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Buildings next to a collapsed hotel construction project in New Orleans are coming down.

Crews began demolition Friday of one of three buildings near the collapsed Hard Rock Hotel structure in the citys Central Business District. Officials have said those buildings must be cleared to give space for the hotel demolition to safely begin.

The bodies of two workers who were trapped inside the collapsed structure on Oct. 12 remain between the 8th and 10th floors. Two construction cranes that had been leaning over the project were brought down days later with explosives but the rest of the building has been standing for months as the city and developer argued about how best to bring it down.

Crews expect to recover the workers remains in early June.

Demolition is scheduled to begin on a second building this week, WWL-TVreported.

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The company manufacturedsuch brands as Bicycle, Bee, Aviator, Aristocrat and many more.

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Joe Simon, Special to Cincinnati Enquirer Published 1:43 p.m. ET May 20, 2020

Check out this video of the demolition of the U.S. Playing Card Company building in Norwood May 19-20. Cincinnati Enquirer

The United States Playing Card Co.building at 4590 Beech St., Norwood, is in the process of being demolished. Only part of the site will be demolished while the building with the clock tower, which is onthe National Registerof Historic Places, will remain for the U.S. Playing Card Redevelopment.

The company manufacturedsuch brands as Bicycle, Bee, Aviator, Aristocrat and many more.The building was designed by Samuel Hannaford & Sons.

During World War II, the company made cards that could be pulled apart when submerged in water. The inside was a map and when all the cards were put together, it was a large map. These were supplied to prisoners of warwho could use the map to reach safetyif they were able to escape.

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Watch the demolition of the U.S. Playing Card Co. building in Norwood - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Jennifer Lewerenz | May 19, 2020 AT 6:41 am

(KNSI) - A central Minnesota church, heavily damaged by fire, will be demolished this week.

The 122-year-old St. Mary's Church in Melrose will be no more as crews are getting set to tear the building down.

March 11th, 2016, crews responded to a fire at the church, which had started sometime before 5:00 that afternoon. Crews from three departments battled the blaze, which caused more than a million dollars' damage.

In 2018, a teenager confessed to setting the fire, after a 22 month-long investigation by the Stearns County Sheriff's Department, Melrose Police Department, The State Fire Marshal's Office and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. The boy, who was 13 at the time of the fire, was charged with first-degree arson.

The fire caused extensive damage to the altar and sacristy area. The wood altar, which was made in Germany, and installed prior to the church's dedication in 1899, was completely destroyed.

Along with fire damage, there were several feet of standing water in the basement.

In 2019, parishioners who were trying to stop the church's demolition lost an appeal. St. Mary's is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the group argued that the church couldn't be torn down under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act. A judge from the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the St. Cloud Diocese, saying that it was an internal matter.

The church was a fixture in Melrose with its 130-foot towers, but those towers will come down as soon as Tuesday. A new $10 million dollar church is under construction nearby. The new building will use stained glass and the bells from the old building.

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Demolition This Week for St. Mary's Church in Melrose - KNSI Radio

Work is expected to begin July 1 with demolition completed by the end of this year.

A nearly century-old Erie school building will be coming down this fall.

The Erie School District on Monday opened bids to remove asbestos from the former Roosevelt Middle School at 2300 Cranberry St. and to demolish the school when thats finished.

The Erie School Board is expected to award the bids by June 11.

Asbestos abatement is expected to begin about July 1.

Demolition should begin by September and be completed by the end of the year, said Neal Brokman, executive director of operations for the school district.

There were four bids to remove asbestos from the 99,000-square-foot building. The bids ranged from $178,000 to $587,000, Brokman said.

Asbestos abatement is expected to take about a month to complete, Brokman said.

There were 12 bids to demolish the building once asbestos is removed. The bids ranged from $379,000 to $1,248,000, Brokman said.

The asbestos abatement and demolition bids will be reviewed by architects to make sure they meet project specifications before they are presented to the School Board for action.

Items that can be salvaged from the building and reused, including the decorative tile surrounds from drinking fountains, have mostly been removed, Brokman said.

"At this point, anything architectural was removed by the district a while ago," he said. "We still plan to go in and take out all of the usable lockers that are in the building. That way we can repurpose them in our buildings or make them available to the community. We have received several emails and phone calls from people requesting lockers."

"Pickers" additionally have gone through the building and bought transom windows, wood shelving, cupboards, cabinets, old tables and other items, Brokman said.

The former Roosevelt Middle School had been deteriorating in recent decades and was closed in 2007. The school district tried for years to sell the building, listing it for $159,000. But there were no takers.

