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Basement Tornado Outbreak in April Fuels Awareness

Hoffer News Serivice
04.01.09


WATERTOWN, CT—Officials from the Sorta-National Weather Service issued a severe weather alert for all basements in New England Tuesday after a deadly new weather phenomenon ravaged scores of residential downstairs areas, leaving every other part of the houses completely untouched. The recently discovered targeted cyclones, known as basement tornadoes, tore through cellars all over the region, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. Meanwhile, dogs were crying pitifully while most cats slept through the entire episode.


Calling the recent devastation the worst indoor weather event in U.S. history, weather service director Dr. Wam Frunt said that millions of residents who have for years been taught to seek shelter from twisters by taking refuge in their homes will have to drastically adjust long-held assumptions about tornado safety and preparedness.


"If there is a violently rotating column of air in your basement, do not go downstairs," Frunt said. "Wait in an attic or at the top of a stairwell until the dryer stops. If possible, find shelter in a structure lacking any kind of subterranean open space at all, such as a mobile home." "Unless, of course, regular tornadoes are sighted in the area, in which case you should immediately get to your basement, provided you have one," Frunt added.


Meteorologists have measured the spiraling basement winds at speeds of up to 200 mph—powerful enough in some cases to drive a box of dryer sheets six inches into solid concrete. In all, the cyclones have caused hundreds of dollars in property damage by toppling kitty litter boxes, smashing jars of fruit preserves, and overturning ping-pong tables.


"Some people lost their entire basements," said Hartford-area relief worker Loof Lirpa, who personally observed a dozen rec rooms that were completely destroyed, and a half-dozen more that might have been destroyed, though it was difficult to say for sure. "Everything they had ever stored was suddenly lost. So much extra stuff gone to waste."


Using Doppler radar, interior satellites, baby-monitoring cams and computer models, researchers have determined that basement tornadoes form when warm dank air collides with a cool dry draft, creating a significant drop in pressure, and causing wind velocity to increase and whirl in a vortex of dust, debris, and cobwebs. Predicting where and when a basement tornado will strike is challenging, however, because they seem to jump from cellar to cellar by traveling through sump pumps.


"All we can say for certain is that unfinished basements are twice as likely to develop tornadoes," said Windie Furey, a controlled meteorogist at the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK. "Also, when residents leave their washing machines and dryers running at the same time it creates the ideal environment for tornadoes with the collision of warm dryer air with cold, damp washer air and because of the extra spinningness it causes in the air."


The NSPC has developed a scale for ranking the intensity of basement tornadoes with the lowest rating, B0, only causing mild shag-carpet disturbances, and the highest, B5, capable of destroying workbenches and water heaters. According to NSPC statistics, independent-minded siblings between the ages of 16 and 19 who always want to be alone are most likely to be injured by basement tornadoes. The second highest at-risk group is families huddling in basements waiting for normal tornadoes to pass.


The outbreak of basement tornadoes has also raised a slew of privacy issues, pitting so-called storm hunters against homeowners, since those who study the deadly new phenomenon say they must gain access to private residences to be able to set up their equipment and observe the storms. Angry residents have already forced dozens of researchers camping in their cellars out of their homes, and at least two have been shot at or violently assaulted for peering through basement windows.


While the Futile Emergency Management Agency and the SNWS have been working together to develop new nationwide evacuation guidelines, officials say it is a complicated process.
"Even if a storm warning goes into effect hours before a tornado strikes, we caution citizens against attempting to flee the area in automobiles, since this will dramatically increase their chances of being severely injured or killed by car tornadoes," FEMA administrator A. Dee Zaster said. "This could shape up to be the worst development in natural disasters since the 2003 spate of earthquakes that struck directly under McDonald's Golden Arches nationwide.

"We've always done it that way."

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the U.S. railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe and England for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. They were just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story...

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of the back end of a horse.

Bureaucracies live forever. . .

Growing Up With Mom

Growing up with my Mom was an amazing experience. She taught me a great deal and made the learning fun. I have mentioned in a previous post how we had a contest with each new Alistair MacLean mystery novel. Who could solve it first. It took me a while but I actually won a few.


