Hurricanes, high winds and heavy seas in the Gulf of Mexico

Hurricanes, high winds and heavy seas in the Gulf of Mexico

October 13, 2008 (Computerworld) When Lance Gibson talks about a storm knocking out his systems, he doesn't mean the infamous worm. He might be referring to the latest hurricane to sweep through the Gulf of Mexico or to the lightning accompanying a vicious thunderstorm.

Gibson is the offshore infrastructure communications supervisor for Chevron Corp.'s oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico, overseeing the IT needs of the company's offshore production facilities as well as its onshore support centers.

"Basically, I'm responsible for the entire infrastructure delivery," he says, "from the servers onshore all the way to the microwave, wireless and satellite communications we use for our voice and data communications offshore." We spoke with Gibson in mid-August; joining the conversation was Chevron public affairs representative Qiana Wilson.

A couple of weeks after our conversation, Hurricane Gustav provided a dramatic reminder of the kinds of situations Gibson has to deal with. Chevron and other companies with facilities in the Gulf evacuated their workers and shut down their oil platforms in advance of the threatening storm.

Once Gustav passed, Chevron began assessing its facilities and planning on remobilization of personnel, but Hurricane Ike put an end to that and forced another evacuation. At the time of this writing, Chevron reports that although several of its platforms were toppled by the storms, the company has once again started remobilizing its personnel.

Where are the offshore oil facilities that you support?

Gibson: We support the entire Gulf of Mexico region, from offshore Texas to offshore Alabama, whether our operations are on the OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] or in the deepwater areas of the Gulf of Mexico. That includes all of our offshore production platforms and drilling rigs, as well as our onshore operations that pertain to our Gulf of Mexico business units.

[Editor's note: The Gulf measures about 1,000 miles east to west and more than 500 miles north to south from Louisiana to the Yucatan Peninsula.]

How many installations are there?

Wilson: We don't like to say how many offshore installations we actually have. But I can tell you that Chevron is the largest leaseholder in the Gulf of Mexico shelf.

How far offshore is the farthest one?

Wilson: Right now, the farthest offshore is [the platform named] Genesis, which is about 150 miles from New Orleans. When Tahiti and Blind Faith come online, they'll be still further out and in deeper water.

The Gulf of Mexico has around 4,000 active oil and gas platforms. Click to view larger image.

How deep?

Gibson: The water depth can range from 10 feet near the shore all the way to 3,000 or 4,000 feet in the deeper waters. We're constantly moving out deeper.

How many people work on each platform?

Wilson: It varies from platform to platform; we don't really like to divulge that information.

Do you travel around from platform to platform, or are you stationed on land?

Gibson: I'm stationed on land -- my home office is here in Lafayette, Louisiana. My group is primarily stationed on land also.

We take a tiered, or layered, approach to support. We do most of our troubleshooting "on the beach," and if we cannot resolve the problem, then we'll dispatch one of our technicians offshore. But we try to do most of our support from onshore, to save money.

What's the communications setup on the platforms?

Gibson: A typical facility will have a wireless LAN installed, with all your standard network gear -- routers and switches and all that. And then they have microwave and VSAT [Very Small Aperture Terminal] satellite communications systems. But we house our servers on land, in either our Lafayette or Covington [Louisiana] locations.

Genesis, currently Chevron's farthest offshore oil platform. Click to view larger image.

What kind of data travels over your network?

Gibson: Mostly your typical business data -- Microsoft Word, Excel, that sort of data. And then we have specific application data -- real-time drilling information, automated monitoring of the status of the platform and so on.

What's the biggest challenge you face?

Gibson: Trying to do wireless communications over water. Moving voice and data via wireless connectivity over water poses a lot of difficulties. The technology is there, but it can be done with greater reliability in other environments than in the tropical environment we have here in the Gulf.

For one thing, the heat is a big concern. All of our systems are in controlled environments, of course, but we have to ensure that those environments are operating on a daily basis. Summer temperatures are in the mid- to upper 90s, and the equipment on the platforms is surrounded by steel, which heats up in the sun and magnifies the effect.

Salt's another issue. When we transport equipment, it's subjected to salt air. The salt attaches itself to the circuitry and corrodes it.

A microwave antenna on Genesis.
Click to view larger image.

But probably our biggest problems with the environment have to do with [specific weather conditions]. In the spring and fall, we have a lot of issues with fog. The network relies primarily on microwave communications, and weather conditions can disrupt the signal between two physical connection points and cause our networks to fade in and out. Rain, too, can cause fading issues with our backup satellite systems.

We also have temperature-inversion problems. With the Mississippi River bringing cold water down from the north and dumping it into the warm water of the Gulf, it causes a lot of temperature inversions [when warmer air sits on top of cooler air]. They distort the microwave frequencies, so the connections drop in and out.

And then there's lightning -- that causes us a lot of trouble on our offshore installations. We've got a steel platform sitting out in the middle of the open ocean, so it attracts lightning. If you're not properly grounded -- and grounding equipment to a facility and then grounding the facility itself is definitely a challenge -- you can lose your equipment entirely.

Is the wave motion a problem?

Gibson: For our shelf platforms, that's not really a concern. Those are fixed-leg platforms -- they're sitting on the sea floor. But our deepwater facilities are primarily floaters, and microwave communications need a fixed line of sight. We have been able to establish microwave communications using a floating facility, but it does have its issues.

There's a new technology we're looking at deploying that we hope will help fix these issues. It uses a stabilized antenna mount that will actually move with the platform. It's an approach that's already used in VSAT communications. Cruise liners, for example, have stabilized units that stay locked onto the satellite no matter how the boat is moving. This would act in the same manner -- as the platform moves, the mount for the microwave dish would compensate and hold its line of sight with whatever it's shooting to.

A radome, or weatherproof enclosure for radar antennas, protects a stabilized VSAT antenna on Genesis.

What about the hurricanes?

Gibson: Hurricanes are events that pass through and in a few days, they're gone. Sometimes they wreak havoc, and sometimes they don't. But they're weather events that pass through, unlike the other, ongoing issues.

When we have weather events, whether it's a major hurricane or a simple thunderstorm, we just have to wait for them to move out of the way so we can get back out there to assess what just happened to us. First, we have to see if the platform still exists. Then, the high winds -- even from a thunderstorm -- may have blown the microwave antennas right off the platform, or just blown them out of alignment to the next platform. We might have to go back out and reposition the dish.

Clouds from the recent Hurricane Ike fill the Gulf of Mexico; rainfall data is superimposed.
Click to view larger image.

When that happens, do you have to go out and physically inspect each one, or is there another way to determine what the problem is?

Gibson: That's a tough question. It all depends on the platform. If the platform has a backup communications system, typically a satellite system, we're able to see the platform and make some assessment of what just happened to the primary communications. Naturally, you want to make just one trip with all the right equipment.

But not all platforms have satellite backups. So if there are still personnel out there, we'll rely on them to tell us -- we'll ask them to go look at it and try to describe what it looks like, so we can make some determination and then make a trip out.

How are they communicating with you if all the communications are out?

Gibson: We still have other ways. We have a very extensive two-way radio system, so they may be talking to the platform next to them, and that platform's relaying the information to us. We also have handheld satellite phones, and we're able to get in touch with the field that way.

So what's your work schedule like?

Gibson: We are a 24/7/365 support group. Our industry does not go to sleep -- our production facilities still flow oil and gas at night, and our drilling operations are drilling 24 hours a day. So we have to be readily available to support their needs during any crisis they might have, at any time.

We typically work a normal workday, but we have folks on call after hours. And we officially work a 40-hour week, but I'd say 50 to 60 hours is more of a typical week for me or most of the people in our IT group.

I don't think that's going to come as a surprise to Computerworld readers.

Qiana Wilson: We do offer 9/80 compressed workweeks. In other words, if you choose to, you can work nine hours a day and have every other Friday off.

Gibson: So in a two-week period, you work nine days rather than 10 days. It should be a worldwide standard. Four tens would be even better.

Wilson: I'm working on that.

Oil platform monitoring software.
Click to view larger image.

How long have you had your position?

Gibson: I've been in this position for four years, but I've worked in IT with Chevron for 27 years. Actually, 27 years ago, it really wasn't IT. I'm a former Tenneco employee, and when Chevron acquired us in the '80s, we were just touching on information technology.

At the time, we were concerned more with the geological and geophysical support roles, so I was in more of a data management position. I moved from data management to applications support and programming, and from there into the infrastructure roles.

What's the most outrageous thing that's happened to you in this job?

Gibson: I would have to say the 2005 hurricane season. We were just coming out of the 2004 season, with a few bad ones in Ivan and Dennis. Then the '05 season started early, in July.

As the season progressed and built up into the Katrina/Rita-class hurricanes, we lost better than 90% of our communications infrastructure offshore. We lost our main office in New Orleans, and we lost a lot of the communications that went into that city.

Hurricane Rita's 2005 path and rainfall accumulation. Click to view larger image.

[Editor's note: See Timoney Group's Google Map of the Gulf oil platforms that were damaged or destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.]

Reconnecting our facilities and reestablishing communications took us all the way into the early part of 2007. We had to stop working on other optimization efforts we had going on just to focus on re-establishing communications to our environment offshore. It was definitely a big challenge for this group -- in fact, we're just really coming out of it now.

What's the biggest thing you've learned from your work?

Gibson: I would say it's the constant change in the oil industry. We're always looking to make ourselves more efficient. We're constantly moving out further and further into deeper water, so we're always having to look for technology to adapt to those environments. There's just no room for complacency. We have to be able to adapt and adjust.

The other thing I've learned is that in IT, you tend to want to chase technology a lot because you like the new gadgets. But the oil industry is the wrong place to chase technology. We need good, stable communications and infrastructure so we can keep our business operating. Chevron prides itself on being a very technological company. We don't lead, but we follow very closely.

Jake Widman is freelance writer in San Francisco.

WEATHER NOTE

Seminar addresses businesses preparing for disasters

GREEN BAY — Some businesses owners don’t believe a disastrous event will happen to them and their business.