The school was built in 1922 and was named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Erie School District expects to allow the public to buy bricks from the longtime school. The bricks could be sold to benefit the Foundation for Eries Public Schools

"What we want to do is work with the general contractor on the job and try to arrange to salvage as many bricks as possible for people in the community who want them," Brokman said.

Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @ETNmyers.

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Roosevelt demolition to begin with asbestos removal - News - GoErie.com

This report was made with the participation of companies from 18 European countries through an online survey, made from 6 to 15 May 2020.

The report includes graphics with the information at European level and country by country, as the situation differs substantially in each part of Europe, and even week by week.

Given the social and economic impact that the lockdown has had on the European demolition industry, the EDA Board has been meeting regularly to monitor the situation and support the industry, exchanging best practices and valuable information for the members.

The impact of the COVID-19 on demolition makes 63% of projects have had to be rescheduled in Europe, leaving only 9% of planned activity intact.

Although between 5 and 20% of the projects have been canceled, this percentage represents only 28% of the total number of current projects of the companies.

Particularly noteworthy are Denmark (where 56% of the projects have not been affected at all) and Finland (where 100% of the projects have been rescheduled but remain in force).

In general the demolition industry has temporarily stopped its activity for some weeks (53%), although there are several countries where activity has not stopped, such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands.

A significant percentage of companies from France and Russia, have been forced to close between 1 and more than 2 weeks.

For the first half of May, nearly half of the European demolition sites are currently open, suggesting that the industry is continuing or has returned to a kind of normality.

The only case where the proportion of open and closed sites currently is similar is in Greece.

After getting through March and April, when several European countries had problems with the supply of personal protective equipment (PPEs), nearly two-thirds of survey respondents now said they have sufficient material.

Countries such as Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands or Serbia showed hardly any incidence regarding PPEs.

Asked about the reduction of staff, the numbers show how COVID has impacted in Europe in a social and economic way.

A total of 64% of European demolition companies have been forced to reduce their staff, although 27% have been temporarily reduced.

The economic incentives that National Authorities have implemented to mitigate the consequences of the crisis are particularly remarkable in Ireland, France and Finland where a significant percentage have reduced their staff only temporarily.

The Netherlands, Denmark and Italy are the countries least hit by the layoff.

The full report is available here

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More than 50% of the European demolition projects rescheduled - RECYCLING magazine

Welcome to the latest edition of Missed Fists, where we shine a light on fights from across the globe that may have been overlooked in these hectic times where it seems like theres an MMA show every other day.

In one of the cooler quirks of this past weekend, Alistair Overeem finished his main event fight with Walt Harris at UFC on ESPN 8, just minutes before the calendar turned over to May 17, the date of Overeems 40th birthday, on the East Coast. It was the 46th win of his career.

Overeem also became just the second man to win a fight in four different decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s), a list that includes he and Aleksei Oleinik and thats it. Vitor Belfort could join them when he debuts with ONE Championship.

To celebrate, lets look back on the earliest days of The Reem, before he became an MMA Mainstay, and a couple of his K-1 clips just for funsies. It should be mentioned that most of these bouts appear to be of the mixed rules variety, as opposed to pure MMA as we know it.

AL: Look at this young gunner. Thats a 19-year-old Overeem fighting for the first time. His opponent? The absolutely terrifying Ricardo Fyeet. Were going to be talking a lot about how Overeems look evolved over the years, but I dont know if he ever matched whatever it is Fyeet had going on here.

JM: Well from a pure style point, no. No one has ever matched Ricardo Fyeet here, except maybe Rufio in Hook.

Can we mention again how wild it is that Overeem is one of two fighters to ever win bouts in FOUR different decades. Hes the Vince Carter of beating ass!

AL: The graphic is cut off, but it looks like this event was sponsored by some sort of live sex show. At least now he works for a reputable company that works with such sponsors as Reebok and Manscaped.

JM: You know, I was just wondering what the official electric trimmer of the UFC was, and now I have my answer. I can finally sleep tonight.

AL: A good sign that Overeem was marked for greatness? He rockets out of his corner with a flying knee. Thats the first strike he threw in his MMA career...think about that.

JM: We might as well get this out of the way now: If youve never seen early Overeem fight, youre in for a bit of a culture shock, dear reader. Before he became THE REEM, Overeem was a beanpole kickboxer with a wicked sharp grappling game, as you see here.

AL: Seventeen of his first 31 wins were by submission!

