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So, Tropical Stormy Enough For You? (Page 3)
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ghporter  (op)
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Oct 4, 2017, 09:03 PM
 
The biggest problem with getting things to the folks in Puerto Rico that need them is that their infrastructure has been pretty well wrecked. Cruise lines have been bringing in stuff for several days now. Now that port facilities are at least operational, the stuff can be offloaded. Now, how many truck drivers are available, and how many trucks/trailers are drivable? And how passable are roads?

I think the real issue is that FEMA is a slow-moving government agency that can't react quickly. And our POTUS spends too much time tweeting and not enough directing the military to head in there with helicopters and start moving supplies from where they sit on the docks to where people need them.

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Oct 5, 2017, 09:15 AM
 
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Jawbone54
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Oct 7, 2017, 03:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by And.reg View Post
Get ready for Nate, New Orleans.
Some folks in the state are already freaking out.

I don't blame them.
     
ghporter  (op)
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Oct 7, 2017, 06:28 PM
 
Nate sure doesn't look pretty.

I don't think I'm the only one who's tired of these storms. Whether it's because of "climate change" or just that we were spared for a decade and now the storms look like Mother Nature has just saved them up, from my vantage point, we're going to be rebuilding a lot of cities, and it will take a very long time to do it.

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Cap'n Tightpants
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Oct 8, 2017, 06:29 PM
 
Nate's coming to rain on our parade.

Seriously, we were going to have a parade for indigenous peoples tomorrow and it looks like Nate's going to ruin it.

On a more serious note, if you're in the path stay safe.
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Chongo
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Oct 8, 2017, 09:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
Nate's coming to rain on our parade.

Seriously, we were going to have a parade for indigenous peoples tomorrow and it looks like Nate's going to ruin it.

On a more serious note, if you're in the path stay safe.
I could hear the rain this morning during the broadcast of the Mass from EWTN. (Irondale AL)
45/47
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 11, 2017, 12:05 PM
 
I still can't make head or tails of the situation in PR. I don't trust the media not to sensationalize it and I don't trust the administration not to pretend everything's under control when it's not. I don't think things are as dire for most Puerto Rican's as some of the citizens highlighted by the media but I also get the feeling this has been mismanaged from the get go and after Irma and Harvey the level of engagement has not been equal to its forebears.
     
subego
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Oct 11, 2017, 12:22 PM
 
Island logistics are an order of magnitude more difficult than CONUS logistics.

PR got ****ing flattened. The last time it got hit by a hurricane this strong was in 1928.

They've definitely screwed stuff up, but the response would appear disparate even if it was perfect.
     
reader50
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Oct 11, 2017, 12:52 PM
 
The Jones Act waiver only lasted 10 days - it's expired already. And the administration says it won't be renewed.

So what was the point in helping PR rebuild - deliver an emergency supply of toilet paper? It should have been waived for at least 90 days IMO.
     
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Oct 11, 2017, 12:53 PM
 
It's going to take a decade to recover from this fully, mother nature is much better at ****ing things up than humans are at putting things back together. All assets for getting things fixed are already in the pipe, but it's going to take untold man hours to do it.
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The Final Dakar
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Oct 11, 2017, 02:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
The Jones Act waiver only lasted 10 days - it's expired already. And the administration says it won't be renewed.

So what was the point in helping PR rebuild - deliver an emergency supply of toilet paper? It should have been waived for at least 90 days IMO.
...and forever, honestly. But yeah the effort was going to require more than 10 days
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 11, 2017, 07:25 PM
 
It stuff like this https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/sta...43002333761536
The EPA cites reports of Puerto Ricans “obtaining, or trying to obtain, drinking water from wells at hazardous waste “Superfund” sites”


You don't do this if you're getting help
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 12, 2017, 09:19 AM
 
Asshole threatened to stop PRs relief effort.
     
sek929
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Oct 12, 2017, 12:08 PM
 
I assume it was via a twitter rant that resembles something a 12 year old girl would say.
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 12, 2017, 12:22 PM
 
Correct
     
andi*pandi
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Oct 12, 2017, 12:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
I assume it was via a twitter rant that resembles something a 12 year old girl would say.
Hey, there are plenty of 12-year-old girls better qualified than Trump to be president!
     
