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Posted By: Trumpy OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/12/11 12:21 PM
Guys,
The same tectonic plate that caused the quake in Christchurch has now devastated Japan and China.
People in California, should be prepared for at least a substantial jolt.
Make sure you have provisions, like food, batteries for flash-lights and most of all water and fuel.
This is my opinion only, but I'd hate it if you folks suffered as much as those in Christchurch or Japan have.
Stay safe.
Mike.
Posted By: JoeTestingEngr Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/12/11 05:26 PM
How are you doing Mike?
Joe
Posted By: harold endean Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/12/11 10:57 PM
Trumpy,

I will second that motion. Being on the East coast of America, we almost never feel an earthquake. There are some small ones around, but for the most part we don't feel them. I think I would just crap in my pants if the earth moved that much. My cousin lives in San Francisco and he just missed the big one that hit there several years ago.
Posted By: Niko Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/13/11 03:39 AM
we have been talking about getting prepared but haven't yet. i guess i need to be serious and get ready.

i have been in 3 or 4 major California quakes.
They are scary on top of that you need to deal with salt water and now possible radiation.
Posted By: NORCAL Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/13/11 07:11 AM
There will be a big quake in CA, the only question to be answered is when it will happen.
Posted By: Tesla Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/13/11 08:52 AM
ALWAYS keep a 5 gallon fresh water supply. Those are available just about everywhere, 'cause the first thing to go is water in a disaster.

The first thing that you need is pure water.

Next, always have a heat source. It can be wood or charcoal. But you want to always have HOT water available.

As a kid I went through a complete disruption of power and phones.

Hot water quickly became HUGE. You simply cannot understand how often you need it.

In this regard think of buying a Fresnel lens to make pure water and hot water. Bing the internet. Interesting videos out there.

After that, it's rice, beans, canned tuna etc.

The Sierra Nevadas didn't get so high on their own. Think earthquakes.

Hoover dam sits exactly across a Major fault. Some day it MUST fail.

Do you want to live down stream?

BTW, MOST rivers ARE rivers BECAUSE they are atop faults, the ultimate crack in the ground.

Faults also create swamps. There is a massive fault than has created the Sudanese swamp. It's so huge and so deep it's an engineering nightmare.

Only in the 21st Century is it realized that this fault permits the Nile to feed the sub-surface lakes underneath Egypt and Libya.

Yes, it's a DEEP fault. A tad further to the east the world is splitting apart and the conditions for a brand new ocean are unfolding.

Meaning: keep you powder dry and always hold reserves. As professional electricians we are expected to bring the juice back on. Doing so can bring the best satisfaction ( and profits ) that you'll ever get.

So don't let your service truck run too low on fuel. You may find that you need to work when the normal fuel supply is cut off!

Posted By: renosteinke Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 01:15 AM
Tesla, thank you for the 'engineering' perspective. I. however, differ.

What has NOT happened in either NZ or Japan? Well, I have yet to see any reports about the locals sacking Wal-mart- let alone the police joining in the looting!

I believe that your most important 'asset' in a crisis are your neighbors and co-workers.

Look around you now. If the 'big one' hit, would you all be in it together - or would you feel as if you were lost in Jurassic Park?

If you answer the latter, get out NOW. Nothing good can happen by your continuing to live among such a dysfunctional society.
Posted By: electure Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 04:23 AM
Reno,

"What has NOT happened in either NZ or Japan? Well, I have yet to see any reports about the locals sacking Wal-mart- let alone the police joining in the looting!"

.....Keeping in mind that the City of Los Angeles has a population exceeding that of the entire country of New Zealand.

After the SoCA Northridge Earthquake in 1994, (57 dead, 9000+ injured) there was almost NO looting, let alone any police taking part in it. Only 10 arrests.

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-02-06/opinion/op-19644_1_northridge-earthquake



Posted By: Trumpy Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 07:26 AM
Originally Posted by renosteinke


What has NOT happened in either NZ or Japan? Well, I have yet to see any reports about the locals sacking Wal-mart- let alone the police joining in the looting!

I believe that your most important 'asset' in a crisis are your neighbors and co-workers.

