Discussion:A unique event during tax season
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Actionbsns (talk|edits) said: | 11 March 2011 |
| It's midnight and we are watching the news and waiting to hear about an impending tsunami. This one sounds like it might be real and problematic. Right now they are waiting to see what happens at Wake Island and then I think projections will change or become more firm. Natalie, how are you and your family? And TAXEA, how are you doing? We're at the 1500 foot level so the house should be fine, the office could be a different story. It's right on the line of the evacuation zone. Second floor, so that's better, but it all depends on what turns up. We'll see what happens around 3:30 a.m. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| The BBC reported about an hour ago that the tsunami warning for Taiwan and New Zealand has just been lifted. Hopefully that is not a bad thing for the rest of the Pacific Rim.
When I heard on the news about the warnings for Hawaii and the west coast my first thought was for the Hawaii based members of the TA community. Stay safe. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| I just tuned into KITV and their live coverage shows a long, sustained wave on Waikiki.
Stay safe Laura, Paula and Natalie. Please. Tom | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 11 March 2011 |
| Fingers crossed here for you.
At 8 am EST, I checked several sites in Anchorage for news of Alaska and our grandson in the Coast Guard on Kodiak.....very little mentioned though the circles drawn on maps seem to show it reaching there. How small the world seems today. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| Best of luck Paula and all of our other Hawaiians. D&T, I just read a little flash update that the effect of the tsunami had reached the Aleutians with waves of only 5 feet, and there were no damages there; I hope that holds true elsewhere, too, as the damage to Japan is staggering enough already. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| I just got through watching some of the news programs and they are pretty upset that a big wave has not smashed into HI yet. They've got cameras set up everywhere and they keep flashing over to CA where nothing is happeneing either (9:01).
These news vultures are having a field day. One "Morning Show" has even hired a physicist and he is so frustrated with his incautious calculations of calamity that he has just smashed his HP-83 Graphing Calculator on the newsdesk. Watch the cats and dogs in HI, they'll tell you what's coming better than any eggheaded physicist. If the cats and dogs start running inland, run with them. Stay off your bicycle Natalie, debris could get caught up in the spokes and sweep you out to sea. Japan looks terrible. More destruction at 11. (Watch for aftershocks). | |
| March 11, 2011 | |
| My nephew & his family live in Japan, but fortunately to the south. I was able to contact him via email around midnight (West Coast time) and they are all OK. No phones, a few things falling off the walls and shelves, but no real damage. Stay high & dry, Paula. | |
CathysTaxes (talk|edits) said: | 11 March 2011 |
| My nephew and his wife live in Japan. She's stuck at work and he had to walk 30 minutes to stay at a co-worker's house. His wife has relatives close to the area that got hit hard. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| To my Hawaiian flowers, I wish you all safe travels. Thought of all of you immediately when I heard the news. Hopefully just some good surfing waves. Please post and let us know all is well.
Have a friend in Japan as well. It's just insane the destruction. My friend and his family are safe and sound. No gas, but plenty of beer and frozen food to get them through. Thank god for PBR. | |
Actionbsns (talk|edits) said: | 11 March 2011 |
| My heart goes out to Japan and anyone with friends and family there. A friend of my son is a school principal in Kawasaki Prefecture and seems to have spent most of the night at the school getting children into the hands of family and they are still waiting to hear from some of the family members of his Japanese girl friend.
The warning has just been lifted, but we still have an advisory warning. My husband is down at the harbor on his boat and called just a bit ago to say there's not much damage there, but the water is still surging in and out substantially. The news focuses mostly on what's happening on Oahu, but I just heard, very quickly, someone mention serious surging at Ka'ahulu'u beach which is a very popular snorkeling place here with water in a hotel in that area. Keauhou Bay, where I have a very nice client, seems to have had some serious damage. For me, the most worrisome picture I've seen so far is of the area, closer to my office, but down by the water, I can see in those pictures that there was a lot of water I just can't see how far up it has come. Someone e-mailed a picture from a building that is pretty much in a straight line to the water from my office, and it's a mess. My office is on the second floor, so my office shouldn't have any damage, but if water came up to the building the electrical system could have some damage. I'll just have to see when I'm able to get down there. Maui seems to have gotten the worst of the waves and damage, but mostly it looks like inconvenience, certainly nothing like Japan. Actually, I wish the news would be more fair to all the islands, the guy just said they are reporting serious damage in Kailua Kona, but nothing more. | |
| March 11, 2011 | |
| We're all fine here. Thanks for the good thoughts. The boys are out playing with their friends. I'm getting ready to go out for my morning bike ride. I don't think there will be any debris on this side of the island.
