FEMA's Outdated Flood Zone Maps 21

[Oops409]

Only 3% of residents in Asheville, NC, for example, had flood insurance, according to an article I read. Looking at FEMA's Flood Maps, it is understandable why residents would not have flood insurance.

FEMA flood maps will need to be updated to reflect modern risks, and risks due to more and more urbanization and growth since maps were developed, along with whatever weather cycles we are now experiencing.

Marion, NC below

https://hazards-fema.maps.arcgis.co...655413029,-82.5308610411255,35.60463469500095

 

[TugboatEng]

Sorry, 3DDave, I've been busy today and missed your earlier quote. However z they are still using heat content in regards to a volume less/mass less sample. Because it has no volume or mass it cannot have a content. I'm still busy but will continue to try to understand your link and will follow up later. It doesn't follow anything that I was taught during thermodynamics. I can find no reference to this mysterious H anywhere except climate change articles.

 

[dik]

Tug...

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

https://www.livescience.com/planet-...w-99-certain-and-ramifications-will-be-global

This could have some interesting consequences... Run AMOC

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

We were taught that water was most dense at 4C; that's why water freezes from the top down...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[IRstuff]

Sorry, it was NPR that doesn't know the difference between rate and total. The NASA article provided no data whatsoever.

This one is claiming kJ/cm² is measurement of heat.

Had you bothered to even read the caption on the graph? It points to

https://bmcnoldy.earth.miami.edu/tropics/ohc/,

which is where the graph came from, not NPR, per se.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[FacEngrPE]

Lets get back to the FEMA maps. This video examines the geography of Appalachia which makes the area subject to debris flow. The flat areas at the base of the small streams are often the only relatively flat build able sites. These flat areas are where the debris flow deposit.

How should building codes / land use guidance address this situation?

What happened to mountainsides during Helene's extreme rains (30 inches or more)?

Helene has impacted Appalachian life in extreme ways for the foreseeable future. In addition to catastrophic flooding, deadly landsliding occurred in numerous areas. The Garren Creek community of Buncombe County, North Carolina, may have been the area most severely affected by landslides. Huge debris flows claimed many lives in this area, and while the story has appeared on national news outlets, it has not received the attention that more populated areas have. This video talks about the disastrous debris flows in this area and how debris flows work in general. The video contains information for first responders about the risks of working in a debris flow area following the first pulse, as well as for mountain residents who may live in areas that could be hit by debris flows.

Boots in the sir videos of a similar location.
Flying over Chimney Rock - Hurricane Helene Aftermath, Mark Huneycutt, October 11th

Fast response, requires using what is left after the event. NC neighbors build makeshift bridge out of trailers

 

[Oops409]

Both Video's were very interesting on debris flow in this type of terrain/topography.

FEMA does have a landslide hazard web site:

https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/landslide

FEMA links to US Gological Survey Web Site:

https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/hurricane-helene-landslide-hazard-estimate-map

 

[1503-44]

J/m2 or Btu/ft2 does not need a time unit. It is a quantity of heat in storage per square foot. It is energy available on a surface, just like after I run my floor heating system for 30m and switch it off. Energy equal to about 5 Btu/ft2 is stored in, or on, my floor and starting to be used. If its all gone in the next hour, then the time unit says it was turned into power of 5 Btu/h (0.002 Hp) which went to heating the air above it.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[FacEngrPE]

The granularity of this FEMA Risk Map is per county. As the hazard exists in stream beds IE small compared to a county land area, I do not see this as very useful beyond county level planning.

https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/landslide.

 

[Oops409]

Agree. And it shows left coast has vastly more areas vulnerable than North Carolina and more densely populated with more buildings to determine dollars lost, therefore it does not addresses the actual risk of flooding event damage to a low density steep and narrow valley mountain topography.

A Landslide Expected Annual Loss score and rating represent a community's relative level of expected building and population loss each year due to Landslides when compared to the rest of the United States.

Perhaps biasing risk to high population centers vs rural low density areas is exactly what FEMA's Equity policy addresses???

