Hurricanes and Their Effect on the United States

Hurricanes and Their Effect on the United States
By: Tommy

Hurricanes affect the United States both economically and physically. The economic toll is usually into the billions of dollars each year, with most of the damage lasting from June 1st to November 30th, the Atlantic Hurricane season ( NHC ). Though not as likely, hurricanes occur in other months of the year as well.

There are many factors in hurricanes that cause damage. These are torrential rain, powerful winds, and the storm surge. The storm surge has been seen to cause the most damage, as seen in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, when the storm surge damaged the levees and the city flooded. Hurricanes also cause tornadoes and thunderstorms that break off and cause damage in states such as Oklahoma and Arkansas. All of these factors cause damage to the landscape and wildlife along the coasts, which in some cases can be permanent ( The Weather Channel ). More noticeably, hurricanes cause damage to communities along the coast. They have the power to wipe entire neighborhoods and even towns off the map because of these effects.

According to NOAA, there are an average of 5.8 hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. Costing about 6 billion dollars each, that is 34.8 billion dollars per year in hurricane damage, directly and

indirectly from a storm. That’s a lot of money. There are many things that money can be used for, including strengthening buildings and other structures such as bridges in areas that are most affected by hurricanes. During Hurricane Irene, which hit New England in 2011, gas prices rose up $ 0.08 ( NY Times ). Hurricane Irene also cost many businesses jobs, because during the storm the businesses were closed for obvious reasons. One more major economic impact Hurricane Irene had on the United States was damage of infrastructure. Train lines, bridges, roads, Interstates, and in larger cities such as New York, subway trains, and even hospitals. All of these types of infrastructure are almost essential for the face paced lives of Americans today. Without a road, you can’t get goods and people to where they need to go. Without a hospital you can’t treat the wounded and sick. Hurricanes do much more than flood streets and brick buildings, they have to power to break a region ( such as New England ), which can affect the whole of the United States.

The other major (visible ) impact of hurricanes on the United States in the physical damage to buildings and other structures. Hurricanes have the ability to break all the windows on a skyscraper ( as in Hurricanes that hit Houston ), flood a neighborhood and even destroy a poorly built house. The physical damage of hurricanes is also the leading/main cause of economic difficulties after a storm. When people are without homes, the government has to spend money to put them somewhere. Hurricanes also damage coastal resorts in popular states such as North Carolina, Florida and Texas, which can hurt a local economy greatly.

So, there are many ways Hurricanes affect the United States. These ways are negative, but they can lead to positive, because with more research and development, we can prevent major physical damage and possibly even economic damage.

Works Cited

"10 Most Expensive Hurricanes in US History, 10 Most Expensive Hurricanes in US History." CNBC.com. Thomson Reuters, 2013. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

"National Hurricane Center." National Hurricane Center. Ed. NHC. National Weather Service, 14 Dec. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

NHC. "Storm Surge Overview." Storm Surge Overview. National Weather Service, 11 May 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

"Weather Encyclopedia: Hurricanes." The Weather Channel. Ed. The Weather Channel. The Weather Channel, LLC, 2013. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

York., Michael Cooper; Michael Cooper Reported From New York. Reporting Was Contributed By Dirk Van Susteren From Calais, Vt.; Abby Goodnough From Chester, Vt;, And Patrick Mcgeehan, Timothy Williams, Thomas Kaplan And Michael M. Grynbaum From New. "Storm Cost Seen To Rank In Top 10 Of U.S. Disasters." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 06 Mar. 2013.

In Spite of the World

In Spite of the World

By: Olivia

“Hello?” Martha yelled as she slipped through the door. No one was home. Ever since Aunt Mary got a job as secretary for DS Smith, a new company that manufactures cartons, she had been getting home later.

Aunt Mary was the only relative Martha had so she was often left alone, where no one cared what she did. In those times, Martha would study extra hard or read books. She was very well educated and determined until the day she had received a telegram.

“Hello Martha.” the mailman had said. He and Martha were friends. “I have a telegram for you from Germany, it looks like it could be from your father.”Grinning at Martha’s excitement, he walked away.

