As scientists and scholars push the frontiers of knowledge and technology it is becoming more possible to predict disasters.

People react to disaster predictions in a number of ways, some turn to religon and all of its off-shoots. Some turn to science and technology and some turn to decadance and drugs.

Faced with this and an increasing ability to predict catastophies it is essential that we address the ethics of disaster prediction.

The unfortunate part of all of this is that catastophies of epic proportions face us as we move further into global climate change and our world's population continues to surge in the developing area's of the globe.

Just a posting from a website to put the debate about the ethics of disaster prediction into perspective.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004;

I am a 30-year-old Sri Lankan American and am devastated by the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka. Many of my relatives and friends live near the coast. After my initial shock at the news, I wondered: Why was no warning given to Sri Lanka and other affected countries

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issued a bulletin 15 minutes after the initial earthquake occurred off the west coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. That was at 7:14 a.m. Sri Lanka time on Dec. 26. It would be almost two hours before the tsunami reached the coast of Sri Lanka.

While no sophisticated early-warning system exists for the Indian Ocean, unlike the Pacific Ocean, there was time to warn Sri Lanka and other countries. A 1993 survey found that 90 percent of Sri Lankans have access to radio news. Many lives might have been saved if warnings had been relayed over the radio.

My intention is not to blame any single entity but to make two points:

• The loss of life could have been lessened if the Pacific-focused warning systems had taken quick and pragmatic action to warn the countries of the Indian Ocean.

• The absence of tsunamis in recent history should not be considered a reason to refrain from establishing a warning system in any ocean, including the Atlantic.

ETHICS OF GLOBAL WARMING

In this paper by Paul G. Harris of the Carnegie Council, titled Fairness, Responsibility, and Climate Change", are laid out some of the issues facing global warming. I suspect that this rate of change, especially as it affects world weather and rising levels of our seas, is greater than we are willing to admit. Much of our coastal low lying areas of the world are at severe risk of erosion and property destruction. Can you imagine a 'sea wall' around New York or Boston or Los Angeles, the likes of New Orleans? I can, and it will be a serious threat in the centuries to come. Venice is already experiencing almost daily flooding, small low lying islands in the world's oceans may go under. Bangladesh may become a salt marsh delta. The loss of life and livelihood could be staggering. So what are we to do? Petition corporations around the world to address their release of green house gases? Would China comply? Would US corporations cum government spend $billions on carbon dioxide recapture? Would Russia or India or Indonesia lower their CO2 emissions? Really, how ready are we to address the ethics of global warming, or the inevitable consequences of its effects on the world's ecosystems? Humans may pay a catastrophic price for all this if not addressed immediately.

Are we facing an ecological disaster of millennium proportions? Earthquakes and tsunamis are a risk, but global warming is pandemic, it affects all of us throughout the globe, both as ecosystems collapse and destroyed food production. Property damage can be fixed, but how do you fix millions around the globe dying of starvation because crops fail? Is there enough relief aid capacity to cope? Probably not. We had better stop producing greenhouse gases and find alternate energy to burning fossil fuels. There is little in terms of other options to this, and nuclear is too dirty with radioactive waste. Where should we hide it, if it is toxic for deca-thousands of years? What is the answer? We need to immediately harness wind, ocean power, hydrothermal, solar energy. And if a new physics allows, gravity, which is an inexhaustible power source.

Ivan

Well said Ivan,

The problem is that the media, for the most part, functions on a for profit basis. Economic interests and politics combine to supress the acceptance of global warming as an issue. The public media is controled by governments, for the most part, with agendas and does not get the whole picture of the effects of global warming out for the public to see for a variety of reasons.

Unitl the effects begin to impact on the average person the government and media generally don't bother reporting on an issue.

Hopefully websites like this serve to get the truth out and get people thinking in the right direction.

As a case in point, Africa will be hit hard as a result of global warming but has vast untapped resources that many in other nations covet...what is a famine that kills millions over access to strategic minerals as foreign workers move in to replace the intellectual cast of Africa....

Ed Chesky

ETHICAL QUESTIONS

Ed, ethical questions are with us all the time, in all we do. Whether experimenting on live animals, unethical methods used on prisoner interrogations, killing dolphins while catching tuna, FDA approval of drugs prematurely before long term effects are known, sacrificing economically disadvantaged peoples for progress, economies of scale in feedlot meat versus free range meat to feed the masses, or MAD, what is the right answer? History will tell, and we will be judged by our descendants in all the things we do now.

My greatest concern, even greater than seeing Iran and N. Korea acquire atomics, is that once we crack a new physics to harness gravity, who will benefit? Surely space travel will suddenly become incredibly successful. But what if it is a simple science, one that can be duplicated by nearly everyone on the planet, given the right components? Will the military hush it up, so no one has access to new technology? Will big oil hush it up? Ethical questions. Would I want any fanatical banana republic to suddenly have Star Wars capability, to fly at velocities we cannot even imagine, and to deliver their deadly cargo on anyone they deemed the enemy? Should we have that power? We cannot force everyone to go back to swords and bow and arrow warfare, so we are stuck with technological warfare. How sad, that in this age, we are still so primitive.

What would I do, if I had a say in this? Like nuclear energy, or the use of the Antarctic continent, I would immediately form an international agreement on the restrictive use of new physics technology (the kind predicted by the Axiomatic Equation, see today's) to peaceful use only. Can this be done? Do we have a choice? The ethical question here is paramount: we have to, if we are ever to grow up and awake.

Ivan

Ivan,

I have the same concern regarding as you regarding your breakthorugh and also with another aspect of all of this multi-dimentional technology which is still just in the begining stages of being understood.

Besides my explorations into the compass and ruler technology, I have explored the application of origami to the solution of complex problems of geometry and space time. A different approach to understanding space time and creation from yours but a path that leads to the same place in the end.

Who knows how all of this will turn out. Probably like you as a child I dreamed of starships and gravity drives, but for brain damage I have been limited to geometric expressions of these concepts due to damage to the mathmatical processing part of my brain.

