Home Safe USB

Recently...two of my friends and I were subjected to weather related
disasters here in our beloved state of Texas. My best friend Liz and her husband lost their home and all of their posessions in a tornado.
They were lucky to escape with their lives. Another friend,was subjected to a flood due to torrential rains. My place in all of this
is that I live just a couple of miles from both of their homes! While
I was helping them to get things back to normal, I found out about your product HomeSafe, while on the Web. After this experience, myself and everyone I know should have one of these. The work involved in getting things back to normal is almost impossible.

It turns out that many of the things you've been told are myths. A Weather Channel expert clears it all up with this fun test.

By Stu Ostro


Getting these answers right might save your life.
Let's face it: We at the Weather Channel tend to be weather geeks. Since age 3, while other kids watched cartoons, I obsessed over weather reports. Today, that obsession is a vocational advantage for me, considering what I do for a living. TWC is celebrating its 25th year, and we have seen everything when it comes to storms, blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes. And we've heard everything, too -- the wealth of commonly held beliefs about how the weather works. Some are classic old-style truisms from the Farmers' Almanac; others are modern myths. Some are true, some are not, and some are a little of both. So we're giving you a quiz this week to see how much you've learned in a quarter-century of watching the Weather Channel. Bonus: Some of these answers may save your life.

Pick one: The sunniest state is:
a) Florida.
b) Arizona.
Florida is sunny. But it's not the sunshine state. If you compare the total amount of sunshine possible in any given year with the actual amount received, the state gets 60% to 70% on average. But Arizona does far better, with an average of 80% to 90% of possible sunshine, depending on the location. And because Arizona and Florida are so far south, the angle of the sun is higher in the sky than in most of the rest of the country -- so if you're there, you'll need a good pair of shades.

True or false? If a tornado is coming, open all windows, go to the basement and cover yourself with a mattress.
False. This was common wisdom: The pressure difference between the air inside the house and the much lower air pressure outside in the twister could cause the building to explode. Thus, open the windows.

But we now know that the damage to buildings is due to -- duh -- incredibly strong winds. So don't waste time opening windows! Opening windows can increase airflow and give the funnel access to your belongings, and potentially even help lift the roof off. Yes, you should go to the basement, or the lowest floor available, away from windows and walls. But forget about the mattress, which could suffocate you. Cover yourself with a blanket instead as protection from debris. And if there's one handy, don a bicycle or motorcycle helmet. Many deaths from tornadoes are the result of head injuries.

True or false? During a thunderstorm, don't touch that phone -- or PDA or game controller, either.
Well, that's true if you're using a phone with a cord. But phones and game controllers that are wireless? No problem. They don't have an electrical cord that can get zapped, so you're OK. In fact, with e-services provided by the Weather Channel and others, you can get severe weather warnings delivered directly to your mobile device, wherever you are.

True or false? Wearing rubber-soled shoes protects you from lightning.
Don't bet your new shoes -- or your life -- on it. Rubber soles won't do you any good. That bolt of electricity traveled all the way from within the thundercloud and packs as much of a heated punch as the sun's surface. So if lightning strikes the ground nearby, it still can go into your body through your feet. Nor do the rubber tires on your car make a difference. However, the metal shell of a hardtop vehicle is a good conductor. It won't provide 100% protection, but as long as you aren't touching any metal and you keep the windows rolled up, you'll be safer than you would be standing outside.

True or false? "Cold is the night when the starsshine bright."
True. Blankets keep us warm, and clouds do, too. They absorb heat that is radiated by Earth and then send heat back to us, which results in higher temperatures. However, on a clear, calm night, there are no clouds to absorb that heat. So Earth radiates heat to space, which doesn't send it back to us. Therefore, a starry, starry night can be a cold one, indeed.

True or false? You can tell how close a thunderstorm isby counting the seconds between lightning and thunder.
True. The physics of sound velocity apply here. So, the rule of thumb is 1 mile for every five seconds between the sight of lightning and the sound of thunder. But if you get to, say, 20 seconds, meaning the lightning is 4 miles away, it doesn't mean you're safe. That's because "bolts from the blue" can come out of the thundercloud and strike as far as 10 miles away. And that is how many people have been injured or killed during thunderstorms.

Pick one. To calculate the heat, count:
a) the length of time a dog howls.
b) the frequency of cricket chirps.
Although we're sure that dogs are telling us something when they howl, cricket chirps are the correct answer. Count the number of chirps in 15 seconds, and add 40. That's the temperature at ground level in degrees Fahrenheit. (The temperature will be slightly warmer around your head.) The chirping of the crickets seems to be influenced by the air temperature -- the hotter it gets, the more they seem to want to talk about it. (Which makes them a lot like us!)

