste disposal at sea, ships also need to have access to adequate shoreside waste reception facilities for garbage and should be provided incentives, such as low disposal fees to use them, the report adds.

Nevertheless, some ships have already adopted zero or minimal discharge practices. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should disseminate best management practices for how vessels can attain zero discharge, source reduction, and waste minimization, the committee urged. EPA should also take the lead to work with academia, industry, and nongovernmental organizations to develop industry standards and guidelines for source reduction, reuse, and recycling for solid wastes that are generated during ship operations.

The committee was specifically asked to address the challenges surrounding derelict fishing gear. While regulated under MARPOL Annex V and domestic implementing laws, it is a persistent problem because of accidental losses and legal loopholes. Also, current regulations do not include accountability measures for commercial and recreational fishing vessels for loss of their fishing gear, offering few incentives to take responsibility for cleanup.

Effective marking of fishing gear is critical for identifying the sources or fisheries that may have deployed the gear, and NOAA should develop marking protocols, the report claims. Fishery management organizations should also adopt a "no fault" policy regarding the documentation and recovery of lost fishing gear. Under this policy, local fishermen, state officials, and the public should develop cost-effective derelict fishing gear removal and disposal programs, and fishermen participating in removal efforts could receive financial credit or be exempted from landfill fees.

Moreover, the high costs and difficulty in providing adequate reception facilities, particularly in remote areas, discourages proper disposal of used fishing gear and can also be a disincentive to retrieval. Therefore, EPA, NOAA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should help fishing communities explore alternative strategies and technologies for management, disposal, and recycling of used and recovered gear.

Within the issue of derelict fishing gear, the committee also addressed the growing concern about a specific type of gear known as fish aggregating devices, which are man-made floating objects designed to simulate natural debris and attract fish. These devices pose a threat as they are allowed to float freely and are often made of waste fishing net. The committee concluded that abandoned fish aggregating devices become derelict fishing gear when the captain of the vessel does not retrieve them. Under MARPOL Annex V, this should be considered an illegal disposal if the devices contain synthetic ropes, webbing, or other plastics. NOAA should modify the federal regulations to clarify the circumstances under which abandoned fish aggregating devices become illegal discharge. The committee also indicated that international and domestic fisheries organizations should do more to regulate these devices and prevent them from becoming debris.

The report was sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

WEATHER NOTE

NASA data show Arctic saw fastest August sea ice retreat on record

Following a record-breaking season of arctic sea ice decline in 2007, NASA scientists have kept a close watch on the 2008 melt season. Although the melt season did not break the record for ice loss, NASA data are showing that for a four-week period in August 2008, sea ice melted faster during that period than ever before.

Each year at the end of summer, sea ice in the Arctic melts to reach its annual minimum. Ice that remains, or "perennial ice," has survived from year to year and contains old, thick ice. The area of arctic sea ice, including perennial and seasonal ice, has taken a hit in past years as melt has accelerated. Researchers believe that if the rate of decline continues, all arctic sea ice could be gone within the century.

"I was not expecting that ice cover at the end of summer this year would be as bad as 2007 because winter ice cover was almost normal," said Joey Comiso of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We saw a lot of cooling in the Arctic that we believe was associated with La Ni�a. Sea ice in Canada had recovered and even expanded in the Bering Sea and Baffin Bay. Overall, sea ice recovered to almost average levels. That was a good sign that this year might not be as bad as last year."

The 2008 sea ice minimum was second to 2007 for the record-lowest extent of sea ice, according to a joint announcement Sept. 16 by NASA and the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. As of Sept. 12, 2008, the ice extent was 1.74 million square miles. That's 0.86 million square miles below the average minimum extent recorded from 1979 to 2000, according to NSIDC.