Theres some wild brawling, but for the most part Overeem realizes its a good idea to trip Fyeet down when he can to slow the pace of the fight. Eventually he just grabs the dudes head and chokes him out. Thats a recurring theme in the early stages of his career, as a lot of his wins came from him tripping up less well-rounded kickboxers.

JM: Yeah, Overeem can kickbox. Hea a K-1 champion after all. But why get punched in the face when instead you can just twist some hapless fool up into a pretzel?

AL: After dropping a decision in his RINGS debut to Yuriy Kochkine, Overeem bounced back with his first TKO victory in his fight against Watts. This fight lasts longer than his first one, but hes even more in control here. Watch how he spams that clinch knee-trip combo. If it aint broken, dont break it, like Charles Oakley used to say.

JM: Im really in love with the pumping house music that is introing all of these fighters.

AL: Maybe the best part of this whole exercise.

JM: I think that is whats wrong with MMA. The culture never advanced past the 2000s Affliction era, when really, it shouldve stagnated with 90s everything. Give me house music and Saved by the Bell color schemes all day.

AL: Dont forget the hair styles. But well get to that.

JM: Overeem beats Watts by unveiling the devastating knee attacks that will go on to be a staple of his game for over two decades. But Im more interested in the start of this bout. Overeem walks to the ring without gloves on, but then, he has them on when its fight time. Did he not get his hands wrapped? Has this always been the case with RINGS, and Ive just never noticed before?

AL: Yes, thats right. Hes literally fighting a Can here.

JM: Oh man. This is definitely the best music so far.

AL: This would be perfect for a Jordan Jamming edit.

JM: Im vibing this hard. Almost as much as Im digging Allister Overeem. Just think of the possibilities: Allister The Alligator Overeem.

AL: Ah yes, how could I forget the MMA tradition of having the spelling of your name butchered to begin your career? First it was Allistair and now, Allister. Getting colder.

JM: Also, poor Can. More like Cannot, amirite?

AL: Once again, we see The Reem using intelligent grappling to control his opponent. See? We told you there was a pattern. The difference this time around is, he blows Sahinbas away with a knee, as he would to so many future victims.

JM: Yeah man, Overeem was four fights into his career, and we already saw the bones of all of his success. Slick grappling and savage knees.

AL: Were really just mentioning this fight because of Overeems hair. Brutal.

Lets just pretend this was an homage to Kevin Randleman if that makes it any better.

JM: He went full Melvin Guillard (except for the part where he immediately started grappling). Never go full Melvin Guillard.

AL: Overeem was just 4-3 heading into this one and coming off of the first losing streak of his career. This win over Verschuren was the first of 12 straight, and he wouldnt lose consecutive fights again until 2006, when he faced a murderers row of Lil Nog, Ricardo Arona, and Shogun.

JM: Now that is all true. And far be it from me to disparage The Great and Powerful Reem. But uh, that win streak doesnt exactly jump out at you as far as a whos who.

AL: I know youre not dismissing the likes of Sergey The Kid Kaznov, Moises Swamp Rimbon, Dave My Name is Almost a Palindrome Vader, Aaron The Frijolero Brink, and Mike Batman Bencic.

JM: Just saying, Travis Fulton had a win streak of 40 at one point, and not one of them was a porn star, as far as I know. (I kid, I kid. While Aaron Brink was never good, he fought some good names in his time, including Alistairs older brother, Valentijn #themoreyouknow).

Also, shouts to the commentator here who sounds stunningly sophisticated while talking about a dude getting his arm snapped in half.

AL: You know we had to include this for the walkout alone. Look at that manly man. Bas Rutten was handling ring announcing duties, and Im nearly certain that when you see Overeem whisper into his ear, he said, Hey, dont forget the whole Demolition Man thing.

JM: 2 Hot 2 Handle is one of my favorite MMA organization names of all time. I think it might just be because of 2 Fast 2 Furious.

AL: Needs no further justification.

JM: Im a simple man.

Also, speaking of porn stars, Overeem comes out to this fight looking like a male stripper who just missed the cut for a Village People cover group. Maybe its just the music, but shouts to the producer who cut to the woman in the audience when Overeem started his sledgehammer walkout.

AL: Shes really buzzing about it! Strong bachelorette party vibes.

JM: Hes carrying a sledgehammer. Into a fight! Id be buzzing too.

Also, Im going to stop poking fun at The Reem, because I dont want him to ever knee me like that. It looks unpleasant, to say the least. When someone is asking you, Whats your name? What day is it? You know youve made a mistake somewhere down the line.

