The Infrastructure Mess

Infrastructure and public safety once again come to the forefront with the collapse of the I5 Bridge in WA. It's looking like investigators are focusing on a truck that passed through the area shortly before the accident and whether it struck the overhead supports, knocking the span out of alignment. That would take quite a bit of force, unless other issues were at play (including corrosion and a lack of redundancy in structural support).

Time will tell what happened, but thankfully no one was killed in this collapse.

It's a reminder that we are spending far too little on maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. The amount we as a nation are spending on infrastructure has fallen to levels not before seen as a percentage of GNP over the past twenty years after peaking during the Stimulus period. We are spending far less in both real dollars and as a percent of GNP than other developed countries, despite critical areas that are not getting support.

Moreover, we're not getting out money's worth (bang for the buck) based on the costs compared to similar projects overseas. Two of the biggest projects are the East Side Access and 2d Avenue Subway lines. Both will improve access to NYC and reduce congestion by carrying hundreds of thousands of commuters each day, but for the cost of the first segment of the 2d Avenue line, several countries in Europe have been able to build out entire subway lines. The NYC subway system is the oldest in the country and essentially operates 24/7/365 with no lines shut down overnight as some of its counterparts elsewhere do. That's beginning the change with the FasTrak service to get repairs done faster and cheaper, but trying to add capacity to an already built-out system in a densely populated area is costly.

Yet, there's room to grow. There's a proposal floating around to get the outer boroughs connected using underutilized rights of way that the MTA doesn't currently use. The Triboro TX would loop through Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx, and link up lines so that commuters don't have to cross into Manhattan to get to their destinations. It makes tremendous sense, and could relieve congestion through Manhattan and wouldn't cost nearly as much as a new subway through Manhattan, except that the MTA doesn't have room in its capital budget to do it - and the lack of political will to get it done either. NIMBYs have been trying to get some of that turned into park, rather than revert to subways that would increase property values of neighborhoods along the routes and prospective station locations. Turnover at the top of the MTA isn't helping either.

But it still comes back to costs for infrastructure. We want it. We need it. It's indispensable, and yet we refuse to pay for it and politicians aren't going to do anything when they can't do ribbon cuttings (so basic maintenance gets shafted).

But big projects like bridges, tunnels, subways, and mass transit are just the tip of the iceberg on infrastructure and public safety.

In light of the tornado that destroyed the town of Moore outside Oklahoma City, there are some calls to require construction of storm shelters and storm cellars in new buildings and retrofit existing structures.

The Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin is refusing to support a mandate that would require storm celler/shelter construction in new or existing structures. It's absolutely mind-boggling.

Despite the life-saving potential of personal storm shelters, the cost remains a deterrent. So, too, does a general resistance to government mandates in politically conservative states such as Oklahoma, where tornadoes are most prevalent. Even the director of an association of storm shelter manufacturers, based in Texas, is opposed to a storm shelter mandate for new homes.

"Any time a governmental entity says 'thou shalt' and tries to take an individual decision into the public domain, it's going to get pushback, and you're also going to raise the cost of things," said Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association and a retired civil engineering professor Texas Tech University.

The science of storm shelters has advanced considerably since Dorothy failed to make it to the tornado cellar at Aunty Em's Kansas farm in the 1938 movie the Wizard of Oz. Some shelters still are dug underground in the backyard. But they are increasingly made with specially fabricated concrete and steel doors to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency specifications. And they aren't necessarily underground. In some cases, closets or bathrooms are being fortified to double as "safe rooms" that can withstand furious winds even if the rest of the house is blown away.

In 2011, Oklahoma announced the SoonerSafe incentive program, offering federally financed rebates of up to $2,000 to residents who install storm shelters. The state uses a lottery-style drawing to select rebate winners from among the thousands of online applications. Sherry Wells said she won this year. She and her husband decided to get the biggest shelter available- a vault-like box with wooden benches - at a cost of $4,800. The project was so freshly finished that the Wells hadn't even submitted their rebate forms when the tornado hit on Monday.

"If it wasn't for the hand of God and the cellar, we wouldn't be here," Wells said as she sorted through the rubble of her home Thursday.

A little over 3,000 residential storm shelters are registered in Moore, a city of about 56,000, said community development director Elizabeth Jones.

Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis wants to propose a city ordinance requiring all new homes to have storm shelters. But realistically, he said, city officials may be able to require them only in new assisted living facilities and apartment complexes because of cost concerns. Contractors will be part of the conversation with the City Council to see whether a broader requirement is possible, Lewis said.

"We want to be competitive," he said. "We don't want to price them out of the market."

Asked at a news conference if a similar mandate might be considered statewide, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin quickly shot down the suggestion.

Their primary concern is cost.