And, while many equate disasters to earthquakes, hurricanes and terrorist attacks, disasters come in many forms. Fires, floods and tornados are the most common events in this part of the country, but the Ellison Bay gas explosion was a reminder of the unseen hazards present in every-day life.

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the Door County Health Department are holding a regional emergency preparedness conference on Nov. 14, at the Landmark Resort in Egg Harbor.

“Survival Against the Odds: Business Disaster Planning” will give business owners the tools to guide them through the recovery process.

Surveys show, 30 percent of businesses are not prepared for the unexpected. Nearly 60 percent of businesses say they have plans, but only 41 percent of them have even tested them.

Participants will learn from Lisa Pentony, Wisconsin pandemic influenza expert, what the chances are for a flu pandemic.

Don Miller from Infinity Technology will give an update on how to keep business records safe.

Lenora Borchardt, president of Emergency Planning, Training & Exercise Consulting (EPTEC), will conduct an interactive workshop teaching participants how to do emergency continuity planning.

Fear of Thunderstorms: Three Simple Ways To Overcome Your Phobia Of Thunderstorms

We’ve all experienced thunderstorms in our lives. Some people find the loud noises and flashes of light exhilarating - heck, there are even storm chasers out there - but quite a lot of other people are disturbed and worried, even scared, of thunderstorms.

If you’re in the second group and have a phobia about thunderstorms, what can you do to help overcome your fear?

1. Learn to relax

This likely won’t be something you’d start learning at the peak of a thunderstorm, the deep noise of thunder echoes all around. But when you’re not in the middle of a thunderstorm, start to learn how to relax yourself. Weirdly, it takes effort to relax properly (most likely because our modern way of life does its level best to make sure we don’t ever relax). But with a little bit of practice, you’ll soon re-learn the trick of being able to relax whenever you want to. If that’s not an option at the moment, put your favorite music on your MP3 player, draw the curtains and concentrate on the music instead of nature’s display outside your home.

2. Face your fear

Ouch! This probably sounds difficult to do. But our fear usually isn’t rational, so when you greet your fear in person, you’re very likely to find your fear turns around and runs away. If your fear takes the form of a nagging voice in your head, don’t forget that it’s not a real voice - you’re creating it. So have fun with it rather than being scared by it. Change the voice so it sounds like a cartoon mouse. Spray paint it like a teenage graffiti artist would. Anything to make fun of the fear you’re creating. Sounds daft? Try it and see how well it works!

3. Get some help

Maybe a work colleague or a trusted friend to talk to - vocalizing our fears often helps expose them for the imposters they are. Or get hold of a hypnosis fear of thunderstorms MP3, specially designed to help you. These tracks work very well and are easily affordable. Get your instant download of a hypnosis for thunderstorms track here.

MARITIME NOTE

Warming likely to affect fishing, shipping industries

A tug guides a freighter to a Maumee River dock, where shipping is dependent on frequent dredging of the channel. ( THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY ) Zoom | Photo Reprints

By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Walleye and yellow perch - the backbone of the Great Lakes region's multibillion dollar recreation and tourism industry - will likely be harder to catch as the lakes warm.

Algae will proliferate, sucking more oxygen from the water. Walleye and yellow perch are two cool-water species that likely will be out-competed for food by warm-water fish. Lake trout and brook trout are two others.

And the issue that scientists now view as the No. 1 threat to the ecological balance of the lakes - invasive species - will likely get worse as shipping seasons are extended and more exotic fish adaptable to warmer water enter the lakes.

The devastation, though, could be overshadowed by what happens to the shipping industry if lake levels become chronically lower, as predicted under the current regime of climate-change scenarios.

The two issues could work in tandem to wreak havoc on the region's economy.

Lake levels have risen and fallen in 30-year cycles since at least 1860, records show, but a study last fall issued by 75 area scientists from nearly 50 government, business, academic, and public-interest groups claimed warming and evaporation trends could cause Lake Erie water levels to drop 3.28 feet to 6.56 feet by 2066.

The estimates were based on findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's most prestigious group of climatologists.

A subsequent paper that appeared in Environmental Science & Technology suggested Lake Erie and Lake Ontario water levels will become largely dependent on the rainfall they pick up from additional hurricanes and tropical storms. More violent weather is anticipated as the climate warms. Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron are too far north to pick up substantial amounts of rain from storms, the report stated.

Every inch lake levels fall affects the shipping industry and its economy by millions of dollars a year. That's especially true in Toledo, the most heavily dredged harbor in the Great Lakes.

"I don't think there has been much thought put into it by anybody," said Scott Thieme, chief of the U.S. Corps of Engineers' Great Lakes hydraulics and hydrology office.

He said he's aware of forecasts for water-level declines and perplexed why the government hasn't taken the issue more seriously, given what's at stake.

A big enough drop in water could even affect the future of the U.S.-Canada tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, he said.

Even now, the Corps of Engineers spends $20 million a year to dredge 4 million cubic yards of sediment from all Great Lakes harbors and channels, the equivalent of 400,000 truckloads of soil.

Nearly a quarter of all Great Lakes dredging occurs in the Toledo area. The 800,000 to 900,000 cubic yards of silt removed from the Toledo shipping channel in a typical summer is about three times as much as that taken from Cleveland-area waters.

The silt is mostly northwest Ohio farm soil that was blown or carried into the Maumee River by rain.
The solution isn't simply more dredging.

The Corps of Engineers is struggling to find places to put dredged silt from the Toledo shipping channel.

About two-thirds of it is redeposited in Lake Erie, a practice that Michigan and Ohio have been trying to get the federal government to phase out since the 1980s. The states say open-lake dumping hurts the region's fishing industry by muddying the water. But nobody has offered plans to build a confined disposal facility on land, either, because of the projected $200 million cost.

There is a bigger problem in the Detroit River, where only so much more dredging can occur before hitting bedrock. The river bottom was blasted in the 1920s and 1930s for a shipping channel. Blasting it deeper today would be a multibillion dollar project.

Toledo is one of several harbors with pipelines beneath their shipping channels. The lines carry chemical products, natural gas, as well as electrical, phone, and fiber optic cables. The cost of relocating those would be astronomical.

Even if relocating pipelines and blasting deeper through the Detroit River bedrock became viable, there "would be an awful lot of concern and resistance for environmental issues that there weren't years ago," Mr. Thieme said.

The Great Lakes region accounts for 70 percent of the nation's steelmaking capacity, 70 percent of its automobile production, and 55 percent of all heavy manufacturing. But it hasn't been moving cargo for such manufacturing as efficiently as it could.

Three of every four vessels leave their docks "light loaded" because of the lack of channel depth, according to testimony delivered to the House subcommittee on Energy and Water Development last year by James Weakley, president of the Lake Carriers' Association.

The 63 U.S.-flagged vessels represented by the association leave behind more than 8,000 tons of cargo per trip for every inch of lost channel depth.

Eight thousand tons of iron ore is enough to build 6,000 vehicles. Eight thousand tons of coal is enough to produce three hours of electricity for the Detroit metro area. And in the housing industry, 8,000 tons of limestone is enough to build 24 homes, according to Mr. Weakley's testimony.

"We might not lose the Port of Toledo, but it would need to accommodate wider ships or be bypassed," said Frank Quinn, a retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hydrologist who has studied lake levels since the 1960s.

EMSA Assists in Spanish Oil Recovery Operations

Source: EMSA

In the late evening on Friday 10th October, after two ships ran aground and spilled oil in heavy weather off southern Spain, the Spanish authorities requested the assistance of EMSA. As a result, the EMSA contracted vessel Bahia Tres, which is operated by Mureoil and operates in Algeciras Bay, was converted into an oil recovery vessel within hours and put at the disposal of Spanish maritime safety organisation SASEMAR.

Full text available here & in the Press Releases section of this website.

RS

Bays On US Gulf Coast Vulnerable To Flooding

Bays On US Gulf Coast Vulnerable To Flooding

ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2008) — The most comprehensive geological review ever undertaken of the upper US Gulf Coast suggests that a combination of rising seas and dammed rivers could flood large swaths of wetlands this century in one or more bays from Alabama to Texas.

The findings, which will be presented at next week's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Houston, stem from bayfloor sediment samples, radiocarbon tests and seismic surveys compiled over 30 years.

"In terms of sea-level increases and river sediments flowing into the bays, we're rapidly approaching a time when bays will face conditions they last saw in the Holocene, from about 9,600 until 7,000 years ago," said lead researcher John Anderson, the W. Maurice Ewing Professor in Oceanography and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "That period was marked by dramatic and rapid flooding events in each of these bays -- events that saw some bays increase their size by as much as one-third over a period of 100 or 200 years."

Anderson is presenting the findings at next week's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) at Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center. Anderson said the magnitude of flooding seen in bays during the Holocene -- the geological epoch that began 10,000 years ago -- would be noticeable and apparent, even on a year-to-year timescale.

"If you lived at the head of Galveston Bay, near Anahuac (Texas), you could see the bayhead move northward by as much as the length of a football field each year," Anderson said.

Anderson and colleagues, including Antonio Rodriguez of the University of North Carolina at Chappell Hill, compiled their research in a new 146-page monograph published by the GSA, "Response of Upper Gulf Coast Estuaries to Holocene Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise."

Their findings stemmed from an analysis of 30 years of data from hundreds of bayfloor sediment samples, radiocarbon tests and seismic surveys from Galveston, Matagorda and Corpus Christi bays in Texas, Mobile Bay in Alabama, Calcasieu Bay in Louisiana and Sabine Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border.

"There is no question that sea levels are rising in this region at a rate today that approaches what we saw in the Holocene," Anderson said.

He said the Holocene was also marked by alternating wet and dry periods upstream, particularly in central and western Texas. There was significantly less sediment flowing into the bays during the dry periods, and the researchers found that the most dramatic flooding events occurred when less sediment was flowing into the bays at the same time that sea levels were rising faster than four millimeters per year.

Anderson said that's a particularly troubling finding because several recent studies have confirmed that the rate of sea-level rise along the Gulf Coast has doubled in the past century to a current rate of about three millimeters per year. At the same time, the installation of dams upstream has slashed the amount of sediment flowing into every southern U.S. bay.

