DANGER KEEP OFF

Pier closed

We knew this. We just wanted to see it for ourselves. 

It's a shame, too. It was a very nice pier and the fishing was good.

The lady I talked with a while back at the Hancock Co. Sheriff's Office blamed it on the Feds. 

It shouldn't take a year to re-open a pier damaged by a hurricane that made labdfall with 80mph winds. I get there was a significant storm surge, but come on. It never used to take a year to reopen a pier that's till standing-- as you can plainly see (click to zoom). 

Sandy

However, after Sandy crosses Jamaica and Cuba, things get really interesting — and dangerous — because the atmospheric setup is uniquely conducive for Sandy to become a bizarre and, possibly, extremely destructive hybrid storm, injecting its tropical moisture, warm core, and low barometric pressure into a dynamic atmospheric situation involving a diving upper-level trough, driven by the jet stream, and the resulting clash between warm and very cold air. We could end up with a “subtropical hurricane” — a category that isn’t even supposed to be able to exist — bashing the U.S. East Coast with fierce wind, rain and surge, while its back side produces extremely heavy snow over the northern Appalachians. It would be like a nor’easter on steroids.

[Emphasis in original]

"A nor'easter on steroids" does not sound delightful.

Read the rest here.

September 16, 1999: Floyd

Today we remember Hurricane Floyd. Floyd precipitated the "Flood of the Century" in Eastern North Carolina. Wikipedia has a skinny but accurate entry on Floyd, its record-breaking rainfall, and subsequent flooding. Every river basin in Eastern North Carolina exceeded its 500 year flood level! 

East Carolina University has a nice site about Floyd, much Greenville specific information and images. 

From ECU's web site on Floyd

We were there.  Schools in Pitt County were closed for over two weeks-- many were used as shelters, including Ayden Middle School which Miss M attended. When school finally resumed, Miss M's Language Arts teacher had her students write short essays about their experiences.  She compiled and printed the essays in a booklet titled, "Memories of the Flood September 1999." They are really quite something.

Miss M's was titled "The Devastation of Hurricane Floyd." Some snippets from her 2 1/2 page essay below.

And Now for Something Really Unappetizing

"The stench is overwhelming," Waveland Mayor David Garcia said.

"They can blow up like a basketball and explode," he said.

"They" are dead nutria which drowned in the Louisiana gulf marshes during Hurricane Issac and are now washing up on the Mississippi gulf coast. Officials estimate there are at least 16,000.

I heard on Mississippi SuperTalk that county cleanup crews are ill-equipped for the job-- many have gotten ill trying to do their jobs. So we called in the Feds.

A federal contractor, U.S. Environmental Services, will dump the bodies in a landfill rated to take household garbage.

You know what nutria are, right? Large, semi-aquatic, herbivorous rodents that can tear up commercial catfish ponds.

Keeping an Eye on The Weather / UPDATE

Note to self: Light from behind subjects = bad photo

It's raining.

A few semi-random thoughts.

#1

In Picayune, Mississippi Gregory Parker has died. The Weather Channel reports he was in his car when a tree fell on it. Folks at TWC then go on to lecture: Stay inside! Don't go out, you don't have to! Shut up.

[County coroner] Turnage says Parker had gone out to tow a pickup truck that was stuck in a ditch on Mississippi Highway 43 North and abandoned by its driver. He says Parker decided it was too muddy and the wind was too strong to attempt the tow.

Mr. Parker was doing his job. I'll never know who called him to go out for the stuck truck-- the local stories just rehash what's above. But you know what? If you're going to report on the circumstances of a 62 year old man's death, have the decency to get the facts straight.

Hurricane

Delicate, dry drink for the evening

• Cocktail glass
• Mixing glass

3/4 ounce bourbon

3/4 ounce gin

3/4 ounce peppermint flavored liqueur

Stir all ingredients together, with ice, in the mixing glass and strain into the glass

From Peter Bohrmann The Bartender's Guide (2001)

Because you can never have too many copies of the Declaration of Independence,

I bought two more yesterday.

$4.63 to the children; $0.32 to the state

I love The Palmer House Thrift Store where every penny I spend except those that go to the Sovereign State of Mississippi goes to The Palmer Home for Children in Columbus, Mississippi. I buy a lot of books there.

Palmer Home for Children is today an independent institution governed by an unpaid, volunteer Board of Directors. But we are proud of our Presbyterian heritage and maintain close ties with Presbyterian and other churches as well as interested friends concerned about family breakup and the plight of fatherless children.

[Incidentally, according to Off the Beaten Path Mississippi,  Mississippians give more per capital to charity than citizens of any other state. I tried to verify this independently but was not able to do so. It does make sense, though, given Mississippians' acquaintance with tornadoes and hurricanes, and our tendency to go to church. As my father would often say, "There but for the Grace of God go I."

Oh look. It's raining.]

The Palmer Thrift Store was having a 1/2 price sale on books! And yes, that is Ronald Regan who once said,

... On my way to the hall, a fellow recognized me and asked what I was doing in Las Vegas.... I told him what I was here for, and he said, "What are a bunch of farmers doing in Las Vegas?" I couldn't resist. I said, "Buster, they are in a business that makes a Las Vegas crap table look like a guaranteed annual income!" --Remarks to state officers of the Future Farmers of America, July 29, 1987

From The Quotable Ronald Regan compiled and edited by Peter Hannaford, copyright 1998 published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. It's for Mr. Big Food's bookshelf.

Lydia Pickham is Her Name (1949) is not a work of fiction! 

A bit of actual web logging

UPDATE: Second best commercial ever (next to the September 11th superbowl ad from Bud).

Weather, not Climate

... as of today it has been 2,226 days since the last major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) hit the US mainland.  Unless a big hurricane hits this winter, it means we are on track to break a 100 year record for the longest gap between major hurricanes hitting the coast.  (The last Big Calm was between 1900 and 1906.)

h/t Instapundit

Occupy the Kitchen by mississippiveggie (plus a soup recipe at the end)

...  Have you noticed that the kitchen is the black hole of every party?  Some sort of old-timey hearth instinct draws people there and then, as they cross doorway, they stop in space and time, lurking at the event horizon.  Thus the kitchen becomes crowded with aimless guests.  They half-heartedly offer to help.  Or try to help but muddle along until they’re more of an insurance liability.  It’s an Occupy the Kitchen movement.  

Know your priorities and act without hesitation at Bookworm Room

A MARINE was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day he shocked the class when he came in, looked to the ceiling, and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God I’m still waiting.”

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the MARINE ...