It would cost anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 to integrate a storm room into a new build. That is the difference between life and death. In fact, one family who won a lottery to get a rebate for a storm shelter survived the Moore tornado just weeks after finishing the work but before they were able to submit the rebate paperwork. That family is alive because of the storm shelter.

The cost definitely works in favor of installing and mandating the shelters, as compared to the funeral costs for those folks who were killed.

This isn't about a lack of money. It's about lacking the will to make it happen and adjusting priorities to focus on public safety and well being. The state of Oklahoma, along with the other Tornado Alley states have no statewide requirements for requiring storm shelters in new buildings, let alone retrofitting them into existing structures. The costs can be depreciated and spread out over the life of the structure, and moreover, the costs can be absorbed simply by reducing the square footage of a private residence with the structure built in by 30-50 square feet.

Tornado Touches Down Along NYS Thruway Near Amsterdam

Upstate New York isn't catching a break. After the devastating floods from Hurricane Irene, the area is caught in a cold front that is bringing up the remnants from Tropical Storm Lee.

Ahead of that, there's been some wicked weather, including this tornado, which crossed over the NYS Thruway near the Mohawk rest area in Amsterdam.


The EF-1 storm was caught by a storm chaser who had come from Kansas to watch for tornadoes along the East Coast:

cut a seven-mile path from Florida in Columbia County to Glenville in Schenectady County.

The storm with winds as high as 110 mph was on the ground for about 15 minutes starting around 5:20 p.m., grew to as much as half-mile wide and left the most destruction in the Cranesville section of the town of Amsterdam, the weather service said.

Montgomery County Emergency Management Director Dwight Schwabrow said "numerous" buildings -- including the Cranesville Volunteer Fire Department -- were damaged.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo sent State Police and other officials already assigned to Tropical Storm Irene to respond to the Cranesville damage. One National Guardsman from Utica said his unit was re-assigned from Irene clean up the tornado's aftermath.

"We probably had between 25 and 30 homes that were damaged in one fashion or another," Schwabrow said. As of 11:30 a.m., nearly 2,000 National Grid customers in Fulton and Montgomery counties were without power, with an additional 547 in Rensselaer County, 772 in Saratoga County and 276 in Schenectady County in the dark.

Weather Service meteorologists said the video evidence strongly suggested that it was a tornado, but the today's investigation should determine wind speed, direction and extent of the damage before a tornado is confirmed.

The tornado was captured by Rotterdam resident Lindsay Phillips, a storm chaser who has traveled to Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming to catch fleeting glimpses of the destructive power of tornadoes.

2011 Tornado Season Already One For the Record Books

While search crews continue looking for survivors from the deadly tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, the official death toll is 125 and 232 are still missing. It's the single deadliest tornado in decades, and it's left more than 900 injured.

This year has seen an unusually high number of tornadoes, with 1,168 as of May 22, compared to an average of about 671 by this time, according to Joshua Wurman, head of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colo.
The United States is on pace to break its record for deaths from tornadoes this season, the National Weather Service has said.

To put 2011 in historical perspective, the totals reflect a new record for most tornadoes in any month, when 875 occurred in April 2011. That smashed the previous April and monthly records by a wide margin in both cases - 267 and 542, respectively. The bulk of those April 2011 tornadoes occurred in two super-outbreaks.

It's also a reminder that while the tornado season continues through the Great Plains and traditional Tornado Alley, we're about to enter hurricane season, and the precautions that one should take to prepare for a tornado overlaps with the hurricane precautions, including setting aside a go-bag and setting aside key valuables and items in case of emergency.

Death Toll Rises As South Picks Up Pieces From Massive Tornado Outbreak

The death toll from a massive tornado outbreak across the Southern United States is expected to continue climbing above 200 as residents pick up the pieces from 137 tornadoes that were reported around the region, including 66 in Alabama and 38 in Mississippi.

The death toll is quite high despite incessant tornado emergency warnings and that emergency officials called for school and business closures to keep people in relative safety. The problem was that some of the storms were so severe that structures were completely obliterated.

Storms mangled communities from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to Hunstville Alabama. Emergency personnel will have a difficult time given that power is out to wide swaths of area and that the damage has made it difficult to get into some areas to check for survivors and victims of the storms.

The storms were captured on video and the deadly beauty of these storms are all too apparent:



Power remains out in many parts of the region, and there are concerns over a nuclear power plant that is operating on backup systems. The reactor at Browns Ferry is expected to remain offline for several weeks as transmission lines are restored.

April 2011 is shaping up to be one for the record books. It's setting all kinds of records for severe storms and has set the record for most tornadoes for the month of April (or since 1954 according to the Washington Post).

