"The House That Ike Broke"

My Brother just sent us pictures of the house I grew up in in Lumberton. Ike dropped a tree on it (Rita dropped a tree on the same house in 2005). This inspired me to write a little poem:

"The House that Ike Broke"

This is the House that Ike broke

This is the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

This is the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

This is the the Contractor
That removed the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

This is the Check
That paid off the Contractor
That removed the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

This is the Agency
That wrote the Check
That paid off the Contractor
That removed the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

This is the Son
Who works for the Agency
That wrote the Check
That paid off the Contractor
That removed the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

These are the Taxes
That pay the Son
Who works for the Agency
That wrote the Check
That paid off the Contractor
That removed the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

These are the Bills
That ate up the Paycheck
Of the Son
Who works for the Agency
That wrote the Check
That paid off the Contractor
That removed the Tree
That lay on the Roof
Of the House that Ike broke

(Next year I'll write another one called "This is the House that Ida broke" or something like that)

Geek stuff: running Infocom games to work on Windows XP

Okay, Ike didn't cause the world to collapse. It was a very expensive, huge storm that caused a lot of damage, but it didn't kill many people. My brother in Beaumont was fine. I feel vaguely foolish for having gotten so wound up about him being there. Meh.

Anyway, I found an old CD with Infocom games on it ("Lost Treasures of Infocom"). These were the old text-based games that are now called "Interactive Fiction": Zork, The Lurking Horror, Infidel... This was all very magical to me when I was a kid. I wanted to become a computer programmer because of this kind of game. So I got my CompSci degree at the Academy and after the Marines I taught Seychellois people to use computers and... somehow I ended up working for FEMA. Go figure.

The trouble is that when I went to start up Zork, I got odd characters on the screen. This killed my eighties buzz. I vaguely remembered that these weird characters were the program's attempt to talk to ANSI.SYS. This was the way programs used to do super advanced graphics like dark letters on a light background (WOW!). I understand that Al Gore invented ANSI.SYS.

Okay, here's how you fix this:

1. Start up a command prompt (Start->Run->CMD)
2. Edit your CONFIG.NT file (notepad %systemroot%\system32\config.nt)
3. Add a reference to ANSI.SYS at the end of CONFIG.NT (add this line: device=%SystemRoot%\system32\ansi.sys)

Now ZORK and company should start up correctly and not give you any weird characters. XYZZY.

Actually going home

Okay, I didn't go home. I called my brother in Texas. It's not even raining in Beaumont, just some pretty high winds. It was reassuring to hear his voice. Okay, now I really am going home.

Still don't like Ike.

Ike paralysis

I'm still at work. I am experiencing some kind of weird Ike paralysis. Like somehow as long as I stay at work, the storm won't actually hit. And my brother will be okay.

Guess I'd better head home. Long day tomorrow.

I don't like Ike

I don't like Ike.

You know, I came to FEMA to help the disaster victim. But I'd be just fine if I never really got to do my job. Ike looks really bad. It's probably going to hit my old hometown in Lumberton, Texas, where folks are still talking about Rita. And my eldest brother is sticking it out near there in Beaumont. He'll probably be okay. Probably.

I'm set to work the weekend. Hey, maybe it'll fizzle out. Yeah, that could happen.

The National Weather Service says, "PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES MAY FACE CERTAIN DEATH".

I don't like Ike.

(By the way, these kickass storm graphics come from http://www.stormpulse.com/.)

September 10: Hurricane day

As I mentioned way back in August, September 10th is the most active hurricane day of the year. Today is no exception. Ike is threatening the Texas coastline with a potential category 3 (or 4!) landfall.

We've been getting ready for a big landfall all season, and it didn't materialize with Gustav. Now folks are reluctant to evacuate. But the Texas coast is poorly suited to hurricanes. This is a bad combination.

I went out for six miles on the Capital mall today. Good run, no hamstring damage. My thighs are sore from yesterday's workout, but not as bad as I thought they would be. Feels funny to worry about my running while there is potential for such a disaster.

Gustav: Landfall within 12 hours

I'll admit this to you now: until now I've kept hoping this storm would somehow magically blow apart, get deflected, die down... anything but hit New Orleans. But it just keeps going on towards NOLA. This is like watching a car crash in slow motion.

Paradoxically, I was looking at some old photos of where we used to live and thought how much I miss New Orleans. Don't tell Sònia; she'll have me locked up.