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Oct 12, 2017, 02:55 PM
 
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The Final Dakar
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Oct 12, 2017, 03:16 PM
 
That's not what the government said.
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 28, 2017, 02:31 PM
 
https://www.buzzfeed.com/nidhiprakas...Jz#.bdREdXgk9d
The Puerto Rican government told BuzzFeed News Friday that it allowed 911 bodies to be cremated since Hurricane Maria made landfall, and that not one of them were physically examined by a government medical examiner to determine if it should be included in the official death toll.
Ortiz said that if the institute is not examining a potential hurricane victim, it's because the doctor, medic or district attorney who certified the death did not fill out paperwork to alert the institute that it could be a hurricane-related death. But again, the government does not have any clear criteria on what should be considered a hurricane related death and what should not.
It's such a mess down there we may never know how bad things were.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Oct 28, 2017, 08:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by And.reg View Post
What do you do if you're the PR government over the following 5 years?
Build only stuff thats hurricane proof.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego
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Oct 28, 2017, 11:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
https://www.buzzfeed.com/nidhiprakas...Jz#.bdREdXgk9d

It's such a mess down there we may never know how bad things were.
Some numbers.

Population of Puerto Rico: 3,411,000
Death rate: 8.8 per 1,000
Average number of deaths per year: 30,000 (that's rounding down)
Average number of deaths per month: 2,500

In other words, in the time from Maria until now, literally thousands of people dying is business as usual.
     
Laminar
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Oct 29, 2017, 12:20 AM
 
But they'd typically be accounted for, right? Not just buried or cremated in a mass grave without any kind of identification or autopsy?
     
subego
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Oct 29, 2017, 01:01 AM
 
My layman understanding is only a small number of deaths are going to need the services of an M.E. under normal circumstances. If suddenly every death needed it, there wouldn't nearly be enough M.E.s to do it in a timely manner, nor enough facilities to store them in the meantime.

Now hit it all with a pin-sweeper.

The situation is going to require triage. Unidentified bodies should go higher on the list, but if it comes down to the options being cremation, or leaving it out in the tropics until an M.E. gets there, cremation is probably the best option.
     
reader50
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Oct 29, 2017, 01:49 AM
 
Some hurricane victims are certainly in those 911 cremated bodies:
Originally Posted by Buzzfeed story
The funeral home and crematorium directors BuzzFeed News spoke to over the past two weeks all said they've received no official guidance instructing them to send hurricane victims to the institute — and the government said they've sent no guidance to them.

Without guidance, different funeral home and crematorium directors told BuzzFeed News they had vastly different ideas of what they considered hurricane-related deaths. Some said they counted heart attacks and people who died for lack of oxygen because there was no power, while others said they counted those as "natural deaths."
I would count deaths due to power outage, which was caused by the hurricane. But heart attack because the important soccer game cut off when the power died -- maybe not. There should be a spectrum of how close an indirect cause must be to be hurricane-related.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Unidentified bodies should go higher on the list, but if it comes down to the options being cremation, or leaving it out in the tropics until an M.E. gets there, cremation is probably the best option.
This is an exceptionally good point. Last I heard, only 30% of Puerto Rico has power back. So there isn't much refrigeration. I'd imagine funeral homes are not priorities.
( Last edited by reader50; Oct 29, 2017 at 05:33 PM. Reason: updated power percentage)
     
subego
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Oct 29, 2017, 12:25 PM
 
Thank you.

My instincts tell me it's standard procedure in a situation like this to determine a final death toll by piecing together available records, rather than keep a running count.

