BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
It would be nice to hear some real solutions to our problems in America.
A society works great when you have ideas presented from all around, unfortunately the conservatives haven't produced any REAL solutions in years.
It would be nice to hear some real solutions to our problems in America.
^ I thought about posting a thread about that, but there's not really anything to "discuss." The death toll is currently at 329 and they're still going through wreckage, thousands have been hospitalized as well. It's horrible.
It could be worth discussing why there aren't better building standards: mandatory safe-rooms, impact-resistant windows, 100+mph shingles/roofing, hurricane ties on the rafters, etc.
That gets a little wonky, but is in my industry.
Still, every house that gets rebuilt will be essentially the same as it was, and therefore subject to damage/destruction again.
Very sad. Unbelievable death toll.
deep said:you think you had it bad
He is in Alabama now and look what he is leaving behind.
From what I heard, the wind speeds of these twisters were unheard of. 350 miles per hour and so on. Would the building codes have made much of a difference at that point?
From what I've read, the resistance to making such changes is mostly based on A) the extraordinarily localized nature of tornado damage and B) at the same time, the enormity of the area of the country within which they're likely to occur. Floods occur in known floodplains, earthquakes occur along known faultlines, hurricanes are somewhat more comparable to tornadoes but threaten a much smaller area of the country (though at the same time they reliably cause damage across most of the storm's area, when coming ashore). So, if you're comparing a proposed new housing development in a tornado-prone area with one in a flood-prone, quake-prone, or hurricane-prone area, the chances of that specific site getting hit by a tornado within any given time period are much, much lower than the corresponding chances at the other sites. Which has made Tornado Alley and Dixie Alley municipalities very reluctant to enact costly tornado safety building codes. FEMA has a quiet (read: underfunded) campaign to encourage individual homeowners in those regions to add on storm shelters/safe rooms, but they do cost several thousand dollars, so most people are going to go "Well, what are the chances really?" and pass on it.Generally in the U.S., we have no problem making "100 Year" flood codes, but for some reason we are way behind in hurricane and tornado building codes, especially in residential.
From what I've read, the resistance to making such changes is mostly based on A) the extraordinarily localized nature of tornado damage and B) at the same time, the enormity of the area of the country within which they're likely to occur. Floods occur in known floodplains, earthquakes occur along known faultlines, hurricanes are somewhat more comparable to tornadoes but threaten a much smaller area of the country (though at the same time they reliably cause damage across most of the storm's area, when coming ashore). So, if you're comparing a proposed new housing development in a tornado-prone area with one in a flood-prone, quake-prone, or hurricane-prone area, the chances of that specific site getting hit by a tornado within any given time period are much, much lower than the corresponding chances at the other sites. Which has made Tornado Alley and Dixie Alley municipalities very reluctant to enact costly tornado safety building codes. FEMA has a quiet (read: underfunded) campaign to encourage individual homeowners in those regions to add on storm shelters/safe rooms, but they do cost several thousand dollars, so most people are going to go "Well, what are the chances really?" and pass on it.
Not saying that reasoning is adequate, especially at a time like this, but...
Are there, in fact, any municipalities in the US which actually have tornado safety building codes?
*sigh* Yeah...we've got that in southern Indiana too, don't know whether there'll be a federal disaster declaration this time around but there are multiple local ones, National Guard everywhere sandbagging and as you've probably read, the Army Corps will most likely blow up the levee at the Ohio-Mississippi convergence in the next couple days to protect towns just upriver. To be honest I don't know much about the role of building codes in all that, though.The main reason I harp on this is because so often in the U.S. local lack of preparation and standards (and I point equally in my own backyard of Minnesota's flooding problem, too) end up costing the federal government because of "disaster area" declarations. And that, obviously, ends up costing all of us.
Where I grew up in MS there were still open sewers in several neighborhoods into the 1990s, so yeah, I can pretty much guarantee you no such standards exist there. Then again, when we're talking suburbs of Birmingham or Tuscaloosa like got flattened last week, that's maybe a bit more surprising. There are so many people who live in mobile homes or basically shacks in the Deep South, and if anything the frequency of tornadoes and strong windstorms (and nearer the coast, hurricanes) is seen by many as a disincentive to sink much money into their homes, since you know one strong storm would total it anyway.Honestly, from what I've read, the Southeast could benefit from ANY improvement in codes. Many (most?) locales there don't have insulation standards or double-glazed window standards.
afta read'n thru sum of dis jenk i be leff wonder'n how much of dis critisism hav ta do wit da way obomba b run'n da cuntry n how much is just hat'n dat we hav a black man b run'n da cuntry???
afta read'n thru sum of dis jenk i be leff wonder'n how much of dis critisism hav ta do wit da way obomba b run'n da cuntry n how much is just hat'n dat we hav a black man b run'n da cuntry???
Obama avoided a plunge into the second Great Depression. He saved the auto industry. His bank bailout may make a profit. He has withdrawn most troops from Iraq. He has ended the ban on openly gay servicemembers. He has appointed two women to the Supreme Court. He muscled universal healthcare through the Congress into law. He ended torture as the law of the land.
Abroad, since his Cairo speech, democratic revolution after revolution has occurred. From Tehran to Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, the march of freedom George W Bush imagined has actually swept the region under his successor. Where Obama has failed - Israel/Palestine - he may still prevail.
But the capture and killing of bin Laden eclipses these. It does two things instantly: it tells us that an American named Barack Hussein Obama ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. A man who symbolizes an integrative, tolerant, multicultural future defeated the symbol of a twisted, dark, fundamentalist past. A man who represents the human continuum of the developing and developed worlds defeated a man who seeks only one world and Shariah rule over all of it. And it also tells those who have been bombarded with lies and rumors and disgusting smears that this president, whatever they have been told, is no weakling, no terror-lover, no alien. He is as American as every new passport holder and every ancient Southern or Yankee family.
He found and killed the man Red and Blue America equally wanted found and captured or killed. And in that specific fact, a certain narrative - the narrative the degenerate right has been trying to fix to him for years - must now die. And it must die in the heart of the red states as well as in the mind of the blue ones.
Far from being somehow un-American, this president is only conceivable in America. Which makes this moment so rich with meaning and justice and, yes, hope.
The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast
something liberals "disappointed" because Obama isn't quite the Messiah should probably be reminded of:
well... i think obama being credited for the arab spring is a bit like reagan being credited for the fall of communism... yea he did help push the domino over a bit, but they were already about to topple as it is.