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Posted on 09/16/2017 5:47:46 PM PDT by NautiNurse
Hurricane Jose has been hanging around, waiting for attention in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Newcomer Maria threatens to impact the Caribbean Islands already devastated by Hurricane Irma, and brushed by Jose. Hurricane Jose threatens to brush or impact New England. Lee appears to be a fish storm at this time.
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Dominica gained its independence from Britain. I don’t think Dominica has the where with all to do what needs to be done. Does Britain even have carriers available for the BVIs and Dominica?
The second link is an excellent first-hand look at the devastation in Dominica. The person narrating just sounds bone tired from what he has been through and what he is now seeing of his home island. Thanks for providing it.
What strikes me is the...confidence of finding water in the coming days. If it is confidence and not ignorance of how fast and how bad things will go without it.
You saw the deadfalls he had to climb over, just to move a couple miles. I don’t think there’s enough helicopters on earth to move that kind of water.
Clorox and coffee filters and lime.
I’ve never been involved in a post-hurricane recovery effort, but, let’s take a look at the water problem.
Assuming extra recovery personnel on Dominica, let’s figure total temporary population at 80,000. Most live near the coast, and there are various streams and small rivers also for bathing & washing clothes (at least assuming it’s not heavily raining all the time, but then one can collect abundant rain water — the island is in the rainy season w/ over 8” of rain typical, per month.) It’s a hot climate, so, we’ll go generous and assume potable water needs are 1.5 gal. per person per day, giving us a need for 120,000 gallons a day, or rounding up a bit, 1 million pounds of water a day. I found conflicting numbers on what a Chinook helicopter can carry — a conservative number seems to be 19,000 lbs. Say 2000 lbs of that is the packaging (probably a bit high an estimate): Each Chinook trip can carry 17,000 lbs. of water, and I’ll make a wild guess of 10 trips in a 24 hour period, giving us 170,000 lbs. of water per Chinook per day. So, we need 6 operational choppers at any one time, IF they are up to date Chinooks. Assign some other available choppers to carry in water purification supplies, rainwater gathering supplies, and so on, especially once rescue and recovery efforts are largely complete.
Possibly, some potable water can be brought in via small ships, as well, and if there are any good wells on the island, it should not take too long to get generators placed with them. A typical small well pump can do 20 gal/min. Even if running at 1/4 capacity, that’s 5 gal/min, or 7,200 gal/day — 20 pumps supply the island’s population fairly easily. (This also assumes the underground fresh water supply is generous, which it should be, given all that rain.)
This is quite doable.
Getting the debris out of the way so people can get to the water supplies is a bigger problem, at least the first few days.
Now, if large portions of Puerto Rico’s population are without fresh water infrastructure, THAT is a more daunting problem.
That 2nd vid especially is quite sobering.
By no means should my last post be taken as diminishing what’s happened on Dominica. That island has a heck of a tough job ahead of it.
I didn’t take it that way, Paul. I see where you’re coming from. Thing is, 10 trips a day is pushing it, and, it doesn’t get water down throats. It just gets a quick dump of a big stockpile in one place.
That is some chopped up terrain they have over there. The guy shooting the video had to work his way over deadfalls on graded roads. But in many areas, there are cliffs between this small group of houses, and that small group. Not just ten foot piles of trash. Trash plus cliffs with flooded mudholes and washed out bridges between them. On the slopes are those incredible debris flows. They called for mudslides, but what I see are these mountains of torn up “tree-slides” instead.
Yes, they WILL get it sorted out. But a human will hit the ground 24 to 48 hours after his last drink, and they are NOT going to get this sorted out that soon.
Instead...well, ignoring the folks like the lady trapped in her house by a rushing torrent, the average joe will get thirsty and he will drink what he finds. In one to two weeks, all sources have a good chance of cholera, typhoid, or even worse contamination. I see several dynamic curves developing over time, and typically, these things get worse before they get better. In this case, maybe a whole lot worse.
Thanks!
Please let me know. I have friends who left for the UK before Irma and won’t be back until the end of the month. I think they should have someone check their home.
Looks like at least part of St. Croix got hit with bad winds:
https://www.facebook.com/WorldNewsTonight/videos/10156341361643812/
They were home in Connecticut when Maria hit, but I haven't heard from them how their place in St. Croix fared...
Thanks for your great work on all of these hurricane threads, dirtboy. Hope this will be the last of the hurricanes this season. (And the end to all hurricanes *forever* would be fine, too!)
yes, I am on the island. San Juan.
Heard the land was stripped of trees. Did the beautiful birds and other forms of wild life such as the horses make it thorough the storm. And the beautiful Phosphorescent Bay, is it unharmed?
NE Coast would have been the best place to be on St. Croix for Maria.
Don’t know much from Vieques, other that it was spared the worsy. Most of the damage is in central and northern Puerto Rico’s big island.
The track is changing and it is now headed off shore of the Chesapeake Bay — I hope it tracks further east.
https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Guajataca+dam&s=typd&x=0&y=0
The Guajataca dam has failed within the last hour. They have been trying to bus people out. Apparently this will affect roughly 70,000 people in the northwestern part of the island.
God bless PR...
More details on dam.
Official track has it well offshore, with the cone just brushing the Outer Banks.
I know. I have family in the Chesapeake Bay area and since I also had family in Coral Gables, Tampa Bay, and Vero Beach it seems like these last storms have kept my on the internet way too much.
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