I salute your work in this area and look forward one day of having a glass of wine with you. Something dry and red for me:)

All My Best Ed

Food for Thought and a salute to a brillent mind that has passed from this world to the next. I have seen the effects of global warming and looked at the studies of villages in Africa disapearing due to the twin plagues of global warming and AIDS. From space systems we watched the desert creep forward to swallow villages that died when the people fell to the HIV virus.

This is a subject that I have tried to avoid but now turn my attention too.

Ed Chesky

Global Warming Expert Keeling Dies at 77

Thu Jun 23, 3:38 PM ET

HAMILTON, Mont. - Charles D. Keeling, a scientist whose measurements showing a carbon-dioxide buildup in the atmosphere helped trigger fears of global warming, has died at 77.

Keeling, who died Monday after suffering a heart attack, was a pioneer in demonstrating that increased emissions of greenhouse gases could change the planet.

Beginning in 1955, he collected air samples to measure their carbon dioxide content. His measurements over the decades that followed showed that carbon dioxide levels were steadily rising — a finding that shattered the conventional wisdom that Earth could soak up rising fossil fuel emissions without harm.

Charles Kennel, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, with which Keeling was affiliated, called Keeling's measurements "the single most important environmental data set taken in the 20th century."

In 2002, President Bush selected Keeling for the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research.

"His research on the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, known to influence the greenhouse effect, established him as one of the world's leaders in environmental science," said Marye Anne Fox, chancellor at the University of California-San Diego, where Keeling was on the faculty.

Keeling, who also had a home in California, was born in Pennsylvania and studied chemistry at the University of Illinois. He earned a doctorate in chemistry from Northwestern University in 1954.

Montana neighbor and friend Jim Miller said Keeling was an ardent conservationist who felt his mission was to shed light on climate change.

"He left the politics and the activism to others," Miller said. "He produced the science that would back up what the environmental community knows in its heart — that we have to do something about global warming."

Keeling is survived by his wife, Louise, five children, and a sister. A family memorial service was scheduled for Saturday in Montana.

Within 12 hours a category 5 Hurricane will hit the United States and the City of New Orleans. Its effect will be the equivelent of a nuclear bomb.

All we can do is pray.

During my last semester in college I briefed a group on Global Climate change and the effects.

Ed Chesky

Last semester I help guide an assessment of Global Warming at a small comunity college that had the faith to listen, we used the best scientific data and projections from European Computer simulations and historical data. Our projections indicated a increase in thunderstorms and tornados and maximum strength hurricanes.

We did that almost six months ago, now its time to wait and pray and hope FEMA and the police, EMS and the emergency shelters hold against the winds

Ed Chesky

I want to thank the small group I worked with last semester and our professor for the oportunity to share my expertise iwth the group on the effects of gloabal warming. Now its time for the United States to come together under the leadership of the President and Federal government to deal with this tragety. Despite our differences we need a unified chain of command to face this storm.

Many will after the storm attack the president for his position on global warming and climate change. We need to let that rest as we rally to support our people.

Ed Chesky

The latest estimates indicate up to 1 million people will be left homeless and that up to 80 percent of New Orleans housing could be destroyed.

That is the worst case estimate. It trackes with my small groups assessment of the impact of Global Climate Change.

As this unfolds hospitals EMS and all serives will be stretched to the breaking point. I would alert military forces active and reserve to be on stand by. This is a potential disaster of biblical proportions.

This storm has also cut oil production in the Gulf by 1/3 and will have economic impacts well beyond New Orleans and the Gulf Region.


Secondary flooding from the storm as it tracks up the Missisippi river will impact most of the midwest. Couple this infusion of moisture with the low pressure system in place along the east coast and we have the potential for flooding up and down the eastern seabord.

Again a potential disaster of biblical proportions. We need to get ahead of the focus on New Orleans and start tracking the fallout as it spreads north up the misssipi river. Couple that to forcast models for East Coast fallout.

We need a systemic look at the big piture fast....We asre still to focused on New Orleans....

Ed Chesky

Latest long track damage predictions indicate potential flooding as far up the east coast as Penn. With dams and watershed possibly affected by the mositure from Katrina.

At the present time this is about the best we can do...now we have to rely on EMS and local Disater preparedness agencies....

Ed Chesky

On a personal note I would like to say that a certain United States Corporation that I used to work for refused to put me in a senior analyst postiion and that other members of the military intelligence corps also tried to tell me that my skills as an analyst were out of date.

I will not name names but at this point those people are trying to hide and dissociate themselves from all of this as fast as possible...

Ed Chesky

You know when you elect a president with a C average and you put him against a guy that can trisect the angle, predict earthquakes, and fought in just about every war the United States had recently, who is a direct descendent of the Maayflower, and whose family is among the founding families of the United States and then the federal government turns him down fo a job, turns him down for a pension and throws him out into the cold and people start talking impeachment real fast.....a friend of Ed's

I have been rushed so please excuse the spelling errors.

I have been processing the weather data trying to get ahead of the storm and asessing the fallout from Katrina on the Midwest and East Coasts. The influx of moisture will have significant impact up through NY state as time passes.

How much precipiation is anyones geuss at this time. I expect significant weather throught the mississippi river valley.

From the classes last semester we need to be aware that the storm will dump lots of water in the Mississippi basin and that in turn will flow back down to New Orleans.

ALso all run off will be contaiminated with a host of products from oil to fertiizer to debris of all sort and chemicals from chemical factories all pushed out in a bow wave into the Gulf.

Its going to be a mess and environmental nighmare if the worst case hold true.

Just hope and pray for the best.

One day I will make it into federal or state service were I can put my talents to good use.

Instead of having to post this stuff on the web for the world to see and put it out to small groups at the University.

Such is life when you were a child prodigy

Ed Chesky

Geometry of the Super Dome Roof Failure. I did a fast analysis last night of the Super Dome roof from a geometric and wind load perspective and was concerned about failure of the roof from wind load, hence my comment about praying the shelter roofs would hold. I coupled my assessment with the age of the buildign and construction techniques of the time. Then I prayed

I did not want to panic the population, in the ethics of disaster predication had some one said teh roof of the superdome was going to fail it would have been like yelling fire in a stadium.

