December 19, 2010

New York's Modern Day Atlantis

"[The 1893 New York Hurricane was] A mighty war of winds and a great tumbling of chimneys, More than a hundred noble trees were torn up by the roots, and branches were twisted off everywhere."
Courtesy of Wiki/NYT Circa 1893

Map Location


Hog Island is one of my favorite disasters- mostly because the people who were affected by it are long gone, so I can show an interest without seeming... heartless or apathetic. (Try showing a little excitement about Hurricane Katrina's system to anyone other that the weather loving and you're sure to get a ear full. )

Hog Island A.K.A. Hog Inlet (Due to its small 1 Mile size), was a small barrier island used mostly for farming but is also believed to have been the home of many seafront resorts. In August of 1893, the island located south of present day Rockaway Beach, was completely wiped out by a devastating hurricane. I refer to it as New York's Modern day Atlantis, due to the findings of Professor Nicholas Coch of Queens College & his team of local undergraduate students.

After several storms in the early 1990's the Army Corps of Engineers began to rebuild the beaches using dredges. During this time, pieces of Hog Island began washing up along the shore. Professor Coch's group found hundreds of different artifacts including whiskey bottles, beer mugs, and even a hurricane lamp. The majority of the items were dated around the late 19th century.

By the time the hurricane finally made landfall in New York, it was only a Category 1 Hurricane. The hurricane claimed the lives of 34 sailors as boats were blown ashore and men were swept out to sea. A tugboat named "Panther", that was towing two coal barges, was destroyed; 17 crew members died, and only three lived.

One can only speculate how bad a Category 1 hurricane would be if it hit New York in modern times. No one wants to sit and think about what would happen if it was a major hurricane (Saffir-Simpson Scale 3,4,5). To give you a better idea on how devastating a storm would be to modern day New York I'm including an article from Aaron Naparstek from the New York Press below.

The Big One

Imagine the following: It's a beautiful Labor Day weekend. Sunny, cloudless, 80 degrees. Backyard barbecues are fired up all over the metropolitan area, and the beaches of New York City, New Jersey and southern Long Island are jam-packed with bathers. The only sign that something unusual is happening is the relatively big waves rolling up on Coney Island. It's a surfer's paradise. Mike Lee isn't enjoying the long weekend. For the last two weeks, Lee, the Director of Watch Command at New York City's Office of Emergency Management, has been observing a series of weather systems form off the western coast of Africa, organize themselves into the familiar swirling pattern of tropical storms, and line up like airplanes coming in for a landing on the Caribbean. One of those storms, a category-4 monster hurricane with sustained winds of 140 m.p.h., is violently churning the ocean 350 nautical miles off the coast of Georgia.

A hurricane like this one can usually be counted on to curve eastward and die a harmless death over the Atlantic. But with a large area of high pressure hovering just off the east coast, the computer models at the National Hurricane Center in Miami are largely in agreement: This one is heading north, tracking a direct hit on New Jersey somewhere north of Atlantic City. Like the legendary "Long Island Express" of 1938, the fastest-moving hurricane ever recorded, it's moving quickly.

While no human or computer can ever be completely sure what a hurricane is going to do, this is looking like a worst-case scenario for New York City, the kind of scenario "that gives emergency managers serious gastrointestinal distress," says Lee. Because of its counter-clockwise rotation, the right side of a hurricane is the most powerful part of the storm. The right side of this storm is fixing to land a haymaker on New York Harbor. If it makes landfall during high tide, the devastation will be unprecedented.

With the storm expected to hit within 24 hours, Mike Lee is in constant communication with Mike Wyllie, meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service's New York office in Upton. The OEM's emergency operations center, meanwhile, is buzzing, while the mayor and his chiefs are hunkered down in the situation room. They have an incredibly difficult decision to make, a decision that has never before been made in New York City. They are preparing to order the evacuation of 900,000 New Yorkers whose homes are in the path of catastrophic flooding in the event of a category-4 hurricane. They will provide shelter for nearly a quarter million. And while the storm is still far enough away that it could drift off course and miss New York City completely, a full evacuation may take up to 18 hours. They need to decide now. The fact that a mayoral election is only two months away doesn't make the decision any less complicated. An unnecessary evacuation could be a political catastrophe.

Though it sounds like science fiction, the above scenario is all too plausible. "Try to tell someone in Sheepshead Bay that they have to evacuate immediately because within the next 24 hours they'll have 30 feet of storm surge on their neighborhood," says Mike Lee, before pausing to let you think about three stories of ocean water roiling through your own neighborhood. "They'll laugh at you—absolutely laugh at you," he says. "I mean, I barely even believe it."

I met Lee at this year's Long Island/New York City Emergency Management conference and spent some time with him at the OEM "bunker" in Brooklyn. It turns out that the region's emergency managers aren't only worrying about terrorism these days. The big topic of discussion at the Melville, Long Island, Hilton was hurricanes. And the strong consensus is that the metropolitan region is due for a big one. Overdue, in fact.

The 1938 Long Island Express, a borderline category-4 hurricane that plowed into West Hampton, causing widespread death and devastation across New York, New Jersey and New England, was the last major hurricane to hit the region. Statistically speaking, "a storm of that magnitude may repeat every 70 to 80 years or so," Lee says. "So, do the math. Whether it happens this year, next year, or in five years, it's going to happen." And with this year's hurricane season forecasted to be even busier and more dangerous than last year's record-setter, "It's just a matter of time," Lee says.

Though it is rare for big hurricanes to hit the New York metropolitan region, there are a variety of "oceanographic, demographic and geologic characteristics that greatly amplify any hurricane" that comes our way, according to Nicholas Coch, a professor of coastal geology at Queens College. In many ways, Coch explains, "The New York City area is the worst possible place for a hurricane to make a landfall."

