Well, we're back at the old homestead but today it took us 12 grueling hours in the car. We had hoped to get back earlier (it's almost midnight now) and have the time and energy to djinn up a new post, but it isn't to be. But it's hurricane season again and Danny Boy just sailed north parallel to the Atlantic coast. No doubt he will be followed by a number of others. Maybe one will get another shot at the high containment lab in Galveston. From a year ago:
Just before: Why would any sane person put a Level 4 biodefense lab in Galveston?;
. . . and a month later, after Galveston took the brunt of Hurricane Ike: "Galveston high security laboratory: dumb and dumber"
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The last time we looked at the high containment laboratory in Galveston, Texas, it was directly in the path of Hurricane Ike. Flooding from Ike devastated Galveston but it was a comparatively weak storm, Category 2 on the Sumner Simpson scale. Katrina was a Cat 4. The worst storms are the huge…
Q-fever is an acute febrile disease which presents, as do so many infectious diseases, with "flu-like symptoms." It isn't cause by a flu virus, however, or any virus. It's caused by a bacterium, Coxiella burnetii. It is class B biowarfare agent, meant to cause debilitating illness amongst its…
I have a much larger post coming out about Ike and hurricanes in general, but for now here is a quick update:
Ike is going to come ashore between Seven PM tongight and Seven AM tomorrow morning. Since it is a very large storm, the most severe winds will be affecting a very large area.
You can…
"Flee Ike or Face Certain Death"
This is what is being told to residents of Galveston Texas and surrounding areas. I don't know if that is strictly true or not, but it is close enough that you should listen. Or put it this way: If you stay, and you are wrong, those last few minutes as you are…
should be noted that folks in Texas treied to sue DHS over decision to fund a high-security animal disease lab in Kansas, because the area is "subject to tornadoes".
http://www.genomeweb.com/bioregionnews/texas-biotech-consortium-sues-dh…
http://www.animallab.com/News_Articles.asp?pid=653
As the proverb says, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones ...
IMO sometimes it is better to build in a location with known hazards. Designers, engineers, builders, tradesmen, and workers building in a location with frequent and known hazards need little reminding about the need to build it right. They know that odds are the quality of their work will soon be tested.
Also designing a building and hardening internal systems to withstand category-5 hurricane and everything that goes with it gives you a good start on handling tornadoes, terrorist attacks, accident and other potential, but much less likely, threats.
Take away places exposed to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, riots, industrial accidents, nuclear war, sea rise, sinking land, blizzards, sand storms, wildfire, airplanes crashes, truck bombs, and NIMBY and your not left with a whole lot of land to build on. Sometimes you have to make due with what you have to work with.
"Sometimes you have to make due with what you have to work with. "
Fine Art, build it to withstand all that stuff but well away from it. Putting it smack dab in the middle of a hazard prone area is stupid and was only done for POLITICAL reasons.
There's a great action flick in here someplace. Think, "Outbreak" meets "Jurassic Park"!
Revere and I rarely agree about things but this is one of them..
Take one very nasty airborne virus that we have been doing "research" on, which by the way IS biowarfare research and place it in a building that would be inundated by a Category 3 storm (yup my boy IKE). Then wait 20 years for history, track patterns and OMG for common sense to take a hike. A nice little storm rolls in and levels the place. We have a release, a 150 mph wind and things blow away in the night.
About three days later people start noticing a spike in something that is very deadly to humans. Cats, dogs, ferrets, boar pigs, birds all start dropping and its noticed by humans. Thats how we know somethings up, humans notice it. Other animals dont.
Four days in they start showing up at the hospital having survived the 'cane but maybe not what was in that lab. Five days later half of Houston has it and the truckers who brought in the relief support are spreading it outside of Texas. At six days 2/3rds of the country is exposed and oh by the way we are still trying to dig out of that hurricane. Two weeks later all over with but the shouting and 1/2 of the population is gone.
Yeah, the location isnt in Tennessee and for me thats just a delay before I get it of a couple of days. Lot less likely in Kansas, Mississippi, or Nebraska of a disaster of our own making for a facility of this type.
Kind of like a nuke that goes off and you never get to hear the boom.
Galveston huh?
Hi I was just browsing with interest.
I noticed hurricanes were discussed as an issue where there are high containment laboratiries cat 3 or cat 4. What about the building itself and the architechtural drawing plans being shown to the public, would that be of concern?