IVAN -- 200 mph winds rock Cuba's western tip

From: Psalm 1 1 0 (gods-fist_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 09/14/04 

Date: 14 Sep 2004 00:21:01 -0700

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 13:54:45 +0900, Eric <lb@nospam.com> twrote

> That sort of nixes your prediction doesn't it. Must be all those
> Republican voters in Castro's Cuba. It didn't even hit with the
> strongest force at Gitmo. If it did, the damage and injuries would be
> much less, because wealth is how to prevent real damage from this kind
> of natural catastrophe.

As always you mistake Money for Weath. They are not the same thing.
They are not even approximately equal, nor equivilent, nor
interchangeable.

You failed to read the reports carefully. When the winds rose in
Jamaica the bandits were robbing police at gunpoint. Not everybody is
a precious lamb worth shedding tears over, but you don't know how to
judge.

On Grand Cayman the entire island was swamped. In places the water was
15 feet deep and people were out in the wind on their rooftops. Again,
you don't know how to judge. Did you have untaxed money in a secret
numbered account there? I'm sure your messiah Sun Myung Moon does.

On the tip of Cuba the winds reached 200 miles per hour (see thread
title), but the event happened in a mostly uninhabited corner of the
country between crops -- they don't plant until next month.

Now IVAN is in the Gulf of Mexico. It is looking at the offshore oil
platforms, and five states: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and
Florida. Three state governors have already declared states of
emergency.

At best, recreation is hurting, with cancelled sports and frolics on
the beaches postponed. At worst, there is THREE storms to deal with --
Jeanne is developing down on IVAN's track, but might follow Charley's
or FRANCEs'. There was a ghost swirl for 24 hours off of North
Carolina (lat 30n,lon60n), but the violent weather ripped it to
pieces. All the ingredients for a third storm are still present except
the initial spin impetus. It is within the realm of physics that three
hurricane-strength storms may make landfall roughly within 24-hours to
48 hours of each other. But you don't know how to judge.

Unlike you, who talks about "WEALTH" all the time, I studied the
catastrophic storm that hit Orrisa, India, in 1999. Somewhere between
10,000 and 30,000 people were washed out to sea in 48 hours of hell.

The storm came in after nighfall, and all power was out. It withdrew
two days later. Imagine IVAN parked over your town for two days.

The sustained winds were 310 KMH (192 MPH). The storm surge was two
stories tall and pushed in 80 kilometers inland. 1.9 million buildings
were damaged or wrecked.

What I did, and you didn't, was publish free online how to build
resistent buildings using the strongest technology in the human
knowledgebase that costs-out cheaper than the hovels they built as
replacement housing. "You "Loved your neighbor as yoursel" by
exhorting them to hoard wealth; I "Loved my neighbor as myself" by
sharing wealth. Knowledge is a form of wealth that never decreases but
always increases.

You fixate on storing up treasures on earth where storms and fires and
mildew and mice devour them. I put my treasures in the public sphere
where over 1,000,000 internet accesses from over 100 countries have
helped themselves to them.

For you christianity is obsolete, "christ failed"; for me "There is no
greater love than to lay down your life for a friend".

Here's where we part company --

1) The creator does not need your consent nor permission to make
judgements;
2) You don't get a veto;
3) You don't have to like the creator's decisions, but you have
virtually no power to affect them;
4) Under your plan all these losses you weep about are inevitable
anyway, they are inexorable;
5) The "least loss of life" remedy is under way, and it is breaking
your material strongholds into crumbles. There is no zero-loss option
at this late date. PEOPLE WERE NOT WILLING. It gets increasingly
expensive from here on out.
6) YOU are an offence, surrounded by hapless human shields.
7) Since the human shields were goners under your plan anyway, their
utility to you as shields is ineffectual.
8) Your plan is being broken in 10,000 points simultaneously -- it is
Humpty-Dumpty, never getting put back together again.
9) Your Apostacy is being punished -- this is your doing, your reward.
10) You had PLAN A and refused.

