Published On:Monday, October 29, 2012
Posted by abg man
Hurricane Sandy expected to stun US and be a climate change reminder
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WASHINGTON: The eastern seaboard of the United States is under attack. Not from Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Libya or any of the usual suspects. The offender assaulting the world's only superpower is a hurricane, bearing the innocuous name Sandy.
Sandy though is an overgrown progenitor of Mother Nature, who no one messes with; not even a superpower. As if to remind US presidential candidates that it is not a good idea to put global warming — or human aggravated climate change — on the backburner (as both President Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney have done in this election campaign), Mother Nature appears to have let loose Sandy to deliver a kick in the American gut. By Monday noon, the US was on its knees.
Although it is only a category one hurricane just now, Sandy is being described as the largest-ever storm to hit the US. A freak occurence that involves Sandy meeting two winter fronts coming in from the north and west is expected to bring about a massive churn over eastern US, the kind never seen before. It has therefore has been dubbed a Frankenstorm.
Sandy's footprint, at nearly 1000 miles diameter, is almost half the size of India's landmass. Its cover area when it hits mainland is so vast, stretching from the Carolinas all the way up the Atlantic seaboard to Connecticut and Massachusetts, and deep into Ohio in the west, that no one is even worrying about where it will make landfall. It's a minor detail. It is expected to affect 50 million people.
As of Monday morning, the storm is still offshore but the scale of preparations is comparable to one for an alien invasion or a nuclear attack. New York City and Washington DC, the country's (and world's) financial and power center, have shut down. Transit system (subways, metros, buses) have halted, schools and colleges are closed, and even government and local bodies will work with only emergency crews, thousands of whom have been readied for repairing widespread power outages that are expected to occur in the next 48 hours.
Right now there is an eerie quiet punctuated by the steady patter of rain and mild winds in Washington DC, where your correspondent is getting this story out before the expected power breakdown. Huge amounts of rain accompanied by heavy winds gusting up to 60-70kmph have been forecast, bringing down trees on power lines. People have been advised to stock up on water, food, candles and other essentials.
While many people are taking the storm lightly, given its mild opening salvo, the National Weather Service issued an unprecedented "Act ... or you will die!" kind of warning. "IF YOU ARE RELUCTANT (TO EVACUATE WHEN ASKED), THINK ABOUT YOUR LOVED ONES, THINK ABOUT THE EMERGENCY RESPONDERS WHO WILL BE UNABLE TO REACH YOU WHEN YOU MAKE THE PANICKED PHONE CALL TO BE RESCUED, THINK ABOUT THE RESCUE/RECOVERY TEAMS WHO WILL RESCUE YOU IF YOU ARE INJURED OR RECOVER YOUR REMAINS IF YOU DO NOT SURVIVE," the NWS warned.
Poll pundits are wondering what effect a seriously disruptive storm could have on the elections for which voting is next Tuesday (November 6). Democrats are mocking Republicans, who are traditionally less impressed by climate change theories and want minimal government oversight, whether they plan to survive the storm without government help in restoration. But the more serious long-term concern is how quickly the issue of climate change has fallen off the political radar.
"According to a survey in this week's Time magazine, 85% of Americans think global warming is happening. The other 15% work for the White House," the comedian Jay Leno once joked, illustrating the casual approach of the political class — particularly Republicans, to the issue, once they reach the corridors of power. Democrats appear to have joined the hands-off bandwagon.
No one, including the gagsters, may be laughing very much after Sandy storms across Eastern United States in the next 48 hours.
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