More Tropical Slop

Stuck inside for the... third day now.  Yes, that is a center of rotation around some weak tropical system south of the Alabama beaches, but I don't think it'll amount to much.   Neither does the NHC, which is comforting.

Anyway, I've been promising myself that I'd do some Deep Re-Arranging & Ditching of Crap around the house some nasty August days, and those days have arrived.  One weekday next week after the weather clears, I'll be taking a pickup truck load to the dump.  Still plenty of work to go, but it looks like we'll have plenty of ugly weather too.  "Make hay while the sun shines"?  "Clear junk while the rain falls."

Speaking of ugly weather, it's Katrina+21 day today!  Yes, Katrina's old enough to have a drink.  video  No mention in the Sea Coast Echo (the BSL newspaper), though I see that things have gone trendy in the old stomping grounds.

Let's finish with something good today, a breezy 15 minute run-through of how mountain bike tech has evolved since its start.  I love all the new stuff: 1x drivetrains, decent suspension, disc brakes, improved geometry, even dropper posts.  Better yet, we're seeing steps towards simplifying the new tech, making it easier to work on.  All good stuff.

Katrina plus 20

There's little to add after what's been written here at this blog over the past 15 years.  link to old posts

However, the Big Picture Science podcast had a decent series this summer on the topic, worth a listen:

• Hurricane Comms – kind of important, and near & dear to me
• Hurricane Season – mostly lessons learned
• Katrina and the River – the Mississippi, of course

It still galls that so much reporting (somewhat including the above-linked podcasts) is so New Orleans-centric when the actual ground zero was some 50 miles to the east, but urban areas seem to be all the news media cares about, so there it is.  Here, have a couple of pictures from the areas that shall not be reported on:

Downtown Bay St. Louis.  Notice the manholes sticking up towards what was ground level on Beach Boulevard.  It's not evident from the perspective here, but the original road level was about 25' above sea level.  BTW, the  pilings in the background were part of the train bridge across the mouth of the bay, and you know how solidly those things are built.

Here, this used to be (and now is again) a neighborhood, as well as the bridge into town.

Here's the Washington Street neighborhood.  The surf debris line can be seen across the horizontal middle of the picture.  Flooding extended well inland from the top of this picture for several miles.

Here's one more, taken from the overpass of I-10 and Hwy 603, about ten miles inland:

Similar pictures can be found from across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and even as far as Panhandle Florida.

ps: Nice article in the Sea Coast Echo marking today's anniversary.  RTWT.

It'll Do It To You

Over at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, here's an article about their former writer Chris Rose:

Writer Chris Rose gave New Orleans a voice after Katrina.  Now he lives alone in the woods.

If the name rings a bell, it's probably because of his collected Katrina-related articles under the title 1 Dead in Attic.  (Which I haven't read, by the way.  I've got enough to process from my own neighborhood with books like Under Surge Under Siege.)  Anyway, it's worth your ten minutes' read of the article to see what staring into the abyss too long can do to a person.

Next month is the 20th anniversary of that calamity, and I may or may not have more to say on the matter as the date (the 29th) approaches.  I'm trying not to abyss-gaze too much these days.  Besides, with so much fresh disaster coming along with every new day, why dwell on the old?

Where MREs Come From

Medium-long article about the Natic Lab at Atlas Obscura.  Surprisingly good, as are the results from that lab.  (Far more edible than anything that I've ever produced in a lab.)  The almost complete lack of preservatives is surprising and commendable.  Be sure to read to the end to get to the pineapple upside-down cake desert.

Finally, this post gets the 'hurricanes,' 'katrina,' and 'camping' tags, all for obvious reasons.

Radios, Hurricanes, and Other Related Hassles

New article up at The SWLing Post today, featuring some *ahem* knowledgable local input on the matter.

Speaking of which... oh, look.  The fun and adventure never ceases around this place.

More on Fractals, Aesthetics, and Sanity

 This crossed my desk via The Dangerous History Podcast (topic: emergent vs. imposed order) this morning: Why Fractals Are So Soothing at The Atlantic.  The article links to this paper in Nature, Fractal analysis of Pollock's drip paintings (1999).  Here's a bonus article in Smithsonian by the author of that paper, Fractal Patterns in Nature and Art are Aesthetically Pleasing and Stress-Reducing.

