I’m keeping up with the news from Ireland, where Ophelia is rushing up the west coast. Hurricanes and fierce winds and massive storm surges just aren’t what I picture when I envision Ireland.
I hear our national stockpile of thoughts and prayers were seriously depleted by hurricane Maria. Maybe that means we’ll actually have to give appropriate aid where needed.
Just like we’ve been doing in Puerto Rico.
Yes on “thoughts and prayers” being deleted, but don’t more Irish know Jeebus than the brown Puerto Ricans?
There is an endless pool of thoughts and prayers available to go around. They cost nothing to give and do nothing as a result.
Oh, the Guinness! I mean, the humanity!
Think of all the romance covers, what with bosomy couples posing on craggy headlands… At leas the ones that aren’t swept away. (Headlands or couples.)
Yeah, but Irish people are notably pale-skinned, so there’s a chance Herr Shitgibbon might be willing to send aid there.
Here’s hoping they won’t need it.
I’m a hundred miles or so to the east and the sky is green here. Well yellowy green – dust from the sahara and smoke from the fires in Portugal.
Also quite windy but half the windmills turned off as the grid can handle the power!
madtom1999, did you mean the grid can’t handle the power? Will the storm continue and affect Scotland? Will there be Scottish engineers telling their superiors that “she” can’t handle the power? Please tell me that!
This is awful. So many people dead from hurricanes and fires raging all over the place, many more people displaced and in dire circumstances. And yet, people still deny climate change.
Perhaps more likely the windmills have disengaged to protect their mechanisms in very high winds.
Just to piss off the Brexiteers we should utilise the western winds by letting all the windmills ‘freewheel’ and drag the entire country into mainland Europe.
@10 & brexit: With the direction the storm is traveling, the Irish island would crash into Scotland, breaking it off from England, much to the relief of everybody, as neither N.Ireland nor Scotland voted to leave the EU, preferring to remain in with Ireland and the others.
From the Irish Times’ live blog (18:20 mark):
Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, people are drinking polluted water with food storages, whilst hair furor plays golf and says it’s all Puerto Rico’s fault.
Hi i have been posting comments on The Independent web site about there being a blood red sun being spotted over the UK
due to the storm bringing dust and the wild fires in Europe .
I said Anytime now the religious fruitcakes will come on and say this is a sign ,and we should repent now .
Seem to have stirred said religious fruitcakes up a tad .
So much fun.
Blood red sun? That’s nothing. Call me when the 7-headed beast appears, and a third of all the stars in the sky fall to earth. Then I might pay attention.
blf@9,
I believe that can happen, but it is also definitely the case that wind turbines are sometimes halted because the grid cannot handle all the power they would produce.
KG@15, Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge:
Depending where we are talking about, the wind speeds were higher than than the typical cut-off of 25 m/s (90 km/h, 56 MPH), and possibly higher than the lower survival speeds. The UK’s decrepit grid may have overloaded, but turbines in Ireland and, probably, the west coast and perhaps Scotland, very likely cut out. Dublin, e.g., logged wind gusts higher than 25 m/s.