Sunday, July 1, 2012

Observations 7.1

An update on the weekend's weather and yesterday's post.

Over the last week over 2,000 high temperature records were set and fifteen cities set all-time, all-time, heat records over the weekend. This is a list of those set Friday before the derecho storm. It was 109° in Nashville, TN, 109° in Columbia, SC, 109°in Cairo, IL, 108° in Paducah, KY , 106° in Chattanooga, TN, 105° Raleigh, NC, 105° in Greenville, SC, 104° in Charlotte, NC, 102° in Bristol, TN, and 109°in Athens, GA.
With the hottest months of the year yet to come the number of records falling is dwarfing even the Dust Bowl era.

As of Sunday millions of people were still without power as temperatures again approach 100° all along the east coast. Utility companies from Ohio, Maryland, and Virginia described the damage to the power grids as catastrophic and all three states, along with West Virginia and Washington D.C., declared states of emergency on Saturday. Meanwhile Atlanta declared a code-purple meaning the air over the city was very unhealthy. Friday night's storm, which at times reached hurricane force, killed a dozen people with two boaters still missing.

I did hear from my friend and she was hit by the storm and lost power. It may be a week until she gets it back so she plans on haunting malls, movie houses, and work.

"Unlike a polite hurricane that gives you three days of warning, this storm gave us all the impact of a hurricane without any of the warning of a hurricane," Maryland Govenor Martin O'Malley.

In the city of New York, which was unaffected by the storm, temperatures are again in the mid-nineties today. To make things more interesting at 2 AM Sunday morning Consolidated Edison, the power utility, locked out its unionized workers after contract negotiations broke down. Con Ed replaced 8,500 skilled union workers with 5,000 management personnel raising the possibility of power cuts. The dispute centers on the pension plans of older workers
which the company wants to cut.

Think about that. Instead of sending its workers south to help with the cleanup Con Ed locked them out. Corporate responsibility at its best.