Damn, TM. Sorry about that. 35-miles is a whole lot closer to a seismic event than I ever want to be. Hope you rode it out OK.

felt it here in philly. the most disturbing part of that is the reminder just how close we are to D.C. <hide> Maybe this will end up being DC's body blow before Irene's uppercut...

BEST POST EVER!

Earth(quake)- check
Wind- coming soon
Fire?

Same thing I say every year. :P

Agree with the sentiment, but the people you want to wash out will be the first to evacuate. Only the poor will be killed.

Many of the policy makers and staffers who come up with the crap that Congress passes are still in DC. Get your floaties on, boys and girls, because Irene could be a BIG flood threat if she comes up the Chesapeake and her winds prevent the tides from flowing out to the Atlantic.

Downtown Baltimore is busily preparing for an Indy car race on Labor Day Sunday. This road course goes down Pratt, turns onto Light Street, makes a hairpin turn up by the Science Center, hits the lower Federal Hill area, goes past Camden Yards, and goes back to Pratt Street. Light Street parallels the Inner Harbor but unless Irene comes straight up the Bay and much closer to Baltimore than is currently predicted, I don't think that portion of the harbor will flood over onto the road or cause any damage to the race course. Fortunately, none of the course goes through Fells Point of Canton - then they would be in trouble as far as potential damage.

I would be VERY happy to see Irene make a stop at the Governor's mansion in Annaopolis. Watching O'Malley and his ilk floating out to sea on flood waters would definitely be enjoyable. Don't want to affect any other portion of Annapolis, just the mansion is enough.

Going to look for tadpoles now since I believe that frogs are next up on the plague list.

its why we need a 9.xx quake to destroy the entire area. hurricanes give too much warning

A hurricane hit when I lived in D.C., but that far north and inland it was mostly rain.

In other news...

D.C. SHOCKER!!!
Sinkhole Swallows Pennsylvania Avenue!!!
Potomac River Changes Course!!!
Supreme Court, Capitol and White House Topple!!!
Now at the Bottom of a Newly-Formed Lake!!!
Wall Street Stages Historic Rally!!!

I have actually watched several "State of the Union" addresses and wondered what would happen if a small meteor hit that address, at that time unannounced... The thought usually brought a smile to my face.


Sadly, no such luck yet.

Djsnola: As someone who spent a month in downtown NOLA as part of the .mil response for Katrina starting less than 24-hours after the hurricane went through: You're welcome.

Storm6436 wrote..

Djsnola: As someone who spent a month in downtown NOLA as part of the .mil response for Katrina starting less than 24-hours after the hurricane went through: You're welcome.

I don't know, so I ask: did this include the parts supporting law enforcement theft of firearms from their lawful owners? Or the turning away of privately-supported relief trucks so that FEMA wouldn't have to share credit?

Phantomace wrote..

I have actually watched several "State of the Union" addresses and wondered what would happen if a small meteor hit that address, at that time unannounced... The thought usually brought a smile to my face.


Sadly, no such luck yet.

Yeah, I remember hoping for a Tunguska-type event over DC during the inauguration in 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_ev....

Not feeling much love for those of us TFers that live and work here in the D of C area.

BTW, all the critters have been out of town for two weeks now. So, today's wake up shake by the hand of God (sucked!) and Sunday's incoming Wall of Water (IMO much, much rain, but no storm surge here) was/will not be experienced by those that need it most.

Ignorantsavage: Which part of illegal and unconstitutional LE actions did the .mil actually support? Lots of misinformation floating about by the tinfoilers on this because the answer is: None. Every .mil guy I talked that was out in the field had the same response to hearing that: "**** that noise, I'm not doing that ****."

In fact, I can't think of a single enlisted person I knew or talked to at the time that supported the idea. Most of the officers as well. I got a hostile "Stay in your paygrade"-type response when I told a SAR cell O-4 that such actions were unconstitutional and as such, his support for them violated his oath of commissioning.

So, I believe I found maybe 5 people out of a few hundred that thought it was a worthwhile thing, and those 5 were not in a position to command anyone farther away than the door to the room they were in.

As far as the turning away of trucks, I'm pretty sure that was FEMA's doing. Not sure if .mil folks were involved on that or if it was police. All I can say is that if you're perimeter watch and your orders say "No one crosses the perimeter without approval" ... then no one crosses the perimeter without approval. Might want to take that up with the bigger dogs responsible for the bull**** orders.