AL: This was Overeems last fight before making his PRIDE debut. As you can see, by this time, theyd got that whole name thing down. Hed finally made it.

JM: The Demolition Man is such a blah nickname. For one, hes mostly tapping people out. For two, he looks like hes 17 years old. Man is a stretch.

And for three, if youre going to be The Demolition Man, you need to go full send on it. Get the bleach blond Simon Phoenix flat top. Dont just carry around a hammer. Commit, dammit!

Also, this music slaps. I recognize that has nothing to do with anything else, but Overeem needs to come out to jams like this again. Recapture that youthful magic.

AL: Hed bleached his hair enough up to this point, thank you very much.

Theres a new wrinkle here as he shows some ground-and-pound in addition to just controlling Vuori when he gets him down. This is one reason why Overeem has been able to stay relevant. You see a fighter with no ego, one who is constantly learning and adapting. He looks so much more refined just two and a half years after the Fyeet fight.

JM: Maybe its that hes getting better. Maybe its that he fought a 0-0 fighter in his 13th professional fight. Who can say?

Not gonna lie, having never done a deep dive into early Overeem before, it makes a lot of sense why they matched him up with Chuck Liddell in round one of Pride Total Elimination 2003 trying to set up a Murilo Bustamante rematch for Liddell. But Quinton Rampage Jackson mucked it all up.

AL: The objective of this feature was strictly to focus on Overeems career before making the jump to the big show. But wed be remiss if we didnt include at least a couple of his kickboxing ventures.

There was the first meeting with kickboxing superstar Bard Hari in K-1, that ended with Overeem crumpling him with a vicious left hook.

JM: Youre not gonna catch me saying anything bad about K-1 Overeem. Man did some real things here. I will just note this is when Overeem officially locked in the Barry Bonds parallels though.

AL: Yes, perhaps readers needed more of a warning before we jumped seven years ahead from 2 Hot 2 Handle to the Ubereem era.

JM: The MMA world didnt get much of one.

Overeem got SWOLE and focused on his power game, and he stopped doing the things that made him actually awesome (grappling/anything other than power hitting). And like Bonds, the manner in which he got SWOLE is hotly contested.

AL: Vitamins, water, and a healthy sleep schedule.

JM: Horse meat, bruh. Horse meat.

AL: And then there was the legendary knee knockout of Ewerton Teixeira that actually resulted in K-1 changing their rules surrounding the legality of clinch knees.

JM: Whenever you literally break an organizations rules because youre so violent, you know youve done something either incredibly wrong or incredibly right. In this instance, its a bit of both as The Reem provides us with A++ violence, but also probably took a few years of Teixeiras life.

AL: It was a safe bet that Teixeira would not have as long a career as Overeem after this. Then again, few ever will.

JM: The man only just turned 40. Its not inconceivable to think he could keep fighting for another decade.

AL: See you all back here in 10.

If you know of a recent fight or event that you think may have been overlooked, or a promotion that could use some attention, please let us know on Twitter @JedKMeshew and @AlexanderKLee using the hashtag #MissedFists.

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Missed Fists: The beginning of Alistair Overeems two decades of demolition - MMA Fighting

Armed with automatic weapons, riot gear and black ski masks, the Albanian police and Special Forces units moved under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Sunday when the capital was sleeping and stormed the premises of the National Theater in Tirana, detaining a handful of artists and activists that had barricaded themselves in there.

The activists were forcibly put into police vans and detained, while a bulldozer moved in to turn the building into rubble, before dawn broke and the citys residents awoke to discover the nighttime raid.

Built between 1938 and 1939, during the Italian occupation of Albania, the National Theatre Complex was first built as a cultural centre. Designed by the Italian architect Gulio Berte, it was originally named the Skanderbeg, after Albanias national hero, and comprised two parallel buildings, housing a cinema and a theatre, divided by a pool.

In 2018, the government proposed to demolish the historic building and replace it with a new theatre designed by the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, through a Public Private Partnership, PPP, scheme with a Tirana-based developer and government contractor, Fusha Sh.p.k. Under the proposed concessionary agreement, Fusha sh.p.k would build Ingels project in exchange for public land and the right to construct six tower blocks adjunct to the new theatre, worth 119 million euros.

See the article here:
Why a Theatre's Demolition Has Sparked Outrage in Albania - Balkan Insight

The novel coronavirus isnt the only thing that has ravaged the U.S. this year.

Tornadoes have killed 76 people in the first five months of 2020, already making it the worst year for tornado-related deaths since the historically deadly year of 2011. The National Weather Service tracked 351 tornado reports last month, making it the second most-active April on record.

