National Guard to evacuate people in St. Louis

[Roon]

ST. LOUIS - The governor sent in the National Guard to evacuate people from their sweltering homes and utility crews raced to restore electricity Thursday after storms knocked out power to nearly 500,000 St. Louis-area homes and businesses in the middle of a searing heat wave that has killed at least 17 people across the country.

With forecasters expecting another day of 100-degree heat, Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency and granted the mayor’s request to send in 250 troops to transport people from hot homes to cooling centers, and to clear debris.

Police used public-address speakers from their squad cars to announce locations of cooling centers. Volunteers went door to door checking on people without power to run air conditioners.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13954663/

[Broken_Hero]

1. Damn

I hope things turn out for the best, for my fellow Missouri residents...

[Joanne98]

2. Why don't people just sit in the bathtub. Or the shower.

Or the hose, for Christ's sake.

[Minnesota Libra]

5. Because without electricity people probably............

....only have ice cold water. For me that would spell relief but it might also be too much of a shock to an overheated body. I don't know for sure but that's just a guess.

[cornermouse]

7. Maybe because the elderly don't always realize that they've

gotten hot enough to become very very ill? They have the same problem with cold temperatures as well. Where's your sense of mercy and compassion?

[oscar111]

26. some live alone and are a bit dotty, No one helps them

since the government has cut funds for so many

[oscar111]

8. doesnt allow them to do chores, if in tub

they have much to do every day.

If they sat in the tub every hot day, all day, no chores done. Heat is hard on the elderly even when there is no crises in the news.

I doubt also, if they can sleep in a shower/tub. Would you try that on a regular basis all summer?

ac is the only answer.

Now, where is that Ignore Button? ah, here it is.

[enough]

9. I assume you are joking.

Without electricity, people don't have ANY running water, let alone refrigeration for ice or cold water. Pumps run on electricity.
A small number of people have generators, but they run on gas, and you usually don't run them full time.

Maybe I'm a bit testy. We've been without power for the last two days, as have my elderly parents and parents in law. The one thing we miss most is running water.

[oscar111]

10. TIP: help your a/c with tube to bed, under covers

Helps two ways:
If your ac is small, and cant cope with hi heat outside, this will make it able to cool you even then.

TWO; Help your ac to cool you with less wear and tear on the machine.
===================================================

Run an eight inch diameter tube from the outflow grille of the ac, to your bed. Cool you, not the whole room.

Put the tube end between the sheet and blanket/spread. The trick is to get it to cool you with no freezing spots. Use big boxes between the sheet and spread, to help get even cooling. Use towels to cover any overcool flesh areas.

Make the connection of tube and AC grille a loose one, at an angle. You will close the bed end of the tube at midnight to modify cooling amount, and you dont want to close off part of the grille, which would strain the fan. AND, be sure the tube only couples with one fifth of the grille. A loose coupling , as i have said, also.

To save the ac during the day, use a jumpsuit with a long thin tube to the grille. Cool you, not the room. Be careful, i have not tried this. Watch for overheating, i dont know if jumpsuit works well. But i have tried the bed idea, it works.

[SoCalDem]

33. all our services are connected..we found that out one winter

an ice storm knocked down power lines, and we had

well water (electric pump)
gas furnace (electric starter)
electric stove

I had to go to work with my husband (me and my little doggie) and sit in a conference room all day.. for FOUR days.. It was 48 degrees inside our house..

We lived in a concrete block house (with brick veneer)with apparently little or no insulation..

[Lisa]

21. some high rises can't pump water to the upper floors, without power

In Toronto during the big blackout a while back, they had to evacuate some seniors' apartment buildings because no water at all was available.

[Posteritatis]

32. Let them eat cake! (n/t)

[jus_the_facts]

3. Holy CRAP...hope all will be okay up there..especially DU'er Gumbo Ya Ya.

..and his family. :(

[oscar111]

4. a/c's to all elderly, i say

do we just watch them die? five hundred died in chicago in 'ninety five. Refigerator trucks to store the morgue overflow. A little late for the cool air, eh? Dark humor, for sure.

thirty five thousand in Europe, about four years ago.

are we humans or not? are we cave-apes?

