Katrina Speed

So if you drop a badminton shuttle onto the hurricane, it will travel faster than most people's smash. Consider how fast a smash is - It's scary.

 

Plus, as long as u are concentrate, and hold the racket in front of ur face, u can block a pro's smash. But u can't survive even in a building, when face Katrina.

 

I was wondering will you die it you get hit by a 155mph shuttle in the head???

Sorry I am not about to donate my head for scientific research while I am still alive...

 

Poor New Orlean, 70% of the city got flooded. Don't know how long the city will recover. It's one of the most fun and exciting city I ever been to - Mari Gras, French Quarter, cajun food, .....

 

I know a few people in New Orleans and the last message I got prior to evacuations in their area is that the first 1.5 floors of their relatives' 2 floor house was completely submersed. Absolutely crazy...

On a bit of a tangent, I live in montreal, canada, miles and miles north of Katrina... to us, it's just some crazy humid weather we're getting, but interestingly enough we're still feeling the effects. I work at a hospital in montreal that specializes in thoracic operations (lungs mostly) and some of the effects are that a lot of old people are just not able to take the humidity-- they end up in the e.r. for common things like asthma attacks, but then when they go through e.r. screening they are found out to have more serious chronic respiratory problems. So, i guess it's a bit of a morbid point, but to put a positive side to things, extreme weather like this in montreal has actually saved some lives by allowing us to diagnose patients who might have had gone on with advanced cases of lung disease without even knowing it-- now we get a chance try and intervene beforehand. It's a pretty questionable and small blessing, but, times like this, you count blessings when you have em.

 

On a side note, I don't watch much tv so I don't get much media exposure... but one of the things that absolutely annoys me is way the media portrays the whole situation. Throw in buzzwords like 'massive destruction' and 'terrible tragedy' and 'unbeleivable force of nature' and repeat those words about thirty times an hour and you've got your so-called news coverage... but I suppose this is what we get.

And on the business networks, all they're talking about is how oil prices are going up as a result and how it's time to hold on to your natural resource stocks, etc.

Makes me sick.

Incidentally, much research suggests that extreme weather phenomenon like this is caused by our abuse of the environment-- sorta like mother nature's whiplash in response to pollution. It may be pure sci-fi, but watch "The Day After Tomorrow" for the exaggerated account. It's a stretch for me to say that "all the pollution we make contributed to Katrina", but it's not so far from the truth if you really follow it down the chain.

If you ask me, environmental issues should show up in the media not only when there's a natural disaster, but they should show more of the environmental concious information for preventive information that the majority of the populations of the world just aren't aware of. Simple things like not leaving your car idling.

Sorry for the rant... i'm not an environmentalist or anything-- but being more careful about how we treat Earth seems to be a very simple and smart principle, considering how time and time again disasters demonstrate how fragile human life is.

 

Deep sorrow and regret for this horrible disaster..

I also want to pass my regret, sympathy and remorse for all the victims and people affected in this horrible natural disaster. I personally haven't been down south to that area, but listening and seeing the reports on TV, it's just a major devastation to the region, just too bad. And even watching it on TV, words can't really expressed the feeling, let alone being there in the middle of it all in person.. Last i heard, they are transporting around 25,000 people from the Superdome to Houston's Astrodome..boy..
Unfortunately, I realized disaster and crisis like this can happen anywhere and anytime in the world. It not only hit areas like S.E. Asia(last December) but also can hit the U.S. as well, and "hit" pretty hard and devastating with the same magnitude..

Hopefully what Jinryu wrote in the above posts, can be realized and act as a turning point to all countries in the world..And hopefully this kind of disaster and crisis won't happen to any other countries..

 

I'm sorry to be rude, but it is utter nonsense to suggest that this hurricane can be directly linked to environmental pollution. Big hurricanes have been hitting that area long before industrial pollution became a problem.

--> http://www.ihc.fiu.edu/about_us/historical_hurricanes.htm#1926_1979
--> http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/index.html
--> http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/Table2.htm

The greatest environmental shift of "recent" times, at least in the human era, was the ice-age, when there was no industrialisation to speak of.

This is not to say that care for the environment is un-important, far from it. But if you want to make an argument for environmental protection, this is the wrong example to use. Try global warming and the sinking reefs.

 

I didn't say that we're directly responsible, 'directly' is a relative term depending on how many degress of steps you consider as far enough to be 'indirect'. I said that research suggested it, if you took backtracked along enough links of the chain.

The question is, would the hurricane have been theoretically 'less devastating' if it weren't for global climate changes in recent years? All I meant was that if current environmental conditions brought on by pollution in any way affected the intensity of Katrina or other events, then we have contributed. Obviously it's incalcuable, I can't say "due to X amount of CO2 emissions in the the recent Y years, the speed of Katrina's winds at peak had been increased by Z miles per hour".

All I'm saying is that philosophically, most of our environmental practices aren't sufficient, and we're constantly effecting an overal negative balance to the bank so to speak, and that definately doesn't help. Sorry if my position was vague

 

Go to Costco if you are member. Their price does not change as fast.