Look around you now. If the 'big one' hit, would you all be in it together - or would you feel as if you were lost in Jurassic Park?


Bollocks,
John, after having been through 2 decently sized quakes here and the rescue and recovery of both, I don't think that what you are saying is the case.
What I have seen, is the fact of people working together, to rescue people they don't even know, give first aid to those that are injured, comfort those that are not injured, but have had the bejesus scared out of them.
It is most certainly a situation of do what you can at the time, mainly members of the public here, did just that in the initial parts of the quake.

In a situation of which you are talking, that would mean GREED, not looking out for your fellow man.
Police officers are charged with keeping law and order during a disaster, why they would leave that scenario to cross over to the "other side" sounds like some sort of a left-field idea.
Posted By: renosteinke Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 01:16 PM
Mike, I was referring to an actual disaster (or two) here in the USA.

The vast majority of our disasters have been met with responsible behavior by the folks involved- at least at the start. Yet, you can't have a country as large as ours without there being pretty significant regional differences.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans a decade ago, the social meltdown started even before the rain stopped. There are news team films of uniformed police pushing carts of loot amidst the other looters.

When Hurricane Hugo hit Florida nearly two decades ago, in the immediate aftermath armed gang formed and began systematically victimizing others. These gangs were stopped dead in their tracks by other survivors - thanks to our 'right to bear arms.' "You loot, we shoot" signs became common.

As Scott observed, our most recent few quakes have been met with responsible behavior by the locals. As have many other quakes, blizzards, mudslides, tornados, wildfires, etc.

Yet Hugo and Katrina showed that the outcome can be different.
Posted By: HotLine1 Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 01:41 PM
Another situation of the small minority being publicized over the great majority.

From a guy that lived in Newark, NJ before during and a short time after the famed riots, NOT caused by any type of natural disaster.

Think about the greif & loss of all of those that are within the areas that had the recent natural disasters.

Posted By: electure Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 03:33 PM
"There are news team films of uniformed police pushing carts of loot amidst the other looters."

NEW ORLEANS — Four New Orleans police officers have been cleared of allegations that they looted a Wal-Mart store after Hurricane Katrina, but each was suspended 10 days for not stopping civilians from ransacking the store, the Police Department said.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11920811/ns/us_news-katrina_the_long_road_back/

Posted By: dougwells Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 04:54 PM
Now that the off topic has been somewhat resolved PLEASE let stay on topic of the OP
Posted By: renosteinke Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/14/11 11:55 PM
Putting it all in perspective ...
The "Great San Francisco" quake is estimated to have been about 7.9.

The New Madrid quake - centered right here in scenic Blytheville, Ar., and the strongest to hit North America - is estimated at 8.1.

Now Japan weighs in at 8.9. That's nearly ten times stronger- and a good 1000X what hit NZ most recently.

It's a safe assumption that absolutely nothing was designed for this size quake. The miracle is that anything is left standing at all.

From a 'trade' perspective, I'd guess that not only will there be a return to the good, old overhead service drop, but that we'll connect the service using glorified cap & plug connectors!
Posted By: Alan Belson Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/15/11 02:13 AM
The quake has been uprated to 9+ , and the tsunami has been compared to dropping a rock bigger than Martha's Vinyard in the ocean and then some. The main short term problems are the damaged reactors, now apparently at risk of meltdown and keeping survivors alive in what is effectively a wasteland with no services at all.
The new infrastucture will no doubt include provision against a repeat event, built away up from the shoreline.
Posted By: Tesla Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/15/11 03:46 AM
I don't understand why the operators are not venting the excess steam through the turbine circuit.

The back pressure build up is the source of all of their problems.

It now takes a massive medium voltage pump to inject coolant against a pressure head of 100 atmospheres.

The turbine circuit would quench the steam without effort and should permit pressures to drop all the way down to atmospheric.

Is Homer Simpson at the controls?
Posted By: jdevlin Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/15/11 02:45 PM
The quake was under the ocean. I think that is why the quake itself did not do more damage. The tsunami it created did most of the damage.
Posted By: LarryC Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/17/11 06:12 PM
From my understanding of the events so far at the nuclear plants in Japan, the major design flaw is the same one that bit us in Katrina. Locating the emergency generators and switchgear on the lower levels. If the emergency power was elevated in the structures, they probably would have survived the tsumnami.