It is a frequent and deadly phenomenon. But scientists say the public has a misperception of who is truly at risk: The Deep South and Florida can be more prone to twisters than Tornado Alley itself.

Professor P. Grady Dixon, a physical geographer at Fort Hays State University in Kansas, says Tornado Alley the Great Plains states running from South Dakota to Texas is a vernacular that he wishes would go away, because it doesnt accurately describe the regions most susceptible to powerful tornadoes.

Its a misleading term, Dixon said. I understand why people use it, but I wish it would go away because I dont want people to think its only those square states in the Great Plains that get tornadoes.

He is one of the authors of a 2011 study that discovered some parts of the South and Southeast are the most prone to tornadoes in the nation. So far in 2020, southern states have suffered the most deaths: Tennessee leads the nation with 28 deaths and Mississippi has lost 13. No lives have been lost in Florida this year.

The study concluded that the Tampa Bay region and other parts of the Interstate 4 corridor experience as many tornadoes as some parts of the Great Plains however, theyre not powerful enough to cause significant damage.

Youre not going to have strong tornadoes most of the time in Florida, Dixon said. Counting the number of days with tornadoes, though, Florida has as many as any other state in the country.

The Washington Post wrote about how prevalent and deadly tornadoes have been in the south and why Tornado Alley is misleading.

Villanova University assistant professor Steven Strader, who specializes in environmental hazards and societal interactions, told the Post that the South is more vulnerable to tornadoes because it is denser than the spread-out farmland communities of the Plains.

Not only do Southern states have more sprawl, he said they also have more people living in mobile and manufactured homes. In Florida, those residents are always the first to be evacuated during a hurricane.

When a tornado does occur in either region, odds are much greater in the [South or Southeast] of it hitting something, Strader told the Post.

But Florida also has a natural advantage that protects it from the kinds of powerful tornadoes that have taken lives in other southern states. Its the Gulf of Mexico.

Tornadoes form when fronts cold or warm collide, producing severe weather. Thunderstorms are the most common result. Pressure and temperature changes can also come together to form a tornado. Those violent columns last minutes, but can produce devastating winds of 100 mph to an extreme of 300 mph.

Cold fronts can cause tornadoes in states such as Louisiana and Mississippi, but those fronts typically lose a lot of its power by the time they reach Central Florida.

"The warm Gulf has a way of helping slow down the forward momentum of cold air that causes tornadoes elsewhere," Dixon said. "It comes down to latitude."

The problem in Florida, he said, is that residents seem to keep being surprised by tornadoes.

"Anytime this happens, people in Florida who have grown accustomed to great weather, say Oh my gosh, this isnt supposed to happen here, he said. Well, theyre wrong. Florida has tornadoes frequently.

The difference between Alabama or Oklahoma with Florida is, they have far fewer tornadoes per event."

Floridians should be especially cautious now that hurricane season is almost here. Twisters often accompany storms as they make landfall, and hurricane season officially starts June 1.

The last thing you need during a hurricane is another hazard embedded with it, which is what makes the hurricane-induced tornadoes so scary, Dixon said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday that the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season could be an extremely active one. If that prediction holds, that also means residents may find themselves dealing with more tornado watches and warnings this year.

A tornado watch means conditions are ripe for tornadoes to form in the area, so residents should start seeking shelter or take precautions, according to the weather service. A tornado warning is issued when a potential twister has been detected or reported.

During a tornado watch or warning, Dixon suggests residents take shelter toward the center of their home. An underground shelter isnt necessary.

What about manufactured housing? Its not the units themselves that are at risk, Dixon said, its how theyre anchored to the ground. If those fail, the results could be catastrophic.

For any tornado youre going to experience in Florida, you dont need a really strong storm shelter, Dixon said. Its about putting walls between you and the outside.

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Florida is more prone to tornadoes than you think - Tampa Bay Times