"Our research paints a pretty clear picture of what happened in these bays the last time they encountered the circumstances that we expect to see during the coming century," Anderson said. "Our hope is that policymakers will take note of the potential danger and take steps to help alleviate it."

For example, Anderson said it doesn't make environmental sense to keep a navigation channel open between the lower Trinity River and upper Galveston Bay because the channel diverts the sediment that is flowing into the bay, preventing it from replenishing the upper bay wetlands near Anahuac.

"Now that we're aware of the dangers, there are clearly things we can do to try and avoid them," he said.

WEATHER NOTE

NOAA: Ninth Warmest September for Global Temperatures

October 15, 2008

The combined global land and ocean surface average temperature for September 2008 tied with September 2001 as the ninth warmest since records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Temperature Highlights

• The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for September was 59.79 F — this is 0.79 degree F above the 20th century mean of 59.0 degrees F.

• Separately, the global land surface temperature was 54.50 F — this is 0.90 degree F above the 20th century mean of 53.6 degrees F, tying September 2004 as 11th warmest on record.

• The global ocean surface temperature of 61.86 F tied September 2001 as seventh warmest on record and was 0.76 degree F above the 20th century mean of 61.1 degrees F.

Global Highlights for September

• Arctic sea ice coverage during September was at its second lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Average ice extent during September was 1.80 million square miles, which is 34 percent below the 1979-2000 average and is part of an 11.7 percent decline in extent per decade over the past 30 years. The record lowest extent, set in 2007 was 1.65 million square miles.

• In early September, Hurricane Gustav impacted the Caribbean. Flooding associated with Hurricane Hanna claimed more than 500 lives in Haiti. In the middle of the month, Hurricane Ike claimed about 145 lives, many in Haiti. Near the end of September, Hurricane Kyle brought torrential rain and flooding to Puerto Rico and Hispaniola before heading north. It made landfall in Nova Scotia, Canada as a Category 1 hurricane.

• In the Pacific, Typhoon Sinlaku brought flooding to the Philippines before striking Taiwan and Japan. Parts of Taiwan received more than 40 inches of rain. Then, Typhoon Hagupit hit the Philippines and Taiwan before making landfall in southeastern China with winds of 121 mph. Other typhoons included: Super Typhoon Jangmi, which made landfall in Taiwan, with 130 mph winds. Jangmi was the most intense tropical cyclone and first Category 5 storm in any basin during 2008.

• Heavy rain across southern Chile spawned flooding and mudslides that claimed four lives and damaged more than 10,000 homes. Severe storms in the United Kingdom brought widespread flooding that forced the evacuation of thousands of residents and claimed six lives. Heavy downpours across northern Iraq and Iran destroyed several hydroelectric facilities and claimed 16 lives. And more than 200 fatalities were associated with flooding from monsoonal rains across Malaysia, Thailand, and India.

• With just 0.47 inch of rain, Melbourne, Australia had its driest September since records began in 1855, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The states of South Australia and Victoria had their eighth driest September on record.

• Fast-moving wild fires raged across parts of southern Africa during the first week in September. The fires claimed 89 lives in Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa, and killed hundreds of livestock.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

MARITIME NOTE

Round-the-world yachting adventure under way

Mon, Oct 13, 2008

Thunder and lightning marked Saturday's start of the prestigious Volvo round-the-world race, writes Lorna SigginsMarine Correspondent,in Alicante, Spain

GUNS AND thunder, fireworks and lightning marked the start of 10th Volvo Ocean Race in the southeast Spanish harbour of Alicante at the weekend.

Smoking out of the bay, the convoy of eight boats, with Irish sailors on three, was reefed for a fresh 25-knot northeasterly wind. It was enough to sweep the fleet down the Mediterranean, transforming Alicante's imposing Carthaginian citadel, Castillo de Santa Barbara, into a tiny speck in their wake.

Irish-Chinese entry Green Dragonappeared to be the only vessel with a full headsail as the gun was fired by King Juan Carlos.

An hour before, the vessel's two bowmen, Wexfordman Justin Slattery and British sailor Freddie Shanks, had been hoisted some 23m (75ft) up the mast to check a halyard block.

There was momentary silence and some anxious glances on board one of the Irish spectator boats as the Volvo 70 moved out of sheltered water to the starting line, marked by Spanish warship Principe de Asturias.

Inis Oirr musicians Micheál Ó hAlmhain and his two sons struck up a few chords, while Lets Do It Globalchairman Enda Ó Coineen tried to persuade Mayor of Galway Cllr Pádraig Conneely to dance the "Walls of Alicante".

There had been a strained waves, lumps in throats, as Green Dragonand its fellow Irish competitor, Team Delta Lloyd, left the pontoons several hours before.

Green Dragonskipper Ian Walker made light of the heavy moment, joking about his swimming practice with seven-year-old daughter Zoe and four-year-old Emilia.

Green Dragoncrew members Justin Slattery and Damian Foxall had spent their last half-hour on shore, strolling up to the Irish base holding their toddlers, Molly and Oisín. Manned by Tourism Ireland, the base was enlivened by the stilt-walking, U2 imitating antics of street theatre troupe Arcana.

No Government Minister had travelled out for the start, but former minister and sailor Bobby Molloy was present with Galway Harbour Board members, along with a Galway city council delegation, and several Dublin sailors, including yachtsman Michael O'Leary.

Most of the Volvo race entries sail under flags of convenience secured by multinational companies like Ericsson, Telefonica and Puma.

Thus, the Irish base, shared with the Dutch and Russians, had been one of few to provide some national hospitality over the previous days, thanks to the Good Food Ireland network.

For race start morning, however, the Irish base was invaded by an army of 90 Dutch Team Delta Lloydstaff - some of whom were a little surprised to learn that their €5 million sponsorship deal was really "Irish". What's more, Kilrush skipper Ger O'Rourke had adopted a village banking NGO, the Foundation for International Community Assistance, as his boat "charity".

Downstairs, supporters of Team Russia were collecting signatures to save the Orca whale after which their boat Kosatkais named. Even here, there is Irish infiltration. Team Russia's sail designer and trimmer is Kinsale yachtsman Jeremy Elliott.

Out at the bumpy start, spectators endured their own small endurance test as the boats completed a two-mile course, rounding a windward mark and leaving for the first "gate" between the Valencian coast and the island of Tabarca, 11 miles southeast.

By this stage, thunder and lightning had arrived, and a large yellow object had been flung from the Green Dragondeck.

A buoy? A bale? No, just Tom Roche of National Toll Roads, wearing a bright yellow drysuit.

Roche is one of a syndicate of Irish businessmen, including Denis O'Brien, who had promised €100,000 each to finance the Green Dragonbid.

Mr Roche's receipt comprised a 90-minute "race start" experience, followed by a high-speed ducking - there being no time to stop - and his retrieval from the ocean by Green Dragonshore manager Johnny Smullen.

Roche left behind 11 crew who will spend nine months and 37,000 nautical miles living in two metres of space, equivalent to life in a carbon fibre "phone box".

Heading for north Africa, the fleet hopes to picks up the trade wind, navigate the doldrums, and catch a glimpse of Capetown's Table Mountain, marking the first stopover in South Africa, in early November.

The Volvo Ocean Race berths in Galway from May 23rd next year. Further details on websites www.greendragonracing.com and www.volvooceanrace.org

RS

CG funds turbine impact on radar study

CG funds turbine impact on radar study

The Coast Guard revealed this week that it has contracted for a study of the effects on marine radar from the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound.

At the end of a radar and navigation forum Tuesday in North Falmouth, Raymond Perry, captain of the port for Sector Southeastern New England, announced the study, Coast Guard Senior Chief Richard Uronis said yesterday.

The $100,000 study should be completed by December, Uronis said. It will be performed by Maryland-based Technology Service Corp.

A second forum on radar and navigation issues is being planned after the study is complete, he said.

Cape Wind Associates wants to build 130 wind turbines on 25 square miles in the middle of Nantucket Sound. Advocates say it would provide clean energy with minimal impact on the local environment and maritime safety.

Opponents have decried the plan, citing concerns ranging from the impact on endangered birds to navigational and safety issues discussed at Tuesday's forum.

As part of a draft environmental impact statement released in January by U.S. Minerals Management Service — the lead agency reviewing Cape Wind — the Coast Guard placed a list of conditions on its approval of the project. The conditions required the Minerals Management Service and Coast Guard to determine whether "identified impacts, if any, allow for an acceptable risk to navigation safety."

The Minerals Management Service expects to issue a final report on Cape Wind by the end of the year. Agency officials did not return messages yesterday seeking comment on whether the Coast Guard radar study would influence their review of Cape Wind.

At Tuesday's forum, dueling radar analyses were presented to Perry that drew different conclusions on the impact of the proposed wind turbines.

According to Raytheon principal engineering fellow Eli Brookner, there are three potential problems Nantucket Sound wind turbines could pose for radar.

"If you had a small vessel located in what we call the side lobes you wouldn't see it, and so it could be a hazard not seeing that target," Brookner said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Side lobes are radar beams that spill over from the main beam and can cause "clutter," Brookner said.

Additionally, so-called "shadowing" can occur when turbines or ships behind the closest turbines may be obscured on radar screens, he said.

Finally, radar systems that automatically track targets may "swap" a moving target such as a ship with a stationary turbine, Brookner said.

Brookner said he studied maritime radar issues at the request of a friend whom he did not identify and was not paid for his work.

Glenn Wattley, the president and CEO of the region's main anti-Cape Wind group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, said his organization asked Brookner to look at the radar issue but did not pay him.

Capt. Dennis Barber, a British ship captain who has worked as a consultant for Cape Wind, presented an opposing view of the impact of the proposed turbines Tuesday, saying that mariners could easily determine the location of nearby boats near the proposed wind farm, according to attendees of the forum. Barber could not be reached for comment yesterday.

About 20 panelists debated other navigational issues Tuesday, including whether there should be a wider buffer zone between the wind turbines and ferry routes, Uronis said.