 
> In article <b195bd00.0409132006.3f118e5d@posting.google.com>, Psalm 1 1
> 0 <gods-fist@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/9655985.htm
> >
> > 200 mph winds rock Cuba's western tip
> >
> > BY VANESSA BAUZA
> >
> > South Florida Sun-Sentinel
> >
> > SABALO, Cuba - (KRT) - Hurricane Ivan's ferocious eye slammed Cuba's
> > westernmost tip Monday night with 195 mph wind gusts and powerful
> > storm surges that flooded fishing villages and tore the roofs off
> > humble homes in this tobacco-rich region.
> >
> > As the first Category 5 hurricane to strike Cuba in 80 years, Ivan
> > prompted frenzied preparations and massive evacuations in coastal
> > towns across the island. Early forecasts put the deadly storm on a
> > potentially catastrophic collision course with Havana.
> >
> > However, it traced a meandering path toward the Yucatan Channel
> > instead, sparing most of Cuba from what could have been a devastating
> > economic blow. On a visit Monday to western towns in Pinar del Rio
> > province, President Fidel Castro called Ivan a "gentlemanly hurricane"
> > that had proved "very courteous" by veering westward.
> >
> > Still, tens of thousands of Cubans in that westernmost region huddled
> > in governments shelters as 160 mph winds raked gently rolling hills,
> > flooded rice and cornfields and demolished tobacco-drying barns used
> > in producing Cuba's famed cigars.
> >
> > On Monday afternoon some residents wrapped in plastic tarps carried
> > their children through the driving rain in last minute evacuations
> > hours before Ivan made landfall. Even before the powerful storm
> > touched Cuban soil, its outer bands downed some power lines in Pinar
> > del Rio. The Cuban government moved four Soviet armored personnel
> > carriers into westernmost towns to prepare for massive flooding and
> > uprooted trees.
> >
> > Ivan crawled at 9 mph over the Guanahacabibes peninsula, a sparsely
> > populated national park in westernmost Cuba, and sent tropical storm
> > force winds about 200 miles east to the province of Havana. Waves
> > almost 20 feet high were reported in the Isle of Youth, which was also
> > buffeted by intense winds and rains, and storm surges of up to 25 feet
> > were expected along the south coast of Cuba.
> >
> > In the farming and fishing community of Sabalo, about 160 miles west
> > of Havana, 46 friends and neighbors crowded into the boarded up cement
> > home of Miguel Antonio Santiesteban, whose family generously took in
> > evacuees, cooked them lunch and heated coffee over a kerosene burner.
> >
> > The evacuees ranged in age from 11 months old to 73 years. They slept
> > on the floor between their precious possessions, including 16
> > refrigerators and six television sets, which they hauled out of their
> > wooden and palm thatched homes.
> >
> > "We are all like brothers and sisters," said Santiesteban, 36, a
> > self-employed pastry maker. "This is a war against an enemy we can't
> > see. Even if the house is full, there is always room for one more."
> >
> > "We don't know what will happen, but we're in a group, if anything
> > happens we will face it together," said neighbor Mislania Iglesias,
> > 34, who evacuated from her wooden home to Santiesteban's home with her
> > two children and husband.
> >
> > Many coastal towns were completely abandoned as about 1.3 million
> > evacuated their homes across the island, mostly seeking refuge in
> > friends and relatives' homes. About 20 percent went to government
> > shelters.
> >
> > Ivan slammed 11 countries and killed more than 60 as it barreled
> > across the Caribbean toward the Yucatan Channel and Gulf of Mexico. It
> > struck Cuba exactly one month after Hurricane Charley damaged more
> > than 70,000 homes, flattening hundreds of acres of crops and leaving
> > thousands without power for almost two weeks.
> >
> > In 2002 Hurricanes Lili and Isidore cut paths eerily similar to Ivan's
> > across the westernmost tip of Pinar del Rio, causing more than $47
> > million in damage to the tobacco industry's infrastructure. Tobacco is
> > Cuba's third largest export after sugar and nickel, bringing in annual
> > revenues of about $240 million.
> >
> > While the tobacco infrastructure was largely repaired, many of the
> > province's poorest residents said they had yet to fully recover from
> > Lili and Isidore, which were significantly weaker than Ivan.
> >
> > "I depend on the state to help me repair my house. With two little
> > gusts of wind it will be on the ground," said Juana Maria Ayala, 47.
> > "I have a dirt floor and wooden walls."
> >
> > On Monday Ayala and more than a dozen other residents waited out to
> > storm in the bare Sabalo cafeteria where she works. She makes only
> > about $5 a month, roughly the same as the cost of one sack of cement
> > on the black market, she said.
> >
> > Fisherman Antonio Alarcon, 28, breathed a sigh of relief, along with
> > many others, with the knowledge Ivan's eye would brush only the
> > westernmost regions of the island. However, Ivan's punishing winds and
> > rains will surely be felt by Pinar del Rio's most vulnerable residents
> > who live at subsistence level.
> >
> > "It could have been worse. It would have done away with Havana the way
> > it did with Grenada and Jamaica. But we will still feel the effects,"
> > said Alarcon, who was also evacuated from his thatched home to the
> > Sabalo cafeteria. "My house has been damaged since the last hurricanes
> > (Lili and Isidore). A commission came through to see the damages, but
> > nothing was done."
>
> Ah, yes, the vaunted prosperity of the people under Castro.

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