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Disaster Recovery
Aug. 1st, 2007 11:37 pmJust yesterday, in a city about an hour north of Sacramento, an overpass collapsed (new construction) on a Fedex truck. The driver was only minorly injured, thank goodness. A construction worker was seriously injured. As far as tragedies go, this was a very fortunate one. Because the next day, in a shining example of the "It could be worse" doctrine, a bridge in Minneapolis collapses.
I was relieved to find that my friends in Minnesota were not involved in this tragedy. I certainly hope that the death toll doesn't rise any further. It was, however, convenient that the Red Cross offices were near the bridge. Talk about response time!
Despite my horror and concern for the victims in this situation, I cannot deny that I smirked when the civil engineer interviewed on MSNBC kept talking about the erection process. I wonder if there's some competition among engineers that if they are interviewed about bridges, they must try to mention the "erection process" as often as possible.
In other news, I was watching Apollo 13, which dramatizes how the Apollo 13 crew and mission control rose to the occasion and recovered from what could have been a very disasterous flight for the crew. Power issues, crew safety, Carbon dioxide filter made on the fly, they had quite a problem on their hands and they succesfully brought the crew home. I love this movie.
I started listening to the commentary of Jim and Marilyn Lovell (Jim Lovell was the command module leader). They sound like a delightful couple. I don't know if Jim Lovell's mother actually said this, but if she did, it's a great line: "If they can make a washing machine fly, my Jimmy can land it." What a cool ol' lady.
I was relieved to find that my friends in Minnesota were not involved in this tragedy. I certainly hope that the death toll doesn't rise any further. It was, however, convenient that the Red Cross offices were near the bridge. Talk about response time!
Despite my horror and concern for the victims in this situation, I cannot deny that I smirked when the civil engineer interviewed on MSNBC kept talking about the erection process. I wonder if there's some competition among engineers that if they are interviewed about bridges, they must try to mention the "erection process" as often as possible.
In other news, I was watching Apollo 13, which dramatizes how the Apollo 13 crew and mission control rose to the occasion and recovered from what could have been a very disasterous flight for the crew. Power issues, crew safety, Carbon dioxide filter made on the fly, they had quite a problem on their hands and they succesfully brought the crew home. I love this movie.
I started listening to the commentary of Jim and Marilyn Lovell (Jim Lovell was the command module leader). They sound like a delightful couple. I don't know if Jim Lovell's mother actually said this, but if she did, it's a great line: "If they can make a washing machine fly, my Jimmy can land it." What a cool ol' lady.