"We need a proper spacing between the ferry route and the wind towers," Edmund Welch, a spokesman for the Passenger Vessel Association, a trade group that represents the Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority and the Hy-Line ferry lines, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

A Cape Wind spokesman did not return a telephone call last night seeking comment.

WEATHER NOTE

Future risk of hurricanes

Scientists focus on hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea to assess likely changes

Researchers are homing in on the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea to assess the likely changes, between now and the middle of the century, in the frequency, intensity, and tracks of these powerful storms. Initial results are expected early next year.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., working with federal agencies as well as the insurance and energy industries, has launched an intensive study to examine how global warming will influence hurricanes in the next few decades.

The goal of the project is to provide information to coastal communities, offshore drilling operations, and other interests that could be affected by changes in hurricanes.

"This science builds on years of previous investment," said Cliff Jacobs, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which is funding the project. "The outcome of this research will shed light on the relationship between global warming and hurricanes, and will better inform decisions by government and industry."

The project relies on an innovative combination of global climate and regional weather models, run on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

"It's clear from the impacts of recent hurricane activity that we urgently need to learn more about how hurricane intensity and behavior may respond to a warming climate," says NCAR scientist Greg Holland, who is leading the project. "The increasingly dense development along our coastlines and our dependence on oil from the Gulf of Mexico leaves our society dangerously vulnerable to hurricanes."

The new study follows two major reports, by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that found evidence for a link between global warming and increased hurricane activity.

But many questions remain about future hurricane activity. For example, the CCSP report concluded that future changes in frequency were uncertain, and that rainfall and intensity were likely to increase, but with unknown consequences.

Improved understanding of climate change and hurricanes is an especially high priority for the energy industry, which has a concentration of drilling platforms, refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure in the region that are vulnerable to severe weather.

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike damaged offshore oil production and several refineries, disrupting gasoline supplies.

The project is part of a larger effort examining regional climate change between 1995 and 2055.

The simulations are being run on NCAR's bluefire supercomputer with support from NSF, NCAR's sponsor, and through a long-term collaboration with the insurance industry through the Willis Research Network.

"This research program by NCAR is a major contribution to the insurance industry and public policy makers," says Rowan Douglas, managing director of Willis.

"The primary way to improve our understanding of present and future hurricane risk is to generate computer simulations of storms in unprecedented detail."

For the project, the model will examine three decades in detail: 1995-2005, 2020-2030, and 2045-2055. Scientists will use statistical techniques to fill in the gaps between these decades.

A major goal is to examine how several decades of greenhouse-gas buildup could affect regional climate and, in turn, influence hurricanes and other critical weather features. Scientists will also investigate the impact of the powerful storms on global climate.

One of the most difficult technical challenges for such a project is to create a model that can capture both the climate of the entire world and the behavior of a single hurricane.

To get around this roadblock, NCAR has developed an approach called Nested Regional Climate Modeling (NRCM). The center "nests" a special version of its high-resolution weather model (the Weather Research and Forecasting model, or WRF) inside its lower-resolution, global climate model (the Community Climate System Model, or CCSM).

The resulting simulations show fine-scale detail for certain regions, like the Gulf of Mexico, while also incorporating global climate patterns.

For each of its decade-long time slices, the NRCM's resolution will be about 20 miles across Africa, Europe, and the South Atlantic, 7.5 miles across the tropical Atlantic and northeastern United States, and an even sharper 2.5 miles over the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, southeastern United States, and drought-prone western United States.

"Combining weather and climate models in this way enables more detailed projections of hurricanes in a warming world than any study to date," says Holland. "These projections will help reduce the uncertainty of current assessments, and they also serve the very important role of providing experience about applying future predictions of changes to high impact weather systems in general."-National Science Foundation

MARITIME NOTE

U. S. Coast Guard Rescues Sailors Remotely from 3,500 Miles Away - it's AMVER!

The following Coast Guard story was spotted in Euroweekly News, the English news source in Spain for Mallorca, Costa Blanca, Costa de Almeria, Costa del Sol, Heart of Andalucia and Algarve.

The U. S. Coast Guard's sophisticated AMVER system enabled a daring sea resuce to take place 3,500 miles from the Coast Guard AMVER Center on Governor's Island in New York.
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Four Swedish sailors were rescued last week by the Greek tanker, ‘Parthenon’, in a dramatic high-seas rescue which was hampered by weather so rough that a rescue helicopter had to return to shore.

Swedish Sailboat, Sun Chaser, in distress
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The US Coast Guard revealed in a press release that Captain Vasileiadis Lazaros, master of the Greek-flagged tanker, was sailing to the Port of Setubal when his crew picked up a distress call from the Swedish sailboat, ‘Sun Chaser’ which was in difficulties approximately 84 miles west of the Algarve’s Cape Saint Vincent. Within two minutes of receiving the call, Captain Lazaros was on the bridge, directing the ship to proceed to the stricken sailboat.
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The distress call was received through the ‘Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System’ (AMVER), sponsored by the United States Coast Guard, a computer-based, voluntary global ship-reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange for assistance to persons in distress at sea. The ‘Parthenon’ has been an AMVER participant since 2003.
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Greek Tanker Races to the Scene
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Steering the 800 foot tanker, managed by the Tsakos Group of Athens, towards the distress location, Captain Lazaros notified Portuguese rescue authorities. “I ordered all crew to stand-by on deck,” stated Captain Lazaros as he began preparing to rescue the four Swedes. Coordinating his efforts with Radio Lisbon, Captain Lazaros overheard a Portuguese rescue helicopter order the Swedish sailors into a lifeboat.
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“The sailors radioed the rescue helicopter and said they could not abandon ship in the rough weather because their lifeboat had been ripped from the sailboat and drifted away,” Captain Lazaros added. As the weather conditions deteriorated, the helicopter was unable to safely hoist the sailors and returned to base, leaving the 107,000 ton dead- weight tanker the only means of rescue for the sailors.
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“I ordered the Sun Chaser to make fast to our port side amidships and had the crew lay down the pilot ladder,” Captain Lazaros recounted in an email to the U. S. Coast Guard AMVER center. Within two minutes of lowering the pilot ladder, the first survivor was safely on board the Parthenon. Within three hours of receiving the initial call for help, the Parthenon had rescued all four Swedish sailors.
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The Survivors
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The survivors, two men and two women, were cared for aboard the Parthenon before being taken to Setubal, where they were met by Portuguese officials. With the AMVER system, rescue coordinators can identify participating ships in the area of distress and divert the best-suited ship or ships to respond. Prior to sailing, participating ships send a sail plan to the Amver computer centre. Vessels then report every 48 hours until arriving at their port of call. This data is able to project the position of each ship at any point during its voyage and, in an emergency situation, any rescue coordination centre can request this data to determine the relative position of AMVER ships near the distress location. On any given day, over 3,300 ships are available to carry out search and rescue services.
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About AMVER:
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AMVER, sponsored by the United States Coast Guard, is a unique, computer-based, and voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange for assistance to persons in distress at sea.With AMVER, rescue coordinators can identify participating ships in the area of distress and divert the best-suited ship or ships to respond.
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AMVER's mission is to quickly provide search and rescue authorities, on demand, accurate information on the positions and characteristics of vessels near a reported distress.

Weather Eye: noisy oceans threaten life under water

he world’s oceans are growing noisier, thanks to the rising levels of carbon dioxide. This could create a cacophony of sounds that will make life difficult for whales and dolphins, which use their shrills and rumbles for navigation and communication and, rather like a room full of people shouting at each other, their calls could get lost in an underwater din.

It seems unbelievable that carbon dioxide would make a difference to anything on Earth because it only makes up about 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere. But when air dissolves in water, the carbon dioxide makes carbonic acid. Although a very weak acid, it slowly eats away chalk and limestone, which is how Cheddar Gorge and its caves were made.

As carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans it is turning the water more acidic. This has an impact on sound travelling through the water, because sound waves are absorbed by certain types of charged molecules that stick together in seawater. As the sea becomes acidic, the charged molecules absorb less sound, and so the sound waves travel further.

A recent study has found that carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans has increased sound travel by about 10 per cent throughout the Atlantic and Pacific. And by mid-century this is expected to rise up to 70 per cent further. With noise travelling further, this could create an underwater din that will make life much more difficult for whales and fish that live on reefs that also use sound.

The increasingly acid oceans are also hurting sea creatures such as diatoms and corals. Their shells are made of carbonate that is corroded by carbonic acid.

Have a great and safe weekend!

RS

New International Building Codes Address Fire Safety And Evacuation Issues For Tall Structures

New International Building Codes Address Fire Safety And Evacuation Issues For Tall Structures

ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2008) — Future buildings—especially tall structures—should be increasingly resistant to fire, more easily evacuated in emergencies, and safer overall thanks to 23 major and far-reaching building and fire code changes approved recently by the International Code Council (ICC) based on recommendations from the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The recommendations were part of NIST's investigation of the collapses of New York City's World Trade Center (WTC) towers on Sept. 11, 2001. The changes, adopted at the ICC hearings held Sept. 15-21, 2008, in Minneapolis, Minn., will be incorporated into the 2009 edition of the ICC's I-Codes (specifically the International Building Code, or IBC, and the International Fire Code, or IFC), a state-of-the-art model code used as the basis for building and fire regulations promulgated and enforced by U.S. state and local jurisdictions. Those jurisdictions have the option of incorporating some or all of the code's provisions but generally adopt most provisions.

The new codes address areas such as increasing structural resistance to building collapse from fire and other incidents; requiring a third exit stairway for tall buildings; increasing the width of all stairways by 50 percent in new high-rises; strengthening criteria for the bonding, proper installation and inspection of sprayed fire-resistive materials (commonly known as "fireproofing"); improving the reliability of active fire protection systems (such as automatic sprinklers); requiring a new class of robust elevators for access by emergency responders in lieu of an additional stairway; making exit path markings more prevalent and more visible; and ensuring effective coverage throughout a building for emergency responder radio communications.

Nine additional code change proposals based on the NIST WTC recommendations were not approved for the 2009 edition of the I-Codes.

