Via Yahoo!

Havana, Cuba, October 24, 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Wilma

Fidel Castro proves that he, too, can learn something from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:41 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Folks, Hurricane Wilma is makinging landfall as a 125 MPH Category 3 major hurricane near Marco Island, Florida. It is stronger than almost anyone predicted.

Please say a prayer for all the people too stupid or arrogant to get out of the way, of which there were many, (including members of my family in West Palm Beach).

After Rita and Katrina, you'd think people would learn.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When I made my guestimate on October 9 that the Pakistani quake might lead up to 100,000 dead, I'd hoped that that figure would be substantially off.

Sadly, it may not be:

The top United Nations top relief coordinator Jan Egeland, incensed by what he saw as a woefully inadequate international response to the most difficult relief operation the world has ever seen, called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to stage a massive airlift to get survivors to safety.

That would mean helicopters, the only means of getting quickly deep into the rugged Himalayan foothills of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province where 51,000 people are dead. That toll, in addition to some 1,300 who were killed in Jammu and Kashmir, is still expected to rise substantially. Pakistan said the number of injured, now 74,000, could also leap because large quake-hit areas had not yet been reached.

Our own weather woes and political scandals de jour have all but erased this from the American mind. You can keep up with the rescue and recover effort at the South Asia Quake Blog.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:22 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Via CTV, eh?

Hurricane Wilma was downgraded to a still powerful Category Four storm on Wednesday night, but forecasters say it could regain strength as it rips across the Atlantic.

As of 11 p.m. EDT, the centre of Hurricane Wilma was about 380 kilometres south-east of Cozumel, Mexico. The storm was heading west-northwest at 13-kilometres per hour, and a turn toward the northwest was expected Thursday.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...And she's rocking with enough power to scour Bedrock off the map.

Via Fox News:

Hurricane Wilma strengthened into a Category 5 monster early Wednesday packing 175 mph winds, and forecasters said a key reading of the storm's pressure showed it to be the most powerful of the year.

Wilma was dumping rain on Central America and Mexico, and forecasters warned of a "significant threat" to Florida by the weekend.

The storm's power multiplied greatly over the last day. It was only Tuesday morning that Wilma grew from a tropical storm into a weak hurricane with 80 mph winds.

Wilma's pressure readings Wednesday morning indicated that it was the strongest hurricane of the season, said Trisha Wallace, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Wilma had a reading of 892 millibars, the same reading as a devastating unnamed hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935.

"We do not know how long it will maintain this Category 5 state," Wallace said.

Not long, I'd hope. Idaho sure sounds nice...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:43 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 Ah hell! Here we go again. I live in the Gulf Coast of Fla and we are keeping one eye on this one, but with our nightly temps in the 50's, it's doubtful that it will churn this way. HOWEVER, I am from South Florida and my entire family (except my kids or course) is THERE! Aggggghhhh! Either they are hoping it will pass north of them, or I am about to have a house full of family in two days. Double Aggggghhhhh! Whatever happens, just say extra prayers the next few days! Idaho here I come (oh, wait a minute, I HATE Idaho)

Posted by: Michelle at October 19, 2005 08:27 AM (1ojLZ)

2 Michelle, My sister-in-law, her husband and my two small nieces just moved to West Palm a month ago, so I'll be saying a prayer for all of you. Folks, if you don't mind, I've got a "bleg" up I'd entice you to respond to. Thanks!

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 19, 2005 08:36 AM (g5Nba)

3 I live in North Central Idaho. Peak winds for the next two days is forecast at 10 MPH. You HATE Idaho? Fine with me. You are welcome to visit for special events but unless you are a relative of mine or close friend I would just as soon you stayed away. Good luck on you upcoming wind storm.

Posted by: Joe Huffman at October 19, 2005 09:19 AM (aFOA0)

4 notice to gulf coast people don't tell us about your weather next jan. when we in chicago are in 12" of snow by the way i like snow.

Posted by: yochanan at October 19, 2005 11:42 AM (ywZa8)

5 Hate Idaho? Great! Stay away and tell John Kerry and his vulgar sugar mommy to do the same. But I'll still say a prayer for you.