Martha tore the letter open and read the few, cropped words:

“Hitler make trouble. Jews danger. I help Nadia.”

Not understanding, she read it again. A feeling of shock and confusion slowly went through her. She understood that telegrams had to be short because it was very expensive to send them a long distance but this was too vague. Who was Hitler? What did this have to do with Jews, and Nadia?

Nadia was her best friend. They met on Marha’s vacation in Germany. They had done everything together. Martha felt she had found the sister she had always wanted. After much discussion, they made plans to bring Nadia and her family to America. When things were looking up, Martha’s father received a telegram saying his wife was fatally ill and they had to leave immediately.

“I’ll see you soon.” Nadia had said.

Martha hadn’t seen her since. That was three years ago. It was also three years since Martha’s mom died. This was the first time she had heard any word of her and she didn’t understand it. Trying to put the thought out of her mind, Martha started her homework.It was very obvious she hadn’t the next day when she got every single problem wrong on her math.

“Your dad’s gonna bust your chops!” a boy teased. Martha had a reputation of getting everything right. She never regained her full motivation to learn.

Nadia

Nadia shivered in her thin jacket. The Natzis had just taken them as they were, so it was the only thing she had. It was a relief to get off the cramped, unsanitary train car at first, but the cold made her long for it. She was in some kind of camp, like there were rummer of. Another nervous shock tingled through her body.

The guards hurried her and the others toward a run down building. Inside, it was not much warmer. There were beds stacked everywhere inside chambers. It looked like five layer bed bunks with about seven people in each bed.

“Eile! Bewegen!” yelled the guards in German.

We were pushed into a chamber and the door shut. Everyone found their way to an empty bed and slept.

The next morning Nadia awoke to a loud blast. The Nazis stormed them out of the room, pushing them towards other groups of people. They were all lined up. We were expected to do the same.

It seemed a lifetime, just standing there in the cold. The guards were whispering things like”bose juden.” Nadia thought it was an insult. Once the guards were done with the inspection, we were lead to a large area.

“Legte felsen im fass und rollen es.” a guard said, pointing his finger.

Nadia had no idea what he said but a friendly lady told her to pick up the rocks and put them in the wheelbarrow. The prisoners shuffled to the area and started to pick up rocks. When Nadia tried, though, her starved body could only pick up the smallest rocks. She knew if she was caught there would be some consequence so she stood as far off as she could.

When the day was over they got a bowl of broth with a couple old vegetables in it. Nadia scarfed it down before it could be taken away. She started for her bed when the guards shouted something. They were doing another lineup. As she stood there, she found herself thinking of her dreams of America, and Martha.

Martha

Joan and her flock of friends sauntered into the room showing off their new, stylish dresses. Martha had once watched them with envy, before the telegram came. That was a month ago so everyone was used to Martha’s melancholy behavior.

“Alright class, lets begin with history.” the teacher instructed,”Who can tell me some very important things going on in the world right now?”

Martha shrunk back in her seat at the thought. Joan raised her hand,”I know, World War 2”

The rest of the was blocked off. It was like Martha was locked away in her mind, just thinking of the telegram. By now she knew who Hitler was and that he hated Jews. She guessed that her father was helping Nadia and her family get away from Germany, but since three years had gone by she wasn’t sure. Had something gone wrong? She could only sit and hope.

“Dinnnnnng!”The bell rang

School was over. Martha hadn’t heard a word. She picked up her books and trudged out of the room. She was in such a daze that she went in the wrong direction after school. After awhile she realized her mistake, turned around, and walked home. No one was there, again.

Martha had no idea if she had any homework so just put her books aside and sat down. Her ideas of Nadia coming to America safely, living with her, and doing everything together were crushed. She knew something had gone wrong.

Nadia

Nadia had been at the camp for a week. She was thin, tired, and always cold. The meager meal she received once a day was not enough. She could hardly lift anything now and had drawn the attention of the guards. Nadia had seen others being beaten for not working hard enough. Some even died because they were so weak.