Contributing to the near-record sea ice minimum in 2008 was a month-long period in the summer that saw the fastest-ever rate of seasonal retreat during that period. From August 1 to August 31, NASA data show that arctic sea ice extent declined at a rate of 32,700 square miles per day, compared to a rate of about 24,400 square miles per day in August 2007. Since measurements began, the arctic sea ice extent has declined at an average rate of 19,700 miles per day at the point when the extent reaches its annual minimum.

Observations of changes to sea ice over time are possible due to a 30-year record of data from NASA and other agency satellites, including Nimbus-7, Aqua, Terra and the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat).

Researchers say that the recent seasonal acceleration could be in part due to conditioning going on in the Arctic. For example, research by Jennifer Kay of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and colleagues reported this April in Geophysical Research Letters that reduced cloud cover in 2007 allowed more sunlight to reach Earth, contributing to a measureable amount of sea ice melt at the surface. Reduced cloud cover also contributed to warmer ocean surface temperatures that led to melting of the ice from below.

"Based on what we've learned over the last 30 years, we know that the perennial ice cover is now in trouble," Comiso said. "You need more than just one winter of cooling for the ice to recover to the average extent observed since the measurements began. But the trend is going the other way. A warming Arctic causes the surface water to get warmer, which delays the onset of freeze up in the winter and leads to a shorter period of ice growth. Without the chance to thicken, sea ice becomes thinner and more vulnerable to continued melt."

MARITIME NOTE

Cargo sweeping allowed to continue on lakes

By JOHN FLESHER
AP Environmental Write

TRAVERSE CITY -- Great Lakes freight haulers will continue sweeping residues of iron ore, coal, limestone and other cargo overboard under a new federal policy that rejects environmentalists' pleas to end the practice.

But the Coast Guard said it was adopting its rule on an interim basis and was opening a new study phase that could lead to tougher requirements, including mandatory use of residue control methods.

For many years, ship crews have used high-powered hoses to wash their decks after loading or dropping off dry bulk cargo in port. They're believed to sweep about 1 million pounds of waste material into the lakes every year.

The regulation, published Monday in the Federal Register, lets cargo sweeping continue but encourages shippers to find ways to discharge less waste material.

It also sets new reporting and record-keeping requirements and adds more locations to a list of ecologically sensitive places where sweeping is off-limits, such as fish spawning areas, wetlands and wildlife refuges.

"Congress expected us to strike an appropriate balance between maritime commercial and environmental protection needs," the Coast Guard said.

The Lake Carriers' Association, which represents U.S.-flagged vessels on the Great Lakes, praised the decision Tuesday. The trade group says cargo sweeping does no environmental harm, and prohibiting it could impose huge costs while creating hazards for crew members.

But spokesman Glen Nekvasil said shippers already have reduced the volume of bits and pieces left on decks and in tunnels as cargo is moved on conveyor belts between a ship's hold and onshore storage facilities. It's unclear what more could be done, he said.

"It is in the companies' best interest, and the docks' best interest, to minimize residues. The customer is paying for that cargo to be delivered," Nekvasil said.

The Coast Guard listed a number of possibilities, such as enclosing or redesigning conveyors; spreading tarps to collect residues; using water mist to limit dust; and training crews on reducing cargo waste.

An environmental impact study found that ship residues can be seen on lake bottoms in small concentrations, but the effects are "barely detectable."

But the Coast Guard said in a news release it "remains concerned that the potential risk from the practice of washing dry cargo residue into the Great Lakes, no matter how benign it appears, may increase over time."

Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger, commander of the 9th District based in Cleveland, invited public comments as the study moves forward.

"The outcome of the final regulatory phase is not predetermined," he said.

Environmental groups contend dry cargo waste is just another form of garbage, which cannot legally be dumped into the lakes, and may do more harm to bottomlands than presently known.

Michael Murray, a staff scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, said he was encouraged that the study would continue and hoped for an eventual phaseout of cargo sweeping.

"We recognize that politically or even logistically it might be a little hard to adopt what we were hoping for at this point," Murray said.