These proposals address areas such as designing structures to mitigate disproportionate progressive collapse, mandating the use of a nationally accepted standard for conducting wind tunnel tests (routinely used for determining wind loads in the design of tall buildings), limiting the length of horizontal transfer corridors in stairways, installing stairway communication and monitoring systems on specific floors of tall buildings, and requiring risk assessments for buildings with substantial hazard (such as buildings more than 420 feet high with occupant loads exceeding 5,000 persons).

Changes to U.S. Model Building and Fire Codes

The following are the 23 model building and fire code changes consistent with the NIST WTC investigation recommendations now required by the I-Codes (changes displayed in italics are ones that were approved at previous ICC hearings and incorporated at the Minneapolis hearing into the 2009 I-Codes):

• An additional (third) exit stairway for buildings more than 420 feet high.
• An increase of 50 percent in the width of exit stairways in new sprinklered buildings.
• Permitting the use of elevators for occupant evacuation in fires and other emergencies for all buildings, and as an alternative to the required additional exit stairway for buildings more than 420 feet high. Passenger elevators must meet specific criteria to be used for evacuation purposes.
• Hardening of exit stairway and passageway enclosures, and elevator shaft enclosures, in buildings—for all buildings more than 420 feet high, for buildings 75-420 feet high where failure of the enclosure would substantially jeopardize human life, and in essential facilities such as hospitals.
• Separating exit stairway enclosures by a distance not less than 30 feet or not less than one-fourth of the maximum building diagonal, whichever is less. For example, a building with a 50-foot by 50-foot floor plan would have a diagonal of about 70 feet. One-fourth of 70 is 17.5 feet, which would be the minimum distance required between exits (since it is less than 30 feet).
• A minimum of one fire service access elevator for buildings more than 120 feet high.
• Fire service access elevator lobby sizes that are a minimum of 150 square feet in area with sides at least 8 feet long.
• Keeping fire service access elevator lobbies free of storage.
• Greater reliability of sprinklers with a minimum of two water supply risers for each sprinkler zone in buildings more than 420 feet high. Each riser is required to supply sprinklers on alternate floors and will be placed in remotely located stair enclosures.
• Providing minimum structural integrity for framed and bearing wall structures
• A one-hour increase in the fire-resistance rating of structural components and assemblies in buildings more than 420 feet high.
• Explicit adoption of the "structural frame" approach to fire resistance ratings that requires all members of the primary structural frame to have the higher fire resistance rating commonly required for columns. The primary structural frame includes the columns; other structural members including the girders, beams, trusses and spandrels having direct connections to the columns; and bracing members designed to carry gravity loads.
• Broadening the definition of the primary structural frame to include bracing members essential to vertical stability (such as floor systems or cross bracing) whether or not they carry gravity loads.
• Increasing bond strength for fireproofing to nearly three times greater than currently required for buildings 75-420 feet high and seven times greater for buildings more than 420 feet high.

Field installation requirements for fireproofing to ensure that:

• installation complies with the manufacturer's instructions;
• the substrates (surfaces being fireproofed) are clean and free of any condition that prevents adhesion;
• testing is conducted to demonstrate that required adhesion is maintained for primed, painted or encapsulated steel surfaces; and
• the finished condition of the installed fireproofing, upon complete drying or curing, does not exhibit cracks, voids, spalls, delamination or any exposure of the substrate.

Special field inspections of fireproofing to ensure that its as-installed thickness, density and bond strength meet specified requirements and that a bonding agent is applied when the bond strength is less than required due to the effect of a primed, painted or encapsulated steel surface. The inspections are to be performed after the rough installation of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, sprinkler and ceiling systems.

Luminous markings delineating the exit path (including vertical exit enclosures and passageways) in buildings more than 75 feet high to facilitate rapid egress and full building evacuation.

Broadening the use of luminous markings to identify obstacles, exit doors, exit signs and floor numbers in the exit path in buildings more than 75 feet high.

Luminous exit path markings in existing buildings more than 75 feet high with the exception of open, unenclosed stairs in historic buildings.

Increasing the area of the Fire Command Center (the area from which all fire department operations are directed and usually housing the control panel for alarms, sprinklers, etc.) from 96 square feet to 200 square feet with at least one side 10 feet long in buildings more than 75 feet high.

Approved radio coverage for all buildings for emergency responders within the building based upon the existing coverage level of public safety communications systems at the exterior of the building. Approved coverage includes specific requirements for signal strength, system design, installation and maintenance.

Installing an emergency responder radio communications system to provide the required level of radio coverage throughout a building. Typical hardwired communications systems would be replaced.

Additional Proposed Changes to U.S. Model Building and Fire Codes

The following are the nine model building and fire code change proposals consistent with the NIST WTC investigation recommendations that were not approved for the 2009 edition of the I-Codes but will be considered for resubmission at a later date after being amended:

• Requiring buildings more than 420 feet high to be designed to survive a building contents fire to burnout without more than local failure of the structural frame.
• Requiring structures not to suffer a collapse disproportionate to a local initiating failure caused by an accident or incident.
• Requiring a risk assessment and acceptable mitigation of risks for buildings more than 420 feet high with an occupant load greater than 5,000; for buildings with an occupant load greater than 10,000; and for buildings determined to be at higher than normal risk.
• Requiring use of a new standard for conducting wind tunnel testing.
• Requiring installation of stairway communication and monitoring system at every fifth floor of each exit stairway. Also requiring, in buildings more than 75 feet high, a video surveillance system in each exit stairway, elevator lobby, elevator hoistway and elevator machine room to enhance situational awareness of emergency responders.
• Requiring fire safety and evacuation plans for all occupancies and buildings where required by the International Fire Code (the International Building Code is more widely adopted across the country than the IFC; this would ensure all situations are covered).
• Requiring detailed schematic building plans, including an approved Building Information Card, to be located in fire command centers to show the type of construction, stairway access and pressurization, fuel oil tank and hazardous materials locations, standpipe availability and locations, in addition to typical floor plan and details of the building core, means of egress, elevator locations, fire protection systems, firefighting equipment and fire department access.
• Limiting the length of horizontal transfer corridors used to connect a stairwell to 50 feet or less in buildings more than 75 feet high.
• Allowing the option to design buildings more than 420 feet high using the ICC Performance Code, instead of the high-rise provisions of the International Building Code. This change will allow the performance-based NIST WTC recommendations to be considered in a holistic manner.

WEATHER NOTE

Boy Scout Camp Rebuilds After June Tornado Destruction

The rebuilding process is underway at the Little Sioux Boy Scout camp in northwest Iowa. Saturday, marks the 4 month anniversary after a tornado ripped through the summer retreat. Four scouts died that night, and dozens of others were injured.

An array of builders, community members, and even storm chasers are now giving back to keep the retreat, and Boy Scout tradition, alive.

Downed trees, crushed buildings, and rubble are the pictures etched in people's minds, including the boy scouts who lived through this disaster. When an EF4 tornado hit the Little Sioux Boy Scout Camp with little warning, the young men reacted quickly. Their motto "be prepared" helped them help each other.

"Some of them, they took a big step into manhood that night,” Rex Gochenour, Chairman of the Little Sioux Scout Ranch Committee said.

That was June 11th, a Wednesday night that people at the camp will never forget. And neither will storm chasers Kory Hartman and Kenny Allen. They drove right into the middle of the same tornado that went though western Iowa and damaged the camp. Since that deadly night, the two men have been hard at work, raising donations for the scouts.

"There's been a lot of healing that's happened, and we're happy that we're able to present some money,” Kenny Allen, Severestudios.com, said.

Hartman and Allen raised 3-thousand-5-hundred and 27 dollars. For Allen, this effort is close to his heart. As a former Eagle Scout himself, he knows firsthand, that the training, education, and experience for these boys pays off.

"This organization teaches boys and young men at a very early age, community responsibility and that it's important to take care of others, especially in times of need, and we saw that here this night on June 11th, “Allen said.

Boy Scout leaders say they all learned from that night and now they're working hard to rebuild their camp to keep the tradition going.

"The boys that have been up here, they want to come back, they want to make sure this camp goes on forward,” Gochenour said.

Now, the Rangers house, which was flattened by the tornado, is rebuilt. And soon, new storm shelters, and new p-a system will be in place.

"Your past is very much part of the present, and by learning from the past, we prepare for the future, and we'll be better prepared if that ever comes again,” Gochenour said.

And now, they know, that no matter what is thrown their way again, they will "be prepared".

Despite the tragedy they lived through, they're thankful of the help and support they've received. The Chairman of the Little Sioux Ranch committee says their next project is the visitor center. That will also double as a storm shelter.

MARITIME NOTE

Fedra crew rescued as vessel breaks up

By Brian Reyes in Gibraltar - Saturday 11 October 2008

Fedra: broke in two off Europa Point in Gibraltar

THE crew of a cargo ship that ran aground in Gibraltar was plucked to safety in a perilous nighttime rescue by Gibraltarian and Spanish emergency services last Friday.

Defying extreme gale force winds, a Spanish maritime rescue helicopter airlifted five men from the bow of the 24-year old bulk carrier Fedra as it lay pinned by pounding waves at the base of sheers cliffs in Europa Point.

But the savage weather played havoc with the helicopter’s engine, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing and leaving teams on land to find another way of getting the men off the ship.

Using a crane positioned on the cliff edge above the bow, Gibraltarian rescuers rigged a cradle that was lowered to the seafarers below.

In small groups throughout the night, they were hauled up wet, shivering and terrified.

At one point, with 11 men still on board, the operation had to be suspended as the storm intensified.

"We thought we were going to lose them," said one exhausted rescuer. "But at around 7am, we had a small weather window."

"We knew this was the only chance they had."

In a dramatic end to the operation, all remaining 11 men were winched to safety in one hoist. The men, mostly Filipino sailors, were treated in hospital but were later released and taken to a local hotel.

By mid Saturday morning the Liberian-flag Fedra had been ripped apart by the sea, the vessel torn in two close to the accommodation block.

Both sections of the ship remained trapped against the cliffs, heaving and hammering violently in the pitching seas.