New York's first vulnerability is psychological. This is a city where children playing in the dirt are told by their mothers to "get up off the floor." We tend to forget that we have any connection whatsoever to the natural world. The vast majority of the city's eight million inhabitants simply have no idea that a hurricane can happen here.

"We live in a complacent coastal city," Lee says. "A lot of people don't even think that there are beaches here," never mind 478 miles of coastline. In fact, New York City is behind only Miami and New Orleans on the list of U.S. cities most likely to suffer a major hurricane disaster. Compounding the problem is the fact that many of the New Yorkers who lived through 1985's Hurricane Gloria believe they've experienced the worst of what nature has to offer. "That wasn't a hurricane," meteorologist Wyllie says. The storm was billed as a category-2 that weakened before it hit and came in at low tide. "Gloria was nothing."

New York's second vulnerability is demographic. During the decades of calm between major hurricanes, the city grows and forgets. During the great hurricane of 1821, only 152,000 people lived in New York City. When the next major, direct hit came in 1893, the city's population was 2.5 million. At the time of the 1938 storm, Long Island wasn't a densely populated suburban sprawl; it was a rural home for oyster fishermen, potato farmers and wealthy industrialists. The same storm today would wreak incredible havoc. AIR Worldwide Corporation estimates $11.6 billion in New York losses alone.

More than 20 million people live in the greater metropolitan region. Many live on coastal land, reclaimed swamp and barrier islands. Much of Lower Manhattan is built on landfill. Places like Rockaway, Coney Island and Manhattan Beach "are stretches of land that nature has created to protect the mainland from hurricanes," Lee says. "In our civilization this is also the most desirable land to develop and build on. We're not going to undevelop it. So we now have to deal with the threat."

Coch, the six-foot-seven-and-a-half professor once nicknamed "Dr. Doom" because he was the first scientist to widely publicize New York City's hurricane history and vulnerabilities, put it more poetically in a 1995 New York Times interview: The only difference between now and then is that "now we have millions of people to offer the God of the Sea."

New York City's biggest vulnerability is the most unyielding geology. The New York bight is the right angle formed by Long Island and New Jersey with the city tucked into its apex. "Hurricanes do not like right angles," Lee says. "[They allow] water to accumulate and pile up."

Couple this with the fact that New York resides on a very shallow continental shelf, and as a big storm pushes north, New York Harbor "acts as a funnel." As storm surge forces its way into the harbor and up the rivers, it has nowhere to go but onto land. New York City, it turns out, has some of the highest storm-surge values in the country. "When we see a category-3 storm making landfall in Florida, it may only have a 12-, 13-foot storm surge," Lee says. "For us here, a category-1 storm can give us 12 feet of storm surge."

Storm surge is the dome of seawater that is lifted up and pushed forward in front of a hurricane. It acts almost like a mini-tsunami, causing sea levels to rise rapidly and violently. Most people believe that high winds and rains are the main dangers of a hurricane. In fact, inland flooding caused by storm surge is the big killer. In 1821, stunned colonial New Yorkers recorded sea levels rising as fast as 13 feet in a single hour at the Battery. The East River and Hudson Rivers merged over Lower Manhattan all the way to Canal Street. According to Coch, the fact that the 1821 storm struck at low tide "is the only thing that saved the city."

To get a sense of the damage that storm surge can do to New York City, call 311 and ask them to send you a full-color copy of the New York City Hurricane Evacuation Map. It is a truly mind-boggling document. If a storm like the Long Island Express makes a direct hit on the city, everything below Broome Street will be inundated, some parts under as much as 20 and 30 feet of water. Chelsea and Greenwich Village are completely flooded, with the Hudson spilling over all the way to 7th Avenue. Likewise, the East River and East Village become one, with ocean water surging all the way to 1st Avenue. If you haven't evacuated before the storm, forget it. During the storm, Manhattan's east- and west-side highways vanish. Tunnels and bridges become unusable.

The outer boroughs also get hit hard. Opposed to that new Ikea being built on the waterfront in Red Hook? Don't worry. There's a decent chance it won't be there after a moderate-size hurricane. Residents of Williamsburg-Greenpoint should seek out a male and female of each species and get in their arks. In a kind of one-two-punch effect, a major hurricane will push ocean water down from the Long Island Sound into the Upper East Side, South Bronx and northern Queens, flooding those areas severely. Vast stretches of southern Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island will be devastated. The map shows Atlantic Ocean storm surge reaching as far inland as Flatbush, just south of Prospect Park, with 31.3 feet of water atop Howard Beach.

"A lot of people say, 'How can you come up with these numbers? Thirty feet, that's ridiculous. It's science fiction.' Actually," Lee says, "It's science fact." Hurricanes in the southern U.S. have proven the Army Corps of Engineers' storm-surge calculations to be accurate within a few inches.

For a taste of what will happen to the city's infrastructure, we can look at the damage wrought by the great nor'easters of the early 1990s. During those storms, the L train had to be backed out as the 14th Street tunnel began filling with water, and the FDR highway was so badly inundated that 50 motorists had to be rescued by dive teams. In the event of a direct hit by a category-3 hurricane, surge maps show that the Holland and Battery Tunnels will be completely filled with sea water, with many subway and railroad tunnels severely flooded as well. The runways of LaGuardia and JFK airports will get flooded by 18.1 and 31.2 feet of water, respectively.

Then there are the winds. The city's two million trees will be a huge problem. "New York City's trees haven't been stressed in years except for an isolated severe thunderstorm or two," Wyllie says. They've had plenty of time to grow and wrap their roots around underground phone, electric, gas and water lines. As they are uprooted in the heavy winds, a lot of infrastructure both above and below ground is going to get wrecked.

As for skyscrapers, "The impact of catastrophic winds on high-rise buildings is still a little vague," Lee says. "We don't feel we have enough data on that."