EMERGENCY OFFICIALS ARE STARTING TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO START GETTING READY FOR IT NOW. BUT AS WESH 2S MEGAN MELLADO REPORTS, THEY SAY PREPARATIONS WILL LOOK A LITTLE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR. MEGAN: THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE FOR THIS UPCOMING HURRICANE SEASON HAS TO DO WITH SHELTERS. MANY OF THE SHELTERS IN OSCEOLA COUNTY USUALLY ACCOMMODATE ABOUT 200 PEOPLE, BUT WITH CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS IN MIND, EMERGENCY OFFICIALS ARE LIMITING THAT NUMBER TO 50. >> WERE ENCOURAGING OUR RESIDENTS THIS YEAR, BECAUSE OF COVID AND THE IMPACT IT WILL HAVE ON OUR EMERGENCY SHELTERS, TO, IF YOU CAN, AND YOURE IN A SITE-STRUCTURED BUILT HOME, TO SHELTER IN PLACE AT YOUR HOME. IF YOU CANT DO THAT, THEN WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO GO WITH FRIENDS OR FAMILY IN THE AREA TO RIDE OUT THE STORM. MEGAN: PEOPLE WHO FALL INTO THESE THREE CATEGORIES WILL TAKE PRIORITY WHEN IT COMES TO SHELTERS -- FIRST, IF YOU LIVE IN A MANUFACTURED HOME, LIKE A MOBILE HOME OR RV, SECOND, IF YOU LIVE IN A LOW-LYING OR FLOODPLAIN AREA, AND THIRD, IF YOU HAVE SPECIAL NEEDS OR REQUIRE MEDICAL CARE DUTCH MEDICAL CARE. THE SHELTERS WILL REQUIRE SCREENING AND TEMPERATURE CHECKS. >> WERE GOING TO HAVE TO HAVE ISOLATION CENTERS. IF WE HAVE A SICK PERSON, ITLL BE TO MOVE THEM FROM THE POPULATION, ESPECIALLY IF THERES WINDS UP AND ITS A HURRICANE OUTSIDE, WE CANT MOVE THEM AT THAT POINT IN TIME. MEGAN: OSCEOLA COUNTY IS WORKING ON FINALIZING EXACT LOCATIONS AND PLANS. IN THE MEANTIME, THEY SAY NOW IS THE TIME FOR RESIDENTS TO PLAN AHEAD, BUILD A KIT,

Hurricane shelters will have limited capacity due to COVID-19

Many of the hurricane shelters in Osceola County usually accommodate about 200 to 300 people, but with COVID-19 concerns in mind, emergency officials are limiting that number to 50.

Updated: 6:21 PM EDT May 22, 2020

Many of the hurricane shelters in Osceola County usually accommodate about 200 to 300 people, but with COVID-19 concerns in mind, emergency officials are limiting that number to 50.Were encouraging our residents this year, because of COVID and the impact it will have on our emergency shelters, to if you can, and youre in a site-structured built home, to shelter in place at your home. If you cant do that, then we encourage you to go with friends or family in the area to ride out the storm, Emergency Management Director, Bill Litton, said.People who fall into these three categories will take priority when it comes to shelters:-Those who live in manufactured homes, like mobile homes or RVs-Those who live in low-lying or flood prone areas-Those who have special needs or require medical careThe shelters will require screening and temperature checks. They'll also have isolation areas if someone tests positive for COVID-19.Were going to have to have isolation centers. If we have a sick person, itll be to move them from the population especially if theres winds up and its a hurricane outside, we cant move them at that point in time.Osceola County is working on finalizing exact locations and plans In the meantime, they say NOW is the time for residents to plan ahead, build a kit, stay informed, and take action.

Many of the hurricane shelters in Osceola County usually accommodate about 200 to 300 people, but with COVID-19 concerns in mind, emergency officials are limiting that number to 50.

Were encouraging our residents this year, because of COVID and the impact it will have on our emergency shelters, to if you can, and youre in a site-structured built home, to shelter in place at your home. If you cant do that, then we encourage you to go with friends or family in the area to ride out the storm, Emergency Management Director, Bill Litton, said.

People who fall into these three categories will take priority when it comes to shelters:

-Those who live in manufactured homes, like mobile homes or RVs

-Those who live in low-lying or flood prone areas

-Those who have special needs or require medical care

The shelters will require screening and temperature checks. They'll also have isolation areas if someone tests positive for COVID-19.

Were going to have to have isolation centers. If we have a sick person, itll be to move them from the population especially if theres winds up and its a hurricane outside, we cant move them at that point in time.

Osceola County is working on finalizing exact locations and plans In the meantime, they say NOW is the time for residents to plan ahead, build a kit, stay informed, and take action.

Read more:
Hurricane shelters will have limited capacity due to COVID-19 - WESH 2 Orlando

Ted Fujita examines the circulation produced by a tornado vortex generator in his lab at the University of Chicago.

When people challenge a long-held belief, there is often pushback, and the famed weather researcher Dr. Tetsuya Theodore Ted Fujita was no exception. In his landmark studies of thunderstorms and tornadoes, Fujita made more than one discovery that his peers just couldnt acceptuntil they did.

