Earthquake
 

I've been seeing reports on the earthquake that struck Haiti & the Dominican republic. This is terrible and I have been worried sick. Does anyone know if this affected the cigar factories in the DR?

Well I just found out how bad it is & I regret my earlier joke. They are reporting the capitol is destroyed and over 100,000 feared dead. Hey not even I am this callous of a bastard. Thoughts & prayers out to those affected

It is absolutely tragic what happened in Haiti. Thousands need medical care which they are unable to obtain. Many wait to be pulled from ruins of buildings, but rescuers may not be able to reach them in time and there are shortages of safe drinking water and food. It is feared that many people will become ill due to the lack of safe water and through breathing in the dust from the rubble. :(

Unbelievably bad situation. Better hit a charity... we're going Red Cross if anyone has another option post it.

A co-worker and his wife have been sponsoring a child in Port-Au-Prince, last I heard they have no news of what has happened to the child or family. Its a very heart wrenching situation.

In addition to giving blood and donating to the Red Cross, I've found

World Food Programme

UNICEF

Salvation Army

It's worse than I could possibly imagine... pictures from Boston.com

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. This has destroyed what little they had.

Looking at those pictures, I'm struck by the lack of rebar poking out of the chunks of concrete. I know they are poor, and building practices are different all over the world and throughout the years, but I thought rebar was pretty standard when making stuff out of concrete. Concrete just isn't strong enough when it isn't reinforced internally with metal bar. They didn't have a chance.

It's so horrible and sad. My heart wrenches every time I hear a new report. The poorest country in the world experiences the worst natural disaster in terms of devastation ever...it's impossible to really fathom. :(

How unbelievably sad.

Doctors without Borders gets my dinero.

It makes me want to cry. Those poor people already had plenty of suffering to go around and now this. I'm donating to my church fund and to Oxfam.

Sent what little I could to my church. My brother is on his way there tomorrow to help out.

I wish I had the flexability to go.

In the mean time try this:
http://www.ksbitv.com/news/81521772.html

I hope help gets there soon

You're right. I noticed the same thing, last time I poured a concrete wall the rebar cost more than the concrete and insulated forms combined.

That country is poorer than poor. I hope the aid isn't looted by gangs. That would suck.

ditto
They probably would have to import it making it even more expensive.

This is a particularly financially tight time for me, but I'm gonna come up with $10 at a minimum. Every little bit helps, right?

I think I'm going with the Red Cross. This whole country has effectively been leveled. It's just horrific to see.

Wow. Text 90999. I heard about this in a couple places, and wanted to check it out, so I found this article.

I read an article yesterday which hinted that building codes there are just not enforced for whatever reason. I can't image a concrete code that doesn't require steel rebar. It could hold against idealistic pure compression alright but once put into tension, which is impossible to avoid as well, the concrete loses about 10 times its strength.

Listed among fallen buildings was Citigroup's new (3 year old?) bank building. That would have been to superior standards.

Appreciate the lesson. Haiti has not had a serious quake in 200 years. The North American and Caribbean plates meet there. About 11 years ago, geologists warned that tremendous pressures had concentrated in this region. Nobody was building for a quake of that magnitude. 200 years and nobody wanted to know.

The New Madrid quake is also overdue. That Missouri quake was the most violent in American history. So the new TN stadium was built without any earthquake protection - to cut costs.

It's not just Haiti. Central USA is ripe for the same problem where everything is built using standard construction. That earthquake typically occurs every 100 years. Is decades overdue.

How serious is this Haiti quake? Well, a 7.0 tremor was followed by at least 42 aftershocks - everyone registering 4+ and 5+ on the Richter scale. That much energy was ready to go. Even the new Citibank building that used standard reinforced concrete techniques completely pancaked - all floors. Even Haiti's 100 year old presidential palace did not disintegrate that completely.

All the reporting is about how much money is being poured into aid. For one, stfu and just send people with crates of water, buckets of drugs and earthquake know-how. I don't care what is costs. I don't care what you label me. Those are real people.

The airport is overwhelmed. Planes full of aid are circling and then flying away to land on other nearby islands because the single runway airport can't handle them. The control tower isn't working and the terminal is heavily damaged. There's no room to park multiple planes once they land.

The seaport is damaged as well.

Guess we need to send boats with aid. Big boats with lotso little boats that can land on the beaches, ect, to ferret stuff and people back and forth.

The money is to pay for stuff that's already on the way, and the years of aid they'll need in the future. It's important the companies scrambling to put all the shit together are reassured they'll get paid eventually, and not have to worry about being bankrupted.

I was surprised when I went to my employer's internal website, to donate by payroll deduction.
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami = $1 million, plus 100% matching of all employee donations.
Haiti = $50k, plus no matching.

There are so many people/groups collecting, I worry how much will be siphoned off, or just plain stolen? :(

I'm not saying they don't need money, I'm saying the money is not the most important thing to be reporting on. Tell me to send money then show me people getting help, or not getting help, not a groomed clean presenter telling me how much money the government has promised and how that compares to other governments and other disaster. as I switched channels it was all about the money -grand totals, not that more is needed. :(

Google Earth has overlays that you can install in that program so you can see the latest data from satellite imagery. Each one of these red dot can be clicked on to read details on what it is. Most are collapsed buildings.

