deskthority

I would just like to wish everyone in Texas a safe remainder of the weekend. I know we have a quite a few members who live here. I can testify that the conditions are getting pretty bad here in Houston. We've been pretty fine, here in the far suburbs, but people elsewhere have been having some serious issues. My father was flying in from Santa Barabra, and after circling for 45 minutes, had to land in Dallas due to 2 tornados (coincidentally landing at the same time) . I'm not even sure how he managed to make it home…

This is what burning cheap fossil fuels, making too much cement and raising too many cows will get you: global warming. Warming on the global scale does not mean more sunny days, it means more energy in the atmosphere: energy that is unleashed as severe storms. There are only going to be more storms such as this one.

I play with fire (figuratively, it's really water) by living on a 100 year flood plain.

Our house is fine. Both of our neighbors had some flooding at their house, one very moderate, the other rather severe.

There is a drainage creek that runs between the house and the street. We had three inches of rain in about an hour during the worst of it. The creek was impassible for about four hours.

We have some heavy damage to the post and wire fences on the property. I'll need to spend the next few days making some repairs.

The keyboards are all safe. No beam springs or Topres were damaged.

XMIT wrote: The keyboards are all safe. No beam springs or Topres were damaged.

That, life, and limb is what counts in the end!

Scotland is lush with greenery and mud (depending on season… we're heading fast into the mud again now) for just the reason you'd think: year round rain, often in dazzling downpours. Even that doesn't put people off building in flood plains here. Though their houses subsiding and the insurers failing to give them a penny in compensation does put most of them off in the end.

If I made the decisions around here, I'd save the cash we waste on flood defences (which perpetually need repair in our permanent dank) and let the stupid buggers swim before they have enough time to move in. There is a cure for this madness, the same one that leads them to build in suicidal swamps in the first place: house prices. Let them sink.

Alas, investing in real estate is what everyone with the money does around here. Since there's nothing else remotely as predictable or appealing. Tech? Startups? The next generation? Fuhgeddaboudit! That soggy river bank needs 16 "executive apartments", stat!

Muirium wrote: snip

I loled.

And it's STILL coming down!

I live in an area with very sandy soil and a very low water table with 2 large river estuaries and a small sea, i think you could get 3 inch of rain an hour for a week and we would be ok

I survived a flood when I lived in Florida in 1979.

Forever since I have made it mandatory to live on a hill.

Living below sea level. Never flooded. Water management, bitches.

Floods hit my home town pretty badly in Summer, 2013.
I snapped this pic at the end of my street:

Funky hats. Stylish hats. Weird hats. 002. Hats4u.

webwit wrote: Funky hats. Stylish hats. Weird hats. 002. Hats4u.

I don't even own a hat...I'm a fraud!
Last time I had a hat was when it was compulsory to have one at school under the "no hat, no play" rule.

webwit wrote: Living below sea level. Never flooded. Water management, bitches.

My next-door neighbor is from the Netherlands, and he explained the 3-tier system of dykes. Very impressive.

His house is at the crest of our hill, mine is slightly lower.

Muirium wrote:

XMIT wrote: The keyboards are all safe. No beam springs or Topres were damaged.

That, life, and limb is what counts in the end!

Scotland is lush with greenery and mud (depending on season… we're heading fast into the mud again now) for just the reason you'd think: year round rain, often in dazzling downpours. Even that doesn't put people off building in flood plains here. Though their houses subsiding and the insurers failing to give them a penny in compensation does put most of them off in the end.

If I made the decisions around here, I'd save the cash we waste on flood defences (which perpetually need repair in our permanent dank) and let the stupid buggers swim before they have enough time to move in. There is a cure for this madness, the same one that leads them to build in suicidal swamps in the first place: house prices. Let them sink.

Alas, investing in real estate is what everyone with the money does around here. Since there's nothing else remotely as predictable or appealing. Tech? Startups? The next generation? Fuhgeddaboudit! That soggy river bank needs 16 "executive apartments", stat!

likewise, i was in ireland in september and it seems they've never even considered roadside drainage ditches. people drive 100 on these insanely tiny country roads while it's dumping rain like they're racing F1.

Unsighted corners. Overgrown bushes and trees scraping against your wing mirrors. Standing water at the apex. Running fords at the dips. And a single lane with psychos just as bad as you at full speed in the other direction. We never made this place for cars. It's just paved horse tracks.

American roads are easy mode.
European roads are normal mode.
Celtic roads are suicide.

Over here, we call it rally!

and to believe my american friend drove the entire 5 days, having never driven on your god-forsaken side of the road in his life.

what a champ.

I shit you not, when I rode a bike in California for the first time, after years of doing it over here, I confused the shit out of drivers by waiting for them to barge through junctions and generally cut me off. I couldn't make sense of it. They'd wait for me? What's wrong with them?

Similar story walking in parking lots. I habitually stopped in my tracks every time a car moved anywhere nearby, confusing them and making both of us awkwardly wait to see who goes first. You can just walk out to the store? Without taking your life in your hands?

Act like that over here, and you're roadkill, my friend.

Scottish roadkill:

That reminds me of that bit in trainspotting when spud is off his head on the floor in the street talking to diane