Good On Them
 

My sister's neighborhood didn't handle the flooding. She is waiting on her insurance carrier, but it looks like a knock down. In the midst of the property disaster, a bunch of shale gas water trucks showed up and pumped the water out of all the basements in the neighborhood. I don't know which company sent them but thank you from the folks in Twin Orchards.

And the good PR can't hurt either.

Yeah No doubt

They definitely got a PR boost, nobody else had the truck capacity to get it done so they're getting big love for stepping up.

Wow, good for them!

So sorry to hear about your sister's place. Did they have time to get the important papers and whatnot out before the water came too high?

Wow! I'm impressed. You rarely see a business do something that doesn't involve putting money in their own pockets. Well done by them.

Yeah, just. The harder part was getting the old man a couple doors down to leave his house. I was talking to one of their neighbors who is a fireman. He got a little stress relief a couple days into it when a local shady businessman tried to torch a building he's been trying to sell for a couple years. The first responder happened to be a fire investigator and saw a trail of flames up the steps. The neighbor got to tear into the building with some big-ass hydraulic apparatus which kinda made his day.

I missed the part about your sister's place being so damaged. I'm sorry to hear about that.

Handy on a hot day though.

:lol2:

I don't think I mentioned it before. The insurance situation still isn't resolved though so we still don't know what is going to happen. Their neighbors let their insurance lapse so they went in and tore the place apart as early as they could. The insurance company told my sister not to go in so the house is much worse than the neighbors beyond the foundation problem. BiL said the black mold was already 2.5 to 3 ft above the waterline, nasty stuff. People are going to get very sick cleaning these houses.

*chortle*

Stupid insurance company.

Yes and no glatt.
Some people go in and tear the place up to get MORE money, others remove valuables and are compensated unjustly for things that were not ruined. Still more are hurt going into homes that are unsafe costing MORE money.
The above are not mutually exclusive.

Not at all related to the OP, but I liked the thread's title.

Today, another dam was purposely breached to improve the habitat of salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
The White Salmon River empties into the Columbia just upstream of PDX.
The Conuit Dam stands about 12 stories high, and will be removed over the next 9-10 months

KATU.com
October 26,2011
Crews breach Condit Dam
This pic was taken just after the dam was breached and water was surging downriver.

Good on them...

Now, THAT's the kind of stuff I like to see. Swim, little fishies, swim! And damn all dams.

So does this mean that Northwestern Lake will disappear also?

Yes, I think pretty much so.
Some of the home owners in the area are somewhat pissed.

But this actually was the decision of a power corporation.
If they did not demolish the dam, they would have to spend a lot more $ building adequate fish passages.

Yep!!

As for seeing it, I recommend this link:

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories...ls-from-condit

But if it's been closed for 100 years, will the fish still consider it to be their spawning grounds? Or will they just be confused?

Before the breach, ~ 700 salmon were carried up above the dam to start breeding the next generations.

Dams are a trade off. Sure, they hurt the salmon, but they help prevent flooding, they hold water to fight back drought, and they generate carbon free electricity.

You shut down a power producing damn, and you just increased air pollution and global warming because you have to burn oil or coal to replace that power.

It's not quite that simple. See, for example, Hydroelectric Power's Dirty Secret:

I think they need to find a way to capture the methane and burn it in a gas turbine.

OK, rotting plants release methane and CO2, but there are going to be more plants in the rainforests of Brazil than in the American West. I'll even grant you that manufacturing all that concrete is terrible for the environment.

All that carbon is associated with building the dam, not running the dam. It's an argument for not building new dams. It doesn't support the idea of tearing down existing ones. The pollution has already happened with this dam. Why not get some more energy out of it?

I think UT's proposal to burn off excess gas would be workable
with a low-head dam situated about here on the Potomac River:
.

The point was that the methane is released from rotting plant matter. From the same article:

Ah. Seasonal changes. Got it. CO2 being converted to Methane. That would be bad.

is bad ... IS. :p:

I like the title of this thread... it gives a chance for other kinds of news.

CNN
Girls given equal rights to British throne under law changes
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 8:44 AM EST, Fri October 28, 2011

.

A Catholic? That's good?

HLJ, there's more discussion in the link.
That part may soothe some problems in Ireland

I was joking. I don't know a catholic from a protestant.

The Catholic is the one driving the minivan.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted breaching of the Conuit Dam in Washington.

Today, I came across a National Geographic 2 min video of the event here
This video shows the breaching, the draining lake, and the final effect.

(Unfortunately, there is a 15 sec ad in front of the video)

Is it interesting or disappointing ?

Today is Dec 7th, and I have not seen any posts about the anniversary.

Throughout my life I have followed in the footsteps of WW II vets.
Some call them "The Greatest Generation". All I know is that many
things we value here in the US came from the works of that generation.

In any case, Good on Them !

Time flies, eh?

Well it is here ;)

Again, give or take a day... ;)
.

Well that's weird. On the actual December 7th there are articles and remembrances all over the web! ;)

What do you say? Happy Pearl Harbor Day? I do think about it every Dec 7th, though.

You know, this day really just kind of snuck up on us. We had no idea it was coming.

Too soon?

Yes, others have been kind enough to point out the error of my ways :right:

No, she's not mocking you LL. She's saying is it too soon to make a joke about Pearl Harbor and the date "just sneaking up on us". Not you.

V, I'd be disappointed if she was not,
... my senior moments have been getting closer together ;)

No, it took me all day to come up with the joke. V is right, it was a joke about the sneaking up on us.

I have junior senior moments, Lamp, I'm right behind you in that aspect. ;)

I have middle age senior hours. I'm right behind.... something... what did I come in here for?

Wait ... you're not my son! Who are you?