The Untold Story of Hurricane Irene
I do find it strange to hear of a hurricane with the same name as my mother, who was a rather placid woman. In fact, I suspect too much so. On the other hand, I think she was rather calm under pressure!
I have just been reading a piece about how New York will be treating the city’s prisoners during the hurricane.
“We are not evacuating Rikers Island,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a news conference this afternoon. Bloomberg annouced a host of extreme measures being taken by New York City in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, including a shutdown of the public transit system and the unprecedented mandatory evacuation of some 250,000 people from low-lying areas.
But in response to a reporter’s question, the mayor stated in no uncertain terms (and with more than a hint of annoyance) that one group of New Yorkers on vulnerable ground will be staying put.
New York City is surrounded by small islands and barrier beaches, and a glance at the city’s evacuation map reveals all of them to be in Zone A (already under a mandatory evacuation order) or Zone B–all, that is, save one. Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all, meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.
According to the New York City Department of Corrections’ own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill–which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness.
We were not able to reach anyone at the NYC DOC for comment–but the New York Times’s City Room blog reported: “According to the city’s Department of Correction, no hypothetical evacuation plan for the roughly 12,000 inmates that the facility may house on a given day even exists. Contingencies do exist for smaller-scale relocations from one facility to another.”
So hard luck guys and gals!
Hopefully, they won’t have to endure the horrors of when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. This report is from the ACLU.
A culture of neglect was evident in the days before Katrina, when the sheriff declared that the prisoners would remain “where they belong,” despite the mayor’s decision to declare the city’s first-ever mandatory evacuation. OPP even accepted prisoners, including juveniles as young as 10, from other facilities to ride out the storm.
As floodwaters rose in the OPP buildings, power was lost, and entire buildings were plunged into darkness. Deputies left their posts wholesale, leaving behind prisoners in locked cells, some standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests …
Prisoners went days without food, water and ventilation, and deputies admit that they received no emergency training and were entirely unaware of any evacuation plan. Even some prison guards were left locked in at their posts to fend for themselves, unable to provide assistance to prisoners in need.
When is the United States justice system going to raise its standards to the level of the civilised world?
I suspect we’d be hearing more of this if Dominique Strauss-Kahn was still in prison on Rikers Island.
Memories of Wood Green
I walked up to Bruce Castle Museum from Bruce Grove station early this afternoon. It was not a difficult walk and there are some buildings worth looking at on the way.
Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds Lived Here
This rather derelict building being refurbished was the home of Luke Howard. He seems to have been an amazing man with a wide degree of scientific interests, who should be remembered for a lot more than his classification of clouds. He must also have been the only pharmacist praised in a poem by Goethe.
But Howard gives us with his clear mindThe gain of lessons new to all mankind;That which no hand can reach, no hand can claspHe first has gained, first held with mental grasp.
I suspect too, that he might have been the Howard after whom the local telephone exchange in Enfield was named. Enfield Rolling Mills, who were my father’s biggest customer and where I worked for a couple of summers, had a phone number of Howard 1255. There is a list of all the old London exchange names here.
I enjoyed the museum, as it brought back some happy memories for me. I will be back.
- C’s godmother and her sister had worked at the Gestetner factory in Tottenham Hale and had a flat which would have been in the middle of the riots, although it looked like no damage was done. They were a lovely pair of sisters, who’d had a hard life, but who always remained cheerful to the end. They both lived into their eighties and still had all their marbles when they died. But I think, if they’d had the sort of healthcare that we get now, they might have had a few more years. Both seemed to keep falling over and breaking thighs and other bones.
- One memory the museum brought back was a tale from my grandmother about the Belgian refugees, who were put up in Alexandra Palace after the First World War.
- I can also remember the Monday evening crowds swarming past my father’s printworks on Station Road to the racecourse. Someone used to setup a Crown and Anchor board to fleece punters before they even got to the races, outside the works on Station Road. If the police turned up he allowed them to duck inside, provided they put a couple of notes in the charity box my father had on the counter.
- I also saw the inside of a pub for the first time at about eight, when my father used to take me for lunch on Saturdays to the Jolly Anglers in Station Road, when we both worked in the works.
- When we were at school, we often drive to Ally Pally to have a drink, as no-one seemed to bother how old you were in the bar there. You would then take your drinks out and sit on the grass to admire one of the best views in London.
- In the museum was a display, which had some stationery from Ward’s Stores at Seven Sisters. In the early 1960s, I used to work in a paper shop, who delivered them to Mr. Ward. Rumours had it, that he was dying of something and was getting a bottle of Scotch a day on the NHS.
Next time I visit, I’ll have a serious look at the archives.