Pick one. The wettest large U.S. city is:
a) Seattle.
b) Syracuse.
Seattle ranks up there, with 150 days per year, on average, having "measurable" precipitation. But it's not No. 1. That honor goes to Syracuse, N.Y., which gets precipitation 174 days a year. (Of course, much of that is winter-related, as Syracuse gets more than 120 inches of snow in an average year, the most of any city of its size in the nation.) The other way of measuring is not how often but how much total precipitation falls in one place. Seattle and even Syracuse aren't close to the top, with an average of 37 inches a year for Seattle and 40 for Syracuse. Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans rank highest here, with well in excess of 60 inches.

Stu Ostro is a senior meteorologist forthe Weather Channel, which turned 25 on May 2. It is seen in 93 million U.S. households

Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News

May 8, 2007
The tornado that leveled Greensburg, Kansas, Friday night was born of the same forces that generate about a thousand tornadoes a year in the United States.

Video: Tornadoes 101 - How and Why Twisters Form
Storm Chaser Drives to Extremes to Probe Tornadoes (July 25, 2003)
Tornadoes: Photos, Video, Fast Facts, More

But it took a rare collision of conditions to spawn such a monster. And tornadoes like the Kansas twister occur only every few years.

Friday's tornado peaked the scale with a designation of F5, which means that it packed winds in excess of 200 miles (321 kilometers) an hour.

"Ted Fujita [who devised the tornado-measurement scale] used the word 'incredible' for the F5," said John Harrington, Jr., a climate scientist at Kansas State University.

Based on the Greensburg disaster, he adds, "it's hard to imagine anything worse."

The tornado, Harrington said, might have been up to 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) across and may have remained on the ground for 100 miles (160 kilometers)—although scientists are awaiting word on the precise storm track.

Most tornados that touch down measure only a few hundred yards across and remain on the ground for only a few miles.

The last F5 tornado to strike the U.S. hit Moore, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999, killing 36 people and doing 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in damage.

Colliding Air Masses

One of the factors that produce deadly storms is the collision of warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico and drier air flowing eastward from the U.S. Southwest deserts.

When this happens warm air rises above the dry air, creating unstable, thunderstorm-spawning conditions.

The strength of the collision affects the strength of the storm.

RELATED
Video: Tornadoes 101 - How and Why Twisters Form
Storm Chaser Drives to Extremes to Probe Tornadoes (July 25, 2003)
Tornadoes: Photos, Video, Fast Facts, More

Also, the upper atmosphere affects the degree to which the warm air rises. If the upper winds are diverging, for example, they can pull air up more efficiently, Harrington said.

And curvature in the wind pattern or interactions with the jet stream can greatly magnify the effect.

On Friday night there was an unusually strong boundary between humid air and dry air. In addition, Harrington said, "all three of the upper-air mechanisms were there."

The result, he said, is that by 3 p.m. forecasters were predicting major storm activity in the region where the tornado later struck.

"They definitely had a handle on what was going to happen," he said.

But, he added, "It's one thing to say it's going to happen. It's another to have to deal with the consequences."

U.S. Leads in Tornadoes

Tornadoes, Harrington adds, have occurred on every continent except Antarctica. But they are most common in the U.S.

Tornado reports have also been increasing.

(Learn about tornado safety tips.)

But Harrington believes that this is simply a factor of more people living in twister-prone areas and reporting more accurately what they see.

For these reasons, he said, the increase in sightings has been limited to small tornadoes.

"We're now seeing things that may have occurred before in open country and not been counted," he said.

"We're seeing more of the ones that may not have done much damage but were pretty to photograph."

(See a photo gallery of tornadoes.)

Overall, he added, global warming seems to have little impact.

"The processes involved [in tornado formation]," he said, "are not necessarily related to slight changes in planetary temperature."

NBC News and news services
Updated: 9:45 a.m. PT May 8, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Heavy rain from an already deadly storm system sent the Missouri River and other Midwest waterways over their banks Tuesday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate and bringing warnings that the region could see flooding close to the devastation of 1993.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency and mobilized National Guard troops to help, hours before state emergency operations officials reported that thd Missouri River had crested at 25 feet and floodwaters were beginning to recede.

About 60 percent of Mosby, 20 miles northeast of Kansas City, was covered by water 2 to 4 feet deep from the overflowing Fishing River, said D.C. Rogers, Clay County director of emergency services. He said the town’s 242 residents began evacuating Monday morning. By evening, only one route into the community remained open.