Both of these are worth your time, and both are mercifully short.  (In fact, I didn't know that The Atlantic ever published articles that didn't devour at least an hour of my free time.)  Anyway, this is just a continuation of the topic previously discussed here at the blog: This is Your Brain on Broken Fractals, Modern Architecture, WWI-Induced PTSD, and Other Ongoing Problems, and finally the excellent blog The Genetics of Design.

K+15

... and the world has mercifully moved on.  Pandemic, riots, an election that's being called rigged two months before the actual day, and Hurricane Laura this week are enough to rightly take the spotlight.  Here are this site's links; I'm moving on too.

Two Special Event Stations of Note

15th Anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina & Rita, Aug 28 – Aug 30
and
Burning Man, Aug 27 – Sep 7

Sort of interesting, both.  You can find full details at the ARRL's page.  (it's dynamic content, will change within weeks; also, you'll have to scroll down some)  Weirdly, I'd really like to get that Burning Man contact in.

This is Your Brain On Broken Fractals

Following up on yesterday's post, here's the interviewee's web site: The Genetics of Design

As you might expect, interesting stuff.  Of particular interest was this post on natural fractals and their echoes in good design.  It reminds me of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with all of the bare trees around here.  Note that these were not just "stripped of their leaves" bare; rather, they had been stripped down to trunks and perhaps a few large limbs, with lots of broken parts hanging down.  Bad as that was, things got even worse over the next few months.  The trees, desperate to get any leaves out into the sun they could, quickly grew small twigs from every likely surface and extruded leaves from these.  The result didn't so much look like trees as broken pieces of wood with masses of greenish sponge applied in patches.  Very disturbing to be surrounded by these for months on end.  Finally, somewhere around the five year mark, things started looking somewhat normal again.

So yeah, look at fractals that have the right dimension.  It's good for your brain.

Shamelessly borrowed from the above-linked blog post.  I pulled out some Katrina pictures and was about to post those, but why put more ugliness into people's eyeballs?

Biking to Henderson Point

It's just across the bridge from Bay St. Louis, on the Harrison County side.  It was a nice ride Sunday-before-last, to a quiet, somewhat desolate point on the eastern edge of the Bay of St. Louis.  Here, have some pics; you can click to embiggen as needed:

     

      

    

From the top left: a view from the Bay Bridge of Henderson Point; four views of the beach; and the yard of one of the lovely Henderson Point homes.  Wait, where's the home?  Trashed in Katrina, lot is still bare.  Because, you see, while a big swath of the Gulf Coast was affected, Henderson Point was one of the very hardest hit.  Check this wind field plot at Wikipedia.  Pretty much the center of the wind intensity bullseye (not to be mistaken for the calm eye, 20 miles to the west) is on Henderson Point.

Well, it was a nice early fall Sunday morning bike ride, and there wasn't much traffic.  Crossing the Bay Bridge on bike is always a treat, with the separated pedestrian & bike lane.

Canal Car was Lost In Katrina

Along with damn near everything else, so this completely makes sense.  Article at nola.com

Success on the BSL Downtown Beachfront

Some pictures from this morning's bike ride, at the new(ish) downtown harbor.  It's an un-stitched series of panorama shots, rotating to the right, so kind of let your eyes roll through things and let your mind stitch the overall scene back together.

The interesting part is that ten years ago this was a desolate patch of hurricane-demolished beach bluff.  The comeback is remarkable.  Some of the success is due to the city, state, and federal aid poured into restoring the bluff and the roads, but the real success story is that it's now a thriving commercial and entertainment district.  The secret is simple: for all of the easy car access, it's all walkable too.  Step off your boat and your bank, shopping, arts district, restaurant, bar, and live entertainment are all right there.  Amazing how well this works out.  If you want to understand the driving principles behind this, there's no better place than the book Suburban Nation.  (hint: that's the Big Idea hidden in this post)

Also, lest you think this is some boring post devoid of true outside activity, here's a shot from atop the Bay bridge shown in the second and third pictures above:

It's pretty good around here when it's not pounding down rain.