Fujita, who carried out most of his research while a professor at the University of Chicago, will be profiled on Tuesday in Mr. Tornado, an installment of the PBS series American Experience.

Fujita is best known for the scale he created with meteorologist Allen Pearson to estimate tornado winds by the level of destruction found. Introduced in 1971, and updated as the Enhanced Fujita Scale in 2007, the scale (also known simply as the F-scale, running from EF0 to EF5) is the near-universally accepted yardstick for gauging tornado strength.

Fujita was delighted when the National Weather Service adopted the original Fujita-Pearson Scale in the 1970s. He wasnt so thrilled when people refused to accept the concept of suction vortices. These mini-whirls spin around the edge of a multiple-vortex tornado, completing a circuit in mere seconds and adding as much as 100 mph to the parent tornados top winds.

A multi-vortex tornado developing near Katie, Oklahoma, on May 9, 2016.

Countless photos and videos have confirmed the existence of suction vortices, which produce some of the worst tornado damage as well as its often-haphazard-seeming nature.

Such images werent available in 1970, when Fujita first came up with the concept after analyzing damage from a tornado in Lubbock, Texas. His colleagues literally couldnt see it.

I got into a tremendous argument, Fujita recalled in a 1988 oral history conducted by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. You talk about a tornado; people take lots of pictures of a nice tornado [which has] one funnel. How can I say there's a small vortex running around, dancing around?

[They] said: You're dead wrong. But I still pursued my concept.

What turned the tables was a catastrophe: the Super Outbreak on April 3, 1974, which produced 148 twisters across the eastern U.S. and killed more than 300 people. The only comparable event in modern U.S. history is the Super Outbreak of April 27, 2011, that ravaged the South.

Fujita carried out aerial and ground surveys of the extensive damage, and they made the existence of suction vortices crystal clear.

Indianapolis TV stations sent me a beautiful [movie] that showed my suction vortices dancing around, and I went to the spot to find exactly what I expected. One house was damaged; the one right next to it was standing, untouched. Houses located in between the path of suction vortices left standing confirmed everything.

Fujita's aerial surveys in 1974 helped spur another of his great contributions: the discovery of microbursts. These compact, intense downdrafts led to the deaths of hundreds of air passengers in catastrophic wrecks, until a warning system was developed and implemented in the 1990s.

Since 1994, not a single U.S. airline passenger has been killed by a microburst.

In this 1980s photo, rain-cooled air from a thunderstorm crashes to the ground in the form of a downburst near Denvers former Stapleton International Airport, one of the main sites where microburst warning systems were developed and tested.

As a 24-year-old assistant university professor in Japan during World War II, Fujita visited Nagasaki and Hiroshima just weeks after nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. devastated both cities. He mapped out how the catastrophic damage radiated from a central point, and theorized that thunderstorms must have similar downdrafts.

A landmark U.S. study in the 1940s and 1950s called the Thunderstorm Project independently came up with the same conclusion. But the dynamics behind these downdrafts didnt seem to be intense enough to cause major damage.

Fujita returned to the downdraft concept after he noticed starburst-like damage patterns from the 1974 Super Outbreak. These differed dramatically from the cyclonic swirls typical of tornado damage.

On June 24, 1975, an Eastern Airlines flight crashed in a thunderstorm at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, killing 113 of the 124 people aboard. Fujita was asked to investigate the accident. I analyzed about an eighteen-minute period when there were more than ten aircraft around [the apparent weather feature]. Some reported very bad wind shear, but the next one didn't. Even the control tower was confused.

Harking back to his first hand look at nuclear bomb damage, Fujita concluded that a much smaller, more intense downdraft must have been at work.

I got quite a bit of resistance at the time, but I'm glad that I went through it, Fujita said. What rescued me at the time were the pilots.They said, We had the same experience. It looked very innocuous and we went through it and all of a sudden, it was not a downdraft, there was a loss of airspeed.

Fujita surmisedand later studies confirmedthat the loss of airspeed occurred as pilots encountered a headwind, sinking air, and tailwind in rapid succession while flying through a microburst.

Among Fujitas other key insights:

He coined the terms collar cloud, tail cloud, and wall cloud in a paper analyzing a 1957 tornado that devastated Fargo, North Dakota. Storm spotters and chasers still use these terms often.

He introduced the concept of tornado families, in which a long-lived supercell thunderstorm produces several tornadoes in sequence. Storm surveyors now watch for distinct breaks between damage paths in order to distinguish members of a tornado family.

