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Natural Disasters - Everywhere These Days


lazarus

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2 hours ago, maipenrai said:

 A washout has severed the main road link north to my part of Canada - the Alaska Highway (or as Americans like to call it, the "Alcan") - in northern British Columbia about 400 miles south of my city; apparently our big stores were busy this morning with panic buyers even though there is an alternate route through northern BC, albeit more remote and less serviced and generally not up to the standards of the main highway. The authorities are not saying when they expect normal travel to resume - it doesn't help that this happened on a holiday weekend - but my guess would be at least a week or maybe more to get some kind of passage restored through this:

291635109_10166592804325068_8050487404924090469_n.jpg

291625467_10166592804260068_6805098957958149291_n.jpg

Ouch, that's going to take a while to repair methinks .

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2 hours ago, maipenrai said:

 A washout has severed the main road link north to my part of Canada - the Alaska Highway (or as Americans like to call it, the "Alcan") - in northern British Columbia about 400 miles south of my city; apparently our big stores were busy this morning with panic buyers even though there is an alternate route through northern BC, albeit more remote and less serviced and generally not up to the standards of the main highway. The authorities are not saying when they expect normal travel to resume - it doesn't help that this happened on a holiday weekend - but my guess would be at least a week or maybe more to get some kind of passage restored through this:

291635109_10166592804325068_8050487404924090469_n.jpg

291625467_10166592804260068_6805098957958149291_n.jpg

That would be impressive engineering if they can make a temporary bridge in a week or two. Also looks like some decent, runnable rapids. 

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3 hours ago, maipenrai said:

 A washout has severed the main road link north to my part of Canada - the Alaska Highway (or as Americans like to call it, the "Alcan") - in northern British Columbia about 400 miles south of my city; apparently our big stores were busy this morning with panic buyers even though there is an alternate route through northern BC, albeit more remote and less serviced and generally not up to the standards of the main highway. The authorities are not saying when they expect normal travel to resume - it doesn't help that this happened on a holiday weekend - but my guess would be at least a week or maybe more to get some kind of passage restored through this:

291635109_10166592804325068_8050487404924090469_n.jpg

291625467_10166592804260068_6805098957958149291_n.jpg

Thats a dramatic failure, it would be interesting to see a before photo

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39 minutes ago, Zambo said:

Thats a dramatic failure, it would be interesting to see a before photo

Found a news report about the washout. Thought it was a bridge, but now see the road was built over a large culvert.

Alaska Highway closed north of Liard Hot Springs after road destroyed by washout

Most recent Street View of that section of road is from 2009 (link).
image.png

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2 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

Found a news report about the washout. Thought it was a bridge, but now see the road was built over a large culvert.

Alaska Highway closed north of Liard Hot Springs after road destroyed by washout

Most recent Street View of that section of road is from 2009 (link).
image.png

Apparently the culvert became jammed with debris after heavy rains and the water kept building up until the road base started to wash away. 

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2 hours ago, maipenrai said:

Apparently the culvert became jammed with debris after heavy rains and the water kept building up until the road base started to wash away. 

Culverts seem such a cost effective solution, this shows how disasterous a miscalculation on the restriction to the flow can be.

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10 hours ago, Zambo said:

Culverts seem such a cost effective solution, this shows how disasterous a miscalculation on the restriction to the flow can be.

It may also have something to do with the quality of maintenance, as well; here in the Yukon Territory, our territorial gov't does all of the road maintenance and routine re-surfacing and generally do a pretty good job of it - on the British Columbia portion of the Alaska Highway, and on the other route, Highway 37, all of the maintenance is done by contractors who have often been noted as not being nearly as effective. 

On a side note, we have two secondary highways that have been closed due to forest fire activity - lots of hot weather and thunderstorms lately. 

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Here is a photo taken in the produce department of our local Superstore on last Saturday afternoon after the highway closure being announced the day before; that same day the store announced that they were limiting purchases on essential items like toilet paper, eggs, flour, etc. because of the panic buying taking place. It just shows you how greedy and selfish and just plain stupid people really are - as I've mentioned before, we have more than one route into the territory and we are not going to starve - they'll bring supplies in by air if they have to;

292086993_10160043798850132_4570413155277273708_n.jpg

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12 minutes ago, maipenrai said:

Here is a photo taken in the produce department of our local Superstore on last Saturday afternoon after the highway closure being announced the day before; that same day the store announced that they were limiting purchases on essential items like toilet paper, eggs, flour, etc. because of the panic buying taking place. It just shows you how greedy and selfish and just plain stupid people really are - as I've mentioned before, we have more than one route into the territory and we are not going to starve - they'll bring supplies in by air if they have to;

292086993_10160043798850132_4570413155277273708_n.jpg

Sweet potato for lunch it is. 😀

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They just announced today that a detour has been built around this washout and should be open for single lane traffic tomorrow, so again it proves just how stupid the panic buying was. I know a couple of truckers who haul food up the highway - a southern team brings the trailers from Edmonton to Fort Nelson, @Mile 300 of the highway, and these friends of mine bring the trailers from there to Whitehorse which is about Mile 918; they reached the washout spot about an hour after it happened, and then had to backtrack all the way to Dawson Crk (Mile 0) and from there south to Prince George and then west to Highway 37 and north to home - a really long trip for both of these boys who are well over 70 years old, but they were smiling about the money they made....

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Damned beavers indeed - here's another one that happened yesterday about 20 miles up the road towards Dawson City - Klondike Highway #2 - that resulted in the road being closed for a short time as water ran over the top of the road surface; thankfully they managed to keep one lane of traffic open as the water slowly subsided but it's still quite a mess:

klondike-highway.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

A very sad result of the flooding in Seoul.

Seoul vows to move families from 'Parasite'-style basement homes after flooding deaths

Seoul has vowed to move some of the city's poorest families out of underground and semi-subterranean homes after 13 people were killed in flooding caused by record-breaking rainfall this week, sparking public horror and calls for government accountability.

The deaths, which included a family who drowned after becoming trapped underground, have spurred the South Korean capital to put an end to people living in "banjiha" homes -- the often cramped and dingy basement apartments made famous by the movie "Parasite."

The family of three -- a woman in her 40s with Down syndrome, her sister, and the sister's 13-year-old daughter -- died after water pressure prevented them from opening the door of their flooded home in Seoul's southern Gwanak district.
...

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