We do know that hurricane wind speeds multiply at higher altitudes. At 350 feet, the height of high-rise buildings on the Battery and the towers of the George Washington Bridge, hurricane winds will be twice as fast as they are on the ground. Newer, glass-skinned towers are not likely to do well in those conditions. Neither will human beings caught outside amidst flying debris. To give a sense of the unbelievable force of hurricane winds, Lee shows a photo from one of the four storms that struck Florida last year. It depicts a blunt piece of two-by-four driven straight through the trunk of a palm tree.

"It would be nasty," Wyllie agrees. "If you get sustained winds going 80 to 90 miles per hour in the city—whoa, you can't believe the destruction. We've never seen that. And as you go up 200, 300 feet," he considers that for a moment. "That'll be 100, 110 mph winds. Watch out."

Professor Coch, whose business card reads "forensic hurricanologist," believes that the best way to understand New York City's hurricane future is to study its past. He became New York City's leading hurricane historian virtually by accident.

After the nor'easters of December 1992 and March 1993 devastated Rockaway, Coch sent a group of his coastal-geology undergrads to observe the Army Corps of Engineers replenishing beaches with sand dredged from the sea. The students reported back that "the beach was covered in garbage. Coch remembers telling them, "Get used to it. This is New York City." But they said, "No, this is funny garbage." In the dredged-up sand, Coch's students found hundreds of artifactsplates, whiskey bottles, teapots, beer mugs, lumps of coal and, what proved to be the most telling clue of all, an old hurricane lamp. Mystified at how a treasure trove of 19th-century objects could have wound up underwater hundreds of feet off the coast of Rockaway, Coch and his students began investigating. It took them about two years to unravel the mystery of Hog Island: New York City's version of Atlantis.

It turns out there was once a small, sandy spit of an island off the southern coast of Rockaway. In the years after the Civil War, developers built saloons and bathhouses, and Hog Island became a sort of 1890s version of the Hamptons. During the summers, the city's Democratic bosses used Hog Island as a kind of outdoor annex of Tammany Hall. That all ended on the night of August 23, 1893, when a terrifying category-2 hurricane rolled up from Norfolk, Virginia, and made landfall on what is now JFK airport.

The storm was a major event. All six front-page columns of the August 25, 1893 New York Times were dedicated to the "unexampled fury" of the "West Indian monster" and the damage it wrought throughout the region. Dozens of boats were sunk, and scores of sailors perished. In Central Park "more than a hundred noble trees were torn up by the roots," and thousands of sparrows lay dead on the ground. "Gangs of small boys roamed through the Park in the early hours of the morning collecting the dead sparrows and picking their feathers."

At the brand-new Met Life building at Madison Avenue and 23rd Street, a heavy-iron fence was torn away by the wind, plunging 10 stories and crashing through a stained-glass dome before landing on a mosaic "including quantities of costly Mexican onyx." In Brooklyn, at Wyckoff and Myrtle Avenues, "the water in the street was up to a man's waist," and residents used ladders to get in and out of their houses. Most of the boats moored at the Williamsburg Yacht Club were "sunk, driven ashore or demolished." The East River rose "until it swept over the sea wall in the Astoria district and submerged the Boulevard." At Coney Island, 30-foot waves swept 200 yards inland, destroying nearly every man-made structure in its path and wrecking the elevated railroad.

"Hog Island largely disappeared that night," Coch says. "As far as I know, it is the only incidence of the removal of an entire island by a hurricane."

Hurricanes, Coch reminds, "operate on a geologic scale."

Will New York City get hit by the Big One this season? It's impossible to say. But we do know this: The risk of a major hurricane hitting the metropolitan region is significantly greater than it has been in a long time. Meteorologists have observed that Atlantic Ocean hurricanes tend to wax and wane over roughly 20-year cycles. Nineteen ninety-five marked the beginning of a period of above-normal hurricane activity. We are now in the middle of that cycle. The same climate conditions that made last year's hurricane season so active are in place and even augmented this year. Low wind sheer and sea-surface pressure and a favorable African easterly jet stream all create ideal conditions for Atlantic hurricanes. El Nino, the unusually warm current that appears in the tropical Pacific off the coast of Ecuador every three to seven years, tends to dampen hurricane activity in the Atlantic. This year there is no El Nino.

Additionally, scientists say that man-made global warming is increasing the odds that tropical storms will dump on New York City with greater frequency and intensity. Tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures have steadily risen over the last decade. Hurricanes are essentially gigantic steam engines; they gain power from warm seas.

"With global warming there is more moisture in the atmosphere," says Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "This moisture is the main fuel for hurricanes and tropical storms." This year, tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures are the warmest they have ever been in recorded history, about two degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And while there is debate within the hurricane research community as to how much impact global warming ultimately has, there is no longer any question that global warming is contributing to more extreme weather events around the world.

Whatever the causes, forecasters are confident that 2005 will be a busy hurricane season, busier even than last year's. Meteorologists are forecasting 15 named storms, eight of them hurricanes, four of them "intense" hurricanes. In an average year, about 10 storms get names, six become hurricanes and two become intense.

New York City's hurricane season runs from August to October, peaking around September 10. To prepare for a storm, Lee suggests that New Yorkers call 311 or go online, find out what evacuation zone they're in, and develop a plan. If a storm comes rolling in and the city tells you to evacuate, take heed. "People who decide to ride out a storm need to know that in the middle of it they can't call 911 and say, 'All right, come get me. I'm ready,'" Lee says. "We will not be able to come and get them. Once they've made the decision to stay, they've made that decision for the long haul. That's a very serious decision."