With the prohibitions on cargo sweeping in sensitive areas, "we've at least gotten to the point where the agency is acknowledging this isn't an innocuous practice," said Joel Brammeier, vice president for policy with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "That's progress."

HAVE A SAFE WEEKEND

RS

Water table depth tied to droughts

Water table depth tied to droughts

Will there be another "dust bowl" in the Great Plains similar to the one that swept the region in the 1930s?

It depends on water storage underground. Groundwater depth has a significant effect on whether the Great Plains will have a drought or bountiful year.

Recent modeling results show that the depth of the water table, which results from lateral water flow at the surface and subsurface, determines the relative susceptibility of regions to changes in temperature and precipitation.

"Groundwater is critical to understand the processes of recharge and drought in a changing climate," said Reed Maxwell, an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who along with a colleague at Bonn University analyzed the models that appear in the Sept. 28 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Maxwell and Stefan Kollet studied the response of a watershed in the southern Great Plains in Oklahoma using a groundwater/surface-water/land-surface model.

The southern Great Plains are an important agricultural region that has experienced severe droughts during the past century including the "dust bowl" of the 1930s. This area is characterized by little winter snowpack, rolling terrain and seasonal precipitation.

While the onset of droughts in the region may depend on sea surface temperature, the length and depth of major droughts appear to depend on soil moisture conditions and land-atmosphere interactions.

That's what the recent study takes into account. Maxwell and Kollet created three future climate simulations based on the observed meteorological conditions from 1999. All included an increase in air temperature of 2.5 degrees Celsius. One had no change in precipitation; one had an increase in precipitation by 20 percent; and one had a decrease in precipitation by 20 percent.

"These disturbances were meant to represent the variability and uncertainty in regional changes to central North America under global model simulations of future climate," Maxwell said.

The models showed that groundwater storage acts as a moderator of watershed response and climate feedbacks. In areas with a shallow water table, changes in land conditions, such as how wet or dry the soil is and how much water is available for plant function, are related to an increase in atmospheric temperatures. In areas with deep water tables, changes at the land surface are directly related to amount of precipitation and plant type.

But in the critical zone, identified here between two and five meter's depth, there is a very strong correlation between the water table depth and the land surface.

"These findings also have strong implications for drought and show a strong dependence on areas of convergent flow and water table depth," Maxwell said. "The role of lateral subsurface flow should not be ignored in climate-change simulations and drought analysis."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

WEATHER NOTE

In Natural Disasters, America is lacking a culture of preparedness

By Retired Lt. General Russel Honoré, NNPA Guest Commentary
September 22, 2008

America needs a culture of preparedness. We are seeing that more state governments are struggling in response to recent disasters. Recent Red Cross data shows that for every dollar spent on preparedness, it saves six to nine dollars during disaster response and recovery. As many have seen, disasters cause drama, drama for state governments especially when plans don't execute or the storm trumps the states capability to deal with the disaster response.

"Blame the Federal government and FEMA", that is the get-out-of-jail-free card that the state governments have. We can do better, this America and one solution is to transform state government.

First and foremost, we have to optimize technology. We need to issue disaster assistance cards which can easily be activated and provide financial assistance to those who need it. Secondly, all state employees should be trained to register folks for relief following a disaster, which currently few states are trained to execute when needed. Officials also need to be mindful to pre-position food water and tarps in communities, as well as use local businesses to serve as a large part of the area's disaster response. Each area affected should have assistance locations and they should be well marked. They shouldn't block major roads and supplies should be given to anyone who shows up, no matter what county they are from.

Cities should utilize resources and use local businesses as an integral part of the disaster response. Businesses should be aware of response logistics and local governments should have pre-arranged contracts with local businesses to provide emergency goods and services. One idea would be to have local businesses provide hot meals at fixed prices - approximately 8 dollars each.