The Fedra was one of two weekend casualties in this region, which was battered by a force 11 gale for much of Friday and Saturday.

In nearby Algeciras, the Liberian-flag bulk carrier Tawe ran aground and sustained hull damage, leaking fuel oil onto nearby beaches.

There were 22 seafarers on board but tugs were in assistance and the situation appeared stable.

Over in Gibraltar, the focus now is on a salvage operation to remove the wreck of the Fedra, which could pose a danger to navigation if either section breaks free of the rocks.

But no action is likely until after the weekend, when the weather is expected to ease significantly.

The Fedra ran aground after suffering engine failure on Friday morning and dragging its anchor until it came perilously close to the shore.

All through Friday afternoon, tugs laboured to secure towlines to the crippled vessel but these repeatedly failed. Efforts to repair the ship’s engine also proved futile.

The 36,000-tonne ship was empty at the time of the casualty and is believed to be carrying only a small amount of fuel for its own consumption.

According to the EU shipping database Equasis, it is managed by the Greek company Dilek Shipping.

The ship has a chequered port state control background and was last detained in August by Chinese inspectors who found 18 deficiencies, including three retaing to its propulsion systems.

The grounding, which happened just metres from where the New Flame foundered just over a year ago, will once again renew calls for tighter controls on shipping in the area.

RS

How Many Earthquakes Are There?

How Many Earthquakes Are There?

ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2008) — A new method for estimating the capability of a network to detect earthquakes suggests that the seismic monitoring network for Southern California, as an example, does not accurately reflect all earthquakes that register a magnitude of 3.3 or smaller within southern California, thereby giving seismologists an incomplete picture of recent and current seismicity.

The study, published in the October issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, provides a new empirically-based approach for seismologists to understand the detection capabilities of seismic networks.

While today's improved seismic networks detect earthquakes down to low magnitudes in regions of the densest coverage, seismologists need to estimate the completeness magnitude which varies in space and time. This magnitude of completeness indicates the magnitude below which the earthquake catalog does not contain all events that occurred..

D. Schorlemmer of the University of Southern California (USC) and J. Woessner of the Swiss Seismological Service present a new approach to estimate the magnitude of completeness which will enable scientists to develop a richer understanding of the distribution of smaller earthquakes. The authors' new approach uses an analysis based on the actual performance of seismic stations rather than a theoretical assessment based on sampling of earthquakes.

This advancement is important because one way scientists estimate the number of large, damaging earthquakes is to study the distribution of small earthquakes. Without an accurate understanding of how likely the seismic networks are detecting earthquakes of different magnitudes, scientists may obtain incorrect seismic hazard estimates for an area.

WEATHER NOTE

Researchers study global warming impact on hurricanes

Florida Today

BREVARD COUNTY, Florida -- Federal researchers hope a supercomputer that crunches 76 trillion equations per second can shed light on whether global warming might lead to fewer, yet more powerful hurricanes.

The federal government has launched an intensive study of how global warming might impact hurricanes in coming decades.

The goal of the study is to better warn coastal communities, offshore Gulf of Mexico oil drilling operations, and other interests that could be affected by increased hurricane activity.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will conduct the study, along with other federal agencies, universities, as well as the insurance and energy industries.

The Georgia Institute of Technology and several other universities are also collaborating on the research.

The project will use global climate and regional weather models, run on one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. The models will examine future hurricane activity “in unprecedented detail,” according to a press release issued Wednesday by NCAR.

The study, which centers on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, is part of a larger study of regional climate change between 1995 and 2055. Researchers will look at three decades in detail: 1995-2005, 2020-2030, and 2045-2055.

The simulations will run on NCAR’s flagship bluefire supercomputer. Manufactured by IBM, it is ranked as one of the 30 most powerful computers on Earth and can solve up to 76 trillion equations every second.

Researchers will analyze changes in hurricane frequency, intensity, and paths from now to the middle of the century. A major goal is to examine how several decades of greenhouse-gas buildup could affect regional climate and influence hurricanes and other critical weather patterns.

Preliminary results are expected early next year.

“It is clear from the impacts of recent hurricane activity that we urgently need to learn more about how hurricane intensity and behavior may respond to a warming climate,” NCAR scientist Greg Holland said in the release.

“The increasingly dense development along our coastlines and our dependence on oil from the Gulf of Mexico leave our society dangerously vulnerable to hurricanes,” said Holland, who is leading the project.

The new study follows reports by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that found evidence for a link between global warming and hurricane activity.

MARITIME NOTE

Maritime Organization Seeks to Cut Air Pollution From Oceangoing Ships

By FELICITY BARRINGER

The International Maritime Organization on Thursday adopted stringent new controls on airborne pollution from the world’s 300,000 oceangoing vessels.

Emissions from ships steaming into ports from Rotterdam to Shanghai to Long Beach, are blamed for about 60,000 premature deaths around the world annually.

The new rules, which differ little from proposals the group approved in April, would cut the sulfur content of the fuels ships use in controlled areas along coasts by 63 percent as of July of 2010, and by more than 95 percent as of January 2015.

Oceangoing ships are largely propelled by bunker fuel, which is one of the most cost-effective — it provides more energy per gallon than the distilled products used in other diesel and gasoline engines — and environmentally destructive fuels in use anywhere.

Sulfur emissions are a major source of airborne fine particulates, which have been associated with pulmonary and cardiovascular disease. In some ports in Europe and in the United States, environmental groups, using the courts, and local governmental bodies have required ships to shut off their engines and plug in to the local electrical grid to keep ship operations functioning while in port.

The international group approved the measure with little discussion late Thursday at its meeting in London, according to Janea Scott, a lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund who attended the meeting. Ms. Scott spoke by telephone from London.

Both shipping interests and environmental groups had been unsure if any major last-minute changes would be made, but with the exception of changes of a few months in two of the deadlines, the original proposals were approved.

Now individual countries must set the boundaries of the so-called emission control areas in which the new, stringent fuel standards apply. This sets the stage for a renewed tug of war as environmental advocates are likely to seek to include as much of a country’s offshore waters as possible in the emission control areas, while shipping interests are likely to call for far more limited boundaries.

Andreas Chrysostomou, the chairman of the Marine Environment Protection Committee, hailed the decision as “an historical moment,” Ms. Scott said.

T. L. Garrett, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, an industry trade group, said Thursday: “This is good news — we are fully supportive of this. We think the international approach that creates uniformity is the way to approach the issues.”

Ms. Scott of the Environmental Defense Fund said, “It’s really impressive when 168 nations can come together and agree on protective measures for the environment.” She added that the Environmental Protection Agency, which will propose the boundaries of the emission control areas, “should apply as soon as possible.”

In addition to setting limits for the offshore areas, the organization also cut the allowable standards for midocean operation. Currently, even though the average sulfur content of bunker fuel is about 27,000 parts per million, the rules allow fuel with up to 45,000 parts per million. This will be reduced to 35,000 parts per million in 2012 and to 5,000 parts per million in 2020, providing that a review demonstrates that there will be enough of the fuel available.

RS

On Hard-Hit Galveston, Researchers Regroup

On Hard-Hit Galveston, Researchers Regroup

By Rachel Zelkowitz
ScienceNOW Daily News
26 September 2008

Virologist Scott Weaver set off to survey the damage at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) labs in Galveston just 1 day after the last squalls from Hurricane Ike passed over the island on 13 September. Although Galveston was hammered, the scene that greeted him at the UTMB labs was not as bad as he had feared, he says. With residents now pouring back in, Weaver and other Galveston researchers report that cleanup efforts at their labs and homes are proceeding more rapidly than they had expected.

"The mood is very, very up," says UTMB Associate Dean of Research David Gorenstein. As of Thursday, cleanup crews had dried out about two-thirds of the campus, and emergency generators were cranking out electricity, he says.

The UTMB campus stands on the eastern portion of the island, behind the seawall the city constructed after a hurricane devastated the town in 1900. The wall held during Ike, sparing the campus much of the destruction experienced across the rest of Galveston, where whole neighborhoods washed away. Overall, Hurricane Ike killed 50 people in the Gulf Coast and left millions more without power for a week. But the Galveston National Laboratory, a $167 million facility designed for the study of biohazards, suffered minimal damage, says the lab's associate director, James LeDuc. UTMB's biosafety level 4 lab, which holds samples of microbes such as anthrax and plague bacteria, also emerged unscathed. Elsewhere on the island, Texas A&M University's Galveston research facilities suffered virtually no damage, says campus CEO R. Bowen Loftin.

But back at UTMB, Keiller Building, the school's oldest research facility for virology and microbiology, did not fare as well. The building sits only about 2.5 meters above sea level and experienced more than 1 meter of flooding in its basement, Weaver says. Dehumidifiers hummed throughout Keiller and other UTMB buildings this past week, as work crews raced to rip out soggy flooring and dry wall, Gorenstein says: "Down in Galveston, we know all about mold."

Meanwhile, Weaver and his assistants made rounds to ensure that freezers stayed on and that animal colonies evacuated from the basement labs survived in their temporary facilities as the campus ran on backup generators. Of particular concern was a colony of Mexican mosquitoes that had taken 2 years to amass. "We're giving them a lot of TLC to keep them going," Weaver says, explaining that he feeds the larvae multiple times a day and ensures that the adults' supply of sugar water doesn't run low.

Weaver estimates that replacing some of the lab equipment that got soaked, plus repair efforts to Keiller's basement, could cost more than $1 million and mean weeks of lost time for the researchers. But LeDuc noted that research facility repair costs would amount to just a fraction of UTMB's overall losses from Ike. The school estimates it could lose some $600 million, much of that in lost revenue from closing hospital clinics for repairs, he says.

UTMB and Texas A&M researchers know that, for them, the greatest cost of Hurricane Ike will be time lost away from the lab bench rather than repair expenses. Weaver says they hope to have most of the labs across campus fully cleaned and operational within a month: "[Research] is very competitive. We can't afford to lose much time."

