Re: Misc chit-chat (WAS: Re: Available consultant

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.unix.admin, in article
<RoOdnemJV_wmZRHVnZ2dnUVZ_v7inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Robert Melson wrote:

ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Moe Trin) writes:

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that a passenger in a sport utility
vehicle was killed when the vehicle hit a large puddle and rolled
over. The driver and two children were hospitalized.

Sigh... As mentioned, this is why we have the "Stupid Law".

Driver was going under the posted speed limit on an allegedly
all-weather highway (well crowned, drained, adequate shoulders,
diitchig), no alcohol involved. Problem, I suspect, is that it
was coming down faster than it could run off. Dunno if one can
reasonably fault the driver,

I suspect you get the same NWS warnings that we get here. In cases where
they are issuing a Flash Flood {Alert|Warning}, the canned announcement
spends more time warning about driving into water covered roads than
they spend announcing the areas that the {Alert|Warning} applies to.

tho' I suspect this'll be with him the rest of his life. No need
for application of the "stupid law" here.

Another law we have here is that swimming pools shall be fenced in such
a manner as to make it difficult for children to get in unattended.
Several companies (example two major home builders) and government
agencies (example Phoenix Fire) run regular radio advertisements using
the phrase "two seconds is to long" (to leave a child unattended around
water - not just swimming pools). Some of the ads are positively brutal
to listen to - a 911 call from a distraught father telling how he "just
pulled his pre-schooler out from the bottom of the pool, and he's not
breathing, can you get someone here to help". ***! They tend
not to prosecute in those cases either. (Sorry 'bout that - we had one
in the area about a month ago, and the mother was blaming the Fire
Department for the kid's death.)

Of course, these ads have no effect on parents - "as this would never
happen to me or my kid".

The worst rainfall rates I've ever seen were when I was doing some
equipment testing for ACTIV (Army Concept Team In Vietnam) in the
late 1960s in Da Nang. We had set up the equipment on the grassy
area between the patio at the Navy O'club and the "river", and it was
coming down like no tomorrow (typhoon). I put a pair of tumblers out
on the table, and timed it for ten minutes - 1 3/16 inch, or about 7
inches/hour.

Yeah, I remember the monsoon rains in the Saigon countryside - like
a cow pee-ing in a stump.

Another one - between Da Nang and Hue. The camp was on a small hummock
and the rest of the place - including a 2000 foot "runway" was at sea
level. It was raining so hard that the Caribeasts weren't trying to land.
I guess it also made it rough on Charlie. The cook had some smarts, and
was serving a coffee cup full of hot cream of tomato soup with the meal.
Its raining like there's no tomorrow, the temps and RH were both over 100,
but that soup went down _perfectly_ despite that.

Typhoons in Japan also tened to dump a LOT of water in a short period,
tho' I was not particularly interested at the time.

I suppose that depends on where you were, and what else was occupying
your thoughts at the time.

Well, sorta. Problem here is that in years past home building
was permitted in arroyos, there are few storm drains and runoff
from the mountains take the easy path (can you say streets).

The area I'm living in is a 1400 acre "community" and about a quarter
of that area is washes and retention basins. It seems odd to see an
earthen dam across a valley (about 3 miles long and up to 50 feet tall
roughly 33.71N, 112.05W running due E/W), and a second one much longer
but not as high protecting the canal a bit South of the first dam, out
in the middle of the desert. I've seen significant water behind the
first dam following locally heavy rains, but the rest of the year, it's
dry.

There's been a big stink lately about "storm water fees", which
are a part of the city's response to the "Great Flood of 2006".
Fee is tacked on to the water utility bill and is based on a home
or business' potential runoff. The question I've had, and have
asked the city government, is what the hell they've done with
the taxes paid for infrastructure over the last, say, 30 years.
We won't go into that, however.

Ah, well the cities and county put up signs on roads where there is the
possibility of flooding. Signs are pretty cheap. Hey, the road is
flooded!!! Well, the sign warns that can happen. ;-) Actually, the
Cave Creek Wash has finally received a bridge on Deer Valley Road (the
road immediately South of the airport of the same name). Coupled with
the "Loop 101" freeway in the same area, my wife now has three roads
to cross the that wash while going to/from work, rather than the
single one 11 miles South. Before that, Deer Valley Road would be
closed 3-4 times a year - closed as with a four inch diameter pipe
3 foot above the road level, swung into place blocking all lanes.

It's also closed when the wind blows and causes rock slides. Typical
spring winds can be > 60 mph sustained, and the highway cut is
a natural funnel for'em. As well, there's the down slope effect
on the "lee" side of the mountains (wind blows from west, becomes
stronger on east side, for example).

Not quite the same here, but the big one in NorCal is the Altamont
Pass - where I-580 goes through the coast range just east of
Livermore. The stretch between where 2 and 205 split, up to a bit
North of the I-580 is an enormous wind farm, with thousands of wind
mills running most of the year. Trucks and house trailers get blown
over/off the road several times a year. Great fun in a tall, but
light car. The Tehachapi Pass (CA-58 at the West end of the Mojave)
and Grapevine (I-5 at the South end of the Central valley) are about as
bad.

The ground can soak up only so much water, then becomes saturated,
creating additional runoff. Tropical rains are not typical of the
usual thunderstorm patterms (rain here but not across the street),
but are generally more widespread. And so it goes.

We see that all the time. It's quite obvious when you are driving
along a road, come of a wide dip, and notice that the road has been
repaved in the dip - you may also notice boulders 1 to 6 feet or more
in size parked in that low area. Hmmm, flash flood went through here.

Soggy Ol' Bob

No problem - you'll dry out soon enough.

Before the moss starts growing

Already doing so.

See!

Old guy
.