If the Big One hits this season, Lee may be taking his own advice. The first OEM "bunker" was located in the World Trade Center—in hindsight, a lousy location. A new OEM building is currently under construction on the bluffs of Brooklyn Heights. Until its completion, the city's emergency managers are working in a converted warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront. In the event of a direct hit by a category-3 hurricane, New York City's Office of Emergency Management will find itself under 22.4 feet of storm surge.

Lee's not too worried about it, though. The city has a duplicate Office of Emergency Management in an undisclosed location.

-By Aaron Naparstek - The New York Press - July 27th, 2005


P.F.S. Good Luck Tri-State Area. You're gonna need it.

xoxo disaster girl

December 17, 2010

The Futurist Map's Of America & The World

^^ Future Map Section Up & Running - 20+ MAPS!

The Futurist Map's Of The World
"The phrase "Earth Changes" was coined by the American psychic Edgar Cayce to refer to the belief that the world will soon enter on a series of cataclysmic events causing major alterations in human life on the planet. This includes "natural events" (such as major earthquakes, the melting of the polar ice caps, a pole shift of the planetary axis, major weather events, solar flares and so on) as well as huge changes of the local and global social, economical and political systems."
Courtesy of Wikipedia

Lori Toye - I Am America Map

Lori Toye - Freedom Star Map

Abrahamsen Map / After Earth Shift / Stripped Underwater
"The New Earth" by Aron and Doris Abrahamsen


Dolores Cannons Nostradamus Map
Stripped=ExistingWater/White=ExistingLand
Black=LandRemainingAboveWater


America In the New Millennium 1998-2012 AD
"Mass Dreams of the Future" by Dr. Chet B. Snow


Map By Alex Tingle
From His Blog


&

Gordon Michael Scallion
From His Website


All images found on BAPRODUCTS, unless otherwise stated & linked.


A "Future Map" is a method of constructing scenarios from a collection of upcoming/anticipated events. Combining this with Edgar Cayce's "Earth Changes" and you have yourself a "Post-Apocalyptic Theory Map".

Walking hand in hand with Catastrophism, future maps use things like the mass extinct of dinosaur to theorize that events like those happen on a global scale, repeating the events with or without long time frames.

P.F.S. Additional Links Below for the Curious.
Uniformitarianism Wiki
Eschatology Wiki
Gradualism Wiki
Risks to Civilization, Humans, & Planet Earth Wiki

December 16, 2010

Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura - 2012 Videos














Carl Anheuser: Kind of galling when you realize that nutbags with cardboard signs had it right the whole time. -2012

P.F.S. "I remember once, when I lived in the Capital for a month and bought the paper fresh every day. I went wild with love, anger, irritation, frustration; all of the passion boiled in me. I was young, I exploded at everything I saw. But then I saw what I was doing: I was believing what I read. Have you noticed? You believe a paper printed on the same day you buy it? This has happened but only an hour ago, you think! It must be true. So I learned to stand back away and let the paper age and mellow. Back here, in Colonia, I saw the headlines diminish to nothing. The week-old paper -- why you can spit on it if you wish. It is like a woman you once loved, but now you see a few days later, she is not quite what you thought. She has rather a plain face. She is no deeper than a cup of water." Ray Bradbury - And the Rock Cried Out

You believe everything you read. Why not this?

xoxo disaster girl

The Vivos Underground Survival Shelter Communities

"The Barstow branch will stock enough food and clothing to sustain 135 people for at least a year, and in a lifestyle that Vicino describes as compact but luxurious, like being on a cruise ship."
Courtesy of Popsci







Images Courtesy of TerraVivos


Vivos Underground Shelter Benefits & Features
Courtesy of TerraVivos

Location Benefits:
√ Centrally located in the heart of the United States
√ Within a one-day drive from virtually everywhere
√ Far from known nuclear targets
√ Only 70 miles from Omaha: probable alternate capitol of the
U.S. should Washington D.C. become compromised
√ Far from large water bodies posing tsunami submersion threats
√ Far from major earthquake fault lines
√ Far from major cities and potential anarchists
√ In the ‘safe land zones’ envisioned on many futurist maps
√ Surrounded by farming, fishing, hunting and fresh water sources
√ Rural, remote location away from cities and military targets

Shelter Features:
√ Hardened concrete and steel nuclear shelter
√ Designed to withstand a 50 megaton blast within 10 miles
√ 137,000 square feet - on four levels
√ Largest Vivos shelter in North America
√ Accommodates over 900 people in semi-private suites
√ Equipped for up to one-year of autonomous survival
√ 228 carpeted bedroom suites of approximately 120 sq ft:
Includes sliding doorway, living room area with shelving and
storage, sofa, table with nested chair cubes, queen-sized bed
and bunk-bed, privacy curtain, reading lights, under bed
storage, decorative artwork, and more...
√ Semi-private bathrooms and private shower rooms
√ Community kitchen with bakery and dining area
√ Fully stocked wine cellar
√ 16’ tall atrium ceiling with a comfortable seating area
√ Fully equipped urgent care/triage hospital
√ One year of food, fuel, stores and supplies
√ Full wardrobe for all members
√ Hydroponic gardens
√ Community meeting and prayer rooms
√ Classroom
√ Theater
√ Hair salon
√ Exercise facility and jogging track
√ Pool tables and recreation areas
√ Computer areas
√ Private offices
√ Laundry facilities
√ Pet kennels
√ Storage rooms and warehouses
√ Closed circuit television and radio communications center
√ Fortified 10 mile defense lookout atop a 350’ tower
√ Security and detention center
√ Security vaults for weapons and valuables
√ Security equipment and outdoor remote sensing devices
√ Water purification facility with deep water well
√ Redundant power plants
√ Air ventilation handling and NBC conditioning systems
√ NBC Decontamination showers and facility
√ Interior water and fuel storage tanks
√ Battery banks for power storage
√ Mechanical repair shop
√ Armored vehicle and ATV storage
√ Farming, fishing and hunting equipment
√ Non-hybrid seed and DNA storage bank



When the shit hits the fan, there is no better place to be then in a place like The Vivos Underground Survival Shelter. Doomsday shelters are the newest and most important commercially available survivalist product on the market to date (According to Yours Truly). Unfortunately I dislike one thing about this whole idea. It takes 2012's Ark, and subtracts more compassion for ordinary people.