Posted by: kelly at October 19, 2005 12:16 PM (AISkQ)

6 Sorry that you will have to facing more storms. We love living in Northern Idaho and we will be glad to have lots of snow and cold weather if it means more people like you will not be moving here. Good luck to you

Posted by: Sandy at October 19, 2005 02:12 PM (6mUkl)

7 Michelle: wait a minute, I HATE Idaho Don't your worry your tortured little head. Idaho couldn't care about your foolish hatred one bit. I live here in the panhandle (of Idaho, thank the Lord), and I find it amusing to see you people who live in the path of these annual stormfests whimper and moan like some miserable dirty little Bangladeshi. Pack up and move! Or can't you tell that God isn't particularly sensitive to your "sunshine state."? I mean, we here in the rest of the country can save you once or twice, but we tire of doing the same thing over and over again, year after year. (The definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing, expecting different results.) Carla F Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Posted by: Carla Fussell at October 19, 2005 07:45 PM (wjJFD)

8 Um, how did this turn into a Florida vs. Idaho thread? I used to work for a company called MCMS based out of Nampa, and the folks in ID were always very nice. I have family (or after Wilma, that may read I had family) in West Palm Beach and Jacksonville. CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 19, 2005 07:53 PM (0fZB6)

9 I live in the panhandle of Florida, and I LOVE Idaho. Y'all have the best potatoes, and the drive from Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls is a great trip, and aside from your nasty weather, I can't think of a single reason I wouldn't live there, personally. But, we don't whine down here...we just deal. Hurricanes are just part of life down here on the coast. Nor do we expect y'all to save us, not that folks from Idaho bear the brunt of rescuing hurricane evacuees anyway... But hey...thanks for reminding me why I love the South.

Posted by: catzmeow at October 20, 2005 09:41 AM (j2vfb)

10 I didn't mean to contribute to a FL vs. ID fight. I have nothing against people who live in FL. I have some relatives and friends there. It's just that part of what makes ID wonderful is that there aren't many people here. That and we don't have hurricanes and seldom get tornados or earthquakes. Forest fires can be a pain however... Best wishes on your upcoming confrontation with Wilma. I have relatives in Tampa and a friend near Jacksonville and I'll be thinking about all of you.

Posted by: Joe Huffman at October 20, 2005 11:03 AM (aFOA0)

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M.D. Patrick Cunningham sent the following email to Instapundit today regarding avian flu hype:

As a medical researcher, I want to make a gentle but sincere plea to the blogosphere to calm down this flu hysteria just a bit. The main way that flu kills is by predisposing its victims to "superinfection" by bacterial illnesses - in 1918, we had no antibiotics for these superimposed infections, but now we have plenty. Such superinfections, and the transmittal of flu itself, were aided tremendously by the crowded conditions and poor sanitation of the early 20th century - these are currently vastly improved as well. Flu hits the elderly the hardest, but the "elderly" today are healthier, stronger, and better nourished than ever before. Our medical infrastructure is vastly better off, ranging from simple things like oxygen and sterile i.v. fluids, not readily available in 1918, to complex technologies such as respirators and dialysis. Should we be concerned? Sure, better safe than sorry, and concerns about publishing the sequence are worth discussing. Should we panic? No - my apologies to the fearmongers, but we will never see another 1918.

Patrick Cunningham M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Section of Nephrology
University of Chicago

I emailed Glenn the following as my response:

I am not a doctor, nor a biologist, nor a chemist. In any way that matters, I am completely unqualified to challenge the theory of Patrick Cunningham M.D. that the avian flu is over-hyped to the point of hysteria.

I'm going to do so anyway.

I, too, thought little at first of the media-darling pandemic, because I still remember the doom and gloom of Y2K, which wasn't that long ago. Hype alone doesn't do it for me. Then I read this article in the Raleigh, NC News and Observer, and decided to do some reading. I wasn't happy with what I found, and among those unhappy surprises, was the concept of "surge capacity."

To quote Dr. David Weber, medical director of hospital epidemiology at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill:

"Wal-Mart doesn't have a three-week supply of TVs; they may have a 12-hour supply," Weber said. "We've designed our hospitals the same way. We don't have surge capacity for anything, be it a bioterrorist attack, the avian flu, whatever."

In other words, if a pandemic does hit, it will happen with such speed that it will overwhelm the medical system by sheer weight of numbers, in an extremely brief amount of time. Having 50 ventilators in a hospital is a great thing, until you need 500, along with every other hospital in the region. The hospitals will fill up quickly, and after that, people will be largely on their own, and essentially left to fend for themselves at home, where technologies aren't that different on the internal medical front where they were in -- you guessed it -- 1918.

To me (and more importantly, the North Carolina Division of Public Health, and UNC epidemiologists interviewed in the N&O article) it seems like Dr. Cunningham's premise amounts to whistling past a graveyard.

I would love to be very, very wrong.

Sincerely,

It seems that a lot of the experts are blindly focusing on what we might have the knowledge to do, but not on the technical capability we have to execute their schemes in the compressed period of time in which a pandemic will likely occur.

