Lovely green landscape, charming people, and…a hurricane?


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.

Comments

  1. archangelospumoni says

    Yes on “thoughts and prayers” being deleted, but don’t more Irish know Jeebus than the brown Puerto Ricans?

  2. Larry says

    There is an endless pool of thoughts and prayers available to go around. They cost nothing to give and do nothing as a result.

  3. davidnangle says

    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.)

  4. frog says

    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.

  5. madtom1999 says

    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!

  6. davidnangle says

    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!

  7. says

    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.

  8. blf says

    Perhaps more likely the windmills have disengaged to protect their mechanisms in very high winds.

  9. Acolyte of Sagan says

    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. blf says

    @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.

  11. blf says

    From the Irish Times’ live blog (18:20 mark):

    Support for the homeless during the storm
    Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy has said buses have been driving around the Dublin area to pick up homeless people and bring them indoors to safety. The minister said Housing First Teams and Local Authorities would continue to offer shelter to people on the streets and that additional facilities would provide shelter and support to those in need across the country.
    […]
    Outside Dublin, homeless individuals and rough sleepers were transported to facilities using taxi or local authority mini bus services, according to the minister.

    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.

  12. davidc1 says

    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.

  13. aziraphale says

    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.

  14. KG says

    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.

  15. blf says

    KG@15, Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge:

    A wind turbine is designed to produce power over a range of wind speeds. The cut-in speed is around 3–4 m/s for most turbines, and cut-out at 25 m/s. […] All wind turbines are designed for a maximum wind speed, called the survival speed, above which they will be damaged. The survival speed of commercial wind turbines is in the range of 40 m/s (144 km/h, 89 MPH) to 72 m/s (259 km/h, 161 MPH). The most common survival speed is 60 m/s (216 km/h, 134 MPH).

    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.