Hiển thị các bài đăng có nhãn Safety. Hiển thị tất cả bài đăng
Hiển thị các bài đăng có nhãn Safety. Hiển thị tất cả bài đăng

Thứ Ba, 17 tháng 4, 2012

Danger Zone!

The mess of 820 from I35 to 183 is a disaster waiting to happen. 

Drive I35, east on 820. If you're feeling really brave, enter 35 at Meacham.  Travel the narrow, winding lane, with no shoulder, and bad striping, next to concrete barriers you could reach out and touch.  Pay attention to all the signs, there's a ton of them telling you the exits are closed, or lanes are, or more are about to be. 

When there is a wreck, how do you think the emergency responders get to you?  Yeah, it ain't easy.  Where do all those people in the two lane holding cell behind you go?  Nowhere.

Which is exactly what happened today in Haltom City.  Luckily there were no fatalities when a truck went off a bridge into the creek bed below.  Traffic was shut down all day.  People were stuck for hours.  (pictures at FWST)

They're going to be stuck for years.  

Guess it's a good thing it wasn't raining.  We've seen what happens to that creek when it rains.  Sometimes, it too, shuts down the freeway.

Thứ Năm, 12 tháng 4, 2012

Thứ Hai, 9 tháng 4, 2012

From the Fort Worth Weekly to the NY Times to the AP...

Gas drilling is the talk of the towns.  One of the biggest differences is the letter from those protecting the Watershed's in New York.  You'd think Texans would protect their water...and a State would know WHO its constituents are... 

 Two hundred fifty medical professionals petitioned New York State last year for a health assessment and received no response.

From false advertising and lawsuits, the beat goes on.

For a split second, injection wells in Venus made the news.  WHO's taking bets on what happened out there after the Easter storms?

Tuesday's storms have stirred up more questions about an injection well in Venus. Land owners are worried about chemicals mixing with rainwater, and possibly spilling into a creek that empties into Joe Pool Lake.

Property manager Tim McCloskey scans the creek bed in his pasture everyday. Two days after the storm, he can still spot a slick sheen coating the surface. It's floating less than a half-mile down stream from where fracking trucks drop saltwater into an injection well.

And while they party every chance they get, they are busy bursting their own bubble.  WHO pays for that?

The glut has benefited businesses and homeowners that use natural gas. But with natural gas prices at a 10-year low — and falling — companies that produce the fuel are becoming victims of their drilling successes. Their stock prices are falling in anticipation of declining profits and scaled-back growth plans.              

Chủ Nhật, 8 tháng 4, 2012

Rain, rain, go away

Everyone knows that never works. 
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram continues to write about the emergency warning sirens.  Thanks to Clyde Picht and Mother Nature, they exist. 

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram also talks about record rainfall today.
Flooding problems were reported in low-crossing areas in Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving Euless and Colleyville, area police reported.

Let's see, a tornado and record rainfall in April.  History repeats?

Usually.

Thứ Năm, 5 tháng 4, 2012

One month before the Fort Worth tornado -

In 2000, Councilman Clyde Picht wrote a letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  At the time he was the only one in town advocating for emergency sirens.  The mayor, city council and Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board all were against spending money on sirens that protect people.

What was he basing his position on?  History. It tends to repeat itself. 

A month after Clyde wrote the letter, the tornado hit.  Lives were lost, just like he said. 

Currently, this mayor, council and paper disagree with what Clyde says about the Trinity River Vision.  What's the next Editorial Board going to say? 

Clyde's comment after rereading the commentary he wrote in 2000 - 

It’s too bad we had to wait for the disaster we knew was coming before we made a decision to upgrade our warning system.

Sounds familiar.  The following will too, read about Fort Worth, twelve years ago, before the tornado.

Two million for warning sirens?  A bargain at twice the price!
 
            When German bombers attacked London during the Second World War they lacked the precision guidance of today's weapons. On the other hand, the British radar showed only the general direction the bombers traveled so throughout the city air raid sirens wailed to warn the people of impending attack.

                Now, sixty years later, the National Weather Service has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in high tech equipment that can tell with a degree of precision the path a tornado will follow. The detection of severe weather is in the 21st century but the Fort Worth warning sirens are more suitable for the Battle of Britain. Our sirens will blare throughout our 250 square mile city, if they blare at all. Because of their age replacement parts are not readily available. Ten to fifteen percent of the system fails when tested, and on occasion, the whole system has been known to fail. With the rapid growth of our city some areas on the developing fringe are totally without warning sirens.