Don't get me wrong- I love the fact that people are taking heed. Preparing. Living. Questioning what the Government tell us. I love it. It makes writing this blog worthwhile. Creating Luxury Shelters, because we live in a technology paced, convenient to the point of retardation- society, is not the answer. If Earth was going to hit the reset button, luxuries would not matter to anyone other then the elite. Shelters that cost 10 Million Dollars to make, may be effective and luxurious, but lack one thing- humanity.

If you do happen to have $50,000 lying around the house and want to apply for a Vivos Shelter spot, be sure you have a job that sets you apart from the rest- and an excellent history in terms of practically everything. They will all have a jail and apparently, in post-apocalyptic times, they will (to my knowledge) try to maintain regular government order. This is all speculation based on their application, actual information would most likely only go to those who actually make it through all application processes.

I do believe that if the world was going to end ordinary people like you and me wouldn't matter in places like these. Many people would be abandoned. Shelters like these, and ones that governments build are solely for the purpose of the continuity of the human species and human civilization. Doesn't sounds bad right? Please don't forget about the millions of people who haven't had a shot to make something of themselves, people like children. People who just haven't had the option of being a doctor, a scientist, or an engineer. People who continue to struggle as the rich get richer, and the poor stay poor.

P.F.S.This entire article is completely biased. I'm just mad I don't have $50,000 lying around the house. Feel free to be pissed off too.

xoxo disaster girl

December 15, 2010

Disaster Girls Top Disaster Flick Picks



Top Volcano Flicks
1. Dante's Peak - 1997 - Roger Donaldson
2. Volcano - 1997 - Mick Jackson

Top Tornado Flicks
1. Twister - 1996 - Jan de Bont
2. Atomic Twister - 2002 - Bill Corcoran

Top Hurricane Flicks
1. The Perfect Storm - 2000 - Wolfgang Peterson
2. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts - 2006

Top Earthquake Flicks
1. 10.5 - 2004 - John Lafia
2. Epicenter - 2000 - Richard Pepin

Top Avalanche Flicks
1. Vertical Limit - 2000 - Martin Campbell
2. Avalanche (Escape From Alaska - 1999 - Steve Kroschel

Top Tsunami Flicks
1. Poseiden - 2006 - Wolfgang Peterson
2. Tsunami - The Aftermath - 2006 - Bharat Nalluri

Top Planetary Flicks
1. The Core - 2003 - Jon Amiel
2. Deep Core - 2000 - Rodney McDonald

Top Solar Flicks
1. Knowing - 2009 - Alex Proyas
2. Sunshine - 2007 - Danny Boyle

Top Comet Flicks
1. Deep Impact - 1998 - Mimi Leder
2. Armageddon - 1998 - Michael Bay

Top Global Warming Flicks
1. The Day After Tomorrow - 2004 - Roland Emmerich
2. Category 7 - 2005 - Dick Lowry

Top Apocalypse/End of World Prophecy Flicks
1. 2012 - 2009 - Roland Emmerich
2. Children Of Men - 2006 - Alfonso Cuarón

Top Post-Apocalyptic Flicks
1. I Am Legend - 2007 - Francis Lawrence
2. The Road - 2009 - John Hillcoat

Top Virus Flicks
1. The Andromeda Strain - 2008 - Mikael Salomon
2. The Crazies - 2010 - Breck Eisner

Top Zombie Flicks
1. Dawn Of The Dead - 2004 - Zack Snyder
2. Zombieland - 2009 - Ruben Fleischer

Top Accident Flicks
1. The Final Destination Movies - 2000 & On - Multiple Directors
2. The Open Water Movies - 2003 & 2006 - Multiple Directors

Top Terrorism Flicks
1. World Trade Center - 2006 - Oliver Stone
2. United 93 - 2006 - Paul Greengrass

Top Failed Technology Flicks
1. Eagle Eye - 2008 - D.J. Caruso
2. The Transformer Movies - 2007 & On - Michael Bay

Top Criminally-Instigated Flicks
1. The Die Hard Movies - 1988 & On - Multiple Directors
2. Con Air - 1997 - Simon West

Top Nuclear-Crisis Flicks
1. The Sum Of All Fears - 2002 - Phil Alden Robinson
2. Detterence - 1999 - Rod Lurie

Top Alien Invasion Flicks
1. Independence Day - 1996 - Roland Emmerich
2. Sphere - 1998 - Barry Levinson

Top Human Created Monsters Flicks
1. Splice - 2009 - Vincenzo Natali
2. Deep Blue Sea - 1999 - Renny Harlin


If you haven't already seen them, check 'em out.
xoxo disaster girl

December 2, 2010

Alternative Modes of Transportation: Part Six
& Adlibbed Part Seven
Surviving a Electricity Crisis/Zombies Apocalypse

ELECTRICITY CRISIS, ZOMBIE-LIKE VIRUSES
& THE CYCLE RICKSHAW



I knew I wasn't going to make it through these stories without some mention of zombies. In this blog post I will be discussing the threat the looms in the distance, the coming solar flares or CME's of 2012-13, and an entirely random article I found on National Geographic a couple weeks ago. What links them you ask? The Cycle Rickshaw or as it's better known The Pedicab.

Most people don't know that the sun ultimately controls whether or not our electricity continues to function properly, but it does. A powerful solar flare could literally wipe out an entire electrical grid taking weeks or even months to repair. Don't believe me? Click Here, because it's happened before. That solar storm may be very small in comparison to what is coming.

