Tenochtitlan

I don’t want to get too into my views on abortion either, so I’ll just say that sexual assault is sadly all too common (as are medical complications from birth) and that is partly what informs my being pro choice. But I do believe we need to have clear guidelines around how many weeks is the cutoff in a given situation. I can see where you’re coming from about that type of hypocrisy. And yeah I do think it’s odd to brush aside the draft as not affecting anyone, like you said there could be another draft tomorrow and then me and my brother would have to go to war. I took a class in college about veterans and later did some volunteering for a pro-peace nonprofit, so even though I think there are times war is necessary I take things like PTSD from war really seriously and don’t want anyone to have to fight unless it’s absolutely necessary…and that burden historically has fallen on men. That’s what I’ve been trying to get at in past discussions here, is that rigid gender roles are hard on everyone. For all the 1950s fantasy that some conservatives have about men and women, the reality is not so fun.

And there are still nearly 300 people missing from Helene.

Wiki says 16. But yeah, Florida escaped the worst-case scenarios here. This was no Phoenix storm (the Cat 5 disaster simulation for Tampa).

It’s cloudy here but the clouds look a bit colorful on my phone.

Yeah…I want women to have access to reproductive care (including abortions, with all the caveats there about trimesters etc). And wanting that doesn’t preclude recognizing there are some ways that men have it tough, too. Another thing I think is often overlooked is that the most dangerous industries tend to be dominated by men.

Photo of the Tampa Bay Times building after a crane collapsed into it during a strong gust.

I’m still so happy with the May aurora, I won’t mind if I can’t see this one. Seeing the northern lights in downtown Portland must be a once in twenty years type of event.

Dang, Kamala didn’t come across so well in that interview. Her confidence sounds shaken, completely different from the debate. She gives some vague non-answers. It seems people are hungry for concrete solutions and plans, which she’s a bit short on. I wish Gov. Whitmer were the Democrat candidate. I’m voting for Kamala, but she needs to be way more direct, to the point and assertive than she was there to convince undecided voters.

I actually tend to agree with the draft thing. How is it fair to only draft one gender and not the other? I mean, ideally we wouldn’t ever need a draft again, but it could happen again. It’s hard to argue the burden of PTSD from war hasn’t fallen mostly on men in this country over the past century.

They’re saying it might snow two feet in Shawnigan Lake.

One thing is it seems like powerful hurricane landfalls are more common nowadays. Over the past decade, we have seen many more hurricanes that intensify up to landfall than we used to. The three strongest landfalling tropical cyclones by windspeed have all been in the past 11 years (typhoons Meranti, Haiyan, and Goni).

45 at the closest station to me (Lloyd Center). Starting to get autumnal!

It’s inspiring reading the Asheville subreddit. Lots of community supporting community, and they‘re already rebuilding the damaged/destroyed water lines!

Apparently it was made of fiberglass. But yeah they should have made it able to withstand 80-90 mph gusts. Edit: not just fiberglass, but Teflon-coated fiberglass! It was supposedly rated for 110 mph, but it must have degraded over time or not been built well in the first place.

Wow, yeah that’s quite the mess. I also saw that the roof of the Tropicana stadium in Tampa was completely ripped off.

Wow, those are some incredibly cold waters for 40 N in early October. 50 degrees??

People on American Weather Forums are making the argument that Milton caused the most intense tornado outbreak ever in terms of tornadoes/area in a short amount of time. One poster’s account of the day: ”Unfortunately I happened to be right in the middle of it yesterday as I evacuated from my home in St Pete and drove my family across to Stuart on the east coast. A three and a half hour drive turned into a 7-hour drive of dodging tornadoes. Our phones were buzzing constantly with tornado warnings, we came upon fresh tornado damage in multiple locations, saw home debris falling from the sky 100 yards from our car, power poles snapped in half laying on the highway, demolished homes, a destroyed gas station, etc. Felt like I was in the movie twister, it was absolutely insane.”

Probably most do, but I’ve seen plenty of comments on Reddit from those who don’t (or didn’t).

Yeah, exactly. A lot of wind damage, but the surge in Tampa itself was nowhere near what was initially feared. Hopefully Milton and Helene have been wake-up calls for Tampans, and more people will take future hurricane threats there seriously.

Overall my hunch is Milton was about as bad as Irma in Florida. Tampa escaped the worst-case scenario yet again, but surge got fairly bad to the south and there’s plenty of downed trees and wind damage to go around, not to mention the tornadoes. Power outages are up to 2.8 million.

Whoa! Tampa is getting hit hard by these sting jet winds.

I see the Sarasota airport had a gust of 102. Take that, Helene!

Extreme wind warning in Tampa and Sarasota. Those wind gusts of 90+ are no joke!

Just saw a video of a wedge tornado ripping through a subdivision. Crazy stuff for Florida.

My mom remembers how when she was a kid during the Columbus Day storm, she watched the windows of my grandparents’ house bending in and out in the wind. They lived in NE Seattle at the time. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and it makes me think the gusts in that part of Seattle must have been at least 70-80 mph.