Another Use For A Clothes Dryer
I have needed a clothes dryer since I’ve moved in and now that my washing machine decided to go wonky on Tuesday, I needed one urgently. Especially, as I had a load full of wet towels.
So I walked to the nearest shop and bought one, carrying it home in the rain.
A Tightly Packed Addis Clothes Dryer
As you can see it is tightly wrapped in plastic, something I normally don’t like, as I have difficulty unwrapping it.
But it did make an excellent defence against the rain as I carried it home flat on head.
My only regret was that no-one was there to take a photograph, as I crossed the zebra crossing in the pouring rain.
Sadly the clothes dryer collapsed and broke with just two towels on it. So it had a short life and a happy one.
Taxis In The Rain
it is raining hard tonight. But one of the advantages is that I live near the old 641 trolley bus route and taxi drivers still use it as the cut back to the City and Liverpool Street station, as the road is wide. So despite the rain, a guest who was going to a function in the City tonight had no difficulty getting a black cab.
But it’s raining so hard, that I’ve got a slight leak in my glass roof! At least I brought a bucket with me to London.
Hay Fever in Switzerland
You’d expect the Swiss to be fairly professional about this and this web site is very much so. The trouble is finding it was difficult as typing something like “pollen forecast switzerland” into Google, gets all sorts of crap paid for sites mainly from the United States.
The interesting fact, is the Swiss thinks a lot of their hay fever comes from an imported plant called ambrosia. They are now attempting to eradicate it.
Originally from North America, ambrosia (ragweed) is a weed with two specific properties: an extremely high spread potential and highly allergenic pollen. Pollination begins in mid July and continues until the first autumn frosts.
In the last twenty years ambrosia has spread on a massive scale in Europe. In Switzerland it has now spread over vast swathes of land in the Geneva and Ticino regions. North of the Alps its presence is limited to specific areas, but without appropriate countermeasures there is an imminent risk of it invading the whole country.
To avoid this scenario, from July 2006 ambrosia has been declared by law a plant that must be disinfested / eradicated.
I wish them luck.
Raining Cats, Dogs and Hippotami
Returning from the London Wetland Centre, the rain was some of the worst I’ve seen for some time. I thought I was lucky, as I was on a brand-new Dennis bus on route 30. But the rain was so heavy, that the roof sprung a leak!
At least though my hay fever seems a bit better.
The Pollen Count is Going to Get Worse
I’ve just looked at the pollen count forecast on the Met Office web site. Their new system is here.
It would appear that by the weekend the levels will be high.
Yesterday, I asked a friend, who is a racehorse trainer, whether he had been affected. He personally hadn’t, but some of his horses had had hay fever like symptoms, with runny eyes.
He thought the high levels were because we had a warm April, and that has brought everything forward, so all of the pollen has come along at the same time.
Weddings And Rain
When C and I got married in 1968, it was a summer of terrible weather. We had the only fine Saturday in about three months, with lots of sunshine. One of C’s friends got married the next weekend and their much more expensive wedding was a complete washout.
So I was rather pleased this morning, that they’ve just announced that come what may, the happy couple will return from the Abbey in an open carriage.
After all, a little bit of rain won’t hurt them!
The Great Storm
I’m posting this because of the horrendous storms in the United States. It actually comes from my old blog, which I no longer update.
On the 16th October 1987, we experienced one of the worst storms in the UK. Contrary to popular belief, it was not a hurricane, but it caused more damage than any storm for 300 years.
At the time we lived at Debach, north of Ipswich and we were without electricity for nearly two weeks. Luckily we cooked on a gas AGA and surprisingly the phones kept going.
It is also the time, when I had the narrowest escape of my life.
I’ve always got up early in the morning to work, as it is the best time, when you don’t get interrupted by phone calls or family. But that morning although I was up, I wasn’t in the office as luckily there was no power. At about six-thirty the chimney blew over, came through the roof and went right through where I normally sat.
We’d also turned out two horses in the field that night for the first time. One was an old racehorse, who’d been confined to his box for two years with leg problems and the other was a newly-weaned foal.
They had no problems, as instinct kept them to the safe place in the middle of the field, with their backsides to the wind.
So does the Internet help?
Hopefully the warnings and the weather forecasts would be better. But I suspect that the chaos might actually be worse, as many people would be unable to connect and would be suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms.
The Royal Family was Well-Advised
The Queen as we all know finds that nearly all her travels or events are accompanied by extreme weather. But as least her family seems to have been well-advised in their choice of date for the Royal Wedding. The forecast is showing a grey morning with perhaps a shower, but it all clears up for the ceremoney and the ceremonials afterwards.
You can also argue, that their choice of date has been good for the Americans. It seems most of them are over here and have thus missed some of the worst and most dangerous storms in living memory in the Southern States.
The Anonymous Widower 