We are about through the worst of it the flooding is the next issue as the hurican moves inland.

I cried in frustration last night when I ran the stress calculations on the Super Dome in my mind coupled to the wind data and stress loads from my experience in nuclear targeting.....

Fortunately it held

Ed Chesky

People sometimes ask me how I know things like the Super Dome Roof was going to fail.

Its a skill based on years of experience, training, education and gift for seeing geometic paterns and stresses.

Last night I ran through all of the data on the web on the superdome while looking at the pictures of it, and correlating it to what I know of areo-dynamics, hurricane force winds from my nuclear targeting days and material and construction science and technology. It gave me an extreme headache ache.

Now people ask should ask what kind of job am I qualifgied for. That is easy enough its EMS/FEMA/Emergency management......

Thanks to an ungreatful government I was denied a pension and locked out of a meaningful career path having to compete with less educated and qualified personnel who panic in crisis and have no experience. Had I told them the roof would fail most would have paniced, not knowing what to do....or gone running to the press panicing 10,000 people.....

Ed Chesky

Dear Ed, you may realize that great minds sometimes remain undiscovered, or unrecognized for long periods of time, even centuries. This may be another variety of "lonely at the top" syndrome. Sill, at least the commoners no longer burn them at the stake. That is the price of being a "power of one", and misunderstood.

The hurricane Katrina left a path of water and wind devastation, downed power lines, flooded neighborhoods, unsafe drinking water, collapsed buildings. The Superdome held, thank goodness, though the roof sheathing was torn off in places, but the airconditioners went out, so the stay inside must have been swealtering and humid. The death toll from this storm, likely mostly from drownings, is yet unknown, and some fear it may be higher than we first imagined. Animal livestock, pets, not doubt also suffered from the rising waters, or killed. Any way we slice it, Katrina was a very bad storm. And as you pointed out, likely we still have not seen the backwash from all the rain falling into the Mississipi River valleys and surrounds. At least the levy held.

Still, it's a tragedy all around. I'm especially fond of New Orleans French Quarter, so am glad it was spared the worst.

Ivan

Thanks Ivan,

I was just shocked by the level of damage I projected. I ran the calcuations and independent analysis of the weather data feeds and came to the assessment that this was going to be a disaster of unimaginable proportions. I was affraid of levy breaks due to super saturated soil and the presssure of the wind and water stacked up on it in New Orleans.

I used to do these projections for years, which is why I get excited when I see these things developing. My training and experience allows me to assess and estimate damage effects fairly quickly due to the years of training.

As part of tactical targeting scenarios we used to run damage estimates from breaching dams and other containment structures to impead enemy movement and change the conditions of the ground on the enemy side in our old defense plans for Europe during the height of the Cold War. A team of us that included the finest civil engineers, topographic engineers, conventional and nuclear targeteers used to develop the plans and damage estimates for these type of things using pencils, papers and a lot of coffee running the calculations and effects in our minds.

Hence why I am so good at these type of damage estimates and react so quickly. I was trained by and worked with some of the finest engineers and weapons experts in the world. Old habits are hard to break

Ed Chesky

Risk Assessment as we move deeper into the height of Hurricane Season.

New England needs to realize that it too is at risk during this season and that a strike on Long Island and the area around it is possible.

The following are some facts from the Great 1938 Storm that hit Long Island and the following website

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/damage_caused.html

The total cost of the Long Island Express in terms of lives lost or disrupted, homes destroyed or damaged, and economic impact was staggering. Describing all of the damage caused by the hurricane has filled entire books so this Web page will summarize the total damage and focus on the damage incurred on Long Island, New York.

Total estimated damage from the 1938 Hurricane:

700 deaths, 708 injured
4,500 homes, cottages, farms destroyed; 15,000 damaged
26,000 destroyed automobiles
20,000 miles of electrical power and telephone lines downed
1,700 livestock and up to 750,000 chickens killed
$2,610,000 worth of fishing boats, equipment, docks, and shore plants damaged or destroyed
Half the entire apple crop destroyed at a cost of $2 million

As we look at New Orleans we should all realize its just a matter of time until the New England region is struck again.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from New Orleans. As I type this I sit near a complex system of dikes and levies that keep the Connecticut River in check.

Ed Chesky

125,000 National Guard Troops and support ships from the Navy have deployed to the affected areas. This troop deployment is the minimum that is going to be needed for this crisis. Its in keeping with my early projection of needs.

And the worst of the hurricane season is still to come

Ed Chesky

The crisis in New Orleans, and the whole lower Louisiana-Mississippi region is still reeling in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The death toll is still unknown, though it may number in the hundreds, possible over a thousand; and the waters from Lake Pontchartrain, which are three feet above sea level, are still pouring in through broken dikes into the New Orleans "bowl" six feet below sea level. So a nine foot flood is expected when the water finds it normal level. The human tragedy is impossible to tally, with loved ones lost, and suffering sure to follow as food and water run short, so the tragedy deepens with the rising waters. In neighboring Beloxi the devastation looks like a post tsunami, with most property on the shore gone. Cars, boats, homes, roads, bridges, trees, all destroyed or badly damaged, adding to the human toll of lives lost. Animal losses both domestic and wild are still unknown. Businesses destroyed, hotels, supermarkets, and manufacturing, especially oil refineries, which drives higher an already high price of fuel. This has been called the American Tsunami, and images surveying the area bears this out. The damage is horrific. Only the old French Quarter of New Orleans seems to still be standing, though water may be rising on Bourbons Street, but the old St. Louis Cathedral sits on ground above the flood waters, so it should survive, as the Mississippi levy held.

The human response to this intense tragedy is dual, surprising that it is not more concentrated in the only direction it can take, to help those in need. Where many have gone to great lengths to save others, to help those in need and rescue lives, even at a danger to themselves; then there were those who stole and looted. Conscious human beings are always first to help, to coordinate, to bring about relief, to care not only for themselves but also for others; unconscious human beings are the first to take for themselves, and care nothing for others. Sad that this tragedy should show that there is a truly ugly side to our human condition, that not all human beings are yet conscious in a human sense, but remain unconscious in some animal sense. Even dogs will help, so those looters are beneath them. The looting, especially for non-food items, is the second real tragedy brought down on us by Katrina.