What I've seen from the medical community so far (and what they've gotten wrong) makes flu pandemic planning look like Hurricane Katrina evacuations in a lab coat.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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According to an article in the 10/12 Raleigh News & Observer titled "N.C. flu plan needs checkup," reporter Amy Gardner notes in her opening paragraphs:

The potential for a catastrophic flu outbreak has public health leaders worldwide reviewing how ready they are. In North Carolina, the bottom line is the same as nearly everywhere else: A pandemic would overwhelm the state's health care system.

With a shortage of hospital beds and vaccines, the state would struggle to treat the sick in a worst-case epidemic infecting 1 million North Carolinians, hospitalizing 25,000 and killing 5,000.

Wait just a minute. 5,000 dead?

The numbers cited by Gardener came from the N.C. Division of Public Health's Pandemic Influenza Plan.

The NC DPH begins its report by admitting it was calibrated using obsolete data, basing their population data on 1999 NC population figure of 7,425,183, and readily admits that these figures are substantially off by approximately 1 million residents. This concurs with 2004 US Census Bureau estimates, which states North Carolina had an estimated population of 8,541,221. Acknowledging that your base numbers are wrong to begin with doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Based upon woefully outdated population figures, the DPH actually cites a worst case scenario (PDF) of nearly 1.4 million North Carolinians infected and requiring outpatient visits, 30,631 hospitalized, and resulting in the deaths of 6,994. The figures cited by the News and Observer story above were actually mid-range figures from the same report, not the worst case as the article claims.

With a rough calibration taking into account the 15.044-percent jump in population from 7.43 to 8.5 million, more accurate numbers are probably that same percentage (15.044%) higher.

A worst-case scenario flu pandemic based up these figures with a 35% infection rate claims to kill fewer than 11,000 North Carolinas, or something in the neighborhood of 0.129-percent of the total North Carolina population.

This is what we are afraid of?

Not quite. These are estimates based upon one software model that I am highly suspicious of, as history shows us something else entirely.

The closest-known relative of the H51N avian flu we currently fear is the H1N1 Type a Influenza virus responsible for the 1918-19 pandemic.

Overall infection rates of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic were 20-30 percent of the overall population. Global mortality rates from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic ranged from 2.5-percent to 5-percent of the infected population.

Figuring a 20-percent infection rate in a population of 8.5 million, and a minimal mortality rate of 2.5-percent of the infected population, we are looking at 42,500 dead, not 5,000.

I may be wrong on the math. It has been consistently been my worst subject throughout my educational career.

That said, I cannot understand the huge apparent discrepancy between the anemic pandemic forecast by the NC Division of Public Health, and the historical example of the last major Influenza Type A infection seen in the Spanish Flu of 1918.

Comments and a thorough debunking are encouraged. I'd be thrilled to be wrong on this one.

Note: "Captain Trips" was the nickname of a weaponized super-flu that escaped a military weapons lab and killed 99.6% of Earth's human population in the 1978 Stephen King opus, The Stand.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:23 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Pakistani Earthquake Round-Up, Sunday Evening Edition

I want to start this post off by talking to those in "disaster shock."

Less than a year ago was the Boxing Day Tsunami, and then here in the United States we've just had Hurricanes Katrina and Rita smash their way through the Gulf states. A mudslide in Guatemala triggered by Hurricane Stan wiped out an entire Mayan village just days ago. The Pakistani quake is the latest in a series of disasters that has come one after another.

People have been generous, raising money and donating time and services. So many people have given so much of themselves that they may feel that they have nothing left. To you, I'll get Biblical for a moment and offer you this from Malachi 3:10:

¹⁰ "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, " and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty.

In other words, just, give baby. It will come back to you multiplied.

Now, back to the linkage.

Taking Donations
International Red Cross/Red Crescent

Getting Local
Links from India
Kashmir Times news site.
BBC coverage.
Metroblogging Karachi is still blogging from southern Pakistan.
Metroblogging Lahore is posting from near the impact zone.
South Asia Quake Help
Pakistan Earthquake 2005

Getting Political
News,Views 'n Opinions asks where relief is from other Muslim nations.
Lew Rockwell, a liberal blog, blasts Fox for mentioning Bin Laden.
Holy Coast intelligently addresses the "Does God hate _____ (group name goes here)?" question.
Daily Pundit talks building codes and corruption. On title alone, I wasn't certain if he was talking about Pakistan or New Orleans.

Getting Scientific
Geology News gets down to the science.

Analysis
Bird's Eye View has his latest post up on the quake.
A new photoblog of the quake from a Pakistani-Canadian.
Powerline weighs in.
Global Voices Online blogs about the bloggers blogging the earthquake.
The Moderate Voice maintains one of the better roundups.