Gustav: Bush visits HQ/Bee sting on the behind

I'm at FEMA Headquarters. We're all preparing for the long haul, getting in additional personnel, calling people off of their leave, having meetings... There is still hope that this thing could weaken a lot before hitting, but we're trying to be realistic. It could still be really bad, and no one wants to be caught off-guard (again).

In that spirit, the President came to headquarters. I really don't have much to say about that. It certainly was the right thing for him to do.

This morning I went out and did 100 burpees in 14:25. It kicked my butt. About halfway through a bee came and stung me on the behind. I'm not kidding. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I remembered bee stings to be. It's bothering me now, though.

Gustav hits Cat 4

Gustav was upgraded to Category 4 just a couple of hours ago, and it looks like nothing is in its way except a warm Gulf of Mexico. I think about the folks in Cuba and shudder.

It is so odd to be here at FEMA Headquarters, seeing the sun shine. I keep thinking I should remember this moment. All is uncertain right now-- but certainty has a way of creeping up on you. Soon we will know just how bad (or not) Gustav is going to be.

My friend Ruth is in town with her husband. We had to cancel getting together because I'll be working (who knows how long?). She said she'd be praying for the people of the gulf coast. I just thought, we're going to be working our tails off to help those people. A little prayer sure couldn't hurt.

Gustav, Hanna, and the view from FEMA Headquarters

FEMA headquarters is pretty alive today. That's good; I'd hate to think we'd all be taking a three day weekend with Gustav breathing down the Gulf Coast's neck. There is a palpable sensation here that the three year anniversary of Katrina was just yesterday, two potential threats are too close for comfort, and we may have to do our jobs.

Oddly enough, three years ago today, Sonia, Daniel, and I were in Lafayette with Beau, Elena, and Luis (see http://timothychenallen.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-we-evacuated-from-hurricane-katrina.html). Right now, the forecast has Gustav rolling right into Lafayette.

Just to get my mind off of things, I went out for a 70 minute run this morning. You know, I really hope nothing happens. But the chances of that are really getting very slim.

Perl: Make KML from NOAA Forecast

I wanted a simple way to make GoogleMaps KML to show forecasted storm tracks. The forcasted storm tracks can be downloaded from the National Hurricane Center and generally look like this. This is today's forecast for TS Gustav:

INITIAL      27/1500Z 18.8N  74.0W    50 KT
12HR VT     28/0000Z 19.0N  74.8W    55 KT
24HR VT     28/1200Z 19.2N  76.0W    60 KT
36HR VT     29/0000Z 19.3N  77.5W    70 KT
48HR VT     29/1200Z 19.9N  79.4W    80 KT
72HR VT     30/1200Z 21.5N  83.0W   100 KT
96HR VT     31/1200Z 24.5N  86.0W   100 KT
120HR VT     01/1200Z 28.5N  88.5W   100 KT

So I wrote a Perl program to translate that into a KML file. The program looks like this:

use strict;
#Get the storm name from the user
print "Storm Name? ";
my $storm = <STDIN>;
chomp($storm);

#Print out the KML header
print << "STARTLINE";
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2">
<Document>
 <name>$storm</name>
 <open>1</open>
 <description>NOAA $storm track</description>
 <Folder>
   <name>Placemarks</name>
   <description>$storm</description>
   <Placemark>
     <name>$storm</name>
     <LineString>
       <tessellate>1</tessellate>
       <coordinates>
STARTLINE

# Build kml stanzas for the line and forecast markers
my $line = "";
my $points = "";
while(<DATA>) {
chomp;
if (m/^ *(INITIAL|\d+HR VT) +(\d+\/\d{4}Z) (\d+\.\d+)N +(\d+.\d+)W +(.*)$/) {
 $line .= "-$4, $3\n";
 $points .= << "HERE"
   <Placemark>
     <name>$1, $2, $5</name>
     <Point>
       <coordinates>-$4, $3</coordinates>
     </Point>
   </Placemark>
HERE
}
}
# Print everything out, including the end of the kml
print $line;
print << "FINISHLINE";
       </coordinates>
     </LineString>
   </Placemark>
FINISHLINE
print $points;
print << "FINISHPOINTS";
 </Folder>
</Document>
</kml>
FINISHPOINTS
__DATA__
INITIAL      27/1500Z 18.8N  74.0W    50 KT
12HR VT     28/0000Z 19.0N  74.8W    55 KT
24HR VT     28/1200Z 19.2N  76.0W    60 KT
36HR VT     29/0000Z 19.3N  77.5W    70 KT
48HR VT     29/1200Z 19.9N  79.4W    80 KT
72HR VT     30/1200Z 21.5N  83.0W   100 KT
96HR VT     31/1200Z 24.5N  86.0W   100 KT
120HR VT     01/1200Z 28.5N  88.5W   100 KT

As you can see, I copy and paste the NOAA storm forecast into the program. The resulting GoogleMap looks like this:

View Hurricane Gustav Forecast in a larger map
Oh my, that looks uncomfortable for New Orleans. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hurricane Gustav: Yikes!

