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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe're Nowhere Near Prepared for the Ecological Disaster That Harvey Is Becoming
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AUG 30, 2017
SNIP:
Item: And this one may be my favorite, which is to say, the one that pushes me under the bed the furthest. On Galveston Island, there is the Galveston National Laboratory, which is part of the University of Texas Medical Branch. This laboratory contains some of the most deadly biological agents found in the known world, many of them of the airborne variety. It contain several Bio-Safety Level 4 labs, which are basically the places where plagues are studied. And here's the thing, as HuffPost explainsnobody knows what's going on there at the moment:
There has been almost no news from Galveston as journalists have reported being blocked from reaching the island because of severe flooding. There has been no reporting at all on the condition of the lab. A call to the laboratory on Tuesday immediately went to voicemail.
Here's a professor with some happy news.
But the generators run on fuel that would have to be replenished. It is not known if the lab is accessible to emergency crews to refuel the generators, which are stored on the roof, according to the 2008 Times piece. "As I see it the existential problem is this: What happens if and when the fuel for the back-up generators runs out?" asked University of Illinois professor Francis Boyle, an expert in biological weapons. "The negative air pressure that keeps (the) bugs in there ends. And (the) bugs can then escape."
Item: While the tragedy is vast and still unfolding, it was utterly and totally predictable. The Texas Gulf Coast has been Ground Zero for potential hurricanes since the Earth cooled and the continents separated. In 1900, a hurricane hit Galveston and killed 12,000 people. That one was a catastrophic surprise, there being no hurricane warning system at the time. This was after a similar storm had decimated nearby Indianola 25 years earlier. And yet
the rest
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57276/harvey-longterm-effects/
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)Somewhere safe like underground in Kansas??
The_jackalope
(1,660 posts)raven mad
(4,940 posts)Or up here - away from most people and hard to get to, so what? WTF were the folks thinking, who put this lab on an ISLAND, prone to FLOODS even in normal years??
shanti
(21,675 posts)that Galveston Island would be a most excellent place to study dangerous bio-organisms??
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Pork for a Senator. There was another one on an island in Long Island sound, the idea I think being that it could be isolated in case of a loss of containment. Of course if it gets flooded, that is a different story.
yardwork
(61,588 posts)That seems stupid.
FSogol
(45,476 posts)power or the shutdown of emergency generators would not release materials. Those spaces have very sophisticated dampers and valves which fail closed on a loss of power. The labs do not rely on negative air pressure alone. I trust that the scientists secured the materials properly. Aside from major destruction of the building (think earthquake or explosion) it is safe.
byronius
(7,394 posts)Unless, of course, you're talking Andromeda Strain rubber-eating bugs. That's end of game there.
BigmanPigman
(51,584 posts)which really mean "dangerous".
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Politicub
(12,165 posts)Not sure which Jr. Einstein thought of it, but, here's a crazy thought. If virus and germs need to be stored for study, how about putting them in facilities built outside of hurricane, tornado and earthquake-prone zones?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Those islands are actually mounds of sand which, over the years, form and re-form with wave action.
And they serve to slow down storms, by absorbing some of the water.
There is a fairly big one in the Gulf by Mobile Bay, and damned if they have not built very expensive homes all over it, which get blown down in a hurricane, then insurance pays to have them rebuilt so they can get blown away again.
Katrina cut the spit in half. Now there are 2 islands. And the people in the half that got isolated
raised holy hell, demanding the state dredge sand to recreate teh Island again.
So people build, literally, on shifting sands and sit in their very expensive houses convinced that nothing will change, ever, despite the warnings.
until it does, then they get outraged, and demand that someone else fix it for them.
edited to add a quote I stole from someone here...Warpy maybe, it seems apt
The trouble aint that there is too many fools, but that the lightning aint distributed right.--Mark Twain
kimbutgar
(21,130 posts)President Obama was excellent in calming people down and trying to solve problems. Now we have an incompetent person who wants it to be about him and not the people suffering. We are do screwed. If you live in a blue state you have competent people in red states you're screwed!
elmac
(4,642 posts)people will suffer, people will die and the trumpsters will still be lining up to reelect president dumbass in 2020.
mrmpa
(4,033 posts)Captain Trips started in Texas when a contagious/dangerous bug escaped. It traveled outside the lab when a soldier saw what was happening and escaped with his family. The end of the line was when the soldier died at the wheel of his car and careened into gas pumps.
Captain Trips didn't die with the soldier. It became airborne.
Sorry, I've read the book probably a dozen times.
GreenPartyVoter
(72,377 posts)Mainah, I am a bit biased. )
KewlKat
(5,624 posts)mountain grammy
(26,619 posts)The truth from Charlie Pierce.