This is a compilation I was looking for earlier, taken in mid-Rockport, with good time markers so you can see what part of the storm you're in and how long each part lasted--hours of intense wind from the east, then a long calm, then hours of intense wind from the west. This is the new Fairmont Hotel on Hwy. 35, looking north to the La Quinta across the street. I think we lost our internet feed around 7:30 or 8:00 pm Friday night; my last post reported that the house wasn't shuddering yet. We're about 10 miles northeast of where this footage was shot, so the eye went over us maybe half an hour later than it did in town, at about the same intensity. The peak winds from the first wall hit us around 10:45pm, the second wall a couple of hours later, and we were calm again before dawn. Notice that this hotel came apart but our house did not!
Sorry about the ad at the beginning, you can skip after a few seconds.
The cleanup effort is having an odd effect on me. People I was trying to help before who were making me miserable because I couldn't find anything to do that they wouldn't obstruct or bat away in some fashion have now fallen completely off my radar. It's a variety of triage: if you're part of the problem instead of the solution, if your attitude is making things worse instead of better, I suddenly have other priorities to turn to, almost completely guilt-free. Want to tell me how your daughter-in-law presumed to arrange for repairs without something or other first, poor you, FEMA is too stingy, I'm not insured, etc.? Nope. Moving on. A neighbor called me yesterday somewhat miffed that she was just now hearing that there was some kind of list she was supposed to get on for help getting the roving volunteer teams to come to her. She didn't know she had to get on a list. I didn't even get mad at her; I just observed mildly that it was important to ask clearly for help (a lesson I've always had trouble learning).
Survivor guilt is making lots of us medium crazy. Yesterday I found myself eating a piece of cake and mentioned to a companion that I was eating things I normally wouldn't, but I keep weighing every day and am not gaining, so I guess it's OK. She sniffed at me, "Well. I guess if you have time to weigh yourself, you're not very busy." Again, not even tempted to snap at her. She just moves off of my radar screen for the time being. If you know you're helping enough, you don't have to pay attention to the self-appointed monitors' opinion of whether your effort is up to snuff, or where your level of suffering fits in her scale of just deserts.
This morning on our dog walk my husband got a cell-phone call, a rare event for him, as he hates to conduct business by phone. Some chick was on the line was yelling at him that she just wanted to get hold of the person who called her a butthead. I could hear him saying, "Whom did you think you were calling? I really have no idea what you're talking about." She finally instructed him never to call again. He readily undertook not to do so, and blocked her number. Ironically, of course, now we do think she is a butthead, whoever she is, the creature.
My husband keeps explaining to me that survivor guilt is irrational. Why should he feel guilty because he built a sturdy house? Well, that's like explaining that a fear of heights is irrational. Sure it is; so what? Do people really think feelings don't happen because we know they're different from rational analysis? (OK, I know the answer to that question. ;-))
7 comments:
Even the most coldly rational of us have irrational feelings on occasion.
On the other matter, no worries about the ones objecting to your help or complaining about your being better off (for having prepared better). In some respects, that's just their own way of responding to the stress of the storm and its aftermath. On the upside, their attitude also leaves you more time and energy to focus on helping those who could use/appreciate your effort--including yourself and your husband.
Eric Hines
Don't let other human crabs drag you down the bucket. Keep a high level of energy and positive outlook, that invites in the Holy Spirit to keep you safe and will provide counsel (which hopefully isn't ignored as random feelings) on the wisest course of action.
Survivor guilt? I can understand that intellectually, but if the Most High decides to finish off humanity once and for all with the fire of complete consumption, I'm not going to be feeling all that guilty. Besides, it's not like I won't be seeing them again sometime really soon.
This life people call reality, is just some shadows on a cave wall Plato talked about. A virtual reality created from digital quantum simulations.
That hotel will probably be suing the contractor/architect/engineer. There was definitely something not right about that construction- note particularly the studs that ended in between floors, and I know there was a level split, but they didn't end at either level. Properly constructed buildings to current code shouldn't have failed in that manner.
This video confirms what I thought I was seeing in post storm aerial footage- you didn't want to be in a trailer, home older than 35-40 years, industrial moment frame building with light skin curtain wall, storefront buildings with big openings.
About the safest place to be, whether hurricane or earthquake is a recently built (within 25 years) single family dwelling. I usually point to the tsunami videos where you see whole houses tumbling or floating away- those are pretty sturdily built, which is nice when disaster comes knocking.
Allowing for some luck in the exact placement of turbulence or tornadoes, carefully-built post-Andrew homes did well. We didn't have too awfully much storm surge; nothing stands up to a debris wall, realistically. Some old buildings did well, but gimcrack stuff from the 70s and 80s was hosed. The damage to the Fairmount really was surprising: the last thing I expect to see come apart is a firewalled stairwell.
Taking a look at the google maps satellite image in 3d, I see that the stair was not a typical tower appended to the block of the rest of the building, but a tapered shape to the end of the building. I have to wonder if it didn't create a bit of an airfoil effect that increased wind speed just in that part of the building as a result.
When I was reviewing other aerials in the keys, I noticed a spot of damage, and it was between two narrow townhome type buildings placed unusually close together (probably for the beachfront). It was clear from the pattern of the damage that it was caused or at least exacerbated by the narrow gap between buildings- you get a venturi effect where the wind speed is increased just in the narrowed area between buildings, and as a result, the roof edges just on those side facing the gap were heavily damaged. That's my take, anyway. local conditions can sometimes be more important than the larger scope of conditions generally.
Still, that building is a mile or so inland, across a good-sized bay from a large barrier island. There is a thick oak forest between the hotel and the bay. As high as the winds were, they really shouldn't have been able to separate a stairwell from the building. I wouldn't go with any company that had a hand in that design or construction, anyway.
We have no open hotels in town to this day, as far as I know. They all had damage of one kind or another.
There is a thick oak forest between the hotel and the bay.
Depending on the distance between the wall of oaks and the hotel, the trees could have exacerbated the wind at the point of interest. Wind flowing over a barrier drops back down and focuses to a degree at a distance past the barrier that is a function of the height of the wall and the speed of the wind.
Eric Hines
Post a Comment