There's opportunity for shenanigans here, but I'm not sure we're seeing them yet.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Oct 29, 2017, 01:30 PM
 
Surely the Shenanigans are in the Trump donor who got the rebuilding contract with the no audit clause in it?
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 30, 2017, 10:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Some numbers.

Population of Puerto Rico: 3,411,000
Death rate: 8.8 per 1,000
Average number of deaths per year: 30,000 (that's rounding down)
Average number of deaths per month: 2,500

In other words, in the time from Maria until now, literally thousands of people dying is business as usual.
That's a good point.

Then I realized a good amount probably evacuated to the main land. Plus it seems unlikely that lacking power and water wouldn't impact the death rate at all. That'd be a miracle.
     
subego
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Oct 30, 2017, 10:59 AM
 
All good points.

My overall argument is we shouldn't have to be debating this, because journalists are supposed to be taking into account the fairly obvious argument some jerk-off on the internet like myself can come up with after thinking about it for 10 minutes.

This is opposed to throwing a sliver of a data set at the wall and hoping our biases come up with a result which may or may not bear a glancing resemblance to the truth.
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 30, 2017, 11:12 AM
 
Your best argument is that it takes a while for the facts to get sorted in the aftermath. It's reasonable. Because of the media spotlight and it's unique situation I find myself more focused on the story than usual.
     
subego
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Oct 30, 2017, 11:36 AM
 
I think it's fair to be focused on the story because to what extent the Trump administration ****ed this shit up is a legit question. I'm merely questioning the extent to which they have successfully addressed the question.
     
The Final Dakar
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Nov 9, 2017, 07:00 PM
 
A bunch of PR lost power because one of the poles fixed by that shady company failed. Down to 18% with power ATM
     
The Final Dakar
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Dec 13, 2017, 09:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
It's such a mess down there we may never know how bad things were.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...eath-toll.html


...and there it is. I wasn't crazy.
     
The Final Dakar
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Aug 8, 2018, 10:35 PM
 
More official numbers
https://twitter.com/FrancesRobles/st...75472445939713
"Although the official death count from the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety was initially 64, the toll appears to be much higher. On June 13, the Government of Puerto Rico revealed that there were 1,427 more deaths in the four months after the hurricanes than normal"
That's pretty bad.
     
subego
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Aug 9, 2018, 09:29 PM
 
If I did the math right, during the month Katrina hit, in the Greater New Orleans area (half the population of Puerto Rico) there were over 6,000 more deaths than normal. There’s only data for that month because population dispersion afterwards mucks it up.

This tells me it could have been much, much worse.
     
subego
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Aug 9, 2018, 09:50 PM
 
Got a bad number in there. It’s closer to 5,800 deaths, and a third of the population of Puerto Rico.
     
Jawbone54
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Aug 16, 2018, 04:39 PM
 
I love New Orleans. The food is unbelievable, the architecture is unique, and the culture is friendly.

...but the entire city is built inside a land-bowl, governed by the Cajun mafia.
     
subego
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Aug 16, 2018, 04:49 PM
 
Unfortunately, I’ve only spent 6 hours there as part of a road trip to Florida as a kid.

I remember really liking it.
     
subego
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Aug 17, 2018, 02:12 AM
 
Edit: wrong thread
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The Final Dakar
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Aug 26, 2018, 08:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
If I did the math right, during the month Katrina hit, in the Greater New Orleans area (half the population of Puerto Rico) there were over 6,000 more deaths than normal. There’s only data for that month because population dispersion afterwards mucks it up.

This tells me it could have been much, much worse.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Got a bad number in there. It’s closer to 5,800 deaths, and a third of the population of Puerto Rico.
So, a bit of a double-edged sword here. I imagine New Orleans was bad because of the population density. NO got destroyed by Katrina. Was it as bad for PR? Seems like their trouble was rooted it being in a sprawling mess.
     