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Posted By: ghost307 Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/17/11 07:55 PM
If the generators were in an upper floor of a building, they might still be damaged if the building took a hit.

Generators are generally required to be low in the building for fire reasons. If there's an emergency you want to get the folks in the fire brigades there just as fast as you can.

I would have thought a good design for the generators would have been to build a hardened building to house them. Nothing as sturdy (and expensive) as the containment building, but something substantial and made of reinforced concrete might have helped out.
Posted By: Tesla Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/17/11 08:00 PM
The design flaw was single node failure: water provision.

No dry stand-pipes so as to permit water injection of the storage pools.

Diesels set too low.

And a refusal to vent steam when Tokyo Electric had the chance: the first hour.

The residual steam should have been vectored through the turbines. They should have been braked by excited alternators. This low quality juice should have been bled off via electrolysis or resistors. ( in the ocean )

As it stands, the only way to get coolant into the reactors is with a high powered pump, really high powered.

Right now the big scare is #4. It has a batch of assemblies only ninety days out of the reactor.

Cross your fingers.
Posted By: Alan Belson Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/17/11 10:51 PM
Let me allay some fears about any 'impending apocalypse' bandied about by some of the hysterical dolts in the media.

The absolute worst-case scenario is a full meltdown, where fuel rods fall into the base of the containment vessel at 2000 deg. F. There they will mix and react with the concrete. A small scale [steam] explosion, [not nuclear] is likely. Steam explosions have already occurred in 3 of the 4 reactors.... Given the ingrained Japanese culture of skirting round unpleasant facts given to superiors, I'd suspect they have already had meltdown[s] in the plant.

A plume of radioactive material may rise to low level [500 feet]. The vast majority of the fallout will be inside a 20 mile diameter zone, most of it inside the perimeter fence. At Chernobl, which had no containment vessel at all, [ and which had a graphite core which burned in air driving the plume up ], the plume rose to 30,000 feet and was not controlled for weeks. Even in that disaster, the main radioactive long-term health problems arose from folks continuing to consume radioactive water and vegetables, and was confined to a 20 mile radius from the reactor.

There will be no nuclear ['A' bomb] style blast.

The spent rods will only contaminate the area local to the plant.

The current [ March 17 2011 ] radio-activity levels inside the reactor buildings themselves are still no more than a full CT scan every hour, not a good thing but not a Nagasaki event either.

The Fukishima plant is a write off. It was built 40 years ago, yet it still managed to survive intact from a quake 8000 times stronger than the recent Christchurch event. The tsunami destroyed the cooling equipment.

IMHO, this is all small beer compared to the problems of power, fuel, shelter and food for the survivors right now.

As to the cooling and supply design arrangements - 'If' is a big word....



Posted By: NORCAL Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/18/11 06:39 AM
I don't lose any sleep over it, the media/ Ministry of Propaganda needs a crises to justify their existence & this is the one for now......

The people who lost loved ones, homes,& everything else that makes life comfortable are the ones who need to be the focus.
Posted By: sparky Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/18/11 11:13 AM
Last i heard something like 120 countries have signed onto helping Japan out

they're in fairly tough shape, the weather isn't helping, etc

even their reclusive emporer (A name?) made a rare public apperance

but i gotta take my hat off to those 50 workers who volunteered to stay behind , and deal with that overheating fukoshima reactor.

ther nuclear power employees, as well as the wider population, can only look on in admiration. "The people working at these plants are fighting without running away," Michiko Otsuki, an employee at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant, wrote on the Japanese social networking site Mixi. "Please don't forget that there are people who are working to protect everyone's lives in exchange for their own."
from>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/fukushima-heroes-nuclear-japan-watches

often unexpectedly , and often the sorts you'd never think turn out to be the strong hearts when distater strikes

~S~
Posted By: Alan Belson Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/18/11 12:17 PM
The Emperor of Japan, Akihito, is the nation's head of state, the head of the Japanese Imperial Family and the Shinto religion. Japan's [US General McArthur's ?] 1947 constitution established the emperor as a ceremonial figurehead in a constitutional monarchy. In his dual role as head of a religion and head of state the Emperor resembles our [British] monarch, who is 'defender of the faith' in the protestant Church of England. His appearnce at this time reflects the seriousness of the situation Japan faces.

