Earthquake?

Almost forgot, the worst earthquake I experienced was during "high tea" in the lounge (26th floor) at the Sheraton Boston (in the Sheraton Towers). We were sitting next to the window enjoying the view of the Charles River and the PRC, when suddenly I felt like a drunk sitting in a three-legged chair. When I looked up and saw the chandelier swaying I knew we were in trouble. One of the hostesses went crazy, running in and yelling "earthquake". Until that happened we didn't really realize what was happening. She was from CA and had lived thru many of them, so she did the stand in doorway routine until things settled down.
 
Well like I say, I've missed them all until today. My wife thinks I'm nuts about seeing a Tornado and thinks even worse that I'd really like to feel like 7 earthquake. Like standing out in the desert and feel the ground move like that and know that you can't do anything about it. Now I want everyone to understand that I'm not hoping for something like that, I just want to experience it.
I still can't get over the noise that this thing made today. Nature truly is awesome.
By the way, I do not like amusement rides.
 
Jon you should live on the west coast for awhile,you will definately feel one. Been there done that,you are more than welcome to it. [lol]
 
The nuke plant is no big deal, they are designed to withstand a lot more than this! I know since I was involved in the design of nuclear power plants back in the late 1970s.

If the mismanagement hasn't caused a melt-down yet, a little earthquake certainly won't do it! The real hazard there is the 2-legged variety who didn't take their jobs seriously. Hope it has changed, but I have my doubts.
 
LenS said:
The nuke plant is no big deal, they are designed to withstand a lot more than this! I know since I was involved in the design of nuclear power plants back in the late 1970s.

If the mismanagement hasn't caused a melt-down yet, a little earthquake certainly won't do it! The real hazard there is the 2-legged variety who didn't take their jobs seriously. Hope it has changed, but I have my doubts.
Click to expand...

I know Len, I was just taking advantage of the situation to poke some fun. I loved taking the tour of the insides when they used to offer it to us. The part that killed me were the low spots in the floor that were marked "Do Not Step". Someone said they were hot spots on the floor from leaks.
Urban Legend?
 
[quote="JonJ
I know Len, I was just taking advantage of the situation to poke some fun. I loved taking the tour of the insides when they used to offer it to us. The part that killed me were the low spots in the floor that were marked "Do Not Step". Someone said they were hot spots on the floor from leaks.
Urban Legend?[/quote]

Jon,

NO it is NOT an "urban legend"! Pilgrim had hot (radioactive contamination) spots all over the place. That place scared the shit out of me when I took my tour in 1979. The guy from ADT (the tour was related to the plant putting a fire protection system in place) was scared beyond belief.

I did notice a "glow" about you when we met in Plymouth!

I used to crawl on top of hot (meaning that the area reached ~120-130F)reactors in subs that had just been shut down, I could have eaten off the floor at Yankee Rowe (where I did a lot of work) or Vermont Yankee (one trip I made in 1979) in comparison.

After Three Mile Island's disaster, the NRC made a public statement that some utilities had no business in the nuclear industry. Boston Edison (Pilgrim's owner back then) definitely fit this comment!

So the only place that I have seen that really concerned me is Pilgrim and it is totally a mis-management issue. An old high school and college (casual) friend was once plant manager at Pilgrim. When I railed at him about what I saw and where I attributed blame, he confided in me that I was absolutely dead on! Seriously scary stuff.
 
Len, you ever see Seabrook? I knew a guy who was involved in it's construction - he was a supervisor. He told me stories that really made me worry about it.
 
All this talk of reactors:

A year or three before I was born, my folks lived within eyeshot of 3MI. I mean real close. My mom was pregnant with my sister and she moved out when the first warnings went out... so my dad was left to pack what they wanted into the pickup and wait for the Siren. Apparently he and some guys from the neighborhood just parked their trucks in the street, sat in the back of one and waited.

He said it was so still and eerie, waiting for that signal.

They still have the evacuation notice somewhere. He always remarks how it's odd the things you'd salvage if given a heads up. He got the dog, tax papers, and family photo albums. Everything else was staying!
 
That had to be a scary feeling... I saw a show on it (History Channel, I think, or it might have been Discovery) that said it was a hell of a lot worse that what was let out to the public.
 