Ivan

Well said Ivan,

Ed Chesky

I have been reviewing the weather patterns and I am concerned about the potential for a hurricane to hit the mid Atlantic or New England region this season.

I don't have the detailed water temperature data for the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf Stream so I can't go far in predicting the actual chances of a storm hitting the East Coast, however a number of experts have pointed to fish migrations and appearence of species indicating a temperature increase for the Atlantic. This increase in temperature/energy in the Atlantic system does not bode well in my mind, but after Katrina, if was the New England and New York State Emergency Managment types I would be running scenarios for Hurricane impacts on the region.

A repeat of the 1938 Huricane would push a wall of water over Long Island and would put parts of NYC under 20 feet of water.

Besides destroying large parts of the power grid and putting at risk nuclear power plants on Long Island Sound.

I would also increase the emphasis on checking out the old storm barrier systems of dikes, pumps and levies in the region and seeing what needs to be done to bring them into the information age in terms of automating the data from them to allow us to better manage the effects of storm runnoff and flooding

I have included a link to a good wesite on this issue.
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/hurricane_future.html

Ed Chesky

Assessment of the New Orleans Relief Effort

1. The first 72 hours of a natural disaster are critical to ensuring the safety and survival of the victums.

2. Current efforts are getting more organized but the time lag beween relief supplies and distribution centers and forward collection points for the evacuation of victums, means additional folks will die until the gap between establishment of operational forward collection points for evacuation of victumns equipped with food water and medical personnel can be established in the city.

3. Lines of commuication need to be established and open for evacution in the city from a series of forward points to collection points where peopel can be triaged and moved out via multiple means depending on severity of injury. This means by boat, helicopter, or wheeled vehicle.

4. The super dome has become a defacto forward triage and collection point that has no resources, security or ability to perform its mission. It has the potential to become staging point for forward collection points in the city if the logistics of it can be fixed.

5. Sugguest loud speaker overflights of helicopers and air dropping of MRE and Water to designated points inside the city to aid victums with security on the ground provided by military and police forces.

6. We need to break the logistics hub and start providng relief

Ed Chesky

We did this thing in Serbia to provide aid to the safe havens.

I suspect that in New Orleans we have pockets of civilized folks in high areas and dry ground like around the St Luis Cathedral they are drawn to things that they can see in the absence of information.

Simple Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield it was called in the old days.

Hospitals, high ground and the rest are were the people fled to and we need to evacuate them from the Super Dome serves as a staging are for many but the situation is such I would recommend sending in a heavy force of marines in amtracks to establish order and set up the evac point and start distributing suppiles using bull horns load speakers and helicoper leaflet drops and loud speaker broad casts to informe the victums what is happening and where to go.

Ed Chesky

NOAA Satellite infrared image over eastern Atlantic, updated every 6 hours:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/eatl-ir4-loop.html

Two storms brewing between Carrib and Africa at the time of this writing.
Ivan

Yes Ivan I have been tracking the storms, one should veer off into the atlantic and die the other has the potential to hit us again in the same region. 24-36 hours should tell the tale the WEATHER MODEL SUPER COMPUTERS ARE WORKING OVERTIME to offer what ever predictive analysis can be got. The relief planners need to worse case the scenario and pray that they don't get hit again in the next 30-60 days

Ed Chesky

A POSSIBLE TROPICAL CYCLONE...WILL APPROACH
THE TROPICAL ATLC WATERS TUE.

This according to the best super computers available. I suggest prayer would be appropriate.

Ivan I looked at the data, my estimate tracks with the super computers model. Only time will tell now what will happen.

The rest is up to god.

Ed Chesky

A friend from Boston wrote me:
<<Be advised I speak for myself only, but I know others who are equally disturbed by the apparent inadequacy of the Federal response, again. >>
--my reply:

The lack of Federal coordination, the late response to the crisis, and the "cut backs" on levee maintenance are all shocking. It is one more reason why people have to organize and depend on themselves rather than waiting for government action, since the bureaucratic wheels grind slowly and ineffectively, as now witnessed. Church groups could have done a better job, and citizen committees. But under the direly tragic circumstances of a whole city going underwater, that may not have been possible either. If the people organized under some sort of leadership to coordinate bathroom use, or designating a particular place to do nature's call, then at least that would have helped some. My dogs will only use a certain part of the yard for their calls to nature, and that is furthest away from the house. Humans can do better, since they are a lot smarter, one hopes. But the real tragedy is that exit routes were blocked by water and collapsed roadways, so people were trapped on fetid islands, in very large numbers like in Nazi concentration camps (in Nazi camps, if anyone stole food from another prisoner, the prisoners would all turn on him), and I think this led to what we're seeing. Even the dead were not evacuated, and search and rescue stopped to confront looters and attacks, rapes, beatings, gangs, humanity at its worst. Some news people were evacuated as they feared for their lives. Truly a tragedy of epic proportions. Last on the news some sort of help was coming, choppers evacuating hospital patients from rooftop landings, food and water being air dropped in, along with National Guard presence for crowd control. But why didn't the airdrops happen immediately? Government communications failures? There will be a lot to answer for by people in charge, including state governors. Will New Orleans be rebuilt? I think parts of it will, but other parts which are truly underwater will not, so it will become a large lakeside park, with people's residence moved outside the danger zones. That includes the ancient housing projects skirting the French Quarter, which had been dilapidated and run down for decades. What about the gangs whose turf is now underwater, or the druggies? In a way, N.O. now has a new start, in some truly disastrous way. I guess there will be no Mardi Gras next year? At least the buses are running to evacuate people...

Very saddened by the whole event, Ivan

According to the latest super computer models Tropical Storm Maria will turn into a hurricane and move to the north into the Altantic and die.

All the latest storms due to conditions are tracking to the North West. This is based on winds and other factors.

The national Hurricane center puts the odds of another strike this season at slightly less than 50%.

That leaaves us roughly 12 months until the begining of next years Hurricane season. That is not a long time to prepare for the worse again.

Ed Chesky

As I look on the relief efforts in the Gulf Region.