Greg Forbes, the longtime severe weather expert with The Weather Channel, was among those who earned a doctoral degree with Fujita as his advisor. Another was Roger Wakimoto, an eminent tornado researcher and former AMS president who is now vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

I consider my time spent with Ted the personal highlight of my professional career, Wakimoto said in an email. I started at the University of Chicago unsure of my abilities to succeed. I left with a wealth of knowledge and confidence that I could successfully embark on a teaching and research career."

Fujita was a demanding advisor, but his enthusiasm, deep insights, and ability to conceptualize mesoscale processes were truly inspiring," Wakimoto added. "Ted loved to argue with other researchers when there was pushback for his suction vortex model, the existence of microbursts, and the accuracy of his windspeed estimates based on the F-scale. Debates on these topics seem to energize him, and he often said that time would prove that his theories were correct."

I was always in awe that his seminars and other public events would be literally packed to the rafters. He was a brilliant speaker and one of the greatest spokespersons for our community. I often think that today's TED talks were appropriately named after him.

Fujitas research continues to influence and inspire scientists delving into severe weather.

As a tornado nerd growing up in Minnesota in the 1980s, Fujita was a supernatural figure, said Robin Tanamachi, an assistant professor at Purdue University. Though Tanamachi never met him, I consider myself an heir of his scientific legacy. No matter which line of scientific inquiry I make in my tornado research, I always seem to come back to Fujita's books and papers.

While based at the University of Oklahoma, Tanamachi carried out measurements with a University of Massachusetts mobile Doppler radar of the very first tornado rated EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scalethe one that decimated Greensburg, Kansas, on May 4. 2007. She marvels at Fujitas exhaustive work in developing the original version of the scale.

Even today with mobile Doppler radars, accurate wind measurements in tornadoes are exceedingly rare, said Tanamachi. Fujita recognized that the only consistently available indicator of a tornado's wind speed is the damage path that it leaves behind.

By studying hundreds of tornado damage tracks, he was able to correlate damage to a standard indicator (a well-built house) to wind speeds, thereby creating the Fujita scale that is the basis for the Enhanced Fujita scale that we use today. All of this research was done without the aid of Doppler radars, drones, or machine learning.

This three-dimensional illustration of a microburst by Roger Wakimoto is based on a figure produced by Ted Fujita in 1985.

Tanamachi also points to Fujitas exceptionally meticulous illustrations, which became legendary in meteorological circles.

I was struck, as a child first learning about Fujita's work, by how even I could understand many of his graphics. They were simultaneously highly complex and yet crystal clear in their content and messaging.practically works of art, even more so because each image or frame of animation was painstakingly drafted by Fujita's own hand."

As a junior scientist, the lesson I took is that one can almost never spend too much time perfecting a figure," Tanamachi said. "It will be remembered long after the accompanying, explanatory text is forgotten.

Fujitas best-known legacythe tornado intensity scalehas continued to evolve long after Fujitas death in 1998 at age 78. Interest in an upgrade to the original F-scale grew as it became increasingly clear that peak tornado winds were likely lower than originally thought and that construction quality has a huge impact on tornado damage.

Following the April 26-28, 2011, tornado outbreak in the southeastern United States, James LaDue and Kevin Scharfenberg (NOAA/NWS) provided on-the-ground reports which, combined with information from aerial reconnaissance and emergency manager reports, led to an EF4 rating for the tornado affecting this location.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale that debuted in 2007 includes 28 separate damage indicators, ranging from single-family homes, manufactured homes, motels, and malls to transmission lines and hardwood trees. Each indicator has its own mini-scale that feeds into the tornados overall EF-scale rating. (The scale is calibrated so that a tornado with a given F rating in the old scale is comparable to the same EF rating in the new scale, even though estimated winds are now lower.)

Now theres another major upgrade in the works. James LaDue (NWS Warning Decision Training Division) is co-chairing a committee with the American Society of Civil Engineers that is charged with incorporating other types of data into the EF-rating process. For example, this could include observations from mobile radars, which can estimate peak winds in places where no visible damage occurred.

Ted had an amazing curiosity to investigate everything, said LaDue. He noted that when Fujitas health began to decline in the late 1990s, he applied his usual observational rigor and graphic skills to documenting his own health indicators, an account that was published in his memoirs.

Ted Fujita's publications still set the standard which we can only improve upon but never replace, LaDue said.

The Weather Companys primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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How Ted Fujita Revolutionized Tornado Science and Made Flying Safer Despite Many Not Believing Him - The Weather Channel