Hazardous Living (2 Viewers)

The_Doc_Man

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After Hurricane Katrina devastated many parts of Greater New Orleans, I took some ribbing about living in such a dangerous place. Of course, many places where people live are subject to dangers such as earthquakes, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, heat waves, dust storms... you name it, someone has a predominant hazard.

On the New Orleans local news tonight, I saw another hazard that has to be at least a little bit more exotic. A woman in the city of Kenner (a few miles west of New Orleans) called out police because she had a six-foot-long alligator resting in the shade under her car. They had to call a licensed nuisance animal trapper to capture it for eventual release in a natural swampy area that is a game preserve. The video included pictures of the animal not liking the way he was being dragged away from his comfortable spot. Vehemently not liking it.

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/...sily/289-07c086b1-cbc1-4c8d-b874-eea1f8a7de05

The subsequent explanation is that because of all the flooding in the central part of the country, the Mississippi River is extremely high, so to relieve pressure on the levees, the US Army Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway, which diverts river water into Lake Ponchartrain. But doing so puts fresh water into the lake and alligators like it brackish - so they flee from the fresh water incursion and look for other places to hide.

I was just wondering, what kind of disasters happen in your neck of the woods? I remember Dick7Access recently had issues with a sinkhole. I had issues with hurricanes. What do you folks have?
 

NauticalGent

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The ever present fear of Mt Vesuvius “belching” again...
 

kevlray

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I saw a story on the news of a alligator that broke into a house (through a ground level window) in Florida. To say the least the elderly woman that lives there was in for quite a shock. We are having some localized river flooding here due to a lot of snow melting in the mountains (202% of average snow amount).
 

Minty

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We have Brexit. It's like a natural disaster, but totally man made.

Other than that we suffer dreadfully from dangerous grey sky's and drizzle. Both are deadly to any form of sun tan or outdoor enjoyment. Unless you like fishing in the rain.
 

Vassago

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Florida is obviously prone to hurricanes and severe thunderstorms that normally only last about 15 minutes, then you're left in a sauna.

Forest fires are bad in Florida almost every year. They are normally caused by people or the aforementioned thunderstorms. Florida doesn't get snow, but it does get ashes.

Severe heat is an issue in Florida, though most Floridians manage. People who come in from out of town are usually the ones that can't handle the heat.

Florida also has alligators, but most Floridians seem to consider them pets. :p
 

The_Doc_Man

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If you ever watch the golf tournaments from New Orleans, the ones hosted at English Turn Golf Club have a "mascot" called Tripod - a three-legged gator who obviously once ran afoul of a bigger gator. If he comes out of the water hazard, there is a course rule that there will be no "slow play" penalties until he leaves the area.

Talk about your "hazards" ...
 

Vassago

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They love the golf courses in Florida, too. I'm pretty sure they are collecting golf balls to sell back to the course.
 

Steve R.

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The 2018 Hurricane season was devastating to North Carolina. Morehead was hit twice. First by Hurricane Florence, then by the remnants of Hurricane Michael. We were very fortunate in only having very minor damage to our property.

Even today, it is almost impossible to get repair people to work on one's house. So if you know of any unemployed construction types, there is still plenty of work available here.

Some business that were severely damaged still have not re-opened here in Morehead. You can still see many houses that require repair. The roofing people have been extremely busy.

Prior to Florence arriving we evacuated to Dalton, GA. Ironically the remnants of Florence passed near Dalton, but by then it was not much of a storm.

Our trip back to Morehead proved to be a bit difficult. A lot of roads were closed. We also missed a detour sign so we nearly ended-up in Greenville, NC. Once we realized that we got back on track only to get caught in traffic. Quite amazing to have a rural town (Vanceboro, NC) with hardly a traffic light have an LA style traffic jam!

Getting back to Morehead after Florence, had some unexpected twists. After getting back, we went out to get groceries. Guess what, several of the grocery stores were closed and remained closed for a while. The same with restaurants. The local Golden Corral reopened at the end of April.
 
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The_Doc_Man

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So if you know of any unemployed construction types, there is still plenty of work available here.