I think back to my intial damge estimates on the night of the storm. I estimated 1-5 thousand direct deaths from the storm based upon my understanding of the effects of hurricane force winds from nuclear explosions and my visit to New Orleans years ago. I went to a church and told them they needed to mobilize all churches in the disaster area to help with crisis mangement based upon my experience.

I am also reminded as to why the United States had so many military bases and facilities. They served a number of purposes. This included redundancy in the event of nuclear war and as centers for disaster relief.

As we close these facilities which included Hopsitals and large numbers of barracks that could house tens of thousands we understand the wisdom that the old cold war planners had and understanding of the human tragity that was going to occur if such a thing as a limited nuclear exchange occured.

Ed Chesky

As the after action reviews come in the one common denominater in dealing with this catastophy is that lack of experience in the federal government.

While working on my state department job one of the things identified is that the bulk of the federal beuracracy with all its experience is due to retire in the next few years and that the current hires have no first hand experience in managing major crisis.

In a move to downsize the government the government has contracted out a lot of the work. This come with its own dangers, the greatest of all is the fact it makes blame shifting easy when the federal government with its inexpeienced work force faces a disaster of epic proportions. The other danger is that contractors pursue the bottom line and hire people that meet the requireents on paper but have no experience.

The follwoing is a good example of what happened at FEMA.

On the Friday before Katrina hit, when it was already a Category 2 hurricane rapidly gathering force in the Gulf, a veteran FEMA employee arrived at the newly activated Washington headquarters for the storm. Inside, there was surprisingly little action. "It was like nobody's turning the key to start the engine," the official recalled.

The same happened in the intelligence center I was working in during Iraqi freedom when the Madrid bombing occured....

Such is the nature of the government we have now. I would submit that its now up to the peopel to judge the policies of the current government and indistry to decide if as we looka t New Orleans if the cosst saving was worth it

ED chesky

WHERE WILL THE PEOPLE GO?

New Orleans is a soup bowl filled with water. In advance of Katrina, the mother of storms, people with cars and foresight already left the area. Others could not, or would not, so the immense tragedy of deaths and suffering followed. Whole families displaced, split apart during evacuations that followed, and now living in temporary shelters. They cannot stay there indefinitely, so where will they go?

In part, the answers are already being heard by those who escaped first. They began looking for lodging and jobs where they landed, some already scheduled for employment. This is the likely outcome of what may be the largest displacement of American citizens within our borders, that they will resettle. It all happened so quickly that organization failed at virtually all levels. Two-thirds of the police force in New Orleans ran away, including the mayor. The state government was slow to respond, perhaps waiting for Federal relief, and designation of the ravaged area as federal disaster area. Heroic efforts by private citizens to evacuate people were often met with resistance at the state and local level: when a small armada of private boats arrived, organized by a citizens group, they were told they are not needed. Looting only exacerbated the already dire situation. Lack of airdrops of basic necessities for survival, like food and water, basic medicines, was beyond understanding. "Why did it take so long?" everyone is asking now. In retrospect, the whole disaster relief was handled badly, from local authorities right up to the national level. Individual citizens and corporations were quick with their donations, as were civil disaster aid contributions of vehicles and rescue personnel. Children from the whole country emptied their piggy banks to help with the relief effort, which shows how ready Americans are to help each other, no matter the race, color, or social status of those who need help. The fact that some commentators already turned this into a racial issues is another absurdity that surfaced as the flood waters rose. These are Americans first, not their race or social status, who needed rescue. The fact is that most of who stayed behind were too poor to leave, mostly of Afro background, but this is not the main issue. We are all human beings first, Americans second, and all else, our wealth or poverty, our religious beliefs, our ethnic affiliations, our race, are a distant third. Family is important, so those who had been separated need to be reunited again, and already there are efforts by the Red Cross to do that. The damage to social fabric in New Orleans is real, along with its physical damage, and it will not be fixed easily.

So where will the people go? I believe they will scatter and relocate, and become absorbed by the local communities where they had landed. In the true American tradition of a pioneer society, they will be made welcome and added to their own. New Orleans will be rebuilt where it is sensible to rebuild, but the soup bowl should not be rebuilt, except as a very large nature preserve, a first step in rebuilding the natural ecology of the Mississippi delta. This would be a generous first step to reassert the values of wetlands, which had been wantonly destroyed, and which serve as a buffer against such natural waterborne disasters. So people should never encroach on wetlands, anywhere, because they are so important to ecological well being, both ashore and out at sea. Wetlands are the first step in a very vast web food chain that must be preserved.

Wherever people, who had escaped from New Orleans or the lower Mississippi and Alabama coasts, find shelter, they should be accepted, reunited with their families, resettled, and given every opportunity to contribute to their new local communities as productive and grateful citizens. Though they may have lost everything, they live. And thus life out of tragedy gives them all a new chance, to do good.

Ivan

You raise good point Ivan,

But you have to remember that many of these people will be tramatized and scared for the rest of their lives psychologically, physically and spiritually.

I started my career processing data on Grenada, then I moved on to Korea, the Soviets, India Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Trained in crisis management and the tactics of Mutual Assured destruction, MAD, I lived through and help manage many World Crisis. During all we had those that would buckle under the stress. In crisis I revert back to 20 plus years of experience in these matters drawing upon all my skills to assess the situation. I have been trained to deal with these thing as has my wife, unlike most others. We were trained to wage the war to end all war forever and then look upon the aftermath. Thyroid cancer from radiation, radiation sickness, disease blasted landscapes millions sick and dying. To us it is something we can understand and deal with for others it is a nighmare they can't escape from.

In New Orleans many EMS/Police and Firefighters Doctors and Nurses can take no more, and some have been plaed in pyschiatic wings. Now think of the people that survived this crisis and what they have been through dazed and confused in pain not knowing where they will end up. Texas can hold no more and is airlifting evacuees out to the rest of the nation.

I more than most could undertand what was going to happen and have been moved to tears for the dead, dying and dislocated.

We are just begining to understand the cost.

Ed Chesky

A Tropical Depression according to the best super computer is projected to up to 15 inches of rain in parts of the state of Florida. The tropical depression could strengthen into Tropical Storm Ophelia by Wednesday.