BTW, EUROPEAN electric, mostly state owned, has spent profits on putting wires UNDERGROUND where storms dont knock them down. Here, tycoons take profits for luxuries, and leave our wires at risk. This crisis in Kansas need not have even happened.

[brmdp3123]

6. Kansas?

Did St. Louis move?

[Turbineguy]

11. Hot ship's engineroom cure

In the Red Sea the temperature would reach 128 F.

Put an icecube in a washcloth on the wrist. Cools you down, no shock to the system.

[oscar111]

12. Healthy , yes. Bad circulation, i wonder if it would help much

thanks for the idea.

but i wonder if the elderly would benefit... blood not circulate well. Circulation , fast, is key to your idea.

but worth a try, thanks.

PS one thirty eight is the temp at which all cell processes stop.

[Turbineguy]

15. I have tried other places

(like the arteries in my neck) and was uncomfortable. Perhaps a little experimentation.

[oscar111]

17. dup

dup

[karlrschneider]

18. I don't think any 300 BTU a/c has ever really been manufactured

except maybe to cool the CPU in a computer. But batteries are DC so they would have to be hooked up to an inverter. It would take a dozen lead-acid batteries to run even a small AC for more than a few minutes.

[oscar111]

13. RECOMMEND button is at bottom of orig post. Please click it

.....

[oscar111]

14. ARTIFICIAL CLOUDs faster than KYOTO.

google "orbiting sunshade" for CBS PAGE reporting on many ideas that are faster than slow to never Kyoto idea.

I wish kyoto would work, but we need some other ways, faster and surer ways too. Use kyoto and clouds both, i say. Dont fixate on just kyoto .

[bullimiami]

16. cooling centers?

[Lisa]

22. buildings with air conditioning

Could be a shopping mall or community centre -- with enough water, bathroom facilities, etc. to accommodate a fair number of people. If the power's out there, generators can be brought in to run the air conditioning systems and lower the temperature to a comfortable level. Invalids, the elderly, and young children may have to spend extended periods of time there, but healthy adults will generally be okay if their body temperatures can return to normal for even a few hours.



(The same situation can apply in the winter, to neighborhoods which have lost power or access to fuel trucks, only they would be warming centers ...)

http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000721&tid=001
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/06/11/heat-050611.html

[Sal Minella]

23. Heat index was 114 here (Iowa) it was just too hot & humid to even

consider getting dressed, getting into hot car & driving anywhere, "cooling center" or anywhere else. This is the first year I've had two decent-sized fans running in the living room and that does help keep humidity down.

My neighbor dreading her electric bill -- they will manage to jack up the rates because of high demand, no doubt. All carefully planned by Mr. Cheney's SuperSecret Energy Plan Cabal.

[oneold1-4u]

19. Being over 50

Have lived many years without AC and more than most people, without even electricity. I wasn't in a city and would never want to be stuck in one.
I have had to wet towels to be able to sleep so could work during day with wet towel over shoulders. People do live with nature all over the world. If one can't then they must put up with modern extremes of man's errors.

[oscar111]

24. I say, dont put up with errors, supply the ac to those who need it

ac exists, it should be used for the elderly who are frail.

I would not condemn them to living with nature. Nature is cruel, i am not.

[City Lights]

20. We're heading down there tomorrow to visit my SIL and her family.

They are still without power, and the heat index was at 111 today.

[oscar111]

25. kik

kik

[oscar111]

27. kik

kik

[oscar111]

28. kik

kik

[deadparrot]

29. As a St. Louisan,

I can report that they're telling us it could be 10-11 days before everyone's power returns.

Ours was out from Wednesday to yesterday morning.

[lovuian]

30. My Dad and Mom's are going on 4days

There are in a hotel but I don't think they understand what is going on...

they keep thinking its coming on tommorrow...

Lucky that my brother is there...

[deadparrot]

31. Luckily,

all my elderly grandparents didn't lose theirs for long (or at all). Best wishes to your family. :hi:

[oscar111]

34. kik

kik

[oscar111]

35. kik

kik