Officials should also think of the residents in disaster areas as resources as well. School systems in each state should integrate disaster preparedness and first aid into its curriculum and every college graduate should be first aid certified. We need to involve the members of our communities, where we can create a civilian response corps in each community. I like to call them "men of consequence" - those who volunteer their time and talent to create resilient communities. These volunteers would be prepared and trained to clear debris from roads and help shore up levees. They would be taught how to operate distribution points and help evacuate communities.

A very important point that I must make is that local officials must assure that residents in our communities have power. It is imperative that various laws are passed that will require gas stations and drug/grocery stores to have generators. When cities lose electrical power, our quality of life regresses back 80 years - people have no television, no running water or working sewer, no internet or cell phones. Facilities such as hospitals, courthouses and emergency response stations should have mandatory generators on the 2nd floor to protect the power source. As we saw during Hurricane Katrina, many City of New Orleans public buildings did have generators - but unfortunately they were in the basement or at ground level, which did not serve them in the disaster.

Lastly, officials need to improve evacuation contra flow. We need full use of interstate highways. The federal government owns the flow on the interstate but during hurricane Gustav, unfortunately, we saw city, state and county officials blocking traffic on interstate highways. This policy needs to be reviewed and the act of surrounding states rerouting traffic to protect the flow of tourist traffic to local resorts is unacceptable. Going 40 miles in 12 hours is another disaster in the making.

We need to create a culture of preparedness in America. Our forefathers knew how to take care of themselves, their families, and the communities in which they lived. As citizens, we need to be prepared to do that same - we cannot wait on the federal government to do it for us. For more information, go to www. CNN.com.

Retired Lieutenant General Russel Honoré serves as Emergency Preparedness contributor to CNN Worldwide. He focuses exclusively on disaster preparedness, response, and recovery activities, with multi-sector integration of emergency management. Then Lt. Gen. Honoré was also a recipient of the NNPA 2006 Newsmaker of the Year Award for his leadership and sensitivity during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Before retiring, he commanded Joint Task Force-Katrina. In that capacity, he led the Department of Defense response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and directed the operations of more than 22,000 Service members, 200 aircraft, and 20 ships.

MARITIME NOTE

EU assembly urges tougher maritime safety rules

The Associated Press

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

BRUSSELS, Belgium: The European Parliament has urged EU governments to back tougher rules on maritime safety.

The European Union's assembly voted Wednesday to support two proposals which are opposed by most of the 27 EU member nations.

One would give the EU a greater say in forcing governments to ensure that ships flying their flags meet international safety standards. The other proposal would set common EU standards for insurance and liability for ship operators.

Governments say such issues should be left to national authorities, not the EU.

Talks to find a compromise are expected to start Oct. 7

RS

May 2008 Earthquake in China Could Be Followed by Another Significant Rupture

May 2008 Earthquake in China Could Be Followed by Another Significant Rupture

Researchers analyzing the May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China's Sichuan province have found that geological stress has significantly increased on three major fault systems in the region.

The magnitude 7.9 quake on May 12 has brought several nearby faults closer to failure and could trigger another major earthquake in the region.

Geophysicists used computer models to calculate the changes in stress along the Xianshuihe, Kunlun, and Min Jiang faults-strike-slip faults like the San Andreas-which lie about 150 to 450 kilometers (90 to 280 miles) from the Longmen Shan rupture that caused the devastating quake. The research team also examined seismic activity in the region over the past decade.

They found that the May 12 event has doubled the probabilities of future earthquakes on these fault lines. Specifically, they estimated the probability of another earthquake of magnitude 6 or greater in the region is 57 to 71 percent over the next decade. There is an 8 to 12 percent chance of a quake larger than magnitude 7 in the next decade and 23-31 percent in the next 30 years.

The research team was led by Shinji Toda of the Geological Survey of Japan, and includes Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Mustapha Meghraoui of the Institute of Geophysics in Strasbourg (France), and Ross Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Their findings were published September 9 in the online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"One great earthquake seems to make the next one more likely, not less," said Stein, who has been collaborating with Lin and Toda for nearly two decades. "We tend to think of earthquakes as relieving stress on a fault. That may be true for the one that ruptured, but not for the adjacent faults."