WEATHER NOTE

The Bow Echo: Observations, Numerical Simulations, and Severe Weather Detection Methods

ABSTRACT

Bowing convective line segments (bow echoes) are often associated with swaths of damaging downburst winds and are sometimes accompanied by tornadoes that may reach violent (F4) intensity. Bow echoes range in length from less than 20 km to more than 100 km, the latter forming a broad bowing line segment. In this manuscript, both past and recent observations of bow echo convective systems will be reviewed. The meteorological environments of long-lived derecho-producing convective systems will also be presented. This will be followed by recent conceptual models and numerical simulations of bowing convective systems. Finally, the evolution of two large-scale bow echo convective systems, which produced extensive wind damage and weak tornadoes, will be described. With the ongoing installation of a comprehensive network of Doppler radars, the National Weather Service forecaster will be required to know more about conceptual storm structure models of severe convective storms. It is hoped that this literature review will result in a greater understanding of such convective systems that are often known producers of significant severe weather events.

MARITIME NOTE

NTSB Advisory: NTSB to Offer New Course in Cooperation with NJ State Police

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

The National Transportation Safety Board is offering a two-day course - Transportation Disaster Response - A Course for Emergency Responders, at its NTSB Training Center in Ashburn, Virginia on November 18-20, 2008.

This course is designed specifically for emergency responders and planners; this course provides participants with the tools to most effectively manage a major transportation disaster. Audio/video materials, case studies, recent examples and panel discussions are employed to illustrate key principles of the unique aspects of responding to major transportation disasters.

Some of the key points that will be covered will be:

•Integrating Incident Command System and investigative processes during a transportation disaster;
•Responding to transportation events involving terrorism and/or hazardous materials;
•Maximizing resources in site security and support Staffing;
•Responding to media inquires and managing press at the Scene;
•Communicating with the local community and families of the victims;
•Providing assistance to family members;
•Forensic aspects of recovery and identification;
•Long-term issues facing the affected community following a major disaster;

Instructors will be from the NTSB, New Jersey State Police, Minneapolis Police Department and specialized FBI units. For more information please go to: http://ntsb.gov/Academy/CourseInfo/TDA402_2008.htm or contact Erik Grosof at the NTSB's Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance 202-314-6189.

Media Contact: Keith Holloway, (202) 314-6100

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Global Warming Will Have Significant Economic Impacts On Florida Coasts, Reports State

Global Warming Will Have Significant Economic Impacts On Florida Coasts, Reports State

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2008) — Leading Florida-based scientific researchers released two new studies today, including a Florida State University report finding that climate change will cause significant impacts on Florida's coastlines and economy due to increased sea level rise.

A second study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University recommends that the state of Florida adopt a series of policy programs aimed at adapting to these large coastal and other impacts as a result of climate change. Key findings of the FAU report were included just this week by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's Climate and Energy Action Team when it adopted the "Adaptation" section of its final report.

"The impacts of climate change on Florida's coasts and on our economy will be substantial, persistent and long-term, even under our conservative estimates," said Julie Harrington, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at FSU. "Should, as many models predict, sea level rise, and hurricane strength and other factors become more extreme, much greater economic impacts will occur along many parts of Florida's coast in this century."

The second new study, by researchers at FAU, focused on state adaptation policies needed as Florida faces the impacts of climate change.

"The goal of our study is to help the state of Florida adapt, in the most effective way possible, to climate change impacts that are now inevitable," said Jim Murley, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions and leader of the study. "These approaches must be comprehensive and strategic, not piecemeal and episodic. Governor Crist and other leaders have rightly identified adapting to climate change as one of the state's greatest challenges -- we look forward to working with the state to protect our people, natural splendor, and economic livelihood. There is real work to be done."

This research was supported by a grant from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a project of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

About the FSU study

This study uses current estimates of sea level rise from Florida State University's Beaches and Shores Resource Center and 2001 estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the effect of sea level rise on the six coastal counties. The results show projected trends in storm-surge flood return periods associated with hurricanes, damage costs associated with flooding from major storm events, and the value and area of land at risk.

Under the FSU study's estimates for sea level in Dade County, the value of land at risk totals $6.7 billion in 2080 (in 2005 dollars). (By comparison, using International Panel on Climate Change sea level estimates, the value of land at risk in Dade County ranges from $1 billion to $12.3 billion in 2080). The study also calculated the effect of storm surge and sea level rise on future damage costs, finding that if a storm like Hurricane Wilma from 2005 occurred in 2080, the cost to Dade alone would be from 12 percent to 31 percent higher (in 2005 constant dollars). While these findings do not account for adaptive strategies or potential future increases in property values, they still provide valuable information about potential impacts and resources that are put at risk from sea level rise.

About the FAU study

Key findings of the report have been included by Gov. Crist's Climate and Energy Action Team as it adopted the "Adaptation" section of its final report this week in Tallahassee. Important findings from the FAU study call for major state environmental, growth management and public infrastructure decision-making processes to be adjusted so they are responsive to future climate change impacts.

"FAU will continue to research how Florida can be a leader in providing guidance to other states on how best to put in place workable solutions that will help communities adapt to future climate change impacts," Murley said.

"Storm events associated with certain levels of storm surge could increase in frequency in the future, due to sea level rise," Harrington said.

"As sea level rises, damage costs associated with extreme storm events increases significantly for the Florida counties examined in this study," she said.

WEATHER NOTE

My Personal Close Calls With Tornadoes
By Michelle Dyer
Special Corespondent to Robin Storm

What is the dream of a storm chaser? To get close to a large and dangerous tornado! Many attempts have been made to accomplish this goal, much of the time, the mighty twisters go unseen. Oh, but what if you've been close to a tornado without looking for it? I have done just that!

This month's article will be the focus of four rather compelling stories of mine. These personal accounts involve my close encounters with tornadoes. Each story is different and unique, but will contain common threads. Please come with me as we walk through these personal experiences together.



My First Ever Tornado Warning

This first encounter took place when I was four years old. Before I go on, I must state that things in this memory are a bit sketchy because of my young age, but I remember just enough to tell the story. In spite of that, I hope you will enjoy reading about it.

The first thing I remember is being placed inside of what looked like a utility room. This small enclosure was cluttered with furniture, tools and other things that I can't currently recall. There was a small window for which I could somewhat see out of, however, it was way too high, so I couldn't climb up onto anything to completely watch the weather that was unfolding at that time. If I had been able to see everything at that point, I might not have been so unsure of what really took place that particular day.

After my Mom placed me in this small and cluttered room, she left, closing the door slightly behind her. I asked her if she'd be back, and she told me she would return. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

While waiting in this small room, I could hear the radio playing. The announcer came on and mentioned about a Tornado Warning. My Mom, by this point, was getting ready for work as well as listening to the radio. She wanted to hear what was going on with the weather, but I recall wishing that she'd come to the room I was in so she could be safe.

Even as I was being placed in this room, I knew about this Tornado Warning.You might be wondering then, did I know what a Tornado Warning meant? Well, at that age, I knew that such a circumstance meant that a tornado was coming, and that one needed to find a safe place to go. I also knew, even at that age, that tornadoes killed or injured folks that refused to seek
protection.

While waiting in this small room, I watched as the darkening sky cast a reflection on everything around me. The more the sky darkened, the more scared I became. As a result of this fear that I felt, I some how thought to move behind some of the furniture in the room. I stood behind a glass table and trembled with great fear as the storm moved on passed.

When the sky got brighter, I then felt like things were safe. My Mom then came to tell me that the Tornado Warning was over, and that I could leave the room in question. What a relief! The tornado didn't hurt us! I hoped that it didn't hurt anyone else either.

Now, I don't really know if a tornado took place that day or not. I'm not even sure of the date or time. Heck, I don't even know what direction the storm moved in, or if the tornado ever touched the ground. All I can say is, that I knew what to do, which is amazing for being a small child living in Northern Virginia at the time.

My Experience With A Mysterious Pea Green Sky

This particular experience was preceded by what was a calm, but cloudy afternoon. I had been sitting out on the front porch with my Grandparents while watching the sun take on a milky look. Then, as the sun completely disappeared behind a thickening cloudbank, we all decided to head in doors.

The next thing I remember, my Grandparents had left for the store for groceries. While they were gone, I hung out in the living room area and played with my toys, for I was only 4 or 5 years old at the time. As a matter of fact, I loved placing my babies into my little brother's baby swing. This way, I could be like my Mom who had just given birth to my brother.

Well, as I continued playing with the baby swing, I heard this strange noise fill the room. I turned my head to the right of me, and saw the sky turn the strangest shade of green. Along with this, I watched as heavy rain poured in like a waterfall through the open window. Wind blew the rain in through the open window horizontally, and I could not see the neighbors that were situated at the bottom of a hill behind our house.

My Dad noticed what was happening, and ran like mad from the kitchen to the living room to close the window. The rain was still pouring so hard, it took on a silver like look. Even the sky got hard to see at points!

This strange shade of green looked like someone had blended grayish-blue with a creamy yellow. When you blend those two colors together, you can get a putrid pea grayish-green shade. I even recall seeing dark green swirls within the clouds. As I looked more toward the horizon, these green swirls seem to gather up into a bulge that was darker than any other part of the
sky.

As the storm moved on, I could see more white clouds starting to fill the sky. First these white clouds moved in from the west, replacing the green clouds as the storm moved to the east. Then these white clouds seemed to make the greener clouds look lighter. The strangest thing I must point out though is how weird the edge of the green clouds looked while taking on a razor sharp straight edge appearance. This split look had made it impossible for the green and white clouds to mix, which seemed to reveal an apparent dry line effect.

I happened to get a good look at this sky formation because I was standing out in the rain, holding the door open for my Grandparents after they arrived home from shopping. They had arms full of groceries which needed to be brought inside rather quickly. This was due to the fact that large raindrops continued to fall.

So, you might be asking, was there a tornado in that storm? The answer is, I don't really know for sure. When I've told this story to friends of mine over the years, they seem to think that a tornado hit close by to me. I can not confirm or deny this claim. All I know is what I saw, felt and experienced.

The Tornado That Didn't Take Place

Now we will jump ahead to another strange close encounter I had with a tornado. Back in the late summer of 1985, we experienced the storm of storms. This event would break a six week heat wave that crippled the eastern United States with high temperatures and severe drought.