This, on top of the current relief operations, will stress EMS and clean up crews, the insurance industry and many people to the breaking point this storm season.

To the untrained its like a War they can't leave. One that impacts on them day after day.

I forsee a great need for counselors and mental health professionals. I would also urge the Clergy to step in with the counselors to assist with aiding those tramitized by the these storms.

Ed Chesky

Local Planning and Assessment

I have attached a link to a website that includes a discussion by a town council on the projection of recieving up to 15 inches of rain from Hurricane Irene and what they did. Its a very good illustration of good local planning and assessment

http://www.fmbeach.org/minutes/1999/10_14_99.htm

Alert as to Situation in New Orleans,

As the evacuation of New Orleans reaches its final stages we need to be aware that the residual population of New Orleans will include large numbers of elderly that would rather die at home than leave along with significant numbers of mentally ill indivudals, individual with little or no education and drug addicts that are going through withdrawl.

The forced evacuation of these people will pose a challenge and a risk for the EMS personnel. Mentally ill patients off their medication, may need to be evacuated to pyschiatric wards for evaluation and treatment. Sugguest surveying all hospitals in the immediate area capable of handling an influx of such patients with all forms of mental illness.

Ed Chesky

ALERT

A mega solar flare capable of disrupting satellight communications in the Hurricane relief area has occured.

http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

Ed Chesky

When it rains it pores. This is the largest flare in 15 years

Update on Solar Mega Flare

On Sept. 7th at 1740 UT (1:40 p.m. EDT), Earth-orbiting satellites detected a major X17-class solar flare coming from the sun's eastern limb: image. The blast caused a complete blackout of HF radio transmissions on the daylit side of Earth. Emergency personnel in hurricane-hit areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast may have experienced problems with their communications gear for minutes to hours after the flare.

The source of the flare was returning sunspot 798 which sparked strong auroras in late August. Two weeks of quiet followed those storms while the sunspot transited the farside of the sun--but now it's back, and it's turning toward our planet again. Explosions later this week and next could produce additional major flares

I seem to recall having a discussion about having to take a all source approach to disaster relief operations and the need for a integrated command center that could provide relief forces with all data from solar weather, to terrestrial weather to a host of other data.

Ed Chesky

I did a brief survey of the World Wide WEB and found a lot of discussion about the solar flares and the September 2005 PNG 7.3 earthquake ranging from alien induced, to fulfillment of biblical prophecy to the interaction of gravitational fields. I also noted a lot of people working to link the data to events and look beneath it for a reason. I support all efforts and hope they continue.

I do note that the reason I pointed to the Sumatra Pacific region for the earthquake was based on science and review of the stress forces from the USGS. Coupled to a detailed model of gravitational foreces that I am working on.

Ed Chesky

Ivan here is nice official discussion of the effects of a solar flare on the sun in terms of causing a solar earthquake inside the sun that reaches the sun's core.

The other part of course would be the effect on gravity.

http://soi.stanford.edu/press/ssu05-98/press-rel.html

Hope this helps

Ed Chesky

http://www.allanstime.com/News/PressReleases/sunspots.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/eq-forecasting/128.html

http://www.freewebs.com/eq-forecasting/128.html

The following site contains a number of links to a number of people exploring the links between solar activity and earthquakes.

Some I would suggest be taken with a grain of salt others have detected a similar pattern in solar and geomagnetic events that I have been using to predict earthquakes.

http://www.davidmcminn.com/pages/alaska.htm

Thanks Ed, very interesting references to the many causes of earthquake activity,including electromagnetic associated forces. This may be key someday in understanding cause and effect, and perhaps some sort of predictive ability of future quakes.

Ivan

Your welcome Ivan,

One thing of note is the fact that regardless of approach or view that the average of accuracy using solar earth geomagnetic predication of quakes is about 70-75 percent accross the board for most of the sites I have investigated.

Now many people have proposed a number of theories for this. I applaude all efforts and the sharing of data.

However, to validate and get accepted as a theory the cause of this we have to have experimental reproducable data.

At present we have dected a pattern, now its up to us as we explore the data to explain it. Here like in all things views diverge dramatically.

In a side note I am vactioning in the carrabean and have run accross reports that the coral in the island chain I am one is breaking down in larger cunks and being washed ashore by passing hurricanes which are erroding the foundations of the island. This ties to the data I sent you with regards to global warming. Verification of an effect and the effect of these intense hurricanes accelerating and exacerbating errorsion of low laying islands and areas. Not a good thing.

Second, it is becaoming increasingly evident that the President of Venuzuela is becoming unsable. Concern is being expressed regarding his competence and whether or not he is in a delusional state. This poses significant delema for regional stability and really econmoic progress in thsi region and not a step b\ack to communism and its failed economic model.

Ed Chesky

Just an update on the situation in the southern carrabean from local contacts.

1. Dutch Military intelligence backed by royal marines is in place to do counter drug and counter-intelligence operations.

2. A local contact established communications with me last night and updated me on the situation here. Cuban and Venuzulean operatives and drug dealers are in the local area and have made threats against anyone that pokes their nose into their buiness.

3. Dutch military intelligence is aware of this and has a heavy presence in the island chains builidng low level networks to counter Cuban and Venuzuelian influence in the region.

4. Efforts in this area are being supported by a broad colalition of christian groups who are trying to work out a peaceful transfer of power in Venezulea and move to a functional progressive democracy.

5. Satellight uplinks links in the area were disrupted by the X class flares and communications via satcom are in and out.

6. THe dutch has positioned and maintain warships on station as a security measure to prevent infterence in thier posessions.

7. Local polulation is content with dutch rule and wan'ts nothing to do with chavez in venezulalia.

8. Thier is a lot of conern here over oil prices which impact on everything here from water from the desalinization plant to electrical generation.


Ed Chesky

Hi Ed, it sounds like you're in the Aruba/Bonaire regions of the Carib. Never been there, but told very lovely places.