Isn't Keauhou Bay where the big tsunami hit in the 1940s? I'm having a hard time picturing where that place is relative to the rest of the island. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| My heart goes out to everyone affected by this disaster. I lived in Japan for 3 years and went through a 7.2 earthquake. I can't even imagine what an 8.9 feels like. We rode the bullet train frequently to Tokyo and passed Sendai on the way down. It is heartbreaking to watch al of those images on the news. I hope that everyone is ok. Please stay safe!
Polgara 21:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC) | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| I have been watching BBC Asia Pacific News off and on. It's terrible what Japan is facing. I can't even conceive how they are going to get into some areas.
I'm glad it did not get HI too bad. By the way, the BBC is great because there are no ads slowing your machine down. These ads are getting overbearing on some of the other news sites. | |
Actionbsns (talk|edits) said: | 11 March 2011 |
| You're thinking of Hilo Bay, Natalie and probably more specifically, Laupahoehoe point where not only did the big tsunami hit, but a group of people gathered to watch it were swept away.
I was able to get into my office and all is fine, but it's a good thing my building is on the side of the street that it is on because just across the street all the buildings are still blocked by sawhorses and police. I talked to my husband just before I left, he's still at the harbor and the surging is continuing and it gets bigger then smaller, he took some pictures, but I'm not sure how good they'll be. I'm worried about the client whose business is located in Keauhou Bay, supposedly all the buildings there collapsed and several boats were lost from there. Our damage is like a mosquito bite on your arm compared to Japan. Just as I was leaving a second 7.2 earthquake hit on a different fault line making it an earthquake of it's own and not an aftershock. No new tsunami warning had been issued at that point. | |
| 11 March 2011 | |
| These numbers are huge: 8.9, 6.6, the 7.2 you just quoted.
I saw on WIKI that 8.9 would equal 336 megatons of TNT. That's just one earthquake they've had. | |
| March 12, 2011 | |
| Yes, Paula, Hilo Bay. I stood on that hill that overlooks the bay a few years ago. | |
Actionbsns (talk|edits) said: | 13 March 2011 |
| In case anyone is interested here are a couple links to the effects of the tsunami on the Kona Coast. Lucky for the idiot filming the surging water that it wasn't anything more than wet. | |
| 14 March 2011 | |
| "1535: Just to recap for you: We're getting reports that water levels in reactor 2 at Fukushima have fallen sharply, leaving the nuclear fuel rods fully exposed and raising fears of a meltdown. More as it comes in."
BBC Live Japan Page. | |
| 14 March 2011 | |
| CrowJD, I wish you would stop. I've got tax returns to do and can't be bothered with 'the world will end today' news stories. Even if they ARE true. I do hope my clients will pay by cash today, just in case. If the world ends tonight, who knows if the banks will be open tomorrow to clear their checks. | |
| 14 March 2011 | |
| According to the Japanese government, everything is under control, but don't go out without a wet washcloth to cover your face. I don't exactly know what that will do for you. This does not apply to U.S. residents. :) | |
| 14 March 2011 | |
| It probably has something to do with a lagging textile industry. If everyone wants a new washcloth, maybe they won't have to subsidize the industry any longer.
We should try the same thing here for whatever industry-du-jour is in the hole. Consumer spending is much better than government spending. | |
| 15 March 2011 | |
| Folks,
Look at this map from NASA: http://denali.gsfc.nasa.gov/dtam/images/global.gif While I don't believe the world will end, Japan was probably up for a big earthquake. The West Coast of the US might be next, who knows? Just pay close attention to how well the lines are drawn. Tom | |
Actionbsns (talk|edits) said: | 15 March 2011 |
| After going through the worst earthquake of my life here in Kona a few years ago, I don't want to look at something that could just scare the bejazus out of me. In 2006 we were 12 miles from the epicenter of a very violent, loud, interminably long (all of 90 seconds or so), quake. I don't really want to spend time worrying about being in a bigger one. But thanks for the information, Tom.
I just heard from my client with a dive boat operation in Keauhou. It's really bad where he is. All the buildings were knocked down, they lost all their snorkel gear, wet suits were all muddy and filled with silt, but they were recovered, tanks were recovered but not regulators. The boat was taken out to open water so it's OK and they resumed limited operations today, but can't offer diving excursions. It's just a mess. The organization that owns the buildings are to wealthy to qualify for FEMA and they don't want to re-build, they want the tennant to do that. The philosophy of that particular organization is seriously odd - they tripled rents to tennants in a nearby shopping center and considered it a better business decision to have empty stores then negotiate rents and most of that center has been empty about three years. So now they have this entire area of destruction and who knows what they'll do about it. The silver lining is still no loss of life, what was lost can be replaced. | |
Actionbsns (talk|edits) said: | 15 March 2011 |
| My son has a friend in Japan whose girl friend has not been able to contact her parents since the earthquake. I saw on his FB page this morning that they were able to speak to them a few hours ago. That was very good news.