They died. People were dying. Nadia had no idea why. They were just suddenly taken from their homes and forced into a labor camp. Now they were dying. This horrifically real thought sunk all her hopes.

Martha

Martha was feeling a little better today. She did her homework to the best of her ability but made a number of humiliating errors.

Martha still couldn’t wrap her mind around the thought of never seeing the person she had intended to spent the rest of her life with again, yet couldn’t stop thinking about it. She had a frequent headache so she kept on doing things like forgetting her lunch or not washing her clothes.

It wasn’t until after school that week that something occurred to her. Martha was reading a book about a girl whose mother was dying. When the girl said,” I’ll miss you.” Her mother replied,” Don’t worry, we’ll be together again in a couple years.”

It hit her. She may not be with Nadia now or in fifty years, but she would spend all eternity with her.

Weather's Effect on Telecommunications Infastructure

 

 

Weathers Effect on Telecommunications Infrastructure
By: Danny

 

         Imagine this the wind outside is blowing, and the thunder is booming, then you hear a loud crack. A tree branch has just snapped and it has hit the overhead utility cables. That’s just one way how weather can affect telecommunications infrastructure, which includes cell towers, Internet, phone, and T.V lines. Weather has a negative effect on on all of the telecommunications infrastructure.

 

        Flooding is the one with the biggest impact because it very common and the majority of people live in areas where it will happen. For example, during Hurricane Sandy much of Lower Manhattan was flooded(D'Orazio). Verizon had a 90,000 cubic foot cable vault which suffered a catastrophic failure, according to Christopher D. Levendos, who is Versions executive director of operations(D'Orazio). As you probably can imagine, Manhattan is criss-crossed with cables everywhere, and the majority of Verizon's cables were still copper the miles they had were completely destroyed by flooding. But a bright side to the flooding and the destruction is they will replace all the copper with fiber which is not damaged by flooding(D'Orazio). Now, imagine what happens every year to any underground cable in floodplains if they are not protected right.

 

An angle on this topic you might not have seen is power outages, the majority of telecom equipment needs power to function. In 2010 there were 3,419 power outages in the U.S, 25% of which were caused by weather(Fabienne). After Sandy nearly 25% of cell towers in the Northeast were down which has a major impact on emergency services and rescue workers and many network operators expect more to go down because they have a small amount of fuel to power their back-up generators(Sinead).The cause of many power outages is ice build up or trees falling on to the lines(Fabienne). Power outages are serious things when it comes to telecom infrastructure.

 

           A more spartric from of outage is lightning and high winds.Many Northeast networks found that their above ground cables were snapped due to high winds and falling trees(Sinead).Verizon, Comcast and Cablevision all say that after Sandy, many of their customers in the Northeast were without T.V or Internet(Sinead). Now lighting is a low risk threat in the large terms its still a risk to most of our wireless links, including cell phones and microwave links. A direct or nearby hit can instantly vaporize the equipment on the tower or fuse copper together(jim). A problem in more rural areas where there are older power lines is they can be hit and direct the lightning into the ground that can go up your ground cable and zap your equipment with high voltage.

 

Weather has a negative effect on telecommunications infrastructure. For example it can snap

cables, destroy towers, and even flood whole switching offices. As you’ve seen weather has a serious negative effect on telecom infrastructure.

Works Cited

Carew, Sinead. "Hurricane Sandy Disrupts Northeast U.S. Telecom Networks." Chicago Tribune. Reuters, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

D'Orazio, Dante. "The Verge." The Verge. Vox Media, 17 Nov. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

Faur, Fabienne. "'Third World' Power Outages Plague US Homes, Firms." Phys.org. Phys.Org, 6 .
Nov. 2011. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

Jim. Online interview. 16 Feb. 2013.