It's also all too apparent that yesterday's outbreak could go down as one of the deadliest and largest outbreaks in history. That follows the April 16 outbreak that was the largest in North Carolina history.

Today, the storms have shifted to the east, so that Georgia, the Carolinas, and the Middle Atlantic states could be in for a rough time. Already, a handful of tornado warnings have been posted for Tallahassee, FL, Washington DC, and State College, PA areas even as much of the East Coast is under severe storm watches and warnings.

Investigators will comb through the damage paths to determine just how many storms produced tornadoes and the relative strengths of the storms.

UPDATE:
This video shows at least one tornado crossing through the Mississippi countryside tearing up trees and homes and downing power lines. The driver of the car is actually driving directly towards the tornado as the storm crosses within a mile of the car:



More video can be seen here. Video of the tornado slamming into Tuscaloosa can be seen here.

Major Tornado Outbreak Rips Through Southern US; 54+ Dead

A major tornado outbreak has ripped across large parts of the American South, including Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and that line of storms.

Particularly hard hit is a stretch of Alabama from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham.

This video shows a tornado ripping through Tuscaloosa:



This tornado was reported to have stayed on the ground from Tuscaloosa through Birmingham before continuing its deadly path to the north and east of the city. That's more than 50 miles as the crow flies. It was a massive storm and was estimated to be more than a mile wide at several points.

The storms have killed 37 people, and the death toll is expected to rise overnight as areas are still being hit with tornadoes and severe storms.

The South usually sees lots of tornado activity in the early spring, before the tornado activity moves into what's traditionally known as Tornado Alley. That has to do with the weather patterns that bring in large air masses from different directions and significant temperature differentials. That causes the air to mix violently along the boundary line, creating conditions favorable to tornado development.

The storm front is sliding to the East, which means that the potential for deadly tornadoes is expected to move into Georgia, the Carolinas, and the Middle Atlantic. It's also possible that some severe storms are possible in the NYC metro area, although at the moment the concern in our part is flooding, not tornados or severe wind events.

Much of the Eastern part of the US is blanketed in watches and warnings, and those alerts can be tracked here.

UPDATE:
At least 54 people have been killed in the ongoing tornado outbreak.

Wicked Weather Rips Through NYC Metro Area

There's nothing quite like being in the middle of the commute and watching the skies go from light gray to pitch black within minutes and the heavens opening up. There isn't much you can do but sit back and watch the show and hope that no one gets hurt.

And it was quite the show. I saw multiple lightning strikes on the Empire State Building, cloud to cloud lightning and sheet lightning before the rain completely enveloped the train I was on such that you could barely see a few feet ahead.

The rain came down sideways and the winds were severe. Trees were knocked over all around the area, particularly in Woodside Queens. That, along with flooding, knocked out LIRR service throughout the system, and NJ Transit fared nearly as bad with service delays out of Penn Station in Manhattan.

Tornado warnings were up in the area, and apparently more than a few people saw funnel clouds, so it is possible that some of the wind damage was the result of those funnel clouds touching down.



That's a video of a microburst in Brooklyn. Repeat that scene all over the area, and you get the idea.

Here are some more photos from Brooklyn.

UPDATE:
Damage reports are still coming in from around the area, and tornado sightings were reported across Staten Island and winds topped 100 mph in some areas. The National Weather Service will be busy over the next few days surveying the damage to determine whether the damage was the result of microbursts, straight-line winds, or tornadoes. Funnel cloud sightings were reported in Middlesex County New Jersey before heading into the City.

One person was killed when a tree fell on his car while driving on the Grand Central Parkway.

NBCNewYork.com got reports that hail fell on the Lower East Side while heavy winds caused extensive damage in Brooklyn, Queens Staten Island and parts of Long Island. Lightning wreaked havoc as far away as Greenwich, Conn.

Con Edison reported 27,000 customers without power, NBCNewYork.com said.

In the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, witnesses say the sky went pitch black at about 5:30 p.m. Trees started waving around like blades of grass. Large branches snapped and hit cars, smashing windshields.

"All of a sudden, we saw this dark cloud, and it was moving. I said 'Let's go in!'" said Stephen Wylie, who was working in a backyard on Quincy Street, in Brooklyn.

Within seconds, the front door started lashing back and forth. Trees branches were falling and trees came flying from other yards, Wylie said.

"They smashed the whole backyard, a gazebo there. Then half the roof was torn off — eight layers of it" — leaving only a layer of wood, he said.

NJ Transit and LIRR both failed their customers once again in failing to provide timely updates to thousands trying to get home during the evening rush. Their websites were useless in providing updates - again.

Even an hour after the storms came through, LIRR officials who were talking with local radio stations couldn't account for where all trains were - whether they were stuck between stations or the like.