In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, was followed four months later by an M7.1 event in nearby Duzce. The devastating December 2004 Sumatra earthquake (M9.2) and tsunami were followed by an M8.7 quake three months later.

"Because the Tibetan Plateau is one of the most seismically active regions in the world, we believe there is credible evidence for a new major quake in this region," said Lin, a senior scientist in WHOI's Department of Geology and Geophysics. "The research community cannot forecast the timing of earthquakes, and there are still significant uncertainties in our models. But the Turkey and Sumatra events indicate that one major earthquake can indeed promote another.

Researchers see it as a domino-like effect, where the movement of one piece of Earth's crust means that another piece must move up, down, or away. While the stress in the crust gets reduced in some locations, it is transferred to other faults nearby.

Large aftershocks that occurred on August 1 and 5 in the Sichuan region of China may fit with this predicted pattern.

"Earthquake prediction is a bit like the thundercloud and lightning," Toda explained. "We can forecast that lightning will come from a thundercloud, but we cannot predict the exact time and place where the lightning will hit. With earthquakes, we can roughly forecast the probability of activity over broad ranges of time, magnitude, and location, but we cannot determine the exact value for any of these."

On May 12, 2008, about 300 kilometers of the Longmen Shan fault zone ruptured in an earthquake that killed at least 69,000 people and left another 5 million homeless. It was the deadliest and strongest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed at least 240,000.

As pieces of the Longman Shan fault slipped by as much as nine meters (28 feet) in the May quake, stress increased along the neighboring Xianshuihe, Kunlun, and Min Jiang faults, according to Toda and colleagues. All three faults have a history of large quakes, though portions of each have been quiet for most of the past century. All three faults were considered to be primed for an earthquake even before the recent events.

In addition to the broad prediction of earthquake triggering, the researchers have also forecasted the rate and distribution of seismic shocks greater than magnitude 6, a prediction that they plan to test from seismic stations over the next decade.

"Our paper predicts the change in the rate of small earthquakes for the faults in the region, and now we can test that prediction," said Stein. "If the rate of shocks increases on the adjacent faults, then we can confirm at least part of our hypothesis that large shocks are also more likely. It may take time, but it is a testable hypothesis."

In western China, the intrusion of the Indian sub-continent pushes the Tibetan Plateau up and over the older Sichuan Basin and other parts of the Eurasian continent. An estimated 33 percent of world's continental earthquakes occur in China, even though it only occupies 7 percent of the planet's land mass. Nearly 55 percent of all human loss to earthquakes occurs in China.

"Earthquakes do not kill people, buildings do," said Lin, who was a high school student in China when the devastating Tangshan earthquake struck. "There needs to be widespread education in earthquake preparedness, as well as systematic inspection of buildings in these regions of heightened risk. Every new building inspection and evacuation plan could potentially save lives."

"We hope the long-term forecasting allows the Chinese government to make it a priority to mitigate future damage," Toda added. "We recommend that Chinese scientists carefully observe changes in seismicity by installing new seismometers in the region."

Lin, Toda, and Stein were preparing to teach an earthquake modeling course to Meghraoui's students and colleagues in France when the May 12 earthquake occurred. The researchers immediately went into action, working with an international group of scientists to analyze the new stresses on the system.

An early version of the manuscript by Toda et al was circulated to several dozen Chinese scientists and government officials as they sought to assess the risk of aftershocks in the weeks after the earthquake. Chinese government organizations and scientists are now examining the paper in detail.

"The recent quake reminded us that Earth scientists have a tremendous responsibility to work on issues of societal relevance," said Lin. "We don't want to create panic, but there is legitimate cause for concern and we have a major role to play in educating the public about what we know."

Funding for this research was provided by the Charles D. Hollister Endowed Fund for Support of Innovative Research at WHOI and the EOST-Institut de Physique du Globe de Strasbourg, France.