But there were other things we did that taught me to observe, pay attention to detail and to think quick. There was the weekly "Perry Mason - Solve It First" game. For those who do not know - Perry Mason was a TV lawyer whose clients always appeared as guilty as sin but who were innocent. Mason had to prove the innocence of his client while bringing the real culprit to light. Each episode's plot is essentially the same: the first half of the show usually depicts the prospective murder victim as being deserving of homicide, often with Perry's client publicly threatening to kill the victim; the body is found (often by Perry and his investigator, Paul Drake, who through circumstance happen to stumble upon the body) surrounded by clues pointing to Perry's client. Perry's client is put on trial for murder, but Perry establishes his client's innocence by dramatically demonstrating the guilt of another character. The murderer nearly always breaks down and confesses to the crime in the courtroom, if not on the witness stand or in the arms of the bailiff, who blocks the murderer's effort to escape into the hallway. In the trial process, other malefactors (blackmailers, frauds, forgers, etc.) are frequently forced into confessions by Perry's relentless badgering just before he exposes the killer. At this point, it is common for the camera to zoom in on the faces of the potentially guilty (visibly uncomfortable in their seats) as Perry slowly but surely moves to the climactic identification of the real murderer, who confesses, often to the accompaniment of a kettledrum-laden orchestral score, followed by a fadeout to black, symbolizing the defeat and oblivion meted out by Perry Mason. In the ten years the show aired, he lost one case.


As we watched, the point was to figure out "whodunit". But there was more. Mom would ask such things as (after a car drove away, for example) "Was that a 2-door or 4-door?", "Did it take a left or right turn?", "What is Perry's phone number?" (MA 5-1190), "Where is his office?" (Brent Building Suite 904). Why do I still remember this stuff?!? LOL


We would watch such shows as "The Twilight Zone" and try to come up with different endings. Rod Serling was lucky he never met us!


But the most fun we ever had was with the telephone. If someone called and Mom answered and it was a wrong number looking for a male name she would hand the phone to me and say "Quick! Your name is George!" Or, if I answered and it was a wrong number looking for a female name I would hand the phone to Mom and say "Quick! Your name is Mary!" Whoever was not on the phone timed the one who was. The object was to keep the party talking as long as possible. Mom once kept someone going for 23 minutes before finally saying "Oh dear! I am not that Mary! You must have a wrong number!" My longest was 6 minutes.

That training paid off for me later in the Air Force. We were in our duty section just goofing around when the phone rang. I picked it up and said,


"Joe's Pizza Parlor - what kinda pie for you?"


"Do you know who this!?"


"Nope."


"This is Colonel Johnson speaking!"


"Do you know who this is, Colonel?"


"No! I do not!"


"Good!!"


and I hung up.

This wacky language of ours

Let's face it -- English is a crazy language!


There's no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.


English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.


We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.


And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices?


Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?


If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?


Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?


How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?


Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?
Have you ever run into someone who was discombobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?


You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.


English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all).


That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it!


(This essay has been attributed to Richard Lederer.)

Are You Smarter Than an 8th Grader??

8th Grade Final Exam from 1895

This is the eighth grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Grammar (Time, one hour)

Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.

Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.

Define verse, stanza and paragraph.

What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of do, lie, lay and run.

Define case. Illustrate each case.

What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.

Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)

Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.

A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?

If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs. What is it worth at 50 cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?

District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?

Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.

Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

What is the cost of 40 boards, 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?

Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.

What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?

Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.

Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.

Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

Show the territorial growth of the United States.

Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.

Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?

Orthography (Time, one hour)

What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?

What are elementary sounds? How classified?

What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, sub vocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?

Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.

Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.

Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.

Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi-, dis-, mis-, pre-, semi-, post-, non-, inter-, mono-, super-.

Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.

Use the following correctly in sentences: Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.

Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?

How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?

Describe the mountains of North America.

Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

Name and locate the principal trade centers of the United States.

Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?

Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.

Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.




Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized.

Imagine their professors even being able to pass the 8th Grade.

Can Americans, student and professor alike, get back up to the 8th grade level of 1895?

How did you do?

Meeting Someone Famous - Part 2

In 1975 I read a book. Nothing earth shattering there - I did (and still do) read every single day. But this book changed my life. Or, at least, my way of seeing the world around me. The book was written by Annie Dillard. Its title - "Pilgrim At Tinker Creek". It concerned the author's wanderings around and near a creek near her home in Virginia and what she saw there. I remember bringing a copy to my mother with the words "You have GOT to read this!". This book won the Pulitzer Prize fior non-fiction in 1975.

