 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-08-28 16:39
No clarinets were damaged when Irene came through Brooklyn last night. Some trees and power lines came down, but as a hurricane she was a bust. The radio and TV stations are still broadcasting All Irene All the Time, but the calls are on the order of "I'm on the coast and the high tide made it halfway up my back yard," and an ominous announcement from the mayor of Newark that "We've had to pull out 10 cars so far that couldn't make it through big puddles." I heard a few thunderclaps overnight, but right now the winds are at 10 mph with gusts to 20.
Of course the politicians and pundits couldn't afford to be less than greatly alarmed, but it's an instance of Boyle's Law of Politics: The greater the external pressure, the greater the volume of hot air. Our biggest problem is to eat up all the food in the refrigerator before it spoils.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2011-08-28 17:05
per Ken Shaw:
<< Boyle's Law of Politics: The greater the external pressure, the greater the volume of hot air.>>
Superb!
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: BobD
Date: 2011-08-28 17:46
"Fear is Man's Best Friend".........
Bob Draznik
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Author: Joseph Brenner, Jr.
Date: 2011-08-28 19:08
I called my stepmother, Irene, this morning in New Jersey (about 20 minutes from the coast and 500 ft above the highway). She reported nothing irregular, aside from a few stray branches in the yard and clocks running about 2 hours behind due to a brief power outage during the night. Glad you (and your clarinets) are well, Ken. Nashville is hot and sunny.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-08-28 19:16
Allan -
The line is not original with me, I'm afraid. It's from Michael Flanders.
Joseph -
I grew up in Chattanooga, so I know all about hot and sunny.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-08-29 13:03
No instruments damaged at my house in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington D.C.. The media did go overboard on this one. ("What's next? Rain of toads?") On the whole, though, I'd rather have plenty of time to prepare, not get whacked by surprise. Weather forecasting isn't an exact science. I don't mind if the early warnings turn out to be somewhat overblown, as long as they're not so wolf-cryingly out of proportion to reality that next time, people react with a shrug of complacency.
In case the worst-case warnings turned out to be true, I readied the evacuation bag, moved anything likely to go airborne from the yard into a shed, took the usual precautions against prolonged power failure and schlepped my best wind instruments down from my attic office, where I practice, to the basement. My husband made sure he had about a billion batteries ready to go, with all the rechargeables were fully charged. He moved his rat rod project car (1950 Chevy Fleetliner) down the driveway out of harm's way, in case an old black walnut tree, overloaded this year with a double quantity of double-sized nuts, went all Whomping Willow.
We only lost power for about eight hours. No problem. Sunday, we undid all the precautions, then spent much of the day cleaning up a mess in the yard, but it was only a mess (small branches and so forth), not damage.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: LCL
Date: 2011-08-29 14:04
I am in South Louisiana and have been through almost all of the bad hurricanes in my 65 years. I watched the coverage on TV quite a bit, but did feel after a while that it was being hyped up! Yes, the storm and its aftermath can be hard to endure. We don't have all of the run off flooding, but those closer to the GoM can see 15 to 25 ft storm surges. My home town is about 40 to 50 miles from the GoM and a lot of us have hurricane shutters and stand-by generators that power the whole house using natural gas as a fuel source. In other words, we have over time learned to live with these ladies and gentleman of good name!
Hope all begin to recover soon!
Lynn
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2011-08-29 14:34
It's not the intensity, but the location. Look at the flooding in NH, VT and NY. There are large portions of the Atlantic seacoast where hurricanes are rare events.
And just think of the repercussions if the worst DID happen but no precautions were taken ...
Not so many years ago (in my lifetime!) there were no satellites to assist in weather prediction. People died because they couldn't plan for disasters.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2011-08-29 15:31
I am reminded of my unpleasant nine months working as a contract engineer for the TSA. The public and press constantly lambasted the TSA for recommending or instituting airport security measures that were "onerous", "humiliating", etc. But when an airline-related security event occurred, the TSA would get slammed instead for "not doing enough", "not anticipating", "not putting the pieces together".
Just as Mark said in his last sentence.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-08-30 15:49
I think if you watch the news on TV and see all the misery and destruction across the East coast you may not think that Irene was over hyped. Over 40 dead already, no power to millions all week, massive floods, roads and bridges destroyed and the damage goes on and on. 6-20 Billion dollars estimated. I even saw someone using a clarinet as an oar, no not really. :-). How many more people could have lost their lives and lively hood if precautions were not taken or if the storm did not loose it's steam as it came further up north. Some of us were very lucky to get minimum damage, many others were not as fortunate. ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: chris moffatt
Date: 2011-09-04 14:43
Well I'd willingly swap your "bust" for the twenty hour marathon of 60 - 70mph winds, 13 inches of rain, innumerable big trees down, blocked roads and 5 - 6 day power outage that we had in eastern VA inland as far as Richmond. And just ask the folks in VT or the high peaks region of ADK....
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Author: Bill Patry
Date: 2011-09-05 02:00
I live in Connecticut and I don't think anyone here would think the storm was over hyped. We had two people killed and hundreds of homes destroyed. In my area of North Stamford, we lost all electricity, landline phones, running water, and toilets for 5 days. People who use ventilators or need refrigeration for drugs like insulin had a very hard time. I had a badly infected molar and couldn't go to the dentist for a few days until he got power. I ended up needing a triple root canal. The wife of the endodontist who did the procedure fell down some stairs in the dark and broke her ribs. She may have pneumonia now. We lived in fear of trees coming down on our house and killing us in our bedrooms at night. Fortunately that didn't happen, but there were people along the coast who lost everything. It wasn't as bad as predicted, and we are grateful for that, but it certainly wasn't over hyped.
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