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Aug 26, 2018, 09:22 PM
 
I really have no interest exploring/vacationing in the SE part of the US, only if someone drags me kicking and screaming will I go. Just doesn't interest me. I'm sure that my mind will change when I actually and eventually will go, but for right now, I'm content in my own little world.
     
subego
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Aug 27, 2018, 12:18 AM
 
I recommend Savannah.

Key West is one of my favorite places, though that’s not typical of the region.
     
Jawbone54
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Aug 27, 2018, 10:53 AM
 
Destin, Florida
Austin
New Orleans

That's pretty much it. The Fayetteville/Bentonville, Arkansas area is actually a hidden gem, but only if you really enjoy hiking, kayaking, and hipster restaurants.
     
subego
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Aug 29, 2018, 05:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Got a bad number in there. It’s closer to 5,800 deaths, and a third of the population of Puerto Rico.
Even with my earlier correction, this massive disparity in numbers wasn’t sitting right, and I finally realized I really blew the math. The excess mortality for the New Orleans area that month was around 430.

Since my previous number was over three times the official total, I assumed indirect deaths weren’t included as a general policy. This was also mistaken. Double apologies for double ****up on my part.
     
ghporter  (op)
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Sep 2, 2018, 03:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I recommend Savannah.

Key West is one of my favorite places, though that’s not typical of the region.
Key West being "not typical" is a gross understatement. It's a great place to visit, in many ways much more fun than New Orleans' French Quarter. But it is indeed nothing like the rest of South Florida...by a long shot!

Florida is an odd sort of place. It is reputed to have more non-Florida born residents than natives. It is also reputed to have more New Yorkers than much of the state of New York...which kind of goes together. I have a cousin who lives in Miami, and in-laws in the Tampa area; it's like they live on different planets, even though they're not physically that far apart (just over 200 miles straight-line, but over 280 by road).

Another place to visit in the southeast is Charleston. It has history, great architecture, a real local culture, and it has plenty to see and do. Avoid mid-summer and the weather is usually great too.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
subego
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Sep 2, 2018, 05:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Key West being "not typical" is a gross understatement. It's a great place to visit, in many ways much more fun than New Orleans' French Quarter. But it is indeed nothing like the rest of South Florida...by a long shot!

Florida is an odd sort of place. It is reputed to have more non-Florida born residents than natives. It is also reputed to have more New Yorkers than much of the state of New York...which kind of goes together. I have a cousin who lives in Miami, and in-laws in the Tampa area; it's like they live on different planets, even though they're not physically that far apart (just over 200 miles straight-line, but over 280 by road).
I actually like the rest of Florida but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone, people enthusiastic about swamp critters excluded.

Miami isn’t bad, but it’s not like “oh my god, you have to go”, which is what I’d say about Key West.

From what I know of the French Quarter, Key West is like that only run by pirates.

Really stoned, naked pirates.
     
ghporter  (op)
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Sep 8, 2018, 09:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
From what I know of the French Quarter, Key West is like that only run by pirates.

Really stoned, naked pirates.
Yep. The French Quarter is run by a different sort of pirate, but they’re all interested in cashing in on people’s (usually completely made up) image of Boubon Street. Key West, on the other hand, has a secluded sort of feeling, and a history of being just plain weird. So stoned, naked pirates - at mid afternoon - fits just fine. After dark, it gets interesting...

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
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ghporter  (op)
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Sep 11, 2018, 07:47 PM
 
Both Carolinas, too. It looks like a conga line of storms, all with the same basic steering, though we may see that path move westward. If that happens, Georgia and the Atlantic coast of Florida are next in the crosshairs. Much farther than that, and the whole Gulf of Mexico is in danger.

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The Final Dakar
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Sep 12, 2018, 12:28 AM
 
https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/sta...12520024588290
BREAKING: What may be millions of water bottles. meant for victims of Hurricane Maria, have been sitting on a runway in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, since last year, according to @FEMA, which confirmed the news to me, late tonight, after pictures, posted today on social media, went viral.

     
 
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