In 2012 we will be heading into our next solar peak. Seeing as though recently solar activity has been more powerful then it was previously, scientists as well as NASA have warned the the coming flares may have an effect on our electricity grid. So lets jump right into the doomsday scenario:

You're home and it's the morning, year 2012, you are minding your own business as breaking news hits the TV. "A Massive Solar Flare has occurred knocking out..." and then the TV shuts off. But then you start to realize its not just the TV it's everything. Nothing in your house works, so you go outside for answers. In the streets your greeted by hundred maybe even thousands of citizens who are wondering exactly what you are "What the fuck just happened??!?!" But no one seems to know the answer. As a person who's experienced a blackout before you head to the store to stock up on supplies, yeah- you and about a million other people. Greeted with massive lines and enraged people you realize your chances of getting everything you need are extremely low. From the back of the store someone shouts. And than another, and than another. And before you can even realize it you're in the middle of a riot and wherever you turn there's widespread panic. You make your way out of the store only to realize that this might be the end. You didn't see it coming this way, but hey that's Murphy's law for ya. You decide in this chaos your best bet is to head home and wait for some kind of information from the Government. But how will you get such information? How will the government get such information? Surely the President is sitting in his dark oval office asking his team the very same question "What do we do?".

It's this type of scenario that disgusts and enrages me. Please excuse my arbitrary self-proclaimed reporting skills, if what I write bothers you- feel free to leave. Very few people are even prepared for fucking tomorrow. The world has a "We'll take it as it comes" view nowadays. Good Luck with that. Whilst you are in panic, I'll be living it up with my extensive disaster kit complete with a seemingly endless supply of water, playing with my iPhone, and figuring out what going on for myself. 'Cause that's what kind of person Disaster Girl is, I am determined to be a survivor.

So what method of transportation will you chose? Probably your car. Sure you'll have gas for a little while, but I bet you didn't know that the pump they use at the stations are run using ELECTRICITY. Wow, whodda thunk it? So while your kicking and screaming at the gas station I'll be peddling by on my Pedicab, complete with two back seats for the fam.

In times of an electricity crisis or zombie apocalypse, you are going to want a form of transportation that is small (cars will likely be abandoned on the street, making them inaccessible to larger vehicles), can be maneuvered easily, and of course is self powered. If you're just one person, I still recommend this- you may want to help someone along the way. Even if you don't consider helping someone else out, you'll still need the back for all your supplies.

Happy Surviving :)

P.F.S. The Govermment will come around eventually, although by the time help does come it will probably make the Katrina response time look good.

xoxo disaster girl

Alternative Modes of Transportation: Part Four & Five
Surviving a Tornado/Hurricane

TORNADOES, HURRICANES & THE TIV

A Tornado Intercept Vehicle is a reinforced automobile used for storm chasing.
Courtesy of Wiki


In 2006 I survived a tornado that touched down near Sullivan, Missouri. Every since I have been obsessed with becoming a storm chaser. After all, while everyone else was running to the basement to seek shelter- I was outside admiring the view and saving as many animals as I could. (Don't Go Trying this Please, even I can admit this was very stupid of me.) This, I believe is what spawned my love for disasters and weather. I've always loved unpredictability, and weather is certainly one of the few ways you can make a career out of it. In the years after this incident, I began funneling (ahaha) my time towards The Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and the History Channel.

One of my favorite shows on TV today is Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel. This is where I found the Tornado Interception Vehicle or TIV. Created by Sean Casey Of IMAX in 2003, the TIV & TIV II are vehicles designed to drive extremely close or even into the path of a tornado. I believe that they should reconsider naming it a SIV or Storm Interception Vehicle as this vehicle could not only be used for tornadoes but for monitoring hurricanes that make landfall as well.

So, there is no better way to be above ground moving and still manage to stay alive during these two storms other than a TIV. I wish I could take credit for this but I can't. Certainly if you wanted to build your own TIV you could, just don't rip off Mr. Casey's design. Maybe you could even use that Organic Material I was talking about in my Tsunami bit for the outer shell. This would certainly make the vehicle one of a (my) kind, :).

In test conducted by Mythbusters, the TIV II was able to survived in wind speeds of 250 MPH- Quite an accomplishment. Through research I've come across the highest wind speeds ever recorded for a Tornado and a Hurricane. Currently a Tornado in Australia is the highest ever recorded coming in at 253 MPH. As for a Hurricane, they ring in at about 200 MPH.

P.F.S. The TIV took 8 months to build and 40 welding students. Don't Go it Alone.

Happy Storm Chasing & Don't Get Yourself Killed ;)

On another note, if you don't wanna see the storms, you could buy one of these. They're a great investment, and have tons of purposes like surviving a terrorist attack, hurricane, tornado, or for a life as a hermit.
Buy A Beehive Bomb Shelter


P.P.F.S. A bomb shelter will not protect you in a tsunami, as the air ventilation system would likely fill with water. It also won't protect you from a volcanic eruption, even if the shelter did survived the magma you'd likely just be Pompeii V.2.

xoxo disaster girl

Alternative Modes of Transportation: Part Two & Three
Surviving a Volcanic Eruption/Massive Earthquakes

VOLCANOES, EARTHQUAKES & PLANES
OH MY

The Yellowstone Caldera is the world's largest Supervolcano and one can only speculate how devastating its eruption would be. Obviously the closer you live to Yellowstone, the lower your survival rates will be. I, on the other hand, live literally on the edge of the East Coast, so my survival rates are high- for the most part. Volcanoes are tricky, because they come with Pyroclastic flows AKA Ash Clouds. Avoiding a volcanic eruption is seemingly easy as long as you aren't anywhere near it.