You know, this is a good reminder. When the shit hits the fan, whether bum fuck Haiti, or Peoria, Illinois, you best be prepared to take care of yourself, at least survive, for a week or more. It takes that long for governments and large organizations to get up to speed.:eyebrow:

too right.

That's true in most cases, but if all your supplies are at the bottom of a pile of rubble, it doesn't help you too much.

Still, there's stuff you can make sure you know - and maybe you can have more than one emergency base

That's why all my supplies are up in trees.


just sayin.

Actually, it'll keep you busy digging for them, instead of just standing around.:blush:
Seriously though, how and where you stash your emergency gear, takes some thought.

I recently bought an emergency radio from the Red Cross when they were on campus for a safety event. It has a flashlight, a radio, of course, and a plug for cell phone charging. It works with a little crank.

But I've never really thought about being in an emergency situation. I think I should have, at least, some water and canned goods somewhere. My bare cabinets wouldn't get me far in an emergency.

Yeah. :right:

So what do you do if you're so poor you can't feed your family today, let alone for some unspecified week in the future?

Are you saying that, since poor people can't be prepared for natural disaster, none of us should be? :confused:

I don't think Bruce was saying these folks should have been prepared, I think he was saying that those of us who can be prepared should think about it.

You die... bubye.

Don't forget any pets you may have either. I have a stash of canned foods for my cats just in case.

PS Although I can't really imagine any natural disaster happening in the 4 Corners. We don't rest on any fault zones; a hurricane would never make it this far inland; We are on top of a mesa surrounded by desert, so floods are out. It would have to be a freak snowstorm that went on for days or the Navajos finally getting fed up and going for seccesion.

That's exactly how I read his statement -- it's their own fault if they don't have supplies to ride out this disaster.

See?

No dummy, I wasn't talking about them, I was talking about us. If you have an internet connection, you can damn well afford to make some preparations for an emergency where you have to be self sufficient for a week or more. :p

And if we stock some extra, we might be able to help a neighbor. Many of my neighbors are old folks on fixed incomes.

You're all set then. With all those old folks around, you can just steal their shit while they're in the bathroom... unless they've got flowmax or something.;)

Nooo, they're all so sweet and friendly! :)

Big boats are out - the port is unusable. The US military is trying to send stuff in using amphibious vehicles and helicopters.

Are you saving them to be your survival rations? Yum, yum, yum?

You know pretty lovely Yellowstone? That awesome tourist attraction with the really neat mud pools and geysers?

Its a super volcano. HUGE well of lava storing up underneath. If that thing blows (or any of the other super volcanos around the world blow), we're all pretty well fucked. If Yellowstone blows, the North American continent is especially fucked. I believe Yellowstone is very past-due on its regular eruption.

Oh yes, Badda-Boom... Big Badda-Boom. :mg:

Huh? I had no idea! What about Jellystone, is Jellystone safe?

Better than gallstones, but not safe, no. :headshake

Last April, the US Navy's hospital ship USNS Comfort spent 11 days in Haiti as part of its 2009 humanitarian aid tour of Latin America. While in Haiti, they treated 6,731 patients and performed 161 surgeries. At the beginning of this week, they were in a state of reduced operations in Baltimore harbor. They normally need 5 days to prepare to ship out. They got the order on Wednesday, will be ready to leave tomorrow morning, and should be in Haiti on Thursday. When they get there, they will probably anchor off the coast, and let helicopters bring patients to them.

The Comfort started life as an oil tanker in the 1970s, and was converted to a hospital ship in 1987. She has beds for 1000 patients.

Around a week and a half from the earthquake until she's on site, but for the people she will treat, Comfort will be very good to see again.

HA HA HA Bruce beat me to it - nifty site there eh -

A family member thinks I'm insane because I've got GoBags stashed at different locations (Family, friends, work) around the city. At home I've got sufficient supplies to keep the 4 of us rolling along for more than a month. While we can't prepare for every possibility, my family does have a basic gameplan in case of some emergencies.

If power and communications are lost during working hours, who goes where? Who goes for the kids? How? If we can't reach the house, where do we meet? If the whole valley is jacked, where do we go?



I know I will probably never use any of what I've prepared but I seriously doubt I'll be on my deathbed and regret having wasted time and energy on the preparations.

Fuckin' A, locked and loaded. :thumb:

Eh, I'm not a complete nutter living in a shack in the woods, but I would like at least a fighting chance at keeping my family alive if the shit ever really hits the fan.

and well, to tell the truth, some of the things I've got are a hell of a lot of fun to play with .

From the link - Seems like they have their own tw :rolleyes:

No, we just share our TW with the world. That is the real reason the world hates us. Bush was a minor annoyance in comparison.

Good for you, Lookout. I'm sure your family is grateful for your planning and prepwork.

I guess that's where I fail then -- I'd rather be dead if the shit hits the fan. The only reason I'm still alive is I can't think of anything else to do. :yelsick:

dead doesn't bother me. starving to death bothers me. death from dehydration bothers me. having some dipshit with a gun dictating the rules to me bothers me. I can plan and prepare to hold those dangers off.

A building falling on me? Eh, whatever, death isn't that big a deal.

I think I need glasses or more sleep.

I'm same as you Pie. My emergency plan for emergencies will be a gun with 1 bullet. Maybe I should hoard prescription painkillers too, just incase I mess up with the gun.