I've been looking at Hurricane Gustav. Right now it still hasn't made landfall in Hispaniola, but it's already made Category 1 and has a whole big, hot Gulf of Mexico in front of it. Given how flat-footed Katrina caught me, I just thought... what if?

So I'll be keeping an eye on this one. The gulf of Mexico is hot, right at 86F (you can look at this at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/egof_tmap.html). Let's hope for the best! But one piece of advice: if you have to evacuate, don't just bring an extra shirt and your guitar like I did.

Historically Most Active Hurricane Day: September 10

I recently looked over some hurricane data from 1851 until this year. I got curious: on what day of the year is there the most hurricane activity? Answer: September 10. There have been 96 active hurricanes on that day since 1851.

To create this graph, I downloaded a data set from the NOAA Historical Hurricane Tracks page: http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/download.jsp. I downloaded the dataset for both basins. It comes in the form of an ESRI ARCMap dhape file, but there is a dBase dbf file that can be imported into Micosoft Access (if you try this, you may run into some trouble unless you rename the DBF file to have a normal eight character file name).

I used Microsoft Excel to query the data from the Access database I had created and create the graph. I had to be careful in my query not to double count hurricanes that had more than one weather advisory on the same date.

Why Burma doesn't want our help

The introduction to Disasters and Development by Fred Cuny gives an explanation of why dictatorships want us to give aid to the government for distribution and not directly to the disaster affected population. I read this and immediately thought of Burma:

...In reality, just as disasters and development cannot be separated, neither can disaster response be divorced from politics. Unfortunately, few governments in the Third World are democratic and many regimes perpetuate underdevelopment because it supports the needs of an oligarchy or other privileged class. Thus many of the ideas presented here are anathema to these groups. For them, control of disaster relief is another way of maintaining the status quo, and a paternalistic dole of relief goods from foreigners is the preferred method of aid, for it is in keeping with the dictatorial system.

How a hurricane forms: an explanation by Fred Cuny

I'm reading Disasters and Development by Fred Cuny. It's an excellent work by one of the most important people in the Disaster Relief field. Fred Cuny engineered the repatriation of 400,000 Kurds after Gulf War I, arguable saving the lives of tens of thousands of people. Cuny disappeared in Chechnya in 1995.

Disasters and Development has one of the clearest explanations of how a hurricane forms that I have ever seen:

Much is known about how a cyclone forms. In order to develop, a cyclone must have a warm sea and calm warm air. The warm air rises -- heavy, humid, and full of water vapour. Its place is taken by air rushing in from the sides and, because of the earth's rotation, this moving air is given a twist, so that the entire system begins to revolve. The warm rising air meets cooler air and releases its water vapour in the form of rain. It takes a tremendous amount of energy for the air to lift the water in the first place, and now this energy is released in the form of heat. This increases the rate of ascent of the air and a continuous cycle begins to develop. More water is released and also more heat : more the water and heat released, faster the cycle moves. This cycle becomes the engine that drives the beast, and gradually it goes faster and faster and the air mass becomes much larger.

Because the wind system is revolving, centrifugal force tends to throw the air outward so that the pressure in the center becomes very low, thus forming the eye of the storm. The pressure on the outside is very high, so the wind moves faster in an attempt to fill that low pressure area. The faster it moves the more the centrifugal force throws it outward. Soon there are very fast circular winds and, when they reach 120 kilometers per hour, the system becomes a cyclone or hurricane.

The system then begins to move forward like a spinning top. This brings it into contact with more warm sea and air, and the process becomes self-sustaining. Once a cyclone is formed, it will continue to move and expand until it passes over land or over an area where the sea is cooler.

In the northern hemisphere, cyclones generally move in a north-westerly direction; in the southern hemisphere, in a south-westerly direction. Little is known about what makes these storms move and change direction, other then that they are affected by the high altitude winds and rotation of the earth. So far, scientists have found it difficult to predict the movement of the cyclone, making this hazard one of the most dangerous.