                Some things are fact. We live at the Southwest end of what weather experts call "Tornado Ally." Tornadoes have caused massive destruction and loss of life to the West, South, and East of Fort Worth. Severe weather caused major destruction in Fort Worth, pelting us with hail the size of baseballs in 1980 and 1995. Weather experts say that we will be struck by a killer tornado similar to the one that raised havoc in Moore, Oklahoma, last year. It's not a matter of whether, but when.

                In a recent commentary (2/21/00), Star-Telegram writer Jack Z. Smith reported that as a consequence of the Moore disaster that city is going to double the number of sirens. In my own conversation with Emergency Management Director, Gayland Kitch, he told me that even though the tornado occurred during rush hour, with plenty of radio and TV coverage, some residents didn't take cover until they heard the warning sirens. Smith reports Kitch said he feels that sirens help save lives and that Fort Worth would be wise to invest in them.

                Some things are fiction. According to Smith, the Mayor and some Council members feel that warnings sirens are not worth the $2-$3 million cost. They think radio, television, Internet, cell phones, E-mail and weather radios will substitute for sirens. It is not uncommon to have power outages during severe weather. With the power outages go your radio, television, Internet, and E-mail. Few computer owners are foolish enough to operate them during thunderstorms without UPS. A battery-powered radio will still work, provided the batteries are good and you have it with you. Cell phones might work if you've got them, but they don't always perform well even in good weather. First-hand reports from Oklahoma demonstrate that cell phones fail when tornadoes are near. Weather radios, like cell phones, are fine if everybody has one. Not everyone can afford or will want to buy a weather radio for $40-$80 (cost according to Smith). Most people probably wouldn't have one nearby during severe weather, in any case. Twenty-two people lost their lives when tornadoes hit Georgia in mid February. They came at night when folks were tucked safely in their beds. Or so they thought. Computers, cell phones, radios - all off. 

                A state of the art warning system has advantages that all the aforementioned devices don't have. The per capita cost is very nominal. A system will last many years and perform with high reliability. It can be used to warn residents in the path of severe weather without alarming those in safer areas. It can be localized to warn of hazardous spills on freeways and rail lines. It has a voice capability to describe circumstances that may require residents to take cover or remain in their homes and can warn children playing outside. With correct placement they are likely to be heard inside the home as well as outside.

                Lives will be lost in the event of a major tornado transiting Tarrant County. Adequate warning will save many lives, which might otherwise be lost. Ironically, the City Council was presented a proposal by the Fire Chief for the 1998 Capital Improvement Program that would have replaced the current warning system. The council turned it down and chose to use some of that money for park improvement. Pity the poor folks in the park who might be whisked away to Oz because they don't own a cell phone or weather radio, and live in a city where they are expected to take more "personal responsibility" for their safety.

                Like the unfortunate homeowner who installs a burglar alarm after the family heirlooms have been stolen, the City of Fort Worth will some day upgrade its woefully deficient disaster warning system after a major storm wreaks death and destruction. It willstill be cheap at twice the monetary price but what's the value of a life?

Come again?


Did the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board just criticize the former Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board?

Did they say the lone voice that spoke out was right?

Today that lone voice is still speaking out putting the citizens safety above the popular vote.

WHAT will the next Editorial Board say about the current one?  WHAT will they say about that same voice continues to speak out?   Maybe YOU should listen.

No one cares, until the next storm comes.  History repeats.

An Oct. 21, 1997, Star-Telegram editorial decrying Fort Worth's sporadic storm-warning system as not worth modernizing because it was "redundant" with other modes of communication made Editorial Board members cringe Wednesday when they read it.


Did the collective "we" really say, "The sirens [that] blare out the warning of an approaching tornado or hailstorm are about as useful today as fenders on a compact car"?


If anecdotal evidence is any indicator, the warning provided by sirens was remarkably useful Tuesday in keeping North Texas residents safe as tornadoes bore down on the region. Facebook posts and online comments credited Arlington's warning system in particular for alerting residents to the nasty weather headed their way.


Images of the damage leave one amazed that no one was killed and only injuries that weren't life-threatening were reported.


The Editorial Board's 1997 skepticism about updating Fort Worth's siren system was shared by then-Mayor Kenneth Barr and other members of the City Council who thought money would be better spent on a traffic light system that expedited firetrucks getting through intersections.


Then-Councilman Clyde Picht was the lone voice calling for additional and more reliable sirens.


Talk about the storm-warning system quieted down -- until the March 28, 2000, tornado upended lives and businesses in downtown Fort Worth before flattening homes in southeast Arlington and southwest Grand Prairie. Five people died and more than $450 million in damage was reported.


By 2003, the Fort Worth council had approved $3 million to upgrade and expand the city's sirens.


Read more here: Broad-based storm-warning systems proved their value during North Texas tornadoes

Thứ Ba, 3 tháng 4, 2012