On January 20, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. released Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, requiring that agencies assess equity with respect to race, ethnicity, religion, income, geography, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability.

https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/national-preparedness/equity

FEMA Should Stick To Disaster Recovery And Quit Social Engineering

https://reason.com/2024/10/10/fema-should-stick-to-disaster-recovery-and-quit-social-engineering/

 

[1503-44]

We do a simple separate slope stability analysis when planning pipeline routes in mountainous areas. Initially any slope between 15° and 40° is set for rerouting. If an easy alternate route is available, we go with that alternate. If not available a more formal and specific analysis will be undertaken. Its not only landslides we look at. Of course flood maps are studied when available, but they are usually not where I work, as well as sinkholes in karst areas, fault lines, active and inactive, water well locations, aquifers, surface reservoirs and irrigation features, rivers, streams, wet lands, crops in the fields, permafrost in Arctic regions, erosion potential, lava flow near volcanos, scour depths at beach crossings, anchorage areas, liquifaction potential in earthquake areas, undersea slides, population centers, house locations, schools, churches, prisons, 4 story and above buildings, shipping lanes, designated fishing zones, other pipelines, electric cables, telecom cables, rail routes and yards, truck delivery locations, work camps, roads and highways, present and future, critical species habitats, national parks and recreation areas, scenic views, even locations of sacred trees, mines and munitions, archaeologic and cultural heritage sites, cemetaries and burial sites, one time Elsie the Lion's site was marked out, among other things as necessary, are all run through the hopper before a preliminary route is bracketed in. Floods are only one small bit of the routing and site study. It's all loaded up into GIS program for delineation and as backup data for the selected route. In the end, we know the location of everything, past, present and future.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[Oops409]

I can see pipelines would want to ensure most survivable route, from a profit and safety motivation. Then there is all the political/human/local burden thrown in the pot to stir, which eliminates logical routes as acceptable to every faction.

Pipelines appear to be a more efficient and safe solution than trains and trucks to haul and distribute energy. Especially after all the hoops required vs trains and trucks operating around dense populations.

Only flaw is single point failures, but that can be mitigated with sufficent planning, maintenance and stocking of repair parts.

 

[TugboatEng]

J/m2 or Btu/ft2 does not need a time unit. It is a quantity of heat in storage per square foot.

You can't store energy in something that has no volume or mass...

 

[1503-44]

Correct. It is the safest.

Costs
I've typically seen Cost factors of
Marine Tanker/barge Shiping Cost factor 1-2
Pipeline Shiping Cost factor 4-6, higher in remote locations, or for heavy oil
Rail Tank Shipping Cost factor 10-15
Truck Shipping Cost factor 15-20

Safety Ranking 1 to 10
I'm Guessing a bit here ...
and excluding natgas distribution systems
Pipeline 9-10
Marine Tanker 6-8
Rail Tank 3-5
Road Tanker 1-2

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[1503-44]

"You can't store energy in something that has no volume or mass."
It's just potential energy. You do not need volume to quantify potential energy.
Ft/lbs, Nm, Btu, J, psi (pressure potential energy), none have volume. I don't care where you store it, can, ocean, or as gasoline.

It's like a can of pressured gas. I can consider it as potential energy stored in a can by some finite volume of pressured gas in units of energy density of pounds/can, or pounds/in3 as you want to do, or if I like, I can ignore the volume of the can and consider it simply as potential energy stored on the inside surface area of the can, pounds/total surface area, or do the division and psi results. Now I have the relative amount of energy contained within the can in terms of psi. When all you have is a pressure gage, everything gets a pressure reading.



--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[TugboatEng]

PSI is not a unit of energy.

Volume and mass can be used interchangeably if you make some assumptions about density.

In your pressurized cylinder case you have a known mass. That's how you can calculate the energy from a force and area.

This is wild. This is such a basic engineering concept yet some are so biased by politics that they're wilfully misunderstanding this basic concept in order to preserve a narrative.

 

[Oops409]

Description of Sea Surface Temperature:
Sea surface temperature (SST) is defined as the temperature of the top few millimeters of the ocean.

http://ecowatch.noaa.gov/thematic/sea-surface-temperature

Sea surface temperature (or ocean surface temperature) is the temperature of ocean water close to the surface. The exact meaning of surface varies in the literature and in practice. It is usually between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_surface_temperature

The definition of sea surface temperature varies a lot depending on the source. Both definitions indicates a point somewhere in varying volume of water. Which is misleading. It you measured surface temp of land at up to 70' depth, you get inaccurate readings for surface temp.

 

[1503-44]

Not that it matters to energy content being quantified on a per volume or per surface area. I agree PSI is not exactly Energy, but the two are connected through the concept of being able to do work.

The important point is that energy can be quantified on a volume basis, or on a surface area basis. Volume works in a 3D coordinate system, but that can be projected onto a 2D coordinate system. A topographic map does exactly that to represent terrain elevations in 2D. Its just a convention. Both show the same information. Why does that not work for Energy?

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[1503-44]

NASA 2min hurricane heat engine video

https://youtu.be/1p-3YYYivIQ

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[TugboatEng]

By that logic one could quantify elevation by declaring feet/foot². I guess you get feet as a result but it has no meaning.

A topographic map has contour lines which have a height value. A topographic map is 3 dimensional: length, width, and height.