The Ground War by Elijah

The Ground War  

By: Elijah                          

                                               

I was a chef not a fighter. Hello my name is Frank and I was a chef for the troops in the World War 2. I had a very large fear of the base being taken over by Germans and I would have to fight my way out. I hated to shoot guns. The reason why was because when I was little, my brother was shot and killed by a German soldier

            My story begins in the kitchen of the base that was in the heart of Germany. Bombs would explode hundreds of miles away and you could feel the power of the blast. The base was always shaking and would never stop. I was making some grub for the troops. When they came down they were very hungry. The would eat like a pack of ravenous wolves. They would take turns coming and eating. There was never any time for me to sit down and eat.We didn’t have much to make but we were able to make us with what we had.

When I was giving our leader his lunch he looked at me and said “Are you scared of being shot”.I had no idea what to say. I was really frightened of being shot. I didn’t want to tell our leader that he would not take me seriously.

             “No” I said with a little grin on my face.

               “ Really? Because I am. I am really scared of being shot. Who an’t”

                In disbelief I said “ you are a great leader and you are right everyone is scared of being shot.”

               I walked out without another word and back into the kitchen. I just sat there not knowing what to think in that moment. That is when a bomb hit the base on the side where the kitchen was, and blow the side to pieces. I was flung back by full force of the bombs rath.

              I got up slowly in a haze. With the dirt and the grime flying everywhere I could barely see. My ears went completely out like someone hit a mute button. I kept seeing the same thing over and over again, like it was on replay. It got slower and slower every time I saw it. Suddenly everything changed and I busted through the sandstorm. Without being able to see or hear I had no idea what to do. Out of nowhere I fainted.

            I woke to the sound of my friends Fez and Big shot. Fez was yelling at me with full force hoping that I would wake up somehow. We call him Fez because he is a fast, easy going, zealous for God's heart kind of man. I am also a christian and we still see each other at church. Back to the story.

When I came back to Earth I had a very large head ache. Fez fell back on his knees and said “you are one lucky son of the Lord.”

           I laughed and started to lean up. Right away I felt like I had been hit by a bomb itself. I had no idea where we were on the whole globe. Fez said that we were hiding by the blown up base. I looked and saw that the Base had in fact been completely disintegrated. I had no idea what to think. I was so lost. Fez looked at me and said “you had gotten out but fainted and so Big shot and I carried you to this spot. Big shot thought that you were a goner.”

            Big shot exclaims “ We both did don’t blame that on me!”

            Before I could even blink, in slow motion a hot piece of lead flared through Big shot’s heart and he fell to the ground. In a title wave of pain, a swarm of German soldiers came flying over a sand hill in the distance. They were hard to see, the sand behind them started to take flight to the sky. In a swarm of torture I saw burning lead flying into the air heading toward our head. I got up and tackled Fez to the ground to protect him. As the enemies reloaded there artillery I grabbed Fez and darted at a full gallop. I yelled for Fez to follow me and we flew to the woods that was ahead and hid in the trees. Another wave of hot lead flew through the woods and zipped past our heads. I was able to hear the bullet fly past my ear.

            I jumped behind a rock and yelled for Fez in fear that he might not have a heart beat anymore.  After hearing my own heart beat fifteen times, I hear the shout of Fez as he said “God protect us.”

One of the German soldiers came to find me, but right as he came by the rock I kicked him in the leg and he dropped and hit his head on the rock. His gun dropped to my feet. I make eye contact with Fez and I heard the words “Grab the Gun and Shoot!” I had no thought of grabbing the gun. Right at that moment a man came and was pointing a gun at Fez. In a scars movement I grabbed the gun and fired it off my leg, the man dropped in pain and Fez hit him with the butt of his gun.

Right at that moment the memory of my brother came to my mind and I was enraged with revenge over my brother. Before I could think again I had reloaded the gun and I have it pointed at the other soldiers. As I put the gun in its place on my arm, I lined it up with a soldier. As I pulled the trigger a crack of thunder blasted from the barrel of the gun. The soldier in front of me dropped and didn’t get up.

I dropped the gun at the very moment the bullet left the barrel. I looked over and saw Fez taking out the rest of them. He also shot like a pro. He could reload in seconds . Before I knew it, I saw the last four men all in dirt. The memory of my brother kept replaying in my head and each time it got more detailed. Like I was running toward him and I was getting closer every time it played.