We had a large number of Hispanic day-jobbers come to our area. They were legal and had carpentry skills. Our contractor found some workers and his foreman was fluent in Spanish, so they rebuilt our bottom floor. The 2nd story wasn't damaged. But so many people found work on a day basis that they got picked up by a few renovation companies and became regular, tax-paying employees. Per state and federal law, they were legal residents, and I can say with some honesty that as a result of the poor population that left the city and the Hispanic workers who helped rebuild much of the city, our demographics significantly changed. The black population diminished because so many went to Texas or Arkansas or northern Mississippi or Mobile Alabama, and the Hispanic population stayed to become residents in our area. For the last ten years or so, you would have good odds that at least one or two members of a renovation or demolition crew will be Hispanic.

After Katrina, it took a long time for some restaurants to re-open. Some never did.
 

Insane_ai

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Every so often I provide an unsolicited opinion to my wife.
 

Micron

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I live in a region where not much happens, which is just fine by me. Regional events that likely made world news many moons ago might be the Hagersville Tire Fire and the Mississagua Rail Disaster and evacuation, both a comfortable distance away from me. However, some areas about 60 miles away have seen damaging tornadoes in the last 10 or so years, which for all my life prior to those, was unheard of.

Or do politicians count as a natural disaster?
 

The_Doc_Man

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Micron, don't you folks have serious blizzards in Ontario Provence?

Politicians could count as a disaster, I guess. They are big wind masses that do no particular good.
 

Micron

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Not in my opinion. At least not all that often. Maybe 1 major event every 2 years or so, and even then, it's all relative anyway. I watch a lot of news and from what I saw last winter, US from Tennessee/North Carolina and Northwards had it way worse than Ontario. If you want to talk snow, now nobody can beat New Brunswick/Newfoundland I'd say. And contrary to what many would believe I'm sure, most of that came from US side of the border last year. Heck - didn't they shut down DC last winter because of a snow storm?
 
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Steve R.

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Heck - didn't they shut down DC last winter because of a snow storm?
The residents and governments of the DC area are unskilled with handling snow events. However, they do have a nominal excuse for why the DC area fairs poorly. The temperature for most snow events hovers around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. That makes for very slick roads. (Snow-melt during the day and ice formulation at night.)
 

Vassago

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They also are not typically equipped to handle that much snow.

I remember the first year I moved from Wisconsin to Florida, Florida had a pretty good snowstorm. It actually left a few inches of snow on the ground, something that rarely happens there. The entire city shut down. They didn't have anything to remove the snow from the roads, so it quickly became a hazard. I didn't understand that as a kid because I would walk to the bus stop in a blizzard, but I gladly accepted the snow day.

:D
 

The_Doc_Man

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When it snows in the Greater New Orleans area, the locals have no idea how to handle it either. We don't, as a general rule, have snow chains or snow tires commonly available in our area so when the roads get iced over, it's like the old Bump-a-Car ride at the amusement parks.
 

kevlray

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A couple of my co-workers watched Seattle shut down some years back when they got a couple of inches of snow. They lived in the foothills of central California, so driving through a few inches of snow (even without snow tires or chains) was not a challenge.
 

The_Doc_Man

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Yeah, snow is not really THAT much of a challenge here, either, except in a few places like bridge ramps and very sharp turns that can get iced over in the cold. The worst local road hazard I've ever been through was a crawfish migration.

No, not kidding. There are times of the year when crawfish (Fr. ecrevisse) migrate, probably spawning but I'm not 100% sure of that. One year I was on Interstate 10 highway in New Orleans East, where the I-10 passes through a wildlife sanctuary. The crawfish were migrating across the road en masse, a carpet of crawfish fully covering three lanes and two shoulders of I-10 and probably 40 to 50 feet wide. The pavement was not visible due to the number of them.

Several people (me included) drove very slowly along the road, and I can assure you there was a crunch sound coming from my tires. My tires actually did skid briefly more than once even at slow speed. At least a couple of vehicles had skidded on the crawfish body fluids, though, and hit a guard rail near the migration path.

The most interesting part was that several people had stopped their trucks, got out large baskets, and were shoveling up the migrating crawfish. In New Orleans, a load of freshly caught crawfish means only one thing: Big cooking pots WILL be used soon.
 

Frothingslosh

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I mostly have to worry about week-long power and gas outages with weather ranging from 0F to -20F.

Was funny, though, when I lived in VA and watched the entire state shut down for 3 days because of an inch of snow.
 

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