Near the beginning I read the following - "What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void with an unthinkable profusion of forms? Or what do we think of nothingness, those sickening reaches of time in either direction? If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then made in earnest? Pascal uses a nice term to describe the notion of the creator's, once having called for the universe, turning his back to it: Deus Absconditus. Is this what we think happened? Was the sense of it there, and God absconded with it, ate it, like a wolf who disappears round the edge of the house with the Thanksgiving turkey? “God is subtle,” Einstein said, “but not malicious.” Again, Einstein said that “nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential grandeur, not by her cunning.” It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. In making the thick darkness a swaddling band for the sea, God “set bars and doors” and said, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” But have we come even that far? Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?"

I was reminded of the Tennyson quote from "HMS Ulysses" that Alistair MacLean used - " 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars..."

Then, a little further on, I came across this little passage - "At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on fire was a well-known signal that meant, “Come down to the water.” It was an extravagant gesture, but we can't do less. If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames."

By the end of the book my eyes were in flames as well. I have never looked at the world the same way since. And I am so greatful that I don't! One portion of the book reminded me very vividly of an experience I had in my back yard that was very similar to an experience Annie had with an orange osage tree. I was walking up to a lilac bush when about 50 little wrens burst into flight out of the bush. I walked closer and about 30 more bolted. The last 20 or so hit the air as I reached out to touch the bush. About a hundred birds were sitting in that bush and I never saw one of them until they took off!

Early in 1981 I heard on the radio that Annie Dillard was a professor of literature at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Wesleyan is located in Middletown and that is only about 40 miles or so from here. An idea popped into my head. I took a vacation day from work and set out for Middletown. Wesleyan was easy enough to find and I parked, walked ino the Administration Building an asked where Ms. Dillard's office was located. I walked to the office and knocked on the door Lucklily she was in! I walked in and said, "My boat sunk and I hate pinochle! But my eyes are open."

She laughed and asked me in and we chatted for awhile. Awile turned into the better part of an afternoon (including a walk over to the local Dunkin' Donuts for some coffee) and even a look at some of her manuscript on her next book. It was titled "Teaching A Stone To Talk". One of the passages in that book that I really enjoyed was this - "Now we are no longer primitive. Now the whole world seems not holy. We as a people have moved from pantheism to pan-atheism. It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it. We are lighting matches in vain under an ever green tree. Did the wind used to cry and the hills shout forth praise? Now speech has perished from among the lifeless things of the earth, and living things say very little to very few. And yet it could be that wherever there is motion there is noise, as when a whale breaches and smacks the water, and wherever there is stillness there is the small, still voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song and dance, the show we drove from town. What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the different between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are they not both saying: Hello?"

She told me that one of the essays was about a total eclipse of the sun that she and her husband witnessed near Yakima, Washington in 1979. She described it to me and her mention of the colors reminded me of watching the Northern Lights when I was on temporary duty in the Air Force in 1970 at Thule, Greenland. In "Total Eclipse" she manages to describe the experience of witnessing a total solar eclipse in ways that are otherworldly and profoundly beautiful (and even slightly terrifying). In the title essay, she begins by describing "...a man in his thirties who lives alone with a stone he is trying to teach to talk." From this, the essay expands into a commentary on cosmology and theology and the palos santos trees on the Galapagos Islands, and yet it all seems to be a natural progression. This is the way with all of her essays. Annie's writings feel like free association, like a perfect jazz solo, what seemed random and disconnected finds its way back home again as naturally as if it were scored.

I would highly recommend any of her books to you - "Pilgrim At Tinker Creek", "Teaching A Stone To Talk", "An American Childhood", "Holy The Firm", "Tickets For A Prayer Wheel" (poetry) and "The Maytrees" are all outstanding.

We talked some more and then I left. As I was heading out the door Annie said something to me that would knock me off my feet. But not until 1998. She was even kind enough to write it on an index card, at my request. To understand the significance of what she said you would have to be familiar with an online friend of mine and my beliefs.

As I walked to the door she said, "Stan?"

"Yes?"

"When the psalm singer sings, will you be listening?"