Since the high-tech manufacturing industry deals with a bunch of caustic chemicals, it’s a wonder we don’t hear of more accidents such as an explosion that occurred Tuesday at a Chandler, Ariz. Intel plant, hospitalizing four workers, one who suffered serious but non life-threatening injuries. [More]
disasters
Design A Safety Map To Plan For Disaster
By 5.21.11
There’s a reason your office building probably has a fire evacuation map posted on a wall. When things get crazy, it’s best to have a plan in place for how to react, and a map with a rendezvous point for friends and loved ones could prove invaluable during earthquakes, fires and floods — not to mention the apocalypse. [More]
FEMA Tries To Get Back Mistaken Payments To Disaster Victims
By 5.12.11
Deciding it had been a bit too generous when dishing out disaster aid, FEMA is going around asking for refunds of mistaken payments. Letters demanding repayment within 30 days are coming as a shock to disaster victims who say they needed the money to get back on track and no longer have it. [More]
Create An Emergency Kit For Your Pet
By 5.4.11
If you had to leave your home on short notice due to a natural disaster or other emergency, would you have a bag of emergency supplies ready to go? While adults and older children can handle packing their own bags in a hurry, members of your family who don’t have opposable thumbs can’t. [More]
Just How Much BP Oil Is Left In The Marshes?
By 4.28.11
On the one-year anniversary of the catastrophic BP oil spill in the gulf, scientists are still struggling to figure out just how much oil is in the marshes. This excellent New York Times video explores their challenges, not the least of which is the inherent complexity of determining the damage to a vast and vibrant ecosystem. One group of researchers, for example, are guesstimating the number of bird deaths by taking bird carcasses out to sea, dropping them in, and seeing how many wash ashore. [More]
Get Your Tornado Insurance Settlement Check Fast
By 4.19.11
With more tornadoes on the way tonight after last weekend’s deadly twisters that killed 45 and left hundreds of homes damaged and destroyed, it’s important to have your ducks in a row to get your tornado insurance claim check issued quickly should disaster strike. After you shake off the daze and dust from the destruction, what do you do to get your cash fast and get on the road to repair and recovery? [More]
Sony Exec Says Earthquake May Alter Portable Machine Release, Spokesman Says It Won't
By 4.8.11
Sony, which plans to release a follow-up to the PSP (codename: NGP) near the end of the year, has its wires crossed over whether or not last month’s earthquake and tsunami will affect the product’s launch. [More]
Transocean Apologizes For Calling 2010 "Best Year" Ever In Safety
By 4.4.11
The owner of the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf issued an apology after calling 2010 its “best year” ever in safety. Transocean did not comment on the safety bonuses it awarded top execs for meeting and exceeding internal safety goals, even considering the disaster at the rig run by BP resulting in 11 workers dead and 200 million gallons of oil spilled. [More]
Red Cross Sits On $1 Billion Collected For Japan Disaster Victims
By 4.4.11
For those who have cut the Red Cross checks to aid victims of the earthquake in Japan, that warm assurance that they’ve done something to help out may be premature. [More]
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dead Anchovies Clog California Harbor
By 3.9.11
A huge fish kill in King Harbor Marina near Redondo Beach, Calif. resulted in the water there was filled with hundreds of thousands of dead anchovies. Hours after the workers were still busy scooping out the stinky lil guys. [More]
Cable Co. RCN Tried To Bill Fire Victims For Incinerated Cable Boxes
By 2.17.11
A family in Allentown, PA was lucky to escape with their lives after a natural gas explosion destroyed their block and took five of their neighbor’s souls. Then their cable company RCN told them they would have to pay $170 a pop for the cable boxes that were destroyed in the fire. [More]
9 Things We Wished We Did Before Our House Burned Down
By 1.28.11
This pictures is of Melanie’s house as it burns to the ground within 60 minutes. It was a fixer-upper she and her husband had poured their savings and souls into with all sorts of DIY projects, and they and their two-and-half year-old son escaped it becoming their pyre by only minutes and with only the clothes on their backs. These are 9 things she wished beforehand, now that she is wrestling with insurance and filing claims: [More]
So Whatever Happened To All That Oil Spilled In The Gulf Anyway?
By 1.4.11
Remember all that oil that BP spilled into the Gulf this summer? Whatever became of it? Well, good news. Bacteria ate most of it, reports Slate, and the other stuff was skimmed back up, evaporated, burned off, or it got diluted out into the seas. [More]
VIDEO: Sonic Drive-Thru Gets Eaten By A Massive Sinkhole
By 8.26.10
Ever wonder what it would be like if the ground opened up and swallowed a Sonic whole? Well the people of Cleveland, GA, almost got to see just that when much of their local fast food joint — along with the parking lot of the neighboring car wash — sunk several feet into the earth earlier this week. [More]
BP Says Well Is Plugged, Report Says 3/4 Of Oil Gone
By 8.4.10
BP says that they have stoppered up the well leaking in the Gulf of Mexico. They have filled the well up with mud and reached the desired pressure, they say, a maneuver known as “Static Kill.” [More]
BP Took 79 Days To Do Fix Citizen Sent Them On Day 6
By 7.14.10
A reader claims he emailed BP and the White House on April 28th with the very method put into place to seal the gushing oil well on July 10th, and all he ever got back were boilerplate form letter replies. [More]
BP To Test New Cap
By 7.13.10
BP has attached a new, snugger cap – with the cheery moniker of “Top Hat 10 – on the gushing Gulf well and will soon begin tests to see if they didn’t cock things up for once. [More]
BP-Hired Mercenaries Keep Reporters From Interviewing Workers
By 6.17.10
This video shows a BP-hired mercenaries working for “Talon Security” trying to keep WDSU-New Orleans reporter Scott Walker from talking to cleanup crews on a public beach. I would normally say something like, “Apparently they didn’t get the memo last week from from National Incident Commander Thad Allen and BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles that the media is to have full access to oil-affected areas and to cleanup workers,” – except that the mercs in the video are perfectly aware of the memos, and yet continue to obstruct the journalist! [More]