Think I'll take a Little Bike Ride...

Ten years ago this morning:

(click image to embiggen)

In other news, the Coast is back and bigger and better than ever, including plans to rebuild Fun Time U.S.A.  I am really looking forward to a chance at knocking a golf ball down a concrete dinosaur's mouth again!

K+10: I'm taking the day off.

Here are some articles from the Sea Coast Echo though, if you want to look into the festivities:

• Ten Years After Katrina, BSL is Back
• Multiple Events to Note Anniversary of Katrina
• MPB Tells MS's Side of the Katrina Story

That's enough for me today.  Yard work calls.

Media Points to Ponder

As pointed out in the local BSL paper, the Sea Coast Echo.  [Go & read, otherwise the sarcasm here will sound like a nonsensical rant.]  Remember kids, Katrina dead-centered New Orleans, it was all George W. Bush's fault, and we've always been at war with Eastasia.

Here, have a look at downtown BSL where Katrina clearly didn't hit because it wasn't (a) a major urban center that's easy to find on a map and (b) a colorful locale from which to report.

I mean, the national media can't let the hard cold facts on the ground get in the way of a flashy story, can they?  Nooooo, they wouldn't do something like that.

BBC Article About WWL

Here.  Interesting magazine-length article about the WWL staff's efforts to keep the region's one clear channel AM station on the air during Katrina and in its aftermath.

It is interesting how the map in the article shows the path of Katrina shifted west by 30 miles.  You're seeing history re-written, not by propaganda but by sloppy journalism.  "Katrina hit New Orleans, oh and some parts of fly-over country."  Well, not to minimize the suffering in New Orleans, but it wasn't ground zero, and the disaster there was more a result of decades of infrastructure neglect than of direct storm action.

Looking past the mainstream media's only-urban-areas-count tunnel vision, it is a good story about how vital radio, and AM radio at that, is when the chips are down.  I wonder if they'll even make any mention of the WQRZ staff's efforts?  You know, over where the storm actually hit?

K5H Katrina 10th Anniversary Special Event Stations

It's a ham thing.  Here, just read about it at the event's web site.

If you're not familiar with the concept of hams hosting special event stations, think of it as the amateur radio equivalent of a running club putting on a 5k to commemorate an event, occasion, anniversary, etc.  Here's the Wikipedia page on the subject, it's pretty short.

Remains of the Bay Bridge.  This is where the eastern eye wall – i.e., the bad part – made its final landfall.  No particular reason, just felt like posting it.

More Katrina Anniversary-Markings

At National Geographic, who better?  | The Article | The Pictures |  Pretty interesting stuff.  Still...

Yes, it is about New Orleans.  It is always about New Orleans for the legacy media.  Look at NPR's 10 Years of Recovery and Reflection page: of 18 articles, only 2 focus on where the storm actually hit.

Consider this last point when receiving news from any mainstream media source.

NPR Series on "Ten Years of Recovery and Reflection" on Katrina

Here's the link.  I'll be watching over the next month as stories are added.  So far, two articles on New Orleans and one on Pearlington.  Good to see some news on, oh say, where Katrina actually hit.

Ten years.  Bleh.

This is where RadioShack managers seem to have gone.

Architecture Continues to Implode over at Forbes.

Wow, this is just jaw-droppingly bad stuff.  Exhibit A:

Design for post-Katrina rebuilding in New Orleans: FAIL

Really?  Designing houses to continuously remind people of what is likely the single most awful incident in their entire lives?  This is like designing VA hospitals to mimic war zone sights and sounds.  What kind of idiots ever would think this is a good idea?

Oh, and they cost ~4X what more livable houses cost.

Go read through that article at Forbes.  Click through on many of the numerous links.  It would be redundant to go through them all here.  The reality detachment in some people's thinking is so appalling that it leaves one's mind reeling, reaching for another cup of coffee, and heading out to the garden to regain some connection back with the universe as we know it.

I'm going to have to re-read this article a third time later today.  Not for the enjoyment mind you, but so that I can maybe get a better understanding of the weirdness of it all, to be able to better recognize and avoid said weirdness.