I started to go into shock and then I heard Fez yelling at me to get up. I did so, and when I stumbled to my feet I was extremely light headed. Fez jumped up and caught me from behind. In excitement he yelled “ You did it, you did it, you shot a gun!”

I just nodded my head and took one deep breath. then everything blacked out and I passed out once again. When I woke I was laying on what the seemed to be a coat. When I opened my eyes I saw Fez standing over me again. He seemed to be yelling, but yet I could not hear what he was saying. I blinked a few times thinking that maybe it would help. But in disbelief it did nothing. Maybe I was hallucinating, or maybe I was dreaming.

I heard only a little sound. maybe it was a tank or maybe it was a car. I looked up and saw that a wave of German tanks were coming at me and Fez. All at once I heard a cacophony of sounds. A massive jolt of energetic pain came over me and I was up in a matter of seconds. I grabbed Fez and we ran deeper into the forest. Soon we had hid a gigantic rock and we could not even see over the top of it.

I scan the rock quickly and notice that there is a little rig on the side of the rock. I went to reach for it, I stretched and stretched and stretched. Over my shoulder I could hear the German tanks coming..I was way too scared and all of a sudden my whole body started to shake. When I finally had the ridge, I slipped from the vibration of the tanks coming.

Fez thrusted into the air and landed on the ridge. My hands began to slip and they we starting to get very sweaty. I was slipping even faster now. Fez grabbed my hand and hung over the ledge making sure I didn’t fall. The tanks rattle got closer and closer. With every beat of my heart I could feel the the tanks falling upon us.

         Fez yelled and screamed as his body was stretched from my wieght. The tanks were just yards away soon they would be upon us. My heart started to skip beats. I started to panick and I was slipping faster and faster. Fez was helplessly stuck to not letting me go. I looked down at the terror of the fall. If he were to let go I would fall helplessly to my death. I thought about my family and be home. How much I missed being there.

             Without warning I was filled with rage. I swung myself to the side and caught a root that was hanging out from the rock. Fez gasped with relief but in a panic looked over the edge to see

if I was okey. I pulled with anger at the root. I found myself on the rock. For a brief moment I was relaxed. Then I heard the tanks thundering through the woods. Fez was out of breath. I was not going to let one of my best friends die. I went and I scooped him up and put him on my shoulder.

With all the power that I had left in my body I ran into the woods. I was frantic, I had no idea what I was going to do. The tanks were catching up quick. I could hear the sound of their steel grinding against boulders and trees. I turned and saw the sparks flying from the wheels. I knew I didn’t have much time at all.

           I thought that I had no chance of surviving. Like a dream an American aircraft passed over us in the clear blue sky. I knew that was my only chance of getting me and Fez out of here safely. Fez was still out of breath and had somehow fallen asleep. I ran after the plane as fast as my legs could carry us. The aircraft was moving much faster than I could go. I thought that I had no hope. I watch as the craft flew away. It blurred into the blue sky. I looked to see that all my hope was gone. But wait … right then the aircraft had turned around and was coming back.

           I stared in disbelief . They must have known about the base and sent someone so see who the survivors were. If there were any survivors. I ran at the aircraft and yelled and screamed. I thought that the aircraft would fly right over us. Out of nowhere the aircraft slowed and started to drop hundreds of feet at a time. It came and came and came. When it lightly touched the ground I ran at it. Many men jumped out of the aircraft and started to shoot behind us. With all of this distraction I did not notice that the tanks had got so close to us.

            I hurried as fast as I could to the aircraft. The men gestured to us to move and jump in. I laid Fez on the aircraft floor. As I jumped the full extent of how tired I was hit me. I collapsed on the floor and I fell into a deep slumber.

I awoke not knowing what time or where we were. I asked “where are we?”

Fez look at me and said “ we are going home we are safe now.”

Before I knew it, I was in my hometown and laying in my bed and I could not be happier at that very moment. I was home with my family and I was happy to relaxe.