Previous:
Judgement Day
Judgement Day, Update 1

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The death toll continues to rise:

Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 30,000 people in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir alone.

"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.

Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake also struck India and Afghanistan, which reported hundreds dead.

Using early estimates from the Boxing Day Tsunami as a guide, I'll sadly suggest that the final tally may be far higher - as high as a hundred thousand dead once disease, infection, and other factors have their say - across the affected countries. While in the west we tend to overestimate initial fatalities because of media sensationalism, deaths in the east often seem to be underestimated.

A possible silver lining?

The shared tragedy confronting India and Pakistan in disputed Kashmir could pay dividends for the fragile peace process, experts said on Sunday after a massive earthquake left thousands dead there.

"It will certainly help in furthering the peace process," former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador to Washington Lalit Mansingh told AFP.

Joint relief efforts could boost confidence, Mansingh said, noting that Indian and Pakistani civilians as well as the troops that face off across the Kashmiri border had lost their lives in Saturday morning's massive quake.

"This is a common tragedy. There is nothing political about this. It can help bring people together," Mansingh added.

Top Blog Coverage
South Asia Quake Help
Metroblogging Lahore
Metroblogging Karachi
Bird's Eye View
Gateway Pundit
The Moderate Voice
The Jawa Report

Previous:
Judgement Day

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Brietbart is currently showing that the 7.6 magnitude earthquake centered near the Pakistan-Kashmir border may have killed thousands:

A devastating earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and flattened villages of mud-brick homes Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people across a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday as rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, their work made more difficult as rain and hail turned dirt and debris into sticky muck. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed _ 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.

Eyewitness accounts compare the scene to Judgement Day, with many homes and buildings completely flattened. Damage spread across remote regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and disputed Kashmir.

Maps of the area show mountainous terrain, and landslides have shut down major highways, making rescue efforts very difficult. It may be days or even weeks before some regions receive substantial aid. Thousands more may die. If you are religious, please say a prayer for these people.

And while this thought briefly crossed my mind as well, now is not the time to speculate about such things.

President Bush has already offered assistance. I hope the Pakistani and Indian governments to allow American military units from Afghanistan to come in and assist with humanitarian missions.

Let's try to save as many of these people as we can. There will be plenty of time to count the dead later.

Localized Blogging:
South Asia Quake Help
Metroblogging Lahore
Metroblogging Karachi

Others Blogging
Bird's Eye View has multiple detailed posts.
Gateway Pundit has a roundup.
The Political Teen
The Moderate Voice
Clarity & Resolve
Speed of Thought has posts here and here.
PunditGuy has posts here and here.
Joe's Dartblog
Laurence Simon
In the Bullpen
The Jawa Report

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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It just gets worse for incompetent New Orleans Mayor Nagin.

Paul at Wizbang! discovered Monday (10/3) that not all New Orleans buses went swimming in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool. At least 60, maybe more, were above water and under Nagin's control across the Mississippi in Algiers, LA.

According to Paul's estimates, which seem reasonable, Nagin could have completely evacuated the Superdome on his own by sundown the day after the storm, just by using assets under his control.

But it doesn't end there, kids.

Via Google Maps,we have this image showing three areas of primary importance.

• The area marked "1" is the bus parking lot in Algiers.
• The area marked "2" is Algiers Landing on the West bank of the Mississippi river
• the Area marked "3", as you may have guessed is the Superdome.

The unmarked bridge at the bottom of the picture is the Crescent City Connection, the bridge where civilians trying to escape downtown New Orleans were turned away by the Gretna Police Department.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford over at The Jawa Report dug up photographic evidence that these same buses in area 1 in the photo above were used to evacuate a large number of people from area 2, Algiers Landing, but we don't know at this time who was evacuated, or to where. None of these buses apparently ever made it across the Crescent City Connection to attempt an evacuation of the Superdome in area 3, even though they apparently had unobstructed, multi-lane, dry road access according to overhead the imagery.

The questions raised by Paul and Rusty are many:

• Was Ray Nagin aware that these buses were available? If not, why not?
• Were these buses used in an evacuation in Algiers as apparently shown by Rusty, and if so, who was evacuated, and to where?
• Even if under Nagin's control and requested for an evacuation, would Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson have allowed these buses to pass over the bridge he had shut to pedestrians trying to get out of New Orleans?

This new information provides no answers, but it does raise even more troubling questions about the competency of the local government in New Orleans surrounding the landfall of Hurricane Katrina.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:49 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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