This monarchic system of a 'powerless' Head of State was established in 1688 in the British 'Glorious Revolution' after we rid ourselves of the hated regime of Oliver Cromwell. Kings and Queens in England rarely use the limited power they have and I can only recall two. Queen Victoria refused to sign a bill making lesbian acts illegal, and 'Mad' King George III who refused to fund the Army to kill any more American Colonists, on the premise that they were actually Englishmen!

Ducks and runs for cover!
Posted By: sparky Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/18/11 12:32 PM
Duck & Cover!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6eQkBCLkIA

gawd, i'd forgotten those days , and the quality time we spent under those old wooden school desks that were suppose to shield us from atomic blasts

man, they sure don't make those desks like they used to....

~S~

Posted By: ghost307 Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/18/11 01:08 PM
I lost all confidence in those exercises in school when I noticed how many desks actually fell over when we tried to get under them.

At least they got us in the habit of curling up in a ball in the case of a nuclear blast. Years later I heard that the correct procedure was to curl yourself as tight as you can and kiss your butt goodbye.

LOL
Posted By: Tesla Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/19/11 08:42 PM
The Duck-and-Cover 1950s were pure psychological warfare -- by the US on its citizens.

Kept secret was the impossibility of Soviet atomics from reaching America at all. Their atomics were so heavy that only the largest planes could carry them at all. And these were originally copies of our own B-29! ( Tu-4 )

The 1960 Campaign's "Rocket Gap" was utter BS. Nixon could never get Ike to admit it on the record. At the time of the 1962 missile crisis the Soviets had only ONE missile complex able to fire upon America from the Soviet Union. It required 24-hours to fuel up on the pad -- rather like a moon launch. They had only three pads and about six missiles! It was located in Latvia, easily struck by NATO before it even launched.

By comparison the US could have launched over one hundred missiles within 30 minutes of the order able to land anywhere in the USSR.

------

It looks like the Japanese have finally got their reactor threat under control. All of the alarmist talk of recent days has proved off base.

In economic terms these 35 and 40 year old reactors have no future value and they will be disposed of. Reactor 1 was supposed to be shut down permanently next week, anyway!

Because radioactivity can be detected down to each event the public loses all scale. There are 6 x 10 ^ 23 carbon atoms in 12 grams. If one decays -- it can be detected.

Gamma radiation is terrible -- but almost entirely confined to the reactor complex.

Beta radiation is typical of atoms that have absorbed a neutron. It does not travel far.

Neutrons don't travel far at all. Water really stops them.

The only long distance worry is stuff like Cs 137. It has a half-life of 30 years and emits an electron. ( Beta decay ) It also mimics Na and K. So the body can easily ingest it. The body can also flush it right out, too.

Instead of over all radioactivity the public ought to be informed about just the hazardous isotopes. For example, Sr 90 has a half-life of 29 years and decays into Zr 90. But its oxide is inert -- rather like quartz. So unless you're in the industry your chances of encountering it is zero.

Many of the other isotopes have similar properties. Even if released in huge quantities they end up just falling into the ocean if the winds are right.

Anyhow, seawater is now cooling off the rods -- mostly -- and radiation levels are dropping. Whew.
Posted By: sparky Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/20/11 12:23 PM
It looks like the Japanese have finally got their reactor threat under control. All of the alarmist talk of recent days has proved off base

yet it has the expected effects Telsa>

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/4472115.bin

Potassium iodide pills are being flogged for as much as $15 a pill on eBay, with a couple of hopeful sellers posting several unsealed boxes of brands approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for $2,500.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news...n+pills/4472141/story.html#ixzz1H8M8ZtvY

~S~
Posted By: LK Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/21/11 12:17 AM
Please try not to post political views or comments

Thank You!

LK
Posted By: dougwells Re: OT: The ring of fire is on fire - 03/21/11 12:18 AM
I got an Email also about telsa's reply....
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