When I was in Venezuela over a decade ago they had an election then, well attended by armed soldiers and police. Carracas had hot salsa music, Ciudad Bolivar had hot Latins who were after the young Cherokee woman (from Austin) I was traveling with, and St. Helena was a benign (border of Brazil) town where the customs police had big guns. The nastiest was El Dorado, a diamond mining town, had to be the worst town I ever saw, in the jungles of Amazonia. My favorite was camping in the Amazon basin not far from Manaus, Brazil, listening to the jaguars roar all night, and watching out for alligators while taking a leak by the water's edge. J

Hope you're having a great trip, neat country down there. Wish I were there!

Ivan

Hi Ivan,

Things are heating up here Hugo Chavez has just issued a statement that he has information that the United States is planning to invade his country from his network of agents and supporters I got an update on regarding the situation on the island from my network of contacts where I am staying. His agents have been passing him data on the movement of American and Allied military personnel and warships in the local area. He said the plan was called Balboa

I got secondary information that major United States corporations are concerned about the economic impact of keeping Chavez in place in Venezula in control of our oil supplies.


I had a conversation with an unidentied agent of an unknown intelligence service who mentioned that Chavez's health may take a sudden down turn like Yashenkos in Eastern Europe or Yassar Arrafat's did. Credibility of this information is low but not unrealistic.

Both mainline Protestants and Catholic organizations have come out in opposition to Chavez and a number of emails are in circulation about the danger Chavez poses to the world economy.

I leave in three days and have confirmed the penetration of cuban and Venezulean intelligence services into the Dutch controled islands

Ed Chesky

Hurricanes and global warming - a link?

Science or politics? It is still too early to tell, but with more people building in disaster prone areas, the property damage and casualties will certainly become more. Even a 1 degree Celsius can have a big impact on world climates.

Ivan

A very good article on Global Climate Change Ivan

The sad truth is that environmental damage is very evident from space based systems. We in the intelligence corps watched as deserts advanced in Africa and China and villages disapeared from a combination of AIDS and climate change.

All of that data is classified hence why so many of us ex-intelligence and nuclear specialists go into the chruches or public services after a career of watching the destruction of the environment and climate change. We have the data to support the fact the climate is changing but due to economic and political forces it will never be realeased. It goes back to the first days of the Space Race and our old satellight systems that took pictures. Those images are and will remain classified for a long time.

My wife and I are planning to go to Africa within the next 18 months, to an area that borders a troubled region and do the same thing we did in Venezulea. My wife has more contacts in the Churches in Africa than I do and I have more contacts in the old cold war networks in Africa than she does. People forget that during the height of the Cold War the South Africans were fighting a bloody overt and covert war in what was once Rhodesia and had some of the finest special forces forces in the world. They never went away. Old networks of agents black and white and churches are still in place throughout that entire region of Africa.

I Intend to reactivate that network of contacts to oppose Osama in that area. What happens to Robert Mugabe during and after that visit remains to be seen. The anglican church has taken astand against him and you never know what a collection of Cold War Intelligence specialists with all their skills may be able to do.

Ed Chesky

Thanks Ivan

Recent news indicates Al Qeada is establishing itself in Somalia and the Islamic controled parts of Africa. Its my hope that we can bring together the old Cold War Team, including former adversaries, to focus on this threat.

As we are impacted by Global Climate Change Al Qeada and its ilk will be positioning themselves in the worst affected regions to take advantage of the instability to spread a viralent form of Islam based upon their version of end times prophecy.

I hope to in a small way offer a counter to this by working with the network of enlightened christians and others to counter this threat by offering some hope to the oppressed and showing them it is possible to challange dictitorial regimes and bring a about social change without massive loss of life as we did during the Cold War.

Most poltical scientists such as myself see the next polictical system that we adopt as a civilized society to be a merging of the best of communism and capitalistic democracy. One that porvides for the weakest members of society and still allows the freedom to advance oneself based on ones talents and abilities.

What Osma and his ilk offer is a system to oppose what most political scientists forsee as arrising from the wreckage of the Cold War. The Islamic alternative. It is into this stew of religion politics and political theory that we must now wade.

All my best

The recent earthquake in Pakistan was predicted by a number of people due to the stress building on the faults. An India seismic website predicted this earthquake based on historical events. What they failed to realize is that following the great Sumatra Quake the entire Indian plate shifted up to two inches in places and that this changed the stress on the fault lines.

This event is one of the reasons that I opposed the War in Iraq because from my lifetime of research I saw the stresses on the great faults building and saw a pattern in a variety of data sources that raised great concern in me about committing our military forces in Iraq when I saw a high potential for additional great quakes.

I previously posted the need to stock pile disaster relief supplies and discussed in depth the gap in building standards between the developing world and the industrialized West that was going to come into play in the event the great quakes I projected were going to occur.

Unfortunately it did.

I have attached the link to the Indian Website that discussed the likelyhood of this quake from historical data and scientific theory.

Ed Chesky

http://asc-india.org/

Like California, Washington State may have Big Ones in the future: Cascade Range Earthquakes and Seismicity. Because of the large and long subduction plate diving under the North American continent there, the really big damaging quakes have very great depths and are long lasting, several minutes.

Ed, one predictive possibility, per some scientists, is to measure the very large magnitude long and slow quakes in these regions, low rumble quake over a two week period, which happen with some regularity; and being very slow they cause almost no damage. But they are there, and usually will preview before a larger and more damaging quake. The secondary damage would be from any tsunamis resulting. There apparently is geological evidence of this having happened before, I think there were 18 over past 10,000 years. The culprit may be the Juan de Fuca subduction plate.

I suspect the same for the southern California coastal areas, where it is common to find clam shells high up in the hills.

Ivan

Hi Ivan,

The latest computer models show a 62 percent probability of a major great quake in CA by 2032. This tracks with my estimate of the stress building on the faults in CA. The variable however is the result of the stress of the great Sumatran Quake and the effects it had on the planet as a whole. This was not included in the computer simulations run. They were based soley on historical data and past quakes.

I suspect you are right on target about what you posted. Hence my concern on the War in Iraq and need to stockpile relief supplies.

Ed Chesky

The recent spate of earthquakes has me concerned. They all have occured roughly the same distance for the North pole.