Earthquakes are pretty easy to get around too, unless you live in California. If you do live in California- close this page & move the fuck out, this is my best and only suggestion. Hopefully you understand that you won't be John Cusack in "2012", you will most likely perish only to be remembered by your extremely tiny dog and the bank account you left behind. Anyways, methods to surviving earthquakes are fairly easy. Get off the Ground! Completely!

Volcanoes and Earthquakes are extremely different, but ironically your best way to avoid and escape these disasters are identical. You will have to act quick, and one can only guess what is quick enough. You will also need to prepare ahead of time, as this isn't something you can truly master without extensive practice.



If Yellowstone blows, or we start experiencing Earth Crust Displacement (A Theory by Charles Hapgood, Supported by Albert Einstein), the only place you want to be is off the ground. Your best measure? Learn to fly. In Apocalyptic times, Martial law will be enacted, and small airports that aren't around anything will most likely be forgotten. Finders keepers I say, because chances are- the owner of that plane won't be coming around anytime soon. He's probably on some Military vehicle, thanking god that he's gonna make it out alive... Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

If the apocalypse comes around and martial law is enacted, HIDE. Do not run to authorities. Martial law means ALL your liberties that you took for granted on a daily basis are null and void. You have no liberties. I don't know about you, but if I had no liberties or rights, the last place I'd want to be is on a Military base, begging for my one phone call.

So learn to fly, and learn everything you can about everything. This is the information age people, and you literally have the world at your fingertips. Use the internet to research what's going on in the world. Use it to map seismic faults. Use it to learn which Volcanoes are active, and which are overdue for an eruption. Use it to enlighten yourself, instead of further dumbing yourself down. Stop watching MTV shows, and do something constructive with your time. "Teen Mom - Amber" and "Snookie" from the "Jersey Shore" won't be your tour guides in the apocalypse, you will be. You won't trust yourself if all you're worrying about is if your poof is high enough.

P.F.S. I don't really trust American media, so when push comes to shove, check the U.K. news outlets like B.B.C., they have no reason to lie to you after all. I'm paraphrasing this only because I can't find the actual quote, Henry Burke (Ciaran Hinds) in Race to Witch Mountain says something to the effect of this: Why would the American Government take out the Conspiracists when they're correct? Doing so would only make the American people believe what they were saying.

P.P.F.S. No vehicle works when ash is falling, so make sure you get the hell out of there before it shows its ugly face.

xoxo disaster girl

December 1, 2010

Alternative Modes of Transportation: Part One - Surviving a Tsunami

This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, so excuse me if I seem overly excited about this one guys. Most people would do the unthinkable in a disaster and get in their car and attempt to leave. Make no mistake, if you do this you won't get very far. As of a 2007 Census report there are approx. 247 million registered vehicles in the United States, do you really want to be 1 in 247,000,000? Do you honestly think that you will get more than a mile in a disaster? You won't. You probably won't even be able to pull out of your own driveway.

This is another issue that I can only provide guidance in. These methods are greatly affected by what area you live in, as well as the climate. Some of my ideas haven't even been thought of by other disaster fanatics, which surprises me. In my opinion these are some of my best ideas and will probably requires little tweaking on your part.

TSUNAMI'S & THE HUMAN BUBBLE



I hear people in NYC say all the time "We don't have to worry about tsunami's, we have the some of the tallest buildings in the world." or "Tsunami's don't hit the big city." ::dumbfounded:: People are retarded. But that's what you get from a society that focuses more on disasters being a film plot rather than an actual occurrence. Buildings are not meant to withstand tsunami's, no building is ever designed with a "Tsunami Contingency Plan". If a building does happen to remain standing after a tsunami, it's probably just luck or the land elevation playing a huge factor. You will not survive a tsunami by getting to the top of the Empire State Building, you'll just die of exhaustion running up those stairs. Unfortunately, most people will die in tsunami's- even the prepared.

So what's my mode of transportation with such low survival rates? The Human Bubble. You know you've seen that ridiculous commercial for Huggies with the mother who doesn't want to expose her child to outside elements, so she brings the kid to the park in a human bubble. These human bubbles will be anyone's best chance of surviving the unsurvivable. Conveniently, there are human bubble's available for purchase on eBay's marketplace, usually ringing in between $600.00-$1500.00, however these bubbles only provide a frame for an Apocalyptic Human Bubble (Phrase Coined by Yours Truly).

Now there are some tweaks needed to make this idea work. Firstly you would have to create a light weight coating to make the bubble as indestructible as humanly possible. Obviously Kevlar is out because of its weight. Thankfully scientists in Israel have begun to solve this problem for me and started to develop the Hardest Organic Material ever made by scientists, which is also ultra-light.

Secondly, we'll have to find a lightweight way of completely sealing the opening so no water can penetrate the inside of our bubble- however I am still iffy on my conclusions on this one. First I was thinking caulking, but tsunami's are strong and caulking is weak. Typical measures used in spaceships and submarines would not qualify as they'd probably require an actual door and can weigh quite a bit, and we are working with a bubble. I suppose you could cover the door with a twice as large piece of aforementioned material and cover the back of the overlapping material in a sticky waterproof substance. This step will require a lot of testing, for some reason Mythbusters is coming to mind.

Lastly, oxygen. Arguably the most important part of this product, as you all know a ball can not float on water without air in it. So you'll have to get yourself the lightest oxygen tank available I suggest DeVilbiss Walkabout Mini Oxygen System weighing under 4 lbs, and giving up to 4 hours of oxygen, which I believe is enough time to survive a tsunami.

