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Stormchaser Andy Gabrielson 1987 – 2012
By Matt DanielFEB 06, 2012 Andy Gabrielson, founder of FindTheTornado.com, passed away Saturday, February 4, 2012 in a car accident near Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was hit in a head-on collision due to a wrong-way driver near the town of Sapulpa. The accident directly killed Andy and one other person. Four total cars were involved in the accident, which was caused by a drunken driver behind the wheel. Andy Gabrielson was known for his amazing footage documenting severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. His dedication and passion for storms was evident as he continuously provided the National Weather Service valuable information that helped save many lives. The entire meteorology community is saddened to hear about the passing of Andy Gabrielson. Although I have never met Andy personally, I really admire his work
A Vision Of The Future
Just a A Vision Of The Future… I believe the future belongs to those who develop Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors and Electric Vehicles. Yes, you can quote me on that. As I write this, there is a movement out there to bring to light a technology developed many years ago. Known as LFTR (pronounced “lifter”), the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is a form of Molten Salt Reactor that uses the radioactive element Thorium as its primary fuel. As I’ve discussed in a previous article it’s a much safer, cleaner and cheaper form of nuclear power that really should have been the direction the world headed in when developing nuclear power as the way to generate electricity. I won’t go into all of the details because there is a
Announcing First Nationwide EAS Test
Posted by: Damon Penn, Assistant Administrator, National Continuity Programs As we often say here at FEMA, it’s critical that all members of the team, whether its federal, state, local and tribal governments, or the public, have an emergency communications plan. Knowing how you would get in touch with the residents in your communities, or your loved ones, is a key part of how we all can prepare for disasters, both natural and man-made. One of the most important communications tools that helps federal, state, local, territorial and tribal authorities issue emergency information and warnings to the public is the Emergency Alert System. This system is frequently used and tested at the local level, but to date it has never been tested on the national level. Chances are you have
Pot-In-Pot Evaporative Refrigerator
The Pot-In-Pot Evaporative Refrigerator or “Zeer Pot” is an astoundingly simple but effective device. The refrigerator consists of two ceramic pots of different sizes, sand, water and a towel or cloth. It cools the inner chamber and its contents using evaporative cooling, much like a swamp cooler. Constructing the pot-in-pot refrigerator is an easy process. Obtain two ceramic flower pots, one large and one the next size down, so they nest one inside the other with a gap between them. If there are holes in the pots, cover them with duct tape or fill the holes in with putty so that no sand or water escapes out the bottom of the large pot, or enters the smaller pot. Pour a layer of sand in the larger pot. Set
Cooking By Accident
This is Cooking By Accident. So I decided to cook a roast in the crock pot. During my trip to the store this week I picked up a pot roast, some onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom soup and some egg noodles. It sounded like a good combination in my head. I sliced up the roast into smaller chunks and threw them in the crock pot. Added one of the two packets of onion soup mix and filled the crock pot with water til it covered the meat. Cranked it up to high and let it cook for about 5 hours or so. When the meat was tender, I tossed in a bag of egg noodles and added some water to cover the noodles. When
Welcome To The All New Mindless Dreck!
Announcing the new and improved Mindless Dreck! After realizing the title of this blog should be more prominent, I’ve decided to go ahead and secure the domain and move the site. DrRighteous.net is now mindlessdreck.com! I’ll be keeping the old domain, but it now redirects to this one. This is one of many recent improvements I’ve made to this site. Having recently discovered a lot of the (relatively) new WordPress features and excellent plugins. You could say this place has had a complete makeover. If you’d like me to do some of this work for you, or set up a complete site, feel free to contact me.
Free Cell Phone Service On Android Over WIFI
Free cell phone service. Now there’s a statement that will pique anyone’s curiosity. But if you have an Android phone that can use WIFI connections, whether currently active or not, you can make and receive free phone calls and text messages. The first thing you’re going to need is a Google Voice account. Google Voice gives you a phone number that can be forwarded to one or many different phones. If the phone you’re forwarding to can handle text messages, you can forward those to it as well. If it’s a smartphone, like an Android, you can also install the Google Voice app, which can replace your voice mail, send and receive texts and so on. This is half of what you will need to get free cell phone
What do the Sirens Mean?
Tornado sirens, civil defense sirens, outdoor warning sirens, call them what you will. What to the sirens mean when they sound? What’s going on? What should I do when I hear them? Editor’s Note: If you’re reading this while hearing an Outdoor Warning Siren going off… STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND SEEK SHELTER RIGHT NOW! Your life is in danger! I’ve lived all over the country in my lifetime. I’ve lived in many different states and cities. I have yet to come across a single city that goes out of its way to inform its citizens of how to respond to outdoor warning sirens. It’s also quite rare for a city to operate them properly. You see, the original purpose of an outdoor warning siren was to warn
Re: ‘UNSURVIVABLE!’ New tornado warnings aim to scare
The National Weather Service seems to believe there is a way to fix stupid. According to this article by the AP: In a test that starts Monday, five weather service offices in Kansas and Missouri will use words such as “mass devastation,” ”unsurvivable” and “catastrophic” in a new kind of warning that’s based on the severity of a storm’s expected impact. The goal is to more effectively communicate the dangers of an approaching storm so people understand the risks they’re about to face. The problem is, not every tornado warned storm actually produces a tornado. In fact, the majority of warned storms do not. This causes the stupid in our society to become complacent and simply ignore the warnings. “We’d like to think that as soon as we say
Storm Chasers as Rockettes
I’m watching the weather today since severe storms are in the forecast. TornadoVideos.Net’s Dominator is currently in Fort Worth, getting into position as are quite a few other storm chasers. I got a good laugh looking at imap.tv, seeing the storm chasers all lined up along I-35 like Rockettes!
One More Bad Bomb Shelter
One of the things that annoys me the most in this world is the general population’s lack of knowledge when it comes to bomb shelters, fallout and radiation. For the most part, people don’t even want to know about. It scares them. Most people take the view of the ignorant woman from The Atomic Cafe who said: “I wouldn’t worry near as much about the atom bomb if it were to kill you right out. What scares me is that awful gas that deforms ya.” This statement makes me laugh uncontrollably every time I hear it. But then, I know better. Unlike the bulk of my fellow citizens, I know radiation is not some spooky gas. I know the different forms of radiation. I know the radiation types
Tiny Prefab Free Plans
Michael Janzen at Tiny House Design re-released his free Tiny Prefab plans in the wake of the recent tornado outbreak. Here’s what he had to say along with the link to download the plans… The storms raging across the eastern United States are a terrible reminder of nature’s power – and how our homes are not always up to the task of shielding us to the level we need. I imagine most folks are busy preparing for storms to hit while some are already working hard to pick up the pieces. Hang in there folks. Our prayers are with you. Back in 2009 I drew up a set of free plans for a do-it-yourself prefab shelter. The plans can help you build structures that measure 8×8, 8×12, 8×16, 8×20, etc.