Ed Chesky

As per my concern another 5.0 mag quake has hit this time in Greece in the same band around the equator following lunar perigee.

I am greatly uneasy about further quakes in this band.

Ed Chesky

That's right Ed, RE
"The recent spate of earthquakes has me concerned. They all have ocurred roughly the same distance for the North pole," there seems to be a concentration between 34-40 degrees latitude. Both California and Pakistan are at about 34 degrees N latitude; while Greece and Turkey are about 37 degrees N. Lot's of activity there.

Ivan

Yes it seems to be concentrated there. I noticed the concentration of quakes there last year and have also been cross referencing it to volcanic activity and found both increased in that band.

All of the indicators point to increased geological activity in that band near the equator.

This ties to data from a NASA satellight that found a bulge at the equator in 2002 before the great Sumatran Quake. This bulge coupled to the effects of solar and lunar gravitational fields is what I have been investigating since I cross referenced all of the data on the quakes.

I have included the NASA website that talks about the bulge.
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801gravityfield.html

My Best

Ed Chesky

Ed, that is a fascinating NASA story on changes in the Earth's gravitational fields between the poles and at the equator.

Now consider the horendous possibility that what redistributed this gravitational equilibrium in the oceans, which means they did not rise on the Equator as much if the gravitational field there had remained the same; then what happens if gravity 'shifts' back to its more normal range? Super earthquakes? Or worse, a sudden rise on oceanic levels on the Equator, drop at the poles? Wow, I can't fathom the possibilities...

Ivan

I know Ivan,

When I started to see the correlation of data between volcanic and siesmic activity tied to the data I was reviewing from the NASA satellights I just about had a breadown out of frustration.

Hence my earlier posting about getting the NASA and European Gravity monitoring and mapping satellights in orbit asap and the need to stockpile relief supplies purchase insurance and for the insurance companies and federal government to spread/pool the finacial risk in the event of a disaster.

With no where else I turned to the churches. Osama Bin Ladden is a trained engineer and saw the saw data I did from the NASA space probe and he had a firm understanding of the effects of earthquakes on the construction standards in the Islamic world.

The difference is he turned to violence, while I turned to Jesus Christ, God and to the science of Newton, Descartes, Abrecht Durer and Huygen to find the answers. I studied all relgious and scientific databases and prayed.

My best Ed

"Magnitude 6.4 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN, 2005 October 19 11:44:43 UTC"

Ed, this one was also near the 38 deg N latitude, part of that same "circle of earthquakes".

Ivan

Hi Ivan,

Yes I saw that on the news. What I see as the main issue is that the siesmologists have failed to include the gravitational data from NASA into their study of earthquakes and the change in gravity at the poles and equator as wellas solar and lunar tidal influences. When you do that it look very scary and starts to make sense as to why we are seeing a surge in earth quakes. If we look at the Great Chilian Quake we find its in the same region. It was followed by a series of other Quakes.

I hope that as the data starts to flow in from the graviational space probes that this issue is researched against that data

Ed

As a side note,

FEMA and the federal government are streched to the breaking point from all these disasters and we need to use every resource we have from university proffessors teaching social work and psycology going back into the field to treat the mental causulties of these disasters to the Churches and civil aid networks like the Red Cross to the mobilization of corporate America in order to deal with the effects of these crisis. We need to expand the energy infa-structure bring online new safe nuclear plants and clean coal fired plants if we are to survive the ravages of Global Climate Change.

Now as Hurricane Wilma approaches Florida we will face another challange. Long range super computer and weather predictions indicate that as Wilma moves out of Florida it will impact in terms of rain on New England where I am sitting. Given the recent flooding it could have rather significant implications for New England. Our dike and levy system here was streched to the breaking point and needs refurbishment in some places. Hence my previous post a number of weeks ago about sitting next to the levy and its state of repair.

In terms of Global climate change there are no safe places and the Federal Government has let us all down. WIth our troops bogged down in Iraq the risk to us all increases daily in terms of being able to provide relief aid to ourselves as we face these disasters

Ed

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_freund_quakes_051020.html

Cracking the Code of Pre-Earthquake Signals

"Electrical rocks

We normally think of rocks as being good insulators, i.e., rocks are very poor at conducting electrical currents. However, in rocks whose minerals contain peroxy bonds, a time bomb is ticking. When these rocks are subjected to stress, the peroxy bonds break and suddenly mobile electronic charge carriers appear, so-called defect electrons that live and travel in the valence band of the constituent minerals. These charge carriers are also called positive holes or p-holes for short.

Looking back over the 30 years since their discovery, I am surprised to note that I always returned to these strange and elusive charge carriers. I tried to understand their nature and to predict their behavior. The breakthrough came when I realized that these p-holes could be activated by stress. This put me squarely on the track to study earthquake-related phenomena..."

Space.com article explains further how this electrical rocks tag can predict earthquakes, FYI.

A very good posting Anon,

I have put a link below to the phenominum you are talking about. Its a very interesting field of study. One that I think has the potential for great contributions to improving our ability to predict earthquakes.

Ed Chesky

http://professionalmasters.science.orst.edu/Studentwebs/Mellon/Thesis01Jun04Final.pdf#search='peroxy%20bonds'

At the time of this writing a 6.0 has struck Pakistan again and another quake hit Japan.

We can only pray for those poor souls in the mountains of Paksistan.

God Help them for the winter is coming and few resources are left to aid them.

Ed Chesky

Asian map of earthquakes:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Maps/region/Asia_eqs.html

From the Indian subcontinent to the Sea of Japan, this has been an active area of 4+ quakes last few days. I'm surprised there isn't more activity in the eastern part of the Pacific basin, but then again, I don't wish it either.

Ivan

I just noticed that the earthquake activity in the Los Angeles area is in the same latitude as the quakes in Pakistan and Sumatra and Japan and falls within the same time window.

I also noticed a surge in quakes as we approach lunar apogee and we have a maximum change in gravitational stress, in this case when the lunar gravitational pull is at a minimum.

I have posted a weblink to a polar projection of recent earthquakes

Ed Chesky
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Maps/ortho/270_90.html