And if you were curious as to what I actually did, I was the lone network admin for the 18 flag officers and assorted dignitary folks that were on the USS Iwo Jima. I officially worked 16 hour shifts until we GTFOed for RITA, unofficially they were much closer to 20 hour shifts. I didn't bitch much, we had a mission and I believed in it. I made sure all the bits moved to where they needed to go and helped fix just about anything that got in the way of those bits... hell, I had to fix an A/C unit on our civilian sat dome that crapped out the first week because ship's folks wouldn't touch civie gear. As a side note, I was given ftp access to internal servers at some major media orgs to help them get footage out of NOLA in the early days before any sort of comms on the ground were restored.

Even if I didn't get off the boat and into town as much as the other folks did, I worked my ass off to make sure that the C&C folks had what they needed to make sure those guys that were off-boat got the most bang for their buck.

Personally, NOLA is why I started drifting towards the gun nut/survivalist line of thinking. Nothing like seeing the thin veneer of civilization stripped bare: police looting alongside looters, rescue vehicles and helos riddled with bullet holes, and more. Decided I'd never willingly end up like some of those poor schmoes who were caught with their pants around their ankles by Katrina.

Roaches were seen running from government buildings today. Karl must be doing "God's Work".

Best of luck to all on the east coast this weekend.

Storm6436: I wasn't sure how you'd posed your statement, thus my provocative question. I'm happy to hear that no one you know of or talked to participated in illegal actions.

As for details on specific crimes in New Orleans, tho:

Storm6436 wrote..

Which part of illegal and unconstitutional LE actions did the .mil actually support? Lots of misinformation floating about by the tinfoilers on this because the answer is: None.

ABC news video directly contradicts this opinion of yours. (The linked site was the first I'd found that contained the video I'd previously seen, so I can't speak for the site itself.)

http://www.indianamilitia.org/files/Vide....
http://www.indianamilitia.org/outrage.ht....

As for the turning away of relief trucks, I never had any specific information that could be verified. I believe it simply because it fits the pattern of governmental behavior.

The USCG told me directly that they would not permit me to dock with a load of relief supplies were I to take one there. The cited reason was that looters and other miscreants were shooting at relief workers and they did not want me to get shot (at).

Thanks, Oldno7.

I was just reading this Brendan Loy post at PJM: http://pajamasmedia.com/weathernerd/2011....

Quote:

… Under the best-case scenario the storm would continue to veer toward the northeast after [its] encounter with North Carolina, and remain at sea. Some track models are going for this solution. … But that’s far from certain at this time, as the European and GFS models are telling us a more northerly track is possible.

If these two models verify we’re talking about at least hurricane-force winds over parts of the very heavily populated corridor from Washington, D.C. to New York City, and possibly extending most of the way to Boston. There also could be flooding rains.

I haven't seen anything from him in a few years. He made quite a name for himself back in 2005 when Katrina was approaching. He called for the evacuation of New Orleans before anybody else. He was just a nobody college kid, who happened to be a weather buff, writing on his own personal blog. I remember reading his blog posts in real time back then; I think Instapundit may have linked him.

Anyway, as I live in the Philly suburbs, I'm starting to pay close attention to Irene, and Brendan.

Wow!! Now that is something!!

bilge

Well, you can claim that all you want, but I have SEEN bullet holes in trucks that weren't there before. I highly doubt they magically appeared on their own, or the owner shot his own truck - and he DID make a relief run into NOLA.

Incidentally the same dude made a couple of runs into Mississippi. No holes, no shots, no problems. Just people grateful for the help.

One of my daughters is in Virgina, living at an IC called Twin Oaks. I understand they were without electricity or running water, but everything is otherwise okay: no serious injuries, anyway.

Her report: She is "not hurt at all, except for a tiny piece of glass cut my foot from a broken mirror that fell on me. We've got electricity and water now. That was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. The ground was shaking, and it sounded like thunder and explosions. All the walls were shaking and things were falling and breaking everywhere.... We keep getting aftershocks, and I am feeling stressed and I am shaking. I am sleeping outside with a bunch of other people tonight because I am afraid to sleep inside and there is broken glass, and books all over my floor."

Storm is absolutely correct. Our military REFUSED to confiscate weapons. Local LE were the ones doing it. People gotta get their facts right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HRZfvtYl....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygeNzf__G....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDryH9FKS....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6aIcCJQ0....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_UvHalYK....

And I thought Anonymous controlled HAARP ... silly me. :-)