From RMN http://www.rumormillnews.com
Subj: ECTV/Breaking News - Three X-Class Flares Within Last Hour
Date: 9/13/05 7:59:44 PM Mountain Daylight Time
From: newsletter@earthchangestv.com
Reply-to: earthchanges@earthlink.net
To: Sh0shanna@aol.com
September 13th 2005 7::59 PM Mountain
EARTH CHANGES TV NEWSLETTER
Three X-Class Flares Within Last Hour
by Mitch Battros – ECTV
Three more X-Class flares have fired off within a 20 minute period. They came
from sunspot region 808 formally known as 798. When sunspot regions rotate
around the backside of the Sun, and if they stay in tact, it is re-numbered as
it rotates around the eastern limb of the Sun. Hence formerly known region 798
is now region 808.
Three X-Class Flares: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5mBL.html
Kp Index: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html
Folks, I am going to do something a little different. Instead of, no, in
addition to, my ongoing postings of current events, I am going to display why we
should be concerned about this latest onslaught of back-to-back solar storms. I
write extensively about what has happened historically, and “what could be”
in my book ‘Solar Rain’.
This will be a three part article. Part I is focused on how geomagnetic
storms affect our “infrastructure” and communities. Part II will be on how
geomagnetic storms affect “humans and animals”. Part III will be on what is
happening “now”.
Part I - Geomagnetic storms and the neighborhood you live in” – The Solar
Storm that Shut Down 6 million people of Quebec, Canada
Astronomers had been tracking ‘Active Region 5395’ on the Sun when, on March
10, 1989, it suddenly belched out a huge cloud of super-hot plasma. Three
days later, residents in higher latitudes enjoyed a magnificent Northern Lights
display. Even people in Florida got to enjoy the show that had never been seen
so far south, and went to bed on the night of March 12, awed by the display.
Around March 11, 1989, as Cycle 22 was getting underway a flare erupted (see
plot of sunspot number and X-class solar flares during the last three solar
cycles). Scientists saw it 8 minutes later, but the full impact was still two
days away, and this one was headed straight towards where our planet would be by
then. Meanwhile, the residents of Quebec were still trying to get back to
normal following the worst ice-storm in Canada’s history.
At 2:44 a.m. the next morning, stray electrical currents generated by a
powerful magnetic field surged through the electrical circuits of the Hydro-Quebec
control center. Giant capacitors along the 735kV lines that had been designed
to absorb the spikes tried to regulate the current that ran 115% above normal,
but were overwhelmed. To prevent damage, automatic breakers tripped and took
them off-line. However, these had been the primary line of defense.
The entire grid was now vulnerable, and immediately things rapidly fell
apart. All five lines into Montréal tripped, and a surge in load tripped the supply
lines from the 9,450 MW generators at La Grande. This resulted in a sudden
drop in frequency, and automatic load-shedding kicked in, but compensators could
not recover from the loss of about half the system load. As each piece went
off-line, the load was offloaded onto other generating plants, which also
tripped out. Within 20 seconds, the entire Quebec power grid collapsed, too quick
for human operators to react. Of course, generators were still spinning, ready
to crank out their 21,500 MW, but they were all disconnected from those who
badly needed electrical power on a frigid Canadian morning. Their current was
going nowhere … and people shivered.
Sorting out the mess took nine hours, while most of Quebec was in darkness.
This silent disaster disrupted the lives of six million people, yet somehow the
50 million people on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. remained unaffected
thanks to some capacitors on the Allegheny Power Network that did their job. Long
term effects were costly, as the huge oil-cooled transformers that had burned
up cost millions to replace, which took months. Meanwhile Hydro-Quebec had to
reroute power, and, as it had done two months earlier, purchase more
expensive fossil fuel power from other companies.
Downed lines due to a co-existing ice storm began to black out parts of
Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec, but the affected areas quickly linked up to
form a huge area of both provinces. Pretty soon, the emergency measures unit
office at Ottawa-Carleton’s municipal headquarters began to buzz. This was turning
out to be no ordinary winter storm. Representatives from regional and local
government, hospitals, public health, police, ambulance, fire and Red Cross
assembled to closely monitor what was fast becoming a runaway situation. “No one
predicted something of this magnitude,” said Merv Beckstead,
Ottawa-Carleton’s chief administrative officer.
Stores had long since run out of heaters, fuel and generators, and with no
respite in sight, Hydro management was forecasting system-wide disruption of up
to two weeks. In hindsight, that was hopelessly optimistic. By the early hours
of Thursday, January 8, the area of devastation was still widening, and the
decision was taken to declare a state of emergency. This allowed regional
government to apply for federal and provincial financial aid and military
assistance. It also warned residents that the situation was serious and allowed for an
‘Emergency Vehicles Only’ curfew on the roads—the first time this had ever
been done in the history of a region that was used to bad weather.
The story of the Hogan family was typical. Sue Hogan awoke early in the
morning and smelled smoke. Her husband Dave went downstairs to check on the wood
and oil furnace they had been using for backup heat during the blackout. It was
ablaze, so he hollered up the stairs for everyone to get out. Their sons,
Ben, 8, Adam, 13, and Gord, 15, groggily threw on some clothes and fled outside.
The fire department could do nothing, and the Hogans watched as their home
went up in flames. Sadly, they lost their beloved pet beagle but felt fortunate
the family of five had escaped unhurt. Neighbors immediately responded with
offers of lodging, food and clothing, and Sue was amazed that the community was
so behind them. Such displays of caring were repeated all across Eastern Canada
as random acts of kindness broke out everywhere.