As for paradise, a week full of flood, fire and brimstone. The volcano is also immensely and impressively active. The activity is in a remote location though, so it's interesting to watch and hear about, but won't cause damage to anyone. Interesting tax season. | |
| 15 March 2011 | |
| The Japanese government has told some people in an area around the nuclear plant to stay in their homes. My question is how do you stay in your home and at the same time stand in line for food? | |
| 15 March 2011 | |
| This. is. serious. Waaaay more serious than the Japanese press is saying. All that hydrogen? Well SOME of it may come from water dissociation but very hot water/steam and Zircalloy cladding react in ways that they don't under normal operating conditions. That fact,learned from Three Mile Island, plus the presence of fission products that the cladding should have kept inside, suggests that large parts of the three cores have lost their cladding in whole or in part. That's bad. It takes just a relatively small increase in temperature from there to melt the oxide fuel pellets themselves and when that happens, you can't cool it. There aren't water channels anymore. The molten mass of fuel drips onto the bottom of the reactor vessel, which can't stand anything like that temperature, destroys the vessel, falls onto the concrete floor of the containment, which cannot even begin to handle it either, then descends into the earth where it hits groundwater. That groundwater flashes to superheated steam and blows out in huge jets to the surface carrying a large and deadly inventory of radioactive material with it.
There are three of these reactors in trouble by my last count, instead of just one at TMI, and they are surrounded by tsunami devastation and face restricted access, limited electrical power from the grid, and limited supplies. Also different from TMI. | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| I hope with all the expertise they have coming in they can figure it out. I understand that there could be plutonium in that MOX mix (eek). I don't know if that's true or not.
I think I would be digging a big pit to mix concrete in and take the Russian approach of dumping concrete on it with helicopters at some point. It may not be easy finding a pilot. Also of interest, the Russians make an excellent heavy duty helicopter so they might need to send a few over to Japan. I wish them luck. It's a terrible situation. | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| It's gotten worse:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110316/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake I keep hearing it won't be as bad as Chernobyl. That's nice to hear (snort)! I heard tonight whole towns were wiped out near the epicenter. They said the only thing left from one city was its website. Yikes. Tom | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| Makes one thankful for the things we have. CNN was saying how the company running the plant isn't always as forthcoming as they can be. Pretty much called them out and out liars based on past experience. That is not good. | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| Yes, there's plutonium. Quite a lot, in fact. That's what "MOX" means "mixed oxide fuel" and that means it's part uranium oxide and part plutonium oxide. The Japanese, like the French but unlike the U.S., reprocess spent reactor fuel. If you will recall, they had a near miss at their reprocessing plant about ten years ago when some liquid uranium nitrate collected in a particular part of the piping and went critical. No explosion. They got lucky that time. Anyway, when you run a uranium reactor, you get plutonium whether you like it or not. Plutonium is a lot easier to separate out of the soup than one isotope of uranium from a lot of other uranium. That's why Iran is scaring the Middle East these days. So the Japanese use up their plutonium as fissile fuel for their power reactors. Not a bad idea unless something goes wrong... | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| Yes I was reading about that MOX today. I finally understand now that the MOX is in the rods in Reactor No. 3, so that explains whey they are so concerned about reactor 3. I understand it's smoking again now.
They will need a miracle at this point and they need to get ready to make concrete if they need it. A lot of concrete. | |
PollyAdler (talk|edits) said: | 16 March 2011 |
| Crow, I'm surprised you missed this. I picked up this quote today on how the fat cat bankers are handling the pressure over in Japan:
QUOTE: "Charter companies reported charging as much as $160,000 for a flight to Tokyo. with one saying it had a request from 14 bankers who 'did not care about price.'" P.S. the flight has to get to Japan to pick the fat cats up and fly them home (direct to the golf course). | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| I am grimly gratified to see my explanation for all that H2 is starting to be confirmed by the various "authorities". Took them long enough. The Japanese company that owns these monsters now says that they've just about completed running an emergency power line from the intact part of the grid to the reactor site. If true, this is a major advance because it will allow them to re-start the cooling pumps and maybe get the situation under control. Since nothing has actually melted out through the bottom of any reactor vessels or the cooling pond (we'd know if it did) this might happen in time to save everyone's necks.
Fingers crossed, people. | |
| 16 March 2011 | |
| Oh, and as for burying the whole works in concrete? Forget it. It wouldn't help. Basically the entire core at Chernobyl was blasted into smithereens and scattered across half of Europe. The remains could be entombed more or less safely. Here, the melting mass of fuel is all still in one place. Without cooling, it can reach temperatures in excess of ten thousand degrees C. No material, be it metal, ceramic, or stone, known to humanity can maintain integrity in the face of those temperatures. The one thing that could be done would be to push the works into the sea. The environmental consequences of that would probably give new meaning to the word "devastation" but the sea has absorbed nuclear disasters before now. Water is both a good coolant and an effective radiation shield if there's enough of it. | |