The date was Tuesday, September 9, 1985. I had come home from school like any other day. The only difference was, after I arrived home, the weather began to change.

I could sense that something was wrong, like the feeling of pending danger. We new that a storm was coming, but we were unable to follow it's progress after losing our cable connection. There's nothing quite like feeling helpless in a situation like that, especially since I could sense the approach of a tornado.

A few minutes later, I looked up at the sky and saw something that frightened me greatly! The leading cloud edge of this approaching storm took on a bulging appearance. These bulges had shown as this grayish emerald green color. I was sure then that a tornado was bound to happen.

As the storm moved closer, the emerald green clouds gave way to grayish ones. Once this occurred, the entire sky filled up with constant flashes of blue lightning. The weird thing was that this lightning had not been accompanied by thunder. I had read somewhere that lightning without thunder often meant that a tornado was present.

Along with the eerie blue lightning came a huge wall of rain. This rain was so heavy that I could not see the neighbor's behind our house. This rainfall took on the same appearance as the pea green sky storm I experienced as a youngster. Unlike that storm with the pea green sky though, I don't recall any wind blowing. Regardless of this fact, I'm sure a tornado hit somewhere close to us.

Well, after the storm was over, we turned on the news to find out what had happened. To my utter surprise, we heard that no tornado had taken place. According to the National Weather Service, the damage done was caused by straight line winds. This particular damage area was about a mile from where I lived at that time.

In spite of this NWS ruling, I will always wonder if a tornado happened in that storm. I say this because of the heavy rainfall and the silent blue lightning. My theory is that a tornado started to form, and then when it got close to us, began to fall apart. This would have still left behind the microburst that created the damage in question.

Here's The Closest Encounter Yet!

Please allow me to now share with you about my closest tornado encounter to date! This particular experience became my piece of what ended up being one of Central Florida's deadliest tornado outbreaks thus far. Out of these four encounters, this one scared me the most.

It was February 22, 1998, and we were expected to see some kind of severe weather that day. At first, the weather was expected to arrive by mid afternoon. However, the cold front expected to bring these storms to our area had stalled out over North Florida, causing the storms to build from the heating of the day.

At first, the Storm Prediction Center had placed us under one tornado watch, which yielded no real severe weather. By early evening, we were beginning to think that these storms were not ever going to arrive. Unfortunately, by 9 p.m. that Sunday evening, we were back under another tornado watch. This concerned us, because this line of severe storms was taking on more of a bow echo appearance as the day progressed.

By 11:00 p.m., we were beginning to see the squall line move in closer to our location. As it did, tornado warnings started to be issued throughout Central Florida. First, we started following tornadoes coming up from the Kissemmee area, moving into Orange County. From there, we listened as the weather service kept issuing tornado warnings for Seminole and Volusia Counties.

When the squall line approached Seminole County, we became rather nervous. This is because Sanford/Lake Mary, the area my family and I live in, was the next target for these tornadoes. The radio announcer had stated that a tornado had touched down on Lake Mary BLVD., which is where my neighborhood is located.

My house does not have a basement, so my brother and I sat huddled in my bedroom closet Before we knew it, thunder was rumbling to our north and west. This created within us a great deal of fear for which we could not shake. What would we do if a tornado actually hit? How would we really handle the situation?

By the time we began to see this line of storms, it was well past midnight. I think it was closer to 1 a.m. or something. I wasn't really sure at that point. All I knew was that things turned real weird, really fast.

Like I stated earlier, we started out hearing thunder off in the distance. Then, as the storm got closer, the sound of the rain and thunder disappeared. As the thunder faded away, it was replaced with an eerie silence. Following the silence was this strange swishing and tearing sound that was accompanied by a hissing noise.

This hissing sound wasn't around long, but the swishing and tearing noise lingered. My brother could see flashes of silent lightning embedded within this storm, creating a wall of blue-green light that was constantly flashing. We seemed to be surrounded as the massive element continued to hang overhead.

While this ordeal was occurring, I began to notice that the room around us grew silent. I could no longer hear the television set coming from the living room, and the bedroom seemed to be unusually still. It was not a peaceful stillness, it felt more like being inside of a vacuum tube. It just seemed as if everything stopped, and that the world had dropped us off somewhere in the twi-light zone.

At this point, my brother and I began to shake and tremble. The only thing I knew to do was to pray. So, I grabbed my brother's hands and did just that! After all, we were thinking the worst at that point. What else could we do!

Before we knew it, the swishing sound was replaced with the rain and thunder. We rejoiced over the fact that the strangeness was behind us. All we could do at that point was to climb out of the closet and take a deep breath.

Once the storm left our location, it went to a neighborhood to our east. Those folks weren't so fortunate because some lost their lives when the tornado hit them. It was weird because once the storm left the area, the weather became so nice, that you wouldn't have known that a tornado was even there!

After everything was over, we spent all night listening to the news. I was so traumatized that I couldn't sleep. I couldn't believe what had happened and that I had survived it. What an unbelievable night for us all!

The next day, my parents went outside to assess what the tornado had done. Even though we did not sustain any damage, some strange things did occur. The tree out in front of our home had been stripped of all it's leaves. The top of the tree had been twisted around, as if someone had taken it and turned it around in a not. Twigs were left standing upright, embedded into the ground. If that wasn't all from a tornado, then what was it?

This particular tornado outbreak produced seven tornadoes. There were fourty-two persons that lost their lives that night, making that outbreak one of the deadliest in Central Florida history. A lack of Weather radios, along with the late hour, were the main culprits to why so many deaths occurred that night. From then on, there's been a campaign to encourage Central Floridians to use their NOAA radios, especially if severe weather is expected in the middle of the night.

I, to this day, am grateful to be alive, but feel guilty for having prayed that we'd be spared. For if I had not prayed, the souls to our east may not have died that night. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's how I feel!

Michelle Dyer is a Special Corespondent to Robin Storm and is a blind weather reporter.


Portable Imaging System Will Help Maximize Natural Disaster Response

Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a low-cost, high-resolution imaging system that can be attached to a helicopter to create a complete and detailed picture of an area devastated by a hurricane or other natural disaster. The resulting visual information can be used to estimate the number of storm refugees and assess the need for health and humanitarian services.

Aid organizations currently don’t have a quick and accurate way to determine how many people need assistance. Satellites can collect images of areas affected by a natural disaster, but there are dissemination restrictions and cloud cover can prevent collection of images.

“Without a real-time map, it’s very hard to do population estimates and demographic estimates to figure out where people are, how they’re moving, how they’re spaced out and even how many people you have on the ground,” said Benjamin Sklaver, a project officer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch. “This technology does not exist currently, so GTRI’s imaging system is really an innovative project.”

The imaging system was developed with funding from the CDC, and agency officials would like to begin using this device as soon as possible. After responding to the recent devastation caused by Hurricanes Hanna and Ike, the CDC asked GTRI to accelerate delivery of the imaging device for use during the 2008 hurricane season.

“We plan to package the system for use on Coast Guard UH-60J Black Hawk helicopters, which were among the first to fly over Haiti following Hanna’s devastation,” said David Price, a GTRI senior research technologist.

The imaging system – designed by Price and senior research engineer Gary Gray – is called the “Mini ModPOD,” which stands for “Miniature Modular Photographic Observation Device.” It consists of an off-the-shelf Canon Digital Rebel XTi digital camera, a global positioning system receiver, a small circuit board that uploads mission parameters, and an inertial measurement unit that measures the aircraft’s rate of acceleration and changes in rotational attributes, including pitch, roll and yaw. The images collected from the system can be stitched together to create a complete picture of the affected area.

The research team has tested the device on several flights, selecting areas with large populations of people likely to be outdoors.

“During the first test flight, we wanted to test the clarity and resolution of the images collected during the run, and we were very pleased,” said Price. “We could see tennis balls on the ground and people reading books at outdoor tables. This was sufficient detail to allow accurate counting the number of people in an area.”

After the first flight, the researchers reduced the weight of the device and developed a more accurate geo-referencing capability, which allowed the physical location of the scenes shown in each photograph to be determined with precision. With the modifications made, the researchers went for a second flight test in July.

The research group selected a rectangular zone of interest and loaded the latitude and longitude coordinates of the zone into the system from a USB drive. As soon as the helicopter flew into the zone, the camera began snapping pictures. The electronics were set to measure the speed of the aircraft so that each photo overlapped 60 percent of the preceding photo, making it easier to stitch together the photos to create a complete picture. The pilot made two passes, at altitudes of 500 and 1,000 feet above ground level.

“This test flight was successful in confirming the Mini ModPOD’s ability to activate the camera within the zone of interest. The resulting photos were extremely sharp and clear – they were free of any vibration or motion effects,” added Price.

The photos were successfully matched to the flight data, which enabled the CDC to adjust them for geospatial reference. However, due to a software glitch, they were not overlapped as planned. The researchers made a small adjustment to the software and completed a third a third test flight in August.

“This flight resulted in images that were 60 percent overlapped, enabling CDC engineers to build a high-resolution mosaic image,” noted Price. “Individuals on the ground were easily distinguishable as people separate from other objects.”

The imaging system will also be available to the CDC and other agencies, such as the American Red Cross, to count people in refugee camps in order to plan for health and humanitarian services.

The research described in this article was supported by cooperative agreement #U38 EH000363 from the CDC. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC.

MARITIME NOTE

Maritime groups: Icebreakers needed on Great Lakes

MILWAUKEE -- Several maritime groups say shipping on the Great Lakes could be disrupted this winter because of a shortage of U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers.

Lake Michigan covers 22,300 square miles, with more than 1,640 miles of shore in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.In Wisconsin, there's only one Coast Guard icebreaker to help vessels on the lake.Port of Green Bay director Dean Haen says mechanical problems have taken that ship out of service, and there have been times when it was reassigned elsewhere. That leaves the Green Bay port and others in Wisconsin without any icebreaker.Shipping industry representatives say two more icebreakers are needed _ one on Lake Michigan and one assigned to Duluth, Minn., for service on Lake Superior


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