Mosby’s flooding could have been worse, but authorities managed to plug a damaged dam with sandbags, Rogers said. The private earthen dam holds back a 20-acre lake. If that dam were breached, its water would flow into Clear Creek, which runs into the Fishing River and through Mosby.

“Last word I got is it’s holding,” Rogers said. “Hopefully, the waters will recede, and that guy can fix his dam.”

“It hasn’t gotten this much water since 1993,” he said.

Communities across the central Plains faced flooding from the weekend-long thunderstorms that spawned the deadly tornado that wiped out Greensburg, Kan.

Parts of three states soaked
Parts of Missouri, Iowa and Kansas received 4 to 8 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, the National Weather Service said. In some areas, Tuesday morning was the first time in several days that rain wasn’t falling, but runoff was still raising streams and rivers.

Flooding in Oklahoma was blamed for the drowning death of a man whose car was swept off a county road. A Kansas man died when his vehicle overturned in a water-filled ditch near Wichita, Butler County officials said.


Jeff Cooper / Salina Journal
Floodwaters surround a farmstead near New Cambria, Kan. on Monday. Parts of Kansas, Missouri and Iowa got from 4 to 8 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, the National Weather Service said.
Nearly 1,600 people were urged to evacuate the southwest Iowa town of Red Oak on Monday as the Nishnabotna River rose out of its banks.

Levees broke near Willow Creek in the western Iowa town of Missouri Valley, and some residents had to evacuated by boat Monday, said Mayor Randy McHugh. “Appliances are just floating around,” he said Monday.

Authorities rescued about 500 people Monday around Topeka, Kan., said Dave Bevans, a spokesman for Shawnee County emergency operations. Officials reported similar evacuations in Saline County, about 100 miles to the west, and flooding forced the evacuation of New Cambria, a town of about 150 people northeast of Salina.

Since 1993, only two or three other flooding episodes have been comparable to what forecasters are predicting in the next several days, weather service meteorologist Andy Bailey said.

‘This is a major flood’
There will be differences though. The 1993 flood, one of the most costly and devastating in U.S. history, was caused by melting snow combined with heavy rain over a two-month period. After that, state buyouts of property on flood plains left fewer residences in danger of future floods.

“But make no mistake,” Bailey added, “this is a major flood.”

Missouri officials set up emergency shelters in St. Joseph and Mound City, and evacuations — most of them voluntary — were under way in towns along the Missouri River between Kansas City and the Iowa state line, said Susie Stonner, a spokeswoman for the State Emergency Management Agency.

More flooding was expected Tuesday, including the western Missouri town of Agency, where the Platte River was forecast to reach 15 feet above flood stage — less than a foot below its crest in 1993.

“At that stage, we expect the entire town of Agency to be flooded,” Bailey said.

As a precaution, Kansas City Power & Light Co. temporarily ceased operation Monday of its coal-fired plant near Weston as the nearby Missouri River approached flood level.

“There’s been no damage to any of our facilities, but based on what we are seeing of the rising river levels, we thought that was the prudent step to safeguard resources and equipment,” said utility spokesman Matthew Tidwell.

Updated: 8:08 a.m. PT June 1, 2007
MIAMI - Most people along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts still lack a hurricane survival plan and don’t feel vulnerable to storms, despite Katrina’s dramatic damage and pleas from emergency officials for residents to prepare before the season starts, according to a poll released Thursday.

The six-month Atlantic season starts Friday, and forecasters have predicted an above-average year: 13 to 17 named storms, with seven to 10 of them becoming hurricanes and three to five of those major ones of at least Category 3 strength. One forecaster said odds were high that a major hurricane would hit the U.S. this year.

Nevertheless, 53 percent of those surveyed in 18 Atlantic and Gulf Coast states say they don’t feel that they are vulnerable to a hurricane, or to related tornadoes and flooding, according to the Mason-Dixon poll.

Eighty-eight percent said they had not taken any steps to fortify their homes, and 45 percent still believed the old wives’ tale that masking tape helps keeps windows from shattering during hurricanes.

National Hurricane Center Director Bill Proenza said a population shift to the nation’s coastlines may be contributing to the lack of storm readiness.

“We actually have more and more people ... with little or no experience with hurricanes and tropical storms,” Proenza said.

But only a small amount of people, 16 percent, said they would defy orders to evacuate.

Cathy Miller, who lives on North Carolina’s narrow Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry, is one of them — unless it’s a Category 4 or worse hurricane.

“I’ve never evacuated,” Miller said. “Every time I say that, though, I knock on wood.”