For example, nine-month pregnant Tasha Geymonat and her partner Jody McKellar
of Edwards were headed for Riverside Hospital at 7:32 a.m., but the icy roads
were simply too dangerous to continue, even for their Chevy Blazer. They
called the paramedics, and Marc Lafleur and Bill Magladry helped deliver a
healthy 8 lb. 4 oz baby boy in the back of the SUV. Such acts of heroism became
commonplace as shops, banks, schools, public transport and everything else without
backup generators shut down.
Weeks and weeks living in an emergency shelter can fray anyone’s nerves, so
area hotels slashed their rates. Cell phone companies offered free service, and
restaurants offered free meals to emergency workers, as they did in New York
following September 11. One grateful resident said, “A country is much more
than its weather. It’s the people.” They were finding out what it meant to be
Canadian.
Early Friday morning, the army arrived and brought a sense of security to the
devastated area. Dressed in green fatigues, they continued to roll in and by
6 p.m., a solid base of soldiers had swelled to thousands, both regulars and
reservists. They cleared debris blocking roads, provided emergency medical
assistance, helped utility workers to restore power, set up fuel and food dumps,
evacuated residents and went door-to-door making sure people were safe.
Sadly, the Army also had to deal with looters. The supplies pouring in from
across the nation and the U.S. presented a tempting target, especially
in-demand items such as portable generators, dozens of which were stolen. Some
generators may have been liberated out of genuine need, but most found their way onto
the black market for a profit. Others price-gouged on essentials such as
batteries, flashlights and gas. And many posed as Red Cross volunteers allegedly
collecting for money to run the shelters. To prevent looting, police dropped
all but essential services, but many residents took matters into their own
hands, standing guard over their homes with loaded rifles.
The lesson was costly but simple, and I can remember Richard Gelb, my
emergency management instructor telling us in a stark and unsettling voice… style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“you are to convey to those you train in your
future emergency management positions… It is not the fire department that is
coming to save you, it is not the police department that is coming to save you,
it is not the Red Cross that is coming to save you, it is not even us in
emergency management that will be there for you. IT WILL BE YOUR NEIGHBOR. Now
folks, it is important you convey this in your field training….. Let the people
know in a major disaster the likelihood of roads being cut off are high. Of
course all emergency management disciplines will immediately be enacted, but the
bottom line is a coordinated neighborhood is the most likely to survive.”
It all started with a simple equation…
Equation:
Sunspots => Solar Flares => Magnetic Field Shift => Shifting Ocean and Jet
Stream Currents => Extreme Weather and Human Disruption (mitch battros)
and led to ‘Solar Rain’
1) Table of Contents: http://www.earthchangestv.net/Table_of_Contents.htm
2) Endorsements: http://www.earthchangestv.net/Solar_Rain.htm
3) Order: https://www.earthchangestv.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=28
Earth Changes TV - Radio Hour
Every Tuesday and Thursday from 9 PM to 10 PM (Pacific). Go to the ECTV home
page and click on "Listen Live" which sits at the top right of the page.
Thursday September 8th - Professor Ed Mercurio - The Effects of Galactic
Cosmic Rays on Weather and Climate on Multiple Time Scales. Evidence is presented
that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) are a major forcing agent on weather and
climate on multiple time scales ranging from weekly through glacial-interglacial.
Known effects of GCRs are used to explain phenomena and observations in the
fields of meteorology, climatology, paleoclimatology and paleoecology.
Website: http://www.hartnell.cc.ca.us/faculty/mercurio/download.html
Tuesday September 13th - Toby Hemenway – author of “Gaia's Garden: A Guide
to Home-Scale Permaculture”. Permaculture is notoriously hard to define in a
sound-bite. Here's one way to describe it: If you think of natural building,
sustainable agriculture, solar energy, graywater recycling, consensus process,
and the like as tools, then permaculture is the toolbox that helps organize
those tools and suggests how and when to use them. Website:
http://www.patternliteracy.com/
Thursday September 15th - David Holmgren – Known as the Co-Creator of
“Permaculture”: For over 25 years permaculture has provided a coherent design
framework for a broad range of empowering strategies for living and livelihood with
less and less energy. While the understanding and adoption of these strategies
has been slow in an era of expanding energy, the emerging energy descent era
will make many radical permaculture solutions natural and obvious. David
Holmgren’s dramatic graphical presentation gives an empowering and inclusive
understanding of permaculture as a multi-faceted design response to energy crisis.
Website: http://www.holmgren.com.au/
Tuesday September 20th – Adam Rubel – Co-founder of Saq-Be’; an institution
for Mayan and Indigenous Spiritual Studies. Adam has recently been in
communication with Mayan Elders including Carlos Barrios. We will discuss the latest
wisdom brought forth telling of our current times, and upcoming events.
http://www.sacredroad.org/
Thursday September 22nd - Peter Geiger, Chief Editor of the “Farmers
Almanac”. The 189-year-old almanac claims 80 percent to 85 percent accuracy for the
forecasts written under the name Caleb Weatherbee. The forecasts are prepared
two years in advance using a secret formula based on sunspots, the position of
the planets and the tidal action of the moon. The National Weather Service
questions the accuracy of such long-range forecasts, but almanac officials say
its predictions stack up well against those of traditional meteorologists.
Website: http://www.farmersalmanac.com/
________________________
Solar Rain:
https://www.earthchangestv.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=28
Subscribe to ECTV- Full Access: http://www.earthchangestv.com/subscribe.php
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Photo Gallery: http://www.earthchangestv.com/gallery/
About Mitch: http://www.earthchangestv.com/aboutmitch.php
Survival Tips: http://www.earthchangestv.com/survival/index.php
Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangestv.com/