If this idea seems to complicated for you, you could always build yourself a fucking Ark, Good Luck :-P

P.F.S. If you build this, and it works, make sure you have your money with you. Chances are you'll end up hundreds of miles from where you started. That'd be a long ass way to go in a glorified hamster ball.

xoxo disaster girl

Creating A Custom Disaster Plan




Creating your disaster plans are easy. Most people just don't think about it, but luckily you have me to do it for you. You're probably thinking- Disaster plan? What do you mean.. I'm gonna watch the news and do what they tell me to do. Don't do that. Natural disaster's are UNPREDICTABLE, Sam Champion said last year we were going to get a Nor'Easter, yet we didn't even see rain... much less snow. Don't let someone else save you. Save yourself. Prepare.

You should have 6 disaster plans, YES, I did say SIX. You should have a separate plan for everything that can go wrong.


1. TSUNAMI
2. VOLCANIC ERUPTION
3. EARTHQUAKE
4. HURRICANE
5. TORNADO
6. ELECTRICITY CRISIS

Here's my disaster plan with footnotes (Footnotes in here) so you can begin to construct your very own disaster plan. I live in Bergen County, New Jersey- so my disaster plans reflect my area, that where you do your customization.


1. TSUNAMI - (Severe Damage, Flooding)
-Track resources of affected areas to determine what course of action is necessary. (Coast Guard Weather Center is the best resource when it comes to weather) Access damage, staying home if possible, seeking shelter via FEMA or local O.E.M. in a hotel.
-If area is affected grab kit & quickly head to higher ground in Bald Mountain NJ in 240FT elevation isn't enough. (For this you need your town's elevation & the closest highest elevation in your area/state.)

2. VOLCANIC ERUPTION - (Property Loss/Health Hazards)
-Track resources of Yellowstone observatory (Track whatever's closest to you)
-Remain home if area will be unaffected by magma, Remain indoors, seal all windows, and wait for Ash Cloud to come, & subside.
-If magma will reach home, grab kit & evacuate to an unaffected area.

3. EARTHQUAKE - (Property Damage/Power Outages)
-Seek shelter, if home avoid windows and get to a hallway located in the strongest area of the house (usually the middle)
-If out find a sturdy place to hide, still preferably a hallway.
-Access damage, staying home if possible, seeking shelter via FEMA or local O.E.M. in a hotel.

4. HURRICANE - (Power Outage/ Wind Damage / Flooding)
-Get Kit
-Remain home, if not home get home. (Most people would choose to evacuate before hand)
-Board Windows
-Create & stay in safe room (Choose room with few windows, high elevation)
-Wait for storm to pass
-Access damage, staying home if possible, seeking shelter via FEMA or local O.E.M. in a hotel.

5. TORNADO - (Damage / Power Outage)
-Get Kit
-Get to Underground shelter immediately
-Wait it out
-Be careful when leaving as you do not know what kind of damage to expect
-Access damage, staying home if possible, seeking shelter via FEMA or local O.E.M. in a hotel.

6. ELECTRICITY CRISIS
-Immediately go to store and stock up on non perishables, water, extra gasoline, and anything you may need. Prepare for the worst. For instance if a solar flare was large enough it could put the whole east coast in the dark, for months. All our parts are made in other countries and would take weeks to months to fix. Their priority would be their country first which would put us back into the stone age.

Create your plan and be careful when picking what you will do. Major disaster's will leave the highway systems packed, and most likely you won't be able to get out unless you know what your doing. Next week I'll be blogging about preferred methods of transportation in times like these.

xoxo disaster girl

Are you ready? Probably not....

No home or person should ever be without an emergency kit. Even as The Disaster Caster, I spent most of my life without one, so I can understand how people chose to do without one. Every person should have their own kit, and if everyone had one- I truly believe death tolls during natural disasters would significantly decrease.

People aren't prepared. They're to busy worrying about next weeks light bill, or when the economy will get better. I get it, but for about $20.00 a week, in two short months you can have a full loaded emergency kit. I've created a list of things you should consider placing in your kit, and this post will be followed by disaster plans.

Water (1 Gallon Per Person A Day)
High Calorie Food Bars (Lightweight & A Full Day's Meal)
Manual Can Opener & Utensils
Reusable Cups, Plates, Condiments
First Aid Kit & First Aid Book
Copies of Important Papers
List Of Emergency/Personal Numbers
Warm Clothes/Light Clothes/Rain Gear
Heavy Work gloves
Iodine and an Eyedropper for Water Purification
Toilet Paper, Feminine Supplies, Hand Sanitizer & Hygiene Supplies
Plastic sheeting, Duct Tape and Utility Knife
Tools - Crowbar, Hammer & Nails, Staple Gun, Adjustable Wrench and Bungee Cords.
Light Fireproof Blanket
Bucket Toilet Bowl
Heavy Duty Garbage Bags & Small Trash Bags
Any Special-Needs Items
Flashlight
Radio – Battery Operated
Batteries
Whistle
Dust mask
Pocket knife
Emergency Cash (Small Denominations & Quarters)
Sturdy Shoes & Warm Hat
Local Maps
Permanent Marker, Paper & Tape
Photos of Family Members and Pets for Re-Identification Purposes
List of Allergies to any drug (especially antibiotics) or food
Copy of health insurance and identification cards
Extra prescription eye glasses, hearing aid or other vital personal items
Prescription medications
Extra keys to your house and vehicle
Solar Powered Cell Phone Charger
Battery Powered Cell Phone Charger
Inflatable Pillow (Airplane Kind, Can be used for Flotation)
Magic Candles
Activities for Children

An Ugly Suitcase with wheels is your best bet for transportion. Don't go using an expensive/new suitcase, or else you'll be robbed. I also suggest taking it to the tailors and having them mount shoulder straps on the back, very helpful when you need both of your hands, or are running for your life.

Most of this stuff can probably be found around your house, not even being used. Each week I spent $20, but put in a lot of items that I already owned. After creating your Disaster Kit, your next step in being prepared in any disaster is having a customized disaster plan. My next post will show an example of my disaster plans, and how you should go about constructing yours.


xoxo disaster girl