Florida incentive: No sales tax
Public safety officials tell residents to stockpile at least a three-day supply of bottled water, nonperishable food and medicine. In Florida, officials urged residents to take advantage of a state sales tax holiday from Friday to June 12 on flashlights, gasoline cans, weather radios, plastic tarps and other storm preparedness items.

Nearly half of hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S. hit Florida, and its residents were more prepared than people in other states. About two-thirds of Floridians had a disaster plan, prepared a survival kit or said they felt vulnerable to hurricanes, the poll found.

Nationally, 61 percent of poll respondents had no hurricane survival kit. Of those who did, 82 percent packed a fire hazard — candles or kerosene lamps. Missing from most of those kits were axes, which emergency officials recommended after many residents were trapped in their attics after Katrina.

Despite the predictions for a busy season, public safety officials worry that an uneventful 2006 lulled residents into complacency; there were only 10 named storms, and the two that hit the U.S. were weak.

Researcher William Gray, based at Colorado State University, said Thursday there was a 74 percent chance of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coast this year. His updated forecast still predicts 17 named storms and nine hurricanes, five of them intense.

There is a 50 percent chance of a major hurricane making landfall on the East Coast, including the Florida Peninsula, according to the new forecast; the long-term average is 31 percent. The chance of a major hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast between the Florida Panhandle and Brownsville, Texas, is 49 percent; the long-term average is 30 percent. There is also an above-average chance of a major hurricane making landfall in the Caribbean, Gray said.

In 2004, there were 15 named storms, four of them hurricanes that struck Florida. The 2005 season set a record with 28 named storms, 15 of them hurricanes; four of those hurricanes hit the U.S. coast, including Katrina, the third deadliest in U.S. history, with a death toll topping 1,500.

Lulled by technology
“Nobody in this country thought we could lose 1,000 people in a hurricane,” said Craig Fugate, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. “We had too much technology, too good data, satellites and the best warning system in the world — and it happened. Preparation is how we change that.”

The poll was commissioned by the organizers of the 2007 National Hurricane Survival Initiative. The group includes the National Hurricane Center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Emergency Management Association, the Salvation Army and others.

The May 10-15 telephone poll of 1,100 people has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Florida poll of 625 people from May 13-15 had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Updated: 6:35 a.m. PT June 12, 2007
NEW YORK - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned Monday that a city on continuous alert for terror attacks also must brace itself for a natural disaster — a hurricane powerful enough to cause serious flooding in lower Manhattan and elsewhere.

"It's always a little odd being in New York and talking about hurricanes," Chertoff said after touring a new command center at the Office of Emergency Management in Brooklyn.

Still, he added, a hurricane "would be an extraordinarily devastating blow to the city."

Weather experts have said the nation's largest city is about due for a major hurricane with 130 mph winds and a 30-foot storm surge that could cause the Hudson and East Rivers to overflow.

The storm threatens to inflict more than $100 billion in economic losses while forcing the evacuation of 3 million people — more than six times the population of pre-Katrina New Orleans.

Historically, the city endures a hurricane roughly once every 90 years. The last major New York-area hurricane was the Long Island Express of 1938, which caused 700 deaths along the Eastern seaboard.

Last year, the city unveiled a new hurricane plan to evacuate 3 million people while providing shelter for more than 600,000 others. OEM officials estimated the preparedness costs at up to $30 million.

Chertoff said New York's planning was "second to none."


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"Planning is as important here as in Louisiana or North Carolina," he said.

Officials have urged people to become familiar with the nearest evacuation routes and shelters. New Yorkers should resist the urge to "ride it out," Chertoff said. "When you're told to evacuate, you must do that."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to station himself at the OEM office for two weeks in July to better familiarize himself with the facility in case of an emergency, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said.

"We obviously can't control the weather," Skyler said, "but we can control our response."

MIAMI - An aging weather satellite crucial to accurate predictions on the intensity and path of hurricanes could fail at any moment and plans to launch a replacement have been pushed back seven years to 2016.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's chief said the failure of the QuikScat satellite could bring more uncertainty to forecasts and widen the areas that are placed under hurricane watches and warnings.

If the satellite faltered, experts estimate that the accuracy of two-day forecasts would suffer by 10 percent and three-day forecasts by 16 percent, which could translate into miles of coastline and the difference between a city being evacuated or not.


"We would go blind. It would be significantly hazardous," said Wayne Sallade, emergency manager in Charlotte County, which was hit hard by Hurricane Charley in 2004.

In the letter to a Florida congressman, NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher blamed the delays on technical and budget problems. Scientists said if QuikScat failed, they may have to rely on less accurate satellites.

Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said authorities "may have to err on the side of caution" in future forecasts.

That means "more people disrupted, and more impact on the economy," Proenza said. "On the other hand, we have to err on the side of the protection of life. And that's how we would handle it."

Lautenbacher said the replacement is part of a larger program to update America's weather satellites. The AP reported last week that other cuts in the program have included scaled-back efforts to measure global warming from space.

'Cone of error' impact
Last year, forecasts were off an average of 111 miles two days in advance, a figure that has been cut in half over the past 15 years. But experts said that could grow 10 percent to 122 miles if the satellite is lost, causing the "cone of error" well known to coastal residents to expand.


NASA via AP
The QuikScat satellite
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some scientists also complain that the technology planned for the replacement satellite is less precise for hurricane forecasting than what is currently flying.

QuikScat, launched in 1999 and designed to last two to three years, provides key data on wind speed and direction over the ocean. Weather aircraft and buoys can also obtain similar measurements near a storm, but they do not provide a constant flow of data as QuikScat does.

Last year, the satellite suffered a major setback — the failure of a transmitter used to send data to Earth about every 90 minutes. Now the satellite is limping along on a backup transmitter and has other problems.

The backup transmitter could last years, but there are no guarantees and no warnings when it is about to fail, said Robert Gaston, who works with the satellite at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

More expensive evacuations
Emergency managers like Sallade have been briefed on the satellite's problems. They said if they cannot rely on forecasts, they may have to make crucial decisions earlier, such as evacuating hospital patients or moving around emergency equipment.


Emergency managers estimate that the total costs of evacuations are up to $1 million per mile of coastline, meaning wider evacuations could be expensive.

Lautenbacher's letter was sent to Rep. Ron Klein, a Florida Democrat who requested the agency's plan should the satellite fail. Klein and other members of Congress are pushing a bill that would pay for a satellite to replace QuikScat.

"I'm disappointed that this letter doesn't directly address my request for a backup plan if QuikScat fails, given that we're three weeks into a hurricane season," said Klein, who has requested a hearing on the issue.

If you have ever reached in your pocket or purse for your wallet only to discover that what you need is not there. You know the feeling of helplessness that comes with the realization that your wallet has been lost or stolen. If it happens at home it is inconvenient. But if it happens when you are traveling it can be a disaster.

All Home experts agree that having a backup copy of your credit cards, airplane tickets, passport and Home documents is invaluable if that happens to you...if your wallet gets lost or stolen.

But how many of us actually plan ahead for that eventuality. Often we feel smug in the knowledge that "it will never happen to me. I am too careful."

Others believe in planning ahead just in case it does happen to them. The smart ones make duplicate copies and file them in some secure place...sometimes an office desk, but better yet in a fireproof safe or a bank vault.

Smart travelers know that new security procedures, especially those regarding international travel destinations, make backup copies essential. Frequently you will be asked to make your passport and tickets available for inspection. And that creates more opportunities for losing or misplacing those documents.

Someone has come up with a solution that is safer and more secure. It is called HomeSafe. HomeSafe is a fairly simple concept...stores your necessary information on a computer chip and carries it as a failsafe backup to your official documents.

HomeSafe is a USB computer chip that contains a special software program called LocOut. This chip allows you to record your most important documents on a computer, store the information on the chip and know that it will be secure. It is simple to use--you choose a password to open the LocOut program, then record and edit as necessary. Once you close the program your information is encrypted and securely stored in the computer chip. It will then be de-crypted when you open the LocOut program with your secret password.

Don't forget to copy both sides of your vital cards, especially the credit and debit cards. You will undoubtedly want to do the same with driving licenses, car insurance, health insurance and other identification cards. You will be prepared in case you need to cancel an account or get more information quickly.

Be sure to leave at home any cards that you will not need on your trip. Most importantly add a copy of the front page of your passport to the LocOut program. That's the advice of Nancy Dunnan, publisher of the HomeSmart newsletter. If you lose your passport you can take your copy to the nearest embassy and get your passport reissued within a few days. Otherwise it might take a week or longer.

Also don’t forget to include any important phone numbers such as customer service hotlines, local embassy offices and your doctors' numbers so you can find them when you need them.

HomeSafe comes in two convenient designs a durable leather key-chain USB and a stainless-steel water resistant USB necklace for $10 more. The necklace can be warn inside your blouse or shit out of view.

For more information please call our customer service department at 1-800 606-3155 or visit our website at: www.Homesafeusb.com
“Never Travel Without Your HomeSafe”