WEATHER NOTE

Pupils to help beaches be safer for summer

SCHOOL children are being targeted as part of a campaign to plug a regional lifeguard shortage.

Intensive beach lifeguard courses are being held in Teignmouth this October half-term after the town's beaches were left short-staffed during the summer.

Teignbridge Council, which received fewer applications this year, hopes the RNLI will take over the running of the lifeguard service from them.

The courses will be run by the RNLI in partnership with Surf Life Saving GB who will teach prospective lifeguards from their local clubs across the south west.

Iain Palmer, president of Teignmouth Beach Surf Lifesaving Club, said the shortage was 'an on-going problem' but he hoped the latest drive to train lifeguards would ease it.

"We have not had a very good season weather-wise, but we have struggled to man beaches because of the shortage. It has been an on-going problem for the last two or three years," he explained.

He said there was a shortage of at least 300 lifeguards across the region in the summer months.

At the moment council lifeguards keep watch on Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren beaches.

Sparse numbers meant some beaches were only manned on weekends during the summer with swimmers relying on coloured flags to guide them.

The shortage meant there was no lifeguard on duty when 42-year-old holidaymaker Nigel Hunt, of Newport, Wales, died after getting into difficulties off waters at Teignmouth on July 24.

The 'no swimming' red flags had been flying because of choppy sea conditions and high winds earlier that day.

But Mr Palmer said he hoped the latest recruitment drive would boost numbers.

"It's a great chance for people to get their qualifications. We hope there are going to be 16 more qualified lifeguards by next summer," he said.

At the moment council lifeguards patrol Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren and the clubs assist on a voluntary basis.

Mr Palmer said he understood the council has been in talks with the RNLI who are going to patrol the beaches from next season.

A Teignbridge Council spokesman confirmed: "There has been a regional shortage of qualified lifeguards, and in Teignbridge we received fewer applications than usual for the posts this year.

"We welcome any initiatives which help train new lifeguards, and hope there are more qualified lifeguards available next year.

"We have been working closely with the RNLI since last year to arrange for them to run Teignbridge's lifeguard service from next season, a move which will also help bring more lifeguards to Teignbridge's beaches and resorts."

The week-long Beach Lifeguard Qualification is an essential requirement for anyone applying for a position as an RNLI lifeguard. Courses will run from Monday, October 27 to Sunday, November 2 and combine practical and theory sessions.

Skills taught will include beach safety operating procedures, hazard awareness, accident prevention, first aid including CPR, and pool and open water rescue skills including sea rescues using equipment such as rescue tubes and rescue boards.

Places on the courses will be allocated on a first come, first served, basis.

Potential applicants must demonstrate a high level of fitness, own their own wetsuit and be able to swim 400m in under seven and half minutes.

Those applicants who gain the Beach Lifeguard Qualification will be able to apply to become a RNLI lifeguard in December in time for the 2009 season.

The course will cost £50. This covers membership of the SLSGB along with the cost of the training manual and examination fees.

MARITIME NOTE

Shipping firm sets date to retrieve bodies

OPERATIONS TO remove bodies trapped inside an ill-fated ferry will start on Oct. 24.

Retrieval operations for toxic chemicals that also went down with M/V Princess of the Stars should have been finished at that time, said Jordan L. Go, vice-president for freight of shipowner Sulpicio Lines, Inc.

"Weather permitting, we’re targeting Oct. 24," he said in a phone interview. A series of typhoons has affected operations on the wreck.

Mr. Go said they have yet to sign a contract with Harbor Star Shipping Services, Inc. which will remove the bodies pending the company’s submission of its retrieval plan.

Asked about the cost of operation, Mr. Go said, "It’s difficult to say at the moment because the [salvor] has yet to make an assessment on the location of bodies. There are many variables that we have to consider and we want to make sure that when the salvor execute the plan, it would be comprehensive."

RS