Coyote33 said:
Not that this (also) has to do with earthquakes, but...

Check this out:
Ghost Town
Click to expand...
That's some site.
I saw something on the Discovery channel a couple of years ago. It had to do with the Chernobyl area. They studied the mice there and the effects of the radiation on them. Mice have shorted "generations" and it made it easier to follow those effects.
 
I think I saw that one too, Jon. I don't know...I don't believe that I'd take a ride up there...granted open roads are nice, but...
 
Let's see:

I was in the Control Room at Yankee Rowe when TMI went down. Our Reactor Control Operators were on the phone with the RCOs at TMI during the incident. The guys at TMI were totally clueless.

Before the alarm was sounded at TMI, a tremendous amount of radiation escaped the containment area!

A week after TMI went down, the access roads in/out of TMI were NOT secured.

Yankee Atomic Electric Company (YAEC) sent a team down to TMI to help them out. When they got back, they brought back movie and still footage of what happened and we had a lengthy briefing about it. It was a lot scarier than the public was ever told!

When I worked for GD/EB, I ended up working on the engineering planning for an overhaul of the USS Nautilus SSN-571 (1st nuclear sub). They had serious problems on board, much of it mis-management issues as well. There were irradiated cockroaches all over the ship, most were >3" long and the sailors had made them into "pets"!! Sick. The only time I ever stepped foot on that boat in the shipyard was after an incident that brought Adm. Rickover up from DC to investigate and I knew that it would have been politically unacceptable for me to only do my job from my armchair! Scary place! I've been aboard her since she was made into a floating museum at the US Navy Base, but they did clean her up quite a bit for the tourists.
 
Len, us Gi's have very warped minds sometimes,and making pets out of cockroaches doesn't surprise me. Can't tell you all the things my brother told about the scorpions they'd catch on the runways,and various things they'd do when he was in.
I also worked with a bunch of mechs and alot of times I'd stay in my cubby hole and just shake my head.
 
MrsWildweasel said:
Len, us Gi's have very warped minds sometimes,and making pets out of cockroaches doesn't surprise me. Can't tell you all the things my brother told about the scorpions they'd catch on the runways,and various things they'd do when he was in.
I also worked with a bunch of mechs and alot of times I'd stay in my cubby hole and just shake my head.
Click to expand...


I remember giving a live scorpion (in a jar) to my landlady while I was stationed at Ft Bliss (El Paso, TX). She wouldn't do anything about the infestation we had outside our apartments, well, she did get the place treated after getting the scorpion.
 
dwarven1 said:
Coyote33 said:
Not that this (also) has to do with earthquakes, but...

Check this out:
Ghost Town
Click to expand...

Thanks, Coyote33. I'd been looking for that site to show some friends of mine. Saw it a year or two ago and didn't save the link.
Click to expand...

No problem! I found it by searching on Google.

Try a search on Chernobyl motorcycle and this is what you get:

Web


I notice one link which says it was a hoax. The first link seems different than the one I posted, which I had somewhere.
 
My God! From that site:

"Work on the roof was the shortest job of all, and lasted only two minutes. Many soldiers were offered a choice of how to fulfill the tour of duty requirement that was necessary for their retirement from Army. One lasted two years in a hellish rain of bullets, rockets and bombs in Afghanistan, and the other lasted two minutes in a tranquil, silent and invisible rain of gamma rays on the roof of Unit # 3."



...

"Ruins of Reactor # 4

According to some estimates, 8,000 to 10,000 Liquidators died from the deadly radioactivity that flooded from the Chernobyl Power Plant. The official death toll does not even recognize them as casualties of the Chernobyl disaster, because they did not die on the spot.

Those brave patriots, and many others, laid down their lives for their countrymen and for the State, but the Glorious Soviet Union not only refused to honor them - but would not even bother to count them among the dead.

Thanks to their valiant sacrifice, countless lives were saved, and not just here, but probably across all of Eastern Europe."
Click to expand...
 
Coyote33 said:
I notice one link which says it was a hoax. The first link seems different than the one I posted, which I had somewhere.
Click to expand...

I read that, too. Either way, though... the pictures are amazing. Looks like something